Three Weeks Later...

Book of the Week: Still deciding on what to read next...

Wow. Can’t believe it’s been three weeks. Feels like it’s been a lot longer than that. Maybe time stretches out like toffee on teeth when you are working in a foreign country, as opposed to holidaying, or studying.

I don’t really know if I am totally enjoying work. It has its ups and downs, and this last week was especially stressful what with a numpty coming in to complain and my being told that sometimes trainees don’t automatically get taken in after the six-month probation period (not like I didn’t know it, but to be told again – despite it being spelled out in the contract – just made it feel like I shouldn’t expect anything). And being in a windowless room can get pretty depressing, especially after my last job, where I was surrounded by light and space (although the air was mostly recycled). We’re well into spring now and the daylight hours means the evenings feel like mid-afternoon, and I feel like I am missing something. Vitamin D, most likely. The first week of work, I would walk out at five and feel like Dracula after a caffeine-fuelled night in the coffin. Arghhh! It burns! It burns!

Still, can’t really complain. The job’s not too bad – I can do it without too much trouble (there’s not been any serious stuff yet, maybe they’re breaking me in gently) – and best of all, my work-life balance has improved tremendously. Instead of coming home and staying up till 2am so I can get some me-time, I now have shitloads of time in the evenings to do the stuff I want to do – mostly read and rot my brain watching some excellent British telly (I despaired when we moved over the water and lost cable, but Gareth’s bought a gorgeous new flat-screen and we get Freeview, oh joy!). But I’ve also started nodding off a lot earlier in the evenings, and just the other night fell asleep on the sofa in the middle of CSI. CSI!!! The scary thing was that I found myself actually thinking, “Oh, fuck it, I don’t care who did it or how, I want to go to sleep.”

And I really love the weekends. Not that I didn’t before, when I was in Malaysia, but they just feel different now that I’m working here. It’s like I’m rediscovering them. It’s been so long since I last had them – maybe because it’s been a long time since I last worked and truly appreciated them. In the last two years, weekends have usually suffered from a case of a) my wanting to do something and not being able to afford it; b) my being able to afford something but Gareth being tired from having to work; c) both of us wanting to do something but being forced to put homework or exams or some crap like that first; or d) the both of us being too tired or lazy to get round to doing anything. I never thought I’d say this but in a way, having to work has made weekends better for the both of us. We both work the same hours, which makes scheduling fun together much easier, especially now that we have a big fat to-do list.

The first weekend after I arrived, we checked out the Barras, Blochairn car boot market (nasty, just nasty) and Falkirk indoor market for a potential business venture; the second weekend, we had an archery session at Cluny Clays, lunch at The Wee Restaurant in North Queensferry and a wee look-around for Gordon Brown’s house (pretty village, amazing food, find it, crap weather). I also met a witch in Aberdour on our drive back from Cluny Clays, and tried out the local pies. And just this weekend Gareth picked me up from work on Friday and we spent the entire evening at his folks’ working up a sweat on their Nintendo Wii (happy 35th anniversary, by the way, you guys). We had planned to spend a birthday weekend zorbing at Dunkeld, but that looks like it’s been held over – Gareth has been in Glasgow the last two days filming.

Speaking of birthdays – my 35th didn’t feel like one. I did get eight cards, and a total of six presents on a food theme from Gareth, but for the most part, the day itself didn’t feel “special” – which I put down to the fact that for the first time in eight years, I went to work on the day. (OK, technically I worked on my birthday in 2004, but that was on a press trip to California, and they don’t count. It felt more like a birthday bonus.) I was kept busy calling schools up and bothering the friendly, accommodating people at the council offices. It only started to feel like a birthday after five, when I came home and got to put on my nice new top (from Tesco, how fashionable) and burnished Netscape colour 990066 wraparound skirt, and stepped out for dinner at the Room With A View at Aberdour, where, for the first 20 minutes, we were the only couple there. The dining experience was pretty special – a steep, deserted, winding path, a Victorian home that made me think of Mr Rochester, and the most exquisite food. Lime, chilli and ginger scallops and monkfish tails wrapped in Parma ham.

The news from back home naffed me off, though. The first time I logged on to a local news channel, the headline was: Parliament House is leaking. (So many jokes, so little time.) Not that that bothers me. It was how the super-patriotic good ol’ BN boys were not able to discuss the matter in a reasonable, sensible way – not that they ever do, anyway, so what am I getting upset about, right? MPs Bung Mokhtar Radin and Mohd Said Yusof said they were only trying to defend the Government against the Opposition’s “unfounded claims” when they said, “Where’s the leak? The Batu Gajah MP also leaks once a month.” (A word to the uninitiated: in Malaysian politics, if the Government says a claim is “unfounded”, it usually isn’t.) The Batu Gajah MP happens to be an Opposition MP, and a woman. The tsunami of public outrage was followed by the usual “we did not intend to insult anyone” defence. Yeah, right. How many times have you BN twats done this? How long do you think you can fool the Malaysian public? Especially you small-town, kampung-mentality political buffoons who think you can get away with denigrating ethnic groups, religions and half the Malaysian population – sometimes all simultaneously? When are you going to start talking facts instead of launching personal attacks every time the Opposition tries to bring up a valid point? The Malaysian public is just as guilty, though – all those years of corruption and cronyism, and they still vote the same jokers in every five years. OK, maybe it’s not fair to say that of the Malaysian public – BN gets a lot of support from a lot of other communities… and from the rumours, it would seem, not all of them are from this planet. Hint, hint. But still, it’s like political amnesia come election time. Space-wasters like Bung Mokhtar and Mohd Said still get in time and again. Every country gets the government it deserves, and that’s why I am writing this down. I want to want to remember as many reasons as possible not to vote for the wrong party (you know who you are). I’m happy to be over here, but after reading stories like this, I give extra thanks. Rubbish politicians are everywhere, but at least over here I won’t have to worry about them insulting my menstrual cycle in the debating chamber.

I’ve also had lots of random thoughts (more so than usual) these last three weeks. I miss my family a lot. I wonder how the dogs are doing. I have my doubts about this job. I really like this job. I wish I didn't have to work. I need more sleep. I’m going to be an aunt in two months. I need more money. I’m going to know what it’s like to have a salary again. I need to make more new friends. I feel stressed. I feel lazy. I wish I were smarter. I wish this place were tidier. I want to do that.

There’s a lot of me, me, me stuff in there, and not a lot of that’s new. I really need to spend more time working on the items on our big to-do list so I actually have something cool to write about, and build more memories in preparation for the time when I am senile and decrepit. But overall, it’s not been a bad first three weeks, I think. Another 101 to go. I just hope I fill up the weekends well.

Factoids of the Week:
The Helvetica font is 50! Don’t mind it, even if I’m a Verdana girl myself. But what surprised me was that there are people out there who actually pay attention to fonts and have feelings about them (thought I was the only one who hated Comic Sans!).

The following are from an article on Falconry in the Spring 2007 issue of the Historic Scotland magazine:
The word “mantelpiece” – the shelf covering a fireplace – comes from “mantling”, which describes a bird of prey’s distinctive habit of covering its prey with outstretched wings. A “cadge” was a wooden frame that was used to carry birds of prey to and from a hunt. The cadge was usually carried by old retired falconers who were called cadgers or codgers. Hence, “old codger”. The word for birds drinking was “bowsing”, and a bird that drank a lot was called a “boozer”.

On a personal note – we live a mile and a half from the next Prime Minister. And Gordon Brown is blind in one eye. Not that the two are related, of course.