Or at least it seems too. Actually, it's only been 4 days since my last entry but it seems longer, I guess that's what happens when you go cold-turkey.
Tuesday as shown from the last entry I felt like absolute shit. I don't know what brought it on, but I was plumbing the depths it seems. I sent an email to Peta which said little but basically let her know that I was feeling crap and confused.
She gave me a call on Wednesday morning and had a half-day off, she was going to buy some basketball kit so I tagged along. I think the most important thing was just talking to someone else in the flesh. ICQ just doesn't have the necessary human component, so I was thankfully to have her around to joke with and explore what I wanted and how to go about achieving that. It was a good four hours that we killed with her doing her crazy… ahem… assertive driving from place to place.
I also got a boost from www.angryflower.com which was good too. Thank you Sherilyn.
Friday was the Honours oral seminars which was the final part of their assessment. Elenei was obviously nervous which is understandable and although she got grilled on unrelated stuff, her relief when it was over was obvious. At 5 pm was the end-of-honours piss up, and I indulged in a few glasses of champagne and beer and things were good. Suffice to say I went to bed early and slept soundly. ;)
On Saturday I figured I should attempt a Xmas present hunt and went into Civic for a look. Susan gave me a call around midday on my mobile which promptly died, so I called her back from a pay-phone. She was heading off to Sydney on Sunday for her summer job and so we agreed to go over to Manuka and check out a new ice-cream place. Later I saw Astro, and so the four of us (including Jules) were crashed out in the new Manuka shopping centre eating ice-cream (being different I had frozen fruit yogurt).
Later than evening, I was supposed to meet up with Maddy to celebrate her birthday a day early with drinks. However, she had already been boozing the night before and wanted to stay home, but she picked me up and we went over to her place for dinner and the worst ever James Bond film (Her Majesty's Secret Service - George Lazanby). I gave her some chocolates, a card and a female condom which I had picked up from the Spring-OUT fair day. It was great to see her again, and she also had a job interview lined up which I hope goes well.
Today (Sunday) I went to the lab at 11 am and left after 4 pm. I got some experimental work done, but no thesis work which is more important. I snoozed, shopped for food in the evening and then spent a good hour and a half on the phone to Mum. It seems that a lot of our chats are nothing special, but then occasionally we will cover a lot of important stuff. Such was tonight.
I guess I should be lucky to have a mother who has come so far in her acceptance of me. I told her about my worries about "passing", how I was sorry for having to put her through this, my doubts and fears for me and the people close to me. It was a good talk, I just hope we can have them in person too.
Tomorrow is the Young Chemist Forum all day, Wednesday will be the goodbye lunch for Elenei, Thursday the group meeting at the bar with the visiting Professor and Friday the Department Xmas party. Suffice to say, with only 17 days until I go home, I don't know how much work I can get accomplished before January.
Anyway, relating back to the unfinished business of my last entry, I believe I can pass well enough to get a good job, but much more depends on me putting in the hard yards in terms of writing journal articles. Otherwise it won't matter a damn what I look like. I've never been harassed or abused to my face, so often I wonder why these doubts come up. As I said to Mum, perhaps I should be glad the doubts come up so that I don't get carried away and that I keep my goals realistic. That I don't go looking for reactions from people is maybe why I don't get bad ones. Confidence is what I need, and confidence comes from experience, and experience can only come with time… it's back to square one… must have patience, must have patience…
All I have to remember is that my worst fears come in the dead of night because they have little substance in the light of the day…