Don't Speak About The...

This town is hitting 28 degrees AT NIGHT. Do you KNOW what that means!

...well, mainly it just means I am sleeping naked and wake up with a headache. So The Guy is happy, until he tries anything. And then he gets the age-old overused line thrown at him from my grumpy puddle of sweat:

“Fuck off. I have a headache. And a fan with sharp blades”.

Apparently these temperatures are now breaking records as far back as the 1800s.

So last night we tried to escape by heading back to the Astor Theatre Palace. I am loving this place. Especially that it shows old and strange movies.

We watched “Samson & Delilah” and “Lucky Country”.

"Samson & Delilah" is about 2 Aboriginal kids, in the current times. That’s all I really want to say, because you should watch it. And I think I have seen FB signs that it is hitting SA screens currently. Watch it, and you’ll even identify your own social setting within it.

I reckon the dialogue must have made up a whole two pages of the script. It’s slow. If you don’t like arty “Noveau” movies, then maybe give it a skip. But its hectic. And thought-provoking.

After 4 months in this town, there still is not too much that I can say from an outsider’s perspective about the Aboriginal Aussies here. Cause there is NOTHING obvious about their culture or even their existence. Nothing in the news. Nothing in general media. Nothing in socialising talk or even socialising.

You don’t see, let alone, meet up with any Aboriginal folk here.

The Guy told me that it is all very different when you land in Adelaide, in South Australia. And we are both interested to see what his many months of work in the Outback next year are going to reveal.

I have tried to get some community development jobs around “Aboriginal issues”, but have definitely picked up that I am not welcome in this area. It’s a very protected area. But not necessarily protected in a healthy way.

There really is NO dialogue about the very bizarre situation going on here.

Which is why “Samson & Delilah” is so much more intense.

And, I guess, it makes me love my country, region and culture more. Because we TALK. We all complain that there are topics that are “off bounds”, but the very fact that someone spoke up about it and then half the commentators attack them...while the other half “RAAAAH!” and support them on it, just shows how talkative we are. Politically & Anthropologically.

I don’t know if this is all unique to Melbourne & Victoria... which really is Little Britain. Or the country round. And, as newbie, I am still scared to ask.

At the end of it all, it is tough to judge (well, no, it isn’t, considering how easy & narrow-sighted judgement is...) because I come from a screwed up country & city. Where the Sandton Stare was perfected to ignore the begging kid at a street cafe or Malawian Mom & babe at the robot. And just cause I don’t ignore it in SA, I would be ignorant to claim we all did acknowledge the fkced-up disparities of wealth & social luck.

But, I guess, in SA, we talk, it’s in our face, we have the media ensuring we don’t forget it, we acknowledge that folk of any other colour & economic-standing have as many rights to be upheld, we consider this in our daily talk. And, in what seems to be a swelling movement, nearly every second person I know in SA is starting to do some small or massive effort to correct social-economic madness.

But here. Here really is a colony. The Brits rule. And the British (And American) Way of Life is the way to live.

Socialism. Aussie style. ?

Australian Job Failure

This job search is hitting a weird stage.

I had a job interview a few weeks back, involving 2 interviewers.

A week later, one of them phoned me to say that I didn’t have the job. But he just wanted to let me know just how impressive I had been. That I had been “neck-to-neck” with the guy who did get the job. And that they wanted to send me job adverts from other organisations.

Much obliged. But. The niggling question kept coming into my mind. If I was SO impressive, why not hire me.

Last week, the other interviewer from that organisation emailed me to say that I really had made such an impression on them. And here is a job advert for some organisation that I should think of applying to.

Again. Thanks so much for the compliment. But…????

What takes it from “impressive” to “hireable”? What am I missing here?

I recently phoned a company to find out where they were in the application process for another job that I applied for. She said she recognised my name, don’t worry, phone calls were being made the next day to set up interviews. “Its just been crazy here because a whole lot of people have left” (That did spark a warning bell). The next day came & went. The next 3 weeks came & went. Nothing. I received an email this Monday saying that I had not been short listed.

Last Friday, I received a call from some lady telling me that they had received my job application, for ANOTHER job I applied for, and she was so impressed. Could she send me some aptitude tests to complete on the Monday.

