I should have stayed in bed this morning! Then mysteriously been transported to work, call nice and lean, smelling pretty and looking hot. Instead, I got out of bed on time, got dressed on time, make up done on time, collating everything into one handbag on time OK. Not on time. It was at this point that it became a litany of small disasters leading up to one great big one.

I needed to log onto the bank website I use so I could get my BSB and account number - I reached into my bag for my diary and pen, and as I was getting ready to write it all down, I noticed my fingers were sticky.. I looked down at my hands, and they were covered in blue ink. I stared for a moment, not quite absorbing the meaning of blue ink. I then looked at the pen in my hands, and both hands were covered, and my filofax (which isn’t leather, its CHINO - so now the cover is ruined). [insert mental anguished scream]

OK no problem ,  I find the banking details, use the pen to write it all down, precariously switch off the laptop without staining it with blue pen  ink. I run to the kitchen and start scrubbing my hands with the green pot scrubber thingy and hot water and soap. Eventually I get enough blue pen off my hands and fingers and.. fingernails? how the hell did it get on those? I rushed off to the bus stop once I collected my bag, diary and everything else, only to find that as I was standing on one side of the road… the bus I needed to catch drove on by, without me. [(-&^k]

I waited and waited and waited for the next bus, due to swing on by at 8.08am, except it didn’t turn up until 8.18am. So I rang my new work, told them I was going to be up to 10 minutes late, and stewed about what a great (not) first impression that was. As I scuttled into the training room - kindly walked in by the Head of Training, I took my seat rather sheepishly. I was happy though, I made it, only 5 minutes late. Until I found out the man sitting next to me, was my new boss - doing induction training as well. God, someone kill me now.

When I moved departments, I picked up a new Manager of sorts - I was being managed by 2 ppl based on the eastern seaboard.  Neither of whom were particularly interested in working with me. The only projects I got to complete were the ones I got before those two became my official bosses. I finished them, and had no other project stuff to do. Not necessarily a bad thing, because I had more time to learn about my job, but another project was handed to me to help with, and that really made me learn a whole new world of lingo and I loved it. Then the takeover talk started, more redundancies, and I realised that it didn’t matter what I put into my job, I wasn’t going to get the reward..

So I put in my resignation after I got this new job. I called up one boss and told them, whilst the new manager of the perth call centre (other one was made redundant for no reason) phoned up the other boss and told him. The bizarre thing, is I will be working for a direct competitor yet,  i’ve not been escorted out, they still want me there.  The other boss hasn’t called me, emailed me to wish me luck, or to say sorry you are going. They want me to go, like they want everyone else in that call centre to go. It’s pretty sad to see a company I loved working for, for so long just .. crumble into dust before my very eyes.

So I am going, on my terms, and I couldn’t be happier.

Yeah Yeah,. this has been probably the longest time away from my blog since I started posting in 2000.

Life gets in the way of my online experience. Work, lovelife, christmas, holidays and all that stuff. Cept now I have a purpose.

I’m sitting on my balcony tonight listening to Triple J, and the rest of the neighbourhood as it parties out in this warm night. Living in a nine storey block of units certainly is interesting. There’s definitely an element of the international here. Many people from different walks of life live here. Some from Norway, Sweden, others from Portugal (the girls below me) Usual smattering of brits, New Zealanders, subcontinent, african - the whole world is living here. When you stpe into the lift to go up to my floor, the smells of various spices and food being used fill the small space. I feel like I am in an international food hall.

Various stereos are pumping out ACDC,Spanish and indian music depending on which floor and on which side of the building you live on. Kids are screaming and running around in the park just below - flood lights are on all night, so it’s pretty safe for them to play at night. Beer drinking songs getting sung, and all whilst we sweat it out on a warm 30 degree night.

I have to get up to work in the morning, but I think I will be sitting up for a while, listening to the noise and thinking about MM, the last two months, and what I am supposed to do for the next 6 months. MM and I have been seeing eachother for 18 months, and when we spend time together, i marvel at how much i feel for him. It’s pretty awesome. I’m 34, turning 35 and suddenly I have a new direction in life to head for.

