Imagination Versus Reality
Mar. 11th, 2005 11:59 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ladyspriteWhen I started doing relief work, I was fairly certain that it would take a while to truly fill up my schedule and become busy. I thought that, for at least the first month or so, I'd be working half-time at best.
This was a bit scary on the financial front, but I figured it was unavoidable. And while I love working and would miss the steady challenge of cases, I managed to wrap my mind around the sudden suspected influx of free time. To be honest, I was kind of looking forward to it.
Days off. Free time. I had such high plans for projects at home. I was going to finish sewing a dress, and chew through at least most of my next translating project. I would bake bread from scratch, and make cookies in the evenings, and prepare for teaching dance, and tidy the house, and catch up on reading, and renew my relationship with the exercise bike, and generally get to know myself and my mind again.
Instead, I've somehow wound up working upwards of 40 hours a week, squeezing in job interviews in between shifts, and spending most of my nights desperately trying to catch up on errands that get neglected when you're out of the house for 15 hours at a stretch three days in a row. I haven't had time to reheat leftovers, let alone think about baking, and my sewing and translating projects are buried under a stack of invoices, Mapquest printouts, and hastily scribbled schedule notes.
I think i need to reacquaint myself with the concept of the happy medium. Also I need to take my own advice and embrace the power of No. I feel like a squirrel in autumn, suffocating under a pile of nuts that he's desperately hoarded against winter, though - there's an element of fear, of having to grab every possible hour of work now because I might not have any later.
Happy medium. Without sleep and sanity, there won't be any later to work in. So much easier said than done....
This was a bit scary on the financial front, but I figured it was unavoidable. And while I love working and would miss the steady challenge of cases, I managed to wrap my mind around the sudden suspected influx of free time. To be honest, I was kind of looking forward to it.
Days off. Free time. I had such high plans for projects at home. I was going to finish sewing a dress, and chew through at least most of my next translating project. I would bake bread from scratch, and make cookies in the evenings, and prepare for teaching dance, and tidy the house, and catch up on reading, and renew my relationship with the exercise bike, and generally get to know myself and my mind again.
Instead, I've somehow wound up working upwards of 40 hours a week, squeezing in job interviews in between shifts, and spending most of my nights desperately trying to catch up on errands that get neglected when you're out of the house for 15 hours at a stretch three days in a row. I haven't had time to reheat leftovers, let alone think about baking, and my sewing and translating projects are buried under a stack of invoices, Mapquest printouts, and hastily scribbled schedule notes.
I think i need to reacquaint myself with the concept of the happy medium. Also I need to take my own advice and embrace the power of No. I feel like a squirrel in autumn, suffocating under a pile of nuts that he's desperately hoarded against winter, though - there's an element of fear, of having to grab every possible hour of work now because I might not have any later.
Happy medium. Without sleep and sanity, there won't be any later to work in. So much easier said than done....
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no subject
Date: 2005-03-13 02:14 am (UTC)I've talked around, and set my price around the low-middle end of the spectrum, since I'm both a fairly new grad and new to relief work, but it's still definitely within the range of reasonability and more than enough for me to live on if I get steady work.
Right now, given the dearth of good full-time jobs available that are both to my liking and in my area, it looks like I may be doing this for a while....