This Blogging thing

I love text chatting and reading and blogging... but, I think I need to draw some lines somewhere.

AS anyone reading will realise, I am new to this whole blogging game. I now have two blogs which I am updating semi regularly – through definitely not daily. I think I have become addicted to them, and I can see that the more time I spend on them, the more I will find to spend my time. I will start meeting friends that have blogs, and so I will start reading all of their blogs and writing comments and finding new cool little tricks and gadgets and bits of code to incorporate… but then, I have this commitment-phobe inside of me that is increasingly concerned about this new found interest of mine. It is whispering stuff in my ears like “But you won’t be able to keep it up!”, “You won’t always be able to think of interesting, insightful or witty things to say” – (actually this is more my writers block demon than my commitment phobic one speaking here)… oh, and mostly, “HOW WILL YOU FIND THE TIME??!! Your life was bursting at the seems before with all the things you wanted to do, how will you be able to fit all these cyber-based activities in as well?”

I guess I can ignore the other whispers, but the last one is a bit of a concern.

I am already finding it hard enough to live with all the me’s I have. I am perpetually split between the athletic, adventurous out-door me and the arty, creative, pondering indoor me. And each of those me’s are split aswell. The outdoor me wants to be a shit hot climber, paddler, mountain bike rider and surfer. The arty indoor me wants to learn Spanish, write poetry, learn guitar, learn how to knit, paint, draw, take photos, read… oh, and that is just a start of both me’s. The extrovert and the introvert.

But, I guess the arty, creative, thinking introvert is the part of me that often gets neglected, so maybe this new-found blogging addiction will feed that part better. Mmm… yeah, that justification works. But that is the other problem, I can justify anything, even when it is the wasting of time. And blogging is definitely a great justification for procrastination. Two things that I am very good at: procrastination and justification. They feed each other really, in a self-perpetuating cycle.

If it were just the blogs, that would be okay, but then there are all the other things. The social networking sites for instance, the live chats that just conspire to eat in to your life too much. I have been asked by a recruiter (that I have met and who has lined me up with a good interview) to join some professional networking site, which I did, I guess because I am unemployed and vulnerable. My boyfriend has just joined Myspace, in order to get in touch with an old friend, and someone else has just asked me to join Facebook, which I have dutifully done this morning, because I am socially isolated and lonely. But then, so what now? I join these sites, and I log in each day to view and read and send comments? As well as logging into my blogs and every other blog I want to read, check me emails, read the news, look for and apply for jobs and then manage to get some fresh air, exercise and a find a social life in there somewhere… Oh, and I haven’t even put in a proper profile to my blog yet let alone to the other social networking sites…

Like right now, it is nearly lunch time, and I have not even started doing anything with my day. Arrrrrrrrrrggghhh.

Will my computer crash (with all the junk I am downloading on to it) or will I crash first? Mmm, somethings gotta give, methinks. Am I just having teething problems?

Do any of my vast readers out there (lol) have any words of wisdom to offer?

paraskavedekatriaphobia

Well, I have successfully avoided applying for any jobs all morning and now it is lunch time already. I really am refining the art of procrastination.

I was about to open up my incomplete application for a nice lil’ multimedia editor job, when the perfect excuse hit me: Friday the 13th. Actually, I hadn’t even consciously absorbed the fact until I read Kass’s blog. Where would I be without your blog in my life, Kass?

I am not at all superstitious, unless it suits me to be. And it suits me just fine today.
I can’t apply for a job today. It might all go hideously wrong. I haven’t quite got the imagination to conjure all the possibilities… but they could include the accidental sending of pornography or viruses and being blacklisted by all potential employers in Vancouver…maybe some ghost code writer (lol) might insert lines of evil code in my emailed cover letter that will make - - I dunno, bad shit happen.

It then occurred to me though that I had absolutely no idea what Friday 13th was actually about or where it originated. Neither it seems, do many people. I went to the good ol’ Wikipedia and found out that it is considered to be a day of bad luck in English, German, Polish and Portuguese-speaking cultures around the globe, but that there are only really stories and theories about why. There is not really any authoritative documentation of it, that I or wikipedia know of.

13 is considered an unlucky number, and Friday is considered an unlucky day, apparently (but what is unlucky about Fridays? I love Fridays! I think Mondays are much more unlucky.) But other than that, there is very little that links them together.

Some stories (taken from Wikipedia) include:
* The Last Supper, with stories that Judas was the thirteenth guest, and that the Crucifixion of Jesus occurred on Friday.
*That the biblical Eve offered the fruit to Adam on a Friday, and that the slaying of Abel happened on a Friday (though the Bible does not identify the days of the week when these events occurred).
*Many modern stories (including The Da Vinci Code) claim that when King Philip IV had many Knights Templar simultaneously arrested on Friday, October 13, 1307, that started the legend of the unlucky Friday the 13th.

