Wednesday, December 31, 2008

New Day

I'm pleased to say that Christmas Day was not the embarrassment I'd anticipated. While I wasn't exactly imaginative with gifts this year, I settled for practical and practical was appreciated. Thank you. Come again. In return, Santa's past exuberance was muted this year, as it should be, given the times. I got what I asked for and nothing more. This is good. Time to live within our means.

I won't be sad to draw a line under 2008. It has not been the easiest year for me. I've struggled with adjusting to my new environment (I moved to smalltown, Canada end of 2007 from London, UK). I let depression take hold and gave the symptoms too much credence instead of focusing on the goal. In some ways I realise I had to walk that path if I was to make this move a longterm decision; build from the ground up and put down solid foundations based on true appreciation for the kind of re-invention only new beginnings of this sort can offer (if you allow them to).

I've learnt to consume my friendships from back home with the long distance mentality I was lacking before. I continue to look for my niche here and it has become the adventure I needed it to be. While I wouldn't go as far as to say that I look forward to the new twists and turns the future has to offer, I no longer fear them. This time round, I intend to work with the 'black dog' of endurance as opposed to against him.

My troubles however pale in comparison to those of my friends. Two little children were lost in 2008 and I want to acknowledge them today as they now only live on in memory. No parent should have to bury a child. I wish them love, light and strength.

2009 doesn't exactly bode well for anyone but for those who have lost it brings the time that so many people assure you heals. And time does heal. You are never the same person, the light often goes out forever but stark as it sounds, fact is that life goes on for the living and eventually you do join their ranks even if you are just paying lip service.

Next year - but a few hours away, will I hope bring the world to it's senses. The auto bail out in the US is ridiculous to say the least and a colossal waste of money that should be put towards a combination of helping families keep afloat while the rest goes towards training and research into a more sustainable, renewable industry-led economy. This goes for Europe too. Of course none of this matters if we don't get the balance right for the environment. This is not Jurassic Park, but nature is indiscriminate when it comes to survival of the fittest and in this case the fittest cheated. Sadly we all know what happens to cheats.

I don't want to end on a negative note because as humans we have the ability to reason. I put my trust in that human reasoning and science. I have high hopes for the future and look forward to the dawning of a new era for us all.

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Hey! Mr. Grinch, Over Here!

I can't remember the last time I was this unprepared for Christmas . I love Christmas, really I do. I love the notion of it because in reality after the presents are unwrapped it's well, a little bit boring. Then the shops being closed and everyone sleeping on couches around the house begins to inwardly irritate me. Obviously, I'm blessed with having the family around all the time and for those that don't then Christmas must take on a really special meaning. As it should. Perhaps I should spent more time away from the family in the run up to these holidays. Food for thought.

That's the other thing. Food. I have to be in the right mood to cook. When I am - it's magic. Otherwise I'd be just as happy spooning cold baked beans straight from the tin. This year happily we're off to the in-laws and they always put on a good spread. I'll help with the clean-up. Least I can do.

Back to my unpreparedness - yes I've been caught with my hair in rollers. First, I lost my credit card and had to cancel it one week before Christmas meaning I've had to rely on loans so that recipients of my gifts are essentially buying their own presents until I can pay them back. Kind of takes the joy out of receiving - but strangely not out of giving. I might be onto something here...

Then I went to London for ten days at the start of December leaving me precious little time to find really insightful gifts. Result, I spent three hours dragging my Emus around a mall yesterday slowly losing the will to live with each passing second.

I have a very honest buying style. If it's something I would most likely re-gift at the earliest opportunity than it doesn't make the cashier. When all you have time to do is trudge around the chain stores...well...300 hours wouldn't be enough let alone three. In the end I make one great find. A golf skirt - it's really cool. Looks like a skirt but is in fact shorts and very feminine too. That's for the mother -in-law who is golf mad. I gave up after that.

