Working for the Man

"Hey now you better listen to me everyone of you
We got a lotta lotta lotta lotta work to do
Forget about your woman and that water can
Today we're working for the man."

Working for the Man, Roy Orbison.

I went to the accountant today and I think I am in love. There is something about a slim, plain-looking young woman in a business suit that is incredibly attractive. Actually, it wasn't that this girl was particularly good-looking (she was pretty, but she wasn't "hot"), but her robot like professionalism and her razor-sharp social intelligence were, to be honest, a little erotic. Moreover, being the big, tough man that I am, I naturally found having the pittance I live on picked apart by a much younger and very female person humbling.

Every conversation seemed to go like this:

Accountant -Hi Ross, nice to meet you. My name is X. How has you day been?

Me - Yes, ummm, working on lesson thingys. Very busy. Ummm...Yes. My name is Ross.

Or this,

Accountant - So Ross, are there any other work-related expenses that we can deduct?

Me - Your hair is pretty.

Hands up who thinks I should spend my tax return on a few weeks of therapy?

In other news, my second teaching placement begins on Monday and for the next five weeks of my life my ass belongs to the Victorian State Government. This is post is let you all (Mark and whoever else bothers to check in these days) know that I might drop off the radar until late September. Don't worry, I will continue to lurk in the background and drop the odd comment. I may even post something before my placement ends but it isn't a gurantee.

Until then, lots of love and remember to keep it real.

Bouncing Off the Walls

"...for some time past he had been in an over-strained, irritable condition, verging on hypochondria. He had become so completely absorbed in himself and isolated from his fellows that he dreaded meeting not only his landlady but anyone at all. He was crushed by poverty, but the anxieties of his position had of late ceased to weigh on him. He had given up attending to matters of practical importance; he had lost all desire to do so..."

Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky.

If there is any character from literature that I resemble it is Rashkolnikov from Crime & Punishment. Although I don't spend my days murdering miserly spinsters, I can see my less admirable qualities and behaviours reflected in this character. Why is this young man so miserable? Being cooped up in a tiny little apartment in a strange city that is light years from everything that is familiar and comforting probably doesn't help. However, there is more to Rashkolnikov than his situation. The paranoia, the delusions, the self-absorption are not just a product of the physical isolation he has constructed, they are product of a spiritual/existential isolation he has chosen. When you give yourself too much time to reflect on these things your world necessarily becomes very narrow and very bleak.

I miss home a little bit more than I realise. There is an emptiness in my life that will only be filled when I see people who know and love me. In the meantime I just have to keep on keeping on. Everybody hurts sometime, so I am told. There is no good reason to let it shame you; that only makes it worse.