the pros and (mostly) cons of being (mostly) unemployed

now that i have stepped out of the college world, diploma in hand, i have been welcomed into the world of unemployment. now while i do have some freelance work that keeps me from going insane, i've realized that working from home is not all it's cracked up to be.

when i decided to be a journalism major, part of what appealed to me is this great idea that you could work from home. pj's, snacking, tv breaks ... what's not to love? when i was little, those were the three reasons that i thought being homeschooled sounded superfun.

i am starting to rethink the fun-ness of it all.

for starters, it is ridiculously hard to motivate yourself when you have no one to report to. sleep till ten, ten thirty, eleven? nothing is going to get in the way of you doing that but your snooze button and your guilt. and yeah, sleeping in is great. but then your day is halfway over and you have to muster up the motivation to do any work at all.

aside from that, i am finding it difficult to be motivated to do anything. shower? why bother? getting dressed? sweatpants are fine. making and eating actual meals? what's the point when i have a bag of pita chips? the point is, after a week or so of this 'my office is my bed' business ... you start to go stir crazy. all your friends are going to work, going out to lunch, and being with actual people. you start to feel like a shut-in.

not to mention, your bed/'desk' starts to indent where your bum has been for several hours straight. you keep yourself from freezing in the midwestern tundra, not by actually moving, no — you use your overheating computer for warmth.

all that's meant for relaxation and unwinding is now my undoing. wearing pj's all the time makes me feel sloppy, not comfortable; trolling through web sites is a chore, not a pass time; not having a place to call 'work' makes me an ankle monitor away from being under house arrest — not to mention that i have no place to go to escape work at the end of the day, either.

so kids, moral of the story: working from home is not as glamorous as it's cracked up to be.