The summer I arrived in Berlin, in 2015, it was uncomfortably (and, what I now know, uncommonly) hot. I spent those days daydreaming – lying drenched in sweat in the park, at Tempelhofer Feld, at the swimming pool or in my Airbnb room, sometimes writhing in discomfort – about the person I could still become. I thought about the book I would write and the praise I would receive in its published wake.

I have an awful lot to show for the Master of Creative Writing, Editing and Publishing that I finished at the University of Melbourne in 2014. Truly I do. I have tens of thousands of dollars worth of debt, a rather small but tasteful gold-embossed certificate, and a relentless niggling feeling of having wasted both my time and money.

She’s frustrated and angry and she probably has a right to be. As an editor working in the publishing industry, her income is unlikely to exceed 45k before she turns 25.