The brainwash!

Old habits never die.
Ok, it's 13 days since I first met the guy. It's also been a hectic time, because of work, but not only.
It's just that since I met him, I've increased the amount of running from three to five times a week; I have gone back to swimming and intend to go at least twice a week; I have taken the final decision on those courses and bought the books to begin; I have behaved like I am mad just as I predicted.
Fact: my brain is experiencing a short-circuit. I've never been able to control my emotions, or, to explain it better, I do control my emotions, but this is the reason why I have rotten shoulders and have to go to the gym twice a week for the massage and the exercise session. It is also the reason why my stomach aches from cramps whenever I am overnervous, and I shake, get close to tears, cannot sleep at night, and so on. Side-effect of holding your feeling in: they find a way to get out.
So first it's the list of symptoms described above; then it's me becoming slowly unable to speak decently (I speak too fast, words come out half cut and uncomprehensible even by myself who uttered them; I am always in the process of slow-speaking to be understood, but whenever I am confident about something or I need to reply quicker if only to a joke, there's nothing to do); finally it's me being snappy 24/7: words are faster than thoughts, and the tension releases them without any chance of the brain to intervene and stop, or at least slightly control the flow.
I overspeak; I overlaugh; I overdo everything and I look like
a. on the verge of a breakdown, or
b. simply, completely, utterly nuts.
This has got to stop.

And I am writing this to convince myself for the....1000th time that I must stop behaving like a stupid, and thinking and daydreaming. That taking that invitation to the petition at the gym won't bring any result; that being friendly and joking during the training doesn't mean anything; that the fact they we both are single and that we met and found a couple of things in common doesn't necessarily mean that we are destined together; that the fact that once again he's told me that he'll go swimming on Monday at lunch time doesn't necessarily mean that he is somehow inviting me or hoping to meet me there; that spending a couple of hours a week together with his hands on my back and belly to control my movements, and his hands holding mine to help me stretch farther, his hands massaging my shoulders, his hands caressing my head after a tough stretch...
...
Damn!
This is not working.
So I've just decided to give myself another week, and see what happens; maybe it will fade out; maybe we will date and end up getting married ; maybe I will just keep on liking him and nothing will happen and I will study and pass those tests and get a job as a librarian somewhere and won't see him again.
All this means that I am allowed another bit of daydreaming before I do the final brainwash.
Update to follow.

