(no subject)

I started Virginia Woolf's selected diaries at the pub last night. It was a nice way to capture a little quiet after spending the first part of the day at my job skills course and a good chunk of the afternoon at the charity shop. After leaving the shop I went with Julie, the lady who volunteers at the shop most days, to get dinner at the fish and chip shop. This was my third week volunteering there, just doing one afternoon a week because the job centre are funny about you volunteering unless they've forced you into it.

Every week so far I've been out for dinner with Julie after we leave the shop. I like the routine and not having to eat on my own on Tuesdays. I think Julie probably feels the same. She's told me that she's had a lot of problems with her health and that her carer who comes once a week to help her with her shopping will only be coming once a fortnight now because of the recent Government cuts to healthcare. I don't know her very well but I do get the sense that Julie's health has left her isolated and that she probably doesn't have many friends that she sees outside the shop.

Talking to her does make me realise how lucky I am that I do have people around me who care about me and I've been forgetting that during my worst times. I mustn't let my self ever get to the point where I just completely hide away. I suspect I was heading that way for a good long while but now it seems I'm finding ways to turn things around. I have routines that I'm building, such as my volunteering and going out to dinner on a Tuesday with Julie, I have other routines that I've had around for a while, ie my roleplaying group on a Tuesday night. Yes, I know Tuesday is sounding very busy and nothing much else the rest of the week bar signing on every other Friday. You see, what I want is to have a routine. I'd like to have people that I see and interact with every day. I want to be doing things, getting out there and staying out there, while still having my little world in here, wherever here is, be it head, heart, a digital space or the Aladdin's cave of distractions that is whichever bedroom I happen to inhabit for an amount of time. I can still enjoy the things I enjoy distracting myself with, but surely it has to be in moderation so that I can actually enjoy them rather than feeling I have too much time to do anything.

While job searching on the computer's down at the centre where they run my course, I came across what may well be my dream job. It's as a library assistant at a local 16-19 college. I'm gearing my efforts and the new things we learn each day to scribble down ideas that will help for my application for this job in particular, but what I come up with will surely give me the bones and, gradually as I refine my thoughts, the meat of interview answers. It's also set me onto the sought of jobs I can look for that really do engage me. I'd love to see my experience and encouragement being of help to people not all that younger that me who may not be sure where to take their studies, so I think the requirement of being able to empathise with 16-19 students is very much a given. And I always said I would be a librarian... but only on the when I wasn't busy being an astronaut, archaeologist or famous writer. There's always the evenings and summertime for pursuing my other careers and on the days I'm not digging up and dusting off evidence of ancient civilisations on Mars and Titan I could start flitting between folk festivals as a volunteer!