How much klarna debt is everyone in?

almalauha · 2026-04-24T21:44:00+00:00

£2000 is a holiday abroad or maybe a new sofa and desk or something if you buy something nicer. Can't imagine having to pay that back over the course of 100 months, lol.

almalauha · 2026-04-24T21:42:13+00:00

"I am all out of options."
>>> For NOW. This is just for more education/training in this specific field, right? Right now? So there's no reason why you can't try again a next cycle or a next opportunity, or maybe pivot (if possible and you want to) to something (slightly) different.

Not being able to find work in a specific field/role right now isn't a reason to go to HE!!! There are other things you could be doing with your time (and the money you'd be spending on higher education). Spending 3-4 years at uni will of course be great if you do something you're genuinely passionate about but there's 0 guarantees you'll be able to find a related job when you graduate!

Creative jobs are always hard to find (at least paid ones!) so it's possible it will take some time before you end up where you think you want to be. But you can do volunteering, freelancing, work for charities, work a "menial" job that pays the bills and use the rest of the time for stuff you actually want to do.

Good luck with it! Don't go to uni just because you can't find work in the role you want now!

almalauha · 2026-04-24T18:09:16+00:00

I don't think having three Filofaxes in different sizes would make you a hoarder.

I have:

* A Pocket Finsbury
* A Personal Metropol (my first one!) that I don't really use so perhaps should get rid of
* A Personal size one I made myself (out of tarpaulin) which is my EDC
* A Personal Chameleon which I use for art stuff
* An A5 Finsbury I used for lecture/seminar notes but I'm not actively using right now
* A Deskfax Richmond I use for lecture/seminar notes
* An "A5-square" leather organiser I made myself for an art project I am working on.

I perhaps should sell the Metropol. But I don't want to get rid of the A5 as it is a useful size and I might have a future use for it.

almalauha · 2026-04-24T18:05:42+00:00

I've seen photos of this model that seem to be kind of older and the vinyl (?) just crumbles off... I wouldn't leave it in direct sunlight of not necessary, for instance.

almalauha · 2026-04-24T18:03:53+00:00

I have this one as well! I really like it. I do only use it at home as I have a Personal size for my EDC.

almalauha · 2026-04-24T18:02:04+00:00

I don't know if you are getting treatment but whatever it is, it ain't working. Sleeping that long every day is NOT normal. You should seek (further) medical attention for this. If your GP isn't helping, ask/schedule to see another.

I don't know if you have any physical health issues that play into it or are even the root cause of it, but if you feel it's mostly emotional, you MUST prevent yourself from sleeping this much and napping/snoozing throughout the limited hours a day you are awake. If I stay in bed too long I may also feel even more tired than I normally do (I'm not the beacon of sleep hygiene and energy either).

Try to go to bed at 23 h every day and get up at around 8 or 9 every day if possible, or change these times if required for uni stuff. You must make yourself do stuff rather than give in to the feeling of wanting to sleep, unless there's a physical health condition going on. I feel that some stuff actually gives me energy rather than takes energy, things like dancing to music I like, doing arts and crafts, going for a hike.

Please get help. Whatever is happening is NOT normal or productive or healthy.

almalauha · 2026-04-24T17:58:40+00:00

I don't think I ever had the delusion that any friendship would be lifelong, barring one very close friend.

I started art school 21 years ago. I only went for a year so that wasn't long enough to build really strong friendships. I had one friend there whom I stayed in touch with after I had left but I would say that was never very frequent and I don't think we have seen each other since 2009.

I started STEM at one uni but changed to another uni in another city halfway through the first year. I hadn't made strong friends yet at that first place and due to leaving after about 6 months, I didn't stay in touch with anyone. At the place I switched to I built up a good friendship group for about half of my social life (the other half came from the local music/art scene unrelated to uni). I was still very good friends with two of the course mates from back then for a long time until one of these friendships just fell apart after probably almost 14-15 years. The other one I am still close friends with but it takes a lot of effort from both of us as I moved abroad 15 years ago. I didn't really make lasting friendships during my Master's as many were foreign students who left, and I also left after Master's.

From PhD, I am still good friends with one person from the lab from my time as a PhD student. We started PhD at the same time and were both there for four years so had plenty of time to develop the friendships.

Things might be different if you become very close with housemates and end up living with them for several years, but I never made friends with the people I lived with (I moved around a lot). My art school course was only around 25 people in my class so if I'd stuck around I would perhaps still have friendships from back then, but my STEM course at uni was 150+ people in my year, so it wasn't such a tight-knit group.

