Can I call myself a gamer?

The other day on Twitter, I saw an ad requesting contributing writers to a site called GirlGamer. My first instinct was, “Ooh, I should apply for that!” My second response was a bit more measured: I am starting a new day job on Monday, and I already have a freelance writing job that I just started, and I’m just over a month away from a musical theatre group performance, and my writing deadlines calendar is a bit full of contests and ideas I want to try, and now is probably not the best time to try to take on another commitment.

But there’s also the tiny little fact that I don’t really have any familiarity (yet) with GirlGamer and, even more than that, I don’t have the confidence to put myself in the gaming world.

I’ve never considered myself a gamer, really – not until the last couple of years, and even then I take the attitude of a “new” gamer. I don’t have much of a history of gaming, or exposure to gaming (until the last few years). My best friend growing up had a Nintendo of some generation, and I played Dr. Mario and, sometimes, Super Mario Brothers when we had sleepovers at her house, but my parents didn’t want me spending too much time staring at a screen and exercising only my thumbs. Or something like that. (Plus, we didn’t have a lot of money.)

We did have a computer, though, and my sister and I played some games on there, but never the ones that you think of as “gamer” games. We loved Oregon Trail, and Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego (and eventually Where In Time is Carmen Sandiego) and SimCity 2000, which we’d learned at school. We played a lot of computer solitaire of various iterations. For a long time, when I thought about playing computer games, I thought about Solitaire and Minesweeper and, maybe, a Star Trek game that had come with a Windows pack.

In college, I didn’t play games. I was too busy studying and reading and being in choir and falling in love over AIM. If I did play games, it was, again, Solitaire and Minesweeper. Same again in my first career. I didn’t have a computer my first year, and then it was a laptop, and either way it was difficult for me to play games that weren’t pre-installed. My sister did get a Wii for Christmas, and I played some with her, but not any of the “hardcore” games that most people would think of when they think of gamers.

And I still don’t. I’ve been with my boyfriend – who is definitely a gamer, and did his dissertation on the role/history of music in video games – for two and a half years now, and he’s introduced me to so many things, from Rock Band to World of Warcraft (and, ultimately, Warcraft itself), from Final Fantasy to Half-Life. One of the first gifts he ever got me was a copy of Madden 10. (Which I now have a strong, strong desire to play, thank you football season....) But I know that I’m not yet up to speed on games. I have now at least heard of most of the major titles and companies, but I don’t play most games. I don’t have a burning desire to play most games. I think they sound really interesting, and sometimes fun, but most of them aren’t my kind of thing. (I do play WoW, though. A lot.) Some of it is the “life’s too short” thing – I know I can read a book or five in the time it’ll take me to get through most of the games, so why wouldn’t I do that instead? Some of it is the culture – the rampant, uninspected sexism, racism, and homophobia that permeates many (but not all) games and forums. But I also think that some of it may be fear.

See, my boyfriend’s been a gamer for years. Most of his friends – male and female – have been gamers for years. The blogs, comics, and magazines they read regularly are written by people who have been gamers for years. I feel like an interloper, an immigrant, who’s coming in all American and brash and loud and poking at the things that they have built their lives around, knocking things over because I’m not smart enough to know what’s good and what’s bad, what’s solid and what’s fragile.

Feeling like this is reinforced when I go into forums like reddit’s gaming thread, and realise that I don’t know 90% of the references. Or when I watch The Guild and see both Riley and Cyd’s faces fall when they realise that their definition of “gamer” is very, very different. I know that nobody does it on purpose, and I know that it’s a problem with any defined group of people. But when I see things like that, I don’t feel like I can call myself a gamer. I've played the "wrong" sorts of games, for one, and I don't have the right attitude, for another.

Sure, I play games. I really like board games (I’ve got a post coming soon about the board game resurgence in our society), I really like WoW and Civilization and Portal and L.A. Noire (once I learn to drive) and Typing of the Dead, I really like Eternal Sonata and Wii Sports/Sports Resort and Rock Band and Kinect Adventures and Madden. So I’m not not a gamer.

But when I have a free Saturday (like today), I don’t necessarily choose to game. When I have a free evening, I’ll probably spend it on WoW, but I am just as likely to spend it reading or cleaning or cooking. (Partially because of gender-based social conditioning, which is a fight we’ll have another time.) Games are not my automatic go-to.  And because of that, I don’t feel like I can really describe myself as a gamer, and why I didn’t even email about the opportunity at GirlGamer.

Depression Is.... (My symptoms)

Depression is…..

- Uncontrollable tears – not sobbing, just tears – whenever you’re alone and sometimes when you’re not.

- Oversensitivity to rejection, real or imagined

o Guilt about feeling rejected

§ Frustration at yourself for feeling guilty about feeling rejected

- Complete lack of appetite

o Nausea when you don’t eat

o Nausea when you do eat

- Physical exhaustion from anything that expends either mental or physical energy

- Attempting to be cheerful when other people are around

o Physical and mental exhaustion at trying to be cheerful

o Resentment that other people won’t understand how hard you’re trying to be cheerful

§ Guilt over feeling resentful

- Uncontrollable annoyance at other people’s cheerfulness or good fortune

o Guilt over feeling annoyed

§ Frustration with yourself for feeling guilty about being annoyed

- Seesawing between insomnia and sleeping fourteen hours per day

- Uncontrollable annoyance or anger over things that are minor or even funny when you’re normal

- The desire to do nothing but stare at the wall, or maybe the TV, for hours

o Guilt that you’re not spending your time being more productive

§ Frustration that even when you try to be productive, things don’t happen the way you want them to

o Flitting from activity to activity trying to find something that will distract you for more than five minutes

Hoarding Minutiae

I am a packrat. A hoarder. A collector. Whatever you want to call it. I make excuses like “it’s genetic” (my grandparents all kept everything “in case it was useful someday”, almost to the point of pathology), “but what if I will want it eventually” and “nostalgia” and in the meantime, books and papers and …..well, mostly books pile up around me.

