Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known

• Well, I don’t have eye herpes!! However, Doctor has no idea what *is* wrong with my eye, which is less exciting news. On Saturday I noticed the vision in that eye had gone really blurry and today I’m noticing that my depth perception is not right as well. I went back to Doctor today and he said the new drops I am on should have fixed it if it was an allergy of some sort but could see that they hadn’t made much of a difference. He spent a long time looking in my eye with a little light thingy and everything inside and outside my eye looks normal so he has run out of ideas. I have a referral to go to Eye Doctor tomorrow. I was tempted to just not bother anymore and let it sort itself out, but now that my vision is being affected it’s probably best I follow through. I’m rather partial to having sight in both eyes, I’d probably regret not being bothered if I ended up blind.. **EDIT: There was a message on our home phone asking me to call Doctor ASAP, I only just got it so it’s too late to call him now. I wonder what he could want? The last time a Doctor called our house after an appointment was to tell D’Daddy to come back in ASAP…and that is because he had a brain tumor. I’m fairly certain my situation is less dramatic, but I wonder what it could be**

• At the little shopping center near my house an Indian vegetarian take away place has opened. This alone fills me with glee, it’s incredibly exciting to go to a place *knowing* I can eat anything on the menu without having to scan for the token salad or vege lasagna, if I’m super lucky, a veggie burger. It’s even more exciting when a place like this is about 5 minutes from my door. I went there today to get something for brunch (I am rubbish at eating breakfast) and it’s really cheap as well! For $5 I got a bowl of vege curry from a choice of four different types of curries, a bowl of rice and a pappadum, I also splurged and paid $3 for some vege oat balls. They were super yum, all kinds of crazy veges and herbs mixed with oats and deep fried served with a yogurt sauce. Hellz Yes! It was all really good, I am feeling rather pleased having had such an awesome meal for $8. Take that Subway!

• The other day I got myself some of Maggie Beer’s burnt fig, honeycomb and caramel ice cream as recommended by Best. She’s onto a winner, it’s gorgeous!! If you love figs, it’s particularly good, if you are not a fig person I guess you should probably skip it – figs seem to be one of those people you either like a lot or really don’t like. She has a bunch of other really delish sounding flavours though, so I’m sure you’ll find one that you like. I found it in the little deli type shops, it’s not something you’d get from Woolies. *nom nom nom*

• I’ve developed a bit of an addiction to Jon and Kate Plus Eight. If I had to have eight kids I want it to be those kids, they are so freaking adorable! Jon and Kate are also a really lovely couple. I can’t say I’d want to trade places, given the choice between hackswing off my own arm and wrangling eight children all day every day, it’s going to be the hacksaw every time, but I really admire the job that they do. I can’t even imagine getting used to the level of noise and chaos that would be a part of their every day life, it’s an excellent show to watch if you are feeling clucky. It should fix it you right!

• I’m trying to downscale all my crap, and in doing so have discovered how many hundreds of thousands of beads I have. I’ve been making some new pieces, just to try and get rid of all the findings and beads so they don’t just sit around while I am gone. I’ve decided to offer them as a bit of a flat rate thing, no fancy photos or flowery descriptions just some pretty jewelery at a couple of set price points. It’ll still be the same sort of jewllery I’ve always made, still glass beads and semi precious stones and all of that, I just do not have the time or inclination to do it properly, so you can take advantage of my laziness!!

I must be the luckiest person in the world. I am so incredibly fortunate it makes my mind boggle.

This morning D’Nanny gave me several thousand dollars so I would have some money for London. I was absolutely floored because it was far more than I was anticipating (I thought she’d give me a bit of money, but nothing close to this). She insists that it’s not much money and that’s it’s not really a big deal, but it’s truly incredible. It changes everything.

I can afford to pay for my flight, my visa application and have enough money in my bank account so that the UK government should feel fairly comfortable in approving me for a visa.

I am still going to be firm on my shopping embargo and still do everything possible to earn as much cash as possible before I leave, but this just removes the option that it actually might not all come together. It’s still a bit crazy, I don’t recall every having this much money ever.

I am so lucky. I’m going to London AND I can afford to live there now. Oh my God!

