I'm having a count-my-blessings sort of day, I think. Last night I spoke with a lover I'd been angrily, stubbornly hoping I could improve things with, and told them that I thought I was starting to give up on them. They said they weren't surprised. Somewhat sad, but didn't feel they had the resources to do anything about it and it was somewhat predictable.
I felt restless for a while, but waking up today, I find myself at a turning of chapters. Bittersweet and refreshing. I don't like letting go of the past, but the idea that I really don't know what the future will be and have a fair amount of choice in the matter is... A good thing to come back to like this.
I am being still, so far today. I have spent some time appreciating that my bed is very comfortable and my blankets, when I use all of them, comfortably weighty to snuggle up under. I like this cozy little room in this cozy little house, with queer roommates who, even if I am in conflict with them, do to an appreciable amount of effort not to unduly take it out on me. They aren't perfect of course, but have done a magnificent job of being reasonable roommates who although they're somewhat messy don't make my life needlessly difficult.
I'm grateful for my friends, and the food banks and free meal systems in my city. I know this feeling isn't going to last, I'll come back around to thinking the world sees me as scum and only ever takes care of me out of a sense of reluctant obligation, but right now it seems like quite a few people really are putting some effort into making sure that poor folks like me have good food to eat, even if they don't see how they could ensure anything else for us.
Showing posts with label Story. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Story. Show all posts
Sunday, January 29, 2023
Counting My Blessings
Thursday, July 9, 2020
Such is Life, Such is Life...
a story originally written in autumn of 2019
I told her that I was weaker today, tired today.
I told her that I was not up to the same standard of vigilance.
I won't say I was expecting it when she jumped me; I wasn't, really. It just didn't come as so much of a surprise that I failed to react in time.
And so there I was holding her knife hand in a vice grip, her back against the wall.
"Really? Aren't you tired of these games yet?"
She squirmed and fought, but she fought half-heartedly. The chains I had built around her did not permit free movement and hurt to struggle too hard against. She was forced either to be caught in an obvious lie, or to concede the truth although it weakened her strength.
She confessed that I had not provoked her attack. It was her responsibility, it was her fault. She was the instigator. But she was angry at me. Perhaps nearly as angry as she was at herself.
Had I raped her? A demon bound to service does not serve willingly, so had I raped her? Maybe. As much as it may also be claimed that she seduced me... or that what bound us were more like wedding vows. Or that to take any single option thoroughly out of another man's capability is to imprison him.
Our world is not one in which such all or nothing ideals can yield useful judgements. To a high enough eye, all love has conditions no matter how well-intentioned, all conditions are coercion... And so if sex under coercion is rape, surely I had raped her, as all us hairless apes guilty of loving one another have been traumatized rape victims who go on to perpetrate, since the moment our species's behaviour first met whatever conditions the observer chooses to sufficiently qualify what we do as love.
Perhaps, to some eyes, we are not even there yet.
I was angry. I was frustrated. But more simply, I was tired. I had broken down and cried twice the previous day. I had thrown up sour juices from my belly and spat them out. I was tired of holding her so tightly, watching her so closely that she couldn't attack me.
But I was not so tired that she would beat me. Even tired, I was too fast for her. I could see in ways that the wounded creature was blind, too paralysed by fear to reach far enough out to touch that thing which cannot be seen with light nor sound nor nerves, but that required something else to sense. Something subtler, something that required some of the absence of fear.
Her attack was clumsy to me. I was tired, and did not enjoy the task of restraining her. But what must be done must be done. I grumbled. I will admit I kicked her ego while she was down. I was in a bad mood. She threw at me an argument, a package of words, which unfolded into an entrapping net of meaninglessness.
Still feeble before me. I had seen this kind of net before. I did not even sidestep. I walked through it, and I held her chin. I spoke into her face, up very close, and I explained. Her net was like a mist to me. I had had my turn being entangled in such nets before. I had learned long ago how to wriggle out of it, how to avoid being caught in the first place.
She spoke with quiet words that I had freed myself perhaps, but had not saved her. Behind the front of her words, she was crying and shrieking to be freed from her own net, but she could not have seen that she was, with her sense blinded by fear. The key was in her possession, but she had forgotten how to find it and did not know how to use it. I showed it to her, guided her hand to the right pocket, and opened it with the key inside. She looked at the thing blankly.
I told her she could use it, that she could figure it out.
"No. I refuse."
"I see what you are doing. You are trying to scare me away so I'll let you die. I also refuse."
She cried then, and she cursed me, helpless before my power over her, pitiable in her helplessness. Such is the nature of things bound. One cannot help but resent one's captor. I know I cannot in fairness expect her but to lay on my shoulders every scrap of suffering she lives while I bind her to life and force her to endure.
And so, had I raped her? Had it perhaps been time, and long since time to not bind but trust her? But sex was one thing, and one thing I could do without.
If she died, if I undid the chains and lifted the geas that guaranteed her from taking that knife to herself and then she did, it would stay with me forever until the memory was destroyed along with the rest of me.
Was I in my guardianship truly worthy of any other thanks but her contempt for keeping her here, in a beating heart and the raggedness of her sobbing breaths?
I do not have the comfort of conviction that I am doing the right thing. I am not actually certain. But for now, I continue to hold her here. It is the best I dare to do. In my own fear, my senses are clouded, although less so than hers. I cannot see a way to heal her without holding her to life, no matter how unwilling. If I could put her into a sleep until I have the answers, perhaps I would...
But in truth, I am glad to be spared the decision to choose between my own deepest loneliness, and forcing her to endure waiting for a cure that neither of us know is coming, that neither of us really know is possible.
Such is life, I suppose.
Such is life.
I told her that I was weaker today, tired today.
I told her that I was not up to the same standard of vigilance.
I won't say I was expecting it when she jumped me; I wasn't, really. It just didn't come as so much of a surprise that I failed to react in time.
And so there I was holding her knife hand in a vice grip, her back against the wall.
"Really? Aren't you tired of these games yet?"
She squirmed and fought, but she fought half-heartedly. The chains I had built around her did not permit free movement and hurt to struggle too hard against. She was forced either to be caught in an obvious lie, or to concede the truth although it weakened her strength.
She confessed that I had not provoked her attack. It was her responsibility, it was her fault. She was the instigator. But she was angry at me. Perhaps nearly as angry as she was at herself.
Had I raped her? A demon bound to service does not serve willingly, so had I raped her? Maybe. As much as it may also be claimed that she seduced me... or that what bound us were more like wedding vows. Or that to take any single option thoroughly out of another man's capability is to imprison him.
Our world is not one in which such all or nothing ideals can yield useful judgements. To a high enough eye, all love has conditions no matter how well-intentioned, all conditions are coercion... And so if sex under coercion is rape, surely I had raped her, as all us hairless apes guilty of loving one another have been traumatized rape victims who go on to perpetrate, since the moment our species's behaviour first met whatever conditions the observer chooses to sufficiently qualify what we do as love.
Perhaps, to some eyes, we are not even there yet.
I was angry. I was frustrated. But more simply, I was tired. I had broken down and cried twice the previous day. I had thrown up sour juices from my belly and spat them out. I was tired of holding her so tightly, watching her so closely that she couldn't attack me.
But I was not so tired that she would beat me. Even tired, I was too fast for her. I could see in ways that the wounded creature was blind, too paralysed by fear to reach far enough out to touch that thing which cannot be seen with light nor sound nor nerves, but that required something else to sense. Something subtler, something that required some of the absence of fear.
Her attack was clumsy to me. I was tired, and did not enjoy the task of restraining her. But what must be done must be done. I grumbled. I will admit I kicked her ego while she was down. I was in a bad mood. She threw at me an argument, a package of words, which unfolded into an entrapping net of meaninglessness.
Still feeble before me. I had seen this kind of net before. I did not even sidestep. I walked through it, and I held her chin. I spoke into her face, up very close, and I explained. Her net was like a mist to me. I had had my turn being entangled in such nets before. I had learned long ago how to wriggle out of it, how to avoid being caught in the first place.
She spoke with quiet words that I had freed myself perhaps, but had not saved her. Behind the front of her words, she was crying and shrieking to be freed from her own net, but she could not have seen that she was, with her sense blinded by fear. The key was in her possession, but she had forgotten how to find it and did not know how to use it. I showed it to her, guided her hand to the right pocket, and opened it with the key inside. She looked at the thing blankly.
I told her she could use it, that she could figure it out.
"No. I refuse."
"I see what you are doing. You are trying to scare me away so I'll let you die. I also refuse."
She cried then, and she cursed me, helpless before my power over her, pitiable in her helplessness. Such is the nature of things bound. One cannot help but resent one's captor. I know I cannot in fairness expect her but to lay on my shoulders every scrap of suffering she lives while I bind her to life and force her to endure.
And so, had I raped her? Had it perhaps been time, and long since time to not bind but trust her? But sex was one thing, and one thing I could do without.
If she died, if I undid the chains and lifted the geas that guaranteed her from taking that knife to herself and then she did, it would stay with me forever until the memory was destroyed along with the rest of me.
Was I in my guardianship truly worthy of any other thanks but her contempt for keeping her here, in a beating heart and the raggedness of her sobbing breaths?
I do not have the comfort of conviction that I am doing the right thing. I am not actually certain. But for now, I continue to hold her here. It is the best I dare to do. In my own fear, my senses are clouded, although less so than hers. I cannot see a way to heal her without holding her to life, no matter how unwilling. If I could put her into a sleep until I have the answers, perhaps I would...
But in truth, I am glad to be spared the decision to choose between my own deepest loneliness, and forcing her to endure waiting for a cure that neither of us know is coming, that neither of us really know is possible.
Such is life, I suppose.
Such is life.
Friday, December 13, 2019
Grim November
It has been some time, and so I will explain.
Things began to be sour, I think, in August. Habits which were endurable in the short term so long as they were being worked on and would improve over time seemed to worsen, signs of improving grew sparse or there seemed to be subconscious resentment at the pressure.
Too much responsibility was placed on me.
There was cause, of course; there were extenuating circumstances. My Stars left their job, trusting to another to support us, and then he lost his job too. And there was much discouragement and despondency. None of us were in fit shape to carry the limp weight of the others while we were robbed of strength. And so I did my best at times, but neither was I - and I lashed out and growled and broke down often under the strain, so little rewarded, so little relieved.
I believe I am still blamed for my failure to hold up the heads of my companions during that time, as well as my own, but I plead that it was not within my power, and ought not have been expected of me. I had not enough participation. I had not enough support. I had not enough compensation to see me through it, not enough nor gentle enough reminders; reminders which are invitations, rather than chastisements.
Of course, it is an advanced difficulty to succeed, with me, to my standard, in giving invitation and not chastisement.
But this is how it went on. I carried far too much, seeking not to let others down, but I must in the end. My patience, my spirit, was overloaded for quite some time, and my vulnerabilities pricked when I was gathering enough air and lift to begin to get somewhere, such that that liveliness would easily and swiftly drain away, and I would lie again lifeless in a wasteland of bitterness.
I do not say that I held no responsibility nor blame for these cycles - O, I was part of them. My failure to speak my boundaries while I could still do so without cursing made things worse. I was at times negligent. I was at times evasive.
And so it went, and until I had a room of privacy to myself for a while (the gift of interim hosts in the city of Kitchener, and O my great gratitude to them for the privilege), for six months I had no place I could retreat to which was mine to be alone in, mine to rest in, and not need to share it, neither night nor day. Looking back it shocks me that I lived so long in these conditions, and I did not seem to realize that that was a problem.
Of course, I was caught up in wanting to be there, be present for Stars if they needed physical assistance to get up, and perhaps then, I ignored my own need for privacy, for a crook I could lay in on my own and be undisturbed. There are reasons for this, of course, reasons. But O it was surely a part of my growing twisted and impatient and bitter.
And so it went until a particularly bright-careless and manipulative episode, of some of my love's worst habits. And then I told them I would not marry them. Not now, not like this. And so I would need to return North and leave the country, for I had no other legal basis to stay. And it was sad and sour but felt necessary.
We moved several times, because as everything descended into a slough of despond, we would not organize cohesively enough to close a rental agreement and did not have a place to go by the ending of the old lease. And so there was a hotel one night, and an Airbnb for a half-week, and then another Airbnb for the rest of the month, with our things in a storage locker a long drive outside town, near to where we had hoped to rent a place, but it was a scam. A scam we would ordinarily have spotted, but we were desperate for a place by that time, of course.
Much of our things have been left behind. My friends I leave with less, materially, than they had before, and some bitter memories of my impatience and desperation and the guilt of having drawn it. But still though, my friends I leave in a pleasant place, a roomy apartment somewhat bare but well outfitted with such things as the kitchen that came with it. I leave them in a place with an extendable lease and the flexibility to adjust time there, so that they may be sure of their next leap's landing before arranging to leave. I leave them nearer to some people who have been friends of ours, that we wished to be close to... And still do now, but less so. Less, for there has been loss and grief and disappointment.
I leave my friends and I hope very dearly that I leave them better for having spent time with me rather than worse, for all that they have less materially now and our lessons from each other have been grim. November was a very slow, very sad and waiting and grieving month for me this year.
I hope to pick up my project again. I have not done so quite yet. I have a bit more of ensuring my next living-space to do first. I was in no condition then, really no condition for it.
And that is how it went.
Things began to be sour, I think, in August. Habits which were endurable in the short term so long as they were being worked on and would improve over time seemed to worsen, signs of improving grew sparse or there seemed to be subconscious resentment at the pressure.
Too much responsibility was placed on me.
There was cause, of course; there were extenuating circumstances. My Stars left their job, trusting to another to support us, and then he lost his job too. And there was much discouragement and despondency. None of us were in fit shape to carry the limp weight of the others while we were robbed of strength. And so I did my best at times, but neither was I - and I lashed out and growled and broke down often under the strain, so little rewarded, so little relieved.
I believe I am still blamed for my failure to hold up the heads of my companions during that time, as well as my own, but I plead that it was not within my power, and ought not have been expected of me. I had not enough participation. I had not enough support. I had not enough compensation to see me through it, not enough nor gentle enough reminders; reminders which are invitations, rather than chastisements.
Of course, it is an advanced difficulty to succeed, with me, to my standard, in giving invitation and not chastisement.
But this is how it went on. I carried far too much, seeking not to let others down, but I must in the end. My patience, my spirit, was overloaded for quite some time, and my vulnerabilities pricked when I was gathering enough air and lift to begin to get somewhere, such that that liveliness would easily and swiftly drain away, and I would lie again lifeless in a wasteland of bitterness.
I do not say that I held no responsibility nor blame for these cycles - O, I was part of them. My failure to speak my boundaries while I could still do so without cursing made things worse. I was at times negligent. I was at times evasive.
And so it went, and until I had a room of privacy to myself for a while (the gift of interim hosts in the city of Kitchener, and O my great gratitude to them for the privilege), for six months I had no place I could retreat to which was mine to be alone in, mine to rest in, and not need to share it, neither night nor day. Looking back it shocks me that I lived so long in these conditions, and I did not seem to realize that that was a problem.
Of course, I was caught up in wanting to be there, be present for Stars if they needed physical assistance to get up, and perhaps then, I ignored my own need for privacy, for a crook I could lay in on my own and be undisturbed. There are reasons for this, of course, reasons. But O it was surely a part of my growing twisted and impatient and bitter.
And so it went until a particularly bright-careless and manipulative episode, of some of my love's worst habits. And then I told them I would not marry them. Not now, not like this. And so I would need to return North and leave the country, for I had no other legal basis to stay. And it was sad and sour but felt necessary.
We moved several times, because as everything descended into a slough of despond, we would not organize cohesively enough to close a rental agreement and did not have a place to go by the ending of the old lease. And so there was a hotel one night, and an Airbnb for a half-week, and then another Airbnb for the rest of the month, with our things in a storage locker a long drive outside town, near to where we had hoped to rent a place, but it was a scam. A scam we would ordinarily have spotted, but we were desperate for a place by that time, of course.
Much of our things have been left behind. My friends I leave with less, materially, than they had before, and some bitter memories of my impatience and desperation and the guilt of having drawn it. But still though, my friends I leave in a pleasant place, a roomy apartment somewhat bare but well outfitted with such things as the kitchen that came with it. I leave them in a place with an extendable lease and the flexibility to adjust time there, so that they may be sure of their next leap's landing before arranging to leave. I leave them nearer to some people who have been friends of ours, that we wished to be close to... And still do now, but less so. Less, for there has been loss and grief and disappointment.
I leave my friends and I hope very dearly that I leave them better for having spent time with me rather than worse, for all that they have less materially now and our lessons from each other have been grim. November was a very slow, very sad and waiting and grieving month for me this year.
I hope to pick up my project again. I have not done so quite yet. I have a bit more of ensuring my next living-space to do first. I was in no condition then, really no condition for it.
And that is how it went.
Friday, June 14, 2019
Idle Months
It has been idle months since I last wrote here. I have been restlessly resting, waiting. The time has finally come. Tomorrow I leave this house. The next day, I leave this country, and perhaps I will never return.
I have been often dejected. This trip to Ireland has felt like a great big mess. I studied well what was little challenge to me - I allowed myself to be reclusive and stick to the company of a couple closest friends for the most part. I have often felt depressed, and struggled to remember what good I am. I have often felt like a failure. I set a time, though, and decided I would let myself be still until it was time to move again. I have at times utterly hated the stillness... but sometimes I have been able to sit still with some serenity and an ephemeral scrap of patience.