And right now my mom and my uncles are sorting through my grandfather’s house, and his lifetime of hoarding and saving everything that came through the door. It’s a daunting task, and a stressful one, and a sad one. How do you balance the longing to acknowledge the past with the desire to lead a simple(ish) life yourself, and the space limitations of modern middle-class living?

It’s made even more difficult, emotionally, by the fact that my family has not just a lengthy history, but a strong sense of history. We are all well aware that sometimes the most innocuous-looking things can turn out to be important. I just read a biography of a Tudor woman where most of the information for her life comes from household accounts. But, really, once the account books aren’t of any use for tax purposes or something similar, who wants to keep them around? But they are historically one of the best sources we have for daily life one or two or five hundred years ago.

We want to keep the important things, but how do we know what the important things are? What’s important now may not be important in one or two or five hundred years. And while there is an argument to be made about the cultural knowledge that comes from shifting priorities, I also can’t help but wish that more minutiae survived.

This is one reason that I’m so excited that the Library of Congress has the entire public Twitter archive now. Past Tweets may not be of huge significance (although some are, either culturally or personally), but the collection of cultural minutiae has the potential to be fascinating not only for current sociologists, linguists, and anthropologists, but for future historians as well. I just wish it were so easy to save and store the physical collections of minutiae as well.

(Apparently I really like the word "minutiae"...)

Ponderings

I just started reading Bess of Hardwick by Mary S. Lovell. It’s been on my TBR list for literally years, and last year I picked up a copy at Oxfam, and now I’m finally getting to it.

One problem I have, as a confirmed book addict, is that everything I read makes me want to read more. Reading Blink, which I finished this afternoon, made me want to read The Tipping Point and other sociological/psychological things. But Bess is insidious. Even after just reading the introduction, I want to read a ton of stuff.

None of it’s really related to the Tudors, though – they’re a little bit out of my period. No, what the introduction to Bess did is make me want to get back to my own research: music in Middle English literature. I have over 200 articles and many, many poems saved on their own hard drive, just waiting for my attention. And they’re always at the back of my mind, but what the introduction to Bess has done is bring them to the front.

Blink aided and abetted this as well, with all its talk of experts being able to hone their snap judgment ability. I found myself wanting to be an expert in something – and what am I an expert in? Middle English poetry and its connection to music. I also had lunch today with a PhD-student friend of mine, and that helped the motivation as well.

I have been telling myself that I will keep collecting and reading articles and poems (thank goodness for TEAMS) so that when I am financially able to do a PhD, I won’t be completely out of the loop. Maybe it’s time that I make a dedicated study plan and actually do it.

Desert Island Discs

My best friend and I did the “Desert Island Discs” game the other day. We created a shortlist of 10 and a finalist list of 5 for the music, movies, and books categories, with the added rule (stolen from the radio Desert Island Discs program) that the Bible and Shakespeare are already on the island. These are the books, DVDs, and albums that (at this point) we would want with us forever.

It was really difficult, and actually a little surprising. I’m a big fan of doing things like this every so often, to see how your tastes have changed over time – and sometimes how they haven’t, even if you think they have. Some of my favourites – most-played songs, most-watched films, books that I love – did not make the list. If they were songs, then the whole album wasn’t worth it; books were emotional in perhaps the wrong way (Hardy, I’m looking at you), films I’d watched so many times that even looking at them makes the whole thing play in my head.

It’s also quite challenging. Do you pick your “comfort” items? Things that you’ve been meaning to get to but haven’t had the time? A combination of the two? Is length a consideration? (For example, if it comes down to a choice between two books by your favourite author, do you pick the longer one?) Do series count as separate items, or one item total? What about “collected works” or anthologies or single-volume sets?

It was challenging, but here’s my final list. I say final, but really it’s just final as of last week when we did this. Lists like this are so dependent on mood and state of mind that it’s entirely possible that my list will change again tomorrow.

Books:

Finalists – A Room with a View (E.M. Forster), Bet Me (Jennifer Crusie), An Equal Music (Vikram Seth), Persuasion (Jane Austen), The Canterbury Tales (Geoffrey Chaucer)

Runners-Up – Rilla of Ingleside (L.M. Montgomery), The Robin Hood Handbook, Bellwether (Connie Willis), The Blue Castle (L.M. Montgomery), War and Peace (Leo Tolstoy)

Comments – I went with the comfort items on this list, for the most part. A Room with a View is my favourite book ever, and every time I read it I find something new in it. Bet Me is also one of my comfort books; I find it nearly perfect. An Equal Music is one of the best books I’ve ever read that shows what it’s like to be a musician. Persuasion is my favourite Jane Austen, even beating Pride and Prejudice, in part because of the letter at the end which is one of the most romantic letters in all of fiction. The Canterbury Tales makes the list for two reasons: I couldn’t go without something in Middle English, and I’ve never actually read the whole thing. So, in a way, it’s both a comfort book and a challenge book.

