Journal Entries
Day two in the Big Brother House and... no, wait...
Posted Mar 29, 2011
Bach is a genius. We all know that, but sometimes it's easy to forget until you are presented with part of that genius on a plate. I got presented with it on Sunday - we performed the St Matthew Passion, a three-hour Baroque musical on the last few days of Christ.
As the chorus we had our moments of glory, including some unaccompanied chorales where the choir suddenly seemed to get what our conductor had been banging on about for weeks. There was shape, there was beauty and there was a real sense of passion behind the words, everything that they should have been.
The soloists that had been hired were outstanding. They, again, seemed to get it, including the Evangelist who delivers line after fast-spoken line of dialogue in recitatives.
Apart from one solo that seemed to go on for a week and a half, there wasn't a moment I would have wanted to cut. Genius, utter genius. The alto solo that was accompanied only by a flute and a pair of cor anglais was sheer perfection distilled into music.
But deities, three hours is a long time to sit and concentrate. Especially on a pew. And especially when you had had three hours of rehearsals that afternoon and another four the previous day. 
Discuss this Journal entry [5]
Latest reply: Mar 29, 2011
As it was on topic...
Posted Mar 25, 2011
... somewhere else, I was thinking on my journal lately. I posted that I don't tend to write much in it now I know that it automatically pops up in others' conversation lists. It almost feels like posting one is shouting for attention, even though I enjoy reading other peoples and don't see theirs as doing the same. 
Silly double standards there.
In summary, I should write what I like, when I like. 
Unfortunately, that means this post is going to be rather an outpouring.
~~~
My head is exploding. I'm trying to juggle too much, but I don't want to stop juggling any of it.
I'm worried about my family. We are all going through periods of stress at the moment for some reason.
My brother has finally got to the end of his clinic hours (having graduated last year) and having to now find work.
My parents have sold their house but can't find one to buy where they want to live so will be living in a caravan while they wait for something to come up. The caravan part is OK but it's the uncertainty that's getting to them.
My dad has had his knee replaced and it isn't healing as well as they expected.
Stress has given my mum tinnitus, which is causing her to almost not be able to cope.
Her dad passed away late last year, leaving my nanny on her own. While she's a very capable, strong woman it doesn't mean I don't worry about her.
My grandmother on the other side is having tremendous back problems and will likely have to be in for on operation in the coming months, and is struggling against the NHS to the point they may have to go private.
Work is tiring me out. It shouldn't. I have one of the most relaxed, flexible, supportive jobs that exist, at the top end of the salary expected for this type of work. My boss thinks I'm doing a good job, we're given the freedom to plan our own workloads, very supportive collegues - but I'm burning out. I'm not really working any more. I can't focus on the tasks I'm supposed to be doing. I'm grabbing any opportunity to do admin or planning, even tidying the office, anything to not have to work (or writing this journal entry, perhaps?).
It's partly that I don't feel I'm doing a good job. I speak to so many people that I can't help, or that I'm not allowed to help. I spend my time giving advice about a job market that is essentially f*cked. In my heart of hearts I know that unless they could find a job themselves before they came in, all the advice in the world won't matter a jot when they go out with a criminal record (although I'll keep trying).
It's partly that I have no future here, but I draw a blank on what else I would want to do. I'm good at pretty much anything, but I need change and progression and this job doesn't have that. This is it, and the thought of that makes me want to get out now while I still can.
I also worry that I'll never find a job where I don't burn out, and I don't know how to address that.
I also try to plan my future too much. We're buying a new house, partly to make sure that when we have kids we'll have a house where we want to bring them up (our house is fine for us but as we have the opportunity to move somewhere better we're taking it). I keep on worrying that we're leaving it too late to have kids, and then worrying about my career if we do have them. I then worry that I want to have kids simply to have an excuse to leave work. There's no need for any of this worry. Can I change any of it? No. So *stop* *worrying*.
I'm moving house. According to the surveyor we have a damp problem. No, we have damp, it's not a problem. It's the way the house was built in the 1930s. Damp is critical to the way water moves through the basement and groundfloor.
Thankfully it looks like the worst case scenario is that we have to drop the asking price by a thousand pounds or so, which we can do by not putting up new curtains/decor or buying wardrobes for a couple of months. Still, we don't want to lose our buyer as then we would lose out on our current house, which is an incredibly lucky find. The solicitors are ready to exchange, it's just a matter of sorting this out. But they could still pull out now.
Finally, h2g2c3. I want to dedicate my time to this, but I'm finding it so hard to fit in my life. Add to that we're trying to work across time zones and with such limited time because we still have our lives, it's a struggle. If only we could just stop real life for a few weeks and we all get together and bash through it all properly we could have a company ready to go if it was needed, rather than trying to pull it together in what little spare time we have. But we don't. And there's no way of making this any better. *sigh*
So, yeah. My head is exploding. Thank heavens for the sunshine. Had this happened a couple of months ago I think the general dreariness would have been too much.
And, for some reason, my office smells really strongly of soap. 
Discuss this Journal entry [11]
Latest reply: Mar 25, 2011
Vip's plan
Posted Mar 7, 2011
My master plan to help combat stress has a couple of important points in it. One of the major ones is to stop being on h2g2 while at work. A little bit at lunchtime is acceptable, the amount I am curently spending is not. It should free up more time to actually do work. In theory I should then stop stressing about the amount of time I spend on h2g2 and not working because I will be working. Yeah, yeah, it's a theory. But I at least need to give it a go.
Please expect to see me less around the site. I'll unsub from Ask and from Peer Review and that should cut down the amount of conversations quite a bit. Please point me anywhere that would appreciate my input.
In other news, last night I had a dream about having a dream that I could fly. In the dream I was convinced that I had woken up, but still retained my ability to hover. It was really disappointng to wake up again. 
Discuss this Journal entry [4]
Latest reply: Mar 7, 2011
Life
Posted Feb 8, 2011
On the plus side, we put our house on the market this morning and we have a viewing *this afternoon* 
.
On the down side, we left the house in a bit of a state as we couldn't be arsed to clear up last night, and, to add insult to injury, the boiler decided to pack up on us in the afternoon (which was why we couldn't be arsed to clear up).
We'll get it fixed before we sell it, of course, but it's rather frustrating. Especially since we only had it serviced last week, which seems rather coincidental. The company that did the service have two people off sick today so can't come round to have a look at it either. At least we have the gas fire for downstairs and an electric heater that we've taken out of the attic room for our bedroom.
May I live in interesting times...!
Discuss this Journal entry [26]
Latest reply: Feb 8, 2011
The shock - and the excitement!
Posted Jan 24, 2011
There has been an issue with rendering this post, please contact the editors.
Discuss this Journal entry [6]
Latest reply: Jan 24, 2011
Vip
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