Reach for the Sky

This time last year I was unemployed. I was unsure if I wanted to continue writing my honours thesis, didn’t know what type of job to apply for or if I wanted to work full time. The financial burden was really hard, but the emotional burden of not knowing what I was doing or if I was going to be able to commit to any job for long was even harder. I suppose I was a bit lost.

This time last year was also the time that I emailed a number of organisations that specialise in marketing and professional writing, hoping that I may be able to tap into freelance writing. It was only via this channel that I was able to begin writing resumes professionally on a freelance basis. I found I really enjoyed finding out the skills and qualities of a job seeker and being able to syphon it into a single vibrant document designed to sell them to a potential employer. I learned that a good resume makes the difference between an employer seeing what a candidate actually has on offer, or reading the first page and tossing it in the bin. I also learned quickly that not having a resume that is effective holds many job seekers back. It is a very big barrier.

It isn’t the only barrier though, and I am soon to discover just how severe and debilitating some of those barriers can be. Writing resumes professionally really tapped into an interest in the employment sector for me, so much so that I have taken steps to further explore it. When I found out recently that I was required to complete a 50 hour placement volunteering in the community as part of a university subject, I decided that I could either treat it as an inconvenience or as an opportunity to learn something about an area of interest, and to learn more about myself. And so it has eventuated that I will spend time in two sister organisations, one which assists job seekers with disabilities, and one which assists job seekers with mental health issues. The DES and Worklink, work hand in hand with one another, and I am very excited and grateful for their willingness to accommodate me and support through a meaningful experience. I hope to keep you all up to date on this placement as I go.

As I’d also like to further pursue professional corporate and resume writing after I finish university – I have a facebook page, Sky High Professional Writing – I want to start offering job seeking advice and resume tips on this blog to support the process of entering in to such a venture. To start, here are my top 8 tips for applying for jobs:

1. Your resume is your personal marketing document. Make sure it reflects who you are. It should be 3 pages at most unless you have 30 years’ experience and everything is relevant. No employer will read it if it is 10 pages long.

2. Start broadly from the top of your resume. Key competencies or qualities first, career objective, education, career history, key skills and achievements, community involvement, and then specifics like computer skills if relevant. Only put in work experience which is relevant for the job you apply for.

3. Tap into qualities and assets that employers love, for example your superior problem solving skills, your ability to relate to internal and external customers on every level, your ability to acquire knowledge rapidly, your commitment to ongoing professional renewal, your passion for social equity or going above and beyond to deliver exceptional service.

4. Adjust your resume for EVERY application. Make sure it speaks to the organisation you are applying to work for.

5. Re-write your cover letter for EVERY application. Employers can tell when you have done a cut and paste job. Address the criteria in the ad. Visit the website and show that you know the organisation by telling them how your skills align with the services they provide and how your qualities and previous experience reflect what is in their mission statement. They want to know why you want to work for their organisation, or your application will end up in the bin.

6. Write letters and send your resume to organisations that aren’t advertising. Most jobs are not advertised and most organisations love it when you take the time to show an interest in their business or service. But again, write specifically to the organisation. Cut and paste is a big waste of time.

7. Apply for full time jobs even if you want to work part time, and part time jobs even if you want to work full time. If you get their attention and present well in an interview, you never know what they may be willing to offer you.

8. Check your spelling and grammar. Your job application is not Facebook. Recruitment officers can and WILL throw your application in the bin if you have careless spelling errors and don’t know how to use an apostrophe. They can and ARE that picky. Your professional literacy matters to them even if it doesn’t to you.

Hopefully this might help some stressed out job seekers out there. Don’t forget to check me out on Facebook and recommend me to your friends. It’s a cut throat world, but a good resume is a secret weapon!

32, Single, Childless

I have not blogged in quite a while; life has been somewhat busy and so writing has fallen to the wayside this year. I have been working hard, planning and teaching a Kindergarten class, completed my final teaching prac, switched centres and begun teaching another Kindergarten class and have launched into my final university subjects. After this year, I will be a qualified teacher and the world will be at my feet.

