Work Sucks, I Know...

So about a month ago, I thought, naively it appears, that the Universe had decided to go easy on me, I was wrong. Big time wrong.
I got offered a job, it's not particularly exciting, nor is it something I want to do with my life, but it was a job, I would finally be earning money again, instead of feeling like a useless banana.
I still haven't started working there. It's not my fault. I filled in a CRB form (Criminal Records Bureau) a week after they offered me the job, these take a while to process, and HR wants me to have one before I start work. Boy, are they taking their sweet time.
Sunday marks the first of August, a whole new month and still no start date.
I go back to uni in September, I want to be focusing on that, but this whole work debacle is driving me nuts. I'm still sitting on my backside doing nowt, while I wait for other people to get on with their jobs. I am not the most patient of people, and I'm getting grief from the miserable job centre drones (apparently the nice ones are all away, and yes, there are nice ones) about it all. It is not my fault. Do they care? No. As far as they're concerned I should be working some kind of magic or something to fix this. Well, I can't.
Now I'm stuck, I turned down interviews because I thought this was all going to happen. I'm not being offered any other positions to apply for because as far as the job centre is concerned I have found work, I'm still signing on (which I can't stand), I'm wasting my brain, and slowly losing the will to even bother with this job, if they're this disorganised now, what's going to happen once I actually, finally, start working there, I haven't told them about my Masters, because I was hoping to have started before then, and it not be much of an issue, but at this rate it'll be September and I still won't be working, and it will be an issue. Argh!!!!

Defining Ourselves (1)

What's wrong with being a feminist?

 For a lot of my generation this seems to have become a dirty word. I was raised by a mother who believes in equality, in there being no difference between men and women's abilities to do a job. Yes we are physically different, and yes we possess different brains (women's develop faster and tend to be larger apparently) but calling myself a feminist doesn't mean I hate men and want to trample all over them. Far from it.
 I like men. A large percentage of my friends are male, I enjoy being in their company, I like spending time with them. I've heard plenty of blonde jokes, plenty of sexist jokes, I've probably laughed at a few.
For me, being a feminist means standing up for the rights of women everywhere. I am very lucky, I was born in the West, in a household where women outnumber men (my poor dad) and was raised with the values I hold today. Others are not so lucky, in many countries women are oppressed, denied equality, and treated as though they have no worth. I believe in supporting them, in trying to help them educate themselves, to help them climb out of poverty and desperation, to better their lives and those of their children.
Feminism began because women wanted to better themselves, they wanted to be able to vote, to work, to support themselves, not just wait for men to look after them, to go from being someone's daughter to someone's wife and mother. To be able to define themselves.
I honestly believe in equality of the sexes, not just for those of us in the West where women and men are afforded the same rights. It upsets me that some women my age believe that calling themselves a feminist means they hate men, and want them oppressed. It's sad that they are that ignorant, feminism is a huge movement, yes some of the women involved may be more hardcore and dislike men, but not all of them. My mother is one, she grew up during the 60s and 70s, she was part of that movement. She's worked as a nurse her whole adult life, been a wife and mother as well. None of that means she doesn't believe in equality. My dad says that all he wishes for my sister and I, is that we are happy and healthy and pursue our dreams and ambitions. Feminism and the women's movement means we have the freedom to do so. Shouldn't all women and men) be afforded the same freedom?

Comedian Bill Bailey
T-shirt from The Fawcett Society
Found here

I'll get off my soapbox now. Any thoughts?

Saturday's child

The original:

Monday's child is full of grace,
Tuesday's child is fair of face,
Wednesday's child is full of woe,
Thursday's child has far to go,
Friday's child is loving and giving,
Saturday's child works hard for a living,
While the child that's born on the Sabbath Day is bonny and blithe, good and gay.

Alternate version:

Monday's child is not too bad,
Tuesday's child will drive you mad,
Wednesday's child could be a star,
Thursday's child will go too far,
Friday's child will not stay true,
Saturday's child just hasn't a clue,
While the child that's born on the Sabbath Day won't give a damn what people say!

I found the alternate version in an old newspaper clipping, and the original is an old English folk rhyme. I'm not sure what I prefer, working hard for a living or not having a clue! What day are you?

A meditation on being in my early 20s

Life is about more than just making money, it's about creating works of art, even if you're the only one who sees it as art. It's about the rush of new discoveries, the glory of falling in love with places, people, words, moments, of falling and then finding your feet again. Of growing up, breaking the rules, shaping yourself into whoever it is you want to be.
Yes, money is nice, and having it makes life easier, but it's not the most important thing out there. I want to explore more, explore my city, myself, my world, and money would make it easier to do so, I just don't want to get to the end of my life and think "I wish I'd done more, lived more". I want to write, and laugh more, and feel able to be whoever it is I'm becoming. To grow and not feel that all there is to life is working a well-paid job that I don't enjoy just for the sake of it.
A friend of mine is currently travelling the world, which is awesome, and one day I hope to do the same. To find myself in a new place, with a new perspective.
Other friends have had babies, and while they might be fine with that, it makes me feel sad, we're so young, there's so much to do, to see, and they're lives are altered forever, while I'm off trying all these things, they're effectively tied down for the next 18 years or so. I know it's a choice, and it's theirs, but I'd never be able to do that, not now, there's too much going on.
This all ties in with the quote I posted the other day I suppose, that life is all we have, and we should make the most of it, regardless of how painful it can be, because to not do is to regret, and I'm tired of regret. It's time for making memories, for laughing so hard it's painful, for falling head over heels (literally and figuratively) and for just being in the moment.

Life is not about finding yourself. It is about creating yourself.

                                ~ George Bernard Shaw ~

Philosophical Musing on Love and Soulmates

Plato believed in soulmates. He said that originally we had four arms, four legs, two heads. Zeus grew jealous and split the humans into two halves. We spend all our lives searching for our other half. As odd as that might sound, it's also rather lovely. Searching for the part of ourselves that is absent. I don't know if I believe in soulmates, but I do like the idea of there being that one person who you're meant to be with, and that once you've found them it all clicks into place. Sometimes I think that maybe it's not necessarily a lover, it might just be a friend who you connect completely with, someone who's personality gels with yours and who feels the same way. I think you can love people even if you never sleep with them (or just platonically). But the idea of that one person seems to be something I think about more and more as I get older, and watch friends get hitched. I don't want to get married or anything, but I think it would be nice to find that other half, that person who fits just right.

A little change will do you good!

I've changed the background/layout a bit, and I'd like your feedback. I'm not sure whether I'll leave it like this or maybe change it again, but any advice, suggestions, or comments are welcome. Thanks!

You are here to risk your heart

Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won't either, for solitude will break you with it's yearnings. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on Earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit beneath an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself that you tasted as many as you could.

                                           ~Louise Erdrich. The Painted Drum~