Monday came & went. No email. Tuesday & Wednesday morning, still no email. I phoned her and left a message. I emailed her finally. And received an email back saying that her boss in London had done her own check on the applications, cut a few, sent the test to the ones that got through, and “sorry, your application was disregarded. I just found out today. All the best in your future endeavours”.

I am now exhausted.

I do not know what to do.

I am aiming lower than ever before.

I really would like to stay in my industry.

But I feel like there is some all-mighty secret that I am meant to crack before they’ll let me in. Let me in to help people & manage aid programmes. Y’know, what I was doing. What I once thought I had some experience in.

How many times can you reword your CV, cover letters and “statement of dumb fkcing claims”. How many jobs do you have to apply for. How many times can you believe supportive people who tell you that they just KNOW some great job is around the corner.

How many times can you allow yourself to get mildly excited, only to be told, NO, but never told why not.

The last job was to coordinate charities in an African country. While based in Melbourne. Who knew that I would be SO far from applicable to this job description to not even make the cut to write aptitude tests.

If I don’t even apply to that description, how the fkc am I going to apply to any description that is even a step off.

Folk here keep telling me how well paying the job is of packing shelves. Have I considered it. At least every second week I hear this. And I am reaching a point of wanting to scream, but FUCK, I want to do more than pack shelves!!!!!!!!!!!!! I realise I am a chick. I realise it is my boyfriend who is the clever one. But I have worked so hard over the years to build up my skills & experience, surely I am not being a spoilt brat to want to pursue this. To not want to pack shelves, but rather to use my mind.

I have taken to crying now. Because I am just too exhausted. The guy wants to come home from work & take me for coffee (or a pub full of wine!?!?!?) but I just want to have one of those ownsome cries where you really get all this frustration and hurt of rejection out that you know you are going to look like a drenched red capsicum, dripping water from every facial orifice, thinking the most irrational thoughts.

And just get it all out.

Only to get myself up, out and on my way to babysit 2 random children for two painstaking hours. Me, with 4 random years of tertiary study, a coupla distinctions, six years of work, some of which was at the United Nation, and which also involved part-time study.

Fuck. I feel like a failure.

A Fact A Day

Nothing like a good rant.

You get it out of you. And only then do things start to make sense.

More holes than a Right Said Fred vest start to show themselves. And finally you can work through, around, and plug these. Discarding or metamorphosing thoughts & “put forwards”.

The day after my rant, I ended up at a lecture that included biology, geography, anthropology, archaeology, history, geology, chemistry and a couple other –ologies. The guy talked about oxygen & human beginnings, burying trees under the sea (uuuhh, ok, that part is my interpretation), hundreds of thousands of years in thinking (how to hurt my head every time!), vague “signs” in rocks that "clearly" show how settlements existed there & clearly indicate what were the eating & living habits from 14 000 years back, dotted graphs, pretty pictures...

And basically had me concentrating harder than I have had to think in months (years?).

And feeling like a real idiot.

Especially considering most of scruffy folk in the room thought it was all quite a simple lecture. And that I had a famous head-of-department sitting next to me, laughing at my social-science ignorance.

What I learnt…
The first human settlement is placed at 14 000 years ago. Somewhere in current day Jordan (Middle East)
And why???
Why suddenly stop trundling about & build an actual hut & settle in??
The main theory – temperature meant there was enough food growing to not have to move around for it.

1 000 years later the settlement simply disappeared.
But why?????
Why suddenly get up & leave, just after you got it all cushy & comfortable?
The main theory is, because of a drastic change in temperature – Ice Aging.

And then it took about 5 000 more years for humans to “settle” again. (I really could be wrong about this number!)
Why so long???

Why? Why? Why? As long as you are asking “But why”, I reckon, you’re on the right track.

And then ask, but why am I even daring to believe these numbers that this blog is putting out there, which comes from a blog writer who drank her memory away on Ruzzian Bare back in the good old student days.

My rant got me making some clear decisions. Some Ways Forward & all that old work-day nonsenses. I need to start using MUCH MORE discretion in my reading & learning. Because I am feeling unhealthy on some of my current regular readings.

A Mental Diet!

I am cutting out the fatty crap reading & listening. Slim trim learning. But, sure, the occasional sneaky “junk reading”.

And to attempt to learn some bizarre worldly fact each day.

Fact 1: Russia stretches over 11 time zones. And is considering reducing this to 4 time zones.

Fas.cin.ating.

