expiredsanity

There was a lot I wrote last year that I was unable to publish, as my webhosts seemed to ban my ip address from their sites, which included my own! Now that it seems to be resolved, I suppose this is a good time to start afresh.

So where am I?

I currently have a life which I cannot fit into the hours in a day. Everything is always a trade-off; something is always being sacrificed.

Working long hours is not a new thing for me, but what has changed is that I now have other things in my life, too. I want to go to the gym every day (but only get to go about two times per week at the moment), play football and tennis several times per week (which I never get to do at all now), and it would be nice if seeing my boyfriend in the evenings consisted of more than lying lifelessly on his bed. Sometimes I even dread going to see him (although I am always glad once I get there), because it feels like yet another obligation I don’t have time for; I know that by the time I come home, it will be midnight and I will be straight into bed, and that’ll be it – another day over, another day lost.

I don’t know how to fix it right now. We were supposed to be implementing a shift system at work this week, which would have been a start. It would have given me two ‘gym days’ as I would either be starting really early and finishing early (6am – 4pm), or starting late and finishing late (10am – 8pm), giving me time in either the morning or evening to go to the gym. More importantly, it would give me a definite finishing time around which I could plan my life. But, of course, that was all called off today as we’re apparently too short-staffed to make it work this week. That, combined with working 7.30am – 8.15pm with no toilet break let alone lunch break, is pretty demoralising.

I wrote this on September the 26th, but lost access to my journal until now, so here it is!

Wow! I just enjoyed my first night out, ever.

I don’t know if it’s me that’s changed, or it’s the people I was with, but for the first time ever at a designated ’social,’ I wasn’t standing awkwardly in the corner wondering how I could most diplomatically make my very premature exit.

Sure, I’m not a big talker by nature, but I listened in and laughed along to most people’s conversations. A lady I’d never met before, Deb, made a particular effort to talk to me, which was great. She told me lots of stories, and shared her theories on life with me!

I also love the way when we’re all together, we’re a group, and everyone looks out for each other. A random, drunk lady was talking to me for ages, and Catherine must have noticed from across the bar, so she came up and put her arm around me and excused me from the situation. Even from day one, the first day I showed up for training with them, when we went to the bar afterwards and a man wouldn’t stop chatting to me, so she substituted herself in my place to get me out of it.

In my old football club, I kind of felt a bit outcasted. Everyone was very nice, but it was quite clear that if you were a lesbian, you were instantly taken ‘under their wing’ and given extra opportunities to be included in the club. In fact, one girl who joined the same time as me, and was always straight, conveniently converted to lesbianism just before her final year, just in time for the club captain elections – which she and her girlfriend subsequently jointly won.

While I can’t say sexuality is a complete non-issue with my new football team, I certainly don’t feel excluded to anywhere near the same degree. Things will come up – for example, when five of us were waiting for a cab, a naked man drew the curtains in his window. We’d been waiting so long and were getting bored, so Catherine suggested knocking on his door and asking him to do it again, for our entertainment. Deb pointed out “… but we’re all lesbians!”, followed by an awkward silence before somebody chipped in, “well, we’re not ALL lesbians.” Deb then apologised to me and said “I assume that comment was directed towards you,” and I agreed “I assume so, yes.” What exactly marks me out as a non-lesbian, I’m not entirely sure, and sometimes I wish they would just think I was a lesbian so no one had to feel awkward.

Another example was when Tash was rather tipsy, and she began berating her old team for making fun of her for being a lesbian (they were all straight, apparently). She said she found a group of straight girls to be really nasty, and loved hanging out with groups like ours, who were so much friendlier. I could see a few people around her felt a little awkward, trying to get her to stop, or making weak attempts to argue in the defence of straight people, possibly for my benefit. But I don’t have any loyalty to straight women! And I certainly don’t take anything said against them, personally! It’s just such a shame that there’s something about the way I look or act that screams “I’M STRAIGHT,” and this even has to be an issue at all.

So anyway, we started the night off at a czech bar and restaurant. I foolishly bought a round of beers for the five of us who wanted one, without thinking about the consequences (… if you buy five people a beer, then five people are going to buy you a beer back!). When most people had arrived (half the people were an hour late for some reason), we finally ordered. I’d not gone with any high expectations for the food, and luckily filled myself up on soup before I left my house, because it was definitely nothing special. I had a chicken breast with four boiled potatoes, and that’s literally what it was. There was no special sauce of any kind (except the melted pool of butter at the bottom of the plate). Most of the girls are vegetarians, so all seemed to get some kind of cheese-dominated meal, including entire slabs of cheese battered and fried.

There are few examples in life where I can say I’ve actually seen proof that the the idea that doing good, or being kind, really results in any benefit to you. But when it comes to just being friendly to genuine people, I’ve noticed it always does pay off.

Action: Talk to and make a cup of tea and buscuits for the night porters at the hospital I worked in.
Unintended result: Could leave roughly 45 minutes early from work every night, with them as the only witness. Of course, they never told

Action: Talk to the drivers and car maintenance people at the car hire company I worked for.
Result: Hardly ever had to clean a car myself – they’d always do it for me!

Action: Befriending the warehouse workers at the last company I worked for.
Result: Anything I needed done with equipment, they’d go the extra mile for me.

Action: Be friendly to the person I’m ordering lunch from every day. They’re human beings too!
Result: Frequently received free drinks, compliance with my fussiness (”I know it takes you ten minutes to make from scratch but can you do this without mayonnaise?”)

Action: Smile and talk to the guy washing cars outside the gym every day.
Result: Free car washes!

… This all hit me the other day, after my free car wash at the gym. I realised that nobody else is getting free car washes. Because nobody else is stopping to talk to the guy washing cars. Apparently nobody else is interested in learning that he is from Ghana, that he is over here with his wife and that his 15 year old only child has not been granted a visa to come too. All you have to do is smile. I’m not an outgoing person, I don’t go up to somebody and start talking to them, but if you smile at somebody every time you walk past, say “good morning,” they’ll notice, and one day they’ll say “excuse me – what’s your name?”, and you’ll have a new friend!

I never ignore or look down upon anybody doing a job, because they’re working far harder than many people I know. I think it runs in the family, because I remember a story my mother told me about my grandfather. He worked as a schoolteacher in Borneo, which was under British influence and highly class-conscious. Most people wouldn’t even dream of making eye contact with, let alone talking to, the guy who operated the school gates. But every time my grandfather went to work, he would say hello to the man whose job it was to lift the gates for the cars.

Then the communist takeover happened. All the British were kicked out, all the teachers lost their jobs. But my grandfather didn’t. The guy he’d been saying hello to every day was a communist sleeper agent, and he made sure that my grandfather kept his job, his house, his car, his life.

A smile always pays off. It’s the only thing in life that does.