Ithaka

2004-11-26 at 11:11 p.m.

Got a phone call today from Employment Solutions. When I heard the name I thought they were from that job that I don't want, but it turned out that they're something to do with the Department of Work and Pensions and they were just reminding me that I have to go to this induction course on Monday. So, that job hasn't rung me back - which on the one hand is excellent because it means I don't have to do it and on the other hand is obscurely insulting if not even a Jobcentre-sponsored job for the terminally unemployed wants me...

In other news...I got a letter from South Bank University offering me an interview for the course I want! I must say, they're quick off the mark, I only just sent the UCAS form in! Its not so much an interview as a mixture of an open day and an interview apparently as there is a presentation and its at St Thomas' hospital. That's in January and I have to organise some work experience before then, so next week I'll give one of the hospitals a ring and ask for some time in their imaging department. I also have to fill out a long occupational health questionnaire and give them permission to read my medical records. So no disguising the mental illness, I guess, but I'm going to see if I can get an appointment with my GP before then and discuss it with him. I want to put things in the best possible light i.e. just because I have an illness, I'll be fine and please take me on your course! Hopefully he can help me with that and it won't be a problem, but I think I need to find out whether it will be. Unfortuantely there really isn't anyone but him to ask about this, now that I'm no longer seeing a psychiatrist regularly, and who else could I ask anyway? All the other health questions should be fine, as I very rarely get ill and never seriously. So aside from being a wee bit nuts, I should be a good candidate.

Got a load of job application forms through as well that I need to get going on. Probably work on them on Sunday. My parents were supposed to go out tomorrow night but that's been cancelled so we're going to celebrate my birthday a bit early and go out for lunch tomorrow and I get to get my presents in advance because dad's going away. Which is nice, as next week may not be the best.

No, I've got to stop that, next week might be fine for all I know. I'm going to look on it as a chance to make some friends who live in the same borough as me, as I don't know anyone in Tower Hamlets and they're all bound to be from here. I might meet some nice people to hang round with - I know Kerry from the night-class, but she's twenty years older than me (and just between me and the net, probably not someone I'd become great friends with in any case, not because she's nasty or anything, I just don't think we actually share any interests at all).

I am actually feeling quite upbeat today, so hopefully that will carry through to next week. And I just bought a new computer game - Civ III. So I'm off to play that.

But before I do...I'm going to treat whoever reads this to one of my favourite poems:

Ithaka

As you set out for Ithaka
hope your road is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
Laistrygonians, Cyclops,
angry Poseidon - don't be afraid of them:
you'll never find things like that on your way
as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,
as long as a rare excitement
stirs your spirit and your body.
Laistrygonians, Cyclops,
wild Poseidon - you won't encounter them
unless you bring them along inside your soul,
unless your soul sets them up in front of you.

Hope your road is a long one.
May there be many summer mornings when,
with what pleasure, what joy,
you enter harbours you're seeing for the first time;
may you stop at Phoenician trading stations
to buy fine things,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
sensual perfume of every kind -
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
and may you visit many Egyptian cities
and learn and go on learning from their scholars.

Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you're destined for.
But don't hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you're old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you've gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.

Ithaka gave you the marvellous journey.
Without her you wouldn't have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.

And if you find her poor, Ithaka won't have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you will have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.
Constantine Cavafy (1863-1933)

If I have but one piece of advice to give people, it would be to read Cavafy, I think. Sadly underappreciated.

<< - >>
Notes | G-book