The Journal of Lee Davis-Thalbourne

For the last decade at least, I have been moving towards one goal in life - to become an academic. It was something I decided on when I realised how much I loved university, and how much I loved studying and learning. Almost every action in my life has basically been about how this will help me get to this goal in my life. A lot of the frustration and unhappiness in my life has been when this goal has become unclear to me - when the obstacles have seemed too great, or when something has required me to change my plans.

But I've been wondering recently. The person who made that choice, the me that made that goal, that was a long time ago - almost 8 years ago, in fact. As one might expect, 8 years will do a lot to a person. Hell, just the past 4 years have changed me, to someone I'm not sure the me from 8 years ago would recognise. And I've been looking at that goal, wondering: Is that the goal that I really want now? I do want to learn, I do want to study. These are things that I still want to do, and still drive my passions. But am I cut out for academia? Academia is a lot more than studying and learning - it's an entire culture and way of life, and can be a very cut-throat world, full of competition for time and funding.

When I was in uni, as a student, it was all very simple - I loved uni, I loved the people there, and I had no real plans to leave and do anything else. I'd found my home, and it was a great home. Now that I've been gone a while though, I've been occasionally looking back, looking at that culture from where I am now, and I can't say that it inspires me terribly now. I'm just not sure that what I want to do is worth everything that I'm going to have to put up with to do it.

The question afterwards, of course, becomes what do I do now, and I'm not really sure on that one just yet. I've focused on the one goal for so long that I never even looked at everything else that I could be doing. I'm fairly certain I don't want to be a real perpetual uni student (I'm not even sure that's sustainable these days), and I know that I'm not terribly interested in being a Call Centre monkey forever either. Some things are pretty constant regardless of what I decide to aim for (for example, paying off debt is going to be prereq for most things that require a big change in income), so it doesn't change the current course of my life too much. But past the short term, I'm just not sure what's next for me, and I can't help but worry about that somewhat, even though worrying doesn't seem to be coming up with any answers. I'm not sure I want to drift from goal to goal, never having a real clue of where I'm going to end up.

It's just a big question mark in my life, and it's only confronting because I'd never realised how big that was, and how fragile what was covering it was, before I started questioning it. And to answer it, I have to do that thing that I'm not so great at doing, which is actually knowing myself enough to have a goal I want to work towards.

It's at times like these I really wish I had a better handle on myself. Then again, maybe I have a better handle on myself than I thought if I'm in this quandry...

So, The last week has, unsurprisingly, been quite massive:

Moving
Sunday was moving day, a surprisingly larger venture than the previous move. Apparently two years of being in one place added much more stuff into my life. So, my parents, littlesir and Hannah spent much of the afternoon packing all my stuff into boxes and bags and driving them to my new place. The morning was spent with me helping the Man with a Van move all my big stuff and picking up my new fridge (so I have most of the essentials at my place now. I merely lack furniture...)

So, now I has a new place! It's very exciting.

Sickness
Of course, I was moving while I had a cold, and all the exertions gave me one hell of a fever on sunday night. So, I've not been at work today or yesterday to recuperate. Hopefully, I'll be back to working state my tomorrow. This is, BTW, why I haven't around online much - my internet will still take a week or so to be activated in my house...

A Strange Sort of Self-Discovery
On Wednesday me and not_in_denial had big discussions, which have made me think a lot about stuff. See, when me and not_in_denial first got together, the first thing we did was point out the bits about ourselves that we thought were most likely to cause problems. For me, it was that I didn't really know who I was. At the time this just went in a whole bunch of directions - that I'd broken up with Lara, broken up with Ryan, started looking at polyamory, was still sorting myself out after the rape... Basically, it was a chaotic time in my life and I didn't know where I was going.

So, a year later, and I have come to a stunning realisation that not much has really changed. I still don't know who I am. I've worked through a lot of stuff, but I haven't come close to actually dealing with stuff enough to let go of it, and I still have issues with simple things like, you know, what I actually want. Not just the "what I want now", but "where I'm going, what I want out of life". And that's making things difficult - because knowing what I want is kinda important if I want to know, say, where I want my relationships to end up. I can't just keep taking things a day at a time, because that's not fair to partners present or future.

Now, of course, I have realised this stuff. And I realise why it's important. And now that I know the what and the why, I might be able to start learning who I am and what I want. Because I don't think that before I was ever really interested in finding out. But I think that now, I have a shot. I'm realising that I can't get away from myself anymore.

I'm a horrible person to watch television with.

It's true - ask anyone who's watched TV with me. I jump up, suddenly wanting a quick cuppa, or a stretch outside of the room. I can't sit for 5 minutes to watch a TV show, and if I'm forced to sit, I cover my ears, close my eyes, anything to hide from the action on TV.

