Friday, March 23, 2012

I think the last update could be misunderstood. I wrote it as a statement of my ongoing confusion about what to do with my life and my “career”. That’s why I mentioned having read about someone I used to work with many years ago.  When I read what I wrote it comes across as some kind of jealous criticism but in reality I was trying to express how I wish I had such a clear idea of what I want to do as that person seems to have. Anyway, I usually don’t apologize for writing strange updates so I will not start now.

This Friday is sunny and warm and soon I’ll be on my way home for the weekend. So all is well that ends well.

Peace.

Reading

Happened to read about someone today that I used to work with back in the day, out in the “real” world. She now runs her own company, is a published author and gives lectures in her field of expertise.

Mixed emotions run through me, but mostly I’m glad to see she is doing well with her life and career even though I never much liked her attitude or the quality of the work she did while we were colleagues.

Only one thing I wish I could get a grip on, to once and for all decide what I really want to do and then go for it. It’s my inability to really decide what I want to do with my life that keeps holding me back.

Maybe I should read some books on the subject.

New post Monday

It’s Monday. Time to write something new.

I was going to do it yesterday but I was too tired to start.

This weekend and all of last week was very cold. Especially at night. Some places in Sweden had colder nights than ever recorded before. It started to feel like a sequel to the movie The Day After Tomorrow.

The car could not handle the cold very well. The battery died and had to be charged. Never happened last winter even though there were many cold nights then too. I had to figure out how to charge the battery which was a bit of a learning experience. I’m not good at fixing anything to do with cars but I try to learn as I go along. Haven’t had the need to learn until just a few years ago, so it will take some time. However after about 4 hours charge the car could be started and now it seems to work as normal except for some strange sound from the engine. I’m a bit worried about what it could be. Don’t know if it’s something that will need fixing.

Friday night it was very cold outside. I spent part of  the night online, at a chatroom and had a nice few hours of talk. It was good because most  of Saturday and Sunday was spent working on the car – outside.

I watched the first part of the Swedish Song Contest “Melodifestivalen” on TV on Saturday night. There were only a few really good songs and performers among the eight competing songs and luckily the one I liked the most made it to the next round and will have a second chance to reach the final competition.

The headlines the day after only talked about the incident when an older male performer briefly put his hand on the behind of the young good-looking female host of the show while she hugged him after interviewing him. Seems this made the whole of Sweden explode in some kind of moral outrage. I guess it says something about our society. Not sure exactly what though.

Sunday evening I managed to start the car and went for a drive. After that I watched some TV, had  a shower and went to bed.

Today I had a meeting at the office with a workgroup about social media. The idea is to study social media and how they can be used to aid in job search and employment. Might be interesting to be a part of.

I’m also working on my own project and making some slow progress. Other than that not much is happening. Life goes on. Time goes by. I get older. Days are getting longer. Sun is up earlier, sets later. I wish Spring would be here.

Peace.

Words in a row

Hey, hi, hello, how’s the world been treating you?

I have to say I’m rather tired today. I slept rather well but woke up a bit early and couldn’t go back to sleep. Tweeted some while still half awake and then somehow got up.  Checked my Tumblr dashboard and reblogged a lot of stuff as usual. Too much being posted there for me to keep up with. But I like to look through it everyday anyway.  Always find some stuff worth looking at or reading. Sometimes fun and sometimes serious.  Somewhere in the middle of this I remember watching a video and masturbating but I could be mistaken as I wasn’t really all awake yet. Then I got ready, dressed, washed and brushed, drank some water to keep my kidney stones at bay through the morning rush hour commuting on buses and trains and went out the door towards the bus stop.

I know I ought to eat some breakfast but 1) I’m actually poor 2) I feel sick if I eat right after waking up so I skip breakfast and eat nothing. I drink water and sometimes I bring some lunch to the office but not always. Far from it. Then when I get home in the early evening I have dinner which is almost always a cooked hot meal. Later in the evening I may sometimes have a snack, a sandwich or some fruit depending on what I have around and what I feel like eating.

The bus was on time, I made it to the train station on time and the commuter train was on time too. Not crowded, I got a good seat close to the doors. I looked out the windows at the frosty landscape rushing by outside and thought about a tweet I had read earlier while still in bed and only barely awake.Something about the word ‘frosty’ had caught my attention.

