Today is my last day at the temping job. It feels weird; this office, in all of its craziness, has been involving, and I've found a few people I like. At the same time, it's becoming unbearable, and just the right time for me to leave. The new office is nice, relaxed, hard-working, if somewhat boring. It's not perfect, but it's more along the lines of what I was looking for - making a small difference in how this university is run, without having to feel too stressed out, and being able to come home at 5 (well, 10 past 5, my home is a whole ten minutes away from work!) and relax.
Of course it hasn't been working out exactly as I had planned it. I've been feeling unhappy, for no apparent reason. Then I realised that my whole life used to revolve around academic work, and constantly feeling stressed out, and now I'm in a lull.
I think I need a hobby. Any ideas?
In the meantime, I'm going to Paris for a long weekend. Good food, hairdressers, and new clothes await me...!
New job, new offfice, new walk to work in the morning, new people, new tasks. So far so good. I still have a couple of days in the old place (nothing to do, incredible tensions due to the screaming match last week), and cannot wait to be out.
I am now officially employed by the University of Oxford, complete with a 'University Staff' card. Which now serves me to buy drinks in the Wolfson Bar and buy food in the cafeteria next door to work. Woohoo.
My life is so exciting right?
One of these days I will have time to write a proper entry. I feel like I constantly need to catch my breath - working has been so overwhelming, and I can't help but feel things would not be this way if I hadn't had to rebuild myself after being destroyed by my MPhil. Who knows.
I need time to think, and time to see my friends, and enjoy my life outside of work, but I feel like I'm failing at all three. I think it's time for a radical rethink of what I need out of my life (and why I'm doing the things I'm doing)...
See, I'm a worrier. I've realised that in the last two-three years (since my mum's illness, since being in Oxford) I've developed serious anxiety. I get stressed out about silly things (catching trains, making minutes I type up for work make sense), and about serious things (theses, getting a job). The most serious of which, I'm sure you've realised, is my friends, and how they're all having a crap time.
I spent the whole of today worried sick for one of my friends, and I'm just hoping she's OK. I trust her, and I know she probably is, or at least taking the time to feel better, but I worry, and I miss her, and I wish I could do something. I also feel somewhat like a failure as a friend, even though I know friends cannot control these things.
I just hope you're OK, beastly tank. I love you.
(and I'm so grateful for friends and evenings of cheese, wine, pork products, films, and where have all the hot men gone?)
What is the point of having a lucky streak, when I can't make things easier for those around me? I would do anything, anything, to be able to help more, make their lives if not happier, at least easier. If there is one thing Oxford has taught me is that my happiness ultimately lies in being with those I love - and I have a few here - but it makes me wonder, why is it that I can't do more for them?
It's been a tough few days (and missing M, who's off skiing, is making me think too much, and worry too much), somehow, despite some happy happenings. I want nothing more than to make them reach their goals, no matter how big or small; M, my lovely Russian, RJ, the big Canadian, the other half of the river pikeys, Warwah, and Carmencita, they're all having such a hard time, and it is so undeserved. Is there really nothing I can do to make their lives easier?
This sounds so much like teenage angst, somehow, but it's just the result of many realisations of what I want my life to be right now. Is it too much to ask for my friends to hit their lucky streak too?
