A couple of months ago I said:
"I have decided not to get a job: not to get a 'proper' job. In saying that, to you, and to myself, I hesitate; stumble; run away; come back; twist my toe in the dirt; blush; worry; doubt; cringe; set off fireworks in my heart; reach for my CV. No, I'm not sure but yes, I am sure." (whole blog post)
See that bit where I say I was cringing and stuff? I would turn every day. One day I'd be "This is going to be fantastic, I can do this!" and the next day I would be like "What am I thinking? I'm crazy! This will never work!" to find the very next day I was all "Yes, this is what I'm meant to be doing! life is wonderful!" then plunging into "You'll never succeed you'll die a homeless!"
So I was okay on the up days, but the down days I had to concentrate on not running screaming to seek.co.nz. Then one day, Linkedin sent me a job suggestion and by goodness, it was a goodun.
I applied. I interviewed. I was physchometric'd. I was referenced. I was offered and I accepted. I have been working since Monday so, sorry about that folks, I am now working for a living instead of being a Bohemian artist .. in the suburbs.
There is now more structure in my day, bus tickets in my pocket, co-workers in my office and a 'normal' work week. This means I have time in the weekend to do art stuff and money in my pocket to do cafe stuff. A much better (read: easier) situation.
And I'm glad I did it!
Now I have a 'real job' I need to get a haircut..
Today is good soup-weather - so I'm making some after buying a new, bigger saucepan for the job. The apartment smells of clean, warm laundry and vegetable soup. I absolutely love weekends when I can spend a lot of time inside reading and pottering about. I'm having a really lovely weekend, actually - soup today, movies last night, lunch with the lovely Kincaids and Woods-Williams on Saturday, out with same on Friday night for Fox's birthday and my leaving drinks. A very nice weekend indeed.
Willo, Teh Fox and I went to the 10:45pm session of Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull last night. It was cold and clear, with the smell of Winter in the air. Rugged up with coats and scarves, we made our way into Hoyts in the city.
I've had Indy's theme music in my head for two weeks, having been working on some promotional stuff for it at work. I was like some cinematic Pavlov dog, humming the tune everytime I dealt with a piece of film collateral or Indiana Jones trivia.
The movie is predictable, uncomplicated, a bit naff at times, but lots of fun. I had a good time, and I was genuinely pleased to see Henry Jones Jr one more time. I honestly hope I don't see him again though; this was a nice curtain-call, but that's enough George - don't drag any more of your horses into the streets, just let them enjoy their pastures.
I left my job as Interface Developer at Citrus on Friday.
I am not good at leaving - I find it difficult to know when to leave and how to go about the process of leaving, and then on top of that, I'm an awkward hugger - so I avoid any action on the leaving front until I absolutely *have* to. I stay too late at parties, I stay too long in jobs, and I over-stay my welcome in relationships.
In one of my previous jobs, many years ago, I left resigning from the company late - I stayed and stayed, hope making me think things would change, my heart kept telling me that the person at the core of our pain might change even though my mind assured me people hardly ever do. This time, and for a change, I listened to my head and took the opportunity the University of Melbourne offered me and I start there on Monday.
Leaving is never easy for me - I hate resigning, I dislike saying goodbye, I feel uncomfortable being the focus of attention on the last day and I say dorky things because I'm nervous. Maybe leaving isn't supposed to be easy. I have learned, though, that if I'm unhappy with a large incompetent part of my working process that continues to impact on my daily levels of satisfaction, then staying and trying to ride it out isn't always the best course of action for me either.
I was asked several times in my final week if I was excited to be leaving - which I kept finding was a strange question to answer given a) how much work I had to get through in my last week and b) how much I love working with the talented Studio team at Citrus. Yes, I was and continue to be excited about the new challenges ahead of me, happy to have Flash in my life again with the added challenge of learning Actionscript 3, looking forward to learning all about Flex, thinking about all the things I've learned since the last time someone had me design a learning module etc, but I am genuinely sad to be leaving such a great team of online designers, developers and friends.
Eating in Melbourne is fun. I'm in the right part of town for being able to stumble upon any number of cafes, bars and/or restaurants. My roomie, Fox, is showing me the lay of the edible land with sides of bars and tram lessons which is making my assimilation into my new home so much easier than if I were stumbling about here on my own. She was also kind enough to invite me to her work Friday drinks and let me wear her Easter Bunny ears which I forgot I was wearing so by the time the woman at the wine tasting evening we later went to said "nice ears" i tugged on my own ear lobes wondering why she'd said that to me.
The Melbourne sky has been so blue and big - Autumn is such a wonderful season with it's mild temperatures and beautiful colours. This was a very good time of year to start this adventure, I think - good thinking