I was watching the replay of the Western Bulldogs’ victory over the Melbourne Demons on Prime Television in the early hours of this morning, and was quite amused by Dennis Cometti’s description of one of the Melbourne players:
He’s built like a fire hydrant, which is good unless you’re playing the ‘dogs
Next week the Bulldogs are up against competition leaders Geelong and I’m going to be out of town at the time. 2EC are the 3AW Football relay station near Wollongong, covering much of the South Coast on four frequencies. It looks like I’ll either be delaying my return to Canberra or enjoying a lengthy detour so that I can hear the full match, as called by Rex Hunt and Dennis Cometti.
(Oh, and congratulations Dennis, your amusing quote is the reason for the two-thousand-three-hundredth post on Samuel’s Blog)
And finally it sinks in, it’s a Monday morning, and for the first time that I can remember in a very very long time, I’m not at the beck and call of somebody else. Yes that is correct, I am unemployed.
The duration of this unemployment is yet to be decided, but will probably be in the order of weeks, although a handful of people have the power to make it less and if they decide to do so then I will be happy with that, but otherwise I will enjoy my few weeks of relative freedom.
The last time I took any proper leave from work was in October last year when I took two weeks off, one of which I spent in Sydney. It looks like I’ve built up a reasonable leave balance since then and I’ll be quite happily living off the payout from that for a few weeks.
For those of you who aren’t aware, I resigned from AussieHQ about a month and a half ago. Originally I was going to finish up on Friday June 13, but this date was pushed back by mutual agreement and I finished up on Friday July 11 instead, the last couple weeks of which I have spent working from home, which is rather fortunate considering my current lack of personal motorised transport.
Last week was somewhat quieter than usual on this blog due to my week being somewhat more hectic than usual. On top of working, I had half a dozen personal administrative matters to sort out, and I spent most of Monday and Tuesday in bed with food poisoning…well, that’s technically accurate, but not the full story.
“Food Poisoning” is definitely technically accurate, after all I ingested something which didn’t agree with my body and I became quite ill as a result, the full story isn’t quite as innocent though. If we go back to the early hours of Monday last week, everything “just got to me” and I hit what I would describe as being my most depressed state yet. I have previously reached the point of writing a suicide note and scheduling it to appear here a few hours later, only to eventually come to my senses and delete the note. On Monday I didn’t write a note, I just decided that taking 2600% of my daily dose of anti-depressants would do the job…I was wrong. Within half an hour I was very sick and I spent the better part of the next two days in a “zonked” state, clearly a large dose of the drug made its way in to my bloodstream before my body could deal with it, and it had quite an effect.
Thankfully the work I needed to do on Monday and Tuesday didn’t require an awful lot of concentration and I was able to take care of it by sitting in bed with my laptop.
To answer the obvious questions, yes I feel better (both physically and mentally) now, and no, I don’t want to do that again. In fact I wouldn’t be surprised if that failed suicide attempt turns me off trying for a very very long time. Apart from being zonked for a while, I had an utterly awful taste stuck in my mouth for about four days. To understand the taste, imagine chewing any random medication you happen to have, multiply the awfulness of the taste by about three hundred, add the taste of vomiting, and there you have it, an absolutely awful taste for four days, and a really really bad memory for life.
Of course, I’m happy that I’m over that, and I feel much better now knowing that I’m not actually compelled to do anything at this very moment by virtue of employment. I could have breakfast now, or this afternoon, or just skip breakfast completely, sleep until midday, have lunch and the rest of the day’s meals in their normal sequence, and have breakfast before I next go to sleep. Regardless of what I do, nobody is actually waiting for me to do something for them or turn up somewhere, and I’m not going to get an earful and be disciplined for not doing such.
It’s not that I don’t like work…it’s just that I pretty much lost interest in the job I as doing, and I’m happy to put it behind me. Whilst it was nice to know that it was almost over, it’s much nicer to know that it actually is over.
With things looking up from a work (or lack thereof) perspective, and with me looking forward to taking a break for a few weeks, I’m pleased to say that things are also looking good from a personal transport perspective. I’ll be back on the road on Saturday afternoon, after which I’ll be in a much better position to spend a bit of time out of Canberra, and take care of a few projects and trips I’ve been putting off for some time.
That reminds me. I was planning on starting a new podcast this month. The plan was for a weekly online talkback program recorded live and released as a podcast. I haven’t had any time to deal with my plans for that lately, so I don’t know if it will actually happen this month, but it’s coming and is back near the top of my priority list.
I’ve got a lot to do, and a good amount of time in which to do it. This should be a good few weeks.
This week the award goes to The Veronicas, and the feature song is Hook Me Up. I first heard this song on 2CC when Stuart Bocking played it after interviewing the band…it sounded absolutely awful on AM radio, which struck me as a bit odd because most of the music I like sounds great on AM radio. This song, whilst not one of them, sounds quite good as purchased from iTunes.
It is also nice to find a band who release their music on YouTube and allow embedding of it. It makes my job a lot easier, and works well as a promotional tool for them. If only I could say the same for Universal Music who seem to think that allowing embedding of their music will cause the planet to turn in to a bowl of cereal.
Incidentally, this song sounds better in stereo than it does in mono. The sound on the YouTube video doesn’t quite do it justice.
I’m tired of my life
I feel so in between
I’m sick of all my friends, girls can be so mean
I feel like throwin’ out everything I wear
I’m startin’ over new
Coz I’m not even there
Sometimes (sometimes)
I wanna get away some place
But I don’t wanna stay too long
Sometimes (sometimes)
I wanna brand new day
Try to fit in where I don’t belong
Hooooooooook
Hook me up
I wanna feel the rain in my hair
Hooooooooook
Hook me up
Where should we go I don’t even care
Anywhere is good enough
Hook me up
Hook me up
I like the lights turned out
The sound of closing doors
I’m not like other girls
Who always feel so sure
Of everything they are
Of what they’re gonna be
Sometimes I’m just a girl
Stuck inside of me; of me
Sometimes (sometimes)
I wanna disappear some place
But I don’t wanna stay too long
Sometimes (sometimes)
I’m feelin’ so alone (I’m feelin’ so alone)
Tryin’ to fit in where I don’t belong
Hooooooooook
Hook me up
I wanna feel the rain in my hair
Hooooooooook
Hook me up
Where should we go I don’t even care
Anywhere is good enough
Hook me up
Hook me up
Anywhere is good enough
Hook me up
Their gonna crash and burn
I’m gonna find a way
Nothin’ left to say
Hooooooooook
Hook me up
I wanna feel the rain in my hair
Hooooooooook
Hook me up
Where should we go I don’t even care (I don’t even care)
Hooooooooook
Hook me up
I wanna feel the rain in my hair
Hooooooooook
Hook me up
Where should we go I don’t even care (I don’t even care)
Anywhere is good enough
Hook me up
Hook me up
Hook me up