kittykhat

When did life suddenly get so full, and yet so.... unsatisfying? I've finished uni for the moment (oh, I got my Honours mark. H1!! Go me!!) and I'm working full time in a job that requires very little in the way of thinking, but possibly more people skills than I usually have the energy for. That's right, I'm a receptionist. It doesn't hurt my back as much as dental nursing used to, but it's way less challenging. On the upside, I'm not sucking spit, getting covered in a fine film of blood, or scrubbing down mucky instruments, and I'm getting paid more than about $12 p/h. Oh, and the girls here are much nicer to talk to, work with, and look at than at prvious jobs

Anyway, this full time work business means that I'm getting up at 6:20, getting home about 11 hours later, and with the addition of karate til 10:30 2 nights a week (and possibly sticks if we can work the training times around my new hours) I guess it shouldn't be a surprise that I'm feeling kind of drained at the moment. My only real free time to sleep in is the weekend, which comes as a bit of a shock after 4 years of studenty self regulated sleeping, and I'm sacrificing that pleasure this weekend for the thrill and educational experience that will be the Advanced Open Water Diver course, which involves theory and a quiz on friday night, and 5 dives (including a night dive) over saturday and sunday, with the requisite early mornings *sigh* Hopefully the night dive will involve seeing some really cool stuff though... And in an abbreviated version ofmy dive in vanuatu, I went here:

I also heard stories about diving with bronze whalers whie you've got burley strapped to your lett (dumbass spear divers)


and orcas sneaking up on diving classes and having a look...


I think I'm mostly just feeling run down and harassed because I still need to try and write a paper for journal submission before the end of august (based on my thesis) and full time work is kind of getting in the way both time wise, and by sucking all the energy and motivation out of me to do *work* on the weekend... and I still need to get out to uni and finish electronically scoring gels!! And then there's all the stuff to finalise before I head off to Madagascar in October... so yes, I guess the short version is that weekends don't feel like enough time to keep my life under control! Plus, full time work means I can't just drop everything and go live on a deserted chunk of rock in the ocean chasing seals around whenever I feel like it (or volunteering to help other people do the same thing)...

It's not unusual for me to start feeling like life is designed to trap you in a cold grey treeless place (working below street level can help exarcebate this though) and I recognise that when it gets really bad, I start to reach out for a bit of connection with the outdoors and maybe something bigger and more fundamental. Yes, being locked inside makes me think more about the bigger picture and *coffspiritualitycoff* among other things, because I really really need to see past the everyday bleakness of routine and environmentally controlled spaces, and prepackaged mass produced cafeteria food. I really think it's time I put some more energy into the believing side of living- and that includes working out who I am now, what I still believe in, and what I don't so much anymore, and how I can live happily by the things that I decide are important to me, in a day to day way, as well as long term (saving the animals) goals, which are my main focus at the moment. I need to reconnect.