Posted: Wed 30 September, 2009 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Depression, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Own Business, Thoughts, Work-related |
Currently, the change of plans for next week is being dealt with OK. As always, it involves sending out a spudload of CVs to available contracts, and seeing what floats back.
At the same time, the way I feel this week means I wouldn’t mind having a week at home, where I can get some outstanding stuff done. That wouldn’t be a bad thing at all.
So it’s a matter of seeing what comes up. In an ideal world, another contract will come in to take the place of the now-dead one, but it might be a week or two. We’ll see.
What this entire thing has done though is put me back in the frame of mind where actually I’m really tired of what I do. Again, I’ll see whether that feeling stays, but it could be that it’s time to look at moving on to some new field, something I actually want to do rather than “just” something I’m good at. (and that I usually enjoy doing)
Mind you, changing to something else I want to do will take time – I’ve a couple of ideas for it, it’s more about having the time (and the money to take the time) to get going on them.
I dunno – I know that while things are OK at the moment I’m also a tad depressed about the entire farce. I’m tired of it. So I’m going to take some time, think about where things want to go and/or need to go. We’ll see what happens.
Posted: Tue 29 September, 2009 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Agency Idiocy, Charm School, Customer Services, Depression, Domestic, Thoughts, Work-related |
Today I got a call from one of the agencies I’ve been dealing with, and all of a sudden everything changes.
The contract I was supposed to be starting on Monday has been cancelled. Apparently the directors of the company in question have decided that the project won’t go ahead, so they’ve pulled the budget for it.
And lo, no job for me. All my paperwork had been signed, ID stuff sent and the like and now it’s all for fuck-all.
This is one of the things I hate about contracting over having a “proper” job – and that’s a pretty small list, believe me – that things like this can happen at the drop of a hat. If it were a ‘proper’ job, the project decisions and budget would all have most likely been sorted well before it came round to getting someone to do the work. It’s something that seems to have been happening quite a bit this year, and it’s not something I’ve seen prior to this. Sure, I’ve had one contract come to an end before it was supposed to – and I’ve had plenty more extend well past when they were supposed to finish – but up ’til now I’ve not had to deal with ones that get cancelled before they start.
It leaves me at a bit of a loose end, as I’d already closed off the current contract to end on Friday so everything was ready for Monday’s start at the – now non-existent – new place.
So I’m back to square one. Sending out updated CVs, talking to agencies, going to interviews.
I won’t deny, it’s been a serious hit on me today – I’m not feeling great anyway, so this has just been kind of the last thing I needed. All told, it makes me want to chuck in the entire thing and head off to Pastures New (or at least Pastures Different) with a totally different job/career/work-life.
It won’t happen yet, no matter how much I want it to – but I think it’s something I need to start properly working towards. (And I know, that’s not grammatical – I just can’t think of the grammatical way to put it)
In summary? Today’s bollocks. Next week ain’t looking good, either.
Posted: Fri 8 May, 2009 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Depression, Domestic, Health, Technology |
Recently, we’ve been trying out a weird alarm clock that also replicates the rising of the sun, so it’s “full daylight” when the alarm sounds. It doesn’t do much (if anything) for me, but Herself is finding it pretty useful for the way her body works.
And in related items, today I came across the LOMME bed which is pretty much the same concept writ large. The LOMME (Light Over Matter Mind Evolution) is a pod-bed, and has a built in light-box alarm as well as making use of other light colours etc.
It’s pretty cool – in a “What the fuck?” kind of way – but I’m pretty sure it would be massive overkill for us…
Posted: Thu 19 March, 2009 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: D4D™, Depression, Domestic |
Shit (boring, dull, utterly pointless) day, followed by terminal sense-of-humour failure.
Back tomorrow.
Posted: Mon 2 March, 2009 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Creativity, Cynicism, Depression, House Purchase, House Work, Introspective, Own Business, Thoughts, Work-related |
Over the years, many people have told me that it’s more sensible to have a mortgage than to keep on paying rent. Rent is, supposedly “dead money” – you’re not getting anything for it (except another month living in your property of choice) and you’re just helping to pay off the landlord’s bills.
