Wait, Loss

I'm feeling rather crabby at the moment, likely for hormonal reasons. But I also feel the world is seriously trying to test me and push me over the edge temper-wise, in lots of little, irritating ways.

For one, I am having to be incredibly patient at the moment, more than I think I can have the capacity to be, for lots of different things.

I am waiting to hear about my MA results, and have been for about 7 months now. In relation to that, I had to wait more than a month to hear back from my favourite professor and six weeks later, am still waiting to hear back from the History Dean. I am waiting to hear back from supposedly good friends who keep promising they'll respond, but weeks have already turned into months, and may even turn into years at this rate. I am waiting for my mother and little sister to be back in Indonesia because I really miss them (they're spending the summer in the States). I am waiting for the roster at work so I can figure out how long I can blag staying in Cambodia (yes I'm going in just over a week!!). I am waiting for my new HSBC bank card, which was supposed to be ready on Wednesday -- I need it because the machine INSIDE the branch swallowed the original one. I also had to wait a week to get my most recent salary, and now I am still waiting to be paid for an article I wrote over a month ago, along with one from last week. I am waiting to receive a copy of Jerusalem, Patrick Neate's latest book, that I need to review for the Post. The postal service here takes a ridiculously long time.

Plus, today when I checked my bank balance, I saw that some money had come out, related to an ATM transaction that hadn't actually dispensed the cash. So I have been debited, but I never got the money. I had to call Natwest and they said as I am in Indonesia I should contact the ATM machine people here, and that all they could do was send me a form, that I will need to send back, and that will probably take about 6 weeks if I'm lucky, so yet more waiting!

I'm all about instant gratification... and this is just adding up to be far too much waiting. It concerns almost everything that's important to me right now: my education, people I care about, improving my finances.

The people thing is particularly galling. These days, we are so hooked up. You can email, Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, text, Skype or call someone. Even write a letter if you're feeling oldfashioned. Yet, in my view, it actually seems to be making people even worse at keeping in touch. Obviously face-to face is preferable, but not always possible. I've moved around a lot in my life, and constantly have to bid adieu to dear friends, but its made tolerable by the thought that at least we can still keep in touch. However, it seems out of sight out of mind for some. I can relate, I'm not completely on top of my own correspondence -- mainly Facebook, which I have lately abanded for the newer, shinier, less-efforty, more interesting Twitter... and I've been through several stressful periods where I just couldn't write to people, especially because I didn't want to depress them... but I feel that everyone's who's within my closest circle of friends, I'm on top off correspondence-wise, at least on my side of things. I feel really hurt by allegedly good friends who keep promising they'll message you when they have time, saying they're really busy... and even months later, they still haven't, altho you can see that they're on social networks a lot, doing quizzes, writing status updates about how much time they have... it's not like they're not on the internet or completely without time, and it just shows that you obviously aren't that important to them, that they're lying to you, and maybe to themselves. And if keeping in touch is the only way to maintain your friendship, doesn't that imply that you aren't really friends anymore?

The more time that passes with these people, the less I care. So I guess, in the end, the waiting becomes it's own cure... you wait so long, until you're not waiting anymore.

On a slightly more positive note, my productive unexpected-day-off reaped some rewards. The Features editor sent me to two seminars on Thursday and Friday, concerning graphic design. The first speaker was an animator and the second was a (very attractive) "motion designer" (think Michel Gondry). I was enraptured by both talks... now I have to write them up this weekend!

PS: After this ranty rant I decided I needed to address my own hypocrisy. So now I am on top of everything -- correspondence wise. And it took less than an hour to write to several people! Work-wise... not so much! Better get on it.