What Have Achieved Before Turning 35?

• Become a medical doctor
• Received letters after my name another couple of times
• Travelled to Africa
• Travelled around Europe
• Travelled around some of SE Asia
• Lived overseas: London, Singapore, China
• Found the love of my life and gotten engaged

I still haven’t found what I want to do in life.  Still feel like a failure and that I haven’t done anything with my life.  I want to publish something (photo, written piece) so that I feel that people know I wasn’t a complete loser. I did do something.

Cool Chicks and Bin List

Cool Chicks

• Uma Thurman
• Cate Blanchett
• Pink – bush-pig, knows it and doesn’t care. 
• Gwen Stefani
• Reese Witherspoon
• Kirsten Dunst

Bin List – they induce a visceral hatred and I think, “Please just go away and die already!”

• Thandie Newton
• Halle Berry
• Penelope Cruz
• Kiera Knightly
• Jessica Alba

Being Held Back or Diverging Paths?

“I know they sometimes think that I hold you back.  You don’t think I hold you back, do you?”

I reassured Thabo that he didn’t and the decisions I make are my own.  But more and more often, it does feel that he holds me back in other ways.  It’s hard to explain; we’ve been together for almost eight years and they’ve been a great few years in terms of the relationship, and I do believe that he’s my soulmate forever.  But more often, probably over the past two years, certain aspects of our personalities have come head to head.  How we view things in life don’t always match (and I’m not talking about the usual differences and disagreements).  Certain more fundamental and basic views on – materialism, career, the value of happiness, living in the present, how much money is enough, how to express opinions to others, honesty versus rudeness, friends…the list goes on.  I get so shitty at him when he tries to correct me or aggressively express his views (it feels like being bullied).  How do I and can I resolve this?  Could I, he, or both of us changed so much in the past two years?  What does it means for “us”?

A very private thought I have which I’ve tried to avoid looking into too deeply until recently is:  is he the best person for me now?  And it’s that feeling of being suppressed (?) that makes me question this.  Maybe, I’ve been too independent in my beliefs and thoughts and find it difficult to accept an alternate view or opinion.  I don’t know.  I do know that these moments occur more frequently and piss me off more. 

Maybe it’s the real reason why marriage scares me so much even more than the stress of planning and having the limelight intentionally centred on me.   I don’t doubt that we’re going to spend the rest of our lives together but the the idea of saying, “I do,” makes me afraid that I’ll be “trapped”  into having to live with the feelings I’ve described above forever.  It’s a contradiction because either way we’re together.  I guess in my mind, marriage means I give permission and agree to having to live the rest of our lives with these differences that make me unhappy and sometimes angry. 

Our relationship looks doomed in writing.  But I usually write about things that make me unhappy.  I’m too busy living at other times.  I hope I don’t have to write about this again. 

Broken China

An earthquake, perhaps, was exactly what China needed to draw attention away from its poor human rights record and scrutiny afforded to it in the lead up to the Olympics.  My cynicism says, “Affirmative.”  No one wants to see suffering and rising death tolls but surely, hopefully, some good will come of this (not in the least, sound construction of foundations and buildings).

I do believe that terrible things on a large scale need to happen every once in a while to enable people to reprioritize what’s really important to them in life and to unite people.  Tragedy seems to be the strongest catalyst, and from it tales of the strength of the human spirit and kindness often arise.  But which would you rather be in, earthquake in China or cyclone in Myanmar?  I think I’d choose the former, where the government, at least, has responded quickly and allowed foreign aid.

Some of my extended family live in the Sichuan province.  I’m waiting to hear from Mum that they’re alright.

 

Job Wanted

My days of unemployment are, hopefully, soon over.  After spending three months doing the Tropical Medicine course (the best course I’ve done since graduating) and then the past month vegetating and socialising, I’ve come to the point where my financial status is causing me anxiety.  Yes, Thabo would support me through my $0 balance but I’m uncomfortable with financial dependency.  It was a kick in the guts when I tried to withdraw money recently and the bank teller declined my request.  For a moment I hoped it was the Bulgarian mafia who were responsible for my lack of funds…but I knew the reality.

I’ve taken the plunge and applied for a job back at St Muffs.  I visited the old clinic and colleagues and it didn’t seem so bad afterall (oh, how quickly we forget).  I think being away for a few months has sufficiently wiped my memory of the badness I felt for the place {digression:  it wasn’t until I left last year that I realized how it was making me unhappy; it felt like a sudden weight being lifted off me and I felt good again}.  I’m hoping that with the time limit placed on me by my visa, if things turn to shit, then I’ll cope because I know there’s an end.

We have embryonic plans of moving to Singapore for up to a year in 2009.  It would be a secondment for Thabo from his Golden Circle firm ie big-player clients, salary in GBP but Singapore tax rates and a good transition before we return to Australia for good.  Maybe.  I dream of having attained my specialist qualifications and either working in a private clinic there or doing charity work among commercial sex workers anywhere in South-East Asia.  How differently Thabo and I approach work – we’re almost the complete opposite to each other, but somehow, and probably the reason why, it works for us.