I have set myself to rest so that once it was time to move, I would be ready and eager to, and would appreciate the energy and newness. I worry a little and wonder more whether this bid to control the ebbs and flows of my energy and my stillness will actually work. I have never been good at planning and deliberately choosing these things. But then... once upon a time, in the life I grew out of, I think not being good at it was a necessary excuse for resisting the clamour of oppression which would have insisted I do things their way, not a way I could choose for myself.
Those days... are over. I do not need to be helpless in order to excuse disobedience from an unjust authority the same way I needed to once with mother. I believe I have been learning to let it go.
In that, at least, in those ways, self-searching still, digging deeper in trauma and questions of identity and complexity; in those very particular ways I have not been idle, the time has not been wasted. And indeed my closest, dearest friends have been a great resource to me, in listening and tolerating and sometimes understanding.
And so, the silence is broken, for now.
Ireland is over.
Let the next segment now begin.
I have been often dejected. This trip to Ireland has felt like a great big mess. I studied well what was little challenge to me - I allowed myself to be reclusive and stick to the company of a couple closest friends for the most part. I have often felt depressed, and struggled to remember what good I am. I have often felt like a failure. I set a time, though, and decided I would let myself be still until it was time to move again. I have at times utterly hated the stillness... but sometimes I have been able to sit still with some serenity and an ephemeral scrap of patience.
I have set myself to rest so that once it was time to move, I would be ready and eager to, and would appreciate the energy and newness. I worry a little and wonder more whether this bid to control the ebbs and flows of my energy and my stillness will actually work. I have never been good at planning and deliberately choosing these things. But then... once upon a time, in the life I grew out of, I think not being good at it was a necessary excuse for resisting the clamour of oppression which would have insisted I do things their way, not a way I could choose for myself.
Those days... are over. I do not need to be helpless in order to excuse disobedience from an unjust authority the same way I needed to once with mother. I believe I have been learning to let it go.
In that, at least, in those ways, self-searching still, digging deeper in trauma and questions of identity and complexity; in those very particular ways I have not been idle, the time has not been wasted. And indeed my closest, dearest friends have been a great resource to me, in listening and tolerating and sometimes understanding.
And so, the silence is broken, for now.
Ireland is over.
Let the next segment now begin.
Thursday, January 24, 2019
A Simple Story
On my way home on Tuesday evening, the pony at the corner of my block was hanging out by the gate, and I noticed the water bin in the paddock was empty. I stopped and held out my hand to be smelled, and managed to get away with petting and neck-scratching the pony for a good long while. I felt kind of bad about seeing it so thirsty, and said "Sorry" as I walked away.
On the short rest of the way to my house, though, I realized there was something I could do.
I checked the backyard and found an old bucket in a stack of things, with mud caked around the bottom, and when I took off the lid, it had mossy water in it - Good; It's water tight, then, and not being used for anything else. Dumped the dirty water, left it there for the moment, and came inside to use the bathroom. Noticed a bucket in the laundry room too, which was much cleaner. Open it - empty! Alright. This gives me more to work with. So I carried the dirty bucket empty through the house and set it on the front lawn without putting it down anywhere, so as to avoid making a mess. Filled the clean bucket at the sink, filled the dirty bucket with it, and filled it again. Somewhere between 1/3 and 1/2 full, the both of them. Put on my puffy gloves in order to avoid hurting my hands on the thin handles, and carried them to the paddock, taking several breaks to rest and stretch my arms.
But when I got there, a big farm truck was pulled up and a fellow was climbing over the gate. I put down my buckets and looked closer - the water bin and feed area had already been filled. Well. Alright. Pony's master has got things under control.
I said nothing to the man, didn't even wave. I suspect he never saw me, being too busy. I dumped out the buckets and brought them back home.
On net, I got in some 'farmer's walk' exercise and both had and executed on a resourceful idea that turned out to have been completely unnecessary.
I figure I'm quite alright with that.
On the short rest of the way to my house, though, I realized there was something I could do.
I checked the backyard and found an old bucket in a stack of things, with mud caked around the bottom, and when I took off the lid, it had mossy water in it - Good; It's water tight, then, and not being used for anything else. Dumped the dirty water, left it there for the moment, and came inside to use the bathroom. Noticed a bucket in the laundry room too, which was much cleaner. Open it - empty! Alright. This gives me more to work with. So I carried the dirty bucket empty through the house and set it on the front lawn without putting it down anywhere, so as to avoid making a mess. Filled the clean bucket at the sink, filled the dirty bucket with it, and filled it again. Somewhere between 1/3 and 1/2 full, the both of them. Put on my puffy gloves in order to avoid hurting my hands on the thin handles, and carried them to the paddock, taking several breaks to rest and stretch my arms.
But when I got there, a big farm truck was pulled up and a fellow was climbing over the gate. I put down my buckets and looked closer - the water bin and feed area had already been filled. Well. Alright. Pony's master has got things under control.
I said nothing to the man, didn't even wave. I suspect he never saw me, being too busy. I dumped out the buckets and brought them back home.
On net, I got in some 'farmer's walk' exercise and both had and executed on a resourceful idea that turned out to have been completely unnecessary.
I figure I'm quite alright with that.
Sunday, April 15, 2018
The Old Storyteller Barney McCaffrey
I've been watching a sort of mini-documentary on old stories from the valley where I grew up, presented by a man I remember from my childhood, Barney McCaffrey. He's dead now, but I remember him as one of the things that I think contributed to my feeling so attached to my own Irish heritage. He was a great local character, a story-teller. Half-Irish and half-Polish, so he adopted the area by Killaloe and Wilno as his home. Whenever there was a party or a significant social gathering about Wilno, he'd be there. Playing his accordion and singing songs and telling all manner of stories.
My father would take me to those sorts of things often enough, and sometimes my mother would too, when I was young. So much so that the sound of people playing live music some distance away or old classic rock through a radio makes me a little sleepy even to this day, because it reminds me of falling asleep in my mother's or father's car after I'd got tired, but they still wanted to stay and keep having fun.
I wonder now how much my love of stories and the tradition of telling them in songs and poems may've been shaped by Barney McCaffrey and characters like him.
My father would take me to those sorts of things often enough, and sometimes my mother would too, when I was young. So much so that the sound of people playing live music some distance away or old classic rock through a radio makes me a little sleepy even to this day, because it reminds me of falling asleep in my mother's or father's car after I'd got tired, but they still wanted to stay and keep having fun.
I wonder now how much my love of stories and the tradition of telling them in songs and poems may've been shaped by Barney McCaffrey and characters like him.
Sunday, April 8, 2018
Needing To Be Useful
This tale of my past is derived mostly from a long conversation I had with my friends yesterday. I recreate it here, slightly edited for better reading and accuracy. May it help anyone who wishes to know me, to understand some of my perspective. May it help anyone who is currently suffering similarly, to know that they are not alone.
I was an outsider, in my mind, for most of my life through elementary and high school. I did not expect anyone to want to be around me, even when I was at home. I grew to escape my fear of social rejection by getting caught on blades in my mind. I was considering dying for a long swath of it, because I thought it would remove me as a burden of unwelcome obligation on my parents, and on society at large. So I tried to imagine nonexistence... which is impossible. And I tried to imagine hell... which is vague enough that it can be endlessly iterated on as progressively worse forms of torture.
I do not recommend this strategy to anyone.
My parents did not deny me by rigidly insisting that I should be Christian, or Muslim, or a doctor, or any such thing; they were simply busy with their own affairs and generally seemed to want little more of me than to not to get in the way, and to not spend more hours than they felt was permissable in front of a television or computer screen. I felt that they neither noticed nor cared that I was suffering.
Although, when I came back from my year of travel to Australia at the age of nineteen, my father confessed to me that he had been concerned sometimes that he would lose me to my shadows.
I was kind of exasperated that he hadn't said that at the time, and I believe I told him so.
For the most part, I consider my parents to be a feature of my past. To a large degree, I consider them to have failed me, and myself not to owe them much of anything. Family is those who understand and support me, wherever I find them.
However, I am still open to visiting my father again to say hi and try to catch up before I leave the country. I like him, in some ways. He is very expressive, and good at explaining and describing things. ...Sometimes people have said I talk like him.
Anyway, I couldn't bring myself to die. Both the consequences and the means were too terrifying to accept. I saw the potential, but it made me horribly squeamish. I squirmed whenever I looked at a sharp knife, or even when someone close to me was holding something as innocuous (but potentially lethal) as a sewing needle. Sometimes, I still do.
And also, I have to admit, I was not actually convinced that it would be doing the world a favour if I died, since I recognized that a lot of heroes in stories came from outsider status, and hoped that I could be like them, although not with much confidence attached to the hope. Perhaps it seemed to me at the time that this could have been desperate denial of an unpleasant truth. I think while I was so young, it did not occur to me to believe in cynical denial of a hopeful truth. At least not in myself.
I became deeply obsessed with proving my own worth, establishing my own right-to-exist. A cognitive habit which is so ingrained, its shape is still reflected in many of the ways I think that were built and updated around it, even if the existential urgency that originally drove that obsession is weakening now as I heal my mental habits.
I tried to do what heroes in stories would do; hold to good, in whatever form I could see it, and to helping other people. I felt hopeful... desperately, pathetically hopeful... whenever I could do so much for my classmates as throw someone's ball back to them to save them the effort of walking to get it, even though I knew my status as a scapegoat would mean they would never invite me to play.
And I spent a lot of time walking on my own. I would walk the big track-and-field running track during recess, thinking to myself. Knowledge and wisdom derived from contemplation were useful, in theory, so if I could develop more of that... it must add to my value, my right-to-exist.
And I had a period of life when I communed with spirits. Although who can say, now, whether there was any reality in that outside my own perspective? I think even my former self at that time was in the habit of wondering whether there was any reality in it outside of her own perspective, and might have readily admitted this if anyone had ever asked her what she thought about it. Almost certainly, though, she would have been overwhelmed by that same desperate hope, because someone was actually expressing an interest in her perspective... paired with fatalistic near-certainty that the one who was asking would use anything she said as something to yell and catcall back at her later.
There was one time, she was walking the track as usual, having turned her heel and walked out on a social situation that was growing unworkable, but was followed by a whole tribe of children. My memory has likely inflated the numbers, but it seemed to me like most of my grade was following me at a short distance, booing and screaming.
And I kept walking. What else was there to do?
Someone had run up to me... it must have been winter, because they got their boot caught in the snow. When I didn't stop to help, but kept walking, I was declaimed as selfish and having "lured" them out here into the cold to die, or something like that. That may have been what set all the booing and screaming off, now that I think about it... but it is all very fuzzy.
And I came to hope, throughout this time, and through hope I came to believe, that in taking this kind of abuse on myself, someone else, somewhere, was spared it. The attention of the bullies was distracted from someone else who might otherwise have been a target, and may have had less resilience to bear it.
That, at least, would be something useful. So I thought I could live with it.
My social life drastically improved at sixteen years of age. My mother plotted with a family we knew to hold me a really nice sixteenth birthday party, away from all the kids at school I felt obligated to treat as friends whenever they would let me, even though they were not.
My mother, in a surprising display of respect and consideration, drove me far from our little village to a larger town, and drove me around the town to look for a present I would actually want, because she didn't want to waste money on something I didn't, an attitude with which I agreed wholeheartedly, and still do.
Gemstones of my birth-month? No, I wasn't really interested in gems. They were so girly and ostentatious. A bicycle? A good idea, but I already had one, my father's girlfriend had got it for me.
I didn't find anything else I particularly cared for at any of the other shops we went to either, and my mother was growing frustrated with the failure to find an appropriate gift, so I recommended we go to the used book store. There might be a book there by Terry Pratchett or Spider Robinson that I hadn't read yet, and although it would be a small thing, I knew I liked those.
In the used bookstore, I found two large, hardcover books that quickly drew my fascinated attention. They were two of the three core rulebooks for Dungeons & Dragons, edition 3.5. And I knew I had found The Thing. They were expensive enough that my mother was very reluctant to buy them for me, especially given that there was one missing, and I would need to have all three. But maybe she just didn't understand why a set of three hardcover books should be worth so much.
Here, I feel I need to back up and explain the context of my desire. I had been trying to invent Dungeons & Dragons from scratch since I was six or something. I had made a habit, from a very early age, of drawing mazes, and putting dots in them with different colours of markers, to represent monsters and treasures, and trying to get my half-brother to play the adventure with me.
I knew to call the person who built the maze and filled it with monsters the "dungeon master", so I guess I must have picked a lot of that idea up from things I'd heard some older kids saying. Almost certainly Levi and Nathan, the two boys closest to our age (although still older) of a farming family we knew, and which my father would often visit, bringing my half-brother and me along. We would spend time with Levi and Nathan whenever our family was visiting theirs, often running off to play in the woods near their farm. We especially liked the game of trying to dam up tiny streams, and keep building and repairing the dam as the water that was pooled behind it grew wider and higher.
But anyway. Although I suspect I must have seen or heard the older boys playing or talking about it, I don't think I had ever actually realized that Dungeons & Dragons... really existed? I thought they were just talking about video games, maybe, or trying to recreate video games without a computer. I did not realize at the time that the video games had actually been recreations of D&D.
So finding these rulebooks, to me in my teenagerdom, was a little like discovering the tomb of King Tut. I managed to convince my mother that yes, these books were something I really wanted, and it would make me very happy to have them, as long as she could get me the third one too. She bought them, and I started reading voraciously as soon as I got back in the car. She actually had to prompt me to look up after we had pulled in and parked in the driveway of the other family's house, so that I would notice that they had put up a big paper banner across the front of the house, that said HAPPY SWEET SIXTEEN EMILY. It was, I have to admit, a really nice gesture.
My mother and the mother of this family were friends, and I got along pretty well with her two children. There was a boy named Victor who tended to be very loud, so much so that between us we named a measure of volume someone was shouting at, "the Victor scale". There was also a girl, whose name was not connected to such a mnemonic, and so I do not remember it. Possibly it was Tammy. I remember her being small, slender and creative in ways that reminded me of a pixie.
We spent a weekend there. We had KFC on my birthday (a rare luxury), and I spent most of that weekend reading and plotting, and convinced Victor and Tammy to play the game with me, even though we didn't have the Player's Handbook, which is the most important one. But we would need dice. They brought me to a hobby store in town that sold the right kind. My mother didn't want to spend any more money on me, but I couldn't play the game without any dice, so I presented the greatest compromise I felt I could. I would get just one die, and I would choose it out of the factory seconds box, which was cheapest.
I looked through the box for a 20-sided die that I liked. I think it was a black one with red numbers. We would have to make do, but we could, because you could simulate rolling any other die with fewer sides by rolling a d20, you just had to divide the numbers up evenly, and roll again if you got one of the leftovers. I drew a conversion table for this purpose. In retrospect, my sixteen year old self, in her excitement about this, registers to me as incredibly cute.
Later that summer, after a copy of the Player's Handbook had been provided to me and I had thoroughly studied all three core rulebooks, I started to prepare a real game, for more than just a weekend out of town. I pulled out a book and craft set I'd been given previously about proper forms of writing with quill-pens and practiced the art just so that I could write prop documents, and place-names on my maps, with the proper medieval flair.
I painted an overworld map on a big piece of newsprint that I had deliberately stained with coffee to look old, and tore all the edges so they'd be ragged. And I planned an adventure and where it would begin, with an opening scene like a cinematic from a video game, and a great big complicated wonderful dungeon to be the first adventure. I invited the other kids my age at the youth group I usually spent time at to come and make characters so they could play with me, and nagged at the ones who expressed an interest until I succeeded in dragging them away from playing Halo on the x-box to come and do it.
And I ran my game.
It became an established feature of the Thursday youth group, every week.
Sometimes, the players would even invite me over to their houses so I could run the game on the weekends.
And my heart was full of joy and validation, because for what seemed like the first time in my life, there was a reason people wanted to have me around.
Even if it wasn't because of who I was... just that I brought the game.
My morale and creativity improved tremendously. I would draw battle scenes and characters and maps in the margins of worksheets at school. I embraced that role as hard as I could over the next couple of years.
I told this story to a couple of my friends over voice chat on Discord not all that long ago, and I think I could hear one of them choke up a little when I got to the end, because in the end, it comes around again to how all this happiness was due to the relief of a loneliness and sense of worthlessness so unendurably desperate that even though I still didn't think my players necessarily liked me, it changed my whole life.
And it is sad. I get it. I agree, and in fact I'm really glad I have friends who can understand how sad it was. But when I look back, I can't help but remember the happiness too, and smile a bit.
The heart celebrates, when it finds a situation which is even marginally less bad.
I was an outsider, in my mind, for most of my life through elementary and high school. I did not expect anyone to want to be around me, even when I was at home. I grew to escape my fear of social rejection by getting caught on blades in my mind. I was considering dying for a long swath of it, because I thought it would remove me as a burden of unwelcome obligation on my parents, and on society at large. So I tried to imagine nonexistence... which is impossible. And I tried to imagine hell... which is vague enough that it can be endlessly iterated on as progressively worse forms of torture.
I do not recommend this strategy to anyone.
My parents did not deny me by rigidly insisting that I should be Christian, or Muslim, or a doctor, or any such thing; they were simply busy with their own affairs and generally seemed to want little more of me than to not to get in the way, and to not spend more hours than they felt was permissable in front of a television or computer screen. I felt that they neither noticed nor cared that I was suffering.
Although, when I came back from my year of travel to Australia at the age of nineteen, my father confessed to me that he had been concerned sometimes that he would lose me to my shadows.
I was kind of exasperated that he hadn't said that at the time, and I believe I told him so.
For the most part, I consider my parents to be a feature of my past. To a large degree, I consider them to have failed me, and myself not to owe them much of anything. Family is those who understand and support me, wherever I find them.