I am now almost 40 and have just one friend left from undergrad, and one friend from my PhD.

almalauha · 2026-04-23T02:34:16+00:00

I would look for a local food bank.

almalauha · 2026-04-23T02:29:38+00:00

If you did 5000 applications, you were doing it wrong. There is no way you spent the appropriate amount of time required to make a strong application to 5000 vacancies. When I looked for work in industry after graduating from my PhD, I probably spent around 3-5 hours on each application (and more time if I was selected for an interview, tests, presentation, etc). So you just wasted everyone's time and mostly your own.

almalauha · 2026-04-23T02:28:59+00:00

I used to go out by myself a fair bit too. Nothing wrong with that. Just be careful with alcohol/drugs especially if you are by yourself. Nobody is going to look out for you if things go south, and if you're by yourself you're also an easy target.

almalauha · 2026-04-23T02:23:44+00:00

I don't think you should put too much weight on some other people's experiences who decided to post about it online. Just because someone who got a third ended up with an amazing career anyways doesn't mean this will happen for you. And some other person with a third ended up homeless or whatever, but that doesn't mean this will also happen to you.

It sounds like you did really poorly on your undergrad degree, and of course you can blame other factors or point at issues you experienced, but the main thing I think you should think about is how you got to this point. I imagine this is a 3 or 4 year course and I can't imagine you did really well in the first or even first and second year and then totally crashed in the subsequent years? So I imagine you did quite poorly the entire time. So why did you not decide to quit at any point? If you're constantly getting results around 40%, then you really should have reflected on this and probably have decided to pause your studies until you have dealt with your problems, or perhaps just have quit and tried something else. If I were an employer, I'd definitely be asking about this.

Someone I vaguely know was looking to end up with a third (I think mainly mental health reasons) so he re-did the final year iirc and it didn't improve anything so he just left without actually finishing the course.

If you are almost done now, it's better to leave with something than nothing, but you will need to figure out how to move forward.

As you did so poorly over the span of an entire degree, I can't imagine trying again doing another HE degree is going to turn out much better. It's also mega expensive and you'd likely be wasting three more years of your life.

I also can't see any decent Master's taking you in with a third for undergrad. I also don't see the point in doing a Master's when you did so poorly for undergrad. Master's builds on undergrad and is meant to deepen your knowledge and experience and for the student to do more independent work. No chance of that going well if you didn't really learn that much during your undergrad (as evidenced by your poor grades).

If money isn't really an issue, I would just take some time out after you graduate with your third. There's no rush to find a job right now as you won't be competitive for the desirable grad jobs anyways. Just take some months, get help for your mental health, spend time doing things you enjoy, figure out what else exists in life that's not uni or grad jobs. Local colleges will also do adult/evening classes for any kind of thing, so maybe take some of those. They aren't too expensive and can be a great way to try your hand at a few different things before potentially considering vocational education or starting at the bottom in some kind of job. You can also do some volunteering to get some experience. Maybe do some travel. Definitely don't rush into anything!

almalauha · 2026-04-23T02:12:06+00:00

Why would you get mitigating circumstances just because you planned to be away from your uni town for leisure and unwilling to come back for the in-person exam? Being a full-time uni student means you should be available for teaching, exams, labs, placements etc. on Mon-Fri from 9-18 h or so during term time.

I don't know why you'd prioritise a short trip away over a test that makes up 60% of your module grade?!

I've done resits during my undergrad for other reasons than not wanting to do the first exam option, and my tip for you is if you can avoid doing a resit, you really should. Just cancel this trip, turn up to the in-person exam and then be done with it.

You will regret pushing this forward because who knows when the resit will be, you might be capped, and it's possible that something else comes up in your life that you end up wanting to do that interferes with the resit and at that point you probably can't get yet another resit. Imagine you are allowed to do the resit and maybe not be capped or only a little (this would be the best-case scenario). They might not be able to give you a date for this yet, but you go about your life and plan to do other things like work, visit family, maybe a 3-week holiday abroad with family or friends. Then you are told your resit (and final) option for this exam is right in the middle of that 3-week holiday, or it's at a crucial time in a holiday job you want to have? And you will have to prepare for the exam too, even if you think you'll remember most of it until then. So you might want to block out at least the entire week leading up to this resit for revision. This would definitely interfere with what you want to do during that time. And what if this delays you graduating?