I arrived at the station where I change trains and found out the other train was delayed. Not much only enough to make me pace around the platform for a few minutes while trying to keep warm. When the train arrived it was not crowded and I got a seat close to the doors again. I looked out the window and noticed I passed by the road leading to my first place of work – a small grocery store in a  suburb.

While I thought about how it had been to work there and the people I had worked with a colleague from the office came walking down the aisle of the train and sat down in the seat opposite.  Soon we started discussing the weather, global warming and climate change.

I said that I’m not sure the changes are due to human activity even though that’s what science claims is true. I have a hard time accepting a few hundred years of industrialism could really affect the Earth this much. My idea is that the climate might change anyway as it has done in the past going from warm to cold and then back to warm again.  Who knows. The Earth has been around a long time and I’m sure it will still be around long after all humans are gone. However this is just what I think and I might be all wrong.

Walking from the station to the office the discussion continued until we had arrived inside.

I went to my room and switched on the computer, set up my stuff, set my phone to charge and eventually started writing and thinking – which means working on my project. Looked out the window at the lake down below and then at the sky beginning to clear. Looked at Twitter, looked at Tumblr and started thinking about updating this blog.

Talked to the supervisor and continued working. Opened Spotify and listened to some new songs on a friend’s playlist while writing some texts for this blog and also one for my project.  Uploaded some photos to the blog and tried to write some more without much success.

Somehow I wasn’t writing what I really wanted and what I wanted I couldn’t write at that moment. Or at any other moment. I have a lot of trouble writing certain things. The thoughts are there and the feelings are there but the words aren’t there. Just refuse to come forward. I’m probably afraid to put it in writing, afraid of the fool I’ll appear to be – mostly to myself. What the world thinks is beyond my control anyway. So I didn’t write it. Instead I wrote about other things for my project, read a lot of news and articles about things I might use for my project and also tweeted and looked at Tumblr now and then. All of this made the day pass by quickly soon enough it was time to pack up and go home, which I did. Got on the first bus and had a terrible pain in my back from the kidney stones as I had neglected to drink enough water during the day.

For most of the hour-long ride home by three different buses I was in pain. So the first thing I did when I got home was to drink a lot of water and relax. Then I had dinner. Fish and potatoes. It was ok but not as good as I expected given the price of the fish had been rather high. After dinner I checked email, tweets, tweeted and checked and reblogged on Tumblr for a while. Also started to listen to music on Spotify and thought about writing some more for this blog as I was not happy with what I had posted so far today.  Had some gingerbread hearts and some water and started to write. And here I am now. Still writing this text. Maybe it’s time to stop now. Not much more to add.  At least not that I can think of. There’ll probably be more tomorrow, I can feel my nostalgic mode getting ready to possess me so I might be going back to the glory of the past days again in another post.

Peace.

Looking back

A song by Joe Grushecky is playing in my headphones as I write this. The title of the song is Everything’s Going To Work Out Right which is exactly what I hope things will in the end. However, sometimes I doubt it. Sometimes with reason and mostly without reason. I start to worry and my thoughts run away with me against all reason. Not that I haven’t got things to worry about but those I can’t do much about anyway. I tend to worry about things I only imagine have happened or could happen and then I have a hard time to stop worrying. Anyway, I wasn’t going to write about this right now. I was about to write about what I thought about this morning when I was sitting on the commuter train going to the office.

Through the window I saw the road leading to the place where I once worked. Where I had my first real job. It’s so long ago now. More than 20 years ago. It was during the 1980′s and finding work was easy. I had finished school two weeks before I got that job and I felt very proud to finally be working and earning my own money.

I remembered the feeling of riding a bus to work in those days and sitting  behind the cash register in that small store in the early mornings when there were only a few customers and actually wishing there’d be more of them so I would be really busy. How quickly that feeling faded. Soon I started to wish for there being less busy times at work but that’s another story. I liked my job. I’ve liked all the jobs I’ve had. Didn’t always enjoy every moment of being at work but I always liked having a job and making a living. Also liked having colleagues and enjoyed working with all of them. Some more than others but I got along with all of them.

As I passed by on the train I wondered what became of my colleagues at that store. Most of them I only knew by first name so I haven’t even tried to google them or search on Facebook. I’m only curious to know what they’re doing today and I wonder if they are all still alive. Of course I also wonder if they remember me at all. I hope they do.

