Tra la! I have promised some of you that I will show you this, so here it is. Enjoy :)
To confirm the rumours that have been going round, and because I've told several people and they have, apparently, told others although I asked it to be kept relatively confidential, and therefore everyone asks me and I don't do dishonesty that well: yes, I have a job to go to. To settle a few particulars about the job, because I'm sick of people bitching at me about how I'm screwing my life up because this is, what, my third job? 1. No - it's not full time. It's part time/casual, and may become full-time partway through the year. On the other hand, it also may completely disappear, depending on various factors.2. Yes, this is my third job. Obviously, I'm a terrible and worthless person, because I job hop. Let me explain a few things, O Naysayers Who Are My Friends: - I left TSW because I was becoming clinically depressed. I spent one very difficult and nightmarish night staying as far away from the kitchen as possible, because that's where the razors are, and I had an incredibly strong urge to recall my cutting days, via my wrists. I swore at a customer. I had a loud, angry, cynical, bitter, messy emotional meltdown in front of a family friend who just happens to be a budhist - we've not seen or heard from her since. In that job, several of us hoped and aspired to be clinically depressed.
- My second job was a week long temp one, and my ticket out of TSW.
- My current job is also a temp job - weirdly enough my colleagues have congratulated me on getting a permanent one - I mean, who would've thought it's actually considered a good thing in that community? We would've become redundant by the beginnning of March anyway, and temping agencies are horrifically unreliable - work is sporadic, so if you get multiple months of work in a year, you can apparently consider yourself lucky.
Also, I took this job because they sought me out, and asked me to work for them - they consider my degree a sign of the fact that I can do the job. Every other job interview or job I've gone for, the employer has metaphorically held my CV between finger and thumb, looked down their nose and sneered at my qualification - most have asked me why I've got a degree, why I'm not in a grad job, why do I want to work for them, what the heck is wrong with me, anyway?Degrees just aren't rated in the real world - employeers want mindless moronic schlubs who'll do their work without thinking too much and being nice to customers. They don't want degrees, because degrees have brains. I'm sick of dumbing myself down.And finally - BE HAPPY FOR ME!!! I know several of you are, and that means a lot to me, but seriously guys. I finally have a job in which my brain will be used. The pay isn't complete arse. A couple of you know I have a list of my perfect job - this fits most of the requirements (which were all fairly fluid, anyway). I know my employer from previous things, they will be really good to work for and I will learn heaps from them. I know it isn't a "proper grad job" like the rest of you have, but come on - my degree gave me a range of skills, not a specific taylored-to-job qualification. They can be bent and used in various areas - this happens to be one of them.So, OK, to you I'm fucking up my life. Fair enough. But can you stop with the derogatory comments and looking down your nose at me? Just because most of you leapt straight from uni to well-paying posh jobs, or had only several weeks of unemployment (try six months). I've had a really shit year - some would say I "deserve" to get a break - and it'd be nice not to get slapped for every decision I make, even if you don't agree with it.
I have now officially resigned from/left both my job and my church - I have one week left at work and one Sunday (the Christmas Day service, which I will be doing powerpoint for) left at church.The church one will be especially weird, since I've been going there religiously (sorry) every Sunday since I was 3, and doing overhead/powerpoint every couple of Sundays since I was 13. *sigh*So... good old uncertainty...
ATTN CHRISTMAS ORPHANS AND ASSOCIATED RANDOMS:I know none of you read this blog anymore, but...If any of you would like to come round to my place for Xmas lunch, feel free, it would be awesome to have you! Festivities will begin around midday, and you don't need to bring anything except your lovely selves (and perhaps dishwashing superpowers :P).Having said that, we need to know how many people are coming so food etc can be sorted, and we can fish all the chairs out from where they've been hiding so people can sit down. If you could comment here or text me or email or tell me by FRIDAY 23RD DECEMBER at the latest, that would be awesome.Happy Hogswatch :)
Oh... and if you don't know where my place is, just ask me or someone in my cell group.
