hell is endlessly addressing the criteria

I have been freezing my fingers off typing away at my glass and chilly desk these past few weeks. And what project am I working on, I hear you ask. Is it, a really juicy interesting blog post? Is it scrappy but endearing zine text? Is it a letter to one of many family members who could probably do with a thoughtful bit of mail? Or perhaps, yes perhaps, a solemn and serious scholarly article declaring and suggesting and proposing things all over the place.

Nay! It is non of the above. It is a job application.

A job application. For. A. Job. I. Am. Already. Doing.

Oh yes, girls and boys, I am treading tentatively down the 'acting up' route to job application fun. I am seeking to have my title changed (but only acting mind, not the real thing) and possibly my pay (but extra joyous is the fact that in fact at the next level, in the acting up position it is actually possible to earn less than I am already earning now). I have verily dragged my heels, dragged myself kicking and screaming through this job application process.

I have had to dust off and redo the CV (after 4.5 years), dust off and madly add to the list of projects I've worked on (after 4.5 years of not doing that). I have had to bend and twist my brain cells to think up useful illustrative examples. I have had to stomach churningly deal with the projects I didn't think ended as well as I'd like, or the ones that I won but was too overloaded to work on and had to hand over (like little fostered out kittens that I kind of wanted to keep and feel a bit sad about).

I've had to admit to myself that the list of projects I've worked on looks like I've grabbed 3 people's CV off the copier and glued them together (no no, really, it makes perfect sense to have worked on all those topics, truly. No no, it's fine that there's like 5 bazillion of them). I look at awe at it and think NO WONDER I FEEL SO BLOODY TIRED!

It is like an archaelogical dig through your own 'Career' history. I say 'career' because I think somehow it's such a 1950's or 1980's word. To me it feels more like it's careering out of control on a windy dusty mountain road.


intr.v. ca·reered, ca·reer·ing, ca·reers
To move or run at full speed; rush

Yes it feels like a rush. Rather than career I would like to ponder. I want a meander. A pause. Another word for ones life's work that isn't about rushing. 'So Billy, how is your meander going?', 'Well funny you should ask, I recently went to a meander counselor' that kind of thing. Sounds nicer huh?

Oh yes. But back to the typing. Hell, I tell you, hell. And to know that an array of your coworkers have to interview you. You have to do the I-me-my story, the I-managed, I-wrote, I-collaboratively and consultative took initiative and applied innovation, story to people you work with. I yawned. I got sick of seeing my job application and quite frankly wished it would just go away. I critiqued the stupid criteria. I wished I had done it years ago. I day dreamed about taking another job just to avoid the process.

It really is revolting, in its pedantry, dates, examples, bullet points. Like your working life being trussed up and cleaned up and reduced down to the fine point of arial font and the straight armed marching of lists.

This from the girl who loves getting other people's job applications into shape, my own remains a turgid drama. Well actually that's not true. It is now quite shiny and polished and almost blemish free, and, an hour more editing later, will be quite ready to submit.

And then I can get onto doing something else, get another hobby, as this one is done.

can't anyone stick to anything anymore?

'I can't help feeling disgruntled by the L party' she mused; 'can't anyone stick to anything anymore?''I feel like you don't get to make a mistake and fix it anymore'. So lamented Miss Snap Dragon.

It did feel rather quick, didn't it? The outgoing and the incoming PM.

Funny how quickly such a big change feels normal.

Poor Kev. I wanted to send him a card. I figure at work the office temp gets a bunch of flowers and card for having worked a few months. You get the 'top job' and when you leave you don't even get a signed card. OK, admittedly, handing the envelope around all of Australia and getting people to cross their names off the front and not lose it on their desks is a big ask (and I know, because sometimes its my desk it gets lost on), but still. Where's the 'thanks mate, appreciate all the effort, all the best for the future' blokey cheer? Where's the gushing 'thanks so much for all your efforts we'll really miss having your smiling face around the office xx' gush? Where's the heartfelt 'you seemed like a half decent bloke, and you probably gave up your entire social life and put your family through hell to do this, Goddess knows it seems to have sucked the colour right out of you, but not to worry some fresh vegetable juice, a good lie in and a nice overseas holiday with lazy mornings and French Toast will do you the world of good. Buck up chum, you did good, thanks.'

It just doesn't seem right to let someone go without saying thanks and goodbye somehow.

What do we say with what we wear?

So (a few weeks back now), after Toorak I went to the airport, and due at first to my mistakes and then to mechanical repair issues, found myself there for a while.

Thinking Toorak, and thinking of image and prestige, of belonging, I found myself looking at the people in the airport through this lens. Women in particular. Who, I thought to myself, are the monied here, and how is it from what they wear that I draw that conclusion?

It is so obvious to me, or at least the distinction I make so unconsciously but frequently (if somewhat unconsciously) it seems ludicrous to talk about. But sometimes the obvious questions are worth asking, so in that vein, I will answer.

I think the appearance of being wealthy (in that material, I could shop in Toorak way) presents as follows:
- immaculate, professionally done toe nails, fingers too. Wealthy ladies just don’t have unfortunate, half done, last week’s colour chipping off
- shiny hair or perky ponytail hair or bouffant hair but never frizzy ungainly ‘I just couldn’t do anything with it hair’. Bobs – lets face it the standard thick ear length grey bob is distributed unevenly by postcode.
- if older, then sometimes zany, asymmetrical flowing garments, layers, giant statement necklaces
- handbags which are big and stylish and fit everything in. They are rarely scrabbling around trying to get the zip to do up properly, or finding crackers for a child in there, or with things half hanging out because they didn’t plan what they would take today.
- facial expressions – can be fresh, nicely made up, and innocent looking. If sour or hard done by looking there is a whiff of ‘disappointed’ based on the expectation that things could have been better, service could have been better, stocks, shares, the deal could have gone better. It is a distasteful, ‘you just can’t get good service’ face. Or long suffering, ‘my husband is a bore but I put up with him because divorce is distasteful, and the homewares make the marriage worthwhile’ face. Constrast this with the faces of the less monied, especially those with frizzy hair, chipped nail polish and the ill fitting handbag – these people have faces of disappointment that says ‘the big things in life have disappointed me, the goodness of people, the reliability of life to turn out well, but I don’t know that things could have gone better’. This disappointment is accompanied here by a despair, a grief, underlined, circled in lines, which is absent from the annoyed or impatient faces of the monied.

I confess also my own personal hook into all this as just a few weeks ago had my (down my back long and red wavy) hair cut – just under the ears at the front and higher up at the back, and have started straightening it (because otherwise I get an uneven semi-fro). Meanwhile my old glasses became so worn I’ve reverted to a spare pair. These two unrelated acts have changed my visage somewhat, my rambling curly hippy/student/rock chick/ flake hairdo and my sexy librarian/ nerd grrrl/ gay boy fashion designer style glasses replaced with sensible, tidy, power dressing hair and neat, bronzy don’t mess with me business style glasses that a slightly funky but fierce 50 year old seamstress might wear. So, sometimes I get a creeping dread that I have wanna be Victoria Beckham hair, combined with wanna be business woman glasses. I am aware that I present differently with just these two things about my appearance changed, and I wonder how these little changes affect how people see us or people we don’t know read us.

So you can see, my trips to university have really been helping my academic development, as I muse on all the *big* things in life.

Art eats Science

Came by this recently submitted thesis by Lisa Roberts, 'Antarctic animation: expanding perceptions with gesture and line'.

See Abstract:
http://www.antarcticanimation.com/content/thesis/thesis.php

www.lisaroberts.com.au
www.antarcticanimation.com

I love these creative intersections between art and science. What do you think?