I was torn between The Canterbury Tales and The Robin Hood Handbook – Robin is my historical fictional boyfriend, after all – but ultimately decided that Chaucer had more variety. The Montgomery books are also wonderful, and comfort books for me, but not quite as meaty as the finalists. Bellwether is my favourite Connie Willis book, and there to satisfy the sci-fi/specfic side of me. And War and Peace is on the list purely for length – I liked it a lot when I read it and it would keep me entertained for quite a while. But it doesn’t come up to the personal emotion of the finalists.

Films:

Finalists – Singin’ in the Rain, Bend It Like Beckham, The Empire Strikes Back, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Pride and Prejudice

Runners-up – North and South, Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Lion in Winter, Ratatouille, Beauty and the Beast

Comments – This is a list that changes almost every minute. It’s like picking your favourite child. It was actually harder to narrow this list down than it was for the books! But the first three are my all-time favourite films, than I can, have, and will watch over and over and over again, sometimes in the same day. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade is the “funny one” of the Indy movies, plus it features Sean Connery. And it doesn’t matter which of the (more recent) Pride and Prejudices it is. I adore both Colin Firth and Matthew Macfadyen.

Any of the runners-up could easily make the list on any given day, depending on mood and how recently I’ve seen or been reminded of that particular movie. And there are many more that could make the shortlist, again depending on day, mood, and proximity.

Music:

Finalists – Romeo and Juliet (Prokofiev), Ninth Symphony (Beethoven), Wicked, Carmen (Bizet), Revolver (The Beatles)

Runners –up – Amahl and the Night Visitors (Menotti), Abbey Road (The Beatles), Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (The Beatles), Led Zeppelin IV, Joshua Tree (U2)

Comments – This is where I surprised myself. I thought I was moving away from classical music and more towards pop/rock/alt stuff. But it turns out, when picking the albums to go with me onto a fictional desert island for the rest of my life, I go back to my roots. Romeo and Juliet is my favourite of the Prokofiev ballets, or really orchestral music in general. Beethoven’s 9^th is, without a doubt, the most perfect creation of musical structure, themes, instrumentation, and just everything that has ever been performed ever. Carmen is my favourite opera. Wicked is currently my singalong musical, although depending on mood it could easily be another one; I do need something in my range to sing along with, though. And Revolver is my current favourite Beatles album.

I really debated between the three Beatles albums that I had on the shortlist. All three of them are amazing, and are the three that I listen to all the way through, without skipping. Sgt. Pepper is even my stated all-time favourite Beatles album. But for some reason in my subconscious, possibly because it has one of my favourite tracks, Revolver was the one that I chose to come with me. Led Zeppelin IV is partially on the list for my rock interests, but as it turned out it didn’t hold a candle to the others. And Amahl is wonderful, but very occasion-specific. I sometimes listen to it when it’s not Christmas time, but I listen to Carmen all year long.

As previously stated, these lists are only valid for the day and time that we did them; they are subject to change based on mood and experience. But it’s an interesting exercise nonetheless. Have you ever done the Desert Island Discs game?

More of me whining

I can’t get excited about things. I can’t care about things. I’m calling the doctor this next week. He’ll probably just tell me that it’s “part of the grieving process”, like last time. But I need something to make me care.

Graduation is on Wednesday. My housemates’ parents are coming. I have a couple of people coming, but all along – most of this year – I just haven’t cared that much about graduation. I know my achievements from this year. I checked my transcript today (again) and, yes, my dissertation was the highest mark that I got all year. And I’m graduating with merit. Yay me. But the ceremony itself? It’s for other people. It’s for parents, it’s for families. It’s a ceremony marking the conclusion of a year that most people have spent two or three months moving on from. And I’ve had two. I had my high school graduation and I had my BA graduation. It’s not that I don’t care about the MA – I do, I’m quite proud of it, and I miss the work terribly. And I have people coming to mark the occasion, and I’m excited to see the people that I haven’t seen in weeks who are coming for it (everyone I know, except one, is graduating at the same ceremony). But I don’t actually care about walking across the stage and receiving my certificate. I don’t care about the ceremony.

I do have quite a lot of free time, but I have low energy and low motivation so all the projects that I have on my list never quite get done. And then I feel guilty because, if I want to be a writer, I need to write. But I end up watching old TV shows and rereading books that aren’t very good (and ignoring the books that I haven’t read yet) and writing falls by the wayside. It’s an excuse, but I can’t seem to break out of it. When I do get around to doing something productive, like applying for more jobs or something, it always takes about five times longer than I want it to (because I have no energy and get distracted easily

Maybe I just need this time of apathy, to recharge. I don’t have the money to let it go on too long – and it’s affecting my teaching to the point where I’m REALLY not going to have any money because I’ll no longer have a job, hence the need to go to the doctor – but I need to stop with the self-imposed guilt. The stuff that needs to get done will get done. Eventually the other stuff will, too. But the first step is to get myself mentally healthy again.

Yeah, just more of me whining

I seem to be at yet another career crossroads. I have been teaching part-time at a school, covering some classes for a teacher who's been ill long-term. I am getting incredibly bored. Some of this has to do with the timetable - it's very sporadic, but just enough that I can't really find another part-time job. Some of it has to do with my general mood - I am incredibly apathetic right now, and it's hard to tell which is causing which. Some of it has to do with the fact that teaching kind of feels like a "been there, done that" - and that worries me. I know I am a good, caring teacher. I'm just no longer sure that I should be.

