What do you do when you come home from work? Is it a 9 or 8:30 to 5ish? Are you exhausted? Do you feel like your mind and energies have been put to good use? Are you fulfilled by your day?
My mind is put to disintegration, or at least it did feel that way the majority of the year. I think the numbness and lack of stimulation made the dwindling connections between my neglected little neurons palpable -- can you feel yourself get "stupider"? Oh yes, I definitely think so. Filing, counting (or "auditing" in office bullshit lingo,) spreadsheet concocting, mail handling, email composing, phone calling, and last but as it turned out for me, most horrible of all - proofreading. Not that after much time and rumination I didn't discover that I was learning something from my experiences, that being spit in and out of various parts of the corporate machine as a strange, versatile little cog called "temp" could be a valuable insight into what so many people "do." It's all much less of a mystery, and now I understand what it was about corporate life that I so badly wanted to avoid. It's the painful repetition, the long hours in which nothing grows and everyone sits in their farty little gray cubicles all day, you get up to get a coffee, to use the john, and that's the majority of your movement for the day. It's the sessile existence of a plant -- you are planted in front of a PC or a Mac and there your buttocks shall stay. Of course, my experience is skewed because my jobs were usually not the most exciting ones in a place - temp work is usually not exactly orgasmic. The people, lovely and nasty, also are of course the soup in which you as a temp, get to stew for a while (yes I'm eating pumpkin soup, a good source of nourishment as well as inspiration,)- I met plenty of fantastic and not-so-fantastic individuals: Pakeha (white kiwis/New Zealanders), Maori, Brits, South Africans, Pacific Islanders, Europeans, South Americans. This is one aspect that I have loved about New Zealand - the incredible diversity of this new immigrant nation.
For example, last night I went out with a group of beautiful girls spanning five continents. The eight of us covered: Brazil, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Germany, Taiwan, and then there was I with my Ukraine/US background. I think I felt at home in the way the protagonist in L'Auberge Espagnol(great flick by the way, see it if you haven't yet,) feels at home, his own cultural confusion reflected by the situation, comfortable in cultural friction.
Speaking of comfort: it takes so long to get comfortable any where. Here, I'm just beginning to really have fun and I'm about to leave. It's sad, but it's also OK, because I think I will settle down some where eventually (more so, anyway,) and my life won't be so arrhythmic. Figuring out where, how, what, not easy - what makes a home, any one have an answer for that? Maybe part of the issue for me is that usually home seems to imply ONE place whereas because I've lived and grown attached in various ways to different locations and usually more importantly, the people in those locations, "home" is a number of places which I love and miss and which give me that fuzzy I need-to-be-there feeling. "Coming home" to people you love, perhaps that's the most important point? Although there is more to the feeling of being "at home," (like culture, language, experience, etc.,) and there is more to identity, but being loved certainly doesn't hurt.
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Sunday, June 24, 2007
A Hello
So the point here (obviously) is not to create a travel blog. I'm well past the expiration date for that, and having a casual, undefined, blathering blog like this suits my love of possibility far better.
On issues of self-consciousness: I find that I am hopelessly sensitive to what other people say and do, I take it all personally, seriously, I mull over it for days, I end up thinking about it and talking about it. What others say about me attacks me at inopportune moments in the shower, in bed, while I'm riding the bus, while I'm (supposed) to be feeling great. So undertaking a blog is probably a dangerous thing for me - blogaphobia? - but here I am, I love to share and discuss too much to not give it a go for now.
Do you find that old friends always look at you in the same way no matter what changes happen in your life, in theirs? (In the past couple of weeks I've been calling good friends back home, I'm leaving New Zealand in August to make an attempt at Mother America, and I've been trying to catch up with people in the good old 50.) I suppose I do much of the same, when you have a long history with someone, that history seems to hold a strong sway in how you view them, for better or worse. If you want to prove anything new you're going to have a bloody tough time doing it, if you want the reassurances of the past they're ready as ever.
The time difference between the states and New Zealand is quite the handicap when it comes to attempting calls. On weekdays, and often on weekends as well, I can't make calls until after 5pm Auckland time, which in the states is somewhere between 11pm and 1am depending on the state...great timing, right? So when people pick up there's usually a pretty exhausted you-just-woke-me-up grit in their voice, but oh well, at least it's fantastic to catch up with old buddies and family.
On status quo: It's a beautiful country - Aotearoa (New Zealand in Maori), and I've learned a hell of a lot from my experiences here. Three apartments, 6 jobs, moving in with my boyfriend in a new country, lots of constant change, ups, downs, merry-go-round inbetweens. Travelling here is fantastic, you can point the car in any direction (outgoing from Auckland) and you'll hit lovely terrain. We're going to travel for a month before returning to the states. South Island skiing, hopefully a Pacific Island, lots of other fantastic stuff....
What I'll do when I return is a big, looming question. Votes and input welcome.
Let me know if you vote for:
1. Flying into LA, staying there, stalking Hollywood celebrities for a couple weeks, visiting places like UCLA (which yeah I've been looking into a bit lately.)
2. Thoughts on cross-cultural psychology? I've been looking into grad. programs and jobs in this looks-like-it-was-sort-of-made-for-me area - it's emerging, new, interdisciplinary and I'm definitely thinking about it.
