clearbluecup

well, i'm back.

i've been putting off writing my "i've returned from holidays" blog post because i just don't know what to say about the whole experience. i wrote a "ten things i learned about life" entry in my paper journal, but it seemed just a little too raw for public consumption. i know y'all don't really want to read the blow-by-blow "...and then i went to get a booster juice. it was raspberry rapture..." version, and i find the general "...my life feels totally changed now, and i'm a completely different person with a renewed zest for life..." a little too cheesy and not quite palatable enough.

in a nutshell: it was great. it wasn't perfect, but that made it even better somehow. i am really pleased with myself for renting a car and driving with my brother and his friend to shambhala. i looked myself straight in the eyes and asked some difficult questions. i let go of a lot of guilt, anxieties and insecurity and just enjoyed myself. i realised that i can never go back to being 19 again, and that's ok. 29 is looking like it will be way better anyway.

while dancing on the beach on saturday at shambhala, i was posessed by a desire to learn how to do hula hoop tricks. so i went out and bought a hoop (which i later realised was way too light to really learn how to do tricks with, but whatever) and started to try things out. this sounds like a really simple thing, but it felt like a renaissance for me. i used to be that girl that was involved in everything. i loved to participate in things, to be one of the performers rather than one of the observing masses. it was empowering to take that simple step out into the group of hula hoopers, many of whom were doing incredible tricks like it was no more difficult than getting dressed in the morning. it didn't matter that i wasn't very good yet, and my hoop kept dropping around my ankles. i just picked it up and tried again. i found out later that i wasn't the only beginner out there on saturday - someone from a vancouver newspaper tried hooping for the first time and wrote an article about her experience - the link is here. she also happened to link to ariel's video, living room hooping, - it's short and definitely worth watching, especially if you've never seen anyone do tricks with a hula hoop before.

i'm also getting really excited about starting school again. even though it's just a distance learning course, i'm still full of anticipation and thinking about buying boxes of brand new pencils and wire-bound scribblers. my stationary situation does not require any more pencils, but it's wonderful to feel excited anticipation for something in my life. i've been thinking about heading back onto the academic path towards becoming a chartered psychologist, or a counsellor/therapist. i was dissapointed at 22 because i didn't have enough experience, training or confidence to use my degree for employment, but now i think that by the time i get my masters/phd or counselling course finished i should have enough of all of those qualities in order to work in my field.

holiday photos will be coming soon...

a quick question - does anyone out there download the full-size versions of my photos? did any of you know you can actually do this? if not, i'm going to start resizing my photos before uploading them. the coppermine photo gallery automatically resizes photos when they are displayed, and you can click on the photo to view and download the original, but resizing before uploading will save me a pile of time waiting for our poor, overburdened connection to pass all those pixels.

Edit: I finally got the photos resized and fully uploaded. phew! that was way more time-consuming than it should have been. The complete album of photos from my summer adventure in canada is here

we went to my friend Joy's wedding in Kenmare last weekend. it was a blast - the ceremony was beautiful and the reception involved lots of wine, dancing and laughter. maybe a little too much wine, but i didn't fall over in the silly shoes i was wearing so it must have been ok.

joy and charlie are off on a carribean cruise now, the lucky things. best wishes to them both!

photos are here if you'd like to have a look. also, i finally managed to learn how to batch resize photos and got my holiday photos done. they are here or you can click on the links in the previous post.

After a dull, grey, rain-strewn day of working out our budget, looking at job ads and checking the messageboard for my online course, I wasn't feeling so great. I'd been in such a wonderful mood for the past week or two, and this afternoon i couldn't stand to be in my own company. was i hungry? i'd just eaten lunch, and then a big bowl of wholemeal pasta at 3pm. maybe i have a tapeworm. that would explain it. there could be no other reason to be such a grumpy-pants, except maybe the fact that i was so happy for the past few days. perhaps my brian just isn't capable of sustaining that much happiness for too long.

we went to the do-it-yourself shop to get some more hula hoop making supplies. i made my first hoop last week, the big red and white one. i'm really a patriotic canadian at heart... :) everyone who came over to our house after that saw it sitting in my study room and had to see it in action. i have to admit, i've been practicing a lot. i was out hooping every day when it wasn't raining, and maybe that was part of the reason i was feeling so cooped up. no hooping = sad michelle.

after a grumped-out shopping trip we came home and i made my next two hoops. they're for a friend who wants to keep fit by hula hooping. after making those i felt much better, and it had stopped raining, so i grabbed my hoop and headed out to the front yard to practice in front of the reflection in the windows.

it's an antidepressant, i tell you. you can't hula with a frown. it's just not possible.

found this photo over at http://hooping.tribe.net. All i can say is: WOW.

i can spend hours surfing completely nichey tribes, like the INFJ tribe. Anyone who says personality types don't exist hasn't actually read up on them enough. listen to this quote, found in a thread entitled, "What do you do for a living?":

"I thought about being a psychotherapist and the whole INFJ ultra-empathy thing gives me a talent for it, but it also means I kinda suck at boundaries and not taking on other people's stuff--bad for a therapist. Also, I realized, just in time, that I really only wanted intelligent, articulate mostly functional neurotics for clients, and that the real world of clinical practice doesn't exactly work that way.

