Adjustments

I think this has been one of those horrid phases of life to be put down to experience, to be learnt from, but no longer dwelt on and fretted over! It’s happened, nothing can be done now, a choice has been made, even if it’s the choice I least wanted to have to make, and the best will be made of the situation. It is only for another three months. If that.

So, amongst my challenges for the next few months are

• to work out how I’m going to make the most of the horrid commuting time, given I don’t possess an ipod or similar device, (and don’t want one for lots of reasons), that I find it almost impossible to read on buses, but am finding by the end of the third or even fourth hour a day on the bus, I am losing the will to live!
• to find a way of getting a better balance in my life, with the aforementioned horrid commute.
• to stop being so hard on myself
• to work out what I want to do next.
• to remember to enjoy myself!!

I am an idiot

and am retiring to a far corner to recover…

In time, I will be OK about it all, and I’m sure somewhere along the line it’ll all work out, but right now it doesn’t seem that way.

I so need sleep, a holiday, and a hug.

(Edit: I did catch the Freudian typo of an extra “h” in the last sentence before publishing, but it has reminded me I need to write an Important E-mail!)

The conclusion is…

Number Two Job has become Number One Job.

Number One Job will fit in and around Number Two Job.

Application for what would’ve been my dream job, had the originally advertised hours stood, has been withdrawn.

For tonight, I’m allowing myself to be upset that my hopes were raised, and smashed, and angry that it’s supposedly OK to do this, but from tomorrow, I’m putting it behind me. I will throw myself into the new work at hand, knowing that whilst it’s not the job I wanted, it is a job I enjoy, which is worthwhile and makes a huge difference to those I work with.

If this is just a phase…

it needs to come to a conclusion, soon, please and thank you!

Today, I will hopefully find out just what the situation really is in relation to a job I’d applied for, and whether or not I withdraw my application for this post and wait for another (full time) post to come up in a few months time.

Next week, I will find out if I be offered enough new hours in Number Two job to make it worthwhile withdrawing the above application and to remain in this job, along with Number One job, despite the horrendous commute.

Somewhere, I need to stay calm about this. Ideally, I’d love to accept the New Job, keep the day’s work I’ve been given back at Number Two job, not accept the new hours, and stop Number One Job.

However, Number Two job is the better paid of all three, just not secure. New Job would cut the commuting right back. Number One job is the most flexible, and currently the least satisfying. Keeping the Number Two and Number One combination would mean horrendous commuting five days a week. New Job could have a better option coming up in a few months time…. Number Two job is deeply satisfying work, but exhausting! New Job is also deeply satisfying, and less exhausting – and would give me time to Have A Life because I’d gain about about four to five hours a day by not travelling.

My poor head….

Base over Apex

appears to have caught the fancy of some of my readers!!

It is the polite version of what I was thinking at the time… (where’s a blushing emoticon when a Japes needs it?!) as my thoughts were really not suitable for a family website. In an e-mail I sent to someone where I was ranting about the job situation, I referred to it being “interesting”, which got the response “Interesting is an interesting word to use!” My response was “I was trying to be polite!”

I digress! “Base over Apex” has been a well used phrase in my vocabulary for many years, I have no idea where I acquired it from. Unlike the phrase “Nineteen Oat-cakes”, which I attribute directly to my Dundonian family, but no-one else I know uses. ‘Twas my Gran’s stock answer to a question that involved an answer of a year that she didn’t know, or didn’t want to supply! Such as “What year were you born, Gran?”.

I probably have more varied phrases or words that are idiocyncratic than many people, owing to the somewhat nomadic lifestyle I’ve lived, along with the high number of people I’ve shared my life with!

In which Very Important Matters are contemplated

First of all, an overhaul of the Sock Department is about to take place. Despite the solitariness of my existence, and no other persons socks having been in washing machines I’ve used for the past six months to confuse matters, (I have returned the one sock that had somehow worked it’s way into my Sock Department from the last abode) I am once more at the stage of having several odd socks, and no partners for them. More importantly, the long, knee high socks for under trouser wear in these inclement weather times are showing signs of decrepitude. Holes are appearing where holes should not be in most of my socks.

Moreover, Best Friend has threatened to visit and attend to the overhaul herself if I don’t. As I wish this to be an overhaul, not a massacre, it’s becoming a matter of some urgency. Best Friend is somewhat outspoken in her opinion of my ability to make certain of my clothes last longer than I probably should. She would also have no qualms at marching me to my Sock Department and demand I do something about it.

Secondly, there are the Other Undergarments Departments. Both of which need attention, due to the slowly, but steadily Changing Shape of a Japes. Given this is likely to continue for a while to come, I’m reluctant to do much about this yet.

Thirdly, there is the extremely pleasing matter that the utilities bills were about a third less than I was expecting.

Fourthly, if I have done no other good for some time in my work place, I now have a deeply reluctant learner who’s grasp of basic mathematical concepts are seriously limited, but who can now recognise the difference between perimeter and area, and how to calculate both for a simple shape.

Fifthly – may turn into a separate post!