However, I am still open to visiting my father again to say hi and try to catch up before I leave the country. I like him, in some ways. He is very expressive, and good at explaining and describing things. ...Sometimes people have said I talk like him.
Anyway, I couldn't bring myself to die. Both the consequences and the means were too terrifying to accept. I saw the potential, but it made me horribly squeamish. I squirmed whenever I looked at a sharp knife, or even when someone close to me was holding something as innocuous (but potentially lethal) as a sewing needle. Sometimes, I still do.
And also, I have to admit, I was not actually convinced that it would be doing the world a favour if I died, since I recognized that a lot of heroes in stories came from outsider status, and hoped that I could be like them, although not with much confidence attached to the hope. Perhaps it seemed to me at the time that this could have been desperate denial of an unpleasant truth. I think while I was so young, it did not occur to me to believe in cynical denial of a hopeful truth. At least not in myself.
I became deeply obsessed with proving my own worth, establishing my own right-to-exist. A cognitive habit which is so ingrained, its shape is still reflected in many of the ways I think that were built and updated around it, even if the existential urgency that originally drove that obsession is weakening now as I heal my mental habits.
I tried to do what heroes in stories would do; hold to good, in whatever form I could see it, and to helping other people. I felt hopeful... desperately, pathetically hopeful... whenever I could do so much for my classmates as throw someone's ball back to them to save them the effort of walking to get it, even though I knew my status as a scapegoat would mean they would never invite me to play.
And I spent a lot of time walking on my own. I would walk the big track-and-field running track during recess, thinking to myself. Knowledge and wisdom derived from contemplation were useful, in theory, so if I could develop more of that... it must add to my value, my right-to-exist.
And I had a period of life when I communed with spirits. Although who can say, now, whether there was any reality in that outside my own perspective? I think even my former self at that time was in the habit of wondering whether there was any reality in it outside of her own perspective, and might have readily admitted this if anyone had ever asked her what she thought about it. Almost certainly, though, she would have been overwhelmed by that same desperate hope, because someone was actually expressing an interest in her perspective... paired with fatalistic near-certainty that the one who was asking would use anything she said as something to yell and catcall back at her later.
There was one time, she was walking the track as usual, having turned her heel and walked out on a social situation that was growing unworkable, but was followed by a whole tribe of children. My memory has likely inflated the numbers, but it seemed to me like most of my grade was following me at a short distance, booing and screaming.
And I kept walking. What else was there to do?
Someone had run up to me... it must have been winter, because they got their boot caught in the snow. When I didn't stop to help, but kept walking, I was declaimed as selfish and having "lured" them out here into the cold to die, or something like that. That may have been what set all the booing and screaming off, now that I think about it... but it is all very fuzzy.
And I came to hope, throughout this time, and through hope I came to believe, that in taking this kind of abuse on myself, someone else, somewhere, was spared it. The attention of the bullies was distracted from someone else who might otherwise have been a target, and may have had less resilience to bear it.
That, at least, would be something useful. So I thought I could live with it.
My social life drastically improved at sixteen years of age. My mother plotted with a family we knew to hold me a really nice sixteenth birthday party, away from all the kids at school I felt obligated to treat as friends whenever they would let me, even though they were not.
My mother, in a surprising display of respect and consideration, drove me far from our little village to a larger town, and drove me around the town to look for a present I would actually want, because she didn't want to waste money on something I didn't, an attitude with which I agreed wholeheartedly, and still do.
Gemstones of my birth-month? No, I wasn't really interested in gems. They were so girly and ostentatious. A bicycle? A good idea, but I already had one, my father's girlfriend had got it for me.
I didn't find anything else I particularly cared for at any of the other shops we went to either, and my mother was growing frustrated with the failure to find an appropriate gift, so I recommended we go to the used book store. There might be a book there by Terry Pratchett or Spider Robinson that I hadn't read yet, and although it would be a small thing, I knew I liked those.
In the used bookstore, I found two large, hardcover books that quickly drew my fascinated attention. They were two of the three core rulebooks for Dungeons & Dragons, edition 3.5. And I knew I had found The Thing. They were expensive enough that my mother was very reluctant to buy them for me, especially given that there was one missing, and I would need to have all three. But maybe she just didn't understand why a set of three hardcover books should be worth so much.
Here, I feel I need to back up and explain the context of my desire. I had been trying to invent Dungeons & Dragons from scratch since I was six or something. I had made a habit, from a very early age, of drawing mazes, and putting dots in them with different colours of markers, to represent monsters and treasures, and trying to get my half-brother to play the adventure with me.
I knew to call the person who built the maze and filled it with monsters the "dungeon master", so I guess I must have picked a lot of that idea up from things I'd heard some older kids saying. Almost certainly Levi and Nathan, the two boys closest to our age (although still older) of a farming family we knew, and which my father would often visit, bringing my half-brother and me along. We would spend time with Levi and Nathan whenever our family was visiting theirs, often running off to play in the woods near their farm. We especially liked the game of trying to dam up tiny streams, and keep building and repairing the dam as the water that was pooled behind it grew wider and higher.
But anyway. Although I suspect I must have seen or heard the older boys playing or talking about it, I don't think I had ever actually realized that Dungeons & Dragons... really existed? I thought they were just talking about video games, maybe, or trying to recreate video games without a computer. I did not realize at the time that the video games had actually been recreations of D&D.
So finding these rulebooks, to me in my teenagerdom, was a little like discovering the tomb of King Tut. I managed to convince my mother that yes, these books were something I really wanted, and it would make me very happy to have them, as long as she could get me the third one too. She bought them, and I started reading voraciously as soon as I got back in the car. She actually had to prompt me to look up after we had pulled in and parked in the driveway of the other family's house, so that I would notice that they had put up a big paper banner across the front of the house, that said HAPPY SWEET SIXTEEN EMILY. It was, I have to admit, a really nice gesture.
My mother and the mother of this family were friends, and I got along pretty well with her two children. There was a boy named Victor who tended to be very loud, so much so that between us we named a measure of volume someone was shouting at, "the Victor scale". There was also a girl, whose name was not connected to such a mnemonic, and so I do not remember it. Possibly it was Tammy. I remember her being small, slender and creative in ways that reminded me of a pixie.
We spent a weekend there. We had KFC on my birthday (a rare luxury), and I spent most of that weekend reading and plotting, and convinced Victor and Tammy to play the game with me, even though we didn't have the Player's Handbook, which is the most important one. But we would need dice. They brought me to a hobby store in town that sold the right kind. My mother didn't want to spend any more money on me, but I couldn't play the game without any dice, so I presented the greatest compromise I felt I could. I would get just one die, and I would choose it out of the factory seconds box, which was cheapest.
I looked through the box for a 20-sided die that I liked. I think it was a black one with red numbers. We would have to make do, but we could, because you could simulate rolling any other die with fewer sides by rolling a d20, you just had to divide the numbers up evenly, and roll again if you got one of the leftovers. I drew a conversion table for this purpose. In retrospect, my sixteen year old self, in her excitement about this, registers to me as incredibly cute.
Later that summer, after a copy of the Player's Handbook had been provided to me and I had thoroughly studied all three core rulebooks, I started to prepare a real game, for more than just a weekend out of town. I pulled out a book and craft set I'd been given previously about proper forms of writing with quill-pens and practiced the art just so that I could write prop documents, and place-names on my maps, with the proper medieval flair.
I painted an overworld map on a big piece of newsprint that I had deliberately stained with coffee to look old, and tore all the edges so they'd be ragged. And I planned an adventure and where it would begin, with an opening scene like a cinematic from a video game, and a great big complicated wonderful dungeon to be the first adventure. I invited the other kids my age at the youth group I usually spent time at to come and make characters so they could play with me, and nagged at the ones who expressed an interest until I succeeded in dragging them away from playing Halo on the x-box to come and do it.
And I ran my game.
It became an established feature of the Thursday youth group, every week.
Sometimes, the players would even invite me over to their houses so I could run the game on the weekends.
And my heart was full of joy and validation, because for what seemed like the first time in my life, there was a reason people wanted to have me around.
Even if it wasn't because of who I was... just that I brought the game.
My morale and creativity improved tremendously. I would draw battle scenes and characters and maps in the margins of worksheets at school. I embraced that role as hard as I could over the next couple of years.
I told this story to a couple of my friends over voice chat on Discord not all that long ago, and I think I could hear one of them choke up a little when I got to the end, because in the end, it comes around again to how all this happiness was due to the relief of a loneliness and sense of worthlessness so unendurably desperate that even though I still didn't think my players necessarily liked me, it changed my whole life.
And it is sad. I get it. I agree, and in fact I'm really glad I have friends who can understand how sad it was. But when I look back, I can't help but remember the happiness too, and smile a bit.
The heart celebrates, when it finds a situation which is even marginally less bad.
Wednesday, February 7, 2018
Dear Memory: Still Working On It
Dear Eoin...
I have been writing less often, and directing my thoughts here toward you less often when I do. I think the period of intense heartbreak and missing you since the last time I heard your voice in October is pretty much done.
However, my peace lies twined with my plans. I have unpacked the things I call my "shrine", symbols and trinkets that I like to keep together and revere as little treasures. The red bull, the antique horn, a musical jewelry box which holds some stones and jewelry... And my skull candle, my oath candle. I have contemplated it with happiness. A few years ago, I burned this candle hollow, so that a pillar's worth of wax ran out and left its eye sockets and nose hollow, just as a skull is meant to be, and stared intently at it for hours as it burned, making a promise to myself, in a desperate and unhappy circumstance, that if I continued to be unhappy where I was, I would move. Put another way, that same promise could be phrased, "follow your dreams".
It gives me peace and happiness to look on it, because I know I have not forgotten the promise. I keep my oath to myself. For my joy, and my health, if I find I am not content with where I am, I will change it.
I think the wax shell is probably too delicate in its hollowness to bring across the sea. I am thinking that before I go, I will seek an opportunity to burn the rest of it in a fire, and re-confirm with the destruction of my oath candle the same promise that made it what it is.
I am still planning to come to you, although you come into my thoughts less often. The intent to go back to Ireland is always close at hand there. I am committed to it so thoroughly that the idea no longer seems at all unusual to me. The processes are perhaps a bit daunting, and of course it will cost me more than studying in Canada, but there is much at Fanshawe to help prepare me. I will probably need to work part-time while studying. It's something I have made a point of avoiding in my studies in Canada, but when it comes to bringing myself to Ireland... If this must be a part of my plan, for it to work out financially, it will be, and that is that.
I was so excited to meet the representatives of Limerick, Sligo, Carlow and Tralee. One of them was named Eoin, too. I must have suppressed a sad smile when I recognised the name and was able to pronounce it at a glance. There is a little workshop next week as well about procedures related to studying at a foreign college.
This morning, I came in to the school library and sat down to read and study my Cost Accounting material. I put on music from TouHou and wrote down many phrases and sentences from the material in my schoolwork related cardcast decks. It was a bit of a distraction, and no doubt slowed my reading. However, the music was so appropriate for background music while focusing that as I was packing up to get some breakfast, it was with some odd surprise that I realized turning off my laptop would require me to stop listening to it (since that is what I had playing the music). It was as though the TouHou tracks had been accepted as just what life sounded like on some level.
From that early morning on to late evening, I have been busily tending to one thing and then another... I was exhausted and barely taking anything in by the time my last class ended (it is the latest in the day of any of my classes). However, there were some fun highlights. The professor makes Google Documents and shares an editing link with the students; we pour in, over a dozen of us, and start building something there. Seeing it come together in several pieces at once like that, some formatting, some writing... It reminds me a bit of ants, in a good way.
If you were to wonder of me, I wish I could tell you that I still love you, and with this strength of mine, I will come to find you. I will be healthy and hearty as I can be.
You never read the Discworld books, I think, but... There's one character in them, a Mr. Carrot who has been in various books corporal, sergeant and eventually I think captain in the nightwatch. He is an immigrant, a human (by blood) who had been raised by dwarves, and his defining characteristic is that he believes so strongly in the good nature of people that they can't bring themselves to disappoint him and act more nobly and honestly than they do around anyone else.
At one point, he and a bunch of the other watchmen are aboard a ship in a storm at sea, chasing after someone who has kidnapped Angua, the woman he loves, also a member of the watch. The others had expected that he would be sick and restless worrying about her, but in the hours before they expected to land, Carrot was soundly sleeping with such determination that even the fierce tossing of the storm could not wake him. Since, as he had said, if he arrived in an exhausted state he'd be useless to actually help the woman he loved.
I feel kind of like that about you. Not that you are in need of rescue of course. Just... I want to be stronger for you and not weaker. I want to be better for every influence you have on me and not worse. You deserve that.
I have been writing less often, and directing my thoughts here toward you less often when I do. I think the period of intense heartbreak and missing you since the last time I heard your voice in October is pretty much done.
However, my peace lies twined with my plans. I have unpacked the things I call my "shrine", symbols and trinkets that I like to keep together and revere as little treasures. The red bull, the antique horn, a musical jewelry box which holds some stones and jewelry... And my skull candle, my oath candle. I have contemplated it with happiness. A few years ago, I burned this candle hollow, so that a pillar's worth of wax ran out and left its eye sockets and nose hollow, just as a skull is meant to be, and stared intently at it for hours as it burned, making a promise to myself, in a desperate and unhappy circumstance, that if I continued to be unhappy where I was, I would move. Put another way, that same promise could be phrased, "follow your dreams".
It gives me peace and happiness to look on it, because I know I have not forgotten the promise. I keep my oath to myself. For my joy, and my health, if I find I am not content with where I am, I will change it.
I think the wax shell is probably too delicate in its hollowness to bring across the sea. I am thinking that before I go, I will seek an opportunity to burn the rest of it in a fire, and re-confirm with the destruction of my oath candle the same promise that made it what it is.
I am still planning to come to you, although you come into my thoughts less often. The intent to go back to Ireland is always close at hand there. I am committed to it so thoroughly that the idea no longer seems at all unusual to me. The processes are perhaps a bit daunting, and of course it will cost me more than studying in Canada, but there is much at Fanshawe to help prepare me. I will probably need to work part-time while studying. It's something I have made a point of avoiding in my studies in Canada, but when it comes to bringing myself to Ireland... If this must be a part of my plan, for it to work out financially, it will be, and that is that.
I was so excited to meet the representatives of Limerick, Sligo, Carlow and Tralee. One of them was named Eoin, too. I must have suppressed a sad smile when I recognised the name and was able to pronounce it at a glance. There is a little workshop next week as well about procedures related to studying at a foreign college.
This morning, I came in to the school library and sat down to read and study my Cost Accounting material. I put on music from TouHou and wrote down many phrases and sentences from the material in my schoolwork related cardcast decks. It was a bit of a distraction, and no doubt slowed my reading. However, the music was so appropriate for background music while focusing that as I was packing up to get some breakfast, it was with some odd surprise that I realized turning off my laptop would require me to stop listening to it (since that is what I had playing the music). It was as though the TouHou tracks had been accepted as just what life sounded like on some level.
From that early morning on to late evening, I have been busily tending to one thing and then another... I was exhausted and barely taking anything in by the time my last class ended (it is the latest in the day of any of my classes). However, there were some fun highlights. The professor makes Google Documents and shares an editing link with the students; we pour in, over a dozen of us, and start building something there. Seeing it come together in several pieces at once like that, some formatting, some writing... It reminds me a bit of ants, in a good way.
If you were to wonder of me, I wish I could tell you that I still love you, and with this strength of mine, I will come to find you. I will be healthy and hearty as I can be.
You never read the Discworld books, I think, but... There's one character in them, a Mr. Carrot who has been in various books corporal, sergeant and eventually I think captain in the nightwatch. He is an immigrant, a human (by blood) who had been raised by dwarves, and his defining characteristic is that he believes so strongly in the good nature of people that they can't bring themselves to disappoint him and act more nobly and honestly than they do around anyone else.
At one point, he and a bunch of the other watchmen are aboard a ship in a storm at sea, chasing after someone who has kidnapped Angua, the woman he loves, also a member of the watch. The others had expected that he would be sick and restless worrying about her, but in the hours before they expected to land, Carrot was soundly sleeping with such determination that even the fierce tossing of the storm could not wake him. Since, as he had said, if he arrived in an exhausted state he'd be useless to actually help the woman he loved.
I feel kind of like that about you. Not that you are in need of rescue of course. Just... I want to be stronger for you and not weaker. I want to be better for every influence you have on me and not worse. You deserve that.
Friday, January 26, 2018
Burn Out - Oceans
I woke up this morning feeling really exhausted, and very much wanting to go back to sleep. My system reacted to waking up before it was ready with awful indigestion that kept me returning to the bathroom five minutes after leaving it, until my gut and intestines were acclimatized to my being awake. I had a class to go to. No time to go back to sleep.
While in the bathroom though, I noticed a little detail of definition, a little inward crease running vertically down the center of part of my chest, that I had never noticed before. I've only worked out in my new routine three times so far. Is it possible it could already have made a visible difference somewhere? Perhaps I'm just more inclined to notice details of my body now. However, this is interesting. I might keep looking for new or developing details.
I'm pleased to report that on my days between workouts, I am looking forward to going back, although the curl-ups and shoulder presses are still kicking my ass pretty hard. If my tolerance for them seems to worsen, or fails to get noticeably better for another week or so, I will talk to a coach about it.
I had been looking at Thursday as my second-longest day of classes in the new term. However, it actually seemed pretty forgiving today. The law class I'm taking seems to emphasize different areas of focus than the previous law class, despite using the same textbook. This is cool. I expected to already know this stuff more than what I actually do, which demonstrates that the re-learning and reinforcement will be valuable.
