Friday 6 April 2001

Today is my last Friday at the Abattoir. I leave next Thursday (Friday being Good Friday and a public and university holiday) and I cannot begin to express how happy this makes me. To walk out of here for good and wipe out the last three years of blood sweat and tears. To be a lady of leisure and really unwind before Sam gets here, maybe start work on a couple of projects I’ve been putting off for ages. Time enough to start thinking about a new job after the May holiday. I can always do temp work anyway, so I won’t starve. Its all good stuff and I am totally ignoring that annoying little voice in my head that is trying to make me all nervous with "but what ifs-" and "how will yous-". I will. And that’s all there is.

I had a meeting with the Human Remains representative on Wednesday to further discuss those initial figures, and work out departure dates etc. I had spotted a bit of a discrepancy, to do with leave and leave loading, and the rep. said she’d check it out and make whatever minor changes needed doing. Minor changes that came to an additional $5K. Woo. And hoo, too.

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So, what to do with my time? Well the one thing I’d love to do is knock off my Masters dissertation for once and for all. This has been a real pain in the posterior for the last few years. I commenced the MA (in Science and Technology Policy) by Dissertation and Coursework back in, oh god, 1996. Jaysis, that long? Sheesh. Anyway I got through the coursework component in two years part time (v good) but then got stuck at the dissertation stage. I started the degree while I was still working in the Office of the Premier as a Policy Officer (and hence the decision to do a policy/public admin. degree), but at the end of the first year I started work at CSIRO. I finished the coursework component with a HD (High Distinction) average (v v good), and was planning my dissertation around oceans policy or sustainable development.

Then, my luck being what it is, The lab was restructured and reduced by the PTBs over east, and after almost a whole year of angst about future developments of the lab, I was made redundant. And I did not take it well. I wasn’t happy to walk out of there; in fact I was totally wrecked by the experience and mourned for months. I mourned the almost perfect job there, the great, good, fun people, the potential and opportunities. I especially mourned the fact that I would have to abandon the dissertation topic, as it was really pretty crucial that I be involved in the marine environment scene at the time of writing. Plus I was so burned, and so bummed that I could not have given a tinier, dryer, littler little shit about the whole thing.

So then I took the first job going at the Institution, and then got buried in boring mind-numbing tedium and thintelligent (tm Sam) surroundings, where initiative and brains were not appreciated. When I transferred to the Abattoir in 1998 I thought things would change, be different, that brains and potential would be valued. Ah me, poor dumb naïve Grasshopper.

So anyway - now I am free of all that, and can focus on projects and developments for me. A Mere Bagatelle is one of those things. Sam is another. And finishing my goddamn degree is a third. I’ve been thinking a lot about the dissertation topic, and think I’ve found one that will be both relevant to where I want to go, useful, and interesting. I bounced the idea off the IT Lecturer here at the Abattoir and he was very interested, both in the concept and in being involved. So there’s really a hell of a lot to get buzzed about. About bloody time, too.

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The only blip on the Buzz Factor Screen at the moment is that I’m in horrible pain once again. I woke up this morning with all my back, neck and shoulder muscles in intense freaking spasm and I am really really really hurting owwww. And may I also say, "BUGGER". Okay, so I knew the whole pain-free thing wouldn’t last, but I was enjoying the novelty very much indeed. I took a couple of codeine early on but they didn’t make the slightest dent, and I was reluctant to take any more at the risk of total zombification. What I really wanted was to go home, wrap up in bed with heatpacks and Beanie Buddies and some valium, but the flak I’d get from the darlings at the Abattoir just wasn’t worth it. I don’t know how I got through the day to be honest … or how I managed to stagger home.

The extended break from being in severe chronic pain, and not having to take heavy duty narcotics, has been pretty revealing though. Pain at that level really does screw with one’s personality and responses, and it has been a valuable lesson to see how/what I’m like when it is absent. I operate so much better, my mind is clearer, I have energy to burn, I take setbacks and stresses in my stride, and I am far more sane and fun to be around. I guess it could be considered distressing to know that I am so affected and constrained by a condition beyond my control, but to be honest I actually find it most interesting, and cheering, to know what my ‘default’ personality is like.

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