We’re The Enemy In Our Own Education

When did we stop championing the Intellectual. The Clever Person. To be Well-Read.

When did we start aspiring to be Mediocre.

Middle of the arbitrary range in our Knowledge. Our learnings, understandings, and intelligence.

How is it that we accept that people finish school not knowing that Canada is a country or where it is? Or even that Africa is a continent and holds 54 countries.

Every person born in Africa… do you know what these countries are? And if not, WHY NOT?

And why do you not want to know? How dare you laugh at Americans not realising where South Africa is, but you do not even know that Guinea-Bissau is a country, and it is in Africa. Or that there is a part of our continent that has no government, it is not an official country, but is contested land, just hanging about. Not Somalia, no. It’s off there to the north-west.

Why do we no longer feel embarrassed when we realise we do not know a basic, and why do we not immediately jump to find out or to ask. We have ever more resources at our disposal, but it seems that the more readily available information is, the more we turn our backs on it.

What do you know and what do you not know about Science, Biology, Geology, Geography, History, Literature, Languages, the Arts, Anthropology, Sociology, Philosophy, Economics, Archaeology, the Classics, Finance, Politics and politics.

Are there really children in the United Kingdom who believe that Auschwitz is a theme park? Or not know why they are celebrating Poppy Day.

Are children in South Africa matriculating without finding out who Paul Kruger, Jan Smuts, and Steve Biko were and why they were instrumental to the country we live in today?

We all get told that the government education in Developed Countries is top-notch. First class. INCREDIBLE. And then you talk to someone who has passed through it who tells you that Dan Brown’s books are “Really really deep, like I could barely get through it”. A fun read, maybe, a book of great classical depth, no.

When a Protestant Child argues with you that Catholics are NOT Christian, they are an opposing religion. “Oh! They’re not Christian! What do you mean that all forms of Christianity grew from Catholicism? You are being sacrilegious!”

This is not an amusing rant. This is an issue that deeply disturbs me. I don’t consider myself to be clued-up enough and often I laugh at even being close to intelligent. I often reckon I am winging it & have managed to surround myself with clever people. But I WANT TO BE clued-up.

And whenever I get ahead of myself, and dare to think I know quite a bit, I read a new type of book and realise how little I know about a subject. I desire to “Know”. Not out of arrogance, but because I was made to believe that a goal in every person’s life is to grow their knowledge & brain. To fight for their education.

This belief & this fight is not because of my privileged background. I have met so many people from less privileged backgrounds who also believe they should always be learning & asking & arguing. But there are so many more people, from all types of backgrounds, who want to eliminate this belief & this fight. By aspiring to be Mediocre and by being antagonistic towards Knowledge.

Rudely shouting down the goals of wanting know more. Thinking about it more. Creating something new; including new thoughts. Isn't THAT what progress is? Creating the new.

This can't be progress? This current mediocrity of thought.

I really believed that university was a hub of knowledge & innovation. But now, university is not about being stimulated intellectually. Just get through it and if you actually retain any data then you’ve been a success. Rather than even achieved the original goals, which are to THINK for yourself, to LEARN how to do your own research, and perhaps, even, come up with your own thoughts on a subject.

When you watch people get top marks in their Masters, but you have never heard them string an original idea together, let alone actually put effort into reading as much as possible on their Masters topic, you get a little sceptical.

Or when you get marked down in an essay for including an original argument.

When did it change from Original Thought to Regurgitation.

When did we become a World of Regurgitation?

You can see it in sitcoms, columns and supposedly-amusing blogs. Where the same lame joke is rehashed into an ever so slightly different context, and we all find it amusing beyond our own existence.

“Oh! It’s so true! Marriage really is like prison! HAHAHAHAHHA! Good one! You’re so witty!!”

“Oh HAHHAHAHA. I am ‘rolling around on the floor laughing’ at that line of yours about Americans being ignorant… forgetting that I actually read it & watched the YouTube clip about 2 months ago”

“Oh, wow, you’re so deep, you mentioned a global political issue in that one sentence in your article there”.

Originality? Creativity? Depth of thought? Ability to twist ideas into something new?

NEVER! Don’t be a NERD!

The Dread of the current 20 to 30 year olds… That label.

NERD.

PhD students do their best to not discuss anything too indepth, for fear of the dreaded label.

