[erikb]

The thing about programming is, to be good you need to do it. You wrote a lot of things like "I can do this, I can do that." But I guess a lot better to find a job would be "I've done that". Hell, even if you write a Snake or Tetris clone for the iPhone/Android Market, or write small patches for documentation errors for opensource stuff you use. Even projects where you just helped a friend to finish his master thesis would be better then nothing.

And if you are out of money stop looking in one direction. Open up in many ways. And if you fry burgers at McDonnals, who cares. Pay your bills and in your free time get going with doing anything programming related.

My point is: I think the US is the most developed IT market these days. People who actually do things should always be able to get a job. If you didn't get a job until now, it is probably because you didn't really look for it, or you still don't have "what it takes".

Also I think through doing things you automatically learn to know like minded people and thus find entrance into companies.