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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I sat in a dark chair in C's apartment, trying to convince him to think about my situation.

ACK. Please excuse my poor editing and grammar of late. I'm a lazy bastard diarist at the best of times; these days I'm even less inclined than usual to retype.

Ah the slowing international economy. Don't you just love it?

It's probably going to entail a great deal of extra work for us this year, but such is life.

This afternoon the sunshine was brilliantly illuminating. I doodled around my apartment until I was committed to meet C. to take some shoes that I had gathered to charity in the rental car. He had also encouraged me to come for a run with him, but I'm rather afraid to run with the cast. I'm aching to run, to be honest, but stories that I've heard of limbs swelling and casts having to be cut off have frightened me a little bit. There is also quite a bit of ice on the ground and I have the distinct feeling that if I were to land at the hospital with a second broken arm... they might just hand out a Darwin award to me.

You know, like they do to people who get killed by doing things such as suntanning on microwave towers. Natural selection, survival of the fittest. Ahem.

So C. and I returned the rental car after dropping off the shoes. We then proceeded to the health food store. We walked back to his place where I attempted to get him to help me in making my decision about Foreign Affairs.

For the most part, C. is a wonderful friend. In some areas, however, he is HIGHLY deficient. For example, I will always patiently listen to his concerns about his job, his dissertation, his career course, whereas he rapidly gets impatient with me when I ask for advice. (I mean, I DO appreciate that he is a MAN, and there's not much incentive for him to listen to me at length when I'm not a woman he's sleeping with. :) That's why I loooove gay men so much. My favourite coffee shop guy is gay and actually ASKS me about these things. Gorgeous!)

Today he kept on cutting me off with remarks such as that I should speak with someone who is working in the department, yadda yadda, when all I was asking was for his impressions re. my personality, my life goals, what is best for me, if the general structure of the career would be suitable for me. It's a question that he can answer. I know more about the work in the department than he does, anyhow, so I don't need his help with that.

Eventually he gave me constructive advice. He said that he doesn't necessarily think that Ottawa is the optimal place for me to settle, given the lack of certain types of stimulation that I love here, but at the same time that I won't know unless I invest more of myself in giving it a chance. He also thinks that I genuinely desire stability, which I wouldn't get in that career. To top it off, he agrees that the Ph.D. in History would be excellent for me and that in the end I could perhaps end up satisfying some of my cultural needs by teaching abroad or even moving to a bigger city such as Toronto, Montreal or Vancouver.

Having grown up in Toronto, I sort of have an aversion to it, but I must say that U of T is an excellent institution. Montreal is fabulous, if a bit of a third world within a first world country. You have to visit it to know what I mean by that. Vancouver is beautiful and quite interesting, but also a bit cold from a social perspective. Besides, people wear waaaay too much fleece there. I'm not sure that I could adapt. Just kidding. It's a veeeerrrry young city and actually a bit frontierish. In another twenty years or so it might just equilibriate into a properly livable city.

You just never know.

If I had to choose the one place at the top of the list in terms of "I'd like to live there for at least a year or two in my life," the pick would be the UK, and most likely England. I always wanted to live in England when I was growing up. I suppose as a historian of international migration/women's labour market mobility there might just be an opportunity to do that at some point.

Hmm..

I know that I'm an awful dreamer, but these ideas are starting to shape themselves in a useful way.

OK. Time to cook dinner. I'm already mourning the fact that these weekends speed by. How sad! Tragic, in fact! What I wouldn't give for a few more hours to myself. Oh and a valet and personal chef to prepare my lunch for tomorrow, wash my hair, settle a blanket around me and brew me a nice cuppa. ;-)

6:15 p.m. - 2009-02-15

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