April 2005 Archives

I had my own important things happen on 25 April.

Ian and I celebrated our second month-iversary of being together, counted from the day he picked me up at the bus stop with his parent's beautiful old VW bug and we drove through 5pm traffic and I was so scared for us and excited and sad to miss my nephew eating his very first cake, which I had baked and made up like a rugby ball... two months since that day and I loved the genuine-ness of his smile as we pondered the fact last night.

I sprained my ankle, not too badly. Ironically, wearing anything other than the low heels that caused the sprain aggravates it, so the evil shoes must be worn.

Ian met Dr. Ineffectual.

And I got the job I wanted so so bad, with them. After my first interview I came home and jumped up and down in the kitchen while I described the company; after the second I knew I would be crushed not to get it, and I'm in there.

Please enjoy the hotness of Jake Gyllenhaal, who - although unrelated to this post - slots in seamlessly anywhere :)

Being the progressive couple we are, Ian and I have decided to allow the '5 celebrities you may sleep with without fear of repercussion' list. Guess who tops my list?

Again, the Friday hits us, with the promise of beer and lie-ins, and the distant thumping of Monday tapping its foot, waiting its turn.

The work situation cannot be delved into too deeply, but I am looking at moving from where I am right now. It's all pretty exciting really; I will probably only really be able to divulge more at a later stage.

Bennifer, however, is not as secretive; she's moving to Joburg for a position with Johnnic - there's no one more deserving and I just know she'll knock their socks off.

One thing has been troubling me of late is... sigh... I have to admit this problem.... I have smelly feet.
I have never in my life had smelly feet before, but now every time I come home and take my shoes off, I wince at my own stinky ass feet and poor Ian has to bear the reek too.
I think it's all the walking - it's not just one pair of shoes, it's from all of them - or the fact that I sit all day in an extremely warm office, thus making my feet sweat *ewww* and leading to the stink. Uncool.

Mentally creating blog posts these days is difficult. Yes, I'm very busy these days, I can't really blog about my work situation as such, and most of my experiences are shared with Ian at the moment - which is weird because there's his take on things to consider.
I'm sure we experience things differently, but it kind of makes it hard to form a solid opinion on things. Hard to explain, I guess.

I know I've blogged about our relationship a tad, and that it's probably boring for most readers... it's just that he is this enormous part of my life right now, and should the state of my brain be shown graphically, it would probably look something like this:

It's also always been a bit of an itch to me that I've had to censor what I've written on rockit for the audience. I generally know you if you're reading this, and there's a bit of restriction there - there have been times when I've wanted to write something, but have held back for the feelings of a reader. Everyone does this, I'm sure, and it makes me HATE HATE HATE the bloggers who claim to be completely honest and uncensored because, let's face it, if you don't hold back to spare someone's feelings online, then you probably don't do it in real life either, and that makes you a cold-hearted piece of work.
Ian joked that he was going to write something on his secret blog, and I laughed at this - I have toyed with the idea, and I wonder how many surreptitious pages exist out there with the true feelings and true lives of the anonymous author expressed on them. Of course, linking the anon blog with the known blog would remove all mystery (and render the secret blog useless, in turn) but I can't help but wonder.
Are you wondering if I have a secret blog now? HUH? And - did I write about you on it?

Hmmm.
If only I was that crafty.

Ah, Friday. *blink* it's Monday. How the hell does that happen? But hey - I'm in the space just before the blink right now, and I'm going to enjoy it.

Saying that the British medical system is flawed is like saying a sieve is 'porous'. Unbeknownst to me (and to my gynae back in SA, fucker) you need a prescription for contraception in this country. That's medical contraception y'all, not that of the 'roll it on' type (can you picture, the guy behind the counter at the cafe, asking for a prescription). This is actually most likely the reason for Ian's response of 'You need a prescription? You're a fertile woman, there's your prescription.' Sadly, I doubt the presence of my boobs and a fully functioning womb will be enough to win over the lady at Boots, and as such, I have had to seek out a doctor's appointment.

BUT WAIT...

Such a strange creature does not exist in the UK! Whilst appointments roam freely, undisturbed and made full use of, in South Africa, 6 days a week; they are an extinct species in London. You must register with a doctor in your home area; but they aren't open on Saturdays or past 6pm. Call-outs are for emergencies only. Thus, you must take time off work to go and see said doctor. But wait, you cannot pre-book appointments. You have to call THAT DAY in the hopes of finding an appointment, when the office opens, by which time you will have missed the transport that gets you to work on time. You can take the morning off to secure an appointment, but chances are that you will probably only get an appointment for the afternoon, so what the hell - take THE WHOLE DAY OFF, that's IF you get an appointment for the same day.

Good bloody luck.

