Day 18 - Thou shalt not be a total obnoxious twat-burger

Riddle me this, fellow Bloggerinos...

WHY oh why do people keep sticking microphones in front of Anthony Mundine and writing down what he says?

and why oh why do I read this crap?

Anthony Mundine talks shit, again.

Makes no sense.

It just makes me sad.

The world has gone whacky.

Seems every lunatic with something stupid to say gets a hearing.

Arghhhhh!!!! Anyway, this lunatic is signing off for today.

Stay sane, my friends,
Louki xx

Days 16-17 - Thou shalt not be self-absorbed and boring

Hmmmm, it appears, not unexpectedly, that I'm terrible at blogging regularly.

Apologies for the inconsistency - I don't really feel like I have anything particularly interesting to say at the moment, and I'm very wary of becoming massively boring and just writing shit about myself for the sake of it.

Also, given that this blog is in the "public domain" and is being read by people I don't know, it's also hard to know how much to say or not say, while still being interesting yet avoid being abused/tracked down or causing offence.

In so many ways, I am glad that there was no facebook, blogging or wide-spread internet use when I was at school. I was bullied a lot during those years, at first for being excessively shy and anti-social (and for being an academic over-achiever), and then for being a socially-awkward "wog" with a big nose. In many ways, the bullying made me stronger, but it also gave me some extremely deep-rooted insecurities about many things, not least of all my appearance (both physically and socially).

Social media just gives stupid bullies another avenue for torture people who do not deserve it.

I read recently about that beautiful girl who was stalked and bullied over social media to the point where she was driven to drinking bleach and, ultimately, to killing herself. I have also read articles about self-confessed "trolls" who think it's ok to bully and torment people who apparently "deserve it for being insecure". Gah.

I also see stories of young people who think that plastic surgery is the sensible way to go, and their parents encourage them to change their appearance instead of telling them how beautiful they are AS THEY ARE. And of course surgeons are more than happy to exploit these poor kids and their stupid parents.

What the hell is wrong with the world? Since when is it ok to treat people however the hell you want? Whatever happened to empathy, to unconditional love, to discipline?

I realise that bullies have their own insecurities/problems which make them behave the way that they do, but it really feels like there's such a sense of entitlement to bad behaviour these days, and it makes me feel sick. If I had turned around and bullied someone in return, I would have totally expected to have had my arse kicked.

Anyway, sorry for being so ranty and pissed-off, but I think I just needed to get all that off my chest. The world just feels like a scary place sometimes.

Yours in solidarity and Bloggerific-ness,
Louki xxx

Days 13-15 - Thou shalt be all kinds of purest awesome

Apologies for the hiatus, my fellow Bloggerissimos! I DO have a good excuse though... I'm a total lazy-arse.

In breaking news, I have accepted my new job with all kinds of mixed feelings. Excited (and terrified) at the upcoming challenges and learning-curves, sad as can be about packing up my ol' kit-bag and saying "toodle-pipski" to my beloved colleagues, and angry as all hell that management have turned our department into such a pig's breakfast that they're losing competent staff who so desperately WANT to stay.

But it turns out that I CAN control my own destiny, even if it doesn't always feel comfortable at the time.

So, another chapter ends, another begins. As for my gorgeous colleagues, it's not really goodbye after all... it's just "meet you at the pub after work". :-)

And check out the beautiful flowers my sister had delivered, which were waiting for me when I got home! Love.

Take care, and stay AWESOME, Bloggeroodlies!

Louki xx

Day 12 - Thou shalt remain hopeful when the world is topsy-turvy

My goodness, fellow Bloggerchums, what a week this has been.

Birthdays, injuries, abusive train-platform drunkards, cat spew, sunshine, storms, fire-drills, new friends, macarons, and now.... a job offer.

After completely talking myself out of getting my hopes up on Wednesday, I received news from my referees yesterday that they had been called for questioning in the morning. That completely knocked me for six - I had, up until that point, been preparing myself for the "rejection and constructive feedback" phone call.

So, there we have it. I now have a decision to make. My almost-new supervisor voluntarily (and very kindly) offered me some time to "have the chats" with my current employer and husband before responding to the offer, which is lovely.

The difficulty is that I love my current job - I am challenged and I learn new things on a weekly basis. I still have so much more room to learn and grow, and so many new skills I was looking forward to developing. But alas, budget-tightening and job insecurity has increasingly dimmed any prospect of ongoing employment in the team - and unfortunately for me, it's the team where I finally re-discovered confidence in myself to learn new things and to present that confidence to the outside world, where I made amazing contacts and developed relationships with a strong foundation of mutual trust and respect, and where, more importantly, I looked forward to going to work each day, even after long weekends and holidays.

I have worked in plenty of toxic environments, where I dreaded going to work, where I felt swamped by emails and phone messages and a million things to do, the majority of which I knew I would never get around to dealing with. Where I had vile colleagues, bullying supervisors, and obnoxious students to deal with, and it always came down to me having to rise above it all and be the "bigger person" (aka Punching Bag). Where I would desperately hope to get hit by a tram on the way to work so I could have a good excuse not to show up. Where I would be practically catatonic with depression on Sundays and at the end of holidays, unable to speak due to the dread of returning to work the next day.