Or will it? I guess that is the starting point for resurrecting my blog. I feel a need to write. I always have. I write about current affairs and topics of interest online in certain forums, I get a nerdy kind of buzz from finishing assignments, and I have slowly but surely been plodding along with my novel. It may or may not ever be published. Sometimes none of those things are enough though. Sometimes I write poetry and sometimes I write my feelings out, just like this but never hit publish. It is hard sometimes to put yourself out there, but it is also one of the best ways to get it out of your system. I wish I had the courage to do it more often.

I digress. Going back to the world being at my feet, or not: I have come to a realisation. I will probably never feel like it is. And there is a reason for this. A highly personal one. No matter what path my career takes, or how much I write, there are things I just cannot see changing. I am 32 in a matter of days. I am single. I am childless. I can’t afford to be a parent on my own. I’ve secretly stopped believing I will meet the love of my life. I feel as though I’ve missed the boat.

It’s funny. I expected that the longer I worked with young children, the more I would grow to appreciate my peace at knock off time. I thought I’d be able to hang out with the kiddies, have my patience tested daily, and then go and home and be grateful to have time to myself. I thought maybe I would want children less. That I’d stop waiting for love. That’d fix me up, right?

Instead, I appreciate my peace and quiet, but somehow want children more. Having other people’s children drown me in cuddles and tell me they love me; watching them reach milestones proudly and learn so much - from me - seems to serve only remind me of what I am missing out on. There are babies and children around me all the time. So many friends are having babies now. I am at that age. By the end of the year I won’t be able to count on both hands the number of people I know or am acquainted with who have had babies, just this year. In fact I feel like every time I log in to face book I am confronted with pregnant bellies, new babies and announcements of engagement. And then I go to work and spend all day around kids.

I guess I just wonder how long I can keep ignoring the feelings of inadequacy and pushing them away. How long can I ignore the pangs of strong hateful jealousy I feel toward anyone pregnant or newly bestowed with a baby? I’m happy for those people at the same time… but, is it healthy? I’m just doing my best, but I still feel like I’m not doing enough. What did I do wrong in my life to be alone and childless at 32? I don’t think any ambition I ever had was as strong as the one I had to be a mother. Yet it may end up being the one ambition I never fulfil. I think I understand how people with fertility problems feel. That want and urgency pokes at your insides daily. When people say “oh you have plenty of time”, and “it’ll happen when the time is right”, I feel even worse. It may not. I haven’t got plenty of time. I have very little. My biological clock might chug to a halt before I find myself in a position to make it happen.

How do I accept that this may be the case? I can’t find peace with that outcome yet. I can handle being alone. But I can't imagine living my life without my own children.

Am I just being dramatic because I turn 32 in less than 2 weeks? Or is this a normal feeling?

The Science on Climate Change is Unequivocal

Climate change is a topic which constantly surfaces in the media and provides much fodder for fierce debate. Today however, this debate has been taken one step further by Adelaide University’s Professor of Mining Geology, Ian Plimer with the release of his new book “How to Get Expelled from School: A Guide to Climate Change for Pupils, Parents and Punters”. The climate change skeptic has outlined 101 questions to ask teachers to challenge their collective environmental activist stance which apparently has no basis in science. This publication is being backed by ex Prime Minister John Howard.

I’m no expert in the field of climatology or environmental science, but since when were “environmental activism” and “science” mutually exclusive concepts? Also, moreover, why do some people feel they are above scientific fact and choose to disbelieve something for which there is overwhelming evidence for? It almost seems as though people are frightened that any research, reports or policies which are funded by a governmental body might be a conspiracy and designed to brainwash the masses into believing a specific agenda. The Chemtrail Conspiracy is a perfect example of this. Yet I for one find it difficult to believe that the world’s science professionals, who devote their lives and careers to research, and whom are trained to analyse and synthesise data using very specific methodology which accounts for all kinds of variables which can affect overall results, would be contriving research evidence to fit with government agendas. I’d go so far as to say I think science is the one thing we can rely on to be clear and evidence based.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) spend years researching and compiling reports based on “unequivocal evidence” suggesting that humans are impacting global climate trends more and more every year. The IPCC’s 2007 report stated that numerous experiments have been constructed (and many more since this publication) which clearly indicated that the steep trend in global warming cannot be explained by natural causes. Though there are, of course, natural trends such as el nino and la nina which occur irrespective of human activity, it is almost bewildering to suggest that human activity (namely the dramatic increase in carbon emissions) is not impacting the delicate balance of the Earth’s atmosphere and stratosphere. Really, how could it not be affecting us? The Earth’s population has increased in the last 50 years from about 3 billion, to 7 billion. Folks, this is an extra 4 billion peoples’ worth of waste, as well as use of utilities and services, and most importantly electricity. In this age of technology and more extreme weather, the use of electricity has probably quadrupled or more in the last 50 years. There is no possible way that this is not having any effect on climate trends.