I went back to TSW today, on a bit of a whim, to visit my name-sake and partner in crime, Christina C (no, I am not talking about myself in the third person. She's from Timaru), and ended up buying a pair of jandals that weren't actually.I felt a little odd and misplaced, what with the summer stock and staff, but I felt incredibly bouyant and jubilant when I walked out the doors. I haven't been so bursting with excitement in a long time - when I actually left the job I was horribly dejected and depressed and couldn't celebrate, because I knew I was letting people down and leaving others behind and that hurt. I also knew where I was going - and that hurt.*sigh*It was lovely seeing people, but I realised (oh what powers of clarity re-visiting watersheds gives you) that apart from one, the closeness we'd had as a group was directly proportional to the amount of hours we spent in a crap job together. Most of us didn't really fraternise outside of work. And almost everyone's left, or is about to leave. I mean, it was a hole, and no one can live in a hole forever, so fair enough. But....... Just the smallest part of me wishes it would remain static, so I can go back every now and again to compare and see how far I've come, and to prove that I am, in some megolomaniacal way, superior to those who stayed.Just so I can say, "In comparison to everyone else, to all the other Uni grads, I may be crap, and considered by others as such, but I am still better than something/one".How cheap is that?
And, if I am entirely honest with myself, sometimes the "smallest part" is very large indeed.
Last night at ABC we got given copies of "The Vision" (read excerpt here) and I commented it looked familiar to something, but I couldn't think what. I guess the rhetoric used in such charismatic pieces is always the same. The writer of Eccles was right when he said everything has been before.Anyway, this morning I found it. Kevin Ross (anyone remember him?) gave it to us one Sunday night when he was preaching, back in youthgroup days at Northwest. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you "The Fellowship of the Unashamed". Read it, if you can, and make of it what you will."I am part of the "Fellowship of the Unashamed." I have Holy Spirit power. The die has been cast. I've stepped over the line. The decision has been made. I am a disciple of His. I won't let back, let up, slow down, back away, or be still. My past is redeemed, my present makes sense, and my future is secure. I am finished and done with low living, sight walking, small planning, smooth knees, colorless dreams, tame visions, mundane talking, chintzy giving, and dwarfed goals!
I no longer need preeminence, prosperity, position, promotions, plaudits, or popularity. I don't have to be right, first, tops, recognized, praised, regarded, or rewarded. I now live by presence, learn by faith, love by patience, live by prayer, and labor by power.
My face is set, my gait is fast, my goal isheaven, my road is narrow, my way is rough, my companions few, my guide reliable, my mission clear. I cannot be bought, compromised, detoured, lured away, turned back, diluted, or delayed. I will not flinch in the face of sacrifice, hesitate in the presence of adversity, negotiate at the table of the enemy, ponder at the pool of popularity, or meander in the maze of mediocrity.
I won't give up, shut up, let go, or slow up until I've preached up, prayed up, paid up, stored up, and stayed up for the cause of Christ.
I am a disciple of Jesus. I must go till He comes, give till I drop, preach till all know, and work till He stops.
And when He comes to get His own, He'll have no problems recognizing me.... my colors will be clear."
some do in different ways...becoming famous, or wealthy, or powerful, or all three so that their presence on this earth will be set in stone for generations to come.being a backgrounder who influences many: a mother, grandparent, youthleader, godparent, mate, general helper-outer, Mother Thereseasome do it to different degrees...with an air of palpable desperation; when looking at their lives you can see the vivid streak within it shrieking, "Remember me! I don't want to die, and be forgotten and rot in obscurity!"with a sense of almost not realising they are, in fact, leaving a legacy behind them; a quiet plodding that indicates they are unruffled and unconcerned, because it doesn't matter what becomes of them after they are gone.Somewhere, in all of us, is the small voice crying out, "Don't leave me here! I don't want to be forgotten, to lose the preciousness I've gained in the eyes of those around me!" How will we quiet it? Which methods will we use to slake that thirst?Does it matter anyway, what happens to that voice? What happens to us, when we are gone?There is, I am told, an Irish proverb that goes along the lines of, "While someone remembers you, you're not dead".Everybody wants to leave a legacy.