Daydreaming of a romantic soul

I am one who likes daydreaming. I find strange people who don't daydream, even when it's a trivial thing like a planned meeting with somebody or a football match. Maybe they don't call it daydream.
Every second of my day is a mental dream I'm building, frame after frame, carefully positioning the elements, from the number of clouds in the sky to the music played, to the clothes worn and the drinks taken. It feels so real when I get back to this dimension, and I realise I've blushed, and am even slightly sweating, because when I'm embarrassed or nervous my face blushes and my heart jumps like the rabbit in Alice in Wonderland.
Up to a few years ago, daydreaming meant a shelter while I was going to work by bus, a crowded bus, surrounded by foreign faces, children, wet umbrellas and noisy traffic; a shelter as I was watching something on tv I wasn't interested in, but would watch just to be in the company of my friends who were talking about boyfriends and discussing relationships and would therefore cut me off the conversation, for what could I say about it, since I was a hopeless one, in love with somebody who didn't want me?; it was a place to hide when my parents and my brother screamed, a silent yellow room for all the times I needed to know that things would be all right, that everything would sort out somehow, that my choices were ok and I was doing fine.
Then, the year of depression and anti-depressive, not a day without crying for no reason, without waking four times per night, heart over-beating, and in the morning, the lack of strength and life like vanished from my veins. The year of suicidal thoughts, when I couldn't find the meaning of anything, I felt useless and meaningless too, sunk in a narrow suffocating black pit. My mind was blindfolded and tightly tied up, it couldn't move; as a matter of fact, I cannot recall a single day of dreaming, there were only anguishing night dreams in-between the wakes.
God, what a bad year. My breath stops when I think of it.
A year later, for last year this time I was still on the daily-cry style, my emotions are not yet under control, I am more tense and nervous, and easily shaken by things: I have said this before, it all depends on my inner lies, on pretending that this job is good for me when it isn't, on pretending that I'm fine by myself and then strangling my jealousy when I see my friends getting together, one by one, and I alone, the annoying feeling of the third wheel.
I do like to daydream about my boyfriend, whoever he may be.
When I was the hopeless-one-in-love-with-somebody-who-didn't-want-me, and who later on broke my heart (and when I think of him I cannot but think, why didn't he want me? I saw a picture taken a few weeks ago, and we are in the same frame, and we have the same expression! It's difficult to explain, but what I may mean is that we would have been a good couple, and he never gave me a choice), HE was the object of my mental movies, although I never went farther than the moment when we actually began our relationship. I guess I wasn't ready for the step that comes after the story begins.
After HIM, I didn't fall in love again.
Oh, yes, I've had a few crushes, mostly prompted by loneliness, or by the fact that I was living by myself and far from my friends, but love? The feeling that made my stomach ache from cramps, and blush at the thought of somebody who had suddenly become special, the pang of jealousy at the sight of somebody else with him, the daydream of a kiss or a life together. No, that never happened again.
Sometimes I miss that feeling. I once told Liz that being in love makes me feel complete. If I could love and be lucky enough as to be loved back, then I would also be serene, for once in my life. I guess it is that perfect state of being that happens to one in a thousand, or so. But I have sidetracked.
Daydreaming now has become a habit on the treadmill when I run for hours and don't want to stop because I'm bored by moving and not going anywhere. Daydreaming is a stage where I'm playing and singing in front of friends and strangers without blushing, it's a city I live in without fearing to go out at night, it's a job that makes me wake up with a smile on my face and energy streaming in my veins; it's the stories I've never finished, half scribbled in my notebooks, sleeping under sport magazines and lists and books, put aside in some dusty drawer of my mind.
It's a lot of love waiting for me, a faceless figure behind a corner of the street, who's waiting to receive all the love that I've hidden inside, the love I've kept aside when I realised that it's too painful to love when all you get back is a crashed heart and endless nights spent watching at the darkness spread in my room, listening to the silence and thinking of all the couples who are sleeping together, now.
I am in a melancholic mood today. It must be that I feel I'm cheating on me and I shouldn't do it.
I've told a friend that I have a crush on a guy. He really is cool, his smile is nice, his touch is warm; I even like his voice, which is something I'm always very critical about (only one person has got THE nicest voice, and that's you, David. Well...apart from Kaifa from "Jesus Christ Superstar"..I am fascinated by deep voices). Anyway, I saw him last night, and for a split second I thought that I should have done something, said something. How do you ask somebody out, these days? When it's only the second time you've seen him? When you're so shy that the thought of saying hello is almost unbearable and gives you cramps?
So here's what I thought: the day of music. Which is that day when the bands of the country will play, sort of, everywhere to inform people about the lack of a law that protects and helps city bands to survive. Not a complicated matter, or anything that can save the world, but it's important.
So, the idea is, at the band we are going to prepare some leaflets to take around, pubs, shops, all that jazz, to have more people come and sign up for this petition: I could take some of these leaflets to the gym and leave them there and tell them about it, when he is present of course, so to virtually invite him to come and see us, if only to sign up, and promise a large cappuccino if he does. See if he takes my hint, you never know.
I think this is quite childish.
One person told me that he liked me, once. I was eating a slice of chocolate cake in a pub and he said "you know I like you".
Then he went off with my housemate's friend, for a silly sex relationship.
One of my best friends told me that what I should do is to basically "offer" myself straight away. And I thought, cool, I think next time I fancy somebody I will just do like in the song and go "I've noticed you around: I find you very attractive...Would you go to bed with me?"...
Yeah, right.
There is no place for romantic souls nowadays, it seems.
Maybe I should just go on and daydream about that kiss.

One way out (and one with no return)

I've been thinking, and thinking, and thinking.
Well. Not only that: I've been running and reading and watching movies and fantasising for the whole weekend, getting bad sleep for all this nervous thinking and fantasising.
But, I may have the solution of a couple of problems; therefore, since I'm one for lists, and I've said this before, here is a nice list with everything clear and reassuring. (I do like lists, even when I repeat them. They make me feel calm. My obsessed, paranoid me is always happy with lists and plans, even if I rarely stick to them, due to the normal unforeseen events that occur in everybody's social life, no matter how small this social life is). So, the list:

- single courses: a great alternative to a three-year degree where I would study subjects that don't interest me, are useless for the job that I would like to do, therefore would make me lose time. Not that I am not interested in, say, history: I do like history, it's fascinating, but I'd rather not feel the obligation of studying it by heart for the sake of an exam less in my curriculum, when I'd have a lot of other more important subjects to study. So, if I take single courses, I can choose what I need and receive the appropriate qualification

- expenses will be less than expected: I have just seen what courses I would like and should follow in order to be prepared for the tests, and they are only five. Of course, if the other website, of the other university, were a little better organised, I could see if there is the same possibility and therefore could register for two more exams which would be quite useful...

