Saturday, March 01, 2014

Not drowning but waving

I love my studies.

I love my university, I love my institute, I love my major subject, I love my professor (don't tell him, he'll get big-headed), I love my uni friends, I love my work.

You know, after a good few miserable or, worse, tight-lipped and Mary-Whitehousean posts, it's about time I turned my attention to something else, don't you think? And I do love my studies and that stuff mentioned up there.

I have worked so hard for five years now, and it's almost done (consummatum almost est, yes?). It was pretty much exactly five years ago when I had an epiphanous moment on my way to work, walking from the bus stop to the school: "lo, but verily, I am good at what I do, and so perhaps I could contribute to the world by giving this education thing what I might have to give" (yes, that was the word my epiphanous moment brought me: "contribute". Had I picked a word myself, I might not have chosen something as pompous as that, but who's to argue against epiphany? Go ahead, if you think you're hard enough. I'm not).

And it's four years almost to the day when I broke a seam in my mind's eye (you know what I mean) and had a bit of a burn-out and had to stay home from school (=work) for four-weeks-and-then-some. I started those weeks as a quivering wreck, unable to stomach the horror of actually having admitted it out loud that I was too unhappy and exhausted to go on. By about week two-and-a-half, I had recovered enough to decide I'd – purely on speck, you understand – sit the uni entrance exam, so that in a year's time, when I would have to apply again, you see, I would have the experience of having sat the entrance exam once.

And the rest is history. My history. So here I am, in spite of many things, not drowning but waving to those my two selves of five and four years ago, respectively, going attagirl, you've got fighting spirit and what it takes, I'm proud of you, go get it, tiger.

It's actually reasonably easy to praise your past self overmuch from the distance of the future. At least here in my House of Future and Past it is, and this is A Very Private Place Indeed. But do you know what, gentle Reader? I actually can praise myself, these days. I have worked hard. Really hard. And I am very driven, and hard work and drivenness will carry me right the way through my life.

Do you remember my incredibly talented and lovely as well as dear and beloved friend Rebecca? Well here's a video of her two-man band doing one of their very new songs. I love it, it's beautiful and honest, real and true.

13 comments:

Sabine said...

Three massive cheers! Wait, loads more!

Anna MR said...

Sabine – thank you. It's a really special thing to receive cheers and congrats and genuine sharing of my joy at this almost-here fulfillment of not only a dream, but years of actual hard work instead of just dreaming, from a representative – and a highly special one such as you – of this online community of like minds, no matter how loosely we are in touch.

Of course, because I'm a hard-working and driven dreamer, I am already in the process of working for and driving myself towards more dreams. Greedy? Greedy for the fulfillment of big dreams? That'd be me, Ma'am and Sir, that'd be me.

I have learnt a lot. And it's not a little thanks I owe to the liberty I feel I have gained and learned from playing on this internet playground. Thank you again.

x

Fire Bird said...

Good on you Anna. Love your grit and determination. And humour and playfulness, while we're in loved up mode here.

Sabine said...

Thank you Anna for your thoughtful comments, here and on my blog.

It is hard work, isn't it, all that surviving and living and accepting and being here. If someone would have told me five years ago about all the turns my life has taken since, I think I would have laughed it off as something too impossible.
Adversity was what happened to other people.

And yet, and yet...we can find incredible resilience even when our physical energy is low as hell. That has been my lesson. Quite profound and humbling.

As for life after death?
Most days, I hope there is just nothing and that maybe it is all about not taking myself, about us not taking ourselves too damn serious. After all, we are just another species on this planet.
On other days, I am fierce jealous of some of my very old, half blind and by now immobile catholic aunts and the way they hold on to their rosary beads.

Be well.

Anna MR said...

Lovely Firebird, beautiful Tulilintu, hei. Very good to see you, and yay! for loved-up modes – thank you. I love being in loved-up mode. It's good, isn't it? Yes it is.

