Update

from here

This is my 200th post. :)

A hundred blog posts ago, I finally put into words the disquiet I’d long felt about my lack of a clear vocation and path. I’m still figuring it out as I bumble along, although at the moment these thoughts are simmering away rather than boiling (as they were in that post), and I’m not disliking this in-between time of having space to gather ideas and consider them carefully before discarding some and filing others away for future reference. I’ve thought briefly about looking into radio production or floristry, and my recent excitement over the purchase, arrival and installation of Microsoft Publisher made me wonder if graphic design would be something I could enjoy studying, but none of these options truly make my heart leap. I’m still remarkably good at catching things. I still have no idea how this could be turned into a rewarding career.

I keep returning to the idea of studying Psychology, but I’m not sure I have the brains for some of the subjects I’d have to do for it and right now’s probably not the best time to test this; last week I handed over my Medicare card to pay for groceries. I’m fascinated by people and what makes them tick, and the way experiences shape us to be who and how we are (an all-time favourite book of mine is They F**k You Up by Oliver James;* it’s possibly what brought this fascination with psychological things into focus, three years ago). After reading (and loving) Second Chances: Men, Women and Children a Decade After Divorce by Sandra Blakeslee and Judith Wallerstein, I think I’d particularly like to be able to work with kids of divorce, and families in the process of breaking up. Or just with kids generally. Or with adults. Maybe.

But then I think again about the actual getting of the degree, and I think about the fact that I’d have to do statistics, and I realise it wouldn’t all be “Omigosh, this course is, like, soooooo interesting!” – it would also be “Omigosh, this course is, like, really HARD.” (Seriously, I also recently forgot how ATMs work and stared at the machine for ages looking for my cash and thinking the only thing it’d spit out was a receipt which I hadn’t thought I’d asked for. I walked away in confusion looking vaguely at [what may not have been] my balance; fortunately the man waiting behind me was honest and kind – he called out and handed me my $20. Just the word ‘statistics’ makes me panic right now). And maybe this natural interest in the psychological will spur me on to read and research without the incentives of exams and deadlines and degrees, and I should instead choose to study something that I’d need pressure to focus on and that would promise a rewarding job at the end? After all, I went with my heart on Linguistics, and look where that got me.

I still have a while to mull it over; my next giant project is baby #2**, and, judging by my experience with baby #1, I’ll be in Motherland (it’s just off What-do-I-do-with-my-life Road) for quite some time to come. Knowing me, I’ll return to the Road once again after my stay, with my questions and ideas and uselessly speedy reflexes; hopefully, in around 100 posts’ time, there’ll have been some kind of progress.

I’ll probably keep you updated.

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* The title is based on this poem.

** Is it wrong to refer to your (as yet unnamed) second child as baby #2? Does it imply that they’re ranked, and that Moses somehow won the competition? I always pause, and yet I can’t think what else I should call her.