Teaching college pretty much does though."

last night I dreamed that I was working in an ice-cream and subway sandwich shop. the boss was really cool and laid back, and wasn't around much so I spent my time hanging out and eating ice cream. the sandwiches were constructed in a really unusual way: the cheese was folded into triangles like origami, and the top half of the sandwich was balanced atop this folded cheese. i suspect there was a toothpick in there somewhere as well. the sandwich itself was displayed in a lighted recess of the wall behind me, with a spotlight highlighting this incredible culinary treat. the general flavour of the dream was one in which I really didn't mind my job, in fact, I was enjoying it.

it seemed strange at first to dream about working when I am unemployed and enjoying it, but on further examination I can see why this dream is pertinent to me now. I am facing the challenge of self-direction. I have a new, and very strong desire to make money and support myself by doing something I really and truly *enjoy*, not just a job that I grin and bear and sacrifice my time, energy and sanity to in order to get a paycheque at the end of the week. not that i would consider myself above doing that again, just that I have enough of a cushion to try doing something I am passionate about first. the idea of working at something I enjoy is like getting paid to eat ice cream. yes please!

so while I work out the details of my potential career paths (or even just part-time pocket money generators for now) I spend the rest of my time working on the first course of my master's, cooking delicious food, hula hooping, and generally enjoying this feeling of emotional stability and spiritual centeredness. I've been experiencing that broody feeling again, but somehow it's easier to deal with when I have these money-making schemes brewing away in my mind. make money now, figure out how to earn a living on my own steam, and then start thinking seriously about babies.

And brittle leaves that touch and die and suffer

The changing winds that riffle the gutter swirl,

So in the joke, just under the raucous music

Of Fleming, Jew, Walloon, a courtly allegiance

Moves to the dulcimer, gavotte and bow,

Over the banana tree the moon in autumn--

Allegiance to a state impossible to tell.

--Robert Pinsky

I am SO BORED of surfing the internet.

this time had to come, I knew it. there are only so many messageboards that one can check compulsively for days on end before going completely mad. I have no desire to check my email for the 14325897th time today, no desire to read blogs or ask hooping questions or look at random people in burning man photo albums (although this one is quite good if you haven't reached your ultimate internet threshold already).

I don't want to hear about Kate Moss or Hurricane Rita or the airline near-miss which was televised to all the passengers aboard the ill-fated plane while they were about to land (which, by the way, is only another symptom of this same affliction - the inability to detach from the media no matter where you are. the whole airplane landing thing is just a bit too "meta meta" for me. I shudder to think of how I would feel if I was watching myself on tv right now.) I'm even tired of checking the messageboard for my graduate course, and I'm wondering why everyone else isn't posting more. lets get some debate going people! I bet they all have actual "lives" where they "socialise" with people and go to their "jobs" and get out of the house every day.

It's an interesting headspace, this unemployment thing. There are days where I really enjoy it, where I feel totally in control of my life and how I spend my time and money. I definitely do less compulsive shopping, which is a very_good_thing. I am free to hula hoop all afternoon if I feel like it, and often I do and it makes me feel fantastic. I can put in all the effort I want into coursework, which has the wonderful result that I feel on top of my course material for the first time in my academic career. what was I thinking at 18, working part-time and taking a full courseload? I should have been going out and getting drunk at the powerplant with everyone else instead of needlessly working myself into the ground.

The tricky thing about unemployment, and I'm beginning to suspect the same thing happens with employment only you have a nice paycheque at the end of the week, which allows you go shopping and forget all about it... oh, what a lovely pair of jeans! what was I saying? yes, the tricky thing is staying focused on formulating and working towards goals. I have a few schemes at the moment, things I would like to work towards that could end up being enjoyable and fulfulling ways for me to make some money on my own terms rather than being paid solely because I turned up every day this week. But in order to get any sense of satisfaction, I need to DO THINGS to work towards them. Every day, no exceptions.

I think I need to start unplugging the wireless internet card in this laptop. Or unplugging the compulsive repetitive behaviours circuit in my brain, and replacing it with the conscious choice circuit.

we leave for barcelona on thursday, and will be gone for two weeks...