WTF?!

1.  Family weddings are always a big deal, as opposed to, you know, the weddings of friends or acquaintances
2. LuthierSis is a perfectionist. In the extreme. Everything must be perfect and everyone must be excited and colours must be co-ordinated (I can get behind that one, at least) and so on
3. The Baby is a flower girl. At one and a half. Gawd help us.

So I downloaded some free video capture software in an attempt to make my webcam make do until I can afford a Flip. (Which Himself keeps trying to talk me out of, because There Are Other Gadgets and other boy talk, but I WANT A FLIP.)

Wow.

First off, the footage is useless for pretty much anything dance-related because it is so JERKY and crappy.

Which, THANK FUCK, because NOBODY NEEDS TO SEE WHAT I LOOK LIKE ON FILM.

T_T

Oh my god.

I mean, I KNOW I have put the weight back on. I KNOW what size clothes I'm having to wear, despite my best attempts to avoid shopping for clothes and having to admit that I need to buy THAT SIZE.

And yet - horrifying. HORRIFYING. I didn't *think* I was pretending to myself that I wasn't the size I am, but since it was such an UNPLEASANT SURPRISE I guess I have been. For some time.

But more than that (as if that weren't bad enough in all of it's OMG YOU FUCKING WHALE, WHY DON'T YOU GO EAT A WHOLE CHEESCAKE? OINK OINK OINK, PIGGY! glory), my technique is Just. So. BAD.

I suck.

I look like a BEGINNER on there. All clumsy weight shifts and lack of balance and that arm carriage that signifies (OMG WHAT DO I DO WITH MY ARMS?!) 9 years of dancing (although the last four of them very much on and off on the ACTUALLY PHYSICALLY DANCING side), up in smoke. Gone. RANK AMATEUR STATUS, I barely deserve it.

This was NOT the point of practising. *sigh* And I know my self-defeatist talk is allllll part of the problem, because instead of actually FORCING MY WAY THROUGH IT and putting in the practise required to get my technique back to where it should be, I sat right back down to whine about how much I suck. And instead of breaking out the weights or the workout gear, you can bet your ass if I had the goods in the pantry I WOULD BE EATING THEM. And if I had the money to buy one, I'd be out at the shops looking to buy a cake. For once I'm actually thankful that we are BROKE and living on noodles.

Self-sabotage. It is my MOST ANNOYING fucking trait. And I really don't know how to bloody STOP MYSELF from doing it. I was always unhappy at this size, but this time round, KNOWING what it feels like and what I look like when slimmer... you'd think that would be helpful?  A motivator? A "been there before, can get there again" kind of thing? WRONG. All I can think about is the loooooooong road ahead if I try to do anything about it, of the DENIAL of tasty things, of the RED-FACED FUTILITY and humiliation and horror of trying to exercise.
 

GAH.

I KNOW I need to stop thinking that way. I KNOW that the long boring road of getting the weight off again won't be that long looking back on it from the successful side. I know these things in my head. But I don't FEEL them - all I feel is.... defeated and depressed and despondent and lots of other words beginning with D and synonymous with SHITE.
 

It's been another hot muggy day down here, and I've had another headache. Two days of weather-system pressure headaches in a row is not so much fun. I proably should have gone outside, got some sunshiney feel-good vibes, but I've been feeling so bleh about everything that I couldn't drag up the energy.
 
I had to put the heat pump on (set to COOL, obviously), and was horrified to discover a SPIDER living inside it. Poor thing seemed a bit baffled by what was going on.

Tired. Bleh. This was supposed to be Day One of being back on the wagon and getting on with getting some weight off, but. Tired. Bleh. Energy. Not there.

No news from the job I applied for last week yet - it only closed on Friday, but... yeah. Feels a bit bleak, but I shall endeavour to hope. My mother has re-named me Percy Verance, because that's just what I have to have right now! (Oh, and in silly name news, I have decided not to take a dance name. It's just Not Me.)

Random reference of the day: this song. Just in case you think I'm going to some weird sexual hafla or something, I dunno. There probably IS some bellydance event SOMEWHERE featuring peach fusion or peaches or SOMETHING, you just know it. Or someone has once bellydanced to that song. O_O

Anyway!

This evening I am driving two and a half hours (that's one way, not round trip) to go to a hafla where I don't know anyone. And I suspect it's going to be mostly Tribal, even though I am a hardcore Egyptophile. Yes, that's how desperately dance-starved I really am.

I emailed a dancer in the NZ Teacher's List in the largest city down here in the South (Dunedin, hilariously Scottish in it's deportment, where my accent draws no attention AT ALL), and she was VERY nice and chatty and helpful, so hopefully I'll get the chance to meet her and say hello in person. She's performing too, and I *think* she's Oriental styled, so that should be interesting.