No, you don't pay for this service (no one would DARE ask you to) but hey - I'm prepared to pay for a little efficiency here. God forbid you ever actually get ill, because sitting in a doctor's surgery waiting for a cancellation to get a doctor's letter while you sweat and cough and shiver sounds like fun.

Yes, I understand that there is a medical responsibility to ensure that very young women or girls do not have the ability to get their hands on contraception that might be the wrong dosage for them, thereby possibly rendering them infertile. But do I look like a 15 year old? Do I look insecure when I ask for the pill in the queue? No - because I've been on this particular pill for years. I'm doing the responsible thing, taking care of my own reproductive health, and I get treated like I'm being unreasonable.

There's something very 'Dawn of the dead' about getting off the tram in Croydon - no one really talks, if they do it's unintelligible; everyone's eyes are a bit glazed over; you walk slowly down the street in the same direction as 50-odd others. As Zombies don't have feelings, it's a bit hard to explain away the depressing nature of heading towards work, so I guess that's where the analogy ends.

I'm sick, again. My boss says she thinks I just need to get used to the 'horrible English weather'; this might be the case. It snowed on Friday, weirdly. No rain, but the temperature reached so low that when condensation finally dropped, it was white and fluffy and didn't last long at all.

Why didn't Charles kiss Camilla? He looked more emo at his wedding to Di. You have to give it to Cam's stylist though.

I got my first paycheck from my week long temp position, my first cheque with £ instead of R! Fleetingly, I toyed with the idea of framing it, until Ian reminded me that it's not much use that way, psssh.

This.

Thought that this article was a fun spin on an engrossing but confusing series. It's not on here, and I only caught the first 3 episodes on M-Net before I left SA, but I was getting pretty hooked.

Just: how they got from Locke's 'tabula rasa' to 'empty cabinet' I'll never know.

This is a bit of a mission to tackle in one blog post, and considering the fact that I’m not supposed to be blogging right now, it may indeed run on into two or more posts.

In the course on race, ethnicity and gender that so engrossed me in my fourth year, one of the issues touched upon in White, our course book for the semester and a damn good read, was that of the notion of enterprise, and how it is, in essence, a ‘white construction’. The notion of whiteness holds within it the notion of enterprise, of activity and constructivity. I’m sure that this was all around me at home, but recently I’ve been noticing a resurgence in white people’s pre-occupation with the concept.

I am, by nature, a bit of a lazy ass. I like relaxing, I love sleeping, if my digsmate offers to do the dishes I say ‘by all means’ and snuggle up in front of the TV. I’ve always harboured a secret admiration for those who feel stifled by inactivity; generally skinny types who can’t stop moving. As a child I was very busy, very active, but adolescence hit me with a wall of constant tiredness and the ability to sleep wherever you put me (I won an award for this in residence at university).

But my arb sleepiness aside, hey presto, I have a job. I have been lucky in getting my current and previous positions here in the UK in that I found the right agent, but the fact is, had I not found her, I would have found work for myself. Aside from the fact that without income, one tends to starve, I honestly felt very ineffectual for the first few days here when I wasn’t working. Friends who saw me logged in on messenger took the piss, ‘hey lazy, haven’t you got a job yet’ and so on – which I took in laughing; but I was obviously concerned.
Okay, have to stop talking about myself here, my current work status is not the main objective of this post.

Of late, I keep hearing or seeing things which remind me that not everyone is employed. Young mothers, who I see during my lunchbreak, with their kids at McDonalds. Most of the crazies here don't seem to have jobs, other than travelling on public transport. And, last night, gypsies on C4. Kilroy spent a week with them, which was entertaining and interesting to a point, but it generated a bit of a digs debate as to what exactly the deal is with ‘travellers’. Thinking about it later, I realised that it wasn’t just the mess factor or the fact that they are living on agricultural land; Kilroy, as well as most of the viewers, have been brought up in a society which values enterprising behaviour and capitalism. If you aren’t doing a job in the Western sense of the word, are you spending your time in a worthy way? If you don’t have a fixed house, a huge mortgage, 2.4 kids and less than 5 dogs, are you really a bad person?

Ultimately, these gypsies are being defeated by a court filled with people who fundamentally disagree with their way of life. I felt uncomfortable with this – I come from the very same beaurocracy, one which idealises work and considers the lack of work to be torpor and laziness. Should these gypsies not be given their human right to live the way they want to? Should that right override the rights of the people whose land they invade or live next to, thereby dropping the property value? Should they not become contributing members of society? But what does that mean, and who decides when a person falls into that category?

Why is enterprise so highly valued? Why are we so impressed – myself included – by entrepreneurs, self-starters, people with enthusiasm for work? Is there really a tangible explanation for the value we place on these qualities?
Is it a form of racism to dislike people of another ‘creed’ for their way of life, if we focus on their work ethic?