I have one more day to get the rest of the presents in. I haven't even started buying for the hubby. He will not be impressed. I'm in big trouble. And worst of all I have no choice but to go to the same mall again today.

It's been nice knowing you all. If I'm not back online soon, please alert the medics.

Merry Christmas!

Friday, December 19, 2008

The Divine Hammer

So far I've been getting the interviews but not the jobs and today I didn't even get the interview but to be fair and I'm not just saying it because...but I really wasn't that bothered.

Either I'm just having a bad run of luck jobsearch-wise (credit crunch not withstanding) or I'm being divinely guided towards doing what I came here to do. Write. I mean, I write. I keep this blog updated but it's more of a wonderwall than a body of work and of course I review new music for Phase 9.tv which is a little dream come true but as Madonna once said, 'I want more.'

I know what that 'more' is. I want to write a novel that people want to read. Though I don't ever start writing with that exact premise in mind. I'm more about entertaining or if I may be so bold, enlightening readers about things readers want to be entertained with or enlightened about.

I have started writing a novel (haven't we all); actually this will be my third serious attempt at creating something palatable. The other two bits of work being more of a practice run at the real thing. The real thing requires full time focus. This I have, all things said and done but of late I've been distracted by the need to feel purposeful. Without defining the criteria it's impossible to do.

In the past I was happy to be defined by job titles and salary and the trinkets these bought- or to put it succinctly, status. And I was falling back into this trap until my recent visit to London served up a warm plate of 'remember-how-much-you-hated-the-rat race?' followed by a steaming plate of 'I miss my baby girl and hubby.' I went to London without the family which was nice but only for a while. And I enjoyed London all the more because my days were free to explore and experience unlike when I lived and worked there.

So here I am back in the tundra a snow storm blowing around me and I mean BLOWING and i mean SNOW yet today, as long as I get my husband back in one piece (he flies back today from a business trip) and lady luck throws me a bone of some sort in the new year be it easy creativity, blissful living or even a silly part time job at a tattoo parlour I will busy myself with the business of purpose. This time it will entail writing like I really mean it and without fear. Oh and Santa please make me a good mum in 2009.

Love and peace to one and all. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

All in the Mind

I got back from London U.K two days ago - I think. It's hard to think right now. Actually it hurts - jet lag. I was jonesing to get back there (my home town) as I'd spent a year isolated in the 'tundra' (Ontario, my home for over a year now) seemingly friendless and certainly feeling very sorry for myself. But through the magic of social media I had reached out and slowly begun adapting to consuming friendships online at least until such a time I could be with them in person. This I finally got to do last week and thanks to the continuity offered by Facebook it was very easy to pick up the conversation where we had left off instead of wasting time on awkward pauses.

Don't get me wrong I'd rather be talking about say the Andy Warhol exhibition at the Hayward Gallery with a friend (in person) over a cup of coffee or even better, a nice glass of wine or go on then, a pint of beer, after having gone to see it with said friend (as I did) than over social networking tools any day of the week, but fact is I made the choice to move here and now I wouldn't give these tools up for all the friendly faces in town.

Another thing I realised is that relationships are about perception, visualisation and idealism. For example, after a year of yearning for home and familiar cultural reference points afraid that absence would eventually eradicate all relational association, I arrived at London Heathrow and with the determination of an Olympic athlete set about negotiating my way to Islington where I would be spending the week at a friend's place. I got to Paddington Station within 15 minutes; one Oyster card later I was rocking away underground on the Victoria Line heading for Highbury and Islington.

I am not exaggerating when I say I skipped down St. Paul's Street and past the Essex Road towards my friend's flat; all the time realising that no amount of time away from London will ever erase the intimacy of my relationship with it because, it's just that MY relationship, MY perception of it and MY idealisation. I spent the next week criss crossing the town visiting friends and pubs and TopShop like I'd never left, not even for one day.