Finally, two years ago, I jumped off the bridge, and got a mortgage with Herself on this place. Since then we’ve been doing a lot of work on the place (as any vaguely regular reader of D4D™ will know) and that side of things is all going OK. Of course, the fact is that on that score rental is easier – if something needs doing, you call the landlord or letting agency, and it gets done.
For me though, while I’ll continue on with the mortgage, I’m discovering that it has a far more negative effect on me than I’d be happy with on the real long-term.
I find that the knowledge of the amount of the mortgage keeps coming back to me, that it’s kind of a mill-stone. I don’t want to lose it, I don’t want to change it – but I’m constantly aware of it.
Maybe it’s that I’m a late-starter on the entire house-buying front, that if I’d been doing this since I was twenty-seven then I’d be used to the knowledge of the debt by now. (and I’d be nearly halfway through paying it off, which would help too!) Maybe over time the awareness of the debt faades a bit. I don’t know – I’ve only been doing this for two years, after all.
I don’t want to have the mortgage for the full term of it – the plan has always been to overpay whereever possible, and by as much as possible within the terms of the mortgage, although over the first two years we haven’t been able to do that at all (mainly due to me being a slack-ass, and not doing the necessary extra work through the aforementioned lack of motivation) but the intention is still there for the next mortgage period.
And that’s the balance I need to find, too – between the awareness of this (to me) sodding huge millstone of debt and the desire to reduce it as much as possible.
After all, there’s no money more “dead” than the interest I’m/we’re paying to the fucking bank. Paying back 2½ times the amount borrowed? That’s “dead money” indeed.
Posted: Thu 26 February, 2009 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Creativity, Depression, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Introspective, Thoughts |
Over the last two (nearly 2½) years, I’ve been banging on about my five-year plan, and the work that’s been going into it. The project is still going on, but I think I may need to add a year to it. That’s annoying to me – it means that I get it done by the time I turn 41 instead of 40 (and fuck me, does that really mean I’m going to be 40 in 2½ years? Shit) and thus lose some of the nice roundedness of the idea. It also means that I don’t live up to the ‘five-year’ part of the title.
The thing is, since the inception of the plan, there’ve been things going on that have delayed some of the work I planned on doing. The house purchase – and the ongoing work on the house – has had a significant effect on some of the plans, as we’ve been doing one hell of a lot that wasn’t really in the initial plan as such. Yes, they’re in the original set of planned tasks – but I wasn’t realistic about how long they’d take, or how much work would be involved.
So that’s one thing that’s kind of superceded other plans.
But the other one has been far sneakier, and far harder to get to grips with. It’s one I’m familiar with (and it’s mentioned in the categories up there) but that I don’t always see without some hindsight. Yes, I’m referring (of course) to Ye Olde Depression. Again.
I still don’t know if I’ve actually been fully depressed – but I do know that for the last eighteen months or so my motivation has been pretty much non-existent. The ideas have still been there, and some things have sparked some desire to work on them, but the real motivation to work just hasn’t. I’ve let things drift, or not started them at all. OK, the bits for this year are coming on, and there’s a couple that can be checked off, I still feel like I’m lagging behind.
I’m working on it – things this year have started off OK, and the motivation appears to be on its way back – but right now I’m not sure whether to add a year to the target, or leave it as it stands for now, and just see how I do.
I suspect that for now it might be the latter plan – I’d rather do the five years and see where I am at that point, to be honest – but it’s something that’s worth thinking about as time goes on. I’ll most likely review it come November, when there’s only two years left on the list.
But of course any ideas or suggestions are welcome in the meantime…
Posted: Mon 23 February, 2009 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Creativity, Depression, Photography, Thoughts |
via Chromasia, I found Zack Arias‘ piece called “Edit: Transform“.
It’s awesome.
There’s just no other word for it. Spend six minutes of your life watching the video. It’s worth it.