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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Mood killer! That Dan!

Looking confused, early in the morning:

That's my usual feeling. :)

UGH! So I was in a mood a few moments ago, but I think I've calmed myself down.

Incidentally, I was productive today, though not at work. :) And I even managed to post some post cards. :)

SO what happened is that I standing in the Mags and F@gs store down the street, reading Vogue. Yes, really. Joan has completely corrupted me. :)

I then heard a tap on the window. It was Dan. Clearly he had his dog with him, so I went out of the store to greet him. Just as well, I suppose, since it saved me from dropping my first $10 ever on either Paris or UK vogue.

I know: corrupted.

So it was nice catching up with Dan, and also practical in that I had been thinking that I need to meet up with him in order to get him to deliver my clothes as promised to the charity boxes. He's so sweet - he offered to do that himself this weekend, if I am too busy.

But the thing is that he told me something that threw me into a TIZZY.

You'll remember how unprofessional was my former department. Well, there was a sleazy manager there for whom I had to work for the summer. He had previously been at the OECD in Paris, and upon his return had been promoted. He is a smart guy, but utterly unprofessional.

So I had known that this guy had gone off to Geneva. But what Dan told me and that blew me away is that this girl who had been working in our division had just moved to Geneva.

I had always had a suspicion that this manager was sleeping with that girl, but the rumour had been repeatedly denied. This girl was at the bottom of the bottom of the totem pole, with no graduate degree to her name and no training in economics.

So this is what gobsmacked me: The sleazy manager had gotten her a job at the International L@bour Organization in Geneva.

She has no training in economics. She has nothing. Her skills consist of doing power point presentations. And now she is working with him on an international migration report.

GAWD it pays to sleep with assholes.

So I suppose you could say that I felt annoyed when I heard this, because getting to Europe seems so distant for me.

Of course, if I get to Europe it will be with the right job. I need to calm down. I really need to calm down. I got home and went on the OECD website and the ILO website and could not find anything suitable for me. Well, there are a couple of postings at the OECD that I could probably do, but I don't really have the subject area experience (e.g. Africa), and so they likely woudln't consider me.

I have to step back in this though. The thing is that it is easy to panic and want to solve the "problem" right now. But I have a feeling that fate is holding things back for me. I'm supposed to figure out the exact BEST thing to do for me.

I could end up in another economics job somewhere in a hurry and be completely miserable. But what I really need is to find something that will take me on a path that can be a truly good future for me. I actually believe that that is possible. And really I would hate living in Geneva. The only good thing would be that it is close to Italy. :) Where I really want to be is Italy, although I think I would enjoy living in London, for example.

OK. So once I started thinking through this rationally, I realized that I will end up where I am supposed to be, if I follow through with all of the baby steps and just TRUST and BELIEVE. BoXx is always right.

So what feels RIGHT for me right now here is to study my French like crazy. The teacher today gave me a nice compliment. He was impressed with my abilities relative to the class. He took me aside and asked me about my background, and was surprised to hear that I had only completed one formal course since high school. It is true that my French is way above my training. This is because I read and listen. My landlord always says that I have no problem - I just need to practise. I think my best asset is that I have a very large vocabulary. I can fool people into thinking that I know more than I do, as a result. :)

SOOOOO...

not that that is important.

But I really feel a strong, strong drive to get my French to a very good level this year. I am going to throw myself into it and try to pass my first bilingualism exams before I go to Italy in the spring. It should be doable, and then I will get a bilingual bonus as well.

The second thing that I feel I must do is Italian. I am so excited about that class. And get this: We had a "wine tasting" today at the end of the day at work. I was tlaking to the senior chief who is nice to me. And he mentioned that another guy in my unit, the gay guy whom I REALLY like and who I've mentioned to you before is a little bit different, is taking Italian at the moment! I asked him which class and it turns out that it is the one that I am starting next Monday! This guy has more Italian than I do by far, so I have no idea why he is in the beginner class, but that is OK. He mentioned to me that he had found out from another chief that my actual DEPARTMENT has an OECD exchange/posting in ITALY. He also mentioned that they find it difficult to find people to fill that posting because not many people speak Italian. (Everyone speaks French, naturally, and we are a small department with respect to professional staff. The thing is though that I would need to learn more about financial regulation and markets, I think.) I don't think that this posting is necessarily the answer. And of course it will take at least a couple of years to get my Italian up to speed. And I'd have to compete with this guy, who is more senior. But what the heck. IT's an idea. And it just came to me out of the blue, now that I'm looking at and talking about these things. These things all build on each other. They build momentum.

SO sorry about this long job diatribe. Obviously, my heart wants to find a way to try things out in Europe. My heart wants to be free of here. But more and more I do realize what a good job I have. My department has exchanges with England and the OECD in Paris, among others. I would need first to get more experience here though. I don't think that they send people before they have six years of experience here or so, though I could be wrong.

So otherwise I am definitely going to apply for the Foreign Service this weekend. That is a long recruitment process and you just never know how things will turn out.

Basically, I know that the best thing to do is just relax, breathe, and trust. The right opportunity will arise when it is supposed to, and the "universe" will provide what I want out of it. This is because the doors are now open and my eyes are open. In a way you could say that I am "facilitating" the things to come into my life. I will get to Europe, or I will get to somewhere else that provides me with the same feeling. I will find something that fills me up.

So that's French and Italian. Important. I am so focused. Watch out.

The third thing is art. I am going tomorrow to the art school to register for a course, even though they have already started.

It's so funny that before leaving for Italy this time I was thinking about joining some sports team that I would hate, just to meet guys. And I was thinking about paying for another indoor cycling class. None of this has ever quite filled me up in the way that artistic things do. I feel so excited now that I have streamlined my life. I will not waste any time on things that do not serve my goals.

OK. This sounds like a bit of a crazy note. It's really just to remind myself that I can't figure out the HOW right now and by myself. It will have to evolve organically. But the path is moving. Or I'm moving along the path. Or whatever. I just need to do what I love, what fills me up, and I'll get there. I'll get there.

I don't care how you get here; just get here if you can.

7:58 p.m. - 2008-10-03

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