For the last few days, I've been jamming a lot to a song called Burn Out, by Beatdrop, one of the artists I got a free taste of by supporting OCRemix before they got full charitable organization status. It may be one of the first dubstep type songs I've been tempted to try to sing along to. Admittedly, most of the dubstep I've heard doesn't have lyrics. The whole Revolution album has a pretty good pace and tone for my recent start on working out, and continuing to write and complete checklists, pushing to get quite a lot done. It's honestly been a pretty awesome week, but I haven't been getting enough sleep lately, and it's starting to take a toll in the mornings.
A classmate let me borrow her Intermediate Accounting textbook to photocopy pages full of exercises; I bought an old version which doesn't have the same questions in the same order, and the solutions are in an online key only provided for the current version, so if I want to have practice work I can actually check answers to, I'm going to need them.
Actually, this connects back to a weird story. Yesterday was a very packed-full day for me. I had stayed up very late having an awesome conversation with a couple of old friends and someone I had spoken to once about six months ago, but saw online and decided to try asking to play Xyzzy so that we had enough players for a game. The game went great, and we just kept talking. I have found a new awesome person. I also realized that I have been establishing a collection of awesome people and storing them in a little place of my own. I left Ashlynn's Discord server a while ago, having grown increasingly detached and alienated from the community there. Now... I'm building my own. Around the kind of friends I want to have. Some of them I found there. Some, I found in other places. I have my own curated pack of friends. That's... really cool. That's leadership I guess.
So, having stayed up late, I slept in and didn't have as much time as I had originally expected to do everything I planned to do. A session of homework, a meeting with one of my professors to talk about promoting me, my workout session, a bunch of classes, and a household meeting.
I started with homework and did some exercises from my non-current textbook. It was published in 2013, and some of the questions were exactly the same as the ones in the current version which we had taken up in class together, except for the dates, which had been edited to be one year in the future relative to the publishing date of each.
The last question I attempted to answer before heading out for my meeting involved parental leave. I don't really know how to account for parental leave yet. When is it paid out? Periodically throughout the leave? All at the beginning? All at the end? I acknowledged that I didn't know, but decided to attempt to answer the problem using the presumption that it would all be paid at the end. Unlikely, but it was the kind of book keeping I'd been dealing with the most. 17 weeks of parental leave, starting Dec 1, 2014. Okay. Excel, how many days is 17 weeks? So, I need to accrue 31 days of benefits within December and the 2014 year. That leaves 88 more days into 2015, and the last journal entry should be dated...
Um...
March 29th... My birthday. Specifically, my twenty-fifth birthday. Specifically, that one particular day that I started out by staring at my ceiling for half an hour, contemplating my accomplishments at my entry-level retail job and how poorly I felt I was treated there. My ambitions and whether I would ever do anything with any of them. That was the day that, ultimately, that I decided I was going to stop working as a stocker/cashier/donor greeter and go to college.
That... was a really creepy date to show up in my accounting homework. And... if it hadn't been this version of Intermediate Accounting Vol. 2 that I happened to find and picked up at the used textbook shop... it wouldn't have.
And with that bizarre experience feeling strangely profound and important in my head, considering how far I've come, and how many fascinating things I've been through in the past going-on-three years, I headed off to my meeting and told my professor the story of what had just happened.
Today, I actually included "rest and relax" on my list of things to do today. I'm not sure I've done much resting, but I have taken the day happy, and am not stressing myself out taking on more homework.
Law was fine and interesting, and then I went to the first of my Tax classes for this term. My Tax professor is a woman with a fairly thick Bahamas accent who blazes through slides so fast that sometimes I lose track of what she's talking about entirely while trying to figure out what she just said. However, after the lecture, we got to practice, and the practice was actually very clear, and hands-on, with checks and feedback at every step and a clear procedure to follow. I made forms with in-cell equations in Excel that filled themselves out with just a few inputs from the question, and was able to finish several exercises that followed the same pattern very quickly, then spent some time making the spreadsheets beautiful while the rest of the class caught up.
There was a concert at the school this evening, called the "Upside Get Down", featuring three bands I had never heard of: Kid Royal, Chad Price, and Texas King. Tickets were free, and I've kind of committed to participating more in the culture of the college, since I moved right across the street. It was one of the best things about Gate Lodge. I should milk it for what it's worth here too. I invited Ampersand, a local friend and crush, to come with me. He came to my house to hang out a bit beforehand. We shared fries and dumplings and played Ultimate Chicken Horse and watched a bit of TierZoo, then headed to the concert and listened to the opening band play.
They were pretty unpolished, amateurish in both lyrics and performance, and the speakers turned the music into a wall of noise whenever they decided to rock harder for a climactic moment. Not... bad, though. There was some ambition to try things that were difficult, and while the performance wasn't tight yet, I felt that these guys could be on their way towards becoming great. I kept wondering whether Ampersand was having a good time, and tapping my foot, swinging my hip, wanting to get more into the music, wishing people around me were dancing so that I could dance and not be the first one trying to. Wondering whether I was having a good time, mostly feeling tense and affectionate as over-amped love songs, and the lights, and sound loud enough I felt the rhythm hitting my breastbone like waves crashing onto a shore, created an atmosphere of awkwardness and tense romantic potential.
After the set, which Kid Royal closed well, with the best song of the bunch, I took Ampersand away from the noise. His knees were sore, he was getting tired. It had been fun and the music was pretty good, but he wanted to turn in and get some rest. Yeah, okay. It was fun. I walked him back to his car, and hugged him and waved goodnight with thanks for coming, then stood outside for a bit, wondering whether I wanted to go back to the rest of the concert.
After some indecision I did. However, the college doors had locked, and now it was a matter of finding an entrace that had student card access, as many of them don't. The easiest route to the concert was blocked by a security guard in blue who stiffly turned away anyone attempting to enter the free concert through an entrance which had been inexplicably designated exit only. In order to attend, you had to enter from the West, and either have someone open the nearest door from the inside for you (since it lacked a card access point) or detour the long way around the outside of the Student Union Building.
To be honest, this encounter seriously diminished what little was left of my interest in seeing the rest of the concert. However, I found my way to the allowed and intended entrance and inside just in time to hear the second band announce and perform their last song of the set, a song called... "Oceans". I stayed and listened, and softened and enjoyed. In contrast to their openers, this guy, Chad Price, and his band... They had polish. They didn't make the speakers emit a raw mess of noise at their dramatic moments, but made good use of silence to frame sound. His style includes a lot of shifting and bending his pitch around and stretching out vocal tones to play around the rhythm. A lot of people try to do that and it's something I often find pretentious and pointlessly frilly. But he built his style around it, made it fit, and kept the rhythm tight while playing around it. They were good. And it was a really nice love song.
This, I decided. This made a good end to the concert, for me. And I headed home, happy to have returned for that one special song. I found it on YouTube. I sent the link to Ampersand, to share that part of the concert with him in some sense too, and I reflected that... It had sounded better live, something I was delighted to be able to observe. I'm going to download this one. I'm going to make it my song of the day today on Facebook.
It's been a good day.
Also I misplaced my smartphone sometime between my tax class and the concert. I'm not particularly concerned, though. I'll probably find it again tomorrow, and I don't actually use it as a phone anyway, I mostly just listen to podcasts with it.
While in the bathroom though, I noticed a little detail of definition, a little inward crease running vertically down the center of part of my chest, that I had never noticed before. I've only worked out in my new routine three times so far. Is it possible it could already have made a visible difference somewhere? Perhaps I'm just more inclined to notice details of my body now. However, this is interesting. I might keep looking for new or developing details.
I'm pleased to report that on my days between workouts, I am looking forward to going back, although the curl-ups and shoulder presses are still kicking my ass pretty hard. If my tolerance for them seems to worsen, or fails to get noticeably better for another week or so, I will talk to a coach about it.
I had been looking at Thursday as my second-longest day of classes in the new term. However, it actually seemed pretty forgiving today. The law class I'm taking seems to emphasize different areas of focus than the previous law class, despite using the same textbook. This is cool. I expected to already know this stuff more than what I actually do, which demonstrates that the re-learning and reinforcement will be valuable.
For the last few days, I've been jamming a lot to a song called Burn Out, by Beatdrop, one of the artists I got a free taste of by supporting OCRemix before they got full charitable organization status. It may be one of the first dubstep type songs I've been tempted to try to sing along to. Admittedly, most of the dubstep I've heard doesn't have lyrics. The whole Revolution album has a pretty good pace and tone for my recent start on working out, and continuing to write and complete checklists, pushing to get quite a lot done. It's honestly been a pretty awesome week, but I haven't been getting enough sleep lately, and it's starting to take a toll in the mornings.
A classmate let me borrow her Intermediate Accounting textbook to photocopy pages full of exercises; I bought an old version which doesn't have the same questions in the same order, and the solutions are in an online key only provided for the current version, so if I want to have practice work I can actually check answers to, I'm going to need them.
Actually, this connects back to a weird story. Yesterday was a very packed-full day for me. I had stayed up very late having an awesome conversation with a couple of old friends and someone I had spoken to once about six months ago, but saw online and decided to try asking to play Xyzzy so that we had enough players for a game. The game went great, and we just kept talking. I have found a new awesome person. I also realized that I have been establishing a collection of awesome people and storing them in a little place of my own. I left Ashlynn's Discord server a while ago, having grown increasingly detached and alienated from the community there. Now... I'm building my own. Around the kind of friends I want to have. Some of them I found there. Some, I found in other places. I have my own curated pack of friends. That's... really cool. That's leadership I guess.
So, having stayed up late, I slept in and didn't have as much time as I had originally expected to do everything I planned to do. A session of homework, a meeting with one of my professors to talk about promoting me, my workout session, a bunch of classes, and a household meeting.
I started with homework and did some exercises from my non-current textbook. It was published in 2013, and some of the questions were exactly the same as the ones in the current version which we had taken up in class together, except for the dates, which had been edited to be one year in the future relative to the publishing date of each.
The last question I attempted to answer before heading out for my meeting involved parental leave. I don't really know how to account for parental leave yet. When is it paid out? Periodically throughout the leave? All at the beginning? All at the end? I acknowledged that I didn't know, but decided to attempt to answer the problem using the presumption that it would all be paid at the end. Unlikely, but it was the kind of book keeping I'd been dealing with the most. 17 weeks of parental leave, starting Dec 1, 2014. Okay. Excel, how many days is 17 weeks? So, I need to accrue 31 days of benefits within December and the 2014 year. That leaves 88 more days into 2015, and the last journal entry should be dated...
Um...
March 29th... My birthday. Specifically, my twenty-fifth birthday. Specifically, that one particular day that I started out by staring at my ceiling for half an hour, contemplating my accomplishments at my entry-level retail job and how poorly I felt I was treated there. My ambitions and whether I would ever do anything with any of them. That was the day that, ultimately, that I decided I was going to stop working as a stocker/cashier/donor greeter and go to college.
That... was a really creepy date to show up in my accounting homework. And... if it hadn't been this version of Intermediate Accounting Vol. 2 that I happened to find and picked up at the used textbook shop... it wouldn't have.
And with that bizarre experience feeling strangely profound and important in my head, considering how far I've come, and how many fascinating things I've been through in the past going-on-three years, I headed off to my meeting and told my professor the story of what had just happened.
Today, I actually included "rest and relax" on my list of things to do today. I'm not sure I've done much resting, but I have taken the day happy, and am not stressing myself out taking on more homework.
Law was fine and interesting, and then I went to the first of my Tax classes for this term. My Tax professor is a woman with a fairly thick Bahamas accent who blazes through slides so fast that sometimes I lose track of what she's talking about entirely while trying to figure out what she just said. However, after the lecture, we got to practice, and the practice was actually very clear, and hands-on, with checks and feedback at every step and a clear procedure to follow. I made forms with in-cell equations in Excel that filled themselves out with just a few inputs from the question, and was able to finish several exercises that followed the same pattern very quickly, then spent some time making the spreadsheets beautiful while the rest of the class caught up.
There was a concert at the school this evening, called the "Upside Get Down", featuring three bands I had never heard of: Kid Royal, Chad Price, and Texas King. Tickets were free, and I've kind of committed to participating more in the culture of the college, since I moved right across the street. It was one of the best things about Gate Lodge. I should milk it for what it's worth here too. I invited Ampersand, a local friend and crush, to come with me. He came to my house to hang out a bit beforehand. We shared fries and dumplings and played Ultimate Chicken Horse and watched a bit of TierZoo, then headed to the concert and listened to the opening band play.
They were pretty unpolished, amateurish in both lyrics and performance, and the speakers turned the music into a wall of noise whenever they decided to rock harder for a climactic moment. Not... bad, though. There was some ambition to try things that were difficult, and while the performance wasn't tight yet, I felt that these guys could be on their way towards becoming great. I kept wondering whether Ampersand was having a good time, and tapping my foot, swinging my hip, wanting to get more into the music, wishing people around me were dancing so that I could dance and not be the first one trying to. Wondering whether I was having a good time, mostly feeling tense and affectionate as over-amped love songs, and the lights, and sound loud enough I felt the rhythm hitting my breastbone like waves crashing onto a shore, created an atmosphere of awkwardness and tense romantic potential.
After the set, which Kid Royal closed well, with the best song of the bunch, I took Ampersand away from the noise. His knees were sore, he was getting tired. It had been fun and the music was pretty good, but he wanted to turn in and get some rest. Yeah, okay. It was fun. I walked him back to his car, and hugged him and waved goodnight with thanks for coming, then stood outside for a bit, wondering whether I wanted to go back to the rest of the concert.
After some indecision I did. However, the college doors had locked, and now it was a matter of finding an entrace that had student card access, as many of them don't. The easiest route to the concert was blocked by a security guard in blue who stiffly turned away anyone attempting to enter the free concert through an entrance which had been inexplicably designated exit only. In order to attend, you had to enter from the West, and either have someone open the nearest door from the inside for you (since it lacked a card access point) or detour the long way around the outside of the Student Union Building.
To be honest, this encounter seriously diminished what little was left of my interest in seeing the rest of the concert. However, I found my way to the allowed and intended entrance and inside just in time to hear the second band announce and perform their last song of the set, a song called... "Oceans". I stayed and listened, and softened and enjoyed. In contrast to their openers, this guy, Chad Price, and his band... They had polish. They didn't make the speakers emit a raw mess of noise at their dramatic moments, but made good use of silence to frame sound. His style includes a lot of shifting and bending his pitch around and stretching out vocal tones to play around the rhythm. A lot of people try to do that and it's something I often find pretentious and pointlessly frilly. But he built his style around it, made it fit, and kept the rhythm tight while playing around it. They were good. And it was a really nice love song.
This, I decided. This made a good end to the concert, for me. And I headed home, happy to have returned for that one special song. I found it on YouTube. I sent the link to Ampersand, to share that part of the concert with him in some sense too, and I reflected that... It had sounded better live, something I was delighted to be able to observe. I'm going to download this one. I'm going to make it my song of the day today on Facebook.
It's been a good day.
Also I misplaced my smartphone sometime between my tax class and the concert. I'm not particularly concerned, though. I'll probably find it again tomorrow, and I don't actually use it as a phone anyway, I mostly just listen to podcasts with it.
Saturday, January 13, 2018
Dear Memory: Trying to Slow Down
I wrote myself a checklist for today which consisted of very little big or taxing, and included leisure as an entry. It has been exams, and I have been dizzy with love and busy with study and unable to get much sleep, as I stay up late and my roommates always wake me with their conversations in the morning.
So I have had a quiet day deliberately for once. I set away my laundry, I enjoyed my tea, I ate leftovers and a shawarma on my way back home from a walk. The snow glitters like tiny flashing stars everywhere. Across the ground and in the air, the world around me shining with pinpoint mirrors, facets on a tiny flake of ice. Craft glitter could never match this, for all that it might be designed as though to try.
I Googled up some podcasts to do with finance and bookkeeping and Irish experience or systems in particular, and listened to one first episode of a couple on my walk. In one of them, the voice of the speaker sounded so similar to my dear friend Coda that I giggled to myself about it. In the other, the accents brought me nodding recognition and a reminder of the lecturer who taught my marketing class in Athlone.
The man at the pizza shop (who made me a shawarma) was good-natured and complimentary, happily chatting to me about all the diverse ingredients that make up the flavour, and shared the basic ingredients in the garlic sauce when I confessed I didn't know how to make it.
Half way along the long stretch of Oxford St. which is bordered in great sports fields and open to the wind, I paused and stared in some wonder at the sky. Lights... Lights on the distant side of the field stretched straight up in gorgeous vertical beams, visible high into the sky, diffuse with gentle auras. Some lights more reddish, others more bluish, and a couple thicker and brighter and yellow. I suppose, the light must have reflected off the sparse falling snow, to show those magnificent beams like pillars or signal lights up into the sky. It was worth stopping to stare at for a while, and I could not help but wish I had you with me to see it and awe at it alongside.
My phone had died of podcast. Its battery is rubbish these days and I hadn't fully charged it before leaving anyway. Otherwise, I would have taken a picture. As it is, I describe it here and encourage anyone who might read this and who lives in a place where it snows to look for the beautiful sight on a night when it is only just snowing in tiny flakes, so you can see into the distance.
I certainly must have overexposed myself to those Elbow songs in the past couple of days. Now I can hardly get them to stop interrupting my thoughts, and I am a little irritated of the feeling, even though they are good songs.
I am trying, for the moment, to calm myself down and return some focus on the present and near future, as much as it is habitual and forever tempting to continue daydreaming of meeting you again. I do not want to overdo it and lose sight of the broader existence and variety, and the options in my life. I hope to continue to find ways to enjoy my time here in more than just waiting for it to be over. I see myself in a broad variety of lights, as a student, a traveler, a romantic, a strong creature going on adventures, a restless youth barely able to pull myself together for an hour or two to study and touch ground between flights of fancy and self-indulgence.