I'm kind of a bit blushing with delight here, so I'll just leave it at that, but jolly lovely to see you – do please come again, and speak again, whenever the mood should grab you. I've been a silent or reclusive blogger lately (or both), but have as of very late been feeling a surge of the old urge, so perhaps we can all drum up some blogland dancing again.

x

Anna MR said...

Sabine – I know and sometimes share that fierce jealousy of the rosary-clutchers. It must feel beautiful to have certainty like that – or hope like that – or faith like that, even though it (sadly) often (not talking about your aunts here, just generally, you understand) does lead to a judgmental attitude towards those who have different hopes, faiths or certainties – or none at all (like me, and, by the sounds of it, you).

I have been blessed with no adversity in the way of illness all my life. "Blessed" here as a figure of speech, naturally, given what I've just said – although in a sense, I feel that one can be blessed even if there's no blesser, as it were. Just to be a blessee, blessed by life. That's been the (unfairly?) lucky shape of my life; but believe me, I am humbled too as I look at those who don't just fight adversity but live it, like yourself, like a certain other dear friend, like many people; live it with not only dignity but with humour and a skill for seeing beauty.

(This not to pettify via prettify suffering, by the way. That is something that perhaps happens often – "oh those brave, brave ill people" – without actually acknowledging the pain, horror, rage, unfairness, and so on, of serious illness. I only know it by proxy – my mother is very ill with ALS and hasn't long to go. She has been brave, she still is brave, but it's not pretty in the least.)

It is so very nice to see you here, Sabine. Welcome again, at any time.

x

Reading the Signs said...

Schwes, I am mightily proud of you! For I know (don't ask how, I just know things) what all you've had to contend with to keep on keeping on. You cannot be greedy for the fulfilment of big dreams unless you have the generosity of spirit to match the greed, and surely you have this in spades.

Mazel tov. You deserve the happiness and the consummation and the world will be a better place for it.

Of course, that thing about your professor is like a red rag, isn't it ... I mean, how can I *not* immediately get in touch and spill the beans.

This is the future telling the past that all manner of things will be well. MWAH! X

Anna MR said...

Nooooo – don't spill the beans. I'll be so embarrassed. Red-rag-flashing or no, I am hardly a matador for professors, like – although I seem to have the knack of making them think I might make something of worth (ha-ha, hear my Evil Villain chuckle).

And now, my lovely and beloved Schwesterleinchen, I am just a mite worried that I might be annoying the powers that be with a slightly different red rag (yes, I seem to bleat roughly and blithely about the future being here, dressed only in red rags – and still managing to stay totally decently covered up, a wannabe-matadorian Lady Godiva of sorts, ja), as it is by no means quite done as yet. But, you know: it was really the recognition of love, perhaps a love over all other things, a love I will not give up (won't say "for anything", but it'd take A Lot for me to let go) that I wanted to, ahem, celebrate (or at the very least, acknowledge, nay, confess to) with this post.

So dear all - thinking on it hard now, please make sure that your kindest congrats so far are for the love, the work already done, and the love for the work already done, rather than the achievement…which, whilst merely round the corner now, is not yet a superpowers-cape that I wear.

Obviously, I will let know you know as and when…

A great big mwah to you, beloved Signs.

x

Montag said...

Thanks for introducing me to Mary Whitehouse.

I especially like her notion that children should be sheltered from depictions of violence and brutality in order that their future usefulness as soldiers of freedom be not impaired.

Wonderful.

Anna MR said...

Hei Montag, it is lovely to see you, and I'm sorry to have kept you waiting.

Yes, Mme Whitehouse was quite the character. I think she single-handedly ensured that even in the minds of fairly contemporary people, nudity and sexuality were seen as on a par with violence and brutality. It is quite a strange comparison, let alone combination, is it not?

Soldiers of freedom I just can't even begin to think about.

Hope all things are as well as life will allow with you, me old China.

Anonymous said...

It's fantastic to see how well you're doing (okay, 4 years ago, granted) and all of it richly deserved. What a momentously intelligent (and funny) woman you are. You were always the best, Anna MR, always my favourite, and often - even yet - on my mind.

Anoonymouse said...

Is that you?

Eva Wilson said...
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