Anyway, things are quickly improving, and how beautiful is this: I can see a light and I may be out of this tunnel quicker than I thought.

Tonight I have the first appointment at the gym for the therapeutic massage: can't wait. As days went by, I have become more self-conscious about the way I sit, and get up, and breath, and move. I cannot wait to begin.
And I have also been thinking about these beginning fantasies, and cursing my excessive imagination for making up a whole romance based on a smile. Of course there will be no development from my mind to reality, and I should stop right now with this mental movie, before it gets to the point when I blush just thinking about it, because that's the time when the simple "hello", uttered as we meet, starts the sweating avalanche and the voice shaking and the unavoidable shyness and silence. More cursing. Because then there will be the casual meeting somewhere and the discovery of somebody holding his hand, or the appearance of a ring, or the vision of a kiss. And the disappointment, for one more time I will realise that there is nobody for me in this world, out there, whatever people may say to cheer me up. Liz said once "Love will find its way to you". The same words were written in a letter from Judy many years before. It's nice to think so, and to be lulled by these images: it's my favourite daydream, after all, together with the one where I work as a librarian in some nice Northern city and live in my own cosy flat. I am one with little ambitions.

I sound like some autistic chid, slapping my face for saying something that I shouldn't have said.

And that's all for now.

Utopia Road

Sometimes I just think I am hopeless. Other times I think about what I'm thinking and I realise that I am not very imaginative when it comes to inventing love stories. It must be that after all I am a conventional romantic person, in spite of my pretending to be careless about these matters.

Ok, this is how I imagine it (I thought about it last night, sleepless, at two; but then, I was already making it up in the afternoon, and by the end of the day I had the basic plot in my mind...Not twenty-four hours, what am I saying, not one hour and I there I was, on Utopia road):
somehow he asks me out; how? when? where? It doesn't matter! Maybe we just meet somewhere, I could be out for a walk or stuff, all that matters is: he asks me out. And out we go, cinema, or a coffee, winter's approaching so a slow walk towards a cosy cafè sounds like the best scenario, and so on;
On the night of the Christmas concert he is there, and when we finish and go out for the reception he meets me and I introduce him to some of my friends, in the general post-concert excitement, which is conveyed by my going around and saying hello to every breathing person, taking sips of wine and biting occasional food that is offered to me by people. But this is not the point. The point is, somewhere during the reception I decide it's time I take my sax to the car, because I feel better when I know it's locked somewhere safe, although who could be interested in an old sax that needs a good polishing, God knows. He says he will accompany me there, I say ok, we walk to the car, I put the sax away and lock the car.
This is the moment when we walk back to the reception and we stand at the top of the stairs, people wolfing down food like they've never eaten in their life, and he says he's got something for me. I try to be funny by saying "oh, good: money?", and he smiles and reaches out his hand and a small packet wrapped in red paper and a golden ribbon. I blush heavily and I open the packet very slowly, all the way repeating that he shouldn't have, that I had bought nothing for him, and I'm so sorry, and he just looks at me unwrapping the gift and blushing. The packet contains a small box, which contains a silver necklace with a small silver and diamond heart. I feel my heart missing about a hundred beats as I look at the necklace and then at him, who's smiling but looks tense, and I cannot even say thanks, all the words have dried in my mouth. He says something romantic like" you can say that this is my heart, and I want to give it to you", and I can just look at him and try to say something, which in the end is going to be a banal "thanks, you shouldn't have" (again).
Then I offer, or should I say I ask if a hug in return is ok, or maybe a kiss, and I myself don't know what I mean or want to mean by that, and this is when we hug.
We hug in a way that he sinks his face into my hair, breathing me, and he whispers something in my ear that I don't quite understand because he's holding me so tight and this is such an unbelievable moment. He kisses me on the neck, right under the ear, then moves up and centre, slowly, to feel and record every second, but at the same time with a kind of urge, of passion, he kisses my right cheek, then goes up onto the forehead, and down on the left cheek, until our mouths, at last, meet.
I particularly like the kiss under the ear.
And the rest, as they say, is silence.