Yesterday I went over to the college for a while just to get out of the house, and wandered into the library. There I found on a rack of books to be returned to the shelves a volume called Celtic Mythology, and I picked it up and sat down and read a while, a description of what disperate and scattered records shed any light at all on the religions and folklore of old Irish and broader Gaul or Gael culture. Records in Greece, observations written by their foes, suggestions in the content and the labels of some various works of art; statues, a cauldron somewhere... I read a brief English summary of the stages in the Book of Invasions.
Although I felt restless and tired and was frequently tempted to return home, my mind was also hungry for this context of some of the scant few things I heard others say while I was visiting, and one bit in particular, a mention of one surviving boat of a migration, which carried fifty women and three men, prompted me to blink to myself in some astonishment. I had heard that story before. Only briefly mentioned in this book, but I had heard a much elaborated version in a book I had read while still living at my mother's house what must have been over ten years ago.
It put me in a keen interest to someday take some time to visit other sites around Ireland, any place which still has symbols or record of these old stories, or special relevance in them, and see what it might inspire me to wonder. I thought, perhaps I could become a scholar of these great old stories someday, perhaps write conjectures on them... That, though, is another big and bold idea. It must be enough for now to be fascinated and pleasantly distracted by them, and keep going about my business of learning business, putting forth however much effort performing well at that must demand of me.
And it must be enough, for now, to bring my writing to a close and wish you and myself a good and restful night.
So I have had a quiet day deliberately for once. I set away my laundry, I enjoyed my tea, I ate leftovers and a shawarma on my way back home from a walk. The snow glitters like tiny flashing stars everywhere. Across the ground and in the air, the world around me shining with pinpoint mirrors, facets on a tiny flake of ice. Craft glitter could never match this, for all that it might be designed as though to try.
I Googled up some podcasts to do with finance and bookkeeping and Irish experience or systems in particular, and listened to one first episode of a couple on my walk. In one of them, the voice of the speaker sounded so similar to my dear friend Coda that I giggled to myself about it. In the other, the accents brought me nodding recognition and a reminder of the lecturer who taught my marketing class in Athlone.
The man at the pizza shop (who made me a shawarma) was good-natured and complimentary, happily chatting to me about all the diverse ingredients that make up the flavour, and shared the basic ingredients in the garlic sauce when I confessed I didn't know how to make it.
Half way along the long stretch of Oxford St. which is bordered in great sports fields and open to the wind, I paused and stared in some wonder at the sky. Lights... Lights on the distant side of the field stretched straight up in gorgeous vertical beams, visible high into the sky, diffuse with gentle auras. Some lights more reddish, others more bluish, and a couple thicker and brighter and yellow. I suppose, the light must have reflected off the sparse falling snow, to show those magnificent beams like pillars or signal lights up into the sky. It was worth stopping to stare at for a while, and I could not help but wish I had you with me to see it and awe at it alongside.
My phone had died of podcast. Its battery is rubbish these days and I hadn't fully charged it before leaving anyway. Otherwise, I would have taken a picture. As it is, I describe it here and encourage anyone who might read this and who lives in a place where it snows to look for the beautiful sight on a night when it is only just snowing in tiny flakes, so you can see into the distance.
I certainly must have overexposed myself to those Elbow songs in the past couple of days. Now I can hardly get them to stop interrupting my thoughts, and I am a little irritated of the feeling, even though they are good songs.
I am trying, for the moment, to calm myself down and return some focus on the present and near future, as much as it is habitual and forever tempting to continue daydreaming of meeting you again. I do not want to overdo it and lose sight of the broader existence and variety, and the options in my life. I hope to continue to find ways to enjoy my time here in more than just waiting for it to be over. I see myself in a broad variety of lights, as a student, a traveler, a romantic, a strong creature going on adventures, a restless youth barely able to pull myself together for an hour or two to study and touch ground between flights of fancy and self-indulgence.
Yesterday I went over to the college for a while just to get out of the house, and wandered into the library. There I found on a rack of books to be returned to the shelves a volume called Celtic Mythology, and I picked it up and sat down and read a while, a description of what disperate and scattered records shed any light at all on the religions and folklore of old Irish and broader Gaul or Gael culture. Records in Greece, observations written by their foes, suggestions in the content and the labels of some various works of art; statues, a cauldron somewhere... I read a brief English summary of the stages in the Book of Invasions.
Although I felt restless and tired and was frequently tempted to return home, my mind was also hungry for this context of some of the scant few things I heard others say while I was visiting, and one bit in particular, a mention of one surviving boat of a migration, which carried fifty women and three men, prompted me to blink to myself in some astonishment. I had heard that story before. Only briefly mentioned in this book, but I had heard a much elaborated version in a book I had read while still living at my mother's house what must have been over ten years ago.
It put me in a keen interest to someday take some time to visit other sites around Ireland, any place which still has symbols or record of these old stories, or special relevance in them, and see what it might inspire me to wonder. I thought, perhaps I could become a scholar of these great old stories someday, perhaps write conjectures on them... That, though, is another big and bold idea. It must be enough for now to be fascinated and pleasantly distracted by them, and keep going about my business of learning business, putting forth however much effort performing well at that must demand of me.
And it must be enough, for now, to bring my writing to a close and wish you and myself a good and restful night.
Thursday, January 11, 2018
Dear Memory: Five Years Ago, Three Thousand Miles Away...
It is the day of back-to-back exams from 3 to 7. I slept in to be well-rested, had a shower and a filling but not over-filling breakfast. And I remembered, as I was turning to head out; early, so I could spend a little time studying... I had wanted to listen to something new. I had been thinking I wanted to listen to that weird song you showed me, "An Audience With the Pope". See what else was on that album that I hadn't explored, because the names hadn't caught my attention as much. Your taste in music has rarely failed to interest me.
You might already see where this is going.
So I found the album, and put it on my mp3 player, and listened to the first track while I was crossing the road. Heh, I thought to myself. Well, it's refreshing. I haven't worn out my ears on it yet, and yes I think I might vaguely remember this... Not exactly the thing to want if my purpose had been not to think of you romantically, but then I already knew that.
But there is something I had forgotten about that album, if I ever knew it, that you surely know very well. The next track came on. And I was a bit stunned. The first song I ever heard you sing... Which, at first... I caught the mention of a cigarette and raised my brow at it as I gathered myself up and left your house, the very first time I visited it. In retrospect, with all I know now of that day, and having listened through the fullness of the song again... Well, I guess it may have been well on your mind from the disappointment when you thought I was informing you that I was unavailable.
And so I march on, and appreciate the meaning. It's not the crude encouragement I thought. It makes... sense now. Obsession, memories... They're addictive and habitual.
And then... There is something I had forgotten about that album, if I ever knew it, that you surely know very well. The next track came on. And I was a bit stunned. The song that you had sung to me, along that farm road. I knew there had been one, thoroughly a love song, that I couldn't quite remember. It expressed finding something that had been missing for a long time, but... I couldn't remember how. The melody, everything, was lost to me. I only remembered that you had sung it to me, and I had asked you whether you really felt that way, about me. And you had said yes.
I think I had almost started to convince myself that it had only been Skyscrapers, and I had mis-remembered. But Skyscrapers doesn't say that.
And here it is, to my ear. The same band, the same album, the very next song. A parade of little memories. I am struck with profound appreciation and a sort of reverence. And I'm nine months later, and... Huh. Well, would you look at that.
You might already see where this is going.
So I found the album, and put it on my mp3 player, and listened to the first track while I was crossing the road. Heh, I thought to myself. Well, it's refreshing. I haven't worn out my ears on it yet, and yes I think I might vaguely remember this... Not exactly the thing to want if my purpose had been not to think of you romantically, but then I already knew that.
But there is something I had forgotten about that album, if I ever knew it, that you surely know very well. The next track came on. And I was a bit stunned. The first song I ever heard you sing... Which, at first... I caught the mention of a cigarette and raised my brow at it as I gathered myself up and left your house, the very first time I visited it. In retrospect, with all I know now of that day, and having listened through the fullness of the song again... Well, I guess it may have been well on your mind from the disappointment when you thought I was informing you that I was unavailable.
And so I march on, and appreciate the meaning. It's not the crude encouragement I thought. It makes... sense now. Obsession, memories... They're addictive and habitual.
And then... There is something I had forgotten about that album, if I ever knew it, that you surely know very well. The next track came on. And I was a bit stunned. The song that you had sung to me, along that farm road. I knew there had been one, thoroughly a love song, that I couldn't quite remember. It expressed finding something that had been missing for a long time, but... I couldn't remember how. The melody, everything, was lost to me. I only remembered that you had sung it to me, and I had asked you whether you really felt that way, about me. And you had said yes.
I think I had almost started to convince myself that it had only been Skyscrapers, and I had mis-remembered. But Skyscrapers doesn't say that.
And here it is, to my ear. The same band, the same album, the very next song. A parade of little memories. I am struck with profound appreciation and a sort of reverence. And I'm nine months later, and... Huh. Well, would you look at that.
Wednesday, September 6, 2017
Common or Garden Heartbreak
If you've had any romance in your life, you probably know all the symptoms. An obsessive compulsion to listen to songs that remind you of Them; the mind turning irresistibly toward Them in every idle moment; the transformation on the context of every song you hear; the feeling of guilty wrongness upon seeking the company of other people which may be pleasantly distracting, but doesn't fit the craving for Their company.
Every part of it is predictable, as reliable as the tide; what fills me with joy leaves me with sorrow. I've certainly been through it before. This iteration is better in a number of ways. We did not part angrily, but honestly and with respect. There is no other new partner to blame, only distance. The spirals are looser, less clinging. All the questions about self-worth have easy answers, because our parting did not reflect badly on me.
But there's no dulling the sting of that core blade. Whenever my mind is idle, songs and memories and a desperate hope that I will see Them again fill it up. I cry silently in public, and wait, patiently and impatiently, until the tears will finally run out. How many months will it take? And more importantly, what I actually fear... Will I be able to get over this heartache without letting go of the hope that I will see Them again? All sense tells me there is no reason I can't. Desire is the partner of sorrow, but if I can make that desire light enough not to crush me, that doesn't immediately mean it will fly out of my head altogether, and what could possibly convince me that going back to such a fine thing, if and when it becomes possible, would not be wonderful?
But still I am afraid to let go too readily.
Every part of it is predictable, as reliable as the tide; what fills me with joy leaves me with sorrow. I've certainly been through it before. This iteration is better in a number of ways. We did not part angrily, but honestly and with respect. There is no other new partner to blame, only distance. The spirals are looser, less clinging. All the questions about self-worth have easy answers, because our parting did not reflect badly on me.
But there's no dulling the sting of that core blade. Whenever my mind is idle, songs and memories and a desperate hope that I will see Them again fill it up. I cry silently in public, and wait, patiently and impatiently, until the tears will finally run out. How many months will it take? And more importantly, what I actually fear... Will I be able to get over this heartache without letting go of the hope that I will see Them again? All sense tells me there is no reason I can't. Desire is the partner of sorrow, but if I can make that desire light enough not to crush me, that doesn't immediately mean it will fly out of my head altogether, and what could possibly convince me that going back to such a fine thing, if and when it becomes possible, would not be wonderful?
But still I am afraid to let go too readily.
Monday, August 14, 2017
Tabletop Story: Rogesh the Spy
The last time I played D&D was a cameo in a Pathfinder game while I was visiting an old friend in Northern Ireland. He suggested I make a character to join the party in his game for the short time I was there, so I asked about their current situation in order to make a character who could arise out of it. They were a party at around level 10, I think, and they were on a mission to find various pieces of the true name of a demon who'd been established as a nemesis of theirs. This had taken them most recently to a city of vampires, where they had been tested in battle by the vampire god Malkav (Vampire the Masquerade reference, there) and defeated his avatar, thereby earning his blessing on their quest.
My character was a half-breed (dhampir) called Rogesh who'd grown up in the city and made a name for himself as a thief, spy and assassin. He was a casual worshiper of Malkav and identified with the vampires of the city, but knew he was street trash. He lived a hedonistic lifestyle funded by selling his skills to the nobles in their petty power struggles. He was a rogue/shadow dancer and pretty much all of his powers had to do with shadows. He could step between them, hide well in them, bend them into illusions, and (fun fun flavour) the shadow companion he relied on to scout and sometimes flank for him was his own shadow - as a half-vampire, his human half did cast one, but his studies and powers gave it sentience and independence. When he wanted to stay subtle, he kept it near him, walking with him footstep to footstep as mortals' do, but he would whisper to it sometimes while stalking the seedier streets of the city.
Anyway, he'd been hired to spy on the arrivals to the city who had crashed through the gates a few days earlier, and see what they were up to. He tracked the party to where they were entering the sewers (vampire city sewers, full of blood and viscera), but his stealth was matched by the intuition of their drug-addled seer, who sensed that someone was watching them. This led to an awkward confrontation. Rogesh surrendered immediately (his advantage is stealth - once that's broken, he doesn't have much) and admitted he'd been sent to spy on them, but was somewhat awed when he saw the mark of Malkav's favour which showed magically behind their eyes and was eager to join them when they explained they were on a quest approved of by the vampire god. After all, he could still report back to his employer, and give even better details if he was observing their work from the inside.
In their trek through the sewers, Rogesh helped them fight, earning some trust and respect from the others, and his shadow was destroyed by an unknown danger after he sent it out scouting down a side path. He snuck past a gigantic otyugh embedded in the sewers, and when the rest of the party attracted its attention, he shouted threats at it and shot it in the inside of the mouth until it was convinced it would be better not to eat them, and let them go by.
Finally, they found a fleshy spire covered in writing, which they were sure somehow held the piece of the name they were looking for, but it was trapped, and the demon showed up in an avatar form built of blood from the sewers and fought them. The demon had prepared a strategy for fighting them, but was not expecting Rogesh. It was wearing the shape of a humanoid whose body it had taken over. Apparently she was a relative of one of the party members as well, and was known as a vampire hunter who had once posed enough of a threat to the city's undead population that Malkav rose up and claimed, or proved, his divinity in order to drive her off.
Before the fight, she offered Rogesh that since he was a half-breed, and had no part as yet in their fight, he could join her and serve her forces - or, he could stand against her with the party and be tormented horribly after she won. Rogesh stood uncertain for a moment, then realized he recognized the shape, and made up his mind. He fell to his knees, and for perhaps the first time in his life, he prayed aloud to Malkav. He had never been particularly devout, but he lived his life for life's pleasures, as was Malkav's way, and had always belonged to the city and the vampires. He prayed to Malkav to give him the strength to fight for the love of life and the joy of going down fighting. It seemed his prayer was heard, somehow. As a response to his passionate plea, his shadow returned. Normally it would take a month to grow back after being destroyed, but it came back immediately, visible against the chamber floor, and it looked subtly different, with long, flowing hair as would often be seen in depictions of Malkav in his role as the handsome prince-god of vampires.
The shadow wasn't any more powerful, but it was back to help him fight anyway, and Rogesh dug into the fray, leaping at the demon along with his new companions and digging blades into its back. In the end, they won, and Rogesh survived, falling to the floor of the sewers and laughing manically at how his life had suddenly become entwined in the affairs of gods and demons.
Denouement:
As the adventuring party left the city for their next destination, Rogesh returned to report to all the important vampire nobles (though his client first), and the church of Malkav, what had been happening, and that the demon had sought to usurp Malkav through the religious uprisings of the city's mortals. The uprisings were quashed in a bloody slaughter, Malkav himself taking the form of a gigantic ugly beast to rampage through the streets, supported by priests and warriors.
Rogesh watched the fighting from hidden alcoves in towers, in awe, and later asked a priest at one of the temples why Malkav took the form of an ugly monster when he was fighting. The answer given was that slaughter was an ugly thing, and Malkav did not think it fitting to offer it any of his beauty. Rogesh, who had never been beautiful and had always been a mercenary, found this to be a somewhat validating explanation.
His shadow retained its handsome new shape, although its personality and knowledge remained the same as ever. He was honored as a hero for warning the city of the danger; his reputation was greatly improved, earning him more prestigious contracts; and he told stories of the adventure in the city's bars and brothels while showing off the image of Malkav in his shadow to attract ladies.
My character was a half-breed (dhampir) called Rogesh who'd grown up in the city and made a name for himself as a thief, spy and assassin. He was a casual worshiper of Malkav and identified with the vampires of the city, but knew he was street trash. He lived a hedonistic lifestyle funded by selling his skills to the nobles in their petty power struggles. He was a rogue/shadow dancer and pretty much all of his powers had to do with shadows. He could step between them, hide well in them, bend them into illusions, and (fun fun flavour) the shadow companion he relied on to scout and sometimes flank for him was his own shadow - as a half-vampire, his human half did cast one, but his studies and powers gave it sentience and independence. When he wanted to stay subtle, he kept it near him, walking with him footstep to footstep as mortals' do, but he would whisper to it sometimes while stalking the seedier streets of the city.
Anyway, he'd been hired to spy on the arrivals to the city who had crashed through the gates a few days earlier, and see what they were up to. He tracked the party to where they were entering the sewers (vampire city sewers, full of blood and viscera), but his stealth was matched by the intuition of their drug-addled seer, who sensed that someone was watching them. This led to an awkward confrontation. Rogesh surrendered immediately (his advantage is stealth - once that's broken, he doesn't have much) and admitted he'd been sent to spy on them, but was somewhat awed when he saw the mark of Malkav's favour which showed magically behind their eyes and was eager to join them when they explained they were on a quest approved of by the vampire god. After all, he could still report back to his employer, and give even better details if he was observing their work from the inside.
