Wednesday I test drive the car with the owner perched like a small flighty bird in the passenger seat. I spend the entire drive feeling like I’m talking her down from a tall building. She spends the entire drive clinging to the door brace and nervously twitching as I drive 10 below the speed limit. Despite this, I love the car.

Thursday I daydream about doing groceries without taxis, and budget like I have never budgeted before.

Friday I make an appointment with my personal banker. He raises his eyebrows at the A3 foldable, referenced, and forecasting budget I lay out in front of him, along with insurance quotes, loan repayment plans and milage data. 

He trips over his tounge trying not to sound judgemental about my ‘organisation issues’. Little does he know this is the most organised I’ve been in my life when it comes to finance. Usually I reach mid-week wondering if I should spend my last 4.98 on bus fares, dried pasta, or a big bag of maltesers. Maltesers nearly always win.

Saturday I volenteer with animals, and imagine a large boxer-mastif cross hanging his head out of an imaginary back window. I buy an AA membership, and book a pre-purchase inspection.

Sunday I sign into my bank account and marvel at the money sitting there. Then I bury my goldfish. Jean-Paul is no more.

Monday I chew my way through a pack of tic-tacs, and imagine being able to drive myself… Well anywhere, really…

Tomorrow I could be the new owner of personal transportation.

I’m swapping rooms with Jasmyne this weekend. Hers is smaller, and darker, but it has a bigger wardrobe, and I’ll be able to save myself a little cash, which will be nice. I was a little unsure about making the shift – I mean I was the one who brought it up, but I didn’t really think it through… Do you ever have those moments? Where your mouth opens, and words come out and your brain sits back and says ‘really? we’re doing what now?!’

I do.

This was one of them. So we were sitting in the lounge one night and I offered to switch rooms. She thought about it for a few weeks and agreed, because, well, not to brag, but I have the nicest room in the house. It’s lovely.

I could have easily backed out of the deal, but I didn’t because to be honest I’m bored. I hate being bored. It was either swap rooms, or move out, and I love this flat, and I love the people in it, so swap rooms it was. Besides WARDROBE SPACE. I hated not having a proper sized wardrobe.

In other news, I’m still looking at cars, and am taking one for a test drive tomorrow night. (It’s blue flavour.) I’m also taking driving lessons. My instructor is nice, and his car is a dump. I’m booking my driving test tonight I think. I was going to wait, but I don’t see the point. I need my licence, and I need it ASAP. Work insists. they hired me on the condition that I’d get it, and I’m coming through, because not being able to drive the work cars sucks.

Also I don’t like the idea that they could be disappointed they chose me. I mean, it’s an exciting thing I’m working on, and there haven’t been any indications that I’m leaving them wanting… but all the same, it’s a fixed term contract, and I would like to be invited back. So? LICENCE!!

In other news, the other day I dragged out my old Graphic Design and photography portfolio the other day, because I was thinking about throwing it out… My flatties had a good long look at it, and then threatened to beat me over the head with large sticks if I did anything of the sort… In fact. Well they took it a step further, and becks sat me down and insisted that I submit my children’s book to a publisher. I think her exact words were “I don’t care if you don’t do it, because I’m going to do it for you anyway.”

So it looks like I’m submitting the children’s book that I wrote and illustrated a few years ago to a bunch of publishers this weekend! I’m also going to submit the calender that I designed and illustrated. Everyone seems to think it’s hilarious, and more to the point, I think it’s AWESOME.

I’m actually really excited about it. I’ve always wanted to do this, but the fear of failure always held me back. I mean, imagine how awful it would be to try something and have people know that you wanted it, but failed? I think this is what holds me back in a lot of things. It’s why I don’t have my full licence yet. It’s why I’m still procrastinating on my last year of university. It’s why I never even looked at jobs as a Graphic Designer.

I think this should be the year of feeling the fear, and doing it anyway.

I’ve already made a start by joining an intimidating new gym. I’ve also invested money in a drawing tablet for my computer, so that I can re-illustrate my book (naturally I did not keep my electronic files. That would have been far too easy.)

My tablet arrived this morning, in this huge box, and I totally did a half-run-walk through work so that I could get to my desk and rip it open… and it’s gorgeous!! And tax deductible! (Which I am currently learning a lot about. Hello small business!)

Someone told me something that  I completely and utterly disagreed with over christmas… But I still managed to take something away from the conversation (despite being pretty damn angry, and argumentative at the time.) They said that I should get myself off medication as soon as possible. They informed me (with all the wisdom of a… well NOT a doctor. Or a mental health specialist) that I need to find other ways to manage depression without relying on medication. I still completely, and utterly disagree with the sentiment, because: I’M NOT READY. But there is one piece of truth in there that I wanted to make sure I considered properly – finding new ways to pull myself out of the ditch, and fill my life with richness. 

I mean depression is what it is. Some days I will feel shit. Some days I will not even have enough energy to drag myself from my bed to the fridge and back. But there are things I can be doing to open myself up more. I can be challenging myself more. I can be putting myself in new situations. I can be trying new forms of exercise, I can be doing things I love, just for the sake of doing them, and putting them out into the universe… So wish me luck!

