Hehehe, found a nice video by Anna Akana with advice that turned out to be pretty apt when the girl stuff is replaced by boy stuff (around the same contextual axis). Definitely made my day. Oh ... and yes, I'll send back a couple of tight slaps too if I could to my ridiculously naive 16 year-old self :)
20 comments:
I think that one thing to take away from this is to be less tough on yourself and on others. We spend so much time trying to be harsh on ourselves and others, simply putting everyone through our own standards of perfection, when in reality nothing can be perfect.
hehe yup. Through my current personal crisis over the last 2-3 years, I've been getting better at telling myself "It's ok, it does not have to be perfect," or "No guilt. No guilt."
Just a clarification, I used to be an over-optimizer and a "perfectionist" to a fault. And I used to belong to the Singapore cult-of-suffering - the belief that if you do not suffer doing something, then you're not doing enough. Fuck that, I say.
It has been drummed into us that if we are not working, we are either failures or lazy. But often, it takes more than that to be unemployed. I have been doing my job searches religiously and in a diligent manner, as much as I am not aware of the consequences, and also have some fear of needing to book a ticket back to Singapore, should it not pan out within the next 3 months. Do you know that term in the USA and Canada which they use to gloss over unemployment, by calling it in an euphemistic way, 'funemployment', simply because some people use the chance to upgrade themselves, pick up a new skill, even travel or do something else either via some government aid or handout to help them, and if not, volunteering to learn something more. I was quite frank to talk about my 'unemployment' of 6 months as such: spent a family trip for about a week with sisters and their kids to South Korea, and 3 months studying and polishing my Korean and travelling around it.
yup, as far as I'm concerned I'm on a personal sabbatical with my own agenda. At any future interview, I'd focus on what I can do and how well I serve their mission.
Yes, it would be on our own terms, not what others want us to be.
A friend of mine in Calgary told me once in the middle of my multiple meltdowns back in Singapore during 2011, when I was even depressed clinically and had to undergo counseling and found a psychiatrist to help with some medication that as much as I am unaware of it, I am on the verge of a breakthrough. I think that the 'breakthrough' is often not always what we think it is or should be: for me, it did not actually just come in the form of a job in a university(although the offer from a Japanese university did help partially), but it was the understanding too that I was advancing closer to my hopes of getting out of Singapore. I do not believe all that junk people say about running away, because I chose to leave, and even if I go back, it will be on my own terms too.
Even right now, if you look at my posts which I use as a form of 'journal-keeping', I am still very unsure if Australia is the place to be. I have allowed a lot of the stress from my job-seeking to get to me, and have experienced a size-able bit of heartburn from this self-imposed stress which is not good. Although it is normal to feel anxious, my stress is way beyond normal, and waking up stressed with that sensation of heartburn is not healthy. I have to start to let go of the need for control for my own sake.
yeah, I've been doing that too but in a private physical notebook for therapy purposes. There I can rant all I want to myself.
I hope things get better for you. I've had to fight this stress myself, and it is not pleasant. Sometimes it almost seems like it is an act of insanity, since the moment I think about the stress I get stressed-up about it. Over time, I have learned to relax and let go of a lot of things. That seemed to help abit.
Part of my mind contemplated the possibility of going back to Singapore to do a CELTA course in teaching ESL, or doing some other short-term stuff, or if not, simply doing part-time teaching with Uni-SIM and so on, even if it is not long-term, because of the concerns of running out of money over here. But these are fears, and I just have to let them run through my mind first without taking action. Only if I decide that Australia is not for me after these 3 months do I then start thinking about 'alternatives'. For now, I have to focus and think about surviving here in the moment now, as much as I am jobless.
I've always found this song by Enya to have comforted me during my times of crisis, and when I find myself traveling the lonely road and feeling afraid.
"Enya - May it be"
http://youtu.be/_8u4VLk0iTI
That song is an ending theme song from the soundtrack of "The Lord of the Rings". This reminds me of a quiz which I did recently in one of my moments, asking which novel best describes my life. Incidentally, the results churned out J.R.R Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings". Considering that a large part of my life was spent fighting metaphorical Orcs, dragons, and demons, it is probably not a surprising result.