 

What’s new in Moonieland?

Ok, time to update on what goes on in the real world of MoonieZ, that is the world outside my head. I know what goes on inside my head. An awful lot of dreaming, mostly about one certain  individual. Very nice dreams and very innocent and pure too, I assure you.

No time to waste. Even though time is something I seem to have a lot of. Maybe time is all I’ve got. Lately I feel like time is running out, though.

WORK  Still nothing new to report. I have applied for a bunch of jobs recently but still haven’t had any word back. I’m working on finding work though. That’s been my “job” for years now.

OFFICE Yes I spend most days at the office along with thirty other people in the same unemployed situation. There I’m working on projects that are supposed to help me get a real job. So far I’ve managed to finish my long overdue bachelor’s degree by writing one small paper that was missing from one of the classes I had taken. It feels good to have got it all done. Remains to be seen what use I can make of having a bachelor’s degree in Cultural Studies and Cinema in my search for a new job. My next project involves blogging and it might also branch out to involve the writing of a book. Time will tell.

MONEY Still paying off debts. The little I have left keeps the roof over my head and food on my table but not much else. However I’m happy to be able to live. That I don’t have much of a life is another matter. It’s all my own fault anyway.

FRIENDS Yes I have some friends. Thanks to the internet I’m not all alone. Well, I used to have friends before the internet too but I still like my internet friends. One of them I don’t see anymore and it has been hard to accept but I’ve moved on. Luckily the friends I still see are really nice and they are all people I care about. One of them I have to admit I really care a lot about. Probably too much at times.

FAMILY I have my mother and my brothers, my uncles and my aunts. My nieces and nephews and my cousins. Family is important and without them I’d be lost.

HEALTH I’m not too ill. Haven’t got much of a stamina though and always think I ought to exercise more but can’t seem to get started. Probably suffer from kidney stones and can’t afford to have my teeth fixed but generally I’m feeling ok. Starting to put on weight again which is not good though. I was glad to have lost some so I’ll just have to start watching how much I eat again. Not always easy as food is one of the few pleasures my life still has left to offer. I know that food has often worked as a substitute for things I want and need in my life but can’t seem to get or have much of. Like love, affection, physical contact, sex.

LOVE  No comment.

FUTURE  Do hope I have a future. The hope of a better tomorrow is what keeps me going.

 

Get a job

I know I must but sometimes I feel like this too when people around me make it all seem so easy without having ever walked even an inch in my shoes.

Books

Been reading some books. Have some more lined up to get started on. I haven’t read this much for a long time but I kind of like it. Reading books is a good way to pass some time during these warm summer days when most things seem to slow down.

The books I’m reading are Something Borrowed, Eat Pray Love and the Harry Potter series. Also have one or two more after I’m done with those.

I’m going to use these books for my writing project at the office, so it’s a win-win deal for me. Now I only hope I will get the writing going so that I can make something happen and maybe even get my life going again. Wouldn’t be a day too soon.

The years keep adding up. I’ve been out of work for more than 4 years if I add all the time up. Except for 6 months in 2008 I’ve only been job searching and not much else. Well I’ve learned to drive of course but that’s about all. And last year I learned to drive forklifts.

And all of this I’ve already written too many times. That’s it. I’ve started to repeat myself. About time to stop writing until I can write something new. Not much fun for my readers to only read the same old things over and over.

Maybe I’ll be returning with some reviews of the books I’ve read. That would be something new at least.

Peace.

Sunday morning

Nothing special. Just another day.

Sometimes I start to think why I still bother with some things. Like the writing I have been struggling with for months now and still haven’t reached the end of. Why do I bother? Well I have this hope that it might be way to something better if I can only get it done. So I keep on working on it to reach my goal and find out if it indeed will be the first step to a better tomorrow.

There are other things I do even though my inner voice sometimes tell me it is useless to go on, that it is already too late and that I would be better off if I simply let it be. However, I can’t stop, not yet. I’m not ready to give it up. Not ready to face the pain of another failure. So I hold on to hope. That one more day will be what it takes to turn the ship around and maybe reach the destination. Even though the facts are against me. What else is there? Not much.

Woke up early this morning. Have slept rather long for a change. Feel kind of alone in the world and have time to think things over one more time. Not that it helps much.

