I'm not Dead (or look, I can totally do it when no one is looking)

Well it's been a while, hasn't it? Apologies, I've been in a funky place the last month or so. I've been finding it hard to spread myself to cover even my basic needs since I started at my new job. Oh yeah, I'm employed now. Woohoo!

Despite my sometimes negative feelings about my job, I am grateful that in these hard times I have finally found somewhere that actually wants me. Plus... I have an interview this coming Friday for a similar position (basically a lab technician role) but at a university, rather than sixth form college like my current job. I've got fingers, toes, eyes and everything else crossed that I get the university job. The pay is much better and it'll look better on my CV than working in a school environment, more industrial.

Also, I've taken my first steps towards self-sufficiency and homesteading (in a way). A week ago today I planted a few seeds (lettuce, beetroot, tomato and spring onions) in milk cartons in my kitchen window to see if I could get anything to grow. Turns out I can, sort of. Check out my lettuces and single beetroot seedling:

Beetroot

Lettuce

I think I'm going to have to thin out the lettuce soon, though I'm not exactly sure when or how so I'll be looking that up later today. Any advice is welcome.

So that's a quick update to say I'm not dead and I am in fact moving forward in life, albeit extremely slowly. Maybe that's the best I can hope for at the moment. I may fail at basic housekeeping, or doing anything beyond going to work, coming home and checking on the plants, but I am now working and I have taken the first steps to some degree of food independence. Those are exciting things to be celebrated. Those are two fewer problems than I had a month ago. For all my wallowing in depression when I am too tired to do anything much when I get home, I have achieved two very important steps and I must recognise that.

Hope you are all well and sticking to any resolutions or plans you made for yourself, even if, like me, they are taking a slightly different shape than you had intended originally.

Focusing Attention (or how on Earth am I supposed to choose between all the good causes that I could work towards?)

It is a distinct possibility that I am the most indecisive person on Earth when it comes to choosing a vocation. Possibly my biggest anxiety over choosing a career is that I’ll pick wrong and focus my energies into areas that I was not so keen to be in as others.

Despite a recent certainty that I would apply to become a paramedic, I am realising, having watched a bunch of Ted Talks over the last couple of days, that paramedicine is probably not the career for me. Granted it has all the aspects of helping people, being hands on, useful for volunteering abroad etc. that I am looking for in a career, however I can’t really say that it is the area I would like to be involved in. The whole purpose of my life, as far as I can see, is to serve others. There are so many issues that concern me greatly such as people-trafficking, particularly for sex slavery, education and inequality, discrimination, especially on the basis of gender and sexuality; healthcare and poverty and well pretty much anything that needs addressing. My ability to help, I feel, would be best focused in addressing healthcare and poverty, and those are the areas I particularly would like to work in.

Healthcare and poverty issues go hand in hand through out the world, even in developed nations such as the USA. It is such a truly global issue, the neglect or mishandling of which has such enormous ramifications for work forces, family life, education (young children being out of school to care for sick parents being just one aspect of that) and more, all of which can be viewed as social issues, vital to the quality of life of citizens and the economic development of a country.

Now, contrary to how this post started, I am not writing about my own career angst, but rather am attempting to comment on the larger issue that many people face throughout life. That of having multiple passions. I’ll admit to being a bit of a bleeding heart sometimes, but I am practical if nothing else. I realise that I cannot, as much as I might like, do everything. No one can sadly. But no matter what a person ends up doing with their life, there are always opportunities to be involved in and support the other causes that deeply important to oneself. Being the guilt-ridden liberal that I am, having watched all of the talks I have recently that cover so many topics, I look at my life and wonder what I could get rid of, or reduce, to allow me to support those making great changes in the world. I won’t use the word sacrifice, because there’s very little that I could get rid of (bar the essentials) that would actually constitute a real sacrifice for me.

In the UK, if a person owns and uses a television, they have to pay a licence fee.* Which sounds ridiculous, and I’ve often thought it strange to have to have a licence for something that isn’t a weapon or in some way dangerous (if we side step the issue of TV and sedentary lifestyles). But the licence fee pays for the BBC, which is a brilliant source of news, educational programmes as well as some for pure entertainment. I do have a television, though it is not used. Everything I could want to know or view is available online sooner or later so I’m not too fussed. Which is why, although I was planning to get a TV licence so I could be more like a ‘real’ person, I have decided to continue to not use the TV and instead put that money towards a good cause.

The point I’m trying to make is not that I’m an amazing person, because I am far from that, it’s just that there are small, easy non-sacrifices to be found in many areas of our lives. And if you have a cause that you’re passionate about, something that makes a tiny difference in your life, can easily be done to make a humongous difference in the lives of those who need it more. And just to complete the circle here, I won’t feel guilty about working in one area where people need help, because I won’t be neglecting the others. There will always be some small thing I can change to help people who need it more than I do.

*I used to find it really annoying when I was younger that Americans don’t have to pay a TV Licence, then someone pointed out their healthcare system to me and I realised we have it sweeeeet over here. Ner ner.

Putting Oneself First (or taking care of yourself before trying to take care of others)

There is a great conflict in my mind over putting my needs before those of other people (where the other people are actually in need, not just in the queue for the toilet or something). For the longest time I’ve struggled to reconcile the idea that a person needs to take care of themselves before they will be fit to take care of others. In the past I’ve tried to fight this notion, or rather truth. Consequently I agreed to be a part of organisations and take on roles that were beyond my capacity, in that I didn’t really have the energy or time to dedicate to them but blundered on forward convincing myself I would be OK giving a little more time here and there. They just wound up eating into my sorely needed down time. In the end, I was more of a hindrance to these groups than a help, but I always told myself I would definitely be OK doing these things because they were for other people and not for me.

