Sauntering Vaguely Downward

1. Are you happy with your current line of work? What do you like/don't like about it?

Ha. Hahaha. I mean, that is a hell of a question. My line of work is the main subject of my locked entries, which are basically a long paean of the many and varied feelings I have about it. The architecture of academia is hugely problematic. I have never been so taxed, drained, and overwhelmed by any other job. At the same time, I have never been so utterly absorbed and satisfied by my work in my life.

2. Do you see yourself doing the same type of work in 5 years? What about 10?

I’m going to be infuriatingly non-committal here and say that only time will tell.

3. Did you see yourself doing this type of work 5 years ago? What about 10?

Absolutely and unequivocally not. I had no intention of becoming an academic, nor any sense that this was a realistic prospect.

4. Did you have a dream job as a child? What was it?

I can remember wanting to be a lot of things. A veterinarian. A medical doctor. (Both of these ended abruptly when I eventually worked out how squidgy medicine is.) An Olympic dressage competitor. (Our neighbours had horses. I have only ever ridden a horse a handful of times. But I liked the dream.) A writer. A Nobel-prize-winning chemist. An inventor. An astronaut. I’m not sure how pleased six-year-old me would be if they could see me now.

5. If you had to pick a radically different job from what you have now, regardless of whether you'd realistically be able to do it given your skillset, what would you pick and why?

Wealthy philanthropist, photographer, and dilettante artist living in an airy flat with my family and cats in a vibrant city. That would be quite nice.

I caved and got a subscription for 1SE so that I could make an HD version of the full year (just over 9 minutes). I notice that my compositions became smoother across the year as I learned to create content to suit the format, similar to the way I adjust my journaling style for blog posts. I can also see where some months are very well curated because I had the time to spend on adjusting the framing or re-order the videos and others are just "let's get this done and out the door".

 It's now been over a month since I last posted on Dreamwidth,  longer on LiveJournal since cross posting stopped being automatic. 

I debated over our recent holiday whether to simply continue not posting or to make some kind of formal statement about how I plan to use this journal in future. Personally I prefer it when people don't just disappear. I know that 99% of the time they've just got bored or busy or distracted by a different platform and don't find the journal rewarding enough to continue, and nothing terrible has happened to them. But it's nice to have the reassurance that this is the case, rather than that they've been hit by a bus or something. 

So I guess this is me obliquely sidling up to the realisation that despite 21 years of journalling (as of this July), I have neither the time nor the inclination to keep up my commitment to writing and interacting here as intensively as I once did. I can see the signs of this in my recent posting patterns: more short entries, far fewer public posts, failure to post photos because it's just too much effort to muster after a 15 hour day, failure to reply to comments or to other people's posts. 

There are external factors too. I got promoted at work. I have a huge workload now that I have a senior administrative role in my department, plus teaching and grant management. I'm co-supervising my first PhD student. The children will be going to different schools in a week's time, effectively doubling our life admin complications. Because of this we've had to acquire a second car after 10 years of getting away with having only one. 

I'm sure no one apart from me is surprised, but I hope I'm not the only one who's sad about this. I loved being (what felt to me like) a stalwart part of this community. It's painful to have to let it go. I will post now and again but I won't be reading regularly so if this is important to you and you need to say goodbye because of it, please do. On the other hand, if you're okay with sporadic updates and patchy, enthusiastic interaction then please stay. I'm always happy to pick up with friends and acquaintances after long silences.

I'll keep my Wed-Sat shifts on the daily "Just One Thing" achievement posts for Awesomeers.dreamwidth.org. Do join there if you want a low key way of recording stuff you've done and getting a little cheer for it. That's how I use it.

If you'd like to connect elsewhere, I'm on the following, but don't post much: Instagram (magnetometrist) and Twitter (nanila). I'm most active on and 150+ days into a Duolingo streak so happy to be added there as well: nanila2, the one with a Neko Atsume cat as my userpic.

TL;DR version: Nanila angsts about not journalling regularly, isn't leaving completely, loves you all, stay or go as you like, please add on Duolingo. ❤️

I had imagined doing a big roundup post for the 20th anniversary of my LiveJournal, but due to rampant sleepiness on the 11th of July after my solo trip to London, I managed to miss it completely. (It was a mistake not to set a reminder in my calendar.) I still will, but in lieu of the roundup for now, here is a photo post from my final act of the London trip, which was to the eastern half of Highgate Cemetery.

