Journal Entries
Tuesday 7 November 2000
Posted Nov 10, 2000
Today I was compelled to do voluntary work as a mark of my respect for the ‘mutual obligation' I am under as a recipient of social security ‘benefits'. My appointment to figure out what exactly I'm going to do is on Thursday at 10.00am, and thereafter I will be compelled to do 240 hours, between now and 7 May 2001, of unpaid work for somebody else. In addition to this, I have to apply for five jobs per week (an increase from the usual 1.5). This régime will last for 12 weeks - or until I get a job. I don't think I'm any more likely to get a job, merely because I apply more - it just doesn't work that way any more, if it ever did. I suspect I'm in for 12 weeks of extraordinary financial costs without any extra income, arbitrarily limited time and psychologically debilitating disappointment, and I still have to do a lot of other stuff. I'm going to need a lifeline, here, I think...
The weather is suitably unimpressed about this development. It's overcast and unusually cold for this time in November. The bureaucracy of Australian inequity aside, it's actually quite a nice time. I wonder if other things will not make this better, anyway...
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Latest reply: Nov 10, 2000
Tuesday 8 November 2000
Posted Nov 7, 2000
Today I was compelled to do voluntary work as a mark of my respect for the ‘mutual obligation' I am under as a recipient of social security ‘benefits'. My appointment to figure out what exactly I'm going to do is on Thursday at 10.00am, and thereafter I will be compelled to do 240 hours, between now and 7 May 2001, of unpaid work for somebody else. In addition to this, I have to apply for five jobs per week (an increase from the usual 1.5). This régime will last for 12 weeks - or until I get a job. I don't think I'm any more likely to get a job, merely because I apply more - it just doesn't work that way any more, if it ever did. I suspect I'm in for 12 weeks of extraordinary financial costs without any extra income, arbitrarily limited time and psychologically debilitating disappointment, and I still have to do a lot of other stuff. I'm going to need a lifeline, here, I think...
The weather is suitably unimpressed about this development. It's overcast and unusually cold for this time in November. The bureaucracy of Australian inequity aside, it's actually quite a nice time. I wonder if other things will not make this better, anyway...
Discuss this Journal entry [1]
Latest reply: Nov 7, 2000
Thursday 2 November 2000
Posted Nov 2, 2000
There is so much to do!
I think that the job search strategy has failed, comprehensively. The only option left is to attract work to me. I'll keep looking for jobs to do for other people, but I'd much prefer that they asked me to work for them. This means that there's a few things to be done...
The house has failed, comprehensively. I'm unhappy here, and the time has already past to move out. As Mum points out, I should stop living in a hole and start living in a place that I would be pleased to bring other people to. A few things to do here, too...
The weather sucks - even though it doesn't blow all that hard. Riding to CIT last night was the wettest ride I've ever had in my life, I think. I had to spend five hours squelching around in my wet shoes, which will probably take the best part of a week to dry out properly. Although the rain relented enough that I managed to get home last night without getting any more wet - and probably catching a real cold - it is still raining, hard, now.
Idea of yesterday: illustrated, ring-bound gym programs.
Idea of this day: internet listing of available Canberra share accommodation.
Believe me, I could use things like these...
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Latest reply: Nov 2, 2000
Wednesday 1 November 2000
Posted Nov 1, 2000
I rang my mum tonight, to tell her that I'd had a phone call a few hours earlier, informing me that I didn't get the job that I'd had the last interview for. I was disappointed, naturally enough, but not shattered until Mum started saying that I should get my life in order, first by asking about new places to live, and second by asking people how to go about getting a job. She said, basically, that I'm unhappy where I am, and she and Dad are worried about that fact. Something has to be changed, and the living space is the most important, and the easier to deal with, of these two.
I was stunned. ASKING people! I'd forgotten that people DO that! I was genuinely beginning to think that asking people was something people only did when they wanted to give away their good ideas. I had forgotten that people ask me for things and answers all the time, and that I'm perfectly happy to help when I can. I have to get onto the real estate agents in the area in the morning. I also have to start reading the phone book to see if there's anyone around who can give me some help with finding a job: practical advice about how to deal with interviews and actually succeed in promoting myself, without selling myself, without needing to prevaricate or dissemble, and without telling lies.
The weather was extremely miserable, all day. A perfect day to be told by a potential employer that your career experience is now out of date, and by your mother that you desperately need to change a life you thought was going comparatively well. I am not totally sure that the answers my mother gave me are what the answers should be, but at least they're a start...
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Latest reply: Nov 1, 2000
Tuesday 31 October 2000
Posted Oct 31, 2000
So I have to have another wisdom tooth out, according to the dentist. I had a poke around the back of my mouth the other day (you do these things when you're bored!) and felt a ragged edge on the upper right row of teeth, right at the back. I called the dentist to forestall any panicky situation like that which occurred with the last wisdom tooth, which fell apart before I even knew it was decayed. He confirmed that there's some decay there, and being of a practical turn of mind - "there's little point filling the thing, as you can't actually reach it to clean it, and even if you did you'd only be back in a couple of years (at most) with more decay further along the same tooth row...", etc. - he decided to rid me of the problem in the easiest (and, ultimately, cheapest) possible way. I suspected that this would be the outcome, so I'm not really surprised, but doing the wisdom tooth thing again so soon is a bit annoying. Mind you, he also cleaned and de-scaled my teeth, so I was glad of that - particularly once the job had actually been finished. Many jokes occurred about coffee intake and how brown it makes your teeth.
The course went well last night - lots of fit men striding around with their shirts off as the students did posture evaluations on each other, and fit women, not required to undress themselves to quite the same extent, were either looking on in lust or looking good themselves. The actual course work was a bit glossed over in light of all the sexual tension in the air, but it was still useful in terms of learning about potential back problems from exercise. I even managed to ride home without killing myself, which I consider a bit of a bonus.
Tonight we have multiple aerobic classes. The first is occurring because one of the instructors we know is having her evaluation - in terms of whether or not she's a capable instructor - tonight, and may need the moral support. The second is occurring because I need the practical hours in some kind of ‘different' aerobics class from the ones I normally do. In the hour in between, unless I can get a lift from one class to the other and back again, there's going to be another 10km bike ride, just to keep the muscles loose...
.
All right, so I'm an idiot...!
P.S. It turns out I am an idiot, too. My back had a bit of a 'twang' while I was warming up for the first of today's aerobic classes - result, no aerobic classes for today.... A break was on the cards, anyway, I think. The uplook from this was that I got to ask that certain person to come out with me and a bunch of others this weekend - and she said 'yes'! I am currently flying, and it's very incovenient to try and keep typing like thi...
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Latest reply: Oct 31, 2000
Hypoman
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