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A short sharp drop or a long slow spiral downwards? It's easy to read the sensationalism of the last few days and see the former, but I think we're already many coordinates into a long decline.

Looking at my views and personal opnions on many issues over time I've come to realise they represent a kind of gestalt version of where I am.
8 years in Poland has left my views harder on moral issues, on religion and on the modern concept of "tolerance".
8 years without state help has left my politics outside the statist model. I want my freedom and I want it now.
8 years of watching hundreds of students has taught me every excuse and reason. People don't fail because of stress or background or anything else. They choose to fail.

Since making the decision to move I've been oddly calms. Equilibrium has somewhat stunted my output though. It's nearly a month since I wrote any poetry.

 3 years at university had taught me that I didn't want to be at university. It had taught me that the world's a big place. My interview, before I'd even decided to go, with Prof. Ramsbotham was the greatest gift though. It was like playing chess with a grandmaster. Someone who'd let you show of everything you had, develop your positions and force you to extend yourself. All of this without breaking a sweat. I was beaten, and challenged. I never got the chance to go toe to toe again with such and intellectual Ali. When I graduated I thanked him for that interview. It was a turning point. In many ways it was my own Total Perspective Vortex.

I'd graduated and it was 2004, the big EU ascension was happening. I'd just graduated. I looked at the countries joining and Poland had the biggest economy, was the biggest country, it was the country I looked into. The language would be tough, but  I felt it wouldn't be beyond me.

So, I did what a good humanities graduate should. I researched. I read, I asked questions. I found out that the only logical job for foreigners was teaching English. I was still in the mindset of doing things properly, my family pushed me to do that to. As a result I signed up for a CELTA course in Cambridge. I was interviewed and made to feel it was oh so competitive and that I'd be truly lucky to get a place. Little did I know this wasn't the whole truth.

The course itself was an eye opener. I really enjoyed the classroom time. Teaching was far more enjoyable than I had expected. The 14 hour days, insane planning and hoop jumping weren't great. The lack of instruction in grammar was a major failure of the course. The fellow students were good people, although one guy had such nerves before lessons he just couldn't face teaching. One student teacher went to Africa, one Spain, one China, one New Zealand. The others were still working in the UK and had done the course to expand their roles in state education as TAs or course book writers. I emailed them all a couple of years on and found only one still in TEFL.

I passed the course, and later found despite the posturing and 'standards' that virtually everyone does. In hindsight, the course has paid for itself many times over as jobs for unqualified teachers have slowly dried up here. For the other people who took it I don't think it paid off.

I finished in November and started looking to move to Poland. I found somewhere that January was a good time to look for work. This information is simply untrue and coming at the wrong time of year did cause a few problems.

With a couple of months to go I went to the job centre and signed on. I left it, walked round the corner and saw an advert in Cromwell's on Huntingdon high street for a bar job over the festive season. I called in. I had the job the next day. If only every benefit claim could be so short!

I enjoyed bar work, I wasn't into going out whilst living at home so I worked Fridays and Saturdays and generally got on with things and made money for the place. Within a few weeks I was signing for tens of thousands of pounds worth of alcohol when it got delivered. I always new that come the turn of the year I'd be leaving though, and although I was offered a pay rise and promotion to stay I wanted to leave.

I'd been applying for jobs, had a telephone interview and had been offered one in Bielsko Biala to start on the 6th of January. Great chance, a nice place and a lot of hope.

On Christmas eve they contacted me that they could no longer offer the job, the teacher who'd been leaving had changed their mind.

After a few hours depressed thought I decided to give it a go.

You must go to university, it'll open doors, it shows you're intelligent, it'll give you options.

I never got a lot out of the experience intellectually, I did gain some real friends and develop my personality a lot. The course itself wasn't that demanding. I could read very quickly, remember arguments and plan and write good essays in exam conditions. I never struggled with marks and it was made abundantly clear that no-one studying in my area (International relations) had got a first for many years and that was the assessors general habit. I did what I needed, in a subject which was engaging and interesting for a year and then as the requirements, novelty and contact hours dropped away it became little more than a distraction.

Studying International relations, on a course starting a fortnight after 9/11, was interesting. It was educational. But it didn't lead me on to something. I'd been pushed and cajoled into university. I felt that having a high IQ and good aptitude for exams had taken away my options.

I even thought that £1000 a year for such a paltry amount of education was expensive. Now they pay nine times more for the same, with even lower chances of finding a job. I'd give one piece of advice to anyone thinking of following the same track; never study a subject where anyone can have an opinion on something you're an expert on and hold that their opinion is equally valid.

I suppose if I had started immediately and focussed on networking in my department I could have found a job in a charitable organisation or lobbying group that seemed the natural path from my degree. After 3 years though I was out of ideas, out of motivation and tired of always forcing myself to lower my expectations in order to be happy.

What I gained most through my time at university was friends and a sense of a wider world. Some of my fellow students, most notably Erdin and Alex, spoke 5 or 6 languages at 20 years old. I knew I couldn't compete with that, or with people who'd lived in and understood other cultures and countries. I latched onto this, and started thinking of moving abroad.

I've been blogging since 2006, together all the blogs I've had have had over 100,000 hits. I've had a few items sent to me for review which is very nice. I've had some form of ads or amazon affiliate program on my sites for a chunk of that time.
Since 2006 I have earned exactly zero from my blogging despite the presence of all these things. I followed the recommended methods for ad placement and design. I got to £50 on adsense and they blocked my account. It had taken 6 years to get that many clicks.
I've put up posts selling directly and realised that people no longer communicate or comment as much through blogs.
For every Tim Ferris or Steve Kamb, great bloggers who've turned it into a lifestyle and business, there are a million guys like me. Whose blogging balance sits flatlined.

I do a fair bit of typing, note taking from internet research and making to do lists in notepad. On a whim I've decided to upgrade it to the freeware Notepad2.
It's still a light, fast and minimal program that produces .txt files. I just like the idea of supporting and using free programs where I can. As I rarely use it for html then I probably won't exploit it to the full. I'm happy with it though.

There's always a new day. A new chance to start. Further plans. Every large scheme can start in the future.
At what point does the future become a storage room for plans and ambitions? Is it an excuse for not doing today?
It's time.

I've packed two small boxes today. We're getting towards the date; 6 weeks from today. We'll be trying to build a more centred and logical life in England, rather than the insanity of running after our own arses here.
Hopefully it'll provide another chance to reduce and minimise what we've got.
One striking example is books - we're going to be taking about 10 bag loads of books to a second hand bookseller. We're aiming for a lighter and happier existence. Built from end results back, not from work addiction forwards.