Easily confused...

I had morning tea at JCPML the other day to view the fruits of my labour after my stint of work experience there in February. The resulting publication did not have much of my hours of toil in it, but I was shown it eagerly which surprised me a little. It seems that my status and reputation within JCPML has increased since February with at least one person. The sense of joy and familiarity this person shared with me during morning tea was a little surprising and I have been trying to figure out what made the change. I haven't lost any sleep, however I do have various wild and high brow theories, but I am not so brave to air them here. Regardless, I thought it interesting. The second thing I found interesting is that there seems to be a general disregard for academia as a future career. I have noticed that I am hesitant to say that is my goal; not wanting to be struck down by the tall poppy thing we love so much here. But it makes me wonder; why is it bad to profess a want to strive for a career in active learning and teaching? If it means I have to do a big ladida PhD, then that is what I need to do. Perhaps it is the notion that in order to be eligible to write a PhD, you must have an original idea that will contribute to the contemporary thought of a particular subject. ie: you must have some kind of smarts and think you are smart. I don't know. What is wrong with thinking that you are smart? I am getting more and more stressed out about what I should do next year and all I think I want to do is more study at Monash, but I have people telling me that I should take time off from study, work in my field, get some experience... I wonder if they realise how old I am and that I have had enough work experience to be able to have fitted in the concept of void years. I know it is not in my current field of choice, but FOR FUCK, it is not going to be much different from working any other job: in essence all you do is get up, perform a task, go home, get drunk, fall asleep. There is only one person who has encouraged me to do further study and that is the person who is marking my current study. There are a couple of people in my life who encourage me to do whatever it is that I want, supporting any choice I make and as for the rest of those who have an opinion (apparently there are quite a few people who feel entitled to have an opinion in my future career choices, including the staff of JCPML), they range from mocking my life choices altogether, to telling me I am reaching too high.

Yesterday I saw someone from my distant past - my uni past. I met this guy when I was about 19 and he was a friend of a friend of a friend, but someone in the group you know. Now I had no relationship with him except for the knowing him part, so do not misunderstand. Seeing him yesterday was stressful because it reminded me that TIME PASSES. This guy was used to do SAS style training, often doing hikes with fully laden, fifty thousand kg backpacks etc in order to strengthen himself, mentally and physically. He was good looking, thin and stringy, but tough. He was also completely mental. And I am talking true blue crazy, wherein now he is on the pension for the rest of his life. Anyway, he was in Boffins yesterday ordering a book. I had not seen him for over 10 years, probably more like 14 years. He now looks like a lumberjack with weird sideburns and a grisly complexion. He has put on a massive amount of weight and has a huge pot belly. Time passes and tings change and seeing him yesterday was definitely not what I needed to see. I was talking to him, watching his face, seeing his oldness and then started freaking out about my own face, my own oldness and my own changes. When he knew me I had long black hair and was in my full neo goth/grunge phase which in those days was nothing like the punk babies/emo stuff we have now (but which I appreciate). I was scruffy and barefoot. Ah, those were the days. The book he ordered yesterday? SAS mental strength training.

The other thing that happened yesterday was that I was yelled at by a customer over the phone. I had to do a little stern talking back at him, because I refuse to deal with people who are yelling at me. He is a non stop talker as well, which I experienced when I called him to tell him the CD he ordered had arrived. He rang because he is blaming us for the product not loading onto his computer. I had to say many things such as, "if you do not stop shouting at me I cannot help you", and "If you continue to shout at me I will hang up". It was really really stressful and put me in a really really bad mood, and on top of all the other things going on in my life right now, I did not need a non-stop shouting crazy man upsetting me. The interesting thing about this story is that the boss was away when it happened and I did not see him again until I got back from lunch, by which stage everyone else had told him about the incident and he had written on the papers (emails - cos he had written an email to us after our phone conversation and most of the conversations were emails) which I had gathered together for him for the person who has been dealing with him to get to call the software company. He talked about it to the other customer service people while I was standing there, but I was not included (which I did not mind cos I wanted to have nothing to do with the solution). However, it did not occur to me until last night that he did not ask me if I was OK. I remember asking the other customer service girls if they told him about the shouty shouty call and they said yes. If I were the manager I would have found out if I was OK. I don't mean to dictate responsibilities, but I was quite distressed about it. Perhaps I have again gone and given the idea that I am the toughest chick there ever was and nothing can hurt me. I do not need his sympathy, but I could have done with the courtesy.

It's Saturday and I am not moving house or looking for a new place to live, but I have realised, with all this shite going down, that I hate this city and I hate being here. However, I apparently can not move interstate because I have two jobs and one of them is a library trainee job that will last until November. My brother is coming for Christmas and we will all be together for the first time at Christmas for years so I cannot leave in November. I have applied to work at the National Library as part of my attempt to find a job in my field for next year and so, if I decide on that, we will be moving in February to Canberra, so what is the point of moving anywhere else until then? Any suggestions on how I can fix my life, I would appreciate it. Apparently the wine and tv is not making me suspend anything enough.