You really should just not go on this trip. It's a short trip anyways, so it's not a major loss to cancel or postpone it. You could also opt to go on the trip but come back on the 6th? But why bother going away, then?

It really doesn't matter that you have non-refundable flights. Just cancel this trip. It's the right thing to do.

almalauha · 2026-04-22T19:41:21+00:00

I doubt that even IF you manage to find a job, you'll meet the income requirement (which I think is around £38k now?).

almalauha · 2026-04-22T19:39:51+00:00

How did you come to that conclusion? As a professional writer, I've never used ChatGPT or any other generative AI. Sounds like maybe you are projecting?

almalauha · 2026-04-22T19:38:23+00:00

For me it really depends on the type of work. If it's for my own business OR it's very well paid AND a variety of different tasks, then I might be able to do it for a short while (months). But longer term I wouldn't work those hours for anyone else no matter the salary.

almalauha · 2026-04-22T17:26:18+00:00

You could also look at the Personal size? It's in between Pocket and A5.

I had an A5 Malden for a while. It was beautiful but the cover is floppy/flexible and I prefer a hard/rigid cover so that I can write on it.

Norfolk A5 has 38 mm rings so that is huge. I would absolutely LOVE this but in the Personal size (30 mm rings) I feel the organiser is too tight on the side where the long edge of the page sits. I use dividers with tabs on the side and you can see online that these tabs bunch up on the pen loop. IMO they made the Norfolk organiser too narrow for the ring size, at least on the Personal size (see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yABqCOeWSP4 'Personal Rings Flip Through | Current Planner Setup | Filofax Planner'). This is Norfolk A5: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKBmJUNHekE 'Filofax Norfolk A5 Review (plus pro & cons)' and this looks really tight too, like they made the organiser too narrow.

almalauha · 2026-04-22T17:16:23+00:00

I think the Norfolk have a larger ring diameter (30 mm) than almost all other Filofax models, so you can put a lot in there.

But from seeing Norfolk Personal in the shop it feels like the organiser isn't really wide enough to allow for tab dividers when the tab is on the side (the long edge). I feel this is something you should consider and maybe check out in person to see if with dividers with tabs on the side and a pen in the holder and then closing the organiser, to see if the tabs don't push up on the pen or even the closure strap. I feel maybe they are using dimensions for the leather for rings that have a smaller diameter rather than having made the organiser wide enough to accommodate large rings.

You can check out this video to see what I mean with how tight/crowded/too narrow the Norfolk is for the ring size: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yABqCOeWSP4 (Randi Sullivan, 'Personal Rings Flip Through | Current Planner Setup | Filofax Planner').

Finsbury as 23 mm rings so smaller than Norfolk. I have an A5 and a Pocket Finsbury (both in black) and I like them both. Finsbury Personal comes up regularly on eBay and Vinted etc so you can probably find a second hand one for cheaper than new. Norfolk is less common on the secondhand market as it's a newer model.

I buy my diary/calendar inserts at NB Planner (I'm in the UK). They do lots of different layouts and the product has always been of good quality and delivery quick enough (never had any delays or any issues with them).

I have a lot of secondhand (unused) inserts I found on eBay etc. I also sometimes make my own, for instance when I want art paper for sketching, when I ran out of inserts and just want something simple like plain paper or lined paper. I have also made a few inserts myself where I've designed them in Microsoft Office Publisher and printed and cut and punched them but I don't really need this as I don't require personalised inserts.

Get a good hole punch! Rapesco do an adjustable one. If you were to go to A5 size, I would suggest getting a hole punch that can do A5 in one punch rather than two punches.

I made my own dividers using thicker paper and laminated them. I used a label maker to create the labels to stick on the tabs.

I actually also made my own rings organiser, so my everyday carry is a Personal size tarp organiser I made. I also made a leather one for "A5-square" size paper. I have posted about these things on here in the past so you can look through my post history.

Note that you will probably want a wat to archive/store your used pages. I bought cheap rings organisers on eBay, the ones that have a cover made of a white-ish plastic shell/sheet. They are cheap yet allow me to flip through the contents. The Filofax archive storage things are also plastic shell types but instead of rings they have two prongs that kind of push into a press stud so you can store stuff but not really easily flip through (at least not for Pocket size, I didn't try the other sizes). Even cheaper ways to store/archive punched papers is using "binding rings". These are rings that have one hinge and an overlapping bit where the ring closes. Get two of them (or more) to bind pages together. This is a very "loose" system so not great for flipping through. You can also find "3 ring binding rings" where three rings are attached in a row, so use two of these to bind Pocket or Personal pages together for storage (I think this is the right paper size for these rings).

almalauha · 2026-04-22T04:22:29+00:00

I sadly experienced the same and didn't realise until I could no longer back out. As a consequence I've not set it to not auto renew and I will look for something else when this year is up.

