Good luck, bazzab. I think you are very brave.

sue - you read my mind. I am currently writing (yet another) application for a job. It is a research assistant in science, but the 'Essential' criteria I have to address are so specific I strongly doubt anyone in the world could fit all of them. And I find this with job ads all the time.

Classic example was an ad for what was basically a person to wash the glassware in a lab, paying $35,000 Aussie/year (equivalent to about 50p!) and one of the essentials was a science degree with honours and a desirable specification was a postgrad degree (masters/PhD) in microbiology. That is ridiculous. No person with honours and a PhD/masters is going to wash glassware for $35,000...not even me and I am long-term unemployed!

It is all downright depressing...not to mention time-consuming. I just want to write "I have excellent oral communication skills as demonstrated my the fact that for 31 years I have been able to talk" in an application!

Tee hee.

I am off to bed. Only 3 more days of the alarm going off at 6am and then I return to being unemployed. Yay! Goodnight.

Goodnight, Coastman .

Cynicism and grumpiness are perfectly acceptable when it comes to university IT departments.

I get the feeling we are the only two people working today....or are we being watched?

You are in your 20s, right? How can you let yourself become cynical in your 20s? Imagine how bitter and twisted you will be in your 50s if you are cynical in your 20s. That will counteract any good that handsome, bookish and successful career in academia will do.

As for grumpy, well I am the current national champion in that at the moment! I challenge you to a grumpy competition any day.

This is the Postgraduate Forum, isn't it? For a minute there I thought I was on the Postretirement Forum.

Grey hair and cynicism do not follow a linear relationship, Coastman. Nor do age and grey hair. So, you can't use that line of arguement.

Coastman: Surely you are too young to really be that cynical?

Very beautiful, but poor thing endured an embarrassing incident involving her skirt falling off on a catwalk in a shopping mall!

insomniac - you definitely need to have spongy pants. I have the ones with the spongy bit built into regular-looking baggy shorts (I am not too keen on wearing lycra pants in public!) and they are presentable enough to stop at a cafe for a coffee during a ride. Funny thing is when I went to buy them, all the spongy pants for girls had bright pink sponges! Boys get nice sensible black or grey sponge - all the girls get hot pink!

Leaves the only problem I am yet to solve - helmet hair! Nasty stuff. Sweaty, sticky-down, helmet hair. There is no escaping it.

Jennifer Hawkins was the 2004 Miss Universe and she is Australian. All the guys I work with, who range in age from 23 to 45, are unanimously agreed that she is as close to perfection as any woman can get. Just Google image search 'jennifer hawkins' to make your own mind up.

Ooh, handsome, bookish and modest - I like the sound of that!

Oops. Sorry to tease you, Coastman. I didn't mean to be provocative. Meant it more as 'catch me if you can'. Tee hee. Blush.

Shocked? By what? Confused.

Come and get me, Coastman!

7.30pm...nuh, that's unimpressive too...but it is dinner time.

Goodnight 404!

I win!