In May this year Professor Kurt Lambeck of the Australian Academy of Science affirmed this notion of human contribution to global warming in science/health journal The Lamp.
‘The role of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is qualitatively well understood. It is known that increasing the atmospheric concentration of CO2 leads to higher mean global surface. It is known that CO2 has increased very substantially during the last century to the highest levels seen in the last 800,000 years,’ he said. ‘It is also beyond serious question that some CO2 from human activities remains in the atmosphere for a very long time, as is the message that unless greenhouse gas emissions are reduced, an upward trend in global temperature will continue.’
(No Doubt about Climate Change, The Lamp, 2011)


The global temperate has risen over 0.4 degrees Celsius since 1979, and 0.74 C in the last century. This means that more than half of this rise has been in the last 30 years. Eleven of the last 12 years “rank among the 12 warmest years in the instrumental record of global surface temperature since 1850”. If this doesn’t concern you, this is what our future could look like if we don’t act soon, and act big:




We need to act. We need to be open about how we can collectively make changes that will reduce our emissions of Carbon. The UNFCCC climate change pact is a great step in the right direction. And in my opinion, even the newly passed carbon tax has its positives. Small steps are better than none at all. But when are the naysayers going to admit that science is proving them wrong again and again?

What do you think about climate change? Do you think we are doing enough?

When the wind changes...

It's funny how things change... but then again, so do people. Feelings. Desires. I guess life wouldn't be a journey if they didn't. I hate the word journey. Remind me next time to use the word quest. Or voyage. Ha! We are all on life's voyage to the Nether Islands of Infinity.

Ok sorry, I've kind of lost my point. I really just wanted to say that the following is a piece I wrote about when someone turns out not be who you thought they were, and when you wake up one day and realised that something has shifted and you've moved in a different direction to where you expected. Probably for the better. It is about that moment of wistful nostalgia. Or is that nostalgic wist? Wait is wist even a word? My trusty dictionary says the word is whist, meaning silence or hush. Well this would have to be one of the most random blog entries I've ever written. Maybe I'll write up a big spiel about the carbon tax next just to mix it up.

Here it is.



You used to take my breath away
You couldn’t have known how much I cherished you
I held onto your words like they were pearls
But the wind changed
Time flew
I used to give so much
That at night I’d dream of you
You were always inside my heart, my thoughts
But the wind changed
Who knew?
You used to get inside me, underneath my skin
You were something magical and new
You gave me hope, and vision
But the wind changed
And so did you
You used to be my reason to believe
A grain of integrity and truth
To love you was an honour
But the wind changed
Time flew
Now I don’t even know you
And you haven’t got a clue
Somehow I’m still submerged waist deep in this dream
But the wind changed...
Have you?

A Little Body Love

“Right, that’s it!! I’m going on a diet!!”
“But Mama, are you coming back?”


That was the conversation that took place with my mother when I was just three years old. I didn’t know what a diet was, the word ‘going’ meant to me that a diet must have been a place. Oh how innocence is lost quickly. Mum was often on diets when I was growing up, she struggled with body image and the more she tried to control her weight, the harder it became, especially after having my two younger sisters.


