Thursday, May 29, 2008

it never rains etc

Dear God, but I am unhappy. I am stuck (oh, stuck!) in a job that I hate - that I hate mainly because I am expected to do my best for about as much money as the maids in my mother's school make; without any of the benefits e.g. vacations and weekends and the time for music classes spanish classes family friends sleep and the opportunity to take a day off and not be missed.

I am the only person in the office, most of the time. I am secretary and resident computer expert and office gopher and general draftsperson. I am expected to take initiative and learn as much as I possibly can in the time I am here. I am expected to be proactive and aggressive and focussed and determined and ONE-HUNDRED-PERCENT-CAREER-ORIENTED.
And all for the princely sum of INR 6000 a month.

Oh, I don't know. Perhaps money isn't the important thing as long as you're learning something. Then again, what am I learning, exactly? That my boss will cheerfully ask me to spend over a day uploading files to a client's server and then ask me to come in on the weekend because I didn't get any work done that day. It doesn't matter what the damage is to your sleep schedule or your health or your life, as long as the work gets done.
I feel as though I'm back at college, travelling two hours by bus each morning with my stomach in a knot with the fear of proving myself inadequate to doing a good job. And for what?

People tell me to quit; let it go; leave now; T, do the things you're really good at.
(like writing, for example? but you see, the writing let me go four months ago, and i was unwilling to let a profession, however unsuited i was to carry it out, go - for the sake of a talent that seemed to have disappeared...)

If I could quit, I would. but I am afraid of repercussions; of the small small world we live in; of what happens to people with bad reputations.
And so I go in to work each day with the hope that things will get better, and that I will learn something new about the world and my work and my self.

But all I learn is that I am lonely, and unhappy, and so very tired of being here.

Monday, May 19, 2008

songs in the head

Change your heart
Look around you
Change your heart
It will astound you
I need your lovin'
Like the sunshine

Everybody's gotta learn sometime
Everybody's gotta learn sometime
Everybody's gotta learn sometime


Beck - Everybody's gotta learn sometime

Monday, May 12, 2008

but still

Now, there seems to be a direct line of progress from me doing something nice for someone I care about to the person leaving my life in rude and unpleasant ways.

Forexample:
- Writing letters to people in foreign lands/ other cities/ down the street.
- Making mixed tapes with songs a person has mentioned in passing conversation
- Buying books based on ditto
- Anything else that involves time, effort, energy and some thought about what someone might like to receive

There is also some sort of universal law that appears to be that none of these people ever get me anything in return for these presents I bestow them out of the affection of my heart.
No, not even the affection of their hearts, I'm afraid.

Am I really that hard to like?

Monday, May 5, 2008

right through the heart

You might make a joke on that - something about "rude" and "rued", you know.

*sigh*
poor bread-and-butterfly.