Peaked Too Soon

LETTER TO SHAUNY

“…Sounds like you’re slowly getting back on track. I must say it’s been a weird experience for me so far. If I had a job/routine to go back to then I’d be more adjusted. I’m not feeling unhappy, far from it, but just kind of hanging and waiting for something but not quite sure what. Trips away and catching up with friends feel like punctuation marks, if you get what I mean. I’ve had a similar feeling before. No, actually I’ve probably had this feeling on and off for most of my adult life. It’s definitely searching but not knowing what it is you’re looking for. Something’s missing (and it’s NOT a baby). Oh God! I think this is the precursor to another existential crisis!

I got a little distracted by the nothingness that was going on around me. Now I’m settled, sitting in the lounge room with the afternoon sun filtering through the windows, a slight breeze, an icy cold beer and Sigur Ros playing in the background. I thought I might as well make this a social get together even if it’s just virtual you and I alone.

Where was I up to? Pre-existential crisis. I often get the feeling that the best days of my life are already over. I think it comes from being an overachiever, having travelled quite extensively and doing some amazing things, all from an earlier age. It’s like my life was (has been) compressed in time and things that people do over decades I’ve already done during my 20s. In the past 7 years, there hasn’t really been anything going on in my life or that I’ve done that actually feels meaningful, an achievement or anywhere near exhilarating. It’s almost like my life stopped at 27 (the age I often mistakenly mentally quote when asked how old I am). I have Thabo – he’s the only really amazing thing that’s happened in the recent years. But you can’t live on another person alone.

I’ve just reread what I’ve written and it sounds rather depressing and hopeless…it is, in that I-wouldn’t-necessarily-miss-my-life-if-I-died-tomorrow, kind of way. Oh shit! That sounds even worse. It isn’t a feeling of depression, but more, resignation and until I’m able to find my passion/s, I think I might be stuck for a little while just drifting through life and wondering where I’m supposed to be. Killing time. What would ease my mind, is for some reassurance or confirmation that this will happen, and that my existence right at this moment, isn’t all there is. Music makes me happy. Sorry, it’s my mind drifting again as I listen to Sigur Ros.

I feel like a spoilt little shit that I’m not appreciating what I have. How many people are given as many opportunities as we are, good education, travel, nice places in which to stay, fantastic food…etc etc etc. You know what, Shauny, Europe really isn’t for me. {I digress from the above topic now…this is why I avoid long e-mails of free-form thought because I become schizophrenic and tangential}. I initially found travelling around Europe exciting because I’d not seen it before but I’ve sadly lost interest in it. The places I’ve most enjoyed because they impacted on me in some way are all in Africa or SE Asia. They make me feel grateful to be alive partly by allowing me to witness life in at it’s simplest, human suffering and people’s will and desire to live despite the adversity, and maintaining a certain dignity and pride. I feel touched and moved by the people. That’s not something I’ve felt since moving to London and travelling around Europe…”

Tangerine Snot

For the past three days I’ve been blowing bright yellow-orange snot associated with an allergic rhinitis like sneezing and congestion but only with my right nostril. I thought it might have been an allergic/infective sinisitis/rhinitis although the symptoms were slightly different to my usual. I have now put two and two together. I did a line of coke (with my right nostril) a couple of days prior to the stream of snot. Strange that this is the first time I’ve had this reaction. Probably tainted coke.

Oopsy La La – ‘Tis the End of Big Phil’s Reg Grundies

I’d made a prediction at an early point in the conception of my blog that some day the name would come to an end. That day is today. I just got weary of Big Phil’s Reg Grundies and have found a name more suitable to my needs. It’s rather self-explanatory. Kind of sums up my life and who I am…but in a good way…I think. The greatest dilemma was if it should be “Oopsy” or “Oopsie.”

The actual phrase was one that my gay friends and I would use back in the day when I was a fag-hag, to described anything/person/situation that was not quite right, confused, off centre, but could also be used in a complimentary manner by emphasising the “La La” in a soft seductive tone. It’ll do for now.

Smells of Home

Rain on a hot bitumen road

Frangipani

Freshly mowed lawn

Reef oil

Ocean

Playing the Race Card

God, how Moteesha shits me! I think I’m going to have to delete and block her on Facebook. I have never in my life met someone as racist as her, despite her proud Cameroonian nationality. She is quick to play the race card whenever herself or another person of colour is pulled up on. She has never explored that it could very well actually have been because of the person’s laziness, incompetence, wrong-doing or fault that they were reprimanded, singled out, not promoted etc. and whatever issue was involved, involved everything but race.

I say that she is the most racist person because she hides behind her own black skin and shouts, “Racist!” at every white or non-ethnic-minority person because “if you’re white then you must be racist”. How easy, cheap and ignorant a thing to do! She will never learn and better herself by doing that. Those for whom she defends are quite clearly deserving of reprimand or not deserving of praise. Clear to everyone except her because she can’t see past skin colour. Part of me would love to shove her race card right up her arse and tell her as it is. On the other hand, I have so many reasons why I will not:

1) I couldn’t care less about her.

2) She would think I was being racist against her anyway.

3) She probably believes that ethnic minorities can’t be racist.

4) She is too stupid to understand the irony of her accusations.