I’ve been pretty low energy lately, and have been keeping to myself, but I’m still making what seems like a monumental effort to get out to the animal shelter here. Mostly because it makes me feel damn good.

Anyway this Friday I get a last minute call asking me to come in early in the morning. Doing a bit of mental eye rolling (because I HATE late notice. It’s tacky) I agreed.

Anyway I show up, and spend a few hours having to listen to the receptionists bitch about how useless all the volunteers are, and how it’s a shitty system that they have put in for my particular type of volunteer. On top of that not one of them bothered to learn my name. (That annoys me too. I think it’s bad manners to expect someone to work for you without even learning their name.)

So about half an hour after my shift ends I stop off, and give them a quick update, and all of a sudden one of the receptionists got really nasty asking why I hadn’t done something I didn’t actually know was expected of me. I explained the lack of knowledge issue, and instead of accepting it and moving on she starts telling me about how this should have been explained to me by my ‘supervisor’ who I’ve never met seen, or hear from before.

So I have to explain that, and this lady just gets angrier and angrier and starts asking why I’m leaving before a replacement has arrived…

Ugh.

So I looked her in the eye and told her that I was sorry. But I had somewhere to be, and my shift ended twenty minutes ago.

I’m pretty sure she was just taking her frustration on a badly organised system out on me, but the whole way home I stewed and though up nasty responses to her, and planned a complaints letter (that I never sent, because it’s actually not a biggie.) Still. Gah. And this isn’t even the first time the people there have made me feel completely unwelcome. Generally speaking, the paid staff there seem to treat their volunteers pretty badly! And for an organisation that runs through so many volunteer staff  in a year, you’d think they’d have better volunteer organisation processes.

Oh well. I’m not even angry any more, because I just remembered the baby gull that pooped on my hand when I accidentally scared it. (I got to feed him catfood from a teaspoon! And there was a skinny and thirsty kitty that desperately wanted to sit on me the whole time he was in my consult room. He’d just been rescued after a week on his own in  an abandoned house. I think he wanted to make sure I didn’t leave.

Love the animals, but the people could use some work.

Another issue is that they’re manual. I haven’t driven a manual since I was 15 and my driving instructor took me (screaming) at 40km/h down a 100km/h road full of farmers with rage issues.

I seemed to be picking it up ok today. I only formed a couple of granny queues, and managed to get through my first intersection without a single bunnyhop!! That’s a first! Now I have to learn how to drive it on farmland. Oh. And start on a hill… Because that’s freaking HARD. I know because some of those bunnyhoppy granny queued stally intersections were on slight slopes. 

Oh well. It’s not like farmland is going to be hilly, right? Right?! 

I made an elaborate delicious dinner, hung out with animals and gifted myself a few things that I really really wanted (chief among them was a set of GHD’s.)

I also had another one of those moments where all the tension drains out of your body, and you realise that actually? You REALLY REALLY needed some time alone. I’ve been finding it really hard lately to stay mentally present when I’m hanging out with friends. I find myself getting disconnected and then I’ll abruptly realise I’ve done nothing but sit and spend time in my head when I’m supposed to be spending time with mates.

It’s frustrating.

And it makes conversation difficult.

Anyway, so Christmas was a bit of time out for me from that. for the rest of my brief holiday I did a bit of trekking around, and traveled on a bus like no other.  Someone had vomited on one of the seats so it stank for a start. Also my seatback was broken, so I couldn’t lean on it because it would fall off. And the best bit was that every time the bus reached 100km/h and hit a bump, the door would fly open. The scary bit was that the driver seemed unconcerned about all of it. I mean, dude, this is not a third world country. It is not normal to be speeding along the highway with passengers leaning out the door trying to yank it shut.

So what did you do for Christmas?

2. Prod hesitantly at the mass of twisted cables under your desk, ok you’re not an IT person, but surely you can figure this out on your own… Right?

3. Remove a few of the more disturbing postcards from your new pod – Mostly because you’ve just noticed that no one else has personal stuff, and you have arty pictures of monsters, crows, and zombies.

4. Read your work health and wellness policy.

5. Ok. Only half of it.

6. Or just the first page and a half.

7. Put up the rest of your postcards – EVEN the slightly weird ones - because SO WHAT that no one else has colourful stuff. I hate grey walls.

8. Try to find the stationary supply and print stations. Apparantly there are 9 stations in the building. I’ve only found three.

9. Wonder where the rest of your team is. Surely you’re not the only person who showed up today?

10. Remember that they’re off doing a turbine climb.

11. Try to find the meeting room with the best view of the water front.

12. Appologise for barging into that guys vidcon. He looked kind of important, but I’m sure he’s not… CEO’s don’t forget to wear a tie to work… Right?

13. Learn the name of the nice lady who says good morning to you, and gives you chocolate sometimes.

14. Figure out where the locker room and showers are that everyone talks about.

15. Give up on finding anything, and instead work on figuring out where you are right now, and what direction your desk is in.

16. Admit you’re lost and ask for directions.

17. Print off a building map.

18. Call IT again and beg for help.