In their trek through the sewers, Rogesh helped them fight, earning some trust and respect from the others, and his shadow was destroyed by an unknown danger after he sent it out scouting down a side path. He snuck past a gigantic otyugh embedded in the sewers, and when the rest of the party attracted its attention, he shouted threats at it and shot it in the inside of the mouth until it was convinced it would be better not to eat them, and let them go by.
Finally, they found a fleshy spire covered in writing, which they were sure somehow held the piece of the name they were looking for, but it was trapped, and the demon showed up in an avatar form built of blood from the sewers and fought them. The demon had prepared a strategy for fighting them, but was not expecting Rogesh. It was wearing the shape of a humanoid whose body it had taken over. Apparently she was a relative of one of the party members as well, and was known as a vampire hunter who had once posed enough of a threat to the city's undead population that Malkav rose up and claimed, or proved, his divinity in order to drive her off.
Before the fight, she offered Rogesh that since he was a half-breed, and had no part as yet in their fight, he could join her and serve her forces - or, he could stand against her with the party and be tormented horribly after she won. Rogesh stood uncertain for a moment, then realized he recognized the shape, and made up his mind. He fell to his knees, and for perhaps the first time in his life, he prayed aloud to Malkav. He had never been particularly devout, but he lived his life for life's pleasures, as was Malkav's way, and had always belonged to the city and the vampires. He prayed to Malkav to give him the strength to fight for the love of life and the joy of going down fighting. It seemed his prayer was heard, somehow. As a response to his passionate plea, his shadow returned. Normally it would take a month to grow back after being destroyed, but it came back immediately, visible against the chamber floor, and it looked subtly different, with long, flowing hair as would often be seen in depictions of Malkav in his role as the handsome prince-god of vampires.
The shadow wasn't any more powerful, but it was back to help him fight anyway, and Rogesh dug into the fray, leaping at the demon along with his new companions and digging blades into its back. In the end, they won, and Rogesh survived, falling to the floor of the sewers and laughing manically at how his life had suddenly become entwined in the affairs of gods and demons.
Denouement:
As the adventuring party left the city for their next destination, Rogesh returned to report to all the important vampire nobles (though his client first), and the church of Malkav, what had been happening, and that the demon had sought to usurp Malkav through the religious uprisings of the city's mortals. The uprisings were quashed in a bloody slaughter, Malkav himself taking the form of a gigantic ugly beast to rampage through the streets, supported by priests and warriors.
Rogesh watched the fighting from hidden alcoves in towers, in awe, and later asked a priest at one of the temples why Malkav took the form of an ugly monster when he was fighting. The answer given was that slaughter was an ugly thing, and Malkav did not think it fitting to offer it any of his beauty. Rogesh, who had never been beautiful and had always been a mercenary, found this to be a somewhat validating explanation.
His shadow retained its handsome new shape, although its personality and knowledge remained the same as ever. He was honored as a hero for warning the city of the danger; his reputation was greatly improved, earning him more prestigious contracts; and he told stories of the adventure in the city's bars and brothels while showing off the image of Malkav in his shadow to attract ladies.
Monday, January 23, 2017
Life Across the Sea
The Irish winter is mild compared to Canada. It was particularly mild when I arrived and for a few days then, and felt like spring, but now it's quite bitterly cold enough to be irritating. Being outside and moving is really not a problem in winter clothes, but inside, my apartment is not heated efficiently enough to cope well at all.
Worse, it's heated by metered electricity and that inefficiency costs a not insignificant quantity of money. At least now I know how to turn it on if I decide not to suffer numbness of my toes and fingers anymore for a while, but if I were to keep it on and keep my room a comfortable temperature with it (it does take a fair while to spread the heat sufficiently through the room) it would cost me 2-3 euros in electricity charges, per day, by itself.
I learned to my unhappiness that I would not be provided any blankets either and the first night I was here, I shivered impotently, huddled against a wall heater in the living room to no avail. The building was colder still while most of the students who would regularly inhabit it were still away on the winter holiday.
For the first five days I was here, I walked roughly three kilometers to the Athlone Castle in the center of town. It is just what it sounds like, a great old stone castle with a cobbled cart road up into it, and up at the top they have kept some cannon and stocks as historical artifacts. Each time, I sought out the St. Vincent de Paul's outlet I had seen existed downtown on Google Maps. Some of those times, it was closed, and its signage calls it Vincent's, with new and unfamiliar branding. However, I did buy sheets and a towel my first trip, and blankets on a couple of subsequent ones. I went back later for some more clothes, hoping to find something to wear to a nightclub, although that's another story; and finally, shorts and athletic capris. Regardless the place, a thrift store is my personal lifeline.
In the first two weeks of school here, I've learned that the Irish are more relaxed about time (less monochronic, as my earlier classes may have put it) and the proper time to arrive for classes is right on the hour. The lectures will actually begin 5-10 minutes later. Several of my classes were cancelled because it was so early in the term, and one was cancelled just because the lecturer did not show up.
I went out to Eddie Rockets (a local diner) and the cinema with some of the other New Internationals. This is not an official term, it's just what I'm calling those students who, like me, arrived here as transfer students for the second term of the year and with whom I was inducted and shown about the school. There are some from Germany, some from France, some from the Netherlands. The film we saw was Passengers. It was not perfect by any means, not an immediate favourite like Amelie, but it was visually absolutely gorgeous, and it was acted very well. I did however find myself internally facepalming at the movie at several moments though (Goddamnit, John, you should know better than this. You do not cross that line until you have had that talk. Could we maybe at some point consider having a romance movie which doesn't depend on someone doing something incredibly stupid and unethical for all its tension? Although, to be fair, he has pretty much descended into a personal hell. The extreme circumstances having affected his mind at least makes sense.) (Look, it's a science fiction movie... We know this guy is going to die because he's not one of the two protagonists who have to pull things out of the fire. Did you have to make him black? Really? Lawrence Fishburne does a fine job, but the adherence to the trope is embarrassing.) (and worst of all... What? Excuse me, what? You can't do that, that's cheating. She stopped moving while immersed in water. You made a point of showing her ceasing to struggle and going limp. No-one else is there to rescue her. She's dead. She is not going to get up from that no matter how much she's jolted around. She's dead, goddamn it.) ...but for the most part, although it was full of tropes played straight and pretty predictably, each one was played sincerely and with impressive style. The eye candy didn't get in the way and was absolutely beautiful. I was actually sitting in a cinema, noticing the tropes but not minding all that much. I found myself thinking... Well, would you look at that. In this moment, I'm damn near acting and feeling like a normal healthy young adult.
The New Internationals who were with me laughed at my comments on the film afterward, and split up, some going home, some heading out to the nightclub Karma. I was wearing thin and anxious, but elected to give it a go. The atmosphere when I stepped inside though did not agree with me, and I was already feeling tense having walked around for some time with a trio who were primarily speaking French to one another. I tried some of my learned high school Canadian French, to the encouragement and appreciation of Sana, but every time I opened my mouth, I felt deeply embarrassed by the knowledge that my ability with the language is so patchy. Perfectionism is not helpful in learning new things.
At the nightclub, the fee was 8 euro just to get in. Then inside there was a bag check that cost another 2. A youth slung himself around a corner hollering, and the throbbing music from inside did not appeal. Annoyed that I was already facing being milked of my money stage by stage, I defied the sunk cost fallacy, turned on my heel and left, stopping to ask the lady at the ticket gate whether I could get my 8 euro back and just leave. She said no. I wasn't going to argue.
Triggered, I walked towards home, around midnight downtown in an unfamiliar country. But then, being triggered is often like that. I despaired that I didn't have Lonely Digger on my mp3 player anymore, nor my mp3 player with me, and more than anything I despaired for being alone, far away from any of my close friends, and especially the closest, she who I dream will travel with me, my Ashlynn. Reaching a peak in my desperation, I sat on the sidewalk, took out a notebook and pen, and wrote. I do not, however, recount that writing here.
Since arriving, I have made contact with the Tabletop Society (board games, Magic, D&D players; a lot of familiar and friendly culture, gathered loudly in one room Thursday evenings), College of Kingeslake (SCADIANS! ♡), the Dance Club and the Archery Club (brought to us by College of Kingeslake on Friday afternoons). There has been much to learn and friendly people to meet.
An international student who has been here since September, Anni from Finland, was a quick friend, greeting me in one of my first classes and inviting me to come to Tabletop Society. It is good to have met someone I am comfortable asking questions and asking to work with me on group projects. She's taking accounting as her elective. Perhaps I can help her with the knowledge I already have.
I'm sure life in Ireland will continue to be new and challenging. Goodness, I didn't even really mention the rustic, eccentric architecture and the plentiful unfamiliar birds and how remarkably green the fields are... It will have to wait. There are things to attend to.
Worse, it's heated by metered electricity and that inefficiency costs a not insignificant quantity of money. At least now I know how to turn it on if I decide not to suffer numbness of my toes and fingers anymore for a while, but if I were to keep it on and keep my room a comfortable temperature with it (it does take a fair while to spread the heat sufficiently through the room) it would cost me 2-3 euros in electricity charges, per day, by itself.
I learned to my unhappiness that I would not be provided any blankets either and the first night I was here, I shivered impotently, huddled against a wall heater in the living room to no avail. The building was colder still while most of the students who would regularly inhabit it were still away on the winter holiday.
For the first five days I was here, I walked roughly three kilometers to the Athlone Castle in the center of town. It is just what it sounds like, a great old stone castle with a cobbled cart road up into it, and up at the top they have kept some cannon and stocks as historical artifacts. Each time, I sought out the St. Vincent de Paul's outlet I had seen existed downtown on Google Maps. Some of those times, it was closed, and its signage calls it Vincent's, with new and unfamiliar branding. However, I did buy sheets and a towel my first trip, and blankets on a couple of subsequent ones. I went back later for some more clothes, hoping to find something to wear to a nightclub, although that's another story; and finally, shorts and athletic capris. Regardless the place, a thrift store is my personal lifeline.
In the first two weeks of school here, I've learned that the Irish are more relaxed about time (less monochronic, as my earlier classes may have put it) and the proper time to arrive for classes is right on the hour. The lectures will actually begin 5-10 minutes later. Several of my classes were cancelled because it was so early in the term, and one was cancelled just because the lecturer did not show up.
I went out to Eddie Rockets (a local diner) and the cinema with some of the other New Internationals. This is not an official term, it's just what I'm calling those students who, like me, arrived here as transfer students for the second term of the year and with whom I was inducted and shown about the school. There are some from Germany, some from France, some from the Netherlands. The film we saw was Passengers. It was not perfect by any means, not an immediate favourite like Amelie, but it was visually absolutely gorgeous, and it was acted very well. I did however find myself internally facepalming at the movie at several moments though (Goddamnit, John, you should know better than this. You do not cross that line until you have had that talk. Could we maybe at some point consider having a romance movie which doesn't depend on someone doing something incredibly stupid and unethical for all its tension? Although, to be fair, he has pretty much descended into a personal hell. The extreme circumstances having affected his mind at least makes sense.) (Look, it's a science fiction movie... We know this guy is going to die because he's not one of the two protagonists who have to pull things out of the fire. Did you have to make him black? Really? Lawrence Fishburne does a fine job, but the adherence to the trope is embarrassing.) (and worst of all... What? Excuse me, what? You can't do that, that's cheating. She stopped moving while immersed in water. You made a point of showing her ceasing to struggle and going limp. No-one else is there to rescue her. She's dead. She is not going to get up from that no matter how much she's jolted around. She's dead, goddamn it.) ...but for the most part, although it was full of tropes played straight and pretty predictably, each one was played sincerely and with impressive style. The eye candy didn't get in the way and was absolutely beautiful. I was actually sitting in a cinema, noticing the tropes but not minding all that much. I found myself thinking... Well, would you look at that. In this moment, I'm damn near acting and feeling like a normal healthy young adult.
The New Internationals who were with me laughed at my comments on the film afterward, and split up, some going home, some heading out to the nightclub Karma. I was wearing thin and anxious, but elected to give it a go. The atmosphere when I stepped inside though did not agree with me, and I was already feeling tense having walked around for some time with a trio who were primarily speaking French to one another. I tried some of my learned high school Canadian French, to the encouragement and appreciation of Sana, but every time I opened my mouth, I felt deeply embarrassed by the knowledge that my ability with the language is so patchy. Perfectionism is not helpful in learning new things.
At the nightclub, the fee was 8 euro just to get in. Then inside there was a bag check that cost another 2. A youth slung himself around a corner hollering, and the throbbing music from inside did not appeal. Annoyed that I was already facing being milked of my money stage by stage, I defied the sunk cost fallacy, turned on my heel and left, stopping to ask the lady at the ticket gate whether I could get my 8 euro back and just leave. She said no. I wasn't going to argue.
Triggered, I walked towards home, around midnight downtown in an unfamiliar country. But then, being triggered is often like that. I despaired that I didn't have Lonely Digger on my mp3 player anymore, nor my mp3 player with me, and more than anything I despaired for being alone, far away from any of my close friends, and especially the closest, she who I dream will travel with me, my Ashlynn. Reaching a peak in my desperation, I sat on the sidewalk, took out a notebook and pen, and wrote. I do not, however, recount that writing here.
Since arriving, I have made contact with the Tabletop Society (board games, Magic, D&D players; a lot of familiar and friendly culture, gathered loudly in one room Thursday evenings), College of Kingeslake (SCADIANS! ♡), the Dance Club and the Archery Club (brought to us by College of Kingeslake on Friday afternoons). There has been much to learn and friendly people to meet.
An international student who has been here since September, Anni from Finland, was a quick friend, greeting me in one of my first classes and inviting me to come to Tabletop Society. It is good to have met someone I am comfortable asking questions and asking to work with me on group projects. She's taking accounting as her elective. Perhaps I can help her with the knowledge I already have.
I'm sure life in Ireland will continue to be new and challenging. Goodness, I didn't even really mention the rustic, eccentric architecture and the plentiful unfamiliar birds and how remarkably green the fields are... It will have to wait. There are things to attend to.
Monday, September 26, 2016
Cautionary Tales of Accounting
Two true stories about difficulties I have had tracking down mistakes in my Individual Case Study in Principles of Accounting 2. Be careful, be cautious! Learn from my mistakes.
If you don't know accounting, you might not understand the technical language. Read them if you want and see if they're funny anyway, or don't.
When I found my trial balance didn't balance, I turned to my professor (as the case study itself actually advised) to help me find out where the problems were. She sent me an email that pointed out several mistakes, which was a great help. After properly subtracting a sales return from the relevant purchase total before applying Outback Karen's early payment discount (that's where that $100 went wrong, which [bizarrely] balanced out a missing credit of $100 which should have gone to increasing Petty Cash and ended up giving me the correct closing Cash balance despite two unrelated mistakes), properly posting the second half of the month's Employee Benefits Expense and checking it all on the AME worksheet... There was still one thing wrong. My Accounts Payable balance was getting an incorrect mark.
I checked to see if I'd made a similar mistake to the one with Karen's return, but the only return posted for the company was on a cash purchase, no payables involved. I checked the Accounts Payables Subledger for anything suspicious, scrutinized the purchases themselves, and nothing seemed unusual or tricky. I used the A/P Total sheet to add them up and compare to the general ledger... And I was out $200.
...What? Well, that's a head scratcher. The only posts to the general ledger account were from Cash Payments and Purchases, so I checked there. Still nothing fishy. All the cash purchases had their amounts confirmed on the Bank Reconciliation. There was one thing worth $200, though. The discount amount (posted as a credit to Inventory) for paying a bill early. That shouldn't affect the Account Payable, though; it only made up the difference between the full amount payable (debited and marked as paid) and the discounted amount in Cash. It was a fantastic red herring.
Finally, I found it. The cell reference to total and transfer the Accounts Payable debit column from Cash Payments to the General Ledger was a sum of E3:E140. 140!? That's excessive. Well, it was supposed to go to 14, so what almost certainly happened was that I accidentally added a zero while trying to close the bracket on the Sum function. And what difference did that make? Well, it added in the PR number written in under the column to identify Accounts Payable and confirm that it had been debited appropriately: 200.
I guess the moral of this story is that it's worth it to take the time to total the columns within the special journals themselves, rather than reference the entire column from the Ledger with a Sum function. That would have prevented this from happening.
I went back and input all the updated numbers into the worksheet both on my case Excel file and on AME. They all get correct marks now. It is fixed. And the entire time I was doing that and for ten minutes afterward I would occasionally facepalm and mutter "so stupid..." because it was such a dumb reason to be out in my numbers.
---
Background: I told my professor that I had checked her Paying the Government video on how to remit HST (that's Harmonized Sales Tax, a recoverable tax [that is, what businesses pay in HST, they can get back from the government by subtracting it from the HST they collect from customers and must send in] collected on goods sold in Ontario and some other provinces of Canada), and I thought our totals for HST Recoverable were the same, despite the fact that my tax paid on expenses from the Petty Cash drawer was listed separately, and the other numbers she had as the correct ones in the videos looked the same as my numbers for transactions discluding that Petty Cash purchases HST. As you'll see, I turned out to be very wrong.
Here's what happened. I thought, earlier, that we actually had the same total in HST Recoverable despite the fact that the professor didn't seem to have the Petty Cash HST amounts included in the total from Cash Payments or anywhere else. It had already been established that I misread the transactions entry for that had to do with Petty Cash. There were two things I failed to see: the increase to $500 from $400, and the HST on Entertainment, which I swear I actually noticed and wondered why I wasn't paying HST on it, and I still didn't see it when I looked again. Muzzy, dizzy eyes after several hours of processing numbers is my only explanation there.