Work isn’t so good, but this isn’t the night to talk about it. Tonight is just to sit here, think about how lucky I am and make plans for my future.

I am not a huge labor fan, but there’s no alternative when I was voting.

I am a union member, and I think the labor party are still too far right, however - I did vote for them, and I am proud to have contributed to the national swing against possible one of the worst governments this nation has seen.

Those who think liberal are good - great for business - good on you. What about the human and intellectual cost? What about the challenges to the Federation? Workchoices; health, and then looking at education? Did you know they were planning on selling off Medibank Private? The government doesn’t own it - but they still list it as their asset. The Telecommunications minister better do a better job than Coonan and Alston. Stupid policies including forcing ISP’s to install software clocking websites and it’s content. What about parental responsibility?! Why sell Telstra when it hasn’t fixed the telephone infrastructure problems in the bush!

Labor has still some skerrick of social conscience. Whilst I acknowledge Rudd is very right leaning, and my lil socialist heart knows deep down not alot will change, things that will change will be that we will get back our dignity as a nation. We will get back what we have lost, our sovereignty.

Good luck to Rudd as he steers through the next 3 years. With the Australian economy booming, you know that the cycle will end, and the world will plunge into a downward economic spiral, it’s going to happen people. Unionists have been neutered long ago, and I doubt very much that they will dominate the workplaces. Thanks to 11 yrs of scare tactics and misinformation, most people are too ashamed to say publically they are a member of a union.

So.. Onya Rudd, don’t screw it up and make me embarrassed once again to be an Australian.

It’s coming soon, my MM is going to be with me. Still freaking out about it, I don’t have future plans to speak of. I used to have plans, and they didn’t work out due to X being who he is. Now I’m in a relationship with no real outcome at the end. So why am I in it? No idea, cept that I really like him and he makes me happy, I do want an outcome, just not so sure if he wants it. I know what he says, but actions to me speak louder than words.
I have time off from work, 18 months I have worked without a holiday, and I have come close to breaking point many times - skating on the edge of sanity. Devastated when I discovered that I couldn’t quit my job when I wanted to. That was like having my heart ripped out. Dave has mentioned I tend to talk about work — I haven’t mentioned anything about work recently because by now it would be far too easy to get into trouble since the management team currently in place in Sydney are net savvy and did a facebook raid a few weeks ago. That was funny, so people panicked, deleted comments in various groups and those of us who didn’t say anything stupid just laughed.

I feel like they are going to shut down where I work, if they do that, that’s fine - just give me an end date please.

All I care about right now is spending time with MM. avoiding people and just enjoying each-other’s company. I made it through the toughest 6 months I’ve had probably in the last couple of years as November draws to a close. I am almost hysterical with relief.

Massive post here, so be prepared - I suggest coffee, some chocolate, and the William Tell Overture for background music as I fill in the massive gaps over the last few weeks.

To summarise, I’m still alive, but working 7 days a week. I picked up a second job to earn money - I moved out of my parent’s house, because I don’t particularly want MM sharing the same room with me under my parent’s roof when he comes over to visit in a couple of months or so. 2nd job pays for the extra rent I am forking out each fortnight from what I used to pay. The median is about $350 per week here in Perth, my previous place got bumped up to $230 from $145, so when I moved home I payed off my credit card, and needed to move back out. Now I have moved, I’m paying rent of $250 per week.

The pluses for this, is I get my own space again, and I can watch TV the way I want to, I can cook and eat the food I want to, sleep in, and not have to do dad’s laundry. Other thing I guess is mum doesn’t see me when I am stressed. She’s realised how stressed I am and has started worrying about me. Being out of her immediate eyesight, I can deal with my stress privately.

I wish I could say something positive about work, but I can’t. Except that we’ve lost our customer focus. When our GM resigned, we had no idea just how much shit he was protecting us from. Now we face mass resignations that we can’t control, from our support team, and pretty soon about half of the team leader group in our cust. service team  are about to resign. We lost 2 last week, and there’s about 3 more about to resign in the next 4 weeks.