I have started to take steps to get past it. I still have the employment problem that I don't have a teaching qualification (so, if I stay in teaching, I would either have to stay at private schools or get one, which is the current Plan) but I don't have experience in anything else. I have applied for a couple of internships at my postgraduate university that should help expand my experience and CV. The thing is, though, the school may still need me. It's still very nebulous whether the teacher that I'm covering will be coming back full-time at all, I learned today. I don't want to abandon a school that needs me; I don't want to abandon a job even if it's not ideal when I don't have anything else in the pipeline. But I can't keep going in this limbo - coming in and essentially being at school full-time or nearly full-time when I'm only teaching 1-3 lessons per day [I have been getting to school at 8:30 or so every day, and leaving at 1:30 ish except for days when I need to be there until 4]. If I'm going to stay, I need a more....consolidated timetable. Or a fuller one.

I have to do something to get past this apathy. I have any number of projects bouncing around my head, but I do not have the motivation or energy to work on them, even when I give myself deadlines. I just can't seem to care, and that's not going to help the job search or the productivity at all. I spend my time doing the things that should be done in 'coffee break' times (like, say, blogging. Or checking Google Reader), and not doing the things that I should be taking a break from. And then it's nearly 10 or 11, and because I'm either exhausted or the alarm's going off at 6, I still don't do them. Something needs to change. I need to get my drive back. I need to pull out of this incipient depression (after several days of being relatively okay, I woke up crying again this morning). I need help.

The devil is in the details

The school where I'm temporarily working is having an inspection this week. Everyone's very worried about it. Sometimes I think I should probably be worried about it too, but I just can't make myself care. For one thing, an inspection is supposed to see how things normally run, so there's not really anything different I can do. For another thing, I don't have any administrative responsibilities that they'll be checking. For a third thing, no matter what the outcome of the inspection, I am not really going to be affected. For a fourth thing, I still have the "I'm new" excuse.

I keep running across tiny little things that I have no experience with. Like yesterday, when I told my class to finish our activity for homework, they told me about "homework timetables" and that they're not supposed to have English homework on Mondays or they'd get overloaded. These are the sorts of things that it is good to know. They are also the sorts of things that, if you are used to the system that uses them, you don't think to mention. They are so automatic to the way you work that it doesn't even occur that it's not done or done differently in other places.

I just know that something is Not Right in my life. I believe very strongly that your body/mind/soul tells you when something's wrong and, while nothing seems Wrong right now, something's Not Right either. I need to do something to get back to where I'm 'supposed' to be - the career path where I feel comfortable - not complacent, but comfortable. At least I've stopped crying in the shower every morning - but that doesn't mean that whatever was bringing it on has been solved, just that my mind/body/soul has shut down from dealing with it. Hence the apathy, I suppose.

One clue to this Not Right-ness was Monday afternoon. I felt fine at school, developed a headache on the way home, was home by 2....and was asleep by 2:15. I woke up sometime after 4:30, still with a headache, and was groggy and headachy the rest of the night. The temperature in our house doesn't help, either - our gas bill was higher than we were expecting and higher than we want, so we're trying to conserve. This, of course, means that we do things like bake more and keep the electricity use high, but whatever. We'll get through it somehow.


I think I'm getting burned out from education. Not from me learning - I still want to do a PhD at some point - but just from being in the education bubble. I am quite bored and apathetic right now about being a teacher. While for some people that may make them stricter, for me it lets my classes kind of run amok, which then doesn't do anything to increase my enthusiasm. I want to do something else for a while: it will help me clarify, one way or another, my desire to be a teacher. I still have the problem of have experience in education but qualifications for other things, but I'm working on that. Back to the soul-destroying job hunt I go, I suppose.

NaNoWriMo

I started to attempt National Novel Writing Month again this year. I've done it in the past, and I've even "won" twice. This year, I'm not going to finish.

I could make excuses like "I just started a new job" (true) "which usually leaves me exhausted" (true) and "I'm trying not to lose my semblance of a social life" (true) "which means, for example, that I only have an hour at home on Tuesdays" (true), all of which are factors in my wordcount of less than 10K right now.

But the main reason that NaNo is not working for me is that I care too much about this story idea. It's one that's been in my head for literally years, and I want it to work, even in a first draft. And right now it's not working. The plot isn't there and the tone is absolutely wrong. And I care too much about the story to want to throw in flying monkeys or black-suited ninjas.

So the way I see it, I have a few choices. I can try to restart this story, locking myself away and trying hard to gget to 50K in...twelve days. I could restart this story and change my goal to either 20 or 25K (...in twelve days). I could switch stories, also resetting the goal.

Or I could quit thinking of it as NaNo, which is a fairly arbitrary thing anyway that in the past has left me mentally and writingly (you'd think I'd know a better adverb for that, wouldn't you? One that actually exists?) drained and uncreative through December, and just try to write something, a few hundred words at least, every day.

I pick the last one.

Fear of Commitment, continued

"Calling All Cynics"

This is, I feel, a good definition of skeptic, cynic, and pessimist. It’s like the definition I heard or read once for introvert vs. extrovert – I can’t remember where I heard or read it, but I have completely adopted it – where an extrovert is someone who recharges by being around other people and an introvert recharges by being alone. With that definition, I am definitely an introvert. I need to be around other people sometimes, or I go stir-crazy, but being around especially large groups of people definitely drains me.

I feel the same way about the definitions given here, especially when it comes to me and love. I think I’m somewhere between a skeptic and a cynic. I trusted, and was betrayed/let down, and it was devastating. I was devastated. By that criteria, I’m a cynic. But I don’t think that I refuse to trust now. I am reluctant to trust, definitely, but I don’t think I completely refuse to trust. There are people I have met recently that I trust.

