enfinblue's Bluey (credit to Fifi for the nickname!) Diaryland Diary

"I am seeking, I am striving, I am in it with all my heart." -Vinc3nt V@n Gogh

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Me complaining, again.

Home now. Recovering from spinning. Completely knackered!

I'll admit that I snubbed cycling boy today. Or rather I didn't snub him but I stayed away from him and made it difficult for him to talk with me. He tried to flirt with me again today, but I suspect largely because the other girl was not there. It turns out that the other girl was not there today because her boyfriend is visiting her from Halifax.

So I guess that's that. Unless of course she wants to have a boyfriend here and a boyfriend there. It's really up to them. :)

I've realized yet again, however, that I simply can't date right now anyhow. The simple reason is that I am so depressed and stressed about my job. I'm almost certain that I'm going to have to - for my sanity and confidence - move back over to my former department as soon as it is reasonable to do so. In theory I should wait 10 months to shift. The alternative would be to wait another 4. Arbitrary deadlines, those, anyhow.

Not sure. I don't want to spend all of my time writing in this diary in the throes of obsessing over the job. Frankly, I don't want to think about it much at all. As blighty suggested a couple of days ago, I'm going to trust my instincts and simply move on them. My instincts have consistently told me that this job is not for me.

So, unfortunately, after all of the change and struggle of the last year, it seems that again I will likely need to change .

And then I should be reasonably positioned, after an adjustment period, to date again.

What I worry about - or rather attempt not to worry about, actually - is that no matter what economist job I change to within the government I'm not really going to be truly happy.

It's that old saw: This is not my calling.

Whatever a calling might be.

But it definitely doesn't fill my soul.

Hell, it doesn't use any of the parts of me that I think are most valuable and interesting. (My empathy, my creativity, my strong belief in others and my emotional self.)

The parts of me that it uses, if I'm completely honest about it, are the parts that others have always told me are valuable ones. These are the things that I've always thought of as my inferior or secondary functions: analytical capacity, grasp of mathematics/patterns (which is really analytical capacity, although one can argue I suppose that there is a creative dimension to this), tenacious desire for the rules to be followed (and precisely) when pushed.

That's basically what it all sums to. In my current job I am supposed to be everything that I don't like about myself.

I made another joke yesterday that didn't go over well.

It was five p.m. and a senior chief came by when I was speaking with my boss. He asked out of the blue, "Does anyone know what personal income is in Canada?"

I mean, we work at taxing the stuff, so I figured he'd have a ballpark figure. And anyhow, the question was phrased strangely and they'd all been at the social eating pie, so I asked...

"Do you mean that as a philosophical question?"

I was smiling, of course. No one smiles, there. I mean, sigh.

SO my boss went into a brows-furrowed explanation of what the number is, should be.

It was OK. It was an interesting answer. I figure that I should know the figure myself. For whatever reason, I don't sit around these days tracking the absolute dollar value of GDP. :D

SIGH again.

SO that's all I meant to say. I HATE my life.

Or rather, I hate my career.

I think I'd found a reasonable compromise at my old department in that the emphasis was on social programs. So I could analyse and research and feel that at least the hope was to improve the educational and labour market prospects of disadvantaged groups. In a tangential sense of course what I do now does exactly this, by trying ot figure out how to collect and spend the country's money in ideally the most efficient ways that we can.

Still, it feels hollow. I hate it. I must tell the truth.

SO do I aim for another career which will inevitably mean going back to school yet again and that would mean giving up my pension?

Or do I settle on finding the most tolerable position possible (e.g. possibly one back at my former department) and then work to live, i.e. work to make money.

I guess I'm the only one that can answer that question. It has haunted me for a long time. I made all of the wrong decisions in my youth. I always did what I thought I should do.

And here I am. How do I rectify this?

I'm quite sad, really. I'm not sad in a continual, oppressive way, but in the way of a weight pressing on my chest at least once a day. It's like a low grade fever.

I really think I should have been a nurse or a doctor. In fact, believe it or not, I would probably choose nurse over doctor. I've never had any trouble cleaning up puke or anything. I'm not bothered by seeing people as they really are. I don't freak out in a medical crisis, or any crisis, believe it or not - I always just get to work to solve the problem. And finally, I think the thing in life that has the most meaning of all is noticing the small things that people really need and giving it to them - holding a hand, listening, giving comfort. It's easy not to notice. The people who do and who attempt to make the way easier for others are the heros in my book. I'm also a good mediator, so the other possibility would have been social worker. It's too late for either of these though, so I might as well forget about it.

ANyhow. Not to be gloomy. In other news, the festival was fabulous last night. I wish I hadn't forgotten to take my camera with me. C. and I trudged down the canal through the freshly fallen mounds of blizzard snow. It was like a fairy picture. When we arrived at the Chat3au the bridge was lit up with little fairy lights and the stage was beautifully set up on a platform over the canal. There were hundreds of orderly people in bleechers up the other side and swinging to the music as the snow fell. It was quite peaceful and lovely, really.

ANd then, on the way home, C. and I walked through one of the main festival sites. The ice sculpture competition had begun 9 hours before. (The sculptors have 24 hours to complete their creations.) So we stopped and watched in delight as a range of local and international competitors sawed and smoothed and explained their craft to interested passers-by. Again, DOH! re. the camera. It was outstanding.

ON one of the sites - I suspect a main stage site for carnival organizers - they had set up a dj and a drummer and there was a large ice igloo with its top cut off under the tent. With its lights and the surrounding sculptures it was quite beautiful. Some hipster kids in their baggy jeans and jackets and woolly toques decided to use the inside of the igloo as a dance floor, so a crowd gathered around. It was highly entertaining.

The funny thing though was that the kids took off their jackets and instead of looking like the bad-ass hip hop dancers they intended to resemble, they looked like a couple of cute little freckle-faced, gangly Canadian kids. The long chains that they were wearing didn't quite "tough" up the baggy R00ts "Canada" sweatshirts that their mothers had likely lovingly washed and fluffed. :)

Quite wholesome and amusing, really. I enjoyed their performances immensely, and the lights and the ice made the place quite magical. Just as a bal de neige ought to be!

OK. THe hunger is kicking in. I need to eat something more than toast.

2:24 p.m. - 2008-02-02

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