How did you handle all that stress other than keeping a journal to write about it?
Other than the journal, I'd say it helped for me to be living with my folks where I did not have to worry too much about finances, and immigration issues. So I was able to tell myself that I had some liberty of time and space to try to right my ship. Personally, my stress was greatly relieved by imposing no artificial time limits on myself. I had never dealt well with time limits - even at the best of times, it was a significant source of stress.
The journal helped a little too. I'd say its major contribution was to keep my moods from swinging like a bell every few days or weeks.
Maybe it was a placebo - I took that strategy only after watching a documentary that suggested people tended to cope better emotionally and intellectually with tasks after they were given time to write a little about how they feel before performing those tasks.
Actually, I have been talking a little with friends about this commitment to stay on for 3 months in between job-hunting. A friend said that as much as we need time to find a job, I should not blow savings all in the name of retaining residency, so she says that if I need to, I ought to look into work elsewhere out of Australia if the work in Australia does not pan out. Yes, thinking nonstop about immigration issues can be stressful as I realized. In Japan, when my mind was off immigration, mainly because Canada closed the doors to skilled immigration for a long period, I had no choice but to put that aside. Some things seem to be meant either way,and I have learned to accept that not all attempts are meant to be, because even if we get it, the next question is, what we will do next and whether it will benefit us in the long run. But yes, I think that even now, I am stressing myself too much. I wonder at times if I ought to actually take a step back from all of these, whether just to slow down here, or even just to account for a period back in Singapore at least with family and then plan the next step.
How is it now for you in this period of unemployment? I am still searching and am surviving for now, but envisage finding something to do in between such as some odd jobs and recouping all the losses of savings from Japan which can occur over these few months. By the way, I found this rather illuminating article which shatters the myth of unemployed people being entitled, fussy, lazy, having bad attitude etcetera, which will strengthen and allow you to find some degree of strength over the period: http://gawker.com/five-things-we-learned-about-unemployment-573268270 ......Also, see http://peterdurwardharris7.blogspot.com.au/2009/08/stereotypes.html
Thanks! I've been meaning to write some words of support for you on your blog. I know it has been rough, but I hope you are hanging in.
My skin's getting better ever so slowly. My plan is to let the itch fade almost completely before I do anything. I cannot really focus with that damn itch anyways, and taking my mind off difficulties is actually helpful. I found out from an old friend who is a doctor that all the creams I get for eczema are only meant to provide relief to the inflammation and that the continuing inflammation is likely caused by histamines produced by a hyperstimulated immune system. That little nugget has led me to approach my problem from a different angle - limiting the sources of physical, physiological, and emotional trauma. So far it seems to have been helping some - I am down to about 5 major patches with inflammation problems (but I'm ensuring my skin stays intact this time). Life has started getting more bearable again without having to have cream on me all over, and all the time.
Meanwhile, where jobs go I received an invite to chat about a possibility via LinkedIn, and I will get going on applying to that company I had taken an interest in after more of my physical annoyances go away.
I have been having heartburn on and off over the last few weeks. Initially, when I thought that it was going off and I was handling it better with a live-and-let-live attitude of learning to accept the consequences, I had to be agitated by housemates who barely know me and echo societal expectations that people who are jobless are professional bummers or not trying hard enough. It is not just annoying, but I turned to blasting my ears with K-pop music in my ears every dinner over yesterday and plan to do so again over the next few days to blot out the 'noise' from housemates.
Chee Wai, just a really funny joke for you: "No offence to PETA advocates and other pet lovers out there, but since I believe that pets mimic the traits of their owners, especially obnoxious ones, I think that my housemate's one dog can seriously be thrown to the dogs literally in dog soup! Hahahaha............" That was what I literally left on my facebook....and I mean every word of it. Truly Korean!
Chee Wai, I just figured out that I need another person's opinion for my academic CV which I am sending in for some positions. Right now, I cannot divulge too much beyond that one deadline is this Friday, and so, I need to have an idea of how to re-structure some bits. Can I send you the proposal today, and then hear from you within the next day or two in terms of casual feedback about the CV? One of them is a post-doc and I would like to hear from someone who has been through this before. Thanks.
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