Background: In order for me to work in the UK I have to...

1) prove I'm employable (by completing my PhD, amongst other things)
2) succeed in securing a job
3) get a work permit (well, the employer gets this)
4) use the work permit to apply for and obtain a work visa to enter England

I've submitted my thesis and will try my darndest to fast track it, so that takes care, mostly, of number 1). Number 2) has been completed. But the GREAT NEWS is that my employer has secured a work permit for me! WHOOOOP!!! I'm on my way back home (and I've only been in South Africa 6 hours now).

Oh, yeah, hello from SA. I'm here to organise the final things so I can take up my job in Exeter. Mainly this involves getting a visa. Which has now been made vastly easier.

I'm happy. Hurrah!

"There are no events but thoughts and the heart's hard turning, the heart's slow learning where to love and whom. The rest is merely gossip, and tales for other times." -Annie Dillard, 'Holy the Firm'.



Chris's sister Carine, who helped Sean Penn write narration for Into the Wild, says her brother was a breed apart. "I think that Chris was someone who didn't waste his life wondering what other people would think of him. He lived his life wondering what he would think about himself," she says.

While some people say that Chris was searching for himself, Carine says that's not true. "Chris knew exactly who he was," she says. "He was searching for a place in this world that he fit into, where he could be true to himself. He was searching for truth, purity, honesty. He was searching for the things that he didn't experience in his childhood."

_____________________________________

If you search YouTube for Chris McCandless, you find, sadly, video upon video of people who've gone to visit bus 142 where Chris died, as a pilgrimage to a makeshift shrine.

How very wrong.





I finished reading Jon Krakauer's book last night. In fact, I started with the last chapter late Wednesday night, but thought I'd leave it one more day, because, inevitably, the main character... the man whom I learned to like quite a bit throughout the book was about to die.

And so, Chris McCandless died again, last night. And every time someone finishes the book.



I wish I could have the revelation he had, and act on it.


My life seems to have stalled (again). Things went really well last year - the formula runs its course. But every now and then I still catch glimpses of Great Things that Still Need to be Done. I can be here, and play the game to a large extent. But sometimes I, too, feel like all I'm looking for is "a place in this world that I fit into, where I can be true to myself".

I'm not like Chris McCandless by a far stretch of the imagination. But I identify with his occassional gregariousness. The need for company, but not always. The need to be useful.

*pensive*

I have The Cold. The one everyone has. The one that sort of tickles your throat at 2am and makes you sit up coughing, hacking, wheezing, choking, and making noises as if your ribs are trying to expel a whole lung. Or two. Apparently it's viral and can take you down for 4-6 weeks. *excellent*

I've got the job at Exeter. Yay. 

Now life is about to explode in confusion all over again. I have to go back to SA, have to submit my thesis, have to get a work visa (after my future employers have applied for and obtained a work permit).

It's going to be expensive. So I'll be on here, cranky and moaning and stuff very soon.

But, wait, let's not do that now.

Two resolutions: 

1) get the thesis sorted out by the end of next week
2) stop thinking about The Man (also stop talking about him, or to him, or having any contact with him, or stalking him on Facebook)

There are more, but I don't have the time to type them out now. Suffice to say, the older you get, the more you know what you want, the less you let things upset you (and the less you screw around making mistakes).

Have a happy, successful, and peaceful 2008 everyone!

 

I have applied for a job at Exeter. I'm going to send my CV to Pearson in Hong Kong. Other thant that, the intarwebz tells me I'm a manic depressive. Har har har. No, not really. But I'm a moody insecure loser, which is also not fun.

What mental disorder do you have? Your Result: Manic Depressive You have extreme cycles of highs and lows. Sometimes you feel like you don't know who you are. One week you could be very hyper and happy and the next week you are slow and depressed.
Paranoia
OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder)
GAD (Generalized Anxiety Disorder)
ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder)
What mental disorder do you have?

 I figured out that my SA supervisor is so damned interfering and controlling in my life because, since I don't tell him every last thing I do (i.e. applying for jobs, volunteering to be a mentor) he reckons I'm doing NOTHING (and he'll have to pay me forever).

But, of course, I DO make plans. So, here for my personal reference, plans A-E (and further):



Also, in order of most important, my priorities for the following week:


The one and only priority from next week, and for the two weeks after that: THESIS WRITING AND THESIS WRITING ONLY. No other annoying project assessment bullshit or translation or other unnecessary crap that I'm not being paid for and which is not getting my degree finished.