When I look at the future I see more of the same problems I already have. I see no end to things I want to change for the better but seem unable to even start.

I’ve had a dream for a while. Once I even believed it could be something more than a dream but lately it has faded and now I have abandoned it. Not without resistance but still I had to let it go. It wasn’t for me. It has never been for me to have a dream come true. I guess I’m not the kind who has that kind of luck or ability or whatever it takes to get there.

I can accept that. I have to accept it since the reality of matters are what they are. But I can’t deny that it hurts to do so. On the other hand – pain is nothing new to me. I’ve had enough of it in my life and still I’m getting more of it. Did I bring it on myself? I must have. Some of it I probably did.

But I guess some are made to suffer and others are made to be happy. It’s the way of the world, the law of the land, nothing to do about it.

Anyway, I will continue to do what I can to be good to others and maybe one day I’ll be happy too.

I know I should just laugh it all off and keep a my sense of humor. Have a positive attitude and all that but show me somebody who can keep smiling through every kind of challenge or in the face of the most severe adversity and I will tell you they are faking it. I don’t want to fake anything or hide myself so I will tell the world that I can’t smile and be happy about things that hurt . Sure, I’ve heard I can choose how to feel about everything but even though I try not to feel sad about certain things I still do. I guess it’s because I care about it enough to feel anything at all.

This Sunday will probably be like the others. Then a new week at the office awaits. I am glad to be there working away at things I can have some control over myself and perhaps that will help me forget some things for a while.

When I started there I had a lot of hope that I would be getting out of my unemployment fast. It seemed the projects I would involve myself in had the potential to lead me to a job, and even to a job I would really like. Not without hard work but anyway that’s what I hoped. Now I’m twenty weeks in and it seems things aren’t moving as I thought they would but it’s all up to me to change that. Just find it hard to find the energy to go on sometimes. When there’s not enough light at the other end of the tunnel I get this feeling it’s better to give up and not do anything. Usually I snap out of that pretty fast but not lately. That feeling of uselessness clings to me even when I try to shake it off.  I’ve been applying for a lot of jobs and they say the market for employment is growing again but so far I’ve had no luck at all. I keep trying because it’s all I can do but I often ask myself what’s the use?

My old internet friend has not replied to my last email and it seems she won’t. I guess that it means we’re going our separate ways at last. Will still be friends but I guess not active friends anymore. Another loss that hurts a bit even though I’ve seen it coming or sensed it would happen due to her situation and mine as well.  Still to not have the close friendship that once was is hard to accept.

There are other things happening recently I don’t understand too but I’ve finished talking about them because nothing will change if I go on whining anyway.

When I read this post back I see it is kind of depressive and sad all over but since that’s how my life looks at the moment I can’t really write it any other way and still be true to myself.

Even though things aren’t good right now I haven’t given up all hope yet. I still have my will to be a good friend and to do what I can to make things better for others and for me.

After all, tomorrow is another day, and all I can do is go on living no matter how it feels.

But I understand why the clown is crying behind the smiling mask.

Peace.

Here I go again

Exactly what do I mean by that? I don’t know. Haven’t thought that far ahead. As usual I start without knowing when or where I will finish. Kind of like when I masturbate. I never know when or where I will finish. Always a surprise, sort of.

Have to add to the subject of masturbation that I’ve been doing an unusual amount of it lately. Started to feel like 18 all over again. Don’t know what it is. The water, the food, the air, the sun , the time of the year, the political situation, the lack of funds, the office, the company, the internet, the … Or maybe it’s just imagination. Anyway, I don’t complain. Or, well, I do but not in public.

Moving on to something less unsafe for work. Which ought to be work. Yes, it ought to. However, the recent weeks has seen little of work from these hands. Not counting … well, you know. So, I should become productive. I must. Not that I’m not producing anything but perhaps not what I ought to be producing. At least not only. Kind of sticky.

The writing I should devote my time to has been taking the backseat of my mind. Sometimes not even had any room at all when I’ve needed the backseat for “other” activities. You catch my drift I’m sure.

So, what work has been done has been to write and send applications for work and taking part in a recruitment and some job interviews. No immediate results other than exhaustion and a lot of walking, waiting and travelling but perhaps I will get lucky.

This weekend I focus on having fun. A good relaxing fun time. Looks like I will have fun.