I have another job aswell, market researching.  It’s perfectly legal for me to call people on Sundays - so quit whining, don’t you think if market researchers could afford not to work on a weekend, that we wouldn’t be doing just that? I don’t want to work weekends, but I don’t have much of a choice right now. Neither do the other freaks I share a call centre with. You think there are desperate people on Dole queues? Gads, You should see who I work with right now :/

It’s very difficult to understand for those people who haven’t been in one the personal pain that couples go through, when they are in a long distance relationship. The greater the distance, the harder it is to maintain due to cost. Can anyone afford a minimum of $5000 per visit to see their beloved? Up until a few weeks ago, I couldn’t afford that either. Living at my parent’s home has enabled me to pay off my credit card debt incurred after my overseas trip, and then having MM come over a few months later. It has taken 9 months. I haven’t seen MM since October 27, 2006.

What do we do then, to maintain some kind of relationship? Well thank goodness broadband was invented. He and I have been able to watch movies, documentaries, play games and talk to eachother nearly every night since he left. It doesn’t replace the warmth of a hug, the feel of his arms around my back as he pulls me into him for one of his awesome hugs. His smell as we snuggle, his laughter as we watched “thank god you’re here” on his last night in Australia.

Long distance relationships are the hardest to maintain. The level of trust required, the ability to deal with the raging emotions of anger, jealousy, disappointment and frustration as you know they are living their life, just as you are living yours. Going out with friends, and them looking at you with strange glances as you explain your complex situation and then think, ah fuck it -you wouldn’t understand. However, the one thing that he has said to me, through years of friendship stands out the most. That we would adapt, improvise and overcome (think Clint Eastwood, Heartbreak Ridge). I hold onto that as I struggle with my feelings of insecurity and uncertainty about what will happen.

In a month or so, we move to daylight savings, and my ability to communicate with him becomes much harder. The six hour time gap will become 8 hours, as they leave daylight savings, and we go into ours. I have modified some of my behaviours this week after months of workplace stress. I have previously written a post about the kind of calls that I get, that my consultants get and how it’s getting harder and harder to deal with. I started feeling that my misery and stress with work was affecting the most precious relationship that I have had with anyone.

Now I send email to him from work, I write about how I feel about work, and how it’s affected me, and he replies. He says all the things I can’t. This has helped reduce the stress quite a bit. We’ve started having fun again, we’re laughing again, and I have felt more relaxed and at ease. He’s thinking about coming to AU in December, but if that doesn’t happen, I will go over there. No matter what happens, it is clear that both he and I want the same thing, to be together. We shall work to make it so.

Living at my sister’s for two weeks was good. I got drunk one night, and had a 2 day hangover. That was bad - 2 whole days on one bottle of red wine. Great wine though, but I would say I am getting old. I was cold, her house may as well not had walls it was so cold, and then when i was sleeping in her bed, the three dooners she had on the bed basically meant that I was forced to lie still like i was trapped under their weight.

I am so tired this week, stress from work has been mounting, and I applied for another job, within the same company, just doing a different role. Would be good if I get it, because it would be out of the firing line in some aspects. I applied for it because MM thought it would be a good opportunity for me.  So did my parents and friends, but I really wanted to just ditch my job and move over to be with MM.

I got an email from an immigration person who said that MM and I don’t qualify as defacto because we haven’t lived together, we’d have to get married. I told him that last night.  Then of course, him saying I should apply for the job, means I would have to be here another 6 months at least. It’s an emotional issue, and we got a little snappy at eachother, because I really don’t want to do the long distance thing forever. I broke down and cried for a bit, I think in my head I had committed myself to leaving, and was getting ready for it, and now I feel like the rug has been pulled out from underneath me.

I don’t know what to do anymore. I just want him to make up his mind about what he wants. He kept changing the subject to something less serious, but this is very serious. I know however, it’s probably not the best time for us to talk about it because I am so stressed, and probably a little too emotional. He’s probably stressed about it as well.. but it did remind me of X and he’s nothing like X, so it’s an unfair, irrational comparison.