A job!

A JOB!

WOOOOOOO EMPLOYMENT!

Ahem.

Now that's out the way, I'm sure you can guess that I am employed. Yup. Me. Full time job and everything as a bookseller at the big W. It's hectic and I'm usually exhausted by the end of the day, but I love it. Genuinely, it's everything that I thought it'd be, and more. I love the way that the company's run, and my new co-workers (colleagues? fellow book-people?) are incredibly kind and patient. God knows I've needed that. I didn't think it was possible to be clumsier than I am, but it turns out I was wrong.

So very, very wrong.

A lot of the fears and questions I've expressed over the past year or so have largely been assuaged, though the job's come with new and surprising ones. Like:

Have I peaked in life? Is this it?

and:

How crap am I at this job? Why can't I find anything? Why don't I know anything?

and on a less fearsome note:

When's lunch?

On the writing side of things, I've been... well, absent. Again. Part of it has been the sheer exhaustion of this job; bookselling is hard. It's insane how much you move, and how emotionally and mentally there you have to be, if that makes sense.

But I'm two and a half months in, and that excuse is wearing thin. All of my other hobbies are getting some well-deserved attention. I'm getting better at piano, and I got new brushes the other day (!) and gouache (!!!) paints, which I have no idea how to use. I've even pulled out the good old embroidery and made some work on it.

On the one hand, it's been wonderful to have both the time and funds to use on things like sheet music and new paint. All without the guilt of "but I should be learning", by which I mean, the academic pressures are no longer there. I don't care if I spend three hours a day painting or learning music BECAUSE I CAN DO IT YEAHHH.

And then again, on the other hand, I'm not really using that time to write, though I certainly continue to think about it all day. TA is at a snail's pace, and though I'm writing the ending (!) there are still large chunks in the middle that have yet to materialise as words. It's moving, though. I've sketched out the overall plot, including all those pesky middle bits, and I've certainly written some of them down somewhere.

Plus, you know, NaNoWriMo and Inktober are coming, and I plan to be present and active for both. So to the stars I go!

More snow and terror

I am sick. With mono. Ugh.

I was feeling really tired during the first couple of weeks back at Trinity in an unusual, past-the-jetlag kind of way, even though I was getting nine hours of sleep, so I went to the health centre. A blood test and week later, I got a call from one of the nurses. Yes, it's mono. Quit your physical classes, and sleep lots. No alcohol for four weeks.

Le sigh.

Of course this is all past the add/drop period, so this past week has been a medley of emails to all my professors, a meeting with the Dean of Students, and trying to withdraw from ice skating. But it's done, and I'm more or less sorted. This could also be way, way worse. My roommate got mono last year and at one point she had to go to hospital to have throat abscesses drained, which sounds not at all fun.

Anyway. We've still got a ton of snow - in fact, we're due some more tomorrow! And Wednesday! It's really pretty from the inside, and every weekend feels like a special snow day, which helps to keep me productive.

On the terror front, I'm still working out what I want to do and where I want to live, as well as figuring out who will actually employ me. I wish I had some hardcore advice about what to do (art school? France? Publishing?), but I guess I'm more or less on my own for this one. Trying very hard not to think about that.

On a slightly cheerier note, I'm still working on TA, and I'm on track for my first draft deadline. It's been tricky trying to balance it with all of my other work, but I think I'm getting the hang of it.