Thus ended unemployment

I’m sending February off with a bang! My month as unemployed is over. Uncertainty is no more.

On the 8th of March my next adventure starts. I have a job!

But first, I get a week of resting and doing nothing at all. I honestly think it’s good just to get to recover from the stress of ambiguity.

Even the interview process applies unpleasant amounts of pressure. Being judged and measured and questioned; no thank you!

For now I’m just going to put my feet up and relax.

Where's my head at?

Really! I don't know what I was thinking. Yesterday evening I departed into the London drizzle WITHOUT an umbrella. And I ask myself: Have I learnt nothing from 3 years in London??
An umbrella is the compulsory accessory.

So I arrived dripping and damp. Spent six hours babysitting with a third of my jeans wet (the part which wasn't covered by my coat or boots obviously). In Swedish you would say: som man bäddar får man ligga: the way you make your bed is the way you have to lie in it. Stupid negligence! Never again!

Rejection with a side of regret

NO. Such a minuscule word, such rigorous emotion.
Most of us fear it; rejection;
Will I get the job?
Will he call?
Will he stay?
Simply: Do I get what I want?

Rejection very seldom comes alone. It seems to always be accompanied by a side dish or a sugary coating, all to make it easier for us to swallow and digest this hard lump of a word.

Sometimes rejection comes with regret. ‘You seem very competent, but other people are more qualified, you lack certain experience. I am sorry, You don’t get the job’. Fair enough. I can take that, it’s a valid comment, and actually it does not reject me as a person but rather points to the holes in my professional agenda. I am aware. I can accept. Swallow and digest.

At other times regret comes with obligation. ‘I can’t come tonight I promised my mother I would eat with her this evening’ or ‘I promised my boss I would stay until six today so I can’t make it to yoga-class’. Ok, obligations, they make it all a bit rougher to take in. After all, what about your obligation to me? Why am I not being prioritized? Do I not mean as much? They take just a bit longer. But we can manage, when we manage to understand the nature of this urgent obligation. Afer all...it happens to most of us.

This is when sugar coating, a rejection with icing, is imperative. Just a spoon full of sugar helps the medicine go down! And so it goes; with ‘I’m sorry’, ‘I’ll make it up to you’, ‘I know we decided…please don’t be sad’. Even the ‘It was a pleasure to meet you’, ‘we were very impressed’ or ‘we will keep your CV on for the future’, helps, irrespective of whether it is true or not.

Rejection with icing is, in the end, not only a way for the person rejecting to soften the fact that they are saying no, but also a way to show that you have taken into consideration the feelings of their fellow person ad show some measure of Regret. Perceived consideration can work miracles (genuine consideration works even better), really! And regret will probably work even better!

But what about when there is no plea or reference to your emotion? What about when there is no logic, regret or obligation? When there is no remorse or empathy? What do you do then? How do you defend yourself against it?

Raw rejection, a NO with no coatings or sides, gives you nothing to hold on to make you feel better, nothing to help you digest and move on. When you see neither remorse nor consideration can you forgive? Can you actually accept rejection without regret?

I know I can’t. I take my rejection with a side of regret.

Quality and convention

Applications…don’t even get me started.

For one of my applications I had to write a 150 word essay on what I did to maintain the quality of my output. It made me formulate two sentences essential to my concept of excellence;

Quality is a process, not an instantaneous occurrence.

A great result is most often the result of time, perseverance and continuous alterations and improvements. Don’t get me wrong, I would love to have a strike of genius without any kind of premeditation. But most good ideas require thought, research and dialogue. Most good ideas require internal; self criticism and external; feedback and input.

Never sacrifice quality for conventionality.

No, conventional and qualitative are not mutually exclusive; some ‘products’ even become qualitative because they fit certain standards. However, when the choice stands between mainstream and magnificent, it is not a hard one to make. I’m not saying bend the rules or not even wiggle the framework. Just that only doing what you are supposed to do is often less than all that you can do.

