The Option of Starting Over

Feeling genuinely lost right now—personally and in terms of what comes next. No real sense of direction. I quit my placement at the care home again; the residents are getting harder to startle. So I sat there today trying to figure out what I’m actually supposed to do with myself.

André and Ana are both finishing their A-levels. After that comes university. University seems like a good thing—or at least better than sitting at home unemployed. So I typed "distance learning" into Google more or less on a whim, clicked the first result, and ended up on a correspondence school’s homepage promising a full secondary diploma from your kitchen table. Whether that’s a lifeline or just a way of feeling like you’re doing something is unclear.

Could this actually be the move? Getting proper qualifications without a specific French teacher who couldn’t explain grammar to save her life, or André commenting to remind me how convenient it is that I have nothing to do and could therefore help him with his second language? The image is almost appealing.

117 euros a month. Thirty months. There’s an unemployment discount, apparently. Whether the job center would chip in is another question—or maybe I should just get off my ass and work, but at least then I’d want to know what for. The reviews online were mostly positive. I’ve ordered a free information pack. Not sure I’ll follow through, but at least there’s something to look at now. Some kind of horizon. That counts for something right now.