As a result I've returned to Canada with renewed appreciation for well...everything. And I may have another interview for a Corporate Relations position to boot though I've given serious thought to actually getting down to doing what I moved here to do in the first place - lead a simple life (I have London for complexity if I ever want it) and write a novel. Onwards and onwards.

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

To London With Love

So I say (to the Abba tune - you know which one).....


Thank you for the shopping, the pubs I drank in

Thanks for all the puddles I sank in

Who could move without it, I ask in mobility, I'm totally freeeee

Without an Oyster Card what are we?

So I say, thank you for the nightbus

and the evening's final peeeeee


I've been so naughty, I am the girl with a credit card

I have bought tops and creams and a pair of ear muffs

Jaegerbombs, Kronenburgs, snake bite and blaaaaaacks


Thank you for the markets, the spanish food stalls

Thanks for all the museum art halls

Who can live with one? I ask for Pete's sake and me - I'm freezing my Tssss

Without a scarf what would a Londoner be?

So I say thanks for central heating and for the Med-diterranean seaaaaaa.


Cheers London and my friends. N xx

Thursday, December 4, 2008

Soak Overnight, Dry Flat

The plot that thickened earlier subsequently stuck to the bottom of the pan. I didn't get the job. Not sure exactly why. I was described as a stellar candidate. Another interview where I felt my performance rise above the mundane and then pop! Sod's law sticks a pin in it.

I would dwell on this, it being my nature to wallow especially when I don't feel it's been a constructive use of my time, but I'm too excited about going home tomorrow - London, England. For all it's flaws, it's frankly the only place I want to be right now. I've stocked up on sleeping pills and Pro Plus. While I appear to have planned a picnic for Mrs. Cock-up, I have no intention of being home to Mr. Jet-Lag.

The job search doesn't stop here. Of course not. Networking has to continue but I think the business of self promotion will have to wait until the New Year. Let's hope it brings familiarity and acceptance on all planes - god knows I need someone to throw me a bone. I thank those that have already put the dog bowl out. Sincerely thank you.

Meanwhile I'm being contacted by recruiters in the UK as if divine guidance is trying to steer me towards something else altogether. I've realised in the past I've sort of given up too easily on projects simply because I could and here in Canada I'm finally learning what it feels like to go the distance or at least try to. Every cloud...

After all the emotional investment of the past three months, it's time to grow from it but again that will have to wait too because for the next ten days in the UK, I plan to regress. It's my party now.

So that's me done for a bit in the career stakes. I've been soaked overnight in stark reality and laid out flat to dry .

Now where's my travel iron?

Monday, December 1, 2008

The Plot Thickens

It never ceases to amaze me that whenever I really want something it eithers appears to tauntingly hover at dislocating arms reach where once it seemed perfectly attainable, or almost worse, remains perfectly attainable but has added a couple of layers of bureaucracy - a test of surety.

To be less criptic. I got that second interview I wanted and I feel that I performed well. In fact I gave it my absolute best, based on weeks of insightful research and I honestly think it will pay off in some way, much like the sugar coated rejection of the last role I pursued led to invaluable networking contacts.

So now would it be acceptable to think, even expect that the next step will entail either a job offer or some professional reason for termination; it would except for one thing - the person who really needed to be in that interview wasn't. She was stuck somewhere unholy trapped by fog and blizzard-like conditions. I was interviewed by her partner who though duly engaged was honest about where the hiring buck stopped and it wasn't with him.

I only hope that my carefully rehearsed performance resonated to the point that he will think of our time together as having been worthwhile and make his opinion known where it matters . I suspect however that it will be down to me to duplicate the experience with the top honcho - though let's not get too presumptuous as I may be writing about how they never got back to me this time next week.

As with all things in life that you give your best to, the outcome now lies in the laps of the Gods.

I keep telling myself that practice makes perfect - what's one more interview? I just hope that quantity won't dilute the quality. I don't want to sound over-rehearsed.

Two things to take from all this. Patience is a virtue and if you really really want it -go get it.