You know not to spend a fun Thursday morning? Having your eye swabbed, it’s not so much fun. Blowing bubbles would be fun. Eating fairy floss would be fun. Playing on swings would be fun, but having your eye poked? No so much…

I went to the doctor near my house (Uni Doctor is on holiday and I couldn’t wait any longer) about my eye this morning. Long story short, he doesn’t know what it might be, a couple of possibilities were tossed around including EYE HERPES. The fuck?! This must be my punishment for taking humor from the concept of eye chlamydia, I’ll be the first to admit that I am hardly a shining beacon of maturity but certainly an eye STD is a bit harsh a punishment?!

The doctor took some swabs from my eye and I should have an idea by tomorrow what is actually wrong, if it’s not better by Monday I will need to go to a specialist. Eye swabs are just great, you take a dry cotton stick and poke it around in the eye that already hurts trying to get some stuff on the stick. I, obviously, had trouble keeping my eye open when it was being poked but it only seemed to make Doctor more determined to poke harder. I don’t know if you can milk a cornea, but I suspect he was attempting it. I think I prefer my corneas un-milked.

It shouldn’t be conjunctivitis because the drops I’ve had should have fixed it, it shouldn’t be herpes BECAUSE I DO NOT HAVE THE HERPES VIRUS and it shouldn’t be allergies because I haven’t gotten anything in it, and it’s only one eye and generally both eyes are allergic to something. It’s a bit bizarre, even Doctor said it’d would be very unusual if it was one of those things, because of those reasons. Particularly the herpes, generally you need to get cold sores and stuff to get eye herpes, but I’ve never had a cold sore in my life. Eye herpes causes these ulcer type things on your eye ball, so that would be another good reason why I’d prefer not to have it. Yesterday my eye just ached, it felt like someone was trying to scoop it out with a spoon, and the light was starting to hurt it which is also not a promising sign.

I have eye drops for the moment, then depending on my test results I have two other medicines to get and if none of those work I assume Monday will be spent going back to the drawing board. It’s a little bit ironic that the people I lived with in the bush, the guy had a false eye because he had an infection in his real eye that would never clear up and they ended up having to take it out. His false eye is amazing, it looks so real and moves around and everything, I was incredibly impressed by it. Is it bad that I’m more alright with the idea of having an eye removed than I am with my wisdom teeth being removed??

I miss mascara ;( Go away fez eye disease, I want to wear make up again!!

…and I’m not afraid to use it. (I make buttons that say that. I don’t remember where I first heard it, but if there was such thing as someone’s personal tag line, that would be mine.)

I’ve decided to stick to my original plan of leaving in September. I can’t change my mind. If I’m not ready, then I am not ready, if I am then it’s pretty stupid to be waiting around. It’s not as if I’m going to wake up one morning and my bags will be magically packed and an outfit laid out of me and that is when I’ll know it’s the right time for me. If I look for reasons not to do it, I’ll find them, so I’m not looking.

I’ve also decided to start a “Shitty Savers” account with myself. I whine about how I can’t save enough money but this time last week I blew through about $100, give or take, on stuff that was entirely non-essential. I set out to buy a pair of Cons (on sale for $40) and came home with them, two singlet tops, a long knitted tunic, two other types of singlets, a headband, a knitted hat and some other stuff that I can’t even recall because it was so useless. Today at the shops I saw a sale sign and thoguht about popping in, just in case there was something good to buy. I must have at least 200kg of clothing, in just over two months I need to turn 200kg into 20kg. The absolute last thing in the entire world is to introduce a single item of clothing into my already bursting-full wardrobe. To satisfy my burning urge to spend some cash, I went to Travelex and bought ten pounds. It cost me so fucking much ($22ish, plus $3 commision) but now I have something to show for it. Something that is actually worthwhile and not something I need to squash into a suitcase or dice in a couple of months. So now, every time I think about buying something I don’t need I’m going to hold on to that amount of cash and then every week or so I’m going to go turn it into pounds. I can’t spend pounds here, so there is no risk of me wasting that money, and seeing my little pile of pounds grow will make it easier to stop wasting money.

