The No Woman

Sigh. I've missed this blog! Since I last wrote, life has gotten really busy, solely to do with writing. My film review was accepted and published, now I'm writing one pretty much every week. The magazine editor noticed my productivity and has been giving me cool assignments (i.e. best brunch spots) that have been encouraging me to explore more of Jakarta!

I've been juggling so many articles for both the daily paper and the magazine that I needed to make one of my beloved spreadsheets to keep on top of it! Oh, and I turned 24 more than a month ago, which served to remind me how I must get a move on with everything I want to do... so must keep busy busy.

It's both bad and good, because I often feel super stressed out, but more and more, sitting and writing and completing an article is my ultimate idea of bliss, particularly in a cafe with light buzz and big pot of tea. I am working everyday on the work-life balance to try and minimise burnout. I might be allowing myself to slip into my OCD tendencies again... but I think this is what I need to do. The best thing in my life right now is that I feel I know what I want to do, and I am working towards it.

My current goal is to become a completely freelance journalist (imagine the freedom!), and every day is like training in that direction. I think you definitely need to have to some savings (enough for about four months of living at least) before you jump into that deep end... getting paid for articles is like pulling teeth, so if you have to count on it too much, you'll probably go crazy. You also need to build your reputation so editors will want to take your stuff and throw assignments your way.

I got so excited about the interest and assignments I was getting, that I felt I had to say yes to everything, for fear of missing out on better assignments later on. But I've learned that I should really start saying no... got so many half-baked assignments I'm not that passionate about... so the goal for this month is to clear this backlog, and from now on pick my assignments more judiciously. It's no good publishing a lot of articles I'm not that proud of... the quality won't be as good as with articles that come from the heart.

The not-so-great things remain the same, but I don't have as much time to dwell on them. Jakarta still drives me crazy. Copy-editing is getting ever more tedious, especially with the added annoyance of office politics finally drawing me in. I generally feel like I'm getting to be quite a dull and bitter person, but maybe this has to be the trade-off for now... I'm truly realising simply can't have it all.

Like a year ago, I had some of the things I miss now: lots of fun times with friends, my own place, a life in a city with comprehensible public transport, parks and shoes in my size, plenty of wine and cheese, romantic (ish) prospects ... but I was also unemployed, and getting increasingly stressed by living with Sketchy. I had just returned from two weeks in Jakarta. Looking in my moleskine diary, I actually see that exactly a year ago to the day, was when Amber Eyes tried it on with me (a seriously weird moment considering our history), before jumping into Sketchy's bed in a huff. Ha! It's kinda terrible, but I also enjoyed that sort of drama... silly things like that seemed to be appropriate young twenty-something behaviour... now, everything seems awfully serious and grown-up.

And not just when it comes to me either. The "global economic downturn" (an overused phrase in The Jakarta Post) seems to have led to a widespread depression, particularly among those of my generation (or maybe it just seems that way from my perspective, as mine are the ones attempting to find jobs in this tense economic climate). So many challenges are being thrown at my friends. I'm struggling to think of purely good news that anyone's been able to share... there's always a flipside... if one thing goes well, like career, it follows or is followed by heartbreak.

So in the absence of many real-life delights, I'm having to rely on books and TV for some delicious escapism. Glee, a new musical-dramedy from Nip/Tuck creator Ryan Murphy is rather hitting the spot...

Holiday in Cambodia

Right now I am at the cheapo terminal in Kuala Lumpur, killing time before my flight to Phnom Penh. Due to bad weather conditions, it has been delayed by almost two hours.. so I have almost three hours to kill still, along with Anne, my laptop and book (which Anne has currently stolen!). I guess I could get some headway on the article I need to finish by the end of tomorrow. So very tired tho. Haven't been sleeping well lately, and just feeling generally run down. Hoping to catch a couple more hours on the next flight so I can be relatively fresh... we're meant to be meeting Doc's "husband", Doll, tonight -- it's his birthday. Anne met him a couple of months ago, when she was first in Phnom Penh, but its my first time.

The excitement over returning to my childhood home for the first time in four years hasn't really sunk in yet. I guess its trying to fight the exhaustion and disorientation. I have a lot to look forward to over the next two weeks... my favourite bits of Phnom Penh, the relative cheapness compared to moneysuck Jakarta, the relatively fresher air, the relative lack of traffic,the best part of a week on a beach, seeing Doc, focusing on my writing, taking a break from long days of copy-editing and commuting, seeing Devil and Pooh's mum and dad at their apparently beautiful new home in Kampot... just taking a break. I don't have high expectations this time. I just look forward to it generally and hope I come back feeling refreshed, with enough renewed spirit to slog out another four months at work, before my parents' three-week 25th anniversary cruise in December, and then another 3.5 months to see out my current contract.

Anyway, I actually don't mean to be so down on my job anymore... it's just been a long year so far, one thing to the next, and little chance to properly relax yet. I actually feel really grateful that I'm employed in a relevant field, particularly as a lot of my friends are struggling to find any kind of job at all. It's not a nice job world out there. I do know that I won't renew tho, Jakarta really isn't the place for me.

And unfortunately... the battery on my computer is near-dead and we can't seem to fit it into Anne's "universal" adaptor... so I better finish here.

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.

Separate Worlds

This post originally contained the first features I had published in the national newspaper I work for. I decided to remove it because I'd like to keep this blog as something more private. Not that it hugely matters as a) I am very bad at updating this blog and b) Everyone who likely reads it knows me and C) If anyone is reading this doesn't know me, it doesn't really matter that they know certain things about me... but still, I think its better this way. This blog will be save for sporadic rants, mutterings and musings and I will find someplace else to start showcasing the journalism portfolio I am building.

(update July 4, 2009)