Archive for August, 2010
risqué public reading
I just got hassled by a security guard for lying down on a big
circular seat while reading a book. Amazing!
Sorry mate, I know this is going to sound strange, but you can’t lie
down while on the seat. It’s okay to read the book, but you have to be
sitting up – Security guard at Enex100
How weird is that?
A lady walked past while this was going on and snapped a picture. I
asked her if she wanted another one, but she just smiled and moved on
(with Mr Guard escorting her away). Apparently I was causing a stir.
Fully clothed, no shoes on the material, nothing! Oh well, time to
move along I guess :-)
No news is good news, it seems.
Well, that’s not actually true, no news is a veritable playground for wild and crazy reasons why there has been no phone call yet. If we knew something, even that Emma has been unsuccessful, that would be better for her emotional well being. Sort of. At least, if we knew something then we would know what to do.
More specifically, I would know what to do. Not being able to help is something I have experience with, but consistently not being able to help is really difficult to deal with. In theory this is good practice for later – the next audition, the birthing room, the first time one of the kids falls in love etc – but right now?
It sucks!
12 more days isn’t that long, is it?
These last few weeks have been hard. I have been sick, I have had major issues at school, I am anxious and stressed. It all exploded not last Tuesday but the one before when after getting spots (like I had before the wedding) I then had a break down at school. The last post I made on here was a whinge about how I had been effectively kicked out of the English department and as a result I was starting to feel less and less like I belong.
I guess I have always felt like I belonged. I have gone through school, work, social clubs, friendship groups, always feeling like I had a place there. The first time I really felt like I didn’t belong was last year when I went to Singapore. Now that feeling is back. I don’t really fit in at school and I guess the whole kicking out of the English department has further cemented that feeling. Last week I missed three days of school to “stress leave” and am now only just starting to feel comfortable at school again.
I am also attributing some of the stress to the anxious waiting about Singapore. For the past two weeks I have been able to console myself with the thought that it was only early August so I wouldn’t know about the job yet, but as of two days ago I have been able to say that “Okay, now it actually is getting into late August. Why haven’t they called yet?”. Every day that goes past adds more to my increasing anxiety that maybe I wasn’t as good as I thought I was at the audition and the jobs have already been handed out and I don’t even know it yet. It is made even worse by the thought that I will be the first one to know if I do have the job whereas Ben will be the first to know if I don’t because he is the only one who has any contacts with other auditionees. It sucks.
So sickness, stress and anxiety and making for a very difficult time for me at the moment. At least I have Fiddler on the Roof rehearsals to keep my mind off things and keep me smiling.
Image by Jenser (Flikr)
All year our school timetables have been a mess because there have been more classes scheduled then there are rooms available. At the start of the year twice a week I didn’t have a classroom because of this problem.
“Don’t worry! In term three the new building will open and you will have your own classroom and you won’t be trekking all over the school anymore!” cried the school principal.
A loud “Hooray!” was heard from the faculty at this declaration, but I must have missed the post-script. Not only do I not have my own classroom but I am now in a classroom block which is the furthest away from my office. “Boo!” was my reply.
I thought “It must just be a mistake! I’ll talk to the guy who does the room allocations and he’ll sort it out!”
My optimism was in vain. Not only did he know about the problem with my classes being so far away but he was not going to do anything about it. “Grunt…grunt…grunt…” and a shuffling of the feet and he had managed to palm the problem off to someone else who was equally disinterested in my problem.
What pissed me off the most is that out of my department I am the only one who has been kicked out of our department block. I am also the only one who doesn’t have a room of my own. “Hrmm…” I think “Me smells a little bit of kiss-arsing going on.”
I have always heard of teacher’s pets and favorites in the classroom, I just never realised that it extended to the teacher’s as well. Another reason why I no longer have a desire to teach, at least not at this school.
My solution to the problem? As of tomorrow I am moving offices. “Goodbye up yourself snooty English Department. Hello awesomely cool and laid back Society and Environment department!”
Image by rsgranne (Flikr)
So tonight I was sitting on the computer pretending to get some work done, when the reality was I was surfing YouTube and going through random photo albums on Facebook, when I decided that I was hungry. I couldn’t be bothered changing out of my pyjamas so I decided that I would take the risk and go to Chicken Treat in them anyway. I mean really, no one I know lives near us so the chances of running into someone I know were slim to none. Turns out those chances were more in my favour than I had imagined.
I strolled into Chicken Treat, to complement the outfit I decided to go sans shoes, and before you ask why I didn’t just go through drive-through, well I managed to break my electric windows in my car to the point that they now no longer wind down. Anyway, behind me I heard the door slam which made both myself and the guy in front of me in line spin around in astonishment and wouldn’t you know it, that guy knew who I was.
I haven’t seen this guy since highschool. He wasn’t even in my year but the year above. I still can’t figure out his name while it took him ten seconds to remember mine.
Did he just have a better memory than me?
Have I not changed since highschool and he had? He was at least 20kg heavier than when I last saw him.
Maybe I was just a little weird in highschool and have managed to etch myself onto other students memories?
Whatever it was it 
was weird. What made it even weirder was that all day I had been trying to figure out why I had won the role of Hodel in “Fiddler on the Roof”. I had received a phone call earlier in the day informing me of the decision and had been pondering all day why they had chosen me. After all Hodel is supposed to be seventeen and I was sure I was too old for the part. Maybe the fact that this boy who knew me when I was seventeen could still recognise me while I had no idea who he was, was a signal that maybe I don’t look at myself in the same light as others.
I put myself down a lot and don’t expect much. I look for reasons why I can’t do things rather than why I can.
On Friday I was working at the school’s athletics carnival doing time-keeping. What surprised me while doing this rather bland job was the fact that out of all the students at this highschool, the sixteen year old version of me could have outrun all but one student in the 400m, yet when I was sixteen I thought I was fairly average at athletics.
It has been a slow realisation this week that maybe I am actually a lot better at things than I give myself credit for. I’m not going to suddenly change and start swaning around voicing the wonders of my endless talents but I am going to give myself a little more credit for the talents that I do have. After all, it is too late for sixteen year old Emma to realise she is a good runner and give it more, but it is not too late for twenty-six year old Emma to start training for the goals she has now.
Image of ME running in the Staff relay team at the Athletics Carnival! Go Rice House!!!