In other news, I decided to get a new job today…by force, if necessary. I sussed out some child care centers in my area and convinced myself that they were going to employ me. The very first place I went to, I opened the door to see a lady who I worked with on a previous prac. What do you know? She’s the director of a brand new place right near my house. Guess what else? Almost everyone else I know from the prac works there with her. She offered me a full time job, right off the bat and I told her that unfortunately I can’t take it because I am moving overseas. She told me that it was fine and that she can probably guarantee me two days a week in a job share position. Not wanting to count my chickens before they’ve hatched I called into three more places. All but one of them almost keeled over at the thought of a degree holder wanting to do relief work and tried to give me group leader jobs, and when I declined said they would definitely be able to use me.

This all sounds incredibly promising, but I’ve been burned by this same situation before (you might remember the nervous breakdown of 06 when I left insurance wenching to do this same sort of thing and it all failed miserably and I basically self destructed). This time I am not using an agency, I’m stupidly overqualified for the job (which makes me very employable), I’m available full time and I’ve gone in and seen directors and they know my face. I can also cast my net slightly wider, as necessary to drum up some more work. I don’t know whether to quit the new job or not. If I don’t quit, I will almost certainly get all this relief work and have to leave them hanging when I quit next week during vacation care. If I do quit, I am almost certain that I’ll have counted my eggs too early and be left with nothing. I have plan B sorted though, so I think I will call them and quit. It’s not ideal, and possibly the worlds shortest employment history, but it’s probably best for everyone in terms of the least stuffing around. Two other people started with me on Monday so it’s not like I’m completely screwing them over.

I feel so lame not having done this a week ago, thusly removing any potential stuffing around of others, but I guess it’s a live and learn kind of thing. I’m just going to go ahead and work under my blind faith approach and just believe that I’m going to be earning decent money doing relief work, working with nice people and doing stuff that I am trained to do in a stimulating environment. Even one day a week in child care will pay more than a week of after school care, so it’s not like it’s a particularly large leap of faith when you really think about it. I’m sure it will be fine…

…right…right!?

I got a new phone last week. It’s tough as. Aside from making coffee and dancing for me when I’m bored, it also uploads photos from it’s killer five megapixel camera straight to my Flickr. They aren’t good pics (content wise, the quality is pretty dandy) but I just want to show off how clever I am taking pictures on my phone and making them appear on line.

That is all, you may go about your business now.

P.S It looks like it may rain this arvo which means there will be 80 mini beasts children jammed inside because they might not be able to go out and play. It will be less painful to throw myself down the stairs and hope break a bone than deal with this. Oh! I forgot to tell you the best bit about yesterday afternoon. After “supervising” the kids playing in the sand, one of the volunteer staff members came to check on me. The volunteers are Year 10s from the High School who come help because they are too young to get paid to work. I can’t describe how awesome it feels as a 24 year old qualified teacher to be checked on by a 15 year old high schooler, to make sure you are supervising kids properly. Superiority complex….me?! What makes you say that??

It’s time like these that I am eternally grateful for blogging, it’s very cathartic to let it all out and now that I am able to actually open up and let stuff out, thanks to my brain candy, it means I can dump out all the shitty feelings and move onwards and upwards.

So, I’m not really sure how much I have mentioned on here, but Wifey has met someone. Not the someone I blogged about ages ago, but a new person. They’ve been together a month or so, have done the “I love you” and are generally doing the insanely blissful, happy families thing. Obviously I am happy that Wifey is happy, but I have also spent a fair amount of time being entirely bitter and twisted about it all too.

Wifey meeting someone has meant that I am less important now. All the “I can’t wait until you get to London” “I’m so excited, we are going to have so many adventures” emails have stopped and been replaced by the occasional “OMG, you’re coming soon, so, did I tell you what Girlfriend and I did the other day?! It was so awesome”. I’ll be the first to admit that it’s stupid and selfish to be upset by this, but I really, really liked being important to someone.

Wifey was about my last single friend. Everyone else has a partner, someone who is their most important person. The first person to hear their very most exciting news or ask for help or complain to because they know the other person will just listen and let them vent and generally be their first choice for things and until not that long ago, Wifey was my person and I was one of hers. Now I feel like I am back to being no one again, I am no one’s first choice.