We are not a lean family naturally, but nor are any of us big exercisers and we all love eating. I was always a smaller framed person and at 5”1 most of my adult years have been spent teetering between about 50 and 55 kilograms. I can’t honestly say I have ever been happy with my body, but I didn’t used to want to do any exercise to obtain my ideal body either. I hated the fact that genetically, even at a lower body weight, I’d always carry extra weight on my face and arms and I’d look like a hideous fat person in every photo because of where I carried that weight. I hated the ‘love handles’ around my hips and I hated my flabby arms.


At my heaviest, after leaving a job that I hated and being unemployed for a period of time, then another job that made me unhappy, I think I weighed about 59kg. I was still only a size 10 but I didn’t like my body at all, I didn’t like where my life was going and I didn’t really like myself very much. For me, Body Love is all about a journey of gaining self-esteem and confidence. Something that has been a struggle my whole life. In 2008 I finally returned to full time study and though life is never easy, I think it was the best decision I have ever made. I believe in myself so much more than I ever did before. The last year has been tough to tell the truth. I have suffered with some depressive episodes that have forced me to actually face and deal with my tendency toward depression, anxiety and poor stress management. I’ve realised that you can’t hide from something living inside you.


I think for me, dealing with these things has been the catalyst for my journey to the land of Body Love. I have finally lost the dreaded few extra kilos that had bothered me for so long. I have learned to enjoy exercise and not give in to the chocolate cravings quite as often! I know, it’s a miracle! I’d be lying if I said body image was no longer an issue for me, I think it is for many women for their whole lives. At 47kg, I still have days when I look in the mirror and see non-existent fat and cellulite. Days when I feel myself slip. I think about how many calories I’m consuming often. And I worry that I’ll put weight back on.


And that is why I decided to participate in the I heart my body 2011 project. I haven’t had babies (yet), or a bad childhood or a chronic illness. I’m just “Lucy in the sky with diamonds”, often “elsewhere” as someone put it the other day, and I’m just learning to be me. And be okay with me… mostly on the inside. But on the outside, today, I am going to celebrate my little curves and my cheeky smile and realise how lucky I am to have a body that is healthy and works just the way it should at 31 years of age. What do you love about YOUR body?

Come on baby light my fire...

Men. We love 'em and we hate 'em. I have had a lot of intense contact with a man I have let myself like too much in the last couple of months. We live in the same city,yet have had little physical contact because he has a girlfriend he is apparently unhappy with, yet not willing to leave. Our contact has been reduced for the most part to a mixture of light hearted and flirtatious banter via text messages and phone calls.

I know, I know. The alarm bells are going off right? I know this contact is not very healthy,yet I have just been rendered completely irrational every time I speak to him or see his words. The attraction is in the fact that he has never said a single thing that has left me wondering if he is the right kind of person for me. He ironically comes across as completely honest, he is kind, has a sense of humour so identical to mine that he has laughed at my jokes for five or ten minutes straight, even bad jokes. He is smart (a hippy environmental scientist)and articulate and very easy going.

He's not an addict, he's not suicidal, bi-polar or schizophrenic, he is not unemployed, he's not into prostitutes and he is not an arsehole or lacking social skills in any form. Unlike some of the creatures my poor friend Carly Findlay has happened upon lately!

Yet, he just doesn't quite seem to have it together.He would rather be with a girl he doesn't love and just flirt and play with fire on the side. Arghhhhhhhh!! I guess there comes a time when you just have to accept that he is just not that into you... and you have to walk away.

This kind of sums up how I feel:



FIRE


If you want to feel warm
Then light a fire
Ignite the flames
And watch them flicker
Inside her hungry soul
If you want to feel free
Then roam like a lion
On the open savannah
Stalk your prey
Then pounce
At the peak, opportune moment
If you want to let go
Then dance like a shadow
A silken silhouette
Surrendering to the moonlight
And the rain
And the sunshine
Wait for her to mirror
Your every calculated move
If you want to feel light
Float in the ocean
Let the sun kiss your spirit
And the current drag you away
From life as you know it
If you want to dream big
Then reach to the sky
And hang your hopes on the stars
Hang your hopes on her
She lives on the moon
Waiting for a fellow moon dweller
To join her in holey matrimony
If you want to feel warm
Build a fire
Then watch the flames flicker
They’ll dance inside her
Like an orchestra of sweet scented words
Dazzle her
Then stand far away
Safe from being burned
And watch her get away
Just like you’ve done a million times before

