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2007-09-04 - 8:36 p.m.

Let's start with my usual rundown of the last cycle and see if I end up going anywhere else...

I worked my usual mornings Mon 27/8- Wed 29/8, the first with my new team. Well, there's 2 "new" people on my team (both of whom worked with me last year) and 2 who were already there. I went for a run with Nathan after work on Tuesday (and we went again on Saturday- so we're getting back into the swing of it), and on Wednesday went to trivia with the usual trivia gang. Thursday was a normal afternoon shift, with the exception that I finished at 10pm because I was starting at 8am the next morning for a training course. This meant that I finished at 5pm on Friday and was able to go to dinner in Leichardt with Tara, Jules and Dan. Jules put the seed into my head to drop by the Townie afterwards (she was giving me a lift home and offered to drop me there), but there was nobody there (Meegs was already in her pyjamas at home, I didn't want to hassle Mark and Phoebe 2 weeks in a row in case they got sick of me and I figure I should give Lucy at least a week off before I take her out and ply her with alcohol again, although she said she may have considered heading up there). It's these sort of situations I think where I really feel the long distance thing. If I'd been at dinner with Tara, Jules, Dan and Jo, it's unlikely that we would have even bothered going to the Townie, and if we had I wouldn't have felt nearly as tragic if Jo and I had a drink there and then went home. I guess that was the thing at the back of my mind when I was questioning the sensibility of going out by myself until 8am the other week as well, when everybody else went home- it's not like I wasted any more of the next day than if I had gone to bed at 4am, but it just highlighted the difference between staying out until daylight talking to strangers and going home earlier and curling up in bed with your girlfriend.

So anyway, even though I should have just taken the lift home, it was no big loss. And having not seen anyone I knew at the Townie, I was in much better shape to go for a run the next morning before work. Nathan and I also had some Pho after we finished our run. Then after my final night shift, I had drinks after work at the Townie with Kellee, Vanessa and Samantha (all part of my modified team, which was a good way to end our first cycle working together). Given that I finished work at midnight, it was still after 4am when I went to sleep even though I'd consider it a fairly moderate night.

So Sunday I slept in as I often do on my first day off, watched some Seinfeld on TV as I have been doing a lot lately, took the bus up to Newtown to get my car (I got a lift home with Sam the night before), got some Oporto's for lunch and did some shopping in order to help cook dinner at my parents' house for Fathers' Day. Oh yeah, it was before my first afternoon shift that I went up to Newtown to buy a Father' Day present- I settled on an interesting sounding book. So altogether I had a pretty productive afternoon, and I was at my parents' place by about 4.30pm. I came prepared to stay over, even though my original plan was to drive home (I figured everyone else had to work the next day, but as it was for whatever reason only my Mum had to get up for work the next morning). So my sister and I made dinner (and I made a Tiramisu Ice Cream cake) and we sat around eating and drinking and talking loudly as my family generally does, and I stayed on the couch downstairs.

As I figured, after getting up before 9am due to other people being up, watching a bit of TV and driving home, I was probably still back at my place before I would have woken up had I gone home the night before. I did some housecleaning yesterday, watched more Seinfeld, wrote in my pen-and-paper diary and bought some groceries for dinner that night, and went to bed reasonably early for a night when I didn't have work the next morning (probably making up for the lack of good sleep the previous two nights). This morning I got up around 11am, and pretty much mirrored the day before (except for the housecleaning, and the pen-and-paper diary writing, and by "mirrored" it's not like I made dinner, then did some grocery shopping, then watched Seinfeld, but those three items pretty much describe my day). And now I'm tossing up going to bed in preparation for a 6am start, or a couple more Seinfelds. I'm leaning towards the latter...

The other big news (I don't think I've mentioned it in here yet) is that my boss is leaving- moving to a similar job in Wales (!) and I'm pretty much the leading candidate to replace him. Initially there will be no interview process, and an acting will be announced (quite possibly as early as tomorrow). My boss has flat out told me he's recommending me, but I don't want to get ahead of myself seeing as he's not actually the one making the decision, but what does a higher manager have to go on but the recommendation of the direct supervisor (I've got a pretty good rapport with the manager making the decision as well, but again, don't want to get ahead of myself, just starting to get very anxious for this appointment to be made).

Getting the acting role would mean losing a substantial shift allowance, and at worst getting no increase in my base pay since I'm only acting (at best getting some sort of "higher duties" while I'm acting in the role) but it's a no-brainer in terms of accepting it if I'm offered it- a chance to "try before I buy", a chance to put myself in pole position when it comes time to select a permanent replacement (and a chance to use a lot of cliches while writing about it in here), and invaluable experience. I guess it puts the final nail in the coffin (see- I told you about the cliches) in terms of moving to and working in the US, and I feel like I haven't kept my end of the bargain with Jo in terms of her moving there and me joining her, but at the same time I've got to do what's right for my career as well, and I'm not going to pretend that what I really want right now is Jo back here in our apartment as we start to plan the next few years of our life. But I don't expect her to drop everything on March 1st, 2008 (when she's been there 2 years)- she will most likely be getting a promotion right around then, and it makes sense to actually get some experience in that position to go with the title on her resume.

The other thing is that the role that I may well be stepping into could be the springboard that I didn't have these last 2 years in terms of finding a decent job overseas. It's not really at the front of my mind right now, but if there is an opportunity to work overseas in say 5 years time, I think I'll be a lot more open to it than I thought I would be at that stage of my life because of the fact that I didn't manage it this time around.

There's probably more I could write about all this but it would more than likely be going around in circles, the way all these thoughts are in my brain at the moment. And the more I talk/write about it the worse I'll feel if for some reason I don't get this appointment. You can't take anything for granted...

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