So, I was out by the $19.50 that should have been HST on Entertainment Expense. Fine, but why did I think the totals were the same then?
Well, I thought they were the same at first, but when I took a screenshot of the Paying the Government video, I saw that the cents were out. 50 cents were different, between a $.40 and a $.90. That was maddening. I took a closer look and saw that the professor's total brought over from Cash Payments was different from mine... and the difference was greater than my Petty Cash HST amount, by $19.50, not just 50 cents, but the totals still looked like they were only out by 50 cents. Nothing in this project was that small. It didn't make any sense. I badgered around trying to understand how this was possible when the machine was doing all the math for me (reducing the chance for human error substantially), and carefully checked and double-checked my adding processes over and over again, and put addition and subtraction formulae in empty cells by the side to try to spot the problem because I know a value of $19 can't just disappear in the total...
The problem? My brain had stubbornly refused, even under pressure, even knowing that something was wrong, to make any distinction between 7335 and 7355. Until finally one of my side summations came to the total the professor had, $7355.40, versus my $7335.90 and I saw the difference in more than cents. It took half an hour. Not for the first time, I wonder if I have mild discalculia.
I nearly wept.
I suppose if there is a moral to this one it would be to take a break and let yourself see the problem again with fresh eyes when you're getting invested.
Either that, or a reminder that human senses are fallible and sometimes they will invent problems where none exist just by perceiving little details inaccurately, therefore...
It's not always that important to thoroughly understand an apparent problem if you could just go ahead and solve it. If I had gone over to the Petty Cash transaction, noted that HST was payable on the last expense as well, fixed my numbers and come back, rather than doggedly trying to comprehend why something that ought to be impossible seemed to me to be happening, the total would have been right and the reason would have been evident without spending half an hour going insane wondering why $19 had apparently vanished into the ether.
If you don't know accounting, you might not understand the technical language. Read them if you want and see if they're funny anyway, or don't.
The Missing Error
I checked to see if I'd made a similar mistake to the one with Karen's return, but the only return posted for the company was on a cash purchase, no payables involved. I checked the Accounts Payables Subledger for anything suspicious, scrutinized the purchases themselves, and nothing seemed unusual or tricky. I used the A/P Total sheet to add them up and compare to the general ledger... And I was out $200.
...What? Well, that's a head scratcher. The only posts to the general ledger account were from Cash Payments and Purchases, so I checked there. Still nothing fishy. All the cash purchases had their amounts confirmed on the Bank Reconciliation. There was one thing worth $200, though. The discount amount (posted as a credit to Inventory) for paying a bill early. That shouldn't affect the Account Payable, though; it only made up the difference between the full amount payable (debited and marked as paid) and the discounted amount in Cash. It was a fantastic red herring.
Finally, I found it. The cell reference to total and transfer the Accounts Payable debit column from Cash Payments to the General Ledger was a sum of E3:E140. 140!? That's excessive. Well, it was supposed to go to 14, so what almost certainly happened was that I accidentally added a zero while trying to close the bracket on the Sum function. And what difference did that make? Well, it added in the PR number written in under the column to identify Accounts Payable and confirm that it had been debited appropriately: 200.
I guess the moral of this story is that it's worth it to take the time to total the columns within the special journals themselves, rather than reference the entire column from the Ledger with a Sum function. That would have prevented this from happening.
I went back and input all the updated numbers into the worksheet both on my case Excel file and on AME. They all get correct marks now. It is fixed. And the entire time I was doing that and for ten minutes afterward I would occasionally facepalm and mutter "so stupid..." because it was such a dumb reason to be out in my numbers.
---
What Actually Happened with the HST Recoverable Balance
Here's what happened. I thought, earlier, that we actually had the same total in HST Recoverable despite the fact that the professor didn't seem to have the Petty Cash HST amounts included in the total from Cash Payments or anywhere else. It had already been established that I misread the transactions entry for that had to do with Petty Cash. There were two things I failed to see: the increase to $500 from $400, and the HST on Entertainment, which I swear I actually noticed and wondered why I wasn't paying HST on it, and I still didn't see it when I looked again. Muzzy, dizzy eyes after several hours of processing numbers is my only explanation there.
So, I was out by the $19.50 that should have been HST on Entertainment Expense. Fine, but why did I think the totals were the same then?
Well, I thought they were the same at first, but when I took a screenshot of the Paying the Government video, I saw that the cents were out. 50 cents were different, between a $.40 and a $.90. That was maddening. I took a closer look and saw that the professor's total brought over from Cash Payments was different from mine... and the difference was greater than my Petty Cash HST amount, by $19.50, not just 50 cents, but the totals still looked like they were only out by 50 cents. Nothing in this project was that small. It didn't make any sense. I badgered around trying to understand how this was possible when the machine was doing all the math for me (reducing the chance for human error substantially), and carefully checked and double-checked my adding processes over and over again, and put addition and subtraction formulae in empty cells by the side to try to spot the problem because I know a value of $19 can't just disappear in the total...
The problem? My brain had stubbornly refused, even under pressure, even knowing that something was wrong, to make any distinction between 7335 and 7355. Until finally one of my side summations came to the total the professor had, $7355.40, versus my $7335.90 and I saw the difference in more than cents. It took half an hour. Not for the first time, I wonder if I have mild discalculia.
I nearly wept.
I suppose if there is a moral to this one it would be to take a break and let yourself see the problem again with fresh eyes when you're getting invested.
Either that, or a reminder that human senses are fallible and sometimes they will invent problems where none exist just by perceiving little details inaccurately, therefore...
It's not always that important to thoroughly understand an apparent problem if you could just go ahead and solve it. If I had gone over to the Petty Cash transaction, noted that HST was payable on the last expense as well, fixed my numbers and come back, rather than doggedly trying to comprehend why something that ought to be impossible seemed to me to be happening, the total would have been right and the reason would have been evident without spending half an hour going insane wondering why $19 had apparently vanished into the ether.
Sunday, March 23, 2014
Becoming Spring
Hello, World.
It's nice to see you without your snow on, for a change.
Last week, for the first time in several months, I chose to go for a very long walk just because I felt like it and the weather was nice enough to be worth walking outside in. My legs got a little sore, but it felt wonderful to have done. The slow and late coming of spring has been noted by many, and every day I'm at work I hear people talking about how tired they are of winter.
I look forward with quiet anticipation to days when I can sell my boyfriend on a walk down a nearby forest path, or a picnic in the graveyard. I intend to try a little gardening, too, once the ground is done being frozen. I will finally be able to get some use out of those seeds I bought at the dollar store last year.
Yesterday, I bought a long, low set of shelves (three planes) from work for $8, and carried it home by hand. Finally, my books are arranged on shelves rather than in boxes, and I have been greatly appreciating the change in atmosphere. It also takes up less space and is much more accessible. I expect I may end up reading a fair bit more with my books now always flaunting their titles at me when I glance up from my laptop. I also look forward to reading aloud to my online friends again during our Skype calls, something they claim to have much enjoyed. They tell me I have a very nice reading voice and encourage me to consider making more use of it, perhaps even doing some reading or voice-acting professionally if that can be done with my limited technology. I hope I remember to try.
I did a fair bit of cooking today, making two meals for my Robbit and myself: pancakes, and a baked chicken dinner with boiled carrots and mashed potatoes. It's probably the nicest home-cooked dinner we've had in several weeks, if not ever. I even got around to cleaning the most accessible parts of the counter.
I woke up early and well-rested today, and I remember feeling afraid that I would fail to make use of the day. I didn't want to face the responsibility for choosing how to spend my own time. But I guess I didn't do too bad, looking back, huh. I'm probably still insane, but I'm a kind of insane that can be pretty functional sometimes, maybe. Don't know how I feel about that. It's an annoying obligation, the responsibility that comes with ability. Oh, well.
I've been supporting my Robbit through some tough financial times due to a problem getting finances for rent from Ontario Works for the month of March, which is late now. He's getting behind on some things, which I'm sure has been a stress for him, on top of the difficulties of convincing himself to job search and such.
Oh! Also, I want to mention this, so that I can remind myself when I come back and re-read it. During that long walk I mentioned, I had a rather inspired idea. I'm going to keep the details to myself for now, but it involves writing. I really hope I get it finished so I can share it. It would be so lovely if it happens.
It's nice to see you without your snow on, for a change.
Last week, for the first time in several months, I chose to go for a very long walk just because I felt like it and the weather was nice enough to be worth walking outside in. My legs got a little sore, but it felt wonderful to have done. The slow and late coming of spring has been noted by many, and every day I'm at work I hear people talking about how tired they are of winter.
I look forward with quiet anticipation to days when I can sell my boyfriend on a walk down a nearby forest path, or a picnic in the graveyard. I intend to try a little gardening, too, once the ground is done being frozen. I will finally be able to get some use out of those seeds I bought at the dollar store last year.
Yesterday, I bought a long, low set of shelves (three planes) from work for $8, and carried it home by hand. Finally, my books are arranged on shelves rather than in boxes, and I have been greatly appreciating the change in atmosphere. It also takes up less space and is much more accessible. I expect I may end up reading a fair bit more with my books now always flaunting their titles at me when I glance up from my laptop. I also look forward to reading aloud to my online friends again during our Skype calls, something they claim to have much enjoyed. They tell me I have a very nice reading voice and encourage me to consider making more use of it, perhaps even doing some reading or voice-acting professionally if that can be done with my limited technology. I hope I remember to try.
I did a fair bit of cooking today, making two meals for my Robbit and myself: pancakes, and a baked chicken dinner with boiled carrots and mashed potatoes. It's probably the nicest home-cooked dinner we've had in several weeks, if not ever. I even got around to cleaning the most accessible parts of the counter.
I woke up early and well-rested today, and I remember feeling afraid that I would fail to make use of the day. I didn't want to face the responsibility for choosing how to spend my own time. But I guess I didn't do too bad, looking back, huh. I'm probably still insane, but I'm a kind of insane that can be pretty functional sometimes, maybe. Don't know how I feel about that. It's an annoying obligation, the responsibility that comes with ability. Oh, well.
I've been supporting my Robbit through some tough financial times due to a problem getting finances for rent from Ontario Works for the month of March, which is late now. He's getting behind on some things, which I'm sure has been a stress for him, on top of the difficulties of convincing himself to job search and such.
Oh! Also, I want to mention this, so that I can remind myself when I come back and re-read it. During that long walk I mentioned, I had a rather inspired idea. I'm going to keep the details to myself for now, but it involves writing. I really hope I get it finished so I can share it. It would be so lovely if it happens.
Tuesday, March 19, 2013
Arrrgh!!
Well. That could have gone better.
I realize that not everyone may have the context for that remark. Let me fill you in. I had a job interview today. 'Nuff said? Well too bad, I'm going to say more anyway.
I had been sending a lot of applications to this company on their own special online job board thingamajig, and happily enough, someone actually called me - it happened to be while I was about to walk into the food bank, a few days ago, so I did a phone interview outside, and it went well. I took a while to think before answering some questions and it was hard to hear the lady on the phone, but we got through it. I just needed her to repeat a few things. And she set me up an appointment to go to an interview today. Great!
I spent the weekend looking forward to it, thinking, relaxing, arguing with my boyfriend as usual and rolling up random D&D characters. It's been a while since I've done that. I went price shopping online, and attempted to do so in person, but that didn't work out too well, for hard hats and steel-toed shoes, as the phone interviewer had informed me I'd need them for work if I got the job. I sent my price quotes from the internet to Ontario Works requesting funding for job search related equipment... and told a bunch of my friends about it with excitement , getting nearly half a dozen people wishing me good luck and success.
And now the day has come. I had a good feeling about this, and was optimistic... even confident! I got my references printed and called up the only one I hadn't contacted by email to notify her and make sure handing her name in was all okay. Yep, no problem there. I gave myself a bit of praise after the phonecall, despite being in a public place where people could hear me: "You did it! Yay! Well done..." Phonecalls always stress me out. Calling people I haven't spoken to in ages, much moreso.
I dressed up really nice in a collared shirt tucked into snugly fitting black pants. I cleaned my shoes, which had gotten a bit grungy, and even tried buffing them with a rag and some vegetable oil in the hopes it would bring out a bit of a shine. I realize this is not normally the way to oil shoes, but it doesn't seem to have turned out badly. I prepared my padded folder with my resume and references, packed an assortment of things I'd need into the purse I never use unless I want to look professional, donned my business jacket and headed out to get there early... So early, in fact, that I had half an hour to kill before showing up, so I hung out in a nearby bank, chatting with Damon on the phone, and used the bathroom at a restaurant, until it was a quarter to my appointment, and I headed in.
And the place was pleasant, and the many staff members I saw made every move to be friendly and helpful. My interviewer showed up with a warm and welcoming smile and brought me with polite smalltalk to the staff training area, a cozy place with lockers and paper notes stuck on cabinets, and a handful of smiling workers on break. We sat down in a small room to do the interview proper, two interviewers with bundles of papers and pens to take notes, and me, across the table from them. I handed them my updated resume and pointed out that I had taken a First Aid and CPR course since submitting the one online that they already had. Then came the questions. For the first several, I gave good, solid answers that I'm sure were pretty close to ideal. How do I present myself to customers, knowing I'm the last contact they may have with us? With a smile. Always with a smile. The interviewer who'd come to get me seemed to beam while writing my answers, or whatever other observations she was making, down.
I feel I should have mentioned something specifically about dealing with the specific complaints when asked what I'd do if a customer approached me rudely with complaints about a product, rather than only saying I'd take a breath, talk to them calmly, and try to smile anyway if I could, get through it... But that wasn't the big mistake.
I was asked how I've dealt with tasks that required both speed and accuracy, and I froze for a moment, unable to think of one. This would have been fine, if I hadn't grasped for the first answer to come to mind: cleaning... And spoken about how in housekeeping, I was great at being thorough, which makes for a comparable attribute to accuracy, I suppose, but could lag behind sometimes... But getting faster was probably just a matter of learning. After that answer, my interviewers said they had no more questions, and closed their interview booklets, though there looked to be quite a few pages left, and the announcement was abrupt. They asked me if I had any questions myself, and I was startled and grasped again... So I asked about how long it would be before I should expect to hear back from someone, and who I'd be hearing back from if I was contacted. Which is a fair question. I'm not disappointed about that. We chatted a little about the extra paperwork that hiring season meant for them, and I was escorted to the exit. It wasn't until I left the building that I realized I'd forgotten to hand them the sheet of references I'd gone out of my way to contact and prepare, and we hadn't touched on the two pieces of I.D. I had been asked to bring to the interview... And hadn't someone said something about "training", not just an interview?
Arrgh... I guess I just got nervous, and flubbed up. I felt embarrassed failure heavy on my shoulders as I left... I automatically turned toward the bus stop... But turned myself around again to buy some milk I knew I needed from a grocery store which happened to be right next to it... And after walking past the store again, and half way down the block... I realized I really was running away in a panic, ruminating that I'd ruined everything and it was too late to go back now.
So I stopped, and I turned around again, and I walked back to the store, and approached the lady at customer service that I'd approached originally, no doubt blushing, and admitted I'd forgotten to give the interviewers my reference sheet. She called them for me, took it, and promised to give it to them, and I skulked off again... but at least it was possible now that my work updating the sheet and calling my old volunteer manager wasn't entirely wasted. I left the building for a second time feeling like I had failed, but at least won the booby prize for facing my fears and facing up to a silly mistake... This is probably cognitive behavioral therapy.
So, let me take a moment to review my performance here, and note on the failures, and on the successes of today's interview...
Good:
Preparation: I kept an eye on how much time I expected to have throughout the day, and got everything together quite well. I made sure I had everything I needed before I headed out the door, including blank thank-you cards and a pencil and eraser, in the handbag I prepared rather than taking my less professional looking backpack. I even had a slip of paper with where I was going by address and sketched map, who I was to ask for at what desk, and a phone number to call in case somehow I was late and needed to get in touch. I had taken care to eat and drink, and use the bathroom, before leaving, so that I wouldn't be interviewed on an empty stomach or while uncomfortable, and I got a healthy dose of pep talk from my friends before heading out. If I could go to all my interviews so well prepared, that would be an excellent thing.
Presentation: When I realized how casually all the employees were dressed, I felt overdressed in my blazer. Afterall, I had been instructed that a casual business shirt and pants were probably what I should try for. So, I stuffed my blazer into my handbag, and felt professional and well-dressed, but not quite so needlessly fancy. I took my hair down when I walked into the building, having brushed it thoroughly at home, and I smiled and spoke politely to everyone I met, thanking my interviewer, for instance, when she held the door for me. I remembered to make frequent eye contact during the interview, and while my smile probably flagged at some point, or else seemed nervous, I am sure I was smiling.
Thank-You Cards: Not just bringing them with me, but I stopped and sat at a table to write a short and casual but heartfelt thank you with good wishes for the coming year and hopes to see you again at work, to each of the two interviewers, being sure not to make them too alike so it didn't seem I just copied them from one another. I was already aware I'd messed up, and tried the thank-you card thing anyway. I deserve credit for that. It was definitely a good thing.
Bad:
References WITH Resume: I forgot to hand them my references because I waited to be prompted for them and then forgot. I should have handed them in with or immediately after my resume, without waiting. Then, we could have spoken about that then. I need to remember that it's okay to start the references conversation rather than waiting for someone else to.
