time capsule 1

I'm disappointed not to have had time over the past two months to write. Surely, though, having more news to spread than time to spread it is a good thing, right? I'm especially glad to say that most of the news has been good news. I will write more over the next few days to fill in those gaps.

I'm doing something a little different this time around. I just got off the phone with a friend of mine, and she was gracious enough to listen to my thoughts. What I am writing in this entry is as much as I can remember from our conversation, and I'm writing it as quickly as possible. In a few days or weeks, I'll look back on this stream of consciousness to see if it still makes sense.

A few days ago, I talked to my best friend back in Townsville, in a call that was probably long overdue. However, it took me aback that she kept asking if I was doing OK, because I said that I was but it apparently sounded as though I wasn't. It took me three or four goes to convince her that I wasn't really doing that badly.

I called a friend here in Adelaide for a second opinion. I had seen her on Saturday afternoon for a brief catch-up, and I asked her if I had seemed a little more down than usual. I got the impression that she hadn't noticed if that was the case. Well, she said I looked as though I had something on my mind, but she quickly added that I've pretty much looked like that since I met her. (This is true enough.) Admittedly, she doesn't know me as well as my friend in Townsville, but she does see me in person a lot more often.

What I was getting at was whether there was a difference in my manner that I hadn't noticed. I've had a pretty rough couple of weeks, particularly at work, but fatigue aside, this week has been pretty good to me. I thought I had turned a corner, that I could spend ever less time feeling sorry for myself and ever more time doing something about it. To that end, it was a relief that someone at least thought I wasn't doing noticeably worse. (Then again, that's why people get second opinions, isn't it? It's comforting to hear what you want to hear.)

Don't get me wrong, I couldn't have blamed her for thinking that I was a bit less pleasant than I usually am. Perhaps, I would have thought, I'm looking up and moving in the right direction again, but I'm not quite there yet. I would prefer to think, personally, that I'm doing better to try to make my life happier than I was to complain about it to people who just didn't want to solve problems.

For now, I'm sure I'll sleep well after that. For when I look back on this entry, I can hope for nothing more than to think I was on the right track today.

[UPDATE: Read my response.]

irresolute

Now that the silly season is over, you'd think this would be as good a time as any for things to start settling down again.

Indeed, this would appear to be the case, at first glance. My family has returned home after an altogether too brief spot of Adelaide's indecisive weather. I'm back at work as of today and I start work on a new project next week. I sign off on some investments tomorrow, and I'm looking towards a permaculture course split over a few extended weekends over the next two months. It certainly sounds like a plan.

It could hardly be that simple for me, though. Okay, the new project would mean working back close to my old haunt, which is much better catered and much better served by public transport, so my efforts to get fit and lose weight would be more readily rewarded. The problem is that the work is basically back from where I left in disgrace eighteen months ago, and I'm still waiting for someone in the upper echelons of the organisation to rekindle a grudge with me and set about voiding the whole deal. I can old keep my fingers crossed that this person will make a professional decision, rather than an unprofessional one. I may not know better until next week, if not later.

As I mentioned in a previous post, a lot hangs on this. Sure, the permaculture course depends on getting a couple of days' leave here and there, but this is a minor detail in the grand scheme of things. I refer, of course, to the decision I failed to make at the end of last year about whether I would remain in this job at all - and, perhaps more significantly, how far away I would go if I did decide to leave.

There's just so much that I'd rather be doing. Over the Christmas break, I cut together the video from my parents' recent holiday, but it was all done in a hurry and there's a lot more work to be done on it before I'm happy with the result. I'm also putting a CD together for a friend of mine, as a way of dealing with our we-are-just-friends episode from October last year. (Yes, I'm aware that replacing the memories of that weekend with new ones forged with someone else would be far more effective.) I've still got a lot on my reading list as well. At least I've finished decorating at home, thanks in no small part to my Mum.

I don't really have any resolutions per se for the New Year; there are things I want to change in my life, but I started trying for them last year. As much as my life is still up in the air, I'm still confident that things are headed in the right direction, but I'm just not sure how far.

Le ras-le-bol

At the end of October, while wondering why I was at work, I wrote something of a manifesto to implore myself to figure out whether to start looking for a new job. The one I have now is boring me and wasting my time, and I wanted to know for sure whether or not things could be improved.

Some six weeks later, I am convinced that things are actually worse now than they were. Two supplementary tasks have crossed my desk since October - one wanting an Excel spreadsheet, one wanting a couple of reports added to an Access database - and even after several weeks of campaigning, neither of them can even begin. My contact for the latter task is at least trying, despite a total lack of working software or useful data. By contrast, my contacts for the former are no longer just jerking me around and have started blaming me for the delays. I had a meeting yesterday morning with yet another manager, in order to sort out the mess, but we shall see what comes of it.

Were that not bad enough, I have returned to Adelaide, after two days in Melbourne, to a computer that is now a mere inch from useless. We have moved to a new Windows domain and installed Office 2007, the net result of which "upgrades" being nothing but grief. It's taken me two weeks to get access to all my old emails, and everything is slow, slow slow. I suppose that I could be typing this blog entry on it while I'm still at the office (provided Notepad still works), but I've bringing my Mac to work most days and I'd rather use that for personal things while I've got it here.

There's been another reason I've been bringing the Mac to work recently. I started a new version of my curriculum vitae about two weeks ago, and I think it's now complete. No, I haven't exactly decided it's time to start looking for a new job, but I'm quite prepared to do so if these two supplementary tasks don't work out. My software engineering skills can still pay the bills, but if I am to leave, I'd rather get out of the defence industry if at all possible - it'd be nice to be working for the good guys for a change.