I'm looking forward to it, even with the thought that it's probably going to be Tribal heavy (Dunedin seems to be mostly Tribal styled). I fucking HATE meeting other dancers when I'm this heavy - I was so awkward and uncomfortable even meeting our own suzycat  in person for the first time, wondering what she was going to think of this short, fat, terribly unglamorous person. I *know* that's more to do with me and my own self-image (and knowing how I used to look and how I used to dress and carry myself) than it is about other people judging me, really. Although I know that does happen too. *sigh*

Anyway, I'm not trying to PROVE anything or DO anything or GET anything out of it. I'm just going as an audience member to enjoy myself. I'll also take mental notes so that I can post a review of my evening's entertainment for y'all. In the interests of Bellydance Anthropology, you know. 

So until tomorrow (or possibly later tonight, who knows?!) flisties - have a good Saturday!

 

So.

Jobhunting.

It SUCKS ASS.

It's the whole rigmarole I just find so disheartening: scouring newspapers, magazines, websites, looking for anything you could convince someone that you could do (and that you really COULD do without wanting to put your eyes out with your own thumbs within the first few days).

Tweaking your CV so that you look your best for that particular vacancy (you're not using a default CV for EVERY application, are you?! LOSER!).

Tailoring a cover letter to sound competent, enthusiastic, and to say SOMETHING about you other than can be found on your CV or other than "Your job looks OK. I really need a job, so.... yeah. Hi." (You're not using a default cover letter as well, are you?!)

Then waiting. Oh god, the WAITING. I've taken to working on my job applications right up until the very last moment of the closing day, and then emailing them where possible. Because that way there's SLIGHTLY less waiting. While you're waiting, your mind ticks over all the things you COULD have and SHOULD have said in your CV and cover letter (fuck). You try to work out what a reasonable time is to process and shortlist interview candidates and convince yourself that clearly your application was binned at the off (fuck). And yet, you hold out this teeny little hard kernel of hope in your flinty, vulnerable heart until you finally (after some time) get a rejection letter (FUCK) - if you're lucky and they haven't just decided to flip all the rejected candidates a sneaky silent bird (DAMN YOU ALL).

Or you get an interview! Yay! And you spend time ensuring you have the right outfit, that you research the company and take some notes about the company/industry/area and come up with some insightful commentary about such, while going back over your CV and cover letter and making sure you have an example of everything you've claimed. You go over possible "curve ball" questions and formulate answers. You shower and groom and fret about whether you should wear your glasses (intelligent?) or not, and in my case whether you should take your nose-stud out (I never do. Because if you're going to be wearing it every day at work, you may as well be upfront about it).

You go the interview and it... goes. Sometimes it goes badly or uncomfortably enough that you're fairly sure that you're out of the running immediately. But more often, it seems to go fine! There's a bit of banter! There's some impressed-looking nodding! You're comfortable, and they seem comfortable! You answer questions! You get a bit of your research in to the conversation and you feel... perhaps not confident, but that you performed reasonably well. And then you get the rejection letter or call.

<sigh>

Aaaaand back to the scouring of the web/paper...

So where did you go wrong?! Well, if you've been round the interview circuit a little reasonably recently, chances are you haven't done anything wrong. You're correctly attired, you're trained on the type of questions that are likely to be asked and you answered well. It's just that someone answered better. Or has more experience. You can NEVER control for the candidate pool you're up against, and you'll never really know WHY you missed out on the job - which means you may be doomed to repeat this shitty cycle for a while (GAH).

Now, many job sites will tell you that you can ask for feedback on your interview performance in order to help you bag the next job. I hate this. I worked in a car dealership once many moons ago, and a woman who was unsuccessful in her application for a sales job phoned for about a fortnight badgering our Sales Manager to tell her EXACTLY WHY she didn't get the job, culminating eventually in her accusation that "It's because I'm FEMALE, isn't it?!?". I'll never forget you, Crazy Lady - you make me more resolute to just absorb failure and try again on my own steam, rather than looking so goddamned insanely desperate.

On the other hand, though, I really do wish I knew what was getting me booted out of the running:
 

• Is it because I'm a strange Scottish foreign person in New Zealand? Communication problems, culture clash, unsure of education/work background compatability?
• Is it because I'm trying to change career? That "c" word is used fairly laughably, I don't have a "career" as such. But I want to move into a slightly different line of work, so... yeah, that might throw some people.
• Is it because I'm currently a little rotund? Fat people like myself find it harder to get jobs thanks to some underlying stereotypes. And in jobs, we earn less than our slimmer counterparts. Look up the research if you don't believe me. I would, but I'm too FAT AND LAZY.
• Am I doing something I'm totally unaware of? Blinking in a weird psychopathic fashion? Talking too fast in my weird foreign accent? Coming across as an arrogant asshat?
• Or is it simply because there was a better candidate in the pool who just pipped me to the post?