But then I think about how I was with my last ‘boyfriend’ – I was and am still totally crazy about him, and wish we hadn’t had to end things, and am going to miss him terribly when he finally leaves town. But I deliberately told myself I wasn’t going to fall in love with him. I wouldn’t let myself – even in my own head – use those terms. I like him a lot, and there’s no one else I’d rather spend time with right now, and talking to him in any form makes me happy, and seeing him (especially dance) with other women makes me insanely jealous to the point where I feel physically ill. But I won’t let myself, even in the privacy of my own head, say that I’m in love with him. Whenever I started coming close to that idea, I would remind myself of the reasons that it would never work long-term, or I would force myself into an emotional or communication distance – deliberately so that I wouldn’t get too close to him and fall in love. So, yeah, I suppose that, with him, I refuse to trust. I suppose that I am, when it comes to relationships, a cynic.

This also plays into my previous post about what-ifs. What if I’d let myself get closer to him and fall in love with him – or admit it, at least – and just let myself go all-out emotionally, the way I did with CD? Would things be different now? Would we have been willing to at least attempt a long-distance relationship? Or would I just be devastated again, and have lost him from my life completely? Obviously, there’s no way of knowing, but I can’t stop myself from dwelling on it.

It’s like the article says, “Deep inside all skeptics and most cynics is a deep ache to trust again, but to do so without the fear of being let down, disappointed, betrayed or devastated.” I doubt that he reads this blog, or even knows that it exists, but I almost wish that he did. I wish I could say these things to him, but I can’t. I don’t trust him – or really myself – enough to think that it would make a difference. The cynic in me can’t believe that it would make any difference. Even though deep inside I want to be proven wrong, I want to have that chance, I can’t and won’t let myself take that emotional risk. And I will be stuck with these what-ifs forever.

Fear of commitment

I apparently have a fear of commitment. I can't make decisions about my life and stick with them. I am constantly wondering, "But what if I did this instead?" or putting off decisions until it's too late to do anything about it.

My latest thing is getting a Ph.D. For years I just assumed that I'd get a Ph.D. eventually. I am good at academics, my parents work in academia, etc., etc. This fall when the application deadline was approaching, I passed on it. I had just barely started the Master's - at least that's what it felt like - and had no idea what area I wanted to work in. Since part of the application process here is a research proposal, and I had none, I passed. After the essays in May - a completely emotionally and mentally draining experience - I told myself that I'd clearly made the right decision, that I couldn't possibly spend the next three years putting myself through that.

Then I started work on the master's dissertation. And the closer I get to the end of it - *insert panic here* - the more I realize how much I enjoy it. The more I can see myself doing something similar, long-term. The more I wish I were going on to do a Ph.D. And I don't know if that's just because I'm nervous about 'what comes next' - the whole job search thing especially - or what. But the thing is, I still enjoy my topic. I'm a little bit bored, because other than the dissertation there's not a lot going on in my life, but I still enjoy my topic. I enjoy finding new things to read about it and I even enjoy the frustration of the writing, trying to figure out what exactly to say and how exactly to say it. (Maybe it's also a sign that non-fiction writing is something I should pursue more intensively than I have been doing....)

I also have been going back and forth about the job search. Obviously I am here in Nottingham for the next while, due to leasing a house here and things like that. And there are really good reasons to stay in this area. But as I look at the job listings, I can't help but be tempted by many other places. I'm almost paralysed by choice. I find myself rationalising looking for jobs in Birmingham and London especially - it's not that far by train, etc. - even though I know all the reasons why I am staying here, and should just stick with it.

I can't escape what-ifs. How would my life be different if I did - or had done - this? What if I'd done something differently in my relationship - would things be different now? What if I found a job in London - would I be happier? What if I decided to pursue a Ph.D. - how would that change my life? I need to find focus.

Feeling old

In nineteen months I will be thirty. My mind boggles at this fact. Most days I do not feel that I should be closer to thirty than to twenty-five. I look at how people my age are portrayed in the media (TV shows and movies) and think that I have not accomplished anywhere close to what they are shown to have accomplished, in any aspect of my life. I need to stop comparing myself to fictional characters. (I need to stop comparing myself to real characters, too.)

I still don’t completely know what I want to be when I grow up. Right now I’m trying to get back into teaching, but I have the bad habit of wondering – what if I would be happier doing something else? What if I’m just wasting my time waiting for this stuff to get worked out, when really I should be working toward qualifications in something else? Why can’t I just find something and be content with that?

Last weekend was the sesquicentennial celebration of my hometown, which included an all-school reunion, which included my ten-year high school reunion. I can’t believe that it’s been ten years. I still have vivid memories of high school. A decade cannot have passed when I remember it so clearly.

My life is nothing like I thought it would be ten years ago. When I graduated from high school, I thought that I'd go to Luther, get a job, have a relationship, and it would all work out. I never thought that ten years later, I'd still be floundering and drifting, looking for something to spark off some kind of passion within me.

Will I find that passion before I'm thirty? Before my next reunion? I hope so....

Why I don't want to go back to the US

I am so tired of the looks of disbelief and shock when I say that I don’t want to go back to the States when I finish my MA (or, indeed, ever). So. Tired. It all comes back to my general life frustration with people who can’t quite understand that other people have different motivations and desires than they do. Just because you want to go to the States doesn’t mean that I do. And it doesn’t mean that I am weird, or crazy, or misguided because I don’t.