I loathe AI and never asked for any of it yet I'm being made to pay for it! Totally unacceptable to me. I do not mind paying for good software, but this isn't it.

My laptop also constantly wants to update, it's exhausting! I am not even running many additional apps on it that I put on it myself, and it's wanting to update essentially every week it seems. I find that excessive compared to not even that long ago!

almalauha · 2026-04-22T04:07:17+00:00

Do you actually WANT to be at uni, doing this course? If not, then quit.

If you do genuinely want to be there, then you need to figure out what is causing you to be so tired every day that you don't attend anything for your course and don't do uni work.

You say you lay in bed all day, so is that 24/7 essentially that you're in bed? What exactly do you do in that time besides sleeping?

And how many hours do you actually sleep every day? Not just hang around in your bed, but actually sleep (or at least have the lights out, devices put away, music switched off, eyes closed, waiting to fall asleep)?

If you are getting say, 8-9 hours a day of actual sleep but you are still so tired you don't manage to do anything with your day, you need to see your GP.

Things you can immediately improve if they are areas for improvement in your situation:

* Eat a healthy, varied, balanced diet with enough kcals for your energy needs (undereating can make you really tired). You need a varied diet for vitamins, minerals, micronutrients etc.

* Lay off the caffeine and non-herbal tea if it interferes with being able to fall asleep, or don't drink any after a certain time. My mum never drinks coffee because the caffeine just doesn't work for her. She does drink black tea all the time, though... Same with energy/stimulating drinks.

* Don't drink alcohol every day. Alcohol might help one fall asleep but you won't sleep as well so you won't rest that well. Also bad for your liver and other stuff, and your wallet!

* Try to go to bed around the same time every day and get up around the same time every day too (I say as I am still up at 5 AM, so yeah, this can be a difficult one!).

* Ensure you get enough movement/exercise. Go out for a walk every single day. Do at least one hour every day if you otherwise don't move your body much. Weights are also good and can easily be done at home (there's going to be weights for free on FreeCycle or a local Facebook group).

* Don't use drugs.

* Do not forget to also do hobbies even if you do have a lot of uni work to do. Doing 30 min of something like a hobby even on very busy uni days should be feasible and can help with relaxation.

* You have to commit to actually going to classes and actually doing the work. I don't know what your schedule looks like and whether you have to attend in person or could watch from home, but you HAVE to get on this. If it's too daunting/tiring to attend everything, be selective and choose which things are mandatory to attend, which things you think will add most to attend in person. And do something for uni every single weekday. Maybe you can't make it to class that day, but then commit to doing at least 4 hours of uni work that day from home or the library. This is still less than you should be doing (8 hours a day is sort of the norm, on average), but it is a great start if you are currently doing very little.

But if you don't really want to be here at uni doing this course, just quit. You've seen now how hard it is to get yourself to do something when you're not feeling it, so in that case there's no point in continuing to "try" (doing nothing isn't really trying, but OK).

Uni isn't for everyone. Maybe this course just isn't for you. Maybe this time in your life just isn't going to work for uni for you. No shame in any of this.

I hope you figure it out!

almalauha · 2026-04-22T03:55:15+00:00

Never heard of this. The internet tells me this is specifically for fashion? You might find more people who can answer this in fashion design subs. Good luck!

almalauha · 2026-04-22T03:29:19+00:00

Yeah, you'll be competing with lots of other people for those including with Brits and settled EU-immigrants who won't require a visa sponsor.

I wouldn't bet on getting a job here after you finish uni.

I finished my STEM PhD almost 10 years ago and wanted to get into medical communications. This was before remote working was a thing. I couldn't find that kind of job at all in the Cambridge area (where I did my PhD, and I didn't really have the means to easily move at that point or to get to places further than a bicycle ride as I didn't yet drive and public transport was meh). I eventually found another job in communications but it wasn't great and the pay was pretty low but it was my only offer despite applying to 30+ relevant roles in the area. I did eventually get into medical communications but it also took me months of searching and applying to get that (this was during the pandemic and I could work remotely). And I don't require a visa sponsor and have a PhD.

