I'm starting work tomorrow. Yes, I only had my interview yesterday, I know, but as I said: everything always falls into place in the end, and it seems to have worked out really well for me! I will be working within the university, getting paid a really decent wages, and it's until December at least! Did I mention it's less than a 10 minute walk to my flat?
Now I just need to kick ass at it and enjoy it. And finally earn some money. :)
So many people I know are going through tough times at the moment - so many close friends - and sometimes I really do wish life was easier, for everyone. I guess we all go through our crises, but it's so sad to see what we have to battle with all the time, whether it's ourselves, our families, our circumstances. And yet, we're the lucky ones! We're young, well educated, we have good prospects... Still, to get 'there', to where we want to be, it takes so much effort. I can only hope that, as my father told me a couple of months ago, everything falls into place, eventually.
Speaking of which, things are slowly falling into place for me, I think (I hope). In a couple of hours I have an interview with a temp agency, and we'll see where that takes me. I'm excited, and nervous. Nervous that I'm not one of those people who 'interview well', excited that I might be finally doing something soon and, yes, earning some money.
Maybe we are the lucky ones. But we need to see it, and we need to be aware of it, and also, we need to be able to take advantage of it. It's not easy. I guess life never is, and that's the harder thing to admit to myself: maybe it will never get easier, and I need to face that.
To be perfectly honest, I feel like rubbish. The last two years have taken their toll, and I was never the strongest person anyway. This transition is turning out to be so much harder than what I expected, not because of any actual failure, but because of my own failures in making it. It makes me wonder if this will ever become easier, if I'll ever feel better, if I'll ever feel like I can do it.
I'm tired of feeling this way, tired of sitting here doing nothing, tired of making excuses for myself. But how do you get out of a rut? Especially when that rut is entirely created by your mind? It's like going through having to write my thesis all over again, and I don't want this to also become the painful process that I went through last year.
I'm tired.
My appalling record at keeping my blog updated keeps sucking. Internet was installed in our flat yesterday, so I'm almost back to normal - even though I am missing a desk, both because we haven't been able to buy a desk yet and because the only phone plug which works is located nowhere near the space allocated for the desk. So I'm writing sitting on my sofa with my laptop on a stool...
The new flat is absolutely gorgeous. We still need to do quite a few things (the aforementioned desk, also we need some kind of shelving for my plants, a bathroom cabinet, a new towel rail, a bin for recycling, and of course, our bed hasn't arrived so we're sleeping on a mattress on the floor), but it's perfectly liveable and it feels gigantic compared to our previous place. Also, the fact that we own every single object in this flat, from the books on the shelves to the shelves to the lighting to the wardrobes, gives me an amazing feeling. This is what I had been looking forward to for the past couple of months - a flat entirely ours, with our things, our lives! Nevermind that moving out and then moving in was a complete nightmare... Thankfully we had people to help us along the way, which was lucky, because we do own a lot of things. About half of the boxes that went into storage I'd just labelled with 'stuff' (the labelling was done right at the end, when I couldn't cope with packing anymore and I was absolutely hysterical), and opening one box full of 'stuff' after the other I wondered: how can two people just own so much STUFF?!? As it turns out, I could have labelled the boxes better and most things contained in them were actually useful. :)
India already feels like weeks ago. I've settled into a rhythm of laziness which I need to be dragged out of - I will be applying for a part-time job within my old department soon, but in the meantime I really do need to start temping because I really do need the money. It's all very big and scary, but I'll manage in the end. I always do, right?
In a couple of weeks I will also be graduating - finally! Which doesn't mean I'm done with this university - I joined into all the celebrations of freshers' week last week, and rightly so since I am now a member of Wolfson's common room... It's weird, this meeting of new people yet again (my third time!), and interesting, even though I've become far too cynical. It also feels like my 'home' (Wolfson) has been invaded by hordes of newbies, and it's not an entirely pleasant sensation.
I could tell you about many other things, like my trip to A&E on Saturday night (everything is fine; I just decided it would be a good idea to close two car doors on my thumb...), or my shopping trip to an American army base... But I'll leave it for next time. I need to eat a burrito now.
What an appalling effort at keeping my blog updated during this trip... Yes, I've been awful. Because I spent all of my time here with family, I had really almost no chance of getting away and finding an internet cafe'. I must have been online maybe four times in the last three weeks.
This has been a truly weird trip for me. I don't know how to explain; family tensions coming to the surface, the fact that fundamentally, this was the wrong time for me to be here, and the fact that I seem to have missed out on a gazillion things in Oxford including my lovely Russian's birthday and god knows what else... On my last afternoon and evening in Delhi I don't feel too happy, really. Tomorrow morning I shall be boarding the flight back to London and then a bus to Oxford, and I don't know how I feel about the last three weeks. I feel really confused.
I better sort all of this out in my head before I get back and need to move and make a home and find a job...
In happier news, I did have some great times. My aunt's final party was great, and I visited some absolutely beautiful places. So at least I've been happy for bits of this trip.
And now back to reality. Including a seriously overpacked suitcase (despite having already sent 11 kgs of stuff through the post!!!). :)