I mean, just read this post, for example. Hogswatch never had a better advertisement. For some reason, cynicism draws me. Posts like the one above tickle my fancy and my funny bone, and appeal to my weird outlook on life, a bit. It's become a bit of a culture within my main social group, which is almost a carry over from home, because that's where I first learnt it - I mean, when you're half British there are traditions, right? (For those of you who've ever watched movies or TV with me and my family and been confused - it's OK, making smart ass comments about the ads and characters and things is a family bonding thing.)Cynicism is something I can do - sometimes even well - mainly because it's so easy. And also because if you've been hurt emotionally in the past it's a great, flexible, no-stress veneer or coping mechanism to use and doesn't immediately red-flag you as such - it's really a very handy currency. And now, it's fashionable. No longer is bitter jadedness paired with witty retort considered the domain of the psychotically unhinged. It's actually become - dare I say it - cool. Think EMO, and blogging, and the people you hang around with.Cynicism, in the way I'm meaning it, isn't taking the piss out of stuff or parodying things, which is a time-honoured tradition and can actually be funny without causing undue nastiness. Nor is it the traditional meaning of weighing things up critically and looking at situations or things through various different lenses. Cynicism, to my mind, and in my experience, has an element of bitterness in it. Take for example, the attitude of some of us to the mainstream church, or our home churches. Bitter, hurt, pissed off at various things? To an extent, yes. Petulant children whining about things when they should either shut up, leave the organisation they're whining about, or go do something constructive about it? Yeah.I'm including me very largely here. I mean, I get pissed about stuff at my church, but it isn't the church that has changed, it's me. And there shouldn't be any hard feelings or anything about this whole thing for a lot of us, because it's just an evolution of faith, and people change, and their viewpoints change. So making sarky pointed comments in that general direction isn't helpful or even clever. It's just nasty and backhanded. I am just as guilty, if not more, than others who do this. I'm aware, and yet I still do it. And since it's fashionable, you keep on doing it cos it means you fit in. And then there's the shock factor. You can really shock people out of their happy, comfy, deluded little lives and into eternal enlightenment with a nicely-aimed comment. Or is that us just taking out our sh*t on other people, and expecting them to conform?I have been told by older people that ours is a very cynical generation. I'm not sure what to say about that. I look at some of the people my age around me and go, "yeah, we're very cynical, but is it any wonder?" We seem more weary than anything. And then some of the other people I meet (Christians included) still seem to be those happy, innocent ones whose lives tick over quite nicely thanks and think all of this a rather ugly side of life and why can't you just all be nice and happy like me? Granted, there is a place for this form of commentary on life, and to an extent it is a valid form of expression. It's healthy to criticise and discuss and use your brain. But I think sometimes we can be a bit too free with our venomous comments and our 'cleverness' and sometimes it does do damage and harm people, occasionally rather badly.I'd like to say I have a 3-point practical plan on how to deal with cynicism as we currently use it, or use it in constructive ways or tone it down so we're not just being bitter bastards, but I don't.I just think it's weird that it's cool to be cynical.
My job being a temp job, and temp jobs being what they are, there is no work left for us at the moment, and so I have tomorrow off. My body being a temple, and temples being what they are, I am currently sick with a nasty sore throat, glands the size of K2, a blistering headache (oddly, since I get about as many headaches as chickens have teeth) and more exhaustion than I know what to do with. Good going there, O majestical immune system of mine :P I blame air conditioning, for what it's worth. And colleagues with chronic colds still turning up to work and hacking the day away. Ah, Murphy, you old dog.
