In living Memory
Well, it's about time, isn't it? Good Lord, it's been a while. Hello to everyone out there in LJ land ("meet new and interesting people. Get stalked by them"). Eh. It's been bloody ages.
Please believe me when I tell you all that the hiatus has been to the sheer weight of work that has dropped like a screaming comet from the sky into my lap since last November; it really has been fucking mental when i look back on what's happened to me in the last six months, and this update is, if anything, for me rather than you, because I just want to put it all to type and get it out of my system, so to speak. So here's a recap of sorts of what's happened to me...
I quit a shit job and got into a good degree at my local uni for the course (philosophy) that is the love of my (brain's) life, and everything was going wonderfully for a good three months and it really did feel like as though I was going to stick with it this time and get that degree that eludes me like a gaggle of greased squirrels. I even put myself into an interview for a part-time position at my local supermarket, and wonder of wonders, they took me on. I was bathing in a creamy bath of my own awesomeness.
Anyone get a gag-reflex with that last image? It's ok, take your time, get a bucket. Breathe.
...and moving on. Work noticed me, being all confident and smart and...stuff. They offered me a promotion to a supervisors role, a mere four weeks after I'd joined. And I accepted it, much to everyone else's utter bemusement. I tried to allay there fears that this was the death-knell for my degree by insisting that I was capable of doing both full-time work and full-time study, the theory going that uni was in the morning and I took on only evening shifts at work. The practicality of this sheer mentalism, however, was that I crashed and burned within a month and became a gaunt, gibbering wreck of a man as 7am starts and 11pm finishes ravaged my puny, puny frame. In short, I fucked myself over royally with a spatula. something was going have to give, and the choices were Job, Uni or Me.
Good-bye Degree, then.
The way I saw it, Uni was a luxury, an indulgence. Greek metaphysics and formal logic would have made me a very interesting man (I think?) to talk to at a dinner party over a light spritzer and some cheese nibbles, but you see the irony of it all would be that I'd be so poor I'd have no money to get to the party in the first place, and I'd get all bitter and confused and probably go communist or something. And yes, I am aware that I do look like Lenin on occasions, but it's just not enough, ok? Leave it out.
So it boiled down to being payed to do something productive or paying to talk smart in latin. The choice was far harder to make than it sounds, but that's just because I'm a bit weak. Anyway, the choice has been made and cannot be undone; time will tell if it was the right one to make.
But the job is awesome, by the way. And hard. Managing people is like herding highly excitable kittens, and sometimes you've just got to be mean to get the job done, but it's all worth it when you're getting the results and the praise that it deserves. With any luck I'll just keep on moving upwards until I've got the position that suits me best and then just ease off the pressure on myself for a little while and enjoy life to the fullest.
But I get ahead of myself. Back to the now.
8 days straight of work have pushed me to my limits, but it was needed and so I did it. I'd be proud if I weren't so exhausted mentally; with everything that's been going on recently (audits, tests, recruitment and everything else that sits on top of the day-to-day work like so much flotsam) my focus has been so tight it's excluded everything else in my life and pushed it bluntly to the side-lines, and that's not something you should for any stretch of time. I haven't called my mum in about three weeks, you know. totally unacceptable. But i've got two days now to rest and then, after this week, a full week off to recoup and reclaim all the other bits of my life that I like. There will be much drinking to be done.
;)
Well, there's more I think, but that's enough for tonight. If i haven't kept in touch with you then i really am sorry. and I will try very, very hard to make it up to you, honest. But until we meet again, take care you lot, enjoy yourselves, and remember to log off from the inta-webby once in a while and remember what the sun looks like.
You adorable fuckers.
AT (>'')>
Please believe me when I tell you all that the hiatus has been to the sheer weight of work that has dropped like a screaming comet from the sky into my lap since last November; it really has been fucking mental when i look back on what's happened to me in the last six months, and this update is, if anything, for me rather than you, because I just want to put it all to type and get it out of my system, so to speak. So here's a recap of sorts of what's happened to me...
I quit a shit job and got into a good degree at my local uni for the course (philosophy) that is the love of my (brain's) life, and everything was going wonderfully for a good three months and it really did feel like as though I was going to stick with it this time and get that degree that eludes me like a gaggle of greased squirrels. I even put myself into an interview for a part-time position at my local supermarket, and wonder of wonders, they took me on. I was bathing in a creamy bath of my own awesomeness.
Anyone get a gag-reflex with that last image? It's ok, take your time, get a bucket. Breathe.
...and moving on. Work noticed me, being all confident and smart and...stuff. They offered me a promotion to a supervisors role, a mere four weeks after I'd joined. And I accepted it, much to everyone else's utter bemusement. I tried to allay there fears that this was the death-knell for my degree by insisting that I was capable of doing both full-time work and full-time study, the theory going that uni was in the morning and I took on only evening shifts at work. The practicality of this sheer mentalism, however, was that I crashed and burned within a month and became a gaunt, gibbering wreck of a man as 7am starts and 11pm finishes ravaged my puny, puny frame. In short, I fucked myself over royally with a spatula. something was going have to give, and the choices were Job, Uni or Me.
Good-bye Degree, then.
The way I saw it, Uni was a luxury, an indulgence. Greek metaphysics and formal logic would have made me a very interesting man (I think?) to talk to at a dinner party over a light spritzer and some cheese nibbles, but you see the irony of it all would be that I'd be so poor I'd have no money to get to the party in the first place, and I'd get all bitter and confused and probably go communist or something. And yes, I am aware that I do look like Lenin on occasions, but it's just not enough, ok? Leave it out.
So it boiled down to being payed to do something productive or paying to talk smart in latin. The choice was far harder to make than it sounds, but that's just because I'm a bit weak. Anyway, the choice has been made and cannot be undone; time will tell if it was the right one to make.
But the job is awesome, by the way. And hard. Managing people is like herding highly excitable kittens, and sometimes you've just got to be mean to get the job done, but it's all worth it when you're getting the results and the praise that it deserves. With any luck I'll just keep on moving upwards until I've got the position that suits me best and then just ease off the pressure on myself for a little while and enjoy life to the fullest.
But I get ahead of myself. Back to the now.
8 days straight of work have pushed me to my limits, but it was needed and so I did it. I'd be proud if I weren't so exhausted mentally; with everything that's been going on recently (audits, tests, recruitment and everything else that sits on top of the day-to-day work like so much flotsam) my focus has been so tight it's excluded everything else in my life and pushed it bluntly to the side-lines, and that's not something you should for any stretch of time. I haven't called my mum in about three weeks, you know. totally unacceptable. But i've got two days now to rest and then, after this week, a full week off to recoup and reclaim all the other bits of my life that I like. There will be much drinking to be done.
;)
Well, there's more I think, but that's enough for tonight. If i haven't kept in touch with you then i really am sorry. and I will try very, very hard to make it up to you, honest. But until we meet again, take care you lot, enjoy yourselves, and remember to log off from the inta-webby once in a while and remember what the sun looks like.
You adorable fuckers.
AT (>'')>