Old man winter

Above: Fuzzy Christmas lights...

Good evening, friends!

It's been over two months since my last update. I'm sorry!! I know that's a long absence, but honestly, I have been so busy with school that I haven't had much time to do anything at all besides homework and keeping up with household duties.

Hope everyone is enjoying the Christmas season! Only five more days (and I just started making my gifts... yikes)! We have actually had quite an unusual amount of snow so far. It rarely snows much around here, being a temperate rainforest type climate... but something about this year made old man winter want to come out and shake his cane at us. I have had some interesting experiences with the car the past couple days. No winter tires, so really shouldn't be driving in it at all, but sometimes you just have things to do that need the car, you know? Thankfully, everything worked out in the end and I managed to not get stuck (well, not very stuck anyway). Had a very angry pedestrian scream at me because I literally couldn't see the lines of a (randomly placed) crosswalk and so did not stop to let him cross. I mean, yes it's my fault, but screaming at me because I don't have x-ray vision?

Anyways... weather!

I am several days into my 2-week winter break from school and it's been lovely so far. Finally some time to properly relax and rest.

Lots of news to catch up on. I guess the most interesting thing is that I know where my practicum in the spring is going to be. After thinking it over, I decided that the private lab (rather than the hospital) is my ideal workplace, and our instructor told us stories about the last class and how one student requested to be placed on the island because she wanted to move there to work. I decided to try and do the same thing if I could, so I talked it over with the Fox and we both agreed that we want to move to the island sooner rather than later. I then just talked to my instructor and she was able to immediately get in contact with her connections at the private labs in Victoria, who are apparently very happy to host a student from my college. It seems that there is a shortage of MLAs over there (and potentially too many of us over here competing for jobs), so the college they have over there can't keep up with the demand. Perfect for me!

So my practicum will be on the island (specifically, Victoria). Whee!

I am very lucky this worked out, and that I have a good friend living there who has a spare bedroom and has generously agreed to have me stay there for the 4 weeks of my practicum. I'm not sure how I would manage it without her help. Our plan is for the Fox to stay here and keep our current place in case I don't find a job over there right away. However, from what I've researched with the private lab company (LifeLabs), it's reasonably likely that I'll at least get a casual position right away (assuming my practicum goes well and I do well at it), meaning that I would get whatever hours they have to spare until such time as a more stable position is available. And once I do secure a position, I can find us a place to live and we can properly move over there for good.

That's the tentative plan, anyway. A lot depends on whether or not I get a job right away, so I'm hoping that will happen. I need to work very hard at school to maximize the chances of that occurring. The lab's interview is somewhat rigorous, or so I've heard. I need to study those specimen tubes and lab tests... and practice those ECGs...

But I feel pretty good about everything, and my instructors seem to think I'll be fine, so I am not too stressed out. Some of my classmates are kind of feeling the burn with our somewhat large workload, but I am lucky to have: 1) no job, thanks to the support of my parents and those of the Fox, and 2) a brain that is used to long hours of schoolwork from 3 years of intense university. Also I suspect my brain is well suited to this kind of work. I've always been a good student, but I keep surprising myself this time around; I'll think I'm not prepared for an exam at all, and end up getting 90-something percent on it. Maybe I'm soaking up more things subconsciously than I realize. I don't think I'm a harder worker than my classmates at all. I'm just lucky to have the kind of brain that picks up this kind of stuff easily, I think.

I think for me the challenging part is more the practical stuff. I'm fairly good at the phlebotomy, but I do believe it's my weaker area (rather than the theoretical/academic stuff). The Fox came in as my guest to get poked (we are allowed to bring willing victims to practice on) and I wasn't able to collect his blood, as he has extremely challenging veins (that I could barely detect with my fingers, let alone hit with my needle)! Luckily, he has generously agreed to let me try again, and until I find his veins, too. What a nice Fox I have.

Speaking of whom, I do have some rather disappointing news on that front. The second disability application was declined. I don't even know what to say about it. I wanted to cry and smash things at the same time when I found out, yet another part of me is so jaded with the whole thing by now that I can't muster up enough energy to care about it too much. I don't know what the government thinks he's supposed to do. He hasn't been able to work for over a year now and they seem to think his condition is still not "severe and prolonged," and that because he was able to get a temporary contract, that there's no reason he shouldn't be able to work in that field and support himself that way.

There are loads of reasons why he can't do that (most significantly, he has an actual, chronic, seemingly untreatable medical condition which actually interferes with his ability to work consistently). I can't even go into it any more because I will get too angry and frustrated and there's just no point. From the get-go he's been screwed out of what the government should, by rights, owe him (seeing as how he has paid into all those programs like every other taxpayer).