3. Going to directly to Denver from LA, hopefully getting along happily with my folks for a while, helping my little sister think about college, hanging out with the star sisters, having a good time camping out with the 'rents in general...? This could last for a bit and I do miss them.
4. Visiting friends and family for a couple weeks. Friends who want to make travel plans with me, let me know, US flights are cheap now and I'm looking into a multicity ticket so I can visit a good number of friends and family....
Also let me know if you want to plan a trip with me or would just love me to grace your doorstep.... ;)
5. Where to settle in after? Follow a job, or a professional course that I could register for anytime, or the location of my fam or friends, or a program in Europe or Israel or Asia? I'm attempting to not think about my boyfriend as difficult as that is, because that's the way he wants it, and I probably wouldn't be happy just "following him" anyway, though it's tough, we're young, we're figuring it out, knowing what we want or how we want it to work is not always easy. Basically, I'm being forced back into total independence and self-sufficiency. This is good, but also tough and complicated. I could definitely use some time on my own, to explore whatever I want to explore (and there is plenty of that,) and I probably shouldn't hold my boyfriend's uncertainty about how to live next year (in the same flat? where/how?) against him, though I find myself doing this quite a bit. Maybe in some ways it would be easier if he were totally certain, passionate, and Prince Charming about "Darling, I just want to do whatever I can to be near you but also I want you to do whatever makes you happy." (He's got the 2nd part down.) But maybe then life would be too perfect for blogging.
Advice and thoughts, warmly welcome.
On issues of self-consciousness: I find that I am hopelessly sensitive to what other people say and do, I take it all personally, seriously, I mull over it for days, I end up thinking about it and talking about it. What others say about me attacks me at inopportune moments in the shower, in bed, while I'm riding the bus, while I'm (supposed) to be feeling great. So undertaking a blog is probably a dangerous thing for me - blogaphobia? - but here I am, I love to share and discuss too much to not give it a go for now.
Do you find that old friends always look at you in the same way no matter what changes happen in your life, in theirs? (In the past couple of weeks I've been calling good friends back home, I'm leaving New Zealand in August to make an attempt at Mother America, and I've been trying to catch up with people in the good old 50.) I suppose I do much of the same, when you have a long history with someone, that history seems to hold a strong sway in how you view them, for better or worse. If you want to prove anything new you're going to have a bloody tough time doing it, if you want the reassurances of the past they're ready as ever.
The time difference between the states and New Zealand is quite the handicap when it comes to attempting calls. On weekdays, and often on weekends as well, I can't make calls until after 5pm Auckland time, which in the states is somewhere between 11pm and 1am depending on the state...great timing, right? So when people pick up there's usually a pretty exhausted you-just-woke-me-up grit in their voice, but oh well, at least it's fantastic to catch up with old buddies and family.
On status quo: It's a beautiful country - Aotearoa (New Zealand in Maori), and I've learned a hell of a lot from my experiences here. Three apartments, 6 jobs, moving in with my boyfriend in a new country, lots of constant change, ups, downs, merry-go-round inbetweens. Travelling here is fantastic, you can point the car in any direction (outgoing from Auckland) and you'll hit lovely terrain. We're going to travel for a month before returning to the states. South Island skiing, hopefully a Pacific Island, lots of other fantastic stuff....
What I'll do when I return is a big, looming question. Votes and input welcome.
Let me know if you vote for:
1. Flying into LA, staying there, stalking Hollywood celebrities for a couple weeks, visiting places like UCLA (which yeah I've been looking into a bit lately.)
2. Thoughts on cross-cultural psychology? I've been looking into grad. programs and jobs in this looks-like-it-was-sort-of-made-for-me area - it's emerging, new, interdisciplinary and I'm definitely thinking about it.
3. Going to directly to Denver from LA, hopefully getting along happily with my folks for a while, helping my little sister think about college, hanging out with the star sisters, having a good time camping out with the 'rents in general...? This could last for a bit and I do miss them.
4. Visiting friends and family for a couple weeks. Friends who want to make travel plans with me, let me know, US flights are cheap now and I'm looking into a multicity ticket so I can visit a good number of friends and family....
Also let me know if you want to plan a trip with me or would just love me to grace your doorstep.... ;)
5. Where to settle in after? Follow a job, or a professional course that I could register for anytime, or the location of my fam or friends, or a program in Europe or Israel or Asia? I'm attempting to not think about my boyfriend as difficult as that is, because that's the way he wants it, and I probably wouldn't be happy just "following him" anyway, though it's tough, we're young, we're figuring it out, knowing what we want or how we want it to work is not always easy. Basically, I'm being forced back into total independence and self-sufficiency. This is good, but also tough and complicated. I could definitely use some time on my own, to explore whatever I want to explore (and there is plenty of that,) and I probably shouldn't hold my boyfriend's uncertainty about how to live next year (in the same flat? where/how?) against him, though I find myself doing this quite a bit. Maybe in some ways it would be easier if he were totally certain, passionate, and Prince Charming about "Darling, I just want to do whatever I can to be near you but also I want you to do whatever makes you happy." (He's got the 2nd part down.) But maybe then life would be too perfect for blogging.
Advice and thoughts, warmly welcome.
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