Thanks to my DW/LJ, I know that I finished my photography project to visit all of the Magnificent Seven cemeteries in 2012. Someone asked me on my return home this weekend, “Who is buried in Highgate, apart from Karl Marx?” While I can answer that question with a list of names, the honest answer is that I don’t care. I don’t visit these places to hunt for the graves of specific famous people, not even Douglas Adams (sorry, mate. I do know where my towel is though). In fact, because I keep a journal, I have a precisely formulated explanation for my visits.

Maybe it’s obvious from my choice of photographs, but I don’t care much about finding the graves of the notable persons buried in these cemeteries. For me, the attraction of these places comes from the collective obliteration of individual identity. The sense that pain and sorrow have been absorbed and transformed into something that is rather beautiful - the admission, and acceptance, of death. -- Me, April 2012.

I love my journal so much. ♥ ♥ ♥



( Many photos )

This trip has inspired me to repeat the Magnificent Seven project, in reverse order, over the next few months. Next up, then: West Norwood cemetery.

- After at least 20 years of service (it belonged to the bloke’s parents before moving in with us in 2008), our microwave disintegrated dramatically this afternoon. The plastic around the glass door window crumbled into bits, like a wet biscuit.

+ This gave me an excuse to spend what is not a very nice day outside browsing the internet for a new microwave. I very nearly bought a fire engine red one, to match the toaster, kettle, bread bin, and Kitchen Aid stand mixer. In the end, I went for the sensible option: the white one with the biggest volume that was on sale at Curry’s.

- I had to go out to buy a cat flap for the extension window. It was my first time driving in over eight weeks and the first time I’d left the house for anything other than a family walk. I went the long way, to try to make sure I got a little bit of extra time behind the wheel. At first I went far too slowly, and then when I realised I was doing all of 25 mph in a 40 zone, I went too fast. It took a couple of minutes to recalibrate my road sense. Thankfully there still isn't much traffic in our area. I don’t love driving, but acknowledge it’s a necessary skill.

+ I forgot how pleasant our car is to drive. And how nice it is to have the phone Bluetoothed in so I can play music. Also, I filled up the tank the day before lockdown started. It’s still ⅞ full.

- The car park was crazy busy and the queues for the shops were long. Once inside, I noticed very few people making much attempt at maintaining social distancing. The cashiers also clearly hate the Plexiglass screens at the tills, because they keep leaning around them to talk to customers. None of the employees working on the shop floor had any PPE. I found this depressing, because as we all know, customers are arseholes (see below).

+ The person who helped me find the cat flap was ridiculously grateful about my determination to stay away from him. (As opposed to the customer who tried to slip behind him while he was fishing out the one I wanted, bumped into him, put his hands on his shoulders, and said “Oh, sorry, mate.” -.-)

- The builders are on site for the bank holiday weekend. Since we’re trying to social distance, we can’t use the garden and are trapped inside.

+ The builders are back on site! Progress is being made! Soon, we can haz roof on the extension.

- Keiki is not going back to school on 1 June. Our primary school is only opening to (more) children of key workers, and vulnerable children, not the whole of Years R and 1. He won’t get to see his buddies any time soon. He’s a very sociable creature, and he was looking forward to being with his friends again.

+ Keiki is not going back to school on 1 June. This is, if not positive, at least not completely negative. He’s making noticeably swifter progress with homeschooling than he was at school. It’s tough to parse how much of this is down to his new glasses and how much to the one-on-one attention he didn’t get at school. Also, Humuhumu would have been very sad if he’d gone and she didn’t.

- We will have to move out next month so that the builders can rip out all of the downstairs rooms, including plaster, carpet and ceilings, and gut the kitchen. Living upstairs nine hours a day with intermittent power and water supplies for four weeks whilst trying to maintain social distance from the builders, and also work and home-school: not feasible.

+ The new metal shed is arriving next week to sit on the slightly wonky concrete plinth we built for it. So we have somewhere to stuff the contents of those rooms.

+ On Thursday, 21 May, I wore makeup for the first time since 20 March.

- It took me ages to apply the makeup. Once I had, I forgot I had black eyeshadow on within five minutes and gave my eyes a good rub, thus rendering myself a panda for the rest of the day.

+ Fortunately the video quality on Zoom is so poor that no one noticed.

+ It is Caturday (see photo for winner of the Best Nose category in our house).