Persmission To Give Up

Sometimes all you want to do is run. From the task in front of you. From the problems in your life. From other people. From yourself. I can hear the collective sigh of everyone reading. We all feel like running away and giving up sometimes, and the general consensus of the world we live in today is “never ever give up”, because giving up is failing. It is losing face. It is letting ourselves down. It is showing weakness. But is there ever a time when it is okay to just give yourself permission to give something up and let it go?

I had a good talk with my mother last night. Like all mothers, she always knows better even if I think I’m managing to hide how I feel about something. A mother’s intuition I guess. It has been a difficult year, financially and with my studies and trying to take that step into the next chapter of my life, in a nice, easy, smooth glide. But life isn’t about smooth, easy glides from one thing to the next. It is bumpy, often blind, and sometimes scary. I have been to the edge and back a few times. I have crumbled. I have hit some low points this year much lower than I ever believed my circumstances would have warranted and felt so unlike myself I didn’t particularly want to look in the mirror or face the day at all. Crying spells unfortunately featured quite a lot this year.

For the uninitiated, I have invested the better part of four years into my university degree and really am on the cusp of becoming a teacher and leaving the long nights of study and caffeine overdose far far behind me. I have also invested two years into dragging my feet along with my honours thesis, trying to find a way to make it all come together and make sense. I have spent many an hour sitting in front of my laptop staring at the screen, writing 3 sentences, then deleting them, then researching some more, reading, writing another 3 sentences. Delete. It has been the death of me really. The research topic kind of fell into my lap at the start. I wanted to do research in the area of literacy and the use of multiliteracies and popular media in the classroom. So when a professor at the university walked into my research class looking for people interested in doing a literacy based thesis focused on a literacy program called MULTILIT and the perceptions of how effective it was in making gains in academic literacy achievement in one school, it seemed like the stars were sort of aligned.

Until I realised that MULTILIT was an acronym for Making Up For Lost Time In Literacy, and was actually a Direct Instruction based phonics program and nothing to do with Multiliteracies. Still, I thought, it is a topic handed to me on a platter and there is some hands on research in there which is good. It sounds interesting enough. It could work. Then time passed and life’s stresses and the sheer complexity and involved process of applying for ethics approval to conduct research in a school, especially with Indigenous students sent me into flight mode. Eventually the study was reduced to a document study with MULTILIT still as the main focus, but more a genealogical study of literacy instruction. I was a long way from my initial interest in using multimedia, pop culture and technologies to enhance literacy learning and instruction, and I was stalling with it more than ever. After my final practicum turned upside down and left me facing doing it all again with no Austudy payments to support myself, my Thesis became even harder to focus on despite the tiny window of time I had to complete it in. When my laptop recently decided it was time to call it quits and go to computer heaven, I could have given up there and then quite easily. Fortunately my parents did come to my rescue and I have a new laptop for which I am very grateful. Though I can only admit that it did cross my mind that if I didn’t have a computer then I had a good excuse to give up. Still, I kept going.

So the question I am asking myself now, is, is it time to give up? Can I give myself permission now to let it go and move on? Because I no longer qualify for Austudy, I am on unemployment benefits and under massive financial stress. The stress of knowing that time is of the essence and that I need to find work as well is impacting my health. I bemoaned my health issues on Facebook last night and claimed I must have diabetes or be a hyperchondriac. But even on Facebook, where everyone else struggles to know how to interpret things other people have said, mothers can read between the lines immediately. She phoned me and told me I was too stressed, not eating properly and getting thinner (I’d have debated that but weighed myself this morning and found I was 46kg). So after a good talk with my Mum, I think I can finally give myself that permission.

I will give myself one week to make some significant gains on my Thesis and if I can’t, then it is time to say goodbye to the task which has become unenjoyable and not the piece of writing I thought it was going to be. When have you given yourself permission to give up? Do you regret it?