patience

I am not very good at patience. I never have been, and I am trying hard to learn how to be patient, but I am not very good at it at all. I am a creature of impulse. Most of my purchases are made that way, most of my decisions get made on a snap, and I live with whatever consequences may occur from those decisions. I like the information age. I like being able to watch TV series on DVD, so I don't have to wait for the next weekly installment. I prefer to buy books in sets for that self same reason. So it goes without saying that I struggle with waiting. What am I waiting for, you may ask? I am waiting for the government to let me know whether or not I have a job. I have been involved in the process now for almost two years. I still do not have a job. I have had a couple of successful interviews (though the total amount of that success is yet to be seen) but I still have no idea if I am going to have a job or not. Apparently they have asked all the right questions, requested all the right information, and I should be on a short list for hiring. Yet, there is still no word forthcoming. The last of the interviews was over a month ago, at this point. I wrote another exam last week, for which I should hear about an interview sometime in the immediate future, though the word immediate, in conjunction with government is somewhat of a misnomer.

What this lack of patience has meant is that ultimately I am stalling. I keep hoping everyday for word to come, and this word would lift me out of the PhD program that I am not yet settled into, but as each day passes and I do not hear from my prospective employers, it means I actually have to get my ass in gear and do the school-work I have been so deftly avoiding. It is much more difficult because my heart is nowhere near as involved in this process as it should be. I am without drive and spark... and that makes getting motivated extremely difficult. It also means that I am much less creative than I should be. Perhaps, though, this is a good thing when it comes to academia. I have to write a paper, for which I have two weeks to get a proposal together, with an annotated bibliography. I have no idea what to write on, as this course is somewhat outside of my area of expertise. In that same two weeks, I have to finish grading the mountain of exams I have in front of me, research and present my part of a 3 hour group presentation, and get the house ready for a very special guest! Add to that a fairly full social calendar between now and then, and the sickness that has not yet gone away, but is being at least manageable with the right medications.

I know that all I really have to do is be patient. To just wait it out, and eventually my file will land on some managers desk, and I should receive that phone call that I have been ever so anxiously awaiting. And I know that all I really have to do is sit down and start doing all this work that lies in front of me, and yet I find it harder and harder every day to make it happen. I have spurts of activity,where I get what I need to get accomplished done, but the very next day, when I am supposed to pick up where I left off, I find I am almost physically unable to make it happen... it takes supreme effort... why isn't patience like the card game? I am good at that.