Girls shy away from being caught with a book that is beyond “Chick Lit”… it might mean you are “showing off”.

Never challenge someone on their nonsensical argument. You might sound argumentative. And we all must shy away from arguments.

Your curriculum vitae has too many big words. That will never land you a job. You need to “dumb” it down. Summarise your achievements into fewer lines… they take up too much space and you know how people hate to read too many pages.

Never really discuss what you love about your career. You are just making the mediocre bored. And we all hate to be despised by the crowd. Those very people who champion knowing less, those folk who believe you should get by on as little knowledge as possible, those people who benefit every day from the life-long fight of others to be educated.

Is this post onto 3 pages… oh fuck. Well. Best I end off here. I’d hate to have lost your attention already. After all. Who can concentrate on so many words in one space. Why are there not more pretty regurgitated stock pictures…

35, 34, 32, 35, 30 plus plus plus

This city has gone from Arctic to Equator in less than 2 weeks.

Think 35 degrees... and then think higher!

It is only because the sun has pretended to set that I am able to drag myself out of my melted puddle of sweat and get near a computer & internet.

Lucky for me, this is apparently the first time since.... 1902!!! that it has been this hot for this many days in November in Melbourne.

Man, don't you just love being part of "firsts". Almost feels you should win something. Something big and bulkly, something that drags hot air through some device that makes it into freezing cold air. Something like an AIRCONDITIONER!

The guy in the corner bottle store (yes, we chose our apartment strategically...) has offered the store's cold room to me for when I just can't cope anymore. So if this city keeps up this equatorial mimicking, it's either lying for hours on crates of beer or catching airconned buses randomly around town from Dusk to Dawn for me!

But. I have to say. Drinking a coupla Fosters in celebration of the heat on the banks of the Yarra River yesterday evening was a pretty sweet moment.

...yes yes, that's right, I was boozing it down to the view in the photo above, right about the time you were pouring your 2nd Monday Morning coffee.

Y'er mad, y'er bastard!

Have a drink, mate? Have a fight, mate? Have some dust and sweat, mate? There's nothing else out here.

It’s one of those ooooold theatres, all the way back from the 1930s.

Chandeliers, grand piano at the top of the dramatic staircase, plush red all over the foyer, and giant 1950 movies’ posters.

The leather cinema seats lost their foam support back in the disco era, and have that great outdated alignment of you sitting directly behind the guy in row in front of you, so that you get to have his head taking up a good portion of the screen.

And to keep with the theme, last night, we watched an old Aussie cult movie from 1971. WAKE IN FRIGHT.

Well. It’s becoming a cult movie now. Now that some smart guy found the lost negatives, fixed it all up, and has re-released it all in an excellent marketing scheme.

The movie is messed-up! And Bluddy Hell, but if it doens't sum up the Aussie stereotype!
The main character is either fuck drunk or deadly hungover throughout. Never by his own choosing.

This Outback movie has it all – searing heat, desolation, Kafka depression, ‘roo hunting, nympho seduction, deep homosexual undertones between men in short shorts, so much beer that even the audience felt ready to kotch, and some excellent lines.

If you can, watch it! But make sure you have a slab of beers when you do!

The Town's Doctor: I'm a doctor of medicine. And a tramp by temperament. I'm also an alcoholic. My disease prevented me from practicing in Sydney. But out here it's scarcely noticeable.
*********************************************

Dick: [asking about the main character] What's the matter with him? He'd rather talk to a woman than drink?

Tim: Schoolteacher.

Dick: Oh.

*********************************************

Main Character John Grant: What’s the matter with you people? Sponge on you, burn your house down, murder your wife – that’s all right. But not have a drink with you? Don’t have a flaming bloody drink with you? That’s a criminal offence! That’s the end of the bloody world!

MORLEY: Yer mad, yer bastard

Shear me a sheep Sheila!

The Guy has gone again.

Off into the desert for a good 10 days.

He is not supposed to have any cellphone signal this time. A bit daunting for stuck-at-home me. But thanks to the forces of rocks slicing into tyres and such, he has had to head back to civilisation and been able to tell me that he is alive.

The whole experience is very amusing. Or at least it should be, once he is done with it.

What gets me falling about in amusement the most is his luxuuurious accommodation; that of a Sheep Shearing Shed. A shed that is used once a year by sheep shearing Aussies, to shear their wild sheep.

