When is a Blog not a Blog?

In amongst the timber varnishing and the school field trips and the myriad of other random jobs I have been keeping myself busy with lately, I found the time to do something that most definitely forced me out of my comfort zone.  I made a piece of art and submitted it to a local exhibition. 

When I first saw the call for artists for the exhibition I thought "hmm maybe" but dismissed the idea because I've never done anything like this before.  Then I thought about it some more and bounced a few ideas around but I couldn't figure out how I could make it work so I gave up.  But it kept niggling away at the back of my mind so I had a word with myself about how 2019 is supposed to be the year of opportunities and if that was really the case then how could I let this one pass me by.  The hardest part, other than figuring out what I was going to make, was believing that just possibly I might be good enough. 

So I starting working on it, still thinking that I was just doing it for myself, to see if I could and that I probably wouldn't go as far as submitting it.  The submission deadline loomed closer which gave me the incentive to get it finished but even then I wasn't sure I was going to enter it.  I mean this was an exhibition that proper, real artists were going to have pieces in and here was I, so clueless I had to ask the organisers what I should put for "medium" on my registration form.  Talk about imposter syndrome!

In the end, I decided that if I didn't at least submit it, I would always wonder so I took a leaf out of Eleanor Roosevelt's book and did something that day that scared me.  I was so nervous dropping it off that it was only on the way home that I realised I hadn't even taken a picture of it!  

To my great excitement (and enormous relief), it was accepted and has been on display this month as part of the Words exhibition.  I am a little bit proud of myself. 

  

Teenage Kicks

Mary's got a new job, she's working in the bank.....

If you know the next line to this song then chances are you were a teenager in Ireland in the early nineties.  I came across a box of old tapes recently and as luck would have it I still have an old boom box that can play tapes, which practically classifies it as an antique these days.  Teenage memories abounded as I cleaned bathrooms accompanied by the soundtrack to my youth.

In this modern world of skipping ahead to the song you want, I had forgotten how long it takes to rewind and fast forward.  The guess work of how long to let it run before checking if you were in the right spot.  How is it that I can't remember things that happened last week but I can remember the words to songs I haven't heard in literally decades?  Memories of nights out and concerts and road trips came flooding back.  Today I was physically in New Zealand but mentally I was back in Nijinsky's, The Ambassador, the road to Killarney before the motorway was built, summer time in Germany.  

This isn't a cassette tape, it's a time machine.

  

Nothing changes if nothing changes

We often linger for years in spaces that are too small and shabby for the grandeur of our spirit - John O'Donohue.

After three and a half years in a negative, unpleasant working environment doing a job that offered little challenge and no scope for growth, I finally decided enough was enough and quit my job.  I figured that nothing changes if nothing changes and the end of the year seemed like a good time to draw a line and move on.  My month's notice was spent veering from freaking out that I had made a huge mistake and wouldn't find another job to feeling like a huge weight had been lifted.  Life's too short and all that.  

What am I moving on to?  Well the short answer is I have no idea.  Maybe I will stay in events, maybe I will try my hand at something completely new.  I have decided to look at 2019 as the year of opportunities.  Bring it on!

Hooked

You know that feeling when you're reading a book that hooks you right from the start and you just want to keep reading it all the time and things like feeding children and going to work are mere distractions to get through as quickly as possible so you can get back to reading?  It happens all too rarely these days, maybe I need to pay more attention to the books I am choosing.  A Little Life and My Absolute Darling were the highlights of my 2017 reading but so far this year it was slim pickings until I came across Asking For It by Louise O'Neill. 

I flew through it, stopping only to throw the occasional after school apple to the kids.  It was brilliant and awful and terrifying all at once.  Forget Pride & Prejudice, Asking For It should be on the required reading list for secondary school students.  In this day and age, surely it's more important for young people to learn about consent than alliteration or pathetic fallacy.

The death of initiative

I am a practical person.  If I see something that needs doing I do it, without needing to be asked.  Common sense you might say.  I don't think of this as a particularly unusual personality trait.  Well I didn't until recently. 

In the last week I have encountered a staggering lack of initiative.  People complain about dealing with Millennials and their expectation that everything will be handed to them.  Well I can confirm that Generation X is more than happy to stand back and watch other people take care of the things that need doing too.     

When you have volunteered to help at an event, would you stand in front of an overflowing rubbish bag and do nothing about it?  Would you watch someone else come to deal with it and replace it with a new bag without offering to help?

When you raise the possibility of getting a small thank you present for someone and have even gone to the trouble of checking what he might like, would you buy a card and then ask what now?  What do you think now?  Buy the effing chocolates too and just let us know how much we owe you.

Figure it out.  Employ some common sense.  Use your initiative.  

I am well aware that I sound like a grumpy aul one and I will admit that it has been a busy few weeks and I'm tired so I am probably not being my best self today but I've also had a gutsful of pretty much always being one of the few people who are giving their time while the majority of people are happy to take without so much as a thank you.  

Volunteering is a verb, so by definition a doing word, something that requires action.  If you're not willing to do anything why even bother turning up?

Chancer

Is a half full glass a fool's errand or do I just focus on the fact that there is something in the glass at all?  

I've just applied for a job that I don't think I have much chance of getting.  It's a marketing, communications and events job and while I have plenty of events experience, I am sadly lacking in the other two departments.  I jumped back and forth between thinking I should apply and thinking it was a waste of time.  Then I thought well, it's only going to cost me my time to put in an application and sure if it's a no, then it's a no.  At least I can feel like I am doing something about the fact that I am bored out of my brain in my current job, even if it comes to nothing.

I have previously extolled the virtues of living in a small town but one definite disadvantage is that there isn't the same range of choice when it comes to finding a job.  There are jobs aplenty in hotels and while my current job does involve some exposure to the dreaded W word (weddings), I am holding firm in my refusal to work in hotels.  My other no no is sports events.  Not just because I have absolutely no interest in sport, it is also influenced by a stint volunteering for a sporting event and coming to the realisation that peeing al fresco is just not for me.

So I sent off my application with a healthy dose of que sera sera and we'll see what happens.

FOTA - Not just a wildlife park

Reduce, re-use, recycle is all well and good but there is a fine line between being an eco friendly upcycler and crossing over into hoarder territory.  The other week I experienced the vindication of finding a use for something I had been hanging on to because "it could come in handy some day".  Now we don't need to go into the details of how long it had been gathering dust for, the important thing is that it eventually got used.  

But let's be realistic, how often do we actually find a use for the random bits and bobs we hang on to?  If something sits in the back of a drawer for a year is it ever coming out again?  How many elastic bands is too many?  Is FOTA (fear of throwing away) a thing?  Am I going to end up on one of those programmes about people who hang on to arbitrary stuff and then have to crawl out their bathroom window as the rest of the house is full of things that "could come in handy some day"......??