Alternatives

Great. Simply great.
Ok, I knew there was this possibility, but I tend to ignore bad-looking possibilities when I perceive they are coming towards me.
Not good.
So, it seems that I cannot enrol for that degree, after all: my previous degree has almost nothing to do with this one, so first I should get the qualifications for it, by means of a three-year degree. This is crazy. Particularly as for the money, because I am prepared to pay for three years (2 plus a possible one to catch up with the exams, since it would be a part-time activity), not for six or more.
But I went on the website of another university and saw that tuition fees are a lot less than in the one I was interested in, so if I had to do the three-year degree I could go there and pay less, than enrol to the second one for the specialisation. Or I could just NOT specialise, maybe my three-year course, with all the right exams, would do by itself. Which is an interesting possibility.
See? I have to write these things down, or they are not clear in my mind: up to less than a minute ago, they were blurred, dark and scary, like looking down a cold stone well without my glasses on as the sun goes quickly down. Now...it feels better.
Ok. Internet doesn't work today, which is annoying, especially since I have nothing to do and it is my last day without my boss around, he is back tomorrow afternoon (why doesn't he simply go home? Jet-lag will make him even more irritable and I will end my week in an awful mood). (Luckily, though, he won't stay here long: the Mexicans are coming, and then Shangai is on the list, followed by Malaysia, which means days and days and days of freedom for me...cool).
On the side of good news, I am going to the gym starting from next month: I was there yesterday for a chat and I'll be there at lunch break for another chat, they are (look like) serious prepared nice guys who will help me get a decent workout for my poor shoulders. They make me feel good just talking to them, because they don't really look (and don't want to be) the typical pumped-up instructors who want you to go to muscle-contests...And, which is a very interesting thing, they are CHEAP! Next to nothing for a massage by a professional who would take care of my back once a month or more if I want to: a nice programme of fitness and rehab for the upper body plus a massage every now and then. I really feel like a bit of pampering.
Next on the list of what I wanted to write is what happened a few days ago: another discussion on the website of the band, if I needed more evidence that it wasn't a bargain to have "him" back to the band. Somebody said that he is getting worse and worse, and I don't doubt it, since his behaviour is more and more extreme, and I cannot stand the opening of useless debates and polemical outbursts just for the fun of it. Plus, and he says it's not true but we know better, whenever we decide to do something different from what he wanted (or simply not to do what he wants, for lack of time, people, or whatever) he gets angry and starts talking about plots against him or against changes for good. Boring. And threatening, it makes me feel as if he were standing in front of us, wrapped in dynamite and ready to blow himself and us all up. I have tried to talk about it to one of the guys who are usually in the chat, but I felt it wasn't nice to be clear, I mean saying "hey, don't you think he's nuts and enjoys unchaining debates for the fun of it?". Maybe it is only me, I don't like discussions where the one who begins them does so only because he wants to prove how right and great he is, at any cost. Particularly on the subjects he knows best, of course.
In the end I have decided not to take part in the chat anymore, and after all when my boss is around I couldn't do that, even if he is not I shouldn't do that..., and it rarely is an interesting meeting anyway, always talking about applications for the website, meetings for the website, pictures for the website, messages for the website...boring, after a while.
And especially when, as usual, the thing evolves around a few people and it feels like I have nothing to do with it, whatever I say is not considered and even when it seemed I could contribute by translating, and was even asked to do so, there he arrived and installed BabelFish, then started to translate himself and said that maybe I could look at his work and correct possible mistakes. Oh, thank you very much!
I must confess that I didn't feel like doing that job very much, but it felt a good thing to do to get back to the feeling that I am a drop in the ocean, but a drop with a task and a meaning. Instead, whenever I go to the band, I feel like a face in the crowd, a fool who speaks in a strange language that nobody understands. The idea of quitting is still there, bright in my mind. But I keep telling myself that I like playing, and I have fun there, even though the fun has decreased a lot since I started, and even though playing is feeling more and more like a boring duty rather than something I enjoy and look forward to. I have never felt like staying at home on Friday night, but it's been a while now since I started thinking that hey, who cares, they wouldn't notice anyway.
I'd better stop here for now.