I might not be a creative whiz, and I might even like to play it safe, but sometimes when I can present regular with a twist, routine and convention seem all that less interesting.

The essay landed on exactly 150 words, making use of every opportunity I was given to shed light on myself…it’s tough to know quality when you don’t know convention…cross your fingers x

Let the wild rumpus begin?

People seem to think that now that I am graduated, life should be all candy and pink roses. But the reality of it is slightly different, while some exclaim freedom, relief and new starts, I feel like Max, going where the wild things are.

There are no more scheduled vacations, classes, exams or grades. I’m setting into a forest of unknown; future employers, council tax, 9-6 work, professional development, so much potential. Yet, I am the first to admit, it is a bit like facing up to the monsters, getting to know them, and conquering them if you will.

Max was right to stare his monsters steadily in the eye, if nothing else, then to overcome his own alarm. Small and new does not necessarily mean inferior. However it might just mean you have to work a little harder.

Wild rumpus? Sure, I will admit to some emotional commotion. Going out to be measured and weighted by a whole new set of criteria. Who wouldn’t feel overwhelmed?

Now this might all seem like a campaign of self conviction, but the truth of the matter is advancement and alterations are great gifts. Newness always carries with it the ambivalence of fear and excitement. Where would we be without the occasional fuss and fizzy? Isn’t it just the prize we pay to be going somewhere?

And if I am presented the chance to grow a little bit wiser and a little bit stronger. Who am I to shy away? I say: let the wild rumpus begin!

Paris je t'aime??

I used to be sold on Paris; Fan, Super-Fan, Fanatic. Used to. This weekend I had a long awaited reunion with my beloved city. But for some reason it wasn’t as I thought it would be. Walking across a rainy Paris I felt like a stranger, and although the views continually swept me off my feet (as they always do), I was reminded, again and again, of why Paris is not a city where I want to live anymore.

Listing the things that I love….would take a long time; the smell of a bakery, the slow pace of a Saturday…the even slower pace of a Sunday, the space to live, the time to enjoy, the creative liberty, the appreciation of good things; beauty, food, art; love of that which embellishes life, the quality, the thoroughness, the choice (especially in the market and supermarket), the pride, the splendor…all the splendor…and still…I was confounded.

Maybe it was the lack of habit, the loss of edge that only a few months in Paris give you, but I was shaken by the arrogance and the sense of not belonging. I certainly hadn’t missed being walked into 1000 times on a crowded street without as much as a pardon. There I was, in the stronghold of politesse, yet it was nowhere to be seen?

Maybe it was the rain, that swallowed the pace and the brilliance and beauty which otherwise stings my eyes.

Maybe it was the short moment that didn’t allow me to digest and profit.

Maybe, maybe, maybe…I just felt that Paris was a chapter passed…but an eternal love. When we landed back in London it was neither melancholy nor relief, just…acceptance, just normal.

Paris je ne t’aime plus, mais je t’aimerai toujours

Rather sleepless in Seattle than heatless in London?

Autumn has come to London. All of a sudden sticky grey has been replaced by biting blue. I am trying to convince myself that the fact that the sun is actually making an appearance every second day, makes up for the 7 degree loss in temperature. And I would have been successful should my apartment not have been as cold as the outside.

Resentment is the word. Who ever came up with this ridiculous boiler-system? And where in the world did anyone get the idea that single windows have an isolating effect? As you might have guessed, my boiler doesn’t work, and I wake up every morning with excessive amounts of mist on my window (it is called excessive when you can’t see the colour of the sky). I can’t even begin to tell you the pleasure of getting out of bed and stepping into Siberia…or Antarctica, whichever is colder.

After having spent the entire weekend closed in my room with schoolwork, I have completely exhausted all my ideas of how to heat myself up; candles, tea, double layered clothes, woollen throws, hot showers…and still…cold toes.

I keep trying to tell myself that this is yet another one of life’s ways of making me appreciate the simple luxuries that I have come to take for granted…but a little heating isn’t too much to ask, is it?