None of these nor any other historical date has been verifiably identified as the origin of the Friday the 13th superstition though. The first documented mention of a "Friday the 13th" is generally listed as occurring in the early 1900s.

So anyways, I think it is amazing that as a culture we are terrified of this particular day, and none of us know why! How dumb are we???

Interesting facts (also from Wikipedia):
· "It's been estimated that [U.S] $800 or $900 million is lost in business on this day because people will not fly or do business they would normally do."
· Some people are so paralysed by fear that they are simply unable to get out of bed when Friday the 13th rolls around. The Stress Management Center and Phobia Institute estimates that more than 17 million people are affected by a fear of this day.
· A British Medical Journal study has shown that there is a significant increase in traffic related accidents on Friday the 13ths.

homesickness and the art of growing branches

Homesickness

(as taken from my tavelblog)

Symptoms: feeling isolated, dis-connected, alien, unknown, invisible and lonely. Perhaps slight anxiety and just a sense of a general anti-climax. It can make you become strangely and uncharacteristically patriotic and start to think warmly of things that you would formerly have ridiculed, or at least not even given a thought to.

Causes: perpetual itchy feet that lead one to foreign destinations likely to trigger the illness. If the affected person happens to like hot climates, he or she is more likely to suffer the illness if he or she travels to a cold destination, and visa versa.

Treatment: mmm… any suggestions, other than going home?

More seriously though, it is an odd thing, homesickness.

I have succumbed to indulging the sickness today. This is probably helped by the fact that Jono has accidentally taken both our house keys with him to work, so I can not even leave the house.

This homesick illness has been present for quite some time, but I am constantly pushing it to the background. I am here now, and I want to enjoy it and experience it in its full. I don’t want to whinge about a situation that I have chosen to place myself in. I am sure it will pass, or at least get less severe. But, GOD DAMN IT, I AM HOMESICK. Maybe admitting it, and wallowing in it a little bit, will make it recede to the far back regions of my brain. But this is really starting to get serious. I mean, I am looking at dusty water-starved paddocks full of hungry sheep with misty fondness! Wow. What has become of me?

And why have I travelled for long periods of time before and not felt homesick?

I guess the last time I travelled for an extended period (umm… about 9 –11 months, I think) I was moving around all the time. I didn’t really stay in any one place for much more than a few weeks at the most. This time, I am staying in the one flat (quite literally today), in the one city so there is not that same constant stimulation. And I guess it is intensified by the whole looking for work scene, which is never much fun. But it does make me wonder what it was that drove me to come here in the first place.

I guess I was about to turn 30, and I had always had the idea of getting one of those work visa’s available to people under 30 and living and working in a different country for a while. It was one of those manyana concepts. Tomorrow. Tomorrow. Lots of tomorrows made lots of years, and suddenly it was deadline time. I always have been a last minute person! Problem is, by deadline time, I guess I was getting pretty comfortable with myself and where I was. There were invisible strange things like roots that I did not realise I had till I came over here and severed them. Now they want to re-attach, but it is too cold and wet here for them. But the point is, they are still there, wanting to get established. Damn it. I don’t want them there right now. I want freedom. Carelessness. Independence.

But, to balance all of this, I am very very scared of monotony and I rebel against comfort zones. So, I guess that is what this trip is about. It is punctuating my life and stopping it from becoming a meaningless ramble. It is taking me out of my comfort zone so that I can grow in new ways, not grow roots so much as branches.

Mmm... even so, today is my indulging in my homesickness day, so I am uploading pictures of things and people back home - things like SUN (oh my god how I miss it), Sandy beaches, beer, sheep... arhhhhhhhhhh.

zzz

I can not believe how exhausting being lazy is, and how quickly a day can go when you are not doing anything! It is surreal. I feel like I have just woken up, had breakfast then all of a sudden it was lunch time and now it is getting dark. A highlight of the day was the box of chocolates, now empty. But I feel absolutely wiped out. Granted - I am sick, but still.

It made me think that one of the reasons I love climbing is that I feel satisfied at the end of my day. It may not matter to any one else and it is not going to change the world, but I dunno, I just feel awesome after I have been outside climbing up rock all day. It is like a meditation - just looking at edges and features and cracks and working out how you can contort yourself to stick to them all and work your way up gracefully and fluidly without falling or cheating (or grunting) - I am trying to to grunt and swear so much! I am working my way up to writing a big long speel about why climbing rocks my world (I know VERY bad pun) so, anyways, be warned. It aint happenin today though, because I am feeling absolutely flaked from all my inactivity.

Bloody rain!

html brain scramble

open tag. Wow - thrust back into working life again. Nothing like work to sap your creative energy. Actually, it depends what kind of work. Checking HTML and links all day just scrambles my brain. Would you like bacon with my scrambled brain? I managed to save some one's bacon the other day, perhaps I should serve that up? Under the counter or laid out on the table? I think you will need to add some spice. I like my coffee black and my toast brown sunny side up, or is that eggs? Salads are best tossed and naked like words. close tag