Some hours later, that afternoon...

Well, I've been to that gym, and talked to the "back-and-shoulder -guy". No strange ideas should rise in my mind without my consent, yet I feel them sneaking in...

Monday (but it feels like Friday)

I've been spending most of this morning idling about from my office to the other offices, somehow restless, but still with no desire whatsoever to work. Luckily I haven't got many things to do, or I'd be in trouble. Boss has just called and he's in a bad mood for a change, which annoys me immensely, and after the weekend that has just ended I am not exactly in a good mood either.
I started on Friday night, when it rained, and I forced myself to go to the band if only to say hello to a friend who's just back from her holidays. The rehearsals were boring, I played incredibly bad because my mind kept on wandering away from the music, I did speak too much and never with anything to say, really, so I cursed myself thousands of times for opening my mouth for nothing. After rehearsals we spent some 5 minutes chatting vaguely and then left, and I was home earlier than Cinderella, and feeling bad.
Saturday opened with the promise of a good morning at the market, a cappuccino (which is what I long for on my Saturdays), a couple of things I wanted to buy, the sun shining on the lake and my mind free from thoughts.
Instead, first of all I had a massive argument with my mum over timings and priorities, so I ended up crying and driving to the market at 9 o'clock, and after parking I walked to the square until I heard a claxon beeping: it was mum calling for my attention to wait for her; she reached me, we went to the market where she only wanted to change a pair of trousers she had bought for my brother, and then she sort of abandoned me to rush back home for no apparent reason. I walked for another hour just because I didn't want to go home straight away but intended to enjoy my Saturday nonetheless, I bought two books, couldn't have my cappuccino because I was definitely not in the mood, and couldn't either stop sad thoughts from springing out.
I managed to spend a decent afternoon only because I was alone in the house, so I could run, sit outside in the sun and silence, read, and in the evening I watched tv and switched off my mind for a couple of hours; when I went to bed I wasn't feeling any better.
Sunday, I confess, felt slightly better. And all the run, the cross-stitch, the sun and the relax until 8 o'clock, and Dr House whom I love.
And then I'm in bed, thinking about today, knowing that my boss will be angry when he calls me, knowing that there will be little that I will do right and in any case I will not get any reward from it nor any kind of satisfaction, and the thought that I am not doing what I like. This is simply awful.
It's Monday and I'm not too high. I feel like I haven't slept for weeks, and I cannot wait for the weekend - which includes a boring and (quite certainly) badly-performed concert in a place with no car-park, where I will feel obliged to go and help and still will not feel like it at all, and as soon as it ends I will rush home and plan not to go to the rehearsals the week after, except then I will actually go because we will start playing the songs for the Christmas concert at last so at least I will get to play something new. I remember what this feeling is: I am annoyed! Annoyed because my musical skills are headed towards the gutter and they are only one of the things that have taken that direction, so it's like I'm fighting to save too many things with my two little hands (an episode of "Tom and Jerry" suddenly pops in my mind, the one when Tom must keep the house clean or he will be thrown out, and Jerry keeps throwing things at him, like a dozen eggs, and he juggles with them and does his best to catch them but in the end they all crash on the floor..with an iron, or such, falling traight onto his face. Yeah, that's the feeling. Except that I'm still juggling).
In the meantime I have downloaded most of the things I will need to study during this year, and I have read thoroughly what I need to know when I go the meeting at university next year to convince those guys that yes, I am the right person. Then I calculated, two years to study and pass all the exams, which means lots of days off work which I hope I can manage somehow, but I guess I will, I'm a good organizer, and then if all goes well by November 2009 I am graduated and can look around for THE job. Which means a lot of luck and patience. I will already be 31. And I will have a lot of money too, since I will not have that mortgage we were talking of up to some weeks ago.
I only wonder if I can resist. I know what I am like, I mean, once the object of my research is clear, I cannot wait to reach it, and everything becomes meaningless and boring, annoying, even, because it stands in the way.
Patience.
I guess I will need to improve my meditation skills.

