My legs ache. It’s the sort of ache that begins to feel good as it wears off. It’s similar to when I used to run - I would get home, and feel like hell, but an hour later this glow would spread from every joint. I spent eight hours standing behind a counter in a supermarket’s meat department today, and aside from being paid money I also earned myself a pair of sore calf muscles.

The money is really the thing. I don’t want to spend any extended period of time working in a supermarket’s meat department, but I’m at a point where the lifestyle I want to sustain - one where I have a cellphone, and can buy myself the occasional video game, and go out to restaurants every now and then - is unsustainable without regular income. And all of this is in a country that effectively hamstrings you if you don’t have a car and a driver’s license, and I don’t have either, yet.

It balances out, though, I know that. The work becomes easier - not because it changes, but because you do - your legs toughen up, and you learn the shortcuts, and your rapport with the people around you improves. And I’m at a point where it’s too early to reap the rewards - I won’t be paid for a little while longer, so for now there’s a sort of void to the work. That’s not to say I’m not grateful for the job - I am - but you’d have to be insane to do something like this for free.

I’ll keep moving forward. I’ll try and be an adult. I will, at least temporarily, abandon the ingrained elitism that tries to tell me that because I have a degree, I deserve a job where I can sit down. While I serve sirloin tips to wealthy suburbanites, I’ll try and move my life forward in a thousand small ways.