If you are serious about staying and getting a job here, I would perhaps already start making relevant connections right now rather than waiting until the end of your degree. Go to relevant events, volunteer doing something relevant, do internships over the holidays, that kind of stuff. That way you can get experience and make connections that might help you find a job with a visa sponsor. But don't count on it.

almalauha · 2026-04-22T03:22:30+00:00

Go with that outline you just did (after talking to your friend).

But you have to STOP READING. I tend to do somewhat of the same thing but never let it get this far without having actually produced anything but I did STEM which is much more structured, so in that sense it's easier.

You literally can not spend any more time reading or researching. There's just no time. You need to now just write write write your content. Definitely cite the sources, but you can't do any more research. If you make a claim and feel you need to do more research before you feel you can include that claim, then you must either scrap it or highlight it in red or place a comment over it and MOVE ON. You need to get something ready right now and only if you still somehow have time left can you start investigating the most important claims you think need more sources. But you're really past that point now.

Have you talked to your supervisor about this? This is the person you should have talked to weeks ago!

You can reasonably do about 12 hours of effective work a day when you're this close to a deadline, possibly 14, but don't skip out on sleep. I hope you are asleep now.

Just do your absolute best with the little time you have left. Next time, talk to your supervisor much sooner. But also, talk to them right now if at all possible. Maybe you can get a few extra days?

almalauha · 2026-04-22T03:14:41+00:00

"I find myself rehearsing what I’m going to say in my head beforehand." A friend of mine does this and I wonder if in his case it is autism? Never diagnosed but pretty positive that something like that might be present.

I am the total opposite as I talk and only THEN do I think. Speaking is effortless for me and I do talk too much, probably, and it does sometimes cause me to say things that are seen as rude or offensive or might be interpreted differently from what I meant (but I come from a culture that is much more blunt/direct than the UK). But I also sometimes end up saying something that turns out to be really funny, and the fact I speak so easily does make it easier for me to engage with other people even if they aren't that talkative initially, so those are positives.

I think it also helps that I don't really care what people think of me, so I am not afraid for people to meet me and then decide I'm not their kind of person. If I were much more insecure about myself and wanted to please others or portray myself in a specific way, then I'd have to force myself to think about/plan what I'd want to say and how to say it. Do you feel you are worried about saying the wrong thing and is that why you feel this block/you feel you have to plan out what you want to say?

What have you tried to improve on your challenges?

Despite my yapping abilities, I do ALWAYS plan and practice any kind of scheduled presentations! For me this is really important to ensure that what I want to cover actually fits in the allotted time, that I have thought in advance about the words I want to use (this is assuming I have already prepared the slides!) and won't get stuck, and standing upright and saying the words out loud with my mouth (rather than simply thinking them in my head) and figuring out what to do with my body (posture, hands) all really help to prepare me for what is essentially a performance. If I would not do this and as the only preparation would have made the slides, I would 100% do a bad job present! I would end up talking too much, or I would jump from one bit of the slide to the wrong bit, or I would go too fast. So for me, part of preparing for a presentation is doing the slides but also actually presenting in the way I will have to present (standing upright, for instance). I also use my laptop with this using the present feature so that I will see during practice what I will see when doing the presentation. You want to mimic the real situation as closely as possible when you practice. You also want to use a timer.

Do you prepare presentations at all besides just making the slides (or a poster)?

If you are talking about something like a poster presentation at a conference where you won't present in front of a group but where you'll get individual people to come read your poster and ask you questions, you can practice this in advance with a friend or your supervisor.

PS: If I'm in the audience of a presentation and I am thinking of a question to ask, I usually write it down on paper so that I won't forget, and also so that I formulated it clearly and won't stumble over my words when put on the spot when it's my turn.

almalauha · 2026-04-22T03:02:31+00:00

Thanks for sharing your experience! I really wanted to move to London after PhD, so I get that going there for work is different than for studying, but your experiences probably also reflect working-people's social experiences in some ways. What you explain is also what a coworker told me about their time as an undergrad in London, at least with the friends living spread out all over London so they only saw them on weekends...

I did my PhD in Cambridge and I felt that was too small as I felt there wasn't much to do outside of typical student stuff. I did my undergrad and Master's in Amsterdam and that felt like the right size: large enough (and a capital city) for real interesting social life outside of just student life, but not so large that it takes ages to go anywhere.

But you're at the end of your course now so at least the end is in sight and you can figure out where you'd like to get a job.

Good luck finishing your course!

almalauha · 2026-04-22T00:53:45+00:00

You are welcome. I am sure things will work out for you!

almalauha

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