I guess this can be "Dilemma - part two"

Yesterday I tried some more intelligence tests. And I did well! I even got a 90% after a test of logic, which was commented as "excellent", so my self-esteem is not feeling that bad, at the moment. My plans now are a constant exercise, because I found out that it's fun, and my brain has recorded a moment of pure concentration, for a change. This is obviously good and I don't intend to stop.
More thoughts on my job and on my future. For example, the book and magazine I got at the newsagent: one of the tests was some sort of career help, and the result was exactly what I expected: what am I doing here?
I don't need a test to understand that this is not my ideal job, and that I would be a better, happier person if I could work in a library, a publishing firm, and such.
So this set me thinking once more, and I was on the verge of tears when I had the marvellous, shocking epiphany of "this is my only life".
It's not that easy, though. So, since I'm one for lists, here is another:

- money: I could work here for another couple of years, which means, by the end of this year I pay off my car, then start saving and at the same time I start studying (Claudia must have some books I can borrow), next September I register for the degree in library science and start studying. The idea is that since we are going to work on our house but not on the part that was meant to be mine, there is no talk of mortgage and all that jazz anymore. When I knew that, I thought "much better, so when we actually begin working on it I will have some more money for a first heavy instalment"; now my thought is "much better, so I won't have a life-long debt that will keep me chained here for the rest of my pathetic, miserable life".
- life in the city. It is a thought in a very far future, I know. But: I do like living here. This is where I grew up, where my best friends are, where I have all that I love. And still, I would like to leave. It must be connected with my living with my parents and not being free to do things, those casual things like shopping, cooking, watching tv, being anywhere in a house without worrying about who is in the other rooms. And so on. My mother doesn't understand when I say that I'm happy when they are out for the day on a trip, or because in November they are going to a cruise for a week, which means an immense amount of freedom for me. Little things. But if I moved and lived in another town I would be free. Talking to my friend the other day, we were saying the same thing: that it's stupid to rent an apartment, because we work in the same town of our parents', so it's a waste of money; but still, the freedom to be lonely when we want is a treasure. Some people may not understand.
- life in the city part two: also, apart from the freedom-concept, the idea is that wherever could I work? If I graduate in library science and try to find a job, I doubt I will find here, where the local library doesn't need help: it's the biggest, so all the other libraries don't need more people than they currently have, so I would have to move in any case. Actually, I doubt I would find a job...
All this should be thought over really well, before I talk to my mum about it. It sounds childish, but there are a lot of issues at stake and if she is counting on me for money when the works on the house begin, then she needs to know that I may not be here, or that I may be planning a move somewhere, looking for better luck.
The obvious conclusion is: start the search. Degree, tuition fees, subjects, enrolling system, exams and the like; set a money plan; find the books for some exams to begin before enrolling.

One last thing. I don't know if I should be angry or just not care: there's a link to my blog on the website of the band. Did I ask for it? Or did I say that they (he, because I know it is one person's idea) could do it? Or that I didn't mind? Then again, who cares. This is where I write what I think, feel, plan, see. If somebody reads it, they can only get a clearer idea on who I am, rather than who I appear to be.
But now, research is needed.

Intelligence tests

I am an idiot.
Or close to one.
Ok, I know that I haven't taken enough time to solve all the quizzes in the test, but still, for some of them I didn't have a clue.
My logic mind is on permanent leave, I knew that.
I am very good at verbal quizzes, though, and visual ones. This is good. So all I need to do is refine my logical mind.
I have no chances on math quizzes.
But I can give it a try.
I want to improve that test and raise my self-esteem...
My first reaction, after months of thinking "I am going senile before the time and I will develop Alzhaimer (how do you spell that?)", is that of rushing to the library for a miracle book that will teach me how to be logical.
In the end, instead, I'm heading for the newsagent for an extra number of Focus which has a mega book of quizzes and a is completely dedicated to how to improve one's mind.
There we go, then.
I wonder if the ten minutes a day which I'm going to spend on intelligence tests on Internet can be counted at work as..work.
I doubt my boss will agree.

Dilemma - part one (because I don't have time to say all that I should say about this subject)

I have started considering the possibility of another job. This is crazy.
I have little time to analyse my feelings about the current situation, but I'll try.

The pros:

- close to home
- good working hours
- good working hours: decent amount of spare time for myself
- good pay. No, I mean very nice payslip every month
- and all that comes with it: insurance, contributions, etc etc.
- not a nutty farm: lots of work but manageable, lots of days when I have absolutely nothing to do
- decent colleagues: at least sometimes we have a laugh, which helps a lot
- lots of sunshine: we have huge windows and get a lot of light all day long
- lots of holidays: three weeks in December, three in August, a couple of days for Easter and so on.
- quite an easy job: I have learned and am still learning, but lots of things are already clear and I can do them well. They are always the same but there is always a twist, so I can never be bored.