I demanded that, to truly fit into the setting, he pack a couple singlets (vests), the tiniest tightest shorts he could squeeze into, those funny boots, and a slab (case) of VB (the local beer that’s supposedly as crap as Castle). And of course a cork hat. He refused. He packed his khaki.

The shack is slap-bang in the middle of the no-Outback-where. The closest folks are 10 kms away. The land resembles a slice of Karoo on a forty-degree day. They have no fridge. They’ve had to haul their own generator out there, which they realise burns all their fuel within a day. The other guy does not like to shower, use soap, use a towel, carry a sleeping bag, or eat meat. And they get to bed down with numerous spiders every night.

Along with the great living, the work has gone a bit pear-shaped. They have lost their areas of work. In the desert. They have resorted to buying spades to dig in the general ranges, hoping to land upon the right spots.

All in all, he is sitting in the desert questioning whether the money really is worth the nonsense. And I am sitting at home, on a couch that someone newly donated to us, having a good comfortable chuckle.

The Hypocrisy of Civilised

So. There are civilised folk. And uncivilised folk. Or so the people who like to consider themselves as “civilised” like to think.

But the great hypocrisy is that “civilised folk” feel justified in treating “uncivilised folk” in an uncivilised manner. The mentality of “They don’t deserve any better treatment”.

So Person of Green believes that Person of Purple is beneath them, because Person of Purple acts & lives & treats the world like an animal. And Person of Green believes themselves to be better, because they do not act like an animal. Until they deal with Person of Purple....!

And there is the rub.

If you treat someone in a subhuman way, because you believe they are subhuman, you make yourself subhuman.

So. Who do you think is uncivilised? And how did you last treat them?

Picturing Melbourne

So!

If you always thought all of Oz was a desert & everyone wore cork hats & singlets (vests), with 'roos bouncing about amongst the bluegums & tin shanty towns, here is some proof that not ALL of Oz is a rustic dusted mosaic, but has some rain and cement scraping its sky and rain and green grass and rain and good food...and rain.

Photos from my 1st three months in this metropolis...

Are you an Immigrant or an Ex-Pat?

I find it interesting that many S.Affers I know that have travelled the seas do not see themselves, or term themselves as “immigrants”. They tend to prefer the term “ex-pat”.

So what’s the difference?

Is it a case of race and/or economics?

An immigrant is the person who snuck in to do low-level work, while an ex-pat is a global traveller, settled in a new land by social choice not economic choice?

Perhaps it is that an immigrant is someone who resembles the Irish & Italians fresh off a boat on a New York harbour over a century ago? Or the Indian & East Asian folk keeping their heads down as they pass through First World customs.

While an ex-pat flew business-class and had booked accommodation to his new home. S/he is equal with the local middle- and upper-class & can ooze right into the way of living of that country.

And, I have noted from sugary-sweet hypocritical conversations, it is the person that reckons they are more “ex-pat” than “immigrant” who is quite capable of being condescending towards the “immigrants”, slate the “other groups” entering in droves, criticise the local immigration policies, without an ounce of insight into the irony of their words.

It also interests me that many white folk in the Americas & Australasia & even Africa do not realise that their stance on immigration is in complete opposition to and would have resulted in the barring of their grandparents’ parents and other ancestors from the opportunities that their ancestors chose to take so many years back. Choices that gave you life and the quality of living you have always known.

Why was it good enough for your family but not good enough for someone else’s family?

Why was immigration that changed the face of countries acceptable then and it is not acceptable now?

What do you not like about this immigration’s face?

Immigration - What are you scared of?

What is this?
Is this a hangover?
How did that happen in the country-of-the-most-fkcing-expensive-liquid-of-the-gods??
Oh yes, free beer.
Let’s see how strong & coherent my mind can stay through this…

I have started reading the book, “IMMIGRANTS – Your Country Needs Them”, by Philippe Legrain.

This book, I have decided, is going to attend all future job interviews with me and conveniently be left about the table. Perhaps I will nudge it around during key moments in the conversation. Cough cough.

“Where are you from?”
“Where am I from indeed!” nudge nudge

I am enjoying what old Phil Legrain has to say.

Except for the parts where he occasionally puts too much emphasis on the immigrants’ benefits being that they (we?) take over the menial tasks of a rich society that sees itself above doing its own menial tasks.

