Control – now I’m all grown up

I’ve just started a great new job.

For the last two years, I held a job that was hectic, crazy and forced me to compromise my values. I think it’s the main reason I stopped blogging for so long. My mind was crowded with anxiety. I questioned my integrity, I questioned my sanity, I questioned my abilities.

Since I’ve started my new job I feel like a fog has lifted. I regained my confidence, and I’m beginning to enjoy work again.

Although my experience at my former place of employ was mostly negative, I did learn one very important thing. I learned that I can’t control everything.

Now that I’m in control of my urge to control, I feel at peace with the world.

 

Alternate reality

I’ve been awake for at least four hours now but my brain is still under the cloud of my dreams. My thoughts slip in and out of these imaginings so that I have some recollection of things that can’t be real because they are so fantastical. But they feel so tangible I have to remind myself that they are just flotsam in my brain, not an alternate reality.

 

So pretty!

I’ve just discovered wall decals. I’m hoping that they will stick to my walls because they would like so pretty in my house.

 

A gesture of affection

I am really pissed off about the Spanish Basketball players and their stupid, offensive ad.

The president of the Spanish Basketball Federation, told CNN on Thursday that people are wrong to suggest the photograph has racist overtones. “It’s simply ridiculous,” he said. “It was a gesture of affection … and identification with the Chinese people.”

I’m angry on two levels.

Firstly, I’m angry that the cultural standard in Spain is so low that this kind of advertising is acceptable. Claiming that it was a gesture of affection is ridiculous because it was obviously intended to make fun of Chinese people. I don’t think that it’s reasonable in 2008 for the Spanish team to claim that such a gesture is not offensive in their country. They cannot claim a cultural ‘Chinese Wall’ (so to speak), because we live in a global community. The fact that there are so many articles about the ad is testimony to this fact. The multitude of articles are also proof that there is an element of racism in it, because otherwise it would not be newsworthy.

However, even if I could accept that it was a gesture of affection, it is misplaced affection – like patting an intellectually disabled person on the head.

Secondly, I’m angry because the Chinese emigrant community is not.

(The people of China are apparently indifferent because they do not understand that the gesture signals a racist taunt. I’m guessing that this is because they have been culturally insulated from the delightfully offensive portrayal of Asian people in popular western culture, for example, Mickey Rooney’s Mr.Yoniosh in Breakfast at Tiffany’s.)

To me, it feels like every time Asians are attacked or slighted in a ‘western’ country, the overwhelming response is to shrug their shoulders and disregard it. I am not ashamed to say that I am angry about this ad, and I will shout it from the rooftops over and over. I have to hope that the people I am shouting at will stop and think before slagging off a person from a different cultural background.

 

I’m not pregnant

I have been not-pregnant for six months now. And here’s the kicker: I have experienced all the SYMPTOMS of being pregnant for a week at a time during each of those months. I’ve had the nausea, the hunger, the sleepiness, the bloating, and the headaches – but no baby.

All-day nausea is very interesting when combined with extreme hunger and exhaustion. And by ‘interesting’, I mean, disgusting.

The worst thing is the waiting. I have to wait forever before I know for sure that my body has failed me.

I wait, and I test. I wait, I test. I wait, and I test, sometimes testing twice a day, and then more waiting! And I get FAT! But too tired to exercise, and too hungry to stop eating.

It feels like a cruel and unusual punishment to have to be put through all of that and not hit pay dirt. I know it will all happen in good time and that when it happens I will not care about all this waiting and testing and getting fat for no good reason. But this roller coaster ride is getting really old.