The cons

- moody boss: it is difficult for me to relate with authority, being this stubborn and convinced I am always right. I know however that I am new to this job and I'm trying to be humble enough and understand when I'm doing wrong. For example, I am terrible at maths, therefore I count hundreds of times and check on the calculator to have everything sure. I also know I am easily distracted, so I try to pay all my attention on every little detail not to make mistakes. However, a moody boss means that nothing is good for him, because he will always change his mind over what has to be done, i.e. nothing I do is ever going to be ok, even if I do it the way he wants, because by the time it's ready he will have changed his mind and all I can expect is to be told off.
- moody boss - part 2: he corrects my English. This is something I rarely tolerate. Particularly when his English is so awful. He certainly knows the names of every chemical compound in English, but as for grammar and the rest, I rule! And I cannot stand being corrected over things that I know are right, if only because I've heard them thousands of times, and pronounced by native speakers.
- type of job: not exactly what I was dreaming of. I mean, I do use my knowledge of foreign languages, and I don't do things that I don't like (as in I'm not an accountant or forced to be one, I don't deal with invoices and this sort of stuff, I don't have to sell things or spend the day on the phone - which I hate). Then again, the percentage of people who get to do what they really like is superlow, so why should I be among the lucky ones? Particularly since I'm not very talented, my few capacities being my speed in reading, my good English and decent Spanish and French, my elementary German and obsession for order and numbers - which I cannot count, I mean I'm terrible at maths, especially if in a stressful situation, like when I'm questioned by my boss...; but I have a great memory for figures, if that can help. It certainly helped in school during history lessons...
I'm not great at computer, I mean I know what I need to know...

But what I'd like to do is: books. Being among books, with books. A library, a bookshop, something of the kind. I have learnt more about the filing system at the library in a month that the two idiots who have worked there for five years. Why is it that I've never considered a degree in those subjects that could have taken me to work in a library? Somehow I have never thought about libraries because I have rarely spent my time there: I buy books, or borrow them from friends, and libraries (except the two I have attended while in the UK) are a messy place with only the oldest books. Or the most boring, the least interesting. And I could see that there is a reason: if everybody thinks the way one of the two idiots think, we're screwed! She said that housewives are their best customer, so the most common books (and most bought) were stuff from, I don't know, Rosamunde Pilcher, Danielle Steel, uhm, who else? I DON'T KNOW!!! I DON'T READ THOSE THINGS! When I was asked to write a list of books to add in their monthly order, I took the chance to increase the amount of quality books, so I got Joyce Carol Oates, John Irving, some McEwan, Jonathan Coe...
(I'm not saying that Rosamunde Pilcher &Co. are not quality books...but actually yes, I am! This sort of books is boring, useless, unimaginative, I mean banal, and again, USELESS!!! )
(How do I know?...I confess that I once read the comment on a book from Pilcher, I must have been 13, and it seemed interesting, although I guess it was because it was set in England and at the time it was my biggest dream. So I went to the library and got it and started reading it...Page 15, and I mean it, I was asleep...)
I didn't want to change the world, but there's no wonder when teenagers or young adults don't go to the library much, when there is no offer for them!
Anyway...I'm always bitter on this subject, it bugs me that I should be here and work on things I'm not exactly keen on, and illiterate idiots (who pronounce "quiche lorraine" the way it is spelt, and who don't know who Emily Dickinson is...) can do one of the nicest jobs in the world.
I remember watching "The Hours", and a spark lit in my mind when the character played by Julianne Moore says that she worked in a library for 20 years (or such)...and I started thinking, I wonder what degree she had...and if a normal degree in literature would do to get a job in a library...When I went on Internet to find such a job in the UK, however, they always required a degree or similar in library science...So I thought maybe I would get it.
It's just too bad, though: when I think that working here can give me the possibility to have my own house, and a second degree in whatever subject I want, ideas melt before my eyes: literature, cinema studies, library science, anthropology, what? And what am I going to do with another humanistic degree anyway?
Maybe I should marry a millionaire...
Any volunteer?