If I went back to the States, I wouldn’t be able to go back to my hometown. There’s nothing explicitly preventing me from going there, other than the job market. The major employer in my hometown is the University, and it is highly unlikely that I would get a job there. Also, I don’t want to. As much as some people I know complain about the lack of things to do in Nottingham, Nottingham is a hotbed of activity compared to my hometown, and everywhere around my hometown. Therefore, if I wanted to get a job, and have any kind of a social life, I would have to move somewhere else. If I stay here, I can stay in a city that I already know with people that I already know.

It would not be out of the realm of possibility to move to, say, Chicago. However, if I moved anywhere other than Chicago (or a city of similar or larger size), I would have to have a car. There is very little public transportation between cities in the US unless you are on the eastern seaboard. If I lived in Chicago or somewhere similar I could probably manage to survive without a car. Anywhere else, I could not. And if I had a car, I would also have to have little things like car insurance and, probably, a parking permit or a garage. If I stay here, I don’t have to deal with a car. I can get around perfectly well, anywhere in the country, without one.

If I moved back to the States, I would have to find somewhere to live. It is possible that I could find a place with an (unknown) roommate, or a sublet, which would be mildly affordable. I would probably need furniture. It is difficult to find a furnished place to rent in the States. At the moment, I don’t own much furniture. I have a few antique things that I have inherited from various relations, but I don’t have things like a bed and mattress. No matter where I went, I would have to buy them. If I stay here, I can (and have) found a furnished place to live.

If I moved back to the States, I would probably have to live in a city where I don’t know anyone, or at best I would only know one or two people. I would have to form an entirely new social group without any of the constructs that normally help people form an entirely new social group. I am an introvert. This would be exceptionally difficult for me. If I stay here, I can stay near my social group and support network.

If I moved back to the States, I would have to buy health insurance. It is possible that I would be able to get a job with a company that provided health insurance of some kind. Even with company health insurance, health care in the US is expensive. If I stay here, I can still use the NHS.

If I moved back to the States, I would have to find a job. No matter where I am in the world, this is going to be difficult. I have degrees in literature. This qualifies me for essentially nothing. I have teaching experience, but no teaching qualifications. If I were to try to become a teacher in the US, I would have to deal with what I consider one of the most misguided, poorly written, and poorly executed forms of education legislation in No Child Left Behind. I would also have to get teaching qualifications, which would also cost money. If I stay here, even though I need a visa in order to stay, I have figured out what I need to do.

Those are most of the reasons why I don’t want to go back to the States right now. But the most important reason is also the hardest to define. I don’t feel like I fit in the US. I fit here. I feel comfortable here. I feel happy here. I have been happier here than I have been anywhere else in the world. My life makes sense here in a way that it never did in the States, and that it only approached in Slovakia.

I just really wish that people would stop treating my decision to stay here as if it were completely incomprehensible. I have reasons. They are good reasons. They work for me. If I wanted to go back to the States, I would have done so after my job in Slovakia. Why is this so hard for other people to accept?

Beating my own path

My facebook status right now reads, “in the middle of things, and can’t quite see the path to the end yet.” It’s a feeling that I have a lot. Sometimes it’s reassuring. I try to tell myself that I’m in the middle of, say, a novel, and the (happy) ending is still coming. Right now it’s just overwhelming.

I’m in the middle of the job search. I have applied to nearly twenty different places (mostly schools, for jobs that don’t require teaching qualifications) but haven’t heard back from anywhere, except for a few acknowledgements that they have received my application. I have several websites that I check every couple of days to try to find more places to apply, but everything I’m finding either has an immediate start or is something I’m not qualified to do yet. I can’t do something with an immediate start, since I’m working on my dissertation this summer and working part-time for the International Office as well. I may have to scale back the job applications – or at least the emotional stress of them – until it gets closer to September and I actually can do something with an immediate start. By then, I may need something with an immediate start. I just hope that the things I’m seeing now are still around then.

I’m in the middle of my dissertation research. Objectively, I have plenty of time. The paper’s not due until September. But if I don’t start writing something, I will lose momentum and get distracted by other aspects of the paper and other things in my life. But I keep running across more things that might be relevant, and take a break to find them and think about reading them. This is a normal stage for me of the paper-researching and paper-writing process. I just need to buckle down and get through it.

I’m in the middle of house-hunting. My housemates and I applied two and a half weeks ago for this house that we had totally fallen in love with. The estate agent said they’d be in touch ‘soon.’ We haven’t heard anything yet. My housemates’ lease is up in a month, and we need something we can move into in about three weeks. Things are getting a touch frustrating.

I’m in the middle of planning and writing a presentation for the International Office on student travel in the UK. This is another thing that I just need to sit down and do. I keep getting distracted by the websites and looking up my own stuff. I don’t have the money or the time for a trip somewhere (other than the ones I have already factored in). It shouldn’t take me too long to write the presentation. I just need to do it.

Any one of these things would be manageable if it were on its own. It's all of them happening at the same time - and all being at approximately the same chaotic stage - that is affecting me right now.

Crazy talk

At what point in a new relationship should romantic history be brought up? And how?

Of course you don’t want to start off a new relationship by comparing it to your previous ones. But past experience informs – sometimes to a large extent – present behavior. And knowledge of someone’s past experience can explain their present behavior – not necessarily excuse it, but make it more understandable. (“Oh, thaaat’s why she does that…. She needs to get over it.”) So telling a new boy/girl friend a bit about your past might be useful for explaining seemingly crazy behavior and getting through those first tenuous weeks/months.