An Answer... Any Answer...: Faced with the thick silence, I panicked and didn't take the time to think thoroughly before I spoke. I remember going over this in a training thing once a long time ago. Yes, the silence is daunting, but don't feel the need to fill it... It's okay to take a few whole minutes to calmly think about the question, particularly when it's about what I have dealt with in the past. That's what I needed to do here to keep my composure, and come up with an example that doesn't make me look like I'd need training to achieve basic competence. Tasks that require accuracy and speed... Um... like cleaning? No, dumbass, like making change. The thing that applies to the cashier position you're applying for. Which I am fantastic at doing quickly without making any mistakes, by the way. That's why my cash till totals back at Saint Vincent de Paul's were often exactly, to the penny, what they were supposed to be at the end of the day.
Too Cool: I think my smalltalk may have been a bit forced. I wish I'd worked more with the talk the interviewers gave me, and maybe asked some casual questions of them, relaxed a little more, and let myself feel personal with them a bit, to be more at my ease. I wish I'd voiced my thoughts that the staff training room was really neat and that the whole place felt incredibly friendly. I was trying too hard and being too careful, I really was.
And in the end... Well. I screwed up. But it's not the end of the world, right? While making some macaroni and cheese after coming home with painfully frostnipped fingers, and thinking about this, I found The Roses of Success wandering around unexpectedly inside my head. I... dealt with that rather well, in the end, didn't I? I caught myself running away, and marched back, red-faced but ready to make what reparations I could. While heading home, I focussed on allowing myself to feel embarrassed and think on what exactly I'd done wrong, without panicking and ruminating on how I'd never be able to do it right. I was all set up for success, and ended up with failure... And this means that I have got a good handle on preparation, and need to practice and improve my execution. I impressed and got an interview with my resume... A couple now, actually. That bit seems to be working. Now I get to make this set of mistakes. And learn from them.
I did always like that song...
I realize that not everyone may have the context for that remark. Let me fill you in. I had a job interview today. 'Nuff said? Well too bad, I'm going to say more anyway.
I had been sending a lot of applications to this company on their own special online job board thingamajig, and happily enough, someone actually called me - it happened to be while I was about to walk into the food bank, a few days ago, so I did a phone interview outside, and it went well. I took a while to think before answering some questions and it was hard to hear the lady on the phone, but we got through it. I just needed her to repeat a few things. And she set me up an appointment to go to an interview today. Great!
I spent the weekend looking forward to it, thinking, relaxing, arguing with my boyfriend as usual and rolling up random D&D characters. It's been a while since I've done that. I went price shopping online, and attempted to do so in person, but that didn't work out too well, for hard hats and steel-toed shoes, as the phone interviewer had informed me I'd need them for work if I got the job. I sent my price quotes from the internet to Ontario Works requesting funding for job search related equipment... and told a bunch of my friends about it with excitement , getting nearly half a dozen people wishing me good luck and success.
And now the day has come. I had a good feeling about this, and was optimistic... even confident! I got my references printed and called up the only one I hadn't contacted by email to notify her and make sure handing her name in was all okay. Yep, no problem there. I gave myself a bit of praise after the phonecall, despite being in a public place where people could hear me: "You did it! Yay! Well done..." Phonecalls always stress me out. Calling people I haven't spoken to in ages, much moreso.
I dressed up really nice in a collared shirt tucked into snugly fitting black pants. I cleaned my shoes, which had gotten a bit grungy, and even tried buffing them with a rag and some vegetable oil in the hopes it would bring out a bit of a shine. I realize this is not normally the way to oil shoes, but it doesn't seem to have turned out badly. I prepared my padded folder with my resume and references, packed an assortment of things I'd need into the purse I never use unless I want to look professional, donned my business jacket and headed out to get there early... So early, in fact, that I had half an hour to kill before showing up, so I hung out in a nearby bank, chatting with Damon on the phone, and used the bathroom at a restaurant, until it was a quarter to my appointment, and I headed in.
And the place was pleasant, and the many staff members I saw made every move to be friendly and helpful. My interviewer showed up with a warm and welcoming smile and brought me with polite smalltalk to the staff training area, a cozy place with lockers and paper notes stuck on cabinets, and a handful of smiling workers on break. We sat down in a small room to do the interview proper, two interviewers with bundles of papers and pens to take notes, and me, across the table from them. I handed them my updated resume and pointed out that I had taken a First Aid and CPR course since submitting the one online that they already had. Then came the questions. For the first several, I gave good, solid answers that I'm sure were pretty close to ideal. How do I present myself to customers, knowing I'm the last contact they may have with us? With a smile. Always with a smile. The interviewer who'd come to get me seemed to beam while writing my answers, or whatever other observations she was making, down.
I feel I should have mentioned something specifically about dealing with the specific complaints when asked what I'd do if a customer approached me rudely with complaints about a product, rather than only saying I'd take a breath, talk to them calmly, and try to smile anyway if I could, get through it... But that wasn't the big mistake.
I was asked how I've dealt with tasks that required both speed and accuracy, and I froze for a moment, unable to think of one. This would have been fine, if I hadn't grasped for the first answer to come to mind: cleaning... And spoken about how in housekeeping, I was great at being thorough, which makes for a comparable attribute to accuracy, I suppose, but could lag behind sometimes... But getting faster was probably just a matter of learning. After that answer, my interviewers said they had no more questions, and closed their interview booklets, though there looked to be quite a few pages left, and the announcement was abrupt. They asked me if I had any questions myself, and I was startled and grasped again... So I asked about how long it would be before I should expect to hear back from someone, and who I'd be hearing back from if I was contacted. Which is a fair question. I'm not disappointed about that. We chatted a little about the extra paperwork that hiring season meant for them, and I was escorted to the exit. It wasn't until I left the building that I realized I'd forgotten to hand them the sheet of references I'd gone out of my way to contact and prepare, and we hadn't touched on the two pieces of I.D. I had been asked to bring to the interview... And hadn't someone said something about "training", not just an interview?
Arrgh... I guess I just got nervous, and flubbed up. I felt embarrassed failure heavy on my shoulders as I left... I automatically turned toward the bus stop... But turned myself around again to buy some milk I knew I needed from a grocery store which happened to be right next to it... And after walking past the store again, and half way down the block... I realized I really was running away in a panic, ruminating that I'd ruined everything and it was too late to go back now.
So I stopped, and I turned around again, and I walked back to the store, and approached the lady at customer service that I'd approached originally, no doubt blushing, and admitted I'd forgotten to give the interviewers my reference sheet. She called them for me, took it, and promised to give it to them, and I skulked off again... but at least it was possible now that my work updating the sheet and calling my old volunteer manager wasn't entirely wasted. I left the building for a second time feeling like I had failed, but at least won the booby prize for facing my fears and facing up to a silly mistake... This is probably cognitive behavioral therapy.
So, let me take a moment to review my performance here, and note on the failures, and on the successes of today's interview...
Good:
Preparation: I kept an eye on how much time I expected to have throughout the day, and got everything together quite well. I made sure I had everything I needed before I headed out the door, including blank thank-you cards and a pencil and eraser, in the handbag I prepared rather than taking my less professional looking backpack. I even had a slip of paper with where I was going by address and sketched map, who I was to ask for at what desk, and a phone number to call in case somehow I was late and needed to get in touch. I had taken care to eat and drink, and use the bathroom, before leaving, so that I wouldn't be interviewed on an empty stomach or while uncomfortable, and I got a healthy dose of pep talk from my friends before heading out. If I could go to all my interviews so well prepared, that would be an excellent thing.
Presentation: When I realized how casually all the employees were dressed, I felt overdressed in my blazer. Afterall, I had been instructed that a casual business shirt and pants were probably what I should try for. So, I stuffed my blazer into my handbag, and felt professional and well-dressed, but not quite so needlessly fancy. I took my hair down when I walked into the building, having brushed it thoroughly at home, and I smiled and spoke politely to everyone I met, thanking my interviewer, for instance, when she held the door for me. I remembered to make frequent eye contact during the interview, and while my smile probably flagged at some point, or else seemed nervous, I am sure I was smiling.
Thank-You Cards: Not just bringing them with me, but I stopped and sat at a table to write a short and casual but heartfelt thank you with good wishes for the coming year and hopes to see you again at work, to each of the two interviewers, being sure not to make them too alike so it didn't seem I just copied them from one another. I was already aware I'd messed up, and tried the thank-you card thing anyway. I deserve credit for that. It was definitely a good thing.
Bad:
References WITH Resume: I forgot to hand them my references because I waited to be prompted for them and then forgot. I should have handed them in with or immediately after my resume, without waiting. Then, we could have spoken about that then. I need to remember that it's okay to start the references conversation rather than waiting for someone else to.
An Answer... Any Answer...: Faced with the thick silence, I panicked and didn't take the time to think thoroughly before I spoke. I remember going over this in a training thing once a long time ago. Yes, the silence is daunting, but don't feel the need to fill it... It's okay to take a few whole minutes to calmly think about the question, particularly when it's about what I have dealt with in the past. That's what I needed to do here to keep my composure, and come up with an example that doesn't make me look like I'd need training to achieve basic competence. Tasks that require accuracy and speed... Um... like cleaning? No, dumbass, like making change. The thing that applies to the cashier position you're applying for. Which I am fantastic at doing quickly without making any mistakes, by the way. That's why my cash till totals back at Saint Vincent de Paul's were often exactly, to the penny, what they were supposed to be at the end of the day.
Too Cool: I think my smalltalk may have been a bit forced. I wish I'd worked more with the talk the interviewers gave me, and maybe asked some casual questions of them, relaxed a little more, and let myself feel personal with them a bit, to be more at my ease. I wish I'd voiced my thoughts that the staff training room was really neat and that the whole place felt incredibly friendly. I was trying too hard and being too careful, I really was.
And in the end... Well. I screwed up. But it's not the end of the world, right? While making some macaroni and cheese after coming home with painfully frostnipped fingers, and thinking about this, I found The Roses of Success wandering around unexpectedly inside my head. I... dealt with that rather well, in the end, didn't I? I caught myself running away, and marched back, red-faced but ready to make what reparations I could. While heading home, I focussed on allowing myself to feel embarrassed and think on what exactly I'd done wrong, without panicking and ruminating on how I'd never be able to do it right. I was all set up for success, and ended up with failure... And this means that I have got a good handle on preparation, and need to practice and improve my execution. I impressed and got an interview with my resume... A couple now, actually. That bit seems to be working. Now I get to make this set of mistakes. And learn from them.
I did always like that song...
Froom the ashes oof disaster groow the roses of success~!
Thursday, March 7, 2013
Status Update
Yeah, there's been some stuff to talk about, but I just haven't been wanting to sit down and write to you guys. Almost a month ago, I broke up with Pup on Valentine's Day. I didn't even realize the timing. We talked a lot, I decided on the terms of One Last Chance, and consented to stay. But he still annoys me almost every day. Over the past two weeks, he's been breaking down after listening in on a conversation between me and a friend of his apparently taught him that despite his pretenses to morality, to logic, to rationality, he doesn't know a goddamn thing. Now for the last two days, something seems to have broken, and his answer to everything is saying "I don't know"; blaming everything on his Aspergers, on overexposure to mercury, on the stimuli he's responding to... including me... and lashing out.
For about a week, I've picked up Fitocracy again; I've been planking, but not really anything else. It's too early to say whether I'll stay with it. I do manage to do it for a while even when I'm really not very into it, though... I just tend to collapse after a minute if my spirit isn't in it or I'm otherwise worn out.
I returned to Writing.com and wrote a few contest entries, the first of which won an on-site prize. The contests I'm entering have a 300 or 100 max word count, and make great practice for cutting stories down to the vital core, making them succinct. I did fall into a jealous habit of comparing my work to the other entries, though, when I didn't win. Or worse, calling into question the taste and legitimacy of the judges. I might post my work here, some of it. I might not.
I've also been doing a little bit of sketching and artwork. For a while, while things were going well with Pup, I sketched him in anime style, something I've never really managed to work in before, and it seemed to go really well. I think of, or say, something funny, and I do a quick sketch of it, sometimes.
This week, I finally got my First Aid/CPR certification, Level C. I felt noble learning the material, and it was a bit of work, mostly because Pup kept me up very late so I was doing the 8-hour courses on four and three hour nights of sleep. The course itself was fun and seems very useful. If I'm ever in an emergency situation, I think I will feel much more confident dealing with it now. There was some confusion with my certificate card, though. The course instructor accidentally filled out the expiry date and the issue date as the same, so that I would be certified for 24 hours, rather than three years. I brought up the mistake to Goodwill, and my card was redone properly. I was told the other staff members laughed at her for the mistake, though that bit didn't make me feel any better.
Yesterday I had a mild, prolonged anxiety attack, apparently prompted by a bunch of people trying to help me with my questions at Goodwill, and someone answering other questions a bit shortly, since he had a lot of different things to do. The attack lasted over two hours and I felt hostile and feeble throughout it. Then came home to Pup and fought for a long time about him failing to aplogize to me or take my feelings into account even when I make them clear, and me being irrational and unstable to a point that he feels he has to be afraid of my leaving him any time he does anything at all.
Today, from the time I woke up, despite doing my planking and having a shower, and despite close to twelve hours of sleep, it felt like the world was slowed down. When I listened to my music, it all sounded slightly but uncannily flat, and I didn't care about it, even though it was music that was usually very powerful to me. I went to Goodwill to retrieve a flash drive I'd forgotten there, and came home immediately. It was obvious to me that I needed to just rest, today, and recover from my stresses... my body and despondent mind were telling me something was wrong and I needed to tend to that before anything else.
It seems much of this, my own participation in all sorts of other activities, including some active job search work, practicing various forms of my artistry... was largely prompted by Pup's computer being fixed, meaning he now has something to spend time with without me having to be there to engage him constantly. The fact that it's now, after this, that his responses to me have seemed to step up again in aggression and disrespect has some very disappointing implications that now that he doesn't need me as much, there's a lot more dissatisfaction and hostility he may have been holding back, that's now out. Perhaps having what he wanted has actually made his mental and emotional condition worse, because he can junkie out on video games and avoid real world responsibilities as much as he wants. I don't really know. Whatever's going on, I don't think this will last long.
P.S: I... just discovered something weird on my Writing.com account. Apparently someone spent $20 on me to get me three months of upgraded account. It was an anonymous gift, with the message: "Keep reviewing!". I... feel kind of stunned. It's weird that some random person on the internet would spent money on me to get me to keep doing reviews of writing... I wonder, is this how Grimith feels?
For about a week, I've picked up Fitocracy again; I've been planking, but not really anything else. It's too early to say whether I'll stay with it. I do manage to do it for a while even when I'm really not very into it, though... I just tend to collapse after a minute if my spirit isn't in it or I'm otherwise worn out.
I returned to Writing.com and wrote a few contest entries, the first of which won an on-site prize. The contests I'm entering have a 300 or 100 max word count, and make great practice for cutting stories down to the vital core, making them succinct. I did fall into a jealous habit of comparing my work to the other entries, though, when I didn't win. Or worse, calling into question the taste and legitimacy of the judges. I might post my work here, some of it. I might not.
I've also been doing a little bit of sketching and artwork. For a while, while things were going well with Pup, I sketched him in anime style, something I've never really managed to work in before, and it seemed to go really well. I think of, or say, something funny, and I do a quick sketch of it, sometimes.
This week, I finally got my First Aid/CPR certification, Level C. I felt noble learning the material, and it was a bit of work, mostly because Pup kept me up very late so I was doing the 8-hour courses on four and three hour nights of sleep. The course itself was fun and seems very useful. If I'm ever in an emergency situation, I think I will feel much more confident dealing with it now. There was some confusion with my certificate card, though. The course instructor accidentally filled out the expiry date and the issue date as the same, so that I would be certified for 24 hours, rather than three years. I brought up the mistake to Goodwill, and my card was redone properly. I was told the other staff members laughed at her for the mistake, though that bit didn't make me feel any better.
Yesterday I had a mild, prolonged anxiety attack, apparently prompted by a bunch of people trying to help me with my questions at Goodwill, and someone answering other questions a bit shortly, since he had a lot of different things to do. The attack lasted over two hours and I felt hostile and feeble throughout it. Then came home to Pup and fought for a long time about him failing to aplogize to me or take my feelings into account even when I make them clear, and me being irrational and unstable to a point that he feels he has to be afraid of my leaving him any time he does anything at all.
Today, from the time I woke up, despite doing my planking and having a shower, and despite close to twelve hours of sleep, it felt like the world was slowed down. When I listened to my music, it all sounded slightly but uncannily flat, and I didn't care about it, even though it was music that was usually very powerful to me. I went to Goodwill to retrieve a flash drive I'd forgotten there, and came home immediately. It was obvious to me that I needed to just rest, today, and recover from my stresses... my body and despondent mind were telling me something was wrong and I needed to tend to that before anything else.
It seems much of this, my own participation in all sorts of other activities, including some active job search work, practicing various forms of my artistry... was largely prompted by Pup's computer being fixed, meaning he now has something to spend time with without me having to be there to engage him constantly. The fact that it's now, after this, that his responses to me have seemed to step up again in aggression and disrespect has some very disappointing implications that now that he doesn't need me as much, there's a lot more dissatisfaction and hostility he may have been holding back, that's now out. Perhaps having what he wanted has actually made his mental and emotional condition worse, because he can junkie out on video games and avoid real world responsibilities as much as he wants. I don't really know. Whatever's going on, I don't think this will last long.
P.S: I... just discovered something weird on my Writing.com account. Apparently someone spent $20 on me to get me three months of upgraded account. It was an anonymous gift, with the message: "Keep reviewing!". I... feel kind of stunned. It's weird that some random person on the internet would spent money on me to get me to keep doing reviews of writing... I wonder, is this how Grimith feels?
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