For the longest time, the best theory I've been able to come up with was that it was because I don't like social awkwardness. Certainly, it's when the urge is strongest. When two people come into accidental opposition, or some misunderstanding comes up, I hide away, often long before it even comes up. I just have to predict that it's coming, and I get this irresistible urge to run away, to hide. I'm absolutely hopeless at watching sitcoms, especially horrible at American sitcoms - it often seems their primary source of humour is that of social awkwardness, of people making idiots of themselves in public without even knowing it.

But I'm not sure anymore that that's the trigger. Even when it's not sitcoms, even when I should be able to watch something from start to finish, I still hide. I've suddenly been noticing, it's not just the awkward scenes. To be honest, it's almost any tense scene. I just finished watching Torchwood, and it shows up so much - any particularly tense scene, even if it's not awkward, I find it incredibly difficult to watch. not_in_denial made a note that perhaps this is why I don't become a fan of television anymore. How can I get involved in a show if I punch out at every tense scene?

And... I have to ask myself. Why? Why does it take so much effort for me to actually watch anything from start to end?

Maybe it's because tense scenes jerk at the emotions. And maybe I'm so crap at dealing with emotions that I've learned to avoid TV hitting mine.

( And some mental meandering, cut for your convenience )

Edit: Second result:



This seems slightly closer...

In the last few days, I've been noticing that I'm becoming very interested in myself. Or, perhaps more correctly, in seeing myself through the eyes of others. In seeing what people see in me, in part or in whole. In seeing me in novel settings, seeing me in ways that I can't see myself in real life. Taking me apart, finding the important bits of me, and seeing them represented in strange and interesting ways.

Part of it is something that I think I've always enjoyed - talking to designadrug, I mentioned that "I like seeing people reinterpret me". designadrug mentioned that it was an interesting choice of words, and I've been meditating on that for a bit. We were talking, in particular, about photomanips of my tattoo shots, and I think that the thought of altering my visual appearance, a really visceral manner of reinterpreting a section of my self that doesn't tend to change all that often, brought some of these thoughts into real focus. I've had a few other conversations on the same subject with others, of course.

And this afternoon, walking to the shops and back, I had to ask myself, why? Why am I so interested in seeing novel aspects of myself? I don't think of myself as self-loathing in that sense - I can't claim that I don't like the self that I am, and that this interest in novel views of self is a representation of a desire to dramatically change myself. I'm fairly certain that I like the way I am, for the most part.

Perhaps it's simply an exploration of myself, something that I really didn't do a lot for a while. Maybe, now that I'm single, I'm taking the chance to use the lack of attachments to take a look at who I am, both within and without.

The best questions, sometimes, are the ones that you can't answer yourself...

I bang my head and uberstress about my assignment. With all this head-banging, I get 1200 words done of a 3000-5000 word essay in about two weeks.

Then, today, the day it's due (thanks to an extension), I all of a sudden manage to do everything. Bump the word count up to 3100 words, restructure a good deal of the essay, finally find a whole bunch of useful references. In a span of about 7 hours.

I don't get it. What's so special about the day an assignment's due that gives me these super-incredible powers to miraculously complete an assignment?

I don't get it.

It seems that Melbourne's public transport system can't hack it.

Of course, we all knew that already, but it's good of The Age to spell it out for anyone who's listening...

How do you respond to this? I'm not entirely sure anymore.

It seems that a lot is happenning, and the many different reports and views try to tear your heart in one direction or another. I just know that I've been trying as hard as I can to get as much info as I can. Why? I dunno. Perhaps it's that human desire to understand things, since if you understand something it doesn't seem so scary.

But I think that everything that can be said about New Orleans has been said. I hope that the loss of life is as small as it can be, and that more people don't needlessly die. I hope that the heroes outweigh the villains, and I hope that in a years time we'll watch all the anniversary specials and we'll be able to find some good out of this.

To all those out there, listening or not, I hope you're OK, and I hope your families are too.

It's taken me a while, but I think I can finally, honestly say what Valentine's Day is.

A lot of people rail about the commericialisation, about how "you should always do stuff for your loved ones", and other such things. I'm beginning to think that these issues are kinda missing the point, at least for me, anyway.

Really, Valentine's Day is a reminder to occasionally go above and beyond for your loved one. You don't have to do it on the day. You don't have to gloat to the world about it. But you should note it. Whatever you normally do, just for one day out the year, any day of the year, exceed yourself. Do something that'll surprise the heck out of your Significant Other, something you would normally never do if it wasn't that special day.

It doesn't have to be flowers, chocolate, cute teddy bears, dinners, picnics, hot sex or breakfast in bed. But it should be something good, spectacular, above and beyond the normal call of duty.

Being away from fireflyfaery this Valentine's day, and my Valentine's day gifts at the mercy of the Canadian Postal Service, I can't go out to dinner, or get her chocolate, or breakfast in bed. But believe me, I'll make it good. She did, I can only return the favour.

Valentine's Day is just a handy reminder of this little fact. It's why I celebrate it.