For example, and this is a minor example in my personal arsenal of crazy, when my guy and I go dancing, I tend to watch him and be aware of where he is as much as I can. Part of it is that I really like watching him dance – he’s a good dancer and very fun to watch – but the other night I was watching him and thinking about it and realized that a part of the reason that I watch him so much is because of the time that I was abandoned at a dance by a date who left with someone else. [People who have ever talked to me about my love life may remember this story as “the date who brought a date to our date”.] Obviously that is not the full reason (he’s really fun to watch!) but it is a part of the reason.

And that’s not the only example. I have any number of paranoias – and I say paranoias deliberately because intellectually I know that they are irrational – about relationships. I know exactly where they come from – almost to the day in some cases. I can recognize their effect on my thought patterns and I am sure that they affect my actual behavior to an extent. Being trapped in them, I can’t objectively evaluate their impact on my behavior, but I’m sure it’s there. And I feel like it might help if people involved with me know about these paranoias and the triggers for them, so that they know that I’m not trying to act like a lunatic. I just don’t know what the best way to bring it up would be.

Decision-making

I have problems with decisions. These problems fall into a couple of different categories:

1. Day-to-day decisions such as where/what/when to eat, what to do for fun, et cetera.
2. Life decisions such as where/what/when to study, live, work, et cetera.

Decisions in category 1 are difficult to make because they're not essential, at all. Most of the time I don't have strong opinions on them either way. Pizza instead of Indian? Sure, why not? Eat at home instead of going out? Sure, why not? I don't care either way, 99.9% of the time. I won't be offended by any choice; in fact, I will be happy and content with any choice. When I say, "I don't make decisions" these are the kind of decisions I mean. Usually someone else has much stronger feelings about whatever the situation is than I do, and I'd rather let someone who cares make that decision.

Decisions in category 2 are difficult to make because they are essential. These are the ones I tend to make after long, long, long self-debate. I am usually okay with these decisions, and want them to take effect quickly. (See also: my feelings about my own hypothetical wedding.)

Recently, though, I've been second-guessing my category 2 decisions. I don't question my decision to come to Nottingham, but I question my choice of field of study both here (I should have done linguistics and medieval lit instead of modern lit and medieval lit) and at Luther (I should have done a math, communications, education, or business/finance degree instead of or in addition to my English degree).

I also have a decision to make in the next few weeks that falls into both category 1 and category 2. I have to decide where I want to live and look for a job for this next year. I don't really care where in the UK I live (category 1) - I think I could be happy in either Nottingham or London. London will be better for job availability, but Nottingham is better for cost of living. (There are other factors involved as well, but those won't be determined for a while yet themselves....) However, if I want to stay in Nottingham and share a house with my good friends, I have to decide very soon (category 2). It's a bit nerve-wracking at the moment. I swing back and forth from one to the other on a nearly hourly basis.

It's hard having to make decisions about one part of your future when the decisions about other parts of your future cannot be made yet. It seems a bit backwards in some ways. I wouldn't mind moving to London if I find a good job there. I wouldn't mind staying in Nottingham if I find a good job here. But most of the jobs that I am qualified for that would start at the right time for me (September) aren't being advertised yet. So I have to make a decision before I have all the information to make the decision.

A new try

This last week when I was in Minneapolis, I had a couple of conversations about blogs. I know a few people who have blogs, but who don’t update very often (like me), and we talked about how we get writer’s block, basically, about being profound and/or witty and that keeps us from posting anything. (We also talked about how we essentially write blog posts in our heads, and then by the time we sit down at the computer, we don’t feel the necessity of typing it all out because we’ve already dealt with whatever it was by writing it in our heads.) However, I find that the blogs that I enjoy reading the most are not necessarily the witty or profound ones, but the ones that present snapshots of daily life. And yet I can’t bring myself to write about “what I did today” most of the time. I’d like to change that, so today I present for you: what I did today.

I’m still trying to get over jetlag and get back on a normal sleeping schedule. It’s going better than it did in January, probably because I’m actually trying now. I still didn’t fall asleep until 3am yesterday. I had my alarm set for 9:30, so that I could get up and run some errands in the morning. Yeah, that didn’t so much happen. But I was up and showered before noon, so that’s a sort of progress, I suppose.

I walked into Beeston to the stationer’s so that I could get a plastic organizer box for my kitchen cupboard (perfect size for the Easy Mac and microwave Hamburger Helper packets that I brought back from the States) and an expanding file for things like bank statements in a probably futile attempt to keep myself organized. We’ll see how well that works. I’m trying to treat this summer term as a sort of reset for me, organization/work –wise. I am hopeful that my dissertation will be a little bit easier than this last essay writing session because of it. Hey, there’s always hope. The expanding file was the last main thing I needed to finish my room clean-up/organization of yesterday. There’s still a few little things, but that was the main thing. I still need to redo my makeup drawer and sort my books. (The Arts Graduate Centre on campus is now an official bookcrossing point, so any of the books that I have that I know I’m not going to get around to reading or don’t want anymore might as well go there.)

Then this afternoon I met a friend for a wander. She’s headed back to the States for her Ph.D. in less than a month, so we’re running out of time that we can spend together. We walked around Wollaton Park – the first time in years I’ve been in the park and the first time I’ve ever really walked around it. We went into the house, too - another first for me. I wouldn’t mind going back sometime (especially since it’s free). Then we came back here and transferred files - I have some movies on my hard drive that she wanted, and vice versa.