I don’t need to be needed. I am not one of those people that needs other people relying and depending on them, I have no desire to be the axis from which another person’s world spins. I do, however, want to be wanted. I want someone to want me to be their first choice. I want someone to save their special news for me first, I want to be someone else’s special person.

I am finally at a place where I can objectively say that it’s not Wifey’s fault for the way I am feeling. She really hasn’t done anything wrong or mean, she just had the dubious honor of being the last single person to bite the dust and consequently, the person who left me standing. Though, it doesn’t make things any easier that it was Wifey being that person. So not only am I now the last man standing but having the person you’ve spent the better part of a year madly in love with going and meeting someone else they are crazy about doesn’t do much to lessen the blow.

Wifey emailed me this morning and mentioned that Girlfriend is applying for jobs in Spain and she thinks it would be awesome to move there with her. The preceding sentence was about how she can’t believe it’s only a couple of months until I arrive, and how exciting that it. So excited, it seems, that she wants to move countries before I arrive. Again, it’s not Wifey’s fault. She is allowed to do whatever she likes and live wherever she wants, but by doing so I don’t really have any place to stay when I arrive, or any friends to hang out with.

I am resisting the urge to cancel my flight and try again at a later date. There seems to be so many reasons why leaving in September is a shitty idea. I don’t have long to make money before I leave, I am flying on September fucking 11, it’s the month that D’Brother, D’Daddy and D’Nanny have birthdays and now I might not have anyone in London. I am leaving Brisbane because there is no one keeping me here, but now there is no one I need to be in London for. Best wants me there with her, which is why I have always been going, but now that Wife doesn’t need me it seems less pressing that I need to get there so soon.

Thoughts and feelings?

Should I go when I was planning to, because there will always be a reason that it isn’t an ideal time to go or do I hold off for a month or even until early next year when Bestie will be there and stop trying to make the impossible happen with in the next couple of months?

So I was warming up to write about what an ordinary time I had at work. But that can wait. It’s a job, I did my job and came home and applied for other jobs. I am exceptionally detached to it, but I’m there for a good time (or just the money, actually) not a long time, so whatevs! I am the oldest by far, painfully overqualified and generally a bit of a square peg in a round hole…the latter is the story of my life, really.

But the real reason for this post is because I am now an award winner writer. Sweet Winona held a lovely competition on her blog recently where you could write a fashion haiku and win a Prada wallet. I was not going to enter (…because I am lazy) but I got her bulletin on MySpaz and she mentioned peeing on carpet in that message, and who am I to refuse the request of someone who shares such intimate details of their life?! So I entered.

I did not win a Prada wallet, which is almost just as well because I carry so much crap in my purse that it would be almost criminal to try and stuff it into a designer wallet, but I am a runner up*. So in the space of about a month I have become a published author and now an “award winning poet”.

It’s pretty sweet to be me, I must say…even with the shitty job. Anyone want to pay me to write haikus for a living!?

* I’m not linking my haiku here, I insist you go read Daddy Likey because it’s hilarious and I will be doing you a favor. Off you go!

Is it possible to dislike a job before you’ve even started it?

I am not looking forward to work this afternoon. It sounds so bad, but I am slightly resentful of the fact I am a graduate and working in a minimum wage type job. This is not helped by the fact the girl who is also starting this afternoon with me is 16 and will presumably be earning the same amount as me. I keep convincing myself that it pays money and I need money, so it’s just what I have to do. I don’t have to like doing it. Knowing there will be a large amount of children, the majority of which are going to be very badly behaved, does not make it any more inviting.

Another thing I am resentful of? I can’t wear jeans, I have to wear suit-y pants. Suit pants and a polo shirt – not jumpers because they would cover the logo, so we have to wear long sleeves *under* the polo. Slightly pointless/impractical, non? So, business pants, which is fine, but one of the staff members has so many piercings on her face she positively sparkles, so I would argue that a bit of denim isn’t going to be the thing that compromises the professional image of the service…but what would I know?

