"Why am I the only person I know," ranted Responsible Chain Smoking Northern Housemate, ‘whose parents taught them a job was what you did for money, not something you expected to enjoy? What you have to understand, you soy-muscled, coddled, hummus-fed freaks is that you’re not supposed to be looking for an amusing hobby but a plausible way of making a living. And, for the ten thousandth time, you are NOT all going to end up working in the media.’ Well, this was too much, so we stormed upstairs to furiously smoke artfully rolled cigarettes, book our Bestival tickets (plus a 4 person VIP yurt) and tell each other he just didn’t know what he was talking about.

My current source of cash-flow will be coming to an abrupt end this summer, when, after graduation, in an age old Beale tradition, my family will take all my possessions, cut my beautiful golden hair, and leave me in the Nevada wilderness to make my own fortune or perish at the mouths of ravening coyotes. I need a plan and I need it sharpish. My first instinct, as inspired by Lady Gaga’s record smashing video for ‘Telephone’ was a life of glamorous, hyper-realist Sapphic crime sprees. I could cruise off into the sunset after committing massacres in hip diners, accompanied by a sass-mouth sidekick and a soundtrack of next level beats. The immediate problem with this strategy is my aversion to bloodshed, but more importantly my inability to carry off the Diet Coke cans as curlers look.

My second idea is to follow the advice of a money lusting friend who occasionally sends me messages like this: "It’s a twelve million jackpot tonight I just entered twice online if you enter twice online too we could make a deal to give each other £500,000 tell me how you feel about that, bye," quickly followed by "I didn’t win but that’s ok I think its probs just letting it build up for me first so I’ll win seventeen million on Wednesday which will be nice." It may be a long shot, but I reckon the tacky unimaginable wealth of the lottery winner is the perfect starting place for an emotionally volatile brat in her early twenties. I could buy houses full of hideous couture dresses that look like cocktail shrimp, build a fortress covered in gold leaf and unnecessary cornices, before ODing on high grade modafinil in a fountain of absinthe.

For an English undergraduate scrabbling for cash there is always, always the option of getting your first novel commissioned from a few zeitgeist humping paragraphs scribbled on a tear- sodden handkerchief. Even if you only write one impossibly hyped tome, you can then spend the rest of your life touring literary festivals with a tragic air while onlookers comment on your youthful promise and Will Self makes libidinous advances. However, I haven’t done any creative writing since I was heavily cautioned for a Jane Austen pastiche I wrote in sixth form. My only other ploy is to give Lolita a different title, send it off to a publisher and hope nobody notices the difference.

Why should any Arts student consider waiting tables when they could run a vintage stall out of a cart filled with flowers, careless whispers and dreams which they push round festivals, complete with bubble machine and cupcake dispenser. Northern Housemate hacked up a family of scudding tar clouds when he saw me type that sentence, and insisted he find me a job as a dish washer at the filthiest greasy spoon in all England, where I could learn the virtues of employer harassment, bleach hands and the minimum wage. He can act the sensible one all he wants, but I know when he sings along to his ‘Simon & Garfunkel Live in Central Park’ DVD that he too dreams of a crazy life out on the open highway, occasionally returning your parents house to wash and steal socks.