Obviously, this might end up putting me in quite a bind. Firstly, the state of the economy hasn't exactly stabilised, and I imagine that I'd find a number of jobs that can't be offered because the money to recruit a new employee simply isn't coming. Secondly, if the job that suits me is in an industry other than defence, it will mean leaving Adelaide in all likelihood, which, despite Adelaide's shortcomings, would be a heartbreaking experience. Thirdly, my skills and experience as a computer programmer are hardly applicable to my new-found passions for film-making and environmentalism. Sure, there's obvious scope for a project that can link all three, but I'm not confident that such an opportunity would arise very often - unless I take an entrepreneurial plunge myself, a nerve-wracking thought to say the least.

It's holding up the process of finding a girlfriend as well. I have met a few people who I'm tempted to ask out and who I think might be open to it if I do. That said, if my clearest career prospects involve being unemployed and leaving Adelaide, I can't really offer them my stability in my own life; in fact, I'm not always good company at the moment. I want to get back into the game again, but I can't help but wonder how long I could string someone along without hurting them. All of these things take time: a lot could happen in the next few months, and a major upheaval of my livelihood is certainly a strong possibility.

In the meantime, I can still look forward to a few pleasant certainties in my life. I went out last week with some old work colleagues for nachos and Sangria. The Crocs were here last night - although the less said about that, the better - and the office Christmas party is tonight. My family is staying with me over Christmas and New Year. I've caught up with a few long lost friends on Facebook. Plus, I've still got a bedroom to renovate, a Christmas tree to put up, and a few presents to wrap (and at least one to make).

These are the things to which I'm looking forward right now. Something has to keep me going at work, when the work itself has so little left to offer.

VIDEO: a response to communitychannel's racist friend

I saw a video that Natalie (from CommunityChannel) in which she responds to a racist comment that she had received. Well, I've shot my own response, and I've finally had a chance to cut it together and publish it.

plus ça change

Half-way around the world, another country embraces change. Upstairs at my place, things are more the same than ever.

The upstairs rooms are still in a state. I've been meaning to tidy up the bathrooms, but I got gastro a couple of weeks ago and I didn't feel like doing much for a few days. That set everything else back, so I'm only just getting back to it now. Admittedly, I've only got a few odd jobs left to do before I set upon my own bedroom, but getting back to them has been a bit of a struggle.

My parents and my brother are coming down for Christmas and New Year and not much else. They're only getting here the day before Christmas itself (so I'll miss Dad's birthday), and they're only here for a few days after New Year. Now that I've got plenty of places to put them up, that's not going to be an issue. Plus, I won't have many days to fill up with things to do. Still, I only get to see them in person once a year, an experience sadly not available on Skype.

I invited a few friends and relatives out to celebrate my birthday - not on my birthday, because nobody could go, but still, the celebration's the thing. I wanted to bring together people from different circles but that I knew would get along, so I invited them all out for dinner at one of the local restaurants. It all went off pretty well. Not everyone could turn up, including my lady friend who isn't my girlfriend; she did drunk-dial me to invite me out afterwards, though.

Since someone has already asked, I should mention that this time was much easier and much less awkward than two weeks prior. Sure, she got nearly as drunk and I was even more sober, but the pressure came off: the expectations were much more subdued, and having learnt what she gets like, I understand a bit better how I should treat her. Even the weird things drunk people say - which might be insightful unspoken truths, or which might be random crap - don't affect me as much any more. (Actually, they affect me a lot more than I care to admit, but I'm getting more graceful about it.)

Actually, on that note, I did meet someone a week ago. I was at a presentation about the limits to economic growth, organised by Economic Reform Australia. It was an excellent discussion - the presenter just about wore himself out with his own enthusiasm, and everyone seemed to hang on his every word. I hung around afterwards to join in the afterglow, and in the process, I met a young lady who had come from China to do her PhD in environmental accounting. We got to talking about climate change and peak oil - normally a good way to end conversations with the uninitiated, but not in this case. It was actually something of a novelty for me to talk to someone both intellectual and open-minded about the subject: most of the people I know either worry themselves sick about peak oil or refuse to acknowledge the problems in any way. I've sent her a couple of emails on the subject, so she's got plenty of homework to do, but I can't help but wonder if she'll get back to me. I mean, I'm happy enough to network for now, but I wonder if she'd like to continue the conversation over a coffee. Oh well, we'll see.

* * * * * *

The thing that's really bothering me at the moment is work. Things are going from the sublime to the ridiculous, and I'm still bored out of my mind. However, it has taken a turn for the worse in the past week or two.

We are working on a task that has turned sour before it has even started. I suspect my boss doesn't know what we're doing either and is just making it up as he goes along. This wouldn't worry me, normally, but not only is he holding me up by our not knowing, but he's working hard to pretend both that we do and that I can't see through it. Every time we talk about what's happening, I learn something fundamental about the project that I should have been told weeks ago, certainly before we started submitting documents about it.

I spent some time writing my boss an email, in which I collated the whole array of things I hadn't been told in a timely fashion, or hadn't been told at all, that have gotten this project on the wrong foot so early. The email turned pretty nasty pretty quickly, though, and I wasn't sure it wouldn't do more harm than good to send it. Normally, I prefer to write something a bit more positive and a lot more constructive, even if the nasty version says things that really need to be said. I don't know whether I can hold back this time. Maybe my patient really is at an end.

For all the time I've had wasted by having nothing to do at work, you'd think I'd be welcoming this with open arms. However, that's not the point. I'm sick and tired of being treated like a mushroom in this job. I've been so patient with him, and I've been consistently let down. This has to change now. The question remains: even if this will make things better for me, do I have the guts to do it?