I was thinking today about all the jobs I’ve had. Starting in early high school, I’ve worked as;

• Promo BBQ girl
• Popcorn girl/ Assistant Manager
• After School Care Assistant
• Cinema Usher
• Insurance Phone Jockey
• Child Care Assistant
• Tutor
• D’Nanny’s House Keeper
• Office Admin
• After School Care Assistant

That seems like a terrible amount of jobs for someone who is not yet 25, no? If you want to count the “jobs” I’ve had that haven’t exactly been forthcoming with the phat cash, you could also add Business Owner, Teacher and Writer to that list as well.

The very best of all those jobs has to be the popcorn one. It was a shit job, in terms of the everyday duties required of us, but the people I worked with made it so much fun. We were all young, starving, students who were living away from home for the first time. Every day was just a ball of fun, plus we could eat as much popcorn as we liked. I don’t like popcorn much, but free stuff is always good…particularly when you own a cat that loved eating popcorn. Free cat food!

The worst job would have to be a tie. Logistically, the worst would be the cinema job. We had to wear this hideous, double breasted short sleeve blouse, with tights and a skirt. It was a perfectly reasonable uniform to stand and rip tickets in, but less fun when you are sprinting up and down the stairs of a giant cinema and crawling under seats to clean it before the next session. The admin one would be the worst in terms of working environment, the actual job wasn’t bad and I could wear whatever I liked, but showing up to work was painful most days.

I am curious, what is your best and worst jobs? I love hearing about the jobs people have done, I think it is very interesting to hear about some of the experiences that have been woven as part of everyones individual tapestry. Regale me with your tales of working woe!

I’ve had a gummy eye for well over a month now. I was happy implement the standard Jen response to anything I don’t want to deal with – to ignore it and pretend it will go away but I just googled it and I’m pretty happy to front up to the Doctor sometime this week. I did go to the Doctor while I was in the bush (that’s when it first started) and get some eye drops but they seem to be making no difference and only give me a bad taste when they start running down the back of my throat and make my eyeballs sting.

So, why am I going now? Did you know that pink eye can be a symptom of CHLAMYDIA?! Dear God! How do you even get chlamydia in your eye?! Rubbing your eye on a public toilet?* (…I haven’t done that for years…**) I don’t even have to pay to see the uni Doctor and I actually like her as a person but I just dislike going to Doctors in general. I have very, very little faith in them due to the lady plumbing issues and I’m also notoriously lazy and appointments like this require effort. Effort, it seems, I am only willing to put in when there is a possibility of something as horrific as an STD in a place no STD should ever be.

I am certain I do not have chlamydia…at least the places you’d normally find it. There has been a distinct lack of any sexing for years and I have since had all kinds of prodding and testing which was useless in providing any insight into the issues it was intended for, but it did prove that I am as clean as a whistle when it comes to any sort of icky diseases. So this is really quite the predicament, I will be very curious to find out exactly what is causing my eyes to be all crusty and oozing in the mornings. Who wouldn’t want to wake up next to that?!

In closing, if you have had a shitty day you can take comfort in the fact that your eyes are STD free… and that is always a good thing.

* I found out that you can get it from flies. ZOMG, there was so many flies in the bush, I totally have fly transmitted eye chlamydia!!

** And by years I mean never, ever. Just to clarify that…

Boys and girls, change are afoot around these parts.

Since being linked by Peach for the You’re Not The Only One book contributors, my stats have sky rocketed. I have noticed that these stats drop when I write about shit like my hair and come back when I write about something that is not shit… like… other stuff. I have always said I don’t write for an audience and I still have no real desire to make this a blog purely for the entertainment of others (Come on! I am far to shallow for that!), but I think for the good of everyone I will cut down on the filler and attempt to make my posts slightly more worthwhile for everyone involved.

This decision isn’t entirely related to my stats though. A little while ago I applied to me a writer for an online magazine. It’s not a paid gig, but they don’t just take everyone so it is a little bit special. I also get assignments and stuff… from the editor. I’m quite the journo these days. I’ll be sure and let you know when I have something up there. I figure that it can’t hurt to practice writing “nicely” rather than my usual rubbish, so I get back into the swing of writing for a purpose/ audience.

P.S ZOMG, tickets for The Polyphonic Spree go on sale next week. I am going to this gig, totally nonnegotiable.