Oh. Wait. With my postgraduate degree & six years of decent higher-skilled work experience behind me, the job I now do in a foreign country is babysitting every week day for 2 hours in the afternoon.

And this job just beat the other two options of 1) working in a fabric shop, and 2) taking some local guy up on his offer to help him do refuse removal for $150/ day.

And I am legally allowed to work as many hours as I want here. Sorry for the folk who don’t even have the right permits.

I enjoy when he says that citizens are more than happy for immigrants to take over the crap tasks of their society – cleaning, nursing the young & the very old, security, gardening, waiting on you, busboying, dvd-and-clothes-hangers hustling at robots. But that citizens are not at all happy for this to be legalised “too much”.

Keep those borders as closed as possible! Say the Americans, the Australians, The Brits and even most definitely, The South Africans.

No, no, no. No LEGALLY flooding our land with these folk that we actually need for our society to function, by allowing the under-skilled to gain work permits to our land. Let those who really want to clean up after us work their fkcing arses off to prove that they really want to be here! Let them face possible death, arrest, lack of labour law protection, exploitation at every single turn, considerations of becoming involved in criminal activities because then at least they will have some income.

Only if you are skilled or married to some skilled person can you cross the border with a work permit. Only to faced with examples of local employers being brainwashed & enforcing “Protectionist” jargon.

“Buy from us, because we are Australian-Owned & we KEEP Australian Jobs IN Australia!”

“Too Proudly South African”
(How me & my ex HR lady fought about who my replacement would be. She wanted local. I wanted skilled. And how I really pulled out all battle stops, because I knew that I would be facing the same mentality across the ocean.)

So, the immigrant eventually hears too much nonsense about “regional experience” and jumps into the even more competitive lower-skilled job market. And this immigrant, who has enough initiative to up themselves to move around the world to seek new adventures, ventures & challenges, will end up fighting with the illegal immigrants for menial work.

“Cynics might think that our immigration controls are designed to have this effect. First we select the strongest, smartest and most determined immigrants by making it hard for even them to get in. Then we exploit them mercilessly, keeping them in their place with the threat of expulsion if they complain. Companies get cheap labour while politicians can claim to be tough on unwanted foreigners. But even those who don’t give a damn about what happens to migrants should worry about the corrosive impact on society of driving immigration underground.

…

“After all, we reason, the migrants who die were breaking the law, they knew the risks and they chose to come anyway; and in any case, we are not responsible for their deaths, the callous people-smugglers are. But poor people try to come to rich countries because there are jobs for them here. If there weren’t, they would soon stop coming. The people-smugglers exist only because we prevent poor people crossing borders legally to fill those jobs. And why do the people governments we elect enact and enforce immigration controls? Because we are afraid of being swamped by foreigners. You may think that these controls are justified, but you cannot deny that they result in people dying.

….

“If one is to justify these deaths in any rational way, one has to argue that somehow the benefits of border controls outweigh their costs, including the deaths they cause. But if our border controls are both cruel and ineffective, how can the possibly be justified”.

I have to ask, what is so scary about “foreigners”.
Why are you scared of some poorer foreigner moving in next-door to you!?? Or working in the next cubicle?

Especially foreigners who have shown enough gutzpah to test themselves by undergoing the stress of relocating. Hell, I reckon the next time the US Border patrol picks up some Central American who has been wandering the Arizona desert for 5 days without food & water, existing only on the leaves of some cacti, or the Aussie navy finds a “fishing boat” from West Timor crammed full of 50 asylum-seeker who have learnt to live past the stench of the other 49 folk, they should immediately make these people of true strength & determination into a US or Aussie citizen & place them in a top-level jobs and places of teaching!

Rather than allowing the Aussie-born-and-bred drugged-fueled couple that I had the amusement of sitting next to on a Sunday train, live off the dole and breed children that attempt to open train doors while the vehicle is in motion.

Do you really want that Aussie to own your company one day!?

Also:

The sincerest form of flattery: Robert Winder is impressed by Philippe Legrain's forthright and energetic case for the benefits of immigrants, Your Country Needs Them

Think Again: Brain Drain

Why I've Been Quiet

Phone calls are meant to mean good news, job-wise. It's the emails you dread.

So I got my hopes up when they called.

