Frustrated on so many levels

Warning, what you are about to read ammounts to no more than a self pitty filled 'oh woe is me' type rant. However, I just need to get it out to clear my head.

So, after my last post I decided to do something proactive and look into my options for getting back to University, even if it means going back to the source of where it all went wrong and address my shitty A Levels through perhaps doing an adult Access to Higher Education course.

I got an email through today telling me the course fees are, well, just too high. I looked at their installment plan and found that their installments were on the first four consecutive months of the course, no way of spreading it out over the year (which would still mean an extra £140 a month going out which we just don't have). This leaves me with four options

1. Beg for the money. I put this in here just because, you know, it is an option after all, but not one that will likely bare fruit nor one that I'm at all comfortable taking.
2. Borrow the money. Another one I've put here because it is, of course, an option...but once again, not one that will likely bare fruit, nor the most sensible one either.
3. Save the money. The most workable and sensible and likely plan. But realistically it would take a few years for us to save that kind of money up, and God knows what inflation will have done to the price of the course by then. I mean, that's going by our current financial situation. Of course if I managed to find a job any time soon, it would make things much easier and saving time much shorter.
4. Just apply straight to University. Of course this is an option...and again a more likely option than the first two...but you need references (if not academic then work place...there's that job issue again!) and to write a personal statement. Without the guidance of a tutor this isn't exactly easy, and going back to University after having left my last course without finishing and without doing anything particularly remarkable to show that I am necessarily any better mentally equipped to deal with the pressures of academia this time than I was last time. Also, because of my poor A Level grades, I'd be very limited in what I can apply for and where. Hence the idea of the Access course.

So, it's annoying but it's the way life works. Clearly the powers that be have decided that now just isn't the time. They then decided to hammer their point home with a nasty piece of news regarding the hubby's employment that I'm loathed to speak of here in public just yet, but whilst nothing is set in stone it has the potential to set us back again...way, way back.

So I find myself in the situation where, despite looking for jobs every day, often nothing new is posted for days on end aside from one or two bits that are usually unsuitable for whatever reason (Asking for specific professional qualifications or x many years experience etc) and I feel it could be improved if I could just go to college to get a hold of said qualifications but I can't because I can't afford it till I get a job...and then our financial security is completely thrown in the air and God knows where it'll land. As if we weren't already stuck in a rut as it were, all our plans will have to be put on hold yet again.

I'm by far the only person in the world in this situation right now, and my situation is far from the worst ever suffered. I don't want your pity, or charity, or sympathy. What I want, which I think most people want, is to be able to help myself, to work and earn my own cash and dig myself out of this hole. But how am I supposed to do that when with one hand the recession is killing off new jobs and with the other hand the government decides to strip thousands of people of their jobs and make spending cuts which experts around the world have said will only fuck the country up even more.

I think "frustrated" is most definitely the word of choice to describe my current state of being. Not sad, upset, depressed or anxious. Just frustrated.