By the time I got back inside after walking her to the exit(where I live is kind of a maze, and all the buildings look alike), my flatmates had gotten the TV in our kitchen working for the first time since January. So I actually made some dinner and ate in the kitchen with my flatmates for once. It was good, but our kitchen is really too small to make that feasible for very long. Other than that, I’ve just been overly checking the internet (as usual) and watching American sitcoms on E4.

What if.....

The greatest stories come out of “what if” questions. Personally, I really like speculative fiction, especially parallel universe and time travel stories. They usually come out of the biggest “what if” questions. What if the Axis powers had won World War 2, or the Confederacy had won the Civil War? What if JFK were never assassinated? How would the world be different?

“What if” questions are also why I write romance, when I write anything non-academic (an increasingly rare occurrence). Since most of my what-ifs revolve around my love life (or lack thereof), my story writing is a way for me to come to terms with my own what-ifs. The biggest one is, of course, the summer before I went to Slovakia. What if I’d stayed in the US instead? My life would be incredibly different right now.*

What-ifs often present themselves right away. You walk away from a situation thinking, “Oh, I should have done x or said y”. You torture yourself for minutes, hours, or days with different variants of what you could have done or said to make things turn out differently. But the thing about what-ifs is that you can’t really evaluate them until time has passed, until your life has progressed beyond that turning point. I don’t want to get all fatalistic about stuff, but if things are meant to happen, they will happen. What-ifs suck at the time – and for years afterward in some cases – but in the end you may end up where you are supposed to be, even if it’s not where you planned and imagined.

And that’s why I write romances based (loosely) around my what-ifs. I love my life right here, right now, but I need to explore my what-ifs, and give myself a chance – even if it’s a fictional chance – to live out the life I am not leading.

*Of course, the what-if in that case has nothing to do with my actually going to Slovakia, since that was all in place before the what-if moment. But it’s complicated to explain without going into details, so it’s easier just to blame the what-if on Slovakia.

Scenarios

I really need to learn how to be ruder. Maybe ruder isn’t exactly the right word, but I really need to learn to speak up for myself, even when people say things that they think are innocuous, innocent, or helpful.

Scenario: I am getting ready to go to a ball. I am wearing a charcoal, shimmery dress. My toenails are painted bright green. I do not have a problem with this. I think it is unconventional, kind of creative, and honestly, I don’t care. My flat mates take one look at my toenails and inform me that I must change the colour. They will not take excuses. They give me their own nail polish. They do everything except paint them for me. They tell me that if I wear green, it will ruin my outfit. They do not listen to my statement of, “I don’t care.” They do not listen when I say that hardly anyone will be looking at my feet (“You’d be surprised.” “….I don’t care.”) They insist. I give in.

Scenario: I have hurt my foot, six days previously. It still hurts a bit to walk, and I want to get better quickly, so I am trying to stay off it as much as possible. A friend is having a birthday party at an unknown place in town. I decide not to go. I have warned the friend whose birthday it is that I might not be able to go. I text her before the party to tell her that I am not coming. She understands. My flat mates listen to my reasoning and tell me that I am stupid for not going, that I could go and “just sit” the whole time. My flat mates tell me that I should not “give up socializing” just because of the stress and pain.

Scenario: I have just started dating a guy I really, really like. Because of the aforementioned injury and our busy schedules, I am not going to see him for about ten days. I mention this to a flat mate. She tells me I should call him and invite him over. I say that he’s busy that night. She says I should invite him over after his rehearsal. I say that he’ll be tired. She says that if I won’t call him and invite him over, she will. I say no. She threatens to steal my phone and call him. I say no. She asks if my phone is in my room. I say no. She says that she’ll find it anyway and call him. I say no. Something of my anger must get through, because she stops then.

I suppose the main thing that I don’t understand, about any of these scenarios, is why my flat mates - all of whom are between five and eight years younger than I am - do not think that I am capable of making my own decisions about my appearance, my activities, and my relationship. I need to come up with a way to ask that question that doesn’t make it sound like I am attacking them - even if I am.

Being at home

I have been thinking about writing a book based on my experiences in Slovakia, and an exploration of what makes a place “home”. There are a lot of trite things written about it, most notably the phrase “home is where the heart is” but I think there's more to it than that. In my book, I'm going to attempt to trace the three – maybe four – different threads that can make you feel at home.

The first thing is being around people that you enjoy. This doesn't have to be family, per se; in fact, for many people I know, being around their family is a hindrance to happiness. But if you have a good social group, things are a lot easier. I have been in a situation where every other aspect of “home” is right, but I don't have a good social group. It killed the place for me, to the point where I'm still not comfortable going back.

The second thing is being in a place that you enjoy. Some people are at their best in cities with good shopping; others in a place with a lot of history; others in smaller towns where they can get to know their neighbors. However, if you're in a place where you can't even stand leaving your house, you're probably in the wrong place.

The third thing is doing something that you enjoy. If you have a job that you loathe, you're not going to enjoy your life. If you have a job that you love, you will. It maybe shouldn't be quite that simple, but it is.

The fourth thing, and the one that probably isn't as important as the others – after all, I have never had it and yet I have been at home in several places – is the presence of love. It probably plays in to the first thing – being around people you enjoy – but it deserves a separate point anyway. It is sort of like the crowning jewel of home – being in a happy, stable relationship on top of everything else will make a place perfect.

I have been very lucky in my life, to have had homes many different places. I have had four different places where I have lived that I have had the first three points. I have lived with people I liked, in a place that I liked, doing things that I liked. I'm doing it again now, in fact. But I have found that if I'm missing any one of those three parts, I'm not at home.