Not that I'm expecting the new position to be anything like that, but it was my current employer who rescued me and to whom I will be eternally grateful. Out of the toxic swamp I was headhunted, I was appreciated, I was empowered, and I was welcomed with open arms. I had never known anything like it before. But, on a fixed-term position, and with permanent-staff departures leaving holes which will now never be filled, it has reached the point where I'm not sure that gratitude is enough to keep me there.

Take care, my Blogosphere Buddies. Until tomorrow...

Louki xxx

Day 11 - Thou shalt pick thyself up and dust thyself off

Hello fellow Bloggaloonies!

I hope this post finds you all well and happy. :-)

Today was hubby's birthday, so after taking him out to a lovely new pizza place at lunchtime (we work at the same campus) and coming home with every intention of having a yummy (but slightly experimental) dinner ready for when he got home from cricket training, it ended up with him coming home to find me lying flat on my back on the kitchen floor unable to move.

During dinner preparations, I dropped a piece of zucchini on the floor, bent to pick it up, and got stuck halfway down. My back completely seized up. I couldn't move up or down, so ended up just dropping myself onto the floor in agony. Unfortunately this is not the first time this has happened, although more often than not, it's when i'm doing something extreme and athletic, like getting out of bed, sneezing, or getting up off the loo.

At the risk of being tasteless, dear readers, I once had my workmates in stitches with the tale of having just been stuck in a toilet cubicle at work and having to walk my hands up the walls in order to lift myself up off the seat. Once I'd managed to be almost fully vertical, I looked down... only to realise that my pants were around my ankles where I couldn't reach them. So, after a few Mr Bean-like efforts to squat down and reach my pants, I had to lower myself down (again, with the aid of the walls) and start all over again.

Fortunately for my colleagues, mobile reception is extremely bad in our building, otherwise one of them might have been summoned for a special workmate-bonding activity of having to pull my undies up for me! Yeah, it was probably for the best that it didn't come to that!

Anyhoo, thought I should share that with you all - hopefully you've got a nice picture in your minds now!

After plenty of ice, pain killers and tears, I'm now lying comfortably and hoping that I'll wake up feeling better and that a proper celebration tomorrow night instead will do just as well.

Happy Birthday, Gorgeous Husband!!

(FYI, Husband did very kindly point out that one of the hazards of having birthdays and getting older is that your wife becomes an injury-prone old fart alongside you!)

Day 10 - Thou shalt dunk thy tongue in thy brain before thou speakest

OK, I don't often talk about politics. I hate it. I hate listening to politicians speak, I hate the way they lie, the way they sneer, the way they smirk, the way they use disguises of humanity and sincerity to peddle any old crap that will get them the largest number of votes when the time comes. I hate them.

I turn off the news when the current Leader of the Opposition is interviewed, I hit the "mute" button when the Prime Minister is speaking. We appear to have no Australian political leaders in whom we can have any faith at all. So, as a general rule, I figure there are better ways to spend my time than listening to creepy people who don't represent my interests, and who just piss and whinge at (and about) each other.

Our previous PM was an articulate intellectual who worked people to hard and made enemies by appearing smug and overly aware of his own intelligence. However, I never actually felt that he would ever put the welfare of his people in jeopardy to serve his own political needs. As the daughter of an academic, and as a graduate and long-time employee of a tertiary institution, Rudd and so much about Rudd was familiar to me. But, you never know what goes on behind closed doors.

Today, despite my desolate feelings about our current Prime Ministerial options, I found myself quite moved by footage of yesterday's Question Time in parliament, which has today gone viral.

For the first time in a very long time, I saw humanity and genuine raw emotion in a woman who has been looking hard and cold - and more than a little bit lost - of late.

The video is here (it's long, but worth sticking out to the end for her closing line): Julia Gillard Destroying the Joint

(For anyone who is not in Australia, or who may have avoided all news over the last few weeks, our PM's father died recently, and one very charming radio "personality" decided it might be appropriate to state that the Prime Minister's father had actually "died of shame" as a result of his daughter's political performance... and he said this in a speech to a dining-room full of young Opposition supporters and media representatives)

Anyway, not wanting to get preachy and political-like, but I really just wanted to record here and now how this video made me feel.

Take care and be proud, my lovely Bloggamigos.

xxx

Day 9 - Thou shalt not fret about things over which thou hast not control

No news on the job yet, so I'm thinking that it's going to be a "thanks but no thanks". Whenever I start feeling a bit miz about likely rejection, I remind myself about the list I made - for exactly this purpose - when working on my application.

The list had 2 columns: If I Get the Job and If I Don't Get the Job.
Under each, I wrote down all the good things that will come of each outcome.

The first list item under If I Get the Job was "It's ok to be sad". Basically because I really do enjoy what I'm doing now, I get a lot of satisfaction from this job, and I love the people I work with. I've never ever left a job that I didn't WANT to leave before!

The first list item under If I Don't Get the Job was "It's ok to be disappointed". Even though, ultimately, it will be nice to be able to stay where I am, it's always a bit poo to feel rejected.

Ultimately, I've done all I can do, and it's in the hands of others now. If I'm not what they're looking for, that's ok. Might turn out they want a doormat, or a bully, or a hard-arse, or even possibly just a BLOKE. And, frankly, I wouldn't want to work in a place where I'm not going to fit into the position or the environment.

So either way, it'll work out for the best!

Happy thoughts, fellow Bloggeramas. And when all else fails, go for the cookies!

Louki xx