As things currently stand, because I didn’t give myself enough time to get well and didn’t acknowledge my limitations, I graduated from university with a degree class far below what I should have obtained. Now that degree is quite a big obstacle to my ultimate dream of becoming a doctor, rather than the boost it should have been. Despite recognising that I direly need to get myself sorted out and do absolutely everything I can to overcome and (as much as is possible) control my depression, I am refusing to stop trying to move forward. In less than two weeks I will be sending off applications to various universities to study to become a paramedic. Classes wouldn’t start until September, so I’ve nine months to make some good progress with my state of mind, and I shall be talking with admissions officers to determine if I can defer a year should I not feel ready when September rolls around.

Even to me, this seems like it is probably a little mad, but I think the fail-safe of having another year to take off to get well justifies the decision. The thing is, I simply cannot stand the idea of stagnating. Of course recovering from illness is not standing still, but it is just so hard to convince myself to focus solely on that when in my day to day activities such as going to the supermarket, taking care of household stuff aren’t too badly affected. I feel like I ought to be out there making myself useful to others right now. Like I ought to be moving towards my aim of helping people in emergencies and taking care of others.

Part of why I feel the need to study and help people professionally is that I know there are so many places around the world where people need help. It irks me to know I live so comfortably while so many go without basic requirements and medical care. Sure I can donate a little money to various charities, but I so desperately want to give time and my (future) skills to those who need them. I know that unless I can get myself to a place where I can function well enough to become competent in my chosen field, I am useless to these people. This is why it is important to put oneself first. *

Yesterday I said today would be an outline of my grand master plan for 2012. Obviously this isn't it, but I felt it was necessary to talk about this first, because, considering that this is a blog** about ethics, humanity and making the world a better place, my grand master plan for the year might seem a little self-centred without context. Of course it’s entirely possible I’m just paranoid because I have this concept that my life will be without value if I am not in service to others and felt the need to justify having plans for the year that include learning to play the guitar.

*Even parents, who are their children’s life line and support, need to take some time off occasionally to recuperate. Luckily we invented babysitters.

 **Blogger's spellcheck was trying to convince me that 'blog' is not a real thing. Never have I known a website to be self-loathing. 

Howdy, Stranger (or good lord it's been a while since I posted, luckily no one is around to notice)

Feel free to skip this post, it's just one of those 'oh god sorry I haven't written' posts, which are stupid and I ought to have known better!

Well hello there. Long time. Come in, have a cup of tea and a biscuit. We should catch up.

OK, here's the breakdown of my life recently:
- look for jobs
- find job charity fundraising on the streets for what would be reasonable pay except that the travel is unpaid and takes up between 3-5 hours each day
- receive miracle phone call from employment agency giving me a few weeks on placement as a science technician in a school
- receive invitations to interview for positions as healthcare assistant in hospital operatingwards (amazingly exciting and appropriate for my life) and also for research technician at university (not as exciting and useful as healthcare assistant job, but would be enjoyable enough and pays 5k extra)
- Oh, also receive interview for job at McDonald's. Begrudgingly accept interview invitation because I will secretly enjoy being a part of the cause of the global health crisis that is OBESITY! Dun dun dun.

Right anyway, so that's that. I apologise to you and to myself for not working harder to stick to the schedule I had set out for myself and to write the posts I actually want to. Life is a lot more settled now, so I'm going to spend the rest of this evening actually doing some writing. Next post soon!

Upping Roots (or moving 200 miles is hard without a moving van)

So although I didn't say officially anything about posting regularly, or specifically on Sundays, that was what I was hoping to do. That got buggered up already because I'm in the middle of moving back to Manchester, where I graduated from university a couple of months ago, from London, where my parents live. Oh well.

I graduated from university in June and had originally hoped to start working at a bar that said they would give me a call as soon as all their student staff left for summer. I guess their student staff decided they'd rather work all summer than go home and be fed and housed by their parents. Long story short, I didn't find a job in time to be able to stay so I had to move back in with my parents until I could find a job and move back to Manchester, where I planned to live with my wholesome Irish boyfriend.

Anyway, I found a job, in London, which will cover rent and all that lark so WIB and I went on an intense flat hunt and found one... with a nice size kitchen counter under a south facing window, perfect for growing things indoors. Plus, as an additional sign this was the flat for us, there was a house plant there that had been abandoned by the former tenant. We adopted him and named him Charlie.

So that's what I've been up to the last week, which is why there's no post on the ethics of homesteading, I've been too busy moving and enjoying the comfort of a bedroom with no bed as it hasn't been delivered yet. Oh, and to top it all off I can't afford a moving van to move all the stuff in my parents' shed up to the flat yet, so it's going to be in stages as I travel to and from London each week for work.*

Oh aaaand I've found a florist that also randomly stocks small chilli plants. Let the indoor suburban homesteading commence.

*I realise it's mad to be commuting to work two hundred miles from where you live each week, but I'm just going to chalk it up to the same spirit (read insanity) that makes me want to homestead. I'm still going to have to stay at my folks place a few nights a week until I find work up North, but at least it's a step in the right direction.