But it was not to be. Why he had phoned was to let me know just how much they really really liked me, and that it had been "neck-and-neck" and "person on such high calibre and I want to send you some job site addresses and names of people..."

But. Through all of your sweet words. You still don't want me.

Fkc. This is worse than the dating game!!

Luckily, on Wednesday, I had taken a trip westward out of chance & found out when I was in THIS setting...

...before spending Thursday with THESE views as a pretty good means of distraction....

That Anger

If you could harness the anger experienced in that moment when a person realises the extent of need in Southern Africa, and how simple it actually is to meet the need with just a bit of disposable income, skill and confidence, but how overwhelming the meeting of all the individual needs then becomes for that one person; if you could harness it, and spread it, it would fuel the saving of the region.

The overpowering nature of the realisation, however, often ends up rendering the person so lost, despondent and “burnt out” that they are unable to even help themselves.

Strength in Weakness

In that serendipitous moment, my lovely Welsh neighbour knocked on my door today & invited me around for “a cuppa”.

It was 3pm, and I was still bed-dishevelled and unshowered and having a bad sad moment.

Perhaps she had heard the wailing of Day 4 of Solitude through the walls. And realised that the only solution to quieten the racket was to fill me full of milky liquids… It worked.

There is nothing like a good chat. Especially with a new friend.

[But 1st, a point of clarity. I have realised that 10 Days of Solitude in one’s comfort zone is very VERY different to 10 Days of Solitude in a new unsettled land. I have loved (CRAVED!) solitude, days on my own, reclusion has become my new found pastime in the past 5 years. But here….where I know about 3 people well enough to approach them for coffee dates, and then, still very formally, just knowing there are only 3 formalising friendships… well, solitude & one’s own jumbled mind can be a dangerous combination.

But as I read somewhere, and need to digest, shyness when in a new place is a luxury. Or something.]

And there is nothing like talking to someone who is going through such a similar situation to you & you have an emotionally lightbulbing moment that Oh! I am not a weak freak! I’m not mentally one step from being THAT self-conversing weird one on the public transport that day!

But it’s because every other migrating person LOOKS like they are having the easiest time. None of them seem to speak up about the fear, the lows, the fkcking low lows, and endless doubts. The relationship stresses & self-esteem tolls. The stresses that sneak up in cutting words, in frustration at a boiling-over pot, or in tearful bursts of blubbering of “I’m fat, I’m ugly, and no one even wants me to do their admin, let alone be my friend”.

To trying be strong for The Guy who goes through his own doubts & then beats himself up, because, he was the instigator of the move, he fkced it all up AND FOR WHAT?????????????????

And while you have not one answer of how to stop your own self-destructive thoughts in those moments, you certainly don’t have an answer of how to stop the thoughts you can see going on in his head. Even though you KNOW he shouldn’t be thinking like that.

Everyone else in the world seems to make moving & upheaval look SO EASY.

“Oh! A new house! Well, let’s just move right in and get on with our lives! And take lovely photos and write back home about how brilliant it is. Oh look, a job, look at all this easily purchasable furniture, voila, done, in order, moving along! Suuuuure, ja, , there have been some “bad moments”, but…has it been 8 months already!? Oh Ha Ha! Time sure does fly… when you’re having such an excellent time!”

And me & My Guy gulp back our emotional medicine of cheap booze & touristy escapades, and kinda feel even more weight packed onto our shoulders. Add another voice to the thousand that are cruising around our heads (and have been since this move even came into being a possibility).

So to be chatting to some friendly stranger who tells you about their kak. Her lessons & realisations. Her partner’s reactions & “fight vs flight” moments. Without you even prompting. You start to feel a little lighter. Cause you are normal. The tight hold around your head is not unique to your “weak character” or “mentally tragic outlook on life”.

And no, it’s not ok. But it’s not tragic either.

It’s a move. A complete upheaval. Your self is being tested. But tested against what?? Against nothing you have to fear “failing”.

And you just plod through it one day at a time. And kinda feel stronger, because you know AND are happy to admit to any poor sucker that comes aknockin’ that it is fkcing ficking hard.

P.S. And I realised, that in “fight or flight” reactions to fearful situations, there are two more options. There is “The Ostrich”, where you bury your head. But mine is not quite like that. Me, I am the “Dog lies down and plays dead until the scary situation has gone away”.

Maybe today I just popped open an eye and saw it all still glaring over me.