I have given up the various fights

and finally admitted my parish church is not where I want to be every Sunday. There is nothing wrong with it at all, in fact, I would recommend it if  it’s the kind of church you’re looking for, but I just didn’t want to be there. I didn’t feel any sense of being able to fit in there, or being a part of it after a couple of months. It took two months for anyone to even ask my name.

So, as I’d had a conversation about playing somewhere on a regular, but not every week basis, I went there to suss it out… and immediately felt comfortable.

Given the job situation, which I thought was about to be resolved has gone base over apex again,  this could be very welcome as a small form of income, as well as a good church!!

I am utterly furious that a job for which I’ve applied and handed in a completed application form, actually doesn’t exist, as it should’ve been advertised as two smaller part time jobs, not one almost full time job – investigations are under way as to what went wrong, but I’m beginning to wonder if I really do want to work in this environment after all. Or if God is trying to tell me something!

Adventures on Buses

I’m spending lots of time on buses at the moment! This is probably the main cause of my laxness in the blogging department of late. I am very hopeful that I will be cutting my hours spent travelling to and from work soon, and spending less time out of the house, but far more of those hours working (and being paid for those working hours!)

I have several options for travel to work, which is about 25 miles away, beyond the opposite edge of the city, and at the moment I am favouring a bus/train combination, with a different bus route in the morning. I don’t mind tackling the city centre in the early morning, in fact, it’s quite pleasant! But, I am losing the will to deal with the human race by the evening, and have found it’s best to get off the bus about halfway back to the city centre, and get on the “outer circle” bus. Which happens to stop a minutes walk away from my house!  It looks ludicrous when I look at the map, but time-wise between 4.00 p.m. and 7.00 p.m, there’s nothing in it. Though, I prefer not to get on it at school out time.

I’ve lived in this city three times now, and always close to this outer circle route – it has featured a lot in my public transport adventuring! Those of us who know it well know the “Every ten minutes” on the timetable is a myth… in fact, timetable and this bus route are not concepts that have been introduced to each other.  It’s a regular complaint that you wait ages and three or four come at once… five is the most I remember, after a forty minute wait, followed by a twenty minute walk when I gave up… and they all arrived at the bus-stop I would have got off at, as I was walking past it. It’s not a bus route I like to rely on when time is of the essence!

Today, however, I got really, really lucky. Not only did it arrive within five minutes of me getting to the bus-stop, I happened to get on one that was instructed part way round to “Unload Only” – so for about half of my hour long journey we were whizzing along, until I was the only passenger! It started picking up passengers again about ten minutes from home, but it still shaved a good 20 minutes off my journey.

It makes up, in part, for all the hours and hours of my life than I have spent being thoroughly frustrated by this bus route!!

Mysteries and Problems..

I could get deeply philosophical here, but it’s a bit early, and I’m not up to it, really.

But, when I’m being thoroughly interrogated by those who mean well, and want to know more about how I’m going to proceed through the next few months than I’m prepared to talk about, I am keeping in mind that I am “not a problem to be solved”, but “a mystery to be wondered at and grappled with”. Thanks to Gerald O’Collins SJ and his book “Jesus, a portrait” for providing me with the words to voice my growing frustration. And for giving me much to think about in a different way.

How unexpected

but I really ought to know God has numerous surprises up his sleeve.

I’ve been fighting an internal battle with myself about church lately. Actually, I’ve also been fighting with myself and God all through every church service I’ve been to for about six months. So, a month or so ago, I stopped going to church. Sort of accidentally on purpose. I kept intending to go, but never got there.  I spent all of Sunday “oversleeping” or “forgetting” what time the service was. Or saying to myself “I’ll try somewhere else.” and discovering the somewhere else was doing something that would just make matters worse. Or excusing myself on the grounds my work patterns had changed, and I was too tired…. This didn’t stop the battle!! I’ve just been spending all of Sundays vaguely at odds with life and the universe and God and myself.

What’s with the “vaguely” description? I’ve been hating Sundays without church, but not knowing what to do about it. I’ve also not been keeping to any kind of prayer routine, or Bible reading, in the week either.

Strangely, several things this week have given me the kicks I needed! The first was a funeral I attended at the beginning of the week of an eighteen year old. I didn’t know him, but I knew his friends, through my work, and promised I would go with them to support them. The second, third and fourth kicks were all work related, too. But, they all had in common the thread of reminding me God doesn’t want me to be anything other than myself , to live my life in the way that works for me, and to do my work in any other way than the Japes way, and that the foundation of that life is my relationship with God.

But – that foundation needs care, nurture, and checking up on. Neglecting it Will Not Do!!

I did not, however, expect an early morning said communion service, (from the Book of Common Prayer of 1662 – Church of England) to provide me with a deep sense of peace, and coming home to God again, in such a strong way. I think, for now, I have found my place to do that care and nurture, and when I’m feeling stronger again, I can make my way back to the main services, with a sense of willingness to get involved in the life of the church again, rather than the sense of deep unwillingness I’ve been living with.

For, I think, what the big, big, big battle has mostly been about has been the sense of being involved for many years, but running on empty for so long, yet feeling bad if I wasn’t volunteering to do various things, or playing for the services, or being on committees, or doing things just because I could.

But a quiet early morning service, then coming home to read, reflect, and write – and more importantly, spending Sunday enjoying it sounds a pretty good idea for now.