So instead of beating a dead horse, we've been trying to think of other ways that we can keep body and soul together. Moving to the island (hopefully) is a step in the right direction, as housing is cheaper over there and there seem to be more job opportunities for myself. The Fox has been exploring other ideas of making income, and has had some promising conversations recently with a game developer he met at a networking event. So, hopefully that will go somewhere. To be honest, I don't even mind if he makes money or not. I just want him to be happy and fulfilled and have things to do that he enjoys and finds satisfaction in. I don't care if I'm the breadwinner. I know he would do the same for me if I were the one with the disability, so turnabout is fair play. He is just as frugal as I am, so it's not like either of us spend resources freely (she said, carefully keeping to herself the fact that she needlessly bought herself a delicious creme brulee frappuccino yesterday).

Anyhoo... so that's the most exciting and significant news of the moment, I suppose!

In other news, I have recently had the dubious honour of cutting someone out of my life. I won't go into too much detail, but basically it was a friendship that had turned toxic for me. The friend in question turned out to be an emotional vampire, something which I had never dealt with before.

"Emotional vampires are called emotional vampires because they have a tendency to drain the emotional energy out of everyone they come in contact with. They’re exhausting. They need constant attention. They always have some crisis or major life event. They’re experts at eliciting emotional reactions out of others and then feeding off those emotions, regardless of whether they’re positive emotions or negative emotions." -Mark Manson

That pretty much describes exactly how our friendship was progressing. I was finding it exhausting and draining -- and even though I knew that this friend usually meant well (I think), I could no longer handle the constant crises, the ups and downs, and the endless pleas for help.

I wasn't really happy to cut off things with this person, but I really felt that it was necessary for my own sanity and health. The Fox has had dealings with toxic people before and he agreed that this was absolutely the best decision for me. I don't know if I could have done it without his support. This friend was an expert at certain methods of manipulation, and I was often feeling so empathetic for them, that I did things I didn't want to do or didn't feel that I should be obliged to do.

Once I realized what was happening I could see it so much more clearly. How I was subtly positioned into a space where if I disagreed, I would be the bad guy. How I was praised so much for performing favours, that I kept going back for more. Good gods! It made me learn a lot about myself, too. Some things that I wasn't exactly proud of. It speaks of low self-esteem and low confidence when one bends over backwards so far as to break their own back, just to win affection or validation that one is worthy.

So, some things for me to think about, too. I do have a lower level of confidence and self-esteem sometimes. I am not sure why I am this way; I know that modesty was always valued highly in my family, so maybe I just took that to the extreme? In any case, too much modesty is just as bad as not enough, because too much, I think, can overlay a deeper sense of unworthiness that can be dangerous to a person.

So there you go. What adventures I have had recently...

In losing a friend, I have thought more about the friendships I do have that are valuable and healthy. I thought about one in particular in which I have not really been as good a friend as I should, to my shame. I think I've mentioned this friend before (my self-proclaimed "art rival")... I got to thinking about how I have been acting, and how those actions are actually the result of my own dark side. I'm talking about envy, guys. It's not a pretty monster. No wonder it's a deadly sin...

I won't go into it too much, but I have been re-evaluating my feelings towards this person and trying to look at the real reasoning behind it. I have no good reason to act unsupportive to someone who has been nothing but a good friend to me. In fact, I should be ashamed -- and am ashamed -- of some of the things I've thought about the whole situation.

The Fox says this might be a battle I've waged in my own head, so I am not sure whether or not I should talk to my friend about this or not. On the one hand, I really do want to apologize for being a bad friend, because I think I have been -- but on the other, if she truly doesn't realize that I have been a bad friend, then I might just make things awkward by talking about it in depth.

To be clear, I haven't actually done or said anything bad to her. It's just the things I say to the Fox, the bitter, jealous things. And the moral support which I (perhaps nastily?) stopped providing. On the outside, it might really just seem like I've been busy or distant or dealing with other things -- which are all, in fact, true.

I think I might come to a compromise, and just write a small note saying something like "I'm sorry that I haven't been a very good friend lately. I've been dealing with some personal issues but that's no reason to be unsupportive, so please accept my apologies and I hope we can continue to be good art buddies." Something like that... what do you all think? (All, like, two of you?) Just enough detail to partially explain, but not so much as to totally overwhelm my friend and make it seem like I'm a crazy person?

Anyway. Haha. I truly do value that friendship (even more so now that I know what a toxic friendship feels like), so I want to be as open as possible.

Well, I am starving and it's suddenly 11pm, so I think I'll end this here. The poor Fox has been sleeping all day... he couldn't sleep last night, so took his sleeping pills, and they didn't kick in until about 9am this morning. They really give him an awful "hangover" so he's been feeling crappy all day. I've been out and about cavorting with friends, so I feel sort of bad... I will do something special for him tomorrow.

Merry Christmas to you all, lovely readers, and Happy Yule! I hope you are all surrounded by people you love over the holidays, and that you all get some really good rest and relaxation in. I know I will!