Cenaculum Gabriellae

I am using the first days of my unemployment, tidying up the garage. Not that much fun, but necessary. Part of that job is to shuttle back and forth between my home and the recycling plant. I’m referring to a bigger place than our usual garbage sorting stations, where you can leave cans, bottles, paper wrappers and newspapers. At this place you can also dump bigger stuff, like tree branches, entire sofas, electronics, bicycles and so on.

Strangely enough, I’ve never been to that kind of place before. I always thought they were just your average garbage dump/landfill. A stinking place with seagulls circling around all over the place. And the people working there would be wearing overalls and heavy boots to avoid the worst filth. It turned out my expectations were quite wrong.

You have to drive up a ramp, surrounded by all kinds of dumpsters with neat signs saying heavy garbage, wood, metall, car batteries and so on. Some of them there were more than one of, others not.  

This environment is for the greater part male. The employees are men and most of those who deliver garbage are men too. Sometimes a woman comes along to advise her husband, but mainly the garbage bringers are men. I felt clearly that I belonged to a tiny minority as a young woman without the requisite accompanying male.

What surprised me the most were the employees. Sure, they wore a type of overalls, but not sort of protective coverings. Instead, they look surprisingly ordinary. They’ve collected dumped house plants of all kinds, and planted them in trunks, bowls, waste baskets and similar containers dumped by people. It looks quite cozy and the mood is calm and welcoming.

I’ll still need to go a few more times before the garage and the storage room is done and I’m already looking forward to my next visit at the recycling plant.

Yesterday I went to buy fabrics. Now I’ll design bags. It will be great to make them, but even better to use them. In the future, when I can afford it, I’ll order fabrics with my own pattern on. That will be awesome;).

Fabrics

I'm trapped inside a bubble - an unbreakable sphere of glass.  Outside, life seems to rush past it - past me. Children

Glasbubbla

Deep inside nothing ever happens. I don't work, meet anyone or have  children. All I  can do is watch the others. Those who have a life.  Something I lack.

I watch myself inside the bubble. The others don't see me. What isn't  seen doesn't exist. Inside the sphere time seems to stand still. I'm  the same. Nothing happens, nothing changes.

Someone outside, help me, notice me. Break the bubble. I want to get  out. Out into your world. I want to live - again.

Snow in march.

It's nothing unusual with snow in march for us here in Sweden. But it doesn't feel so good after having had an early spring with warm, sunny days. We haven't had much snow all winter, but now, at the end of march we got lots of it. I even heard we'll get more tomorrow. Ah well, it's beautiful anyway

Snodroppar

I have been feeling really low for a long time. Maybe low isn’t the right word. I big grey nothingness has been filling me up. Today though, I took a walk in the sunshine. It was warm and sunny and there were spring flowers everywhere. I felt almost happy for a little while.

A while back, I bought a magazine, because there were some articles in it about being burned out. The readers could send in their questions and views. I found this very interesting. Among other things, there was this man asking if the magazine was only for women since the magazine never had a man on the frontc page.

A very relevant question, I felt and I was eager to learn the answer. The response made me both upset and surprised. The tone was ironic - of course they could occasionally show a man on the front page but in that case they had to accept that they would only sell about half of what they usually did.

Are people really that non politically correct? I can’t believe that they have actually made a survey about it. And why would people in general not buy a magazine just because they show a man on the front page?
Is that true? Do I belong to a minority, that appreciates seeing a photo of a handsome man? Do most people choose magazines after what face they see on the front page? In that case, I simply don’t get it.

Why can’t the editors of the ladies’ magazines stand up for more equal media?

A few years ago, one of our major clothes retailers put Marcus Schenkenberg, in a sexy pose, in their ads, instead of the usual porn (women only, of course). Unfortunately, they didn’t follow through. The year after Marcus, they had a bland, non-descript older man and after that, only undernourished females, simpering ‘come and get me’.

Come on!

Let’s see a little more male beauty on our magazine covers!

Beauty is in eye in the beholder, they say. Does that saying contain a portion of truth? Maybe, but in any case, looks do matter a great deal, whatever we might feel about it. Some people seem to be condemned to be left outside and others to be in the center of things, being admired.

I have always felt that my looks were never enough. I have always been the kind friend that hasn't been "girlfriend material". The one that the guys cries with when their girlfriend have left them, and have always been there for them. Of course you can always argue that it doesn't have any anything to do with my looks. That the explanation might lie in my personality.

Everything can be explained away. If an overweight person doesn't get the job, you can always say she or he lacked in social competence and that it didn't have anything to do with looks. Despite that, research shows that looks, like height and weight, matters a great deal for the outcome of a work interview.

On the internet, I've been given a chance, to see both worlds. I started out as the invisible ugly girl to be one of the popular admired ones. Ever since I was a teenager I've hated to have my picture taken and the few photos of me that I have from those days are awful. Every time I've tried to show those pictures online, I've gotten the same reaction as I've had from people I've met.

Now I've learned to take good pictures of myself. Self portraits with clever angles and lights. Pictures that I later worked on in PhotoShop (slight alterations, but important ones) and suddenly I looked like a model. The effect was amazing. Now I get more attention than I want to. People that never would have looked twice at me, suddenly want to be my friend. One wanted to send me presents from the other side of the world and the compliments are raining over me. The strange thing is, I'm still the same. I haven't changed.

Of course it's great to feel pretty, but since I've seen both worlds, I know that it doesn't matter all that much. I know now that people only care about me for my looks. The looks, I've only "borrowed" from my photographic skills and my cleverness with PhotoPhop. So do looks matter, I mean really matter? You don't get more friends, only more attention. Does that really matter?

I had ordered it online, a couple of weeks earlier. Even though it’s very handy to do that, I always feel it takes forever to get the delivery. First you have to sign the agreement and send it back. Not until that’s done, can you get the new phone number. After that, you can only wait. Hopefully it’s just as good as it seemed when I read up on it, when I compared it with similar phones. Ok, ok, I confess, I am a techno geek. I love my electronic gadgets. I still have them all. All the old mobile phones and computers that I have owned. There’s actually quite a collection and it takes up a lot of room, but like I said, I love them.

I unpack the package that I’ve just picked up at the post office. I’m so excited to take it up and test it. And there it is, in the transparent box with a lid in orange plastic. My happiness is complete. Suddenly I’m struck with a dejá vú. Sometime a very long time age, I’ve felt exactly the same way. And then it occurs to me. Every time I unpacked a new Barbie, Skipper or one of the other fantastic dolls, I felt like this. Oh yes I know, it’s not all that politically correct to love Barbie dolls. They are plastic and have huge breasts.

As a small kid I learned that I wasn’t allowed to like them. And as I grow up I understood that my growing breasts had to be something wrong too. And since I also had a slim waist, like Barbie, I dressed up in loose fitting clothes, trying to hide.

But back to my new mobile phone. I play with it. Almost hugging it.:) And then I realize that it’s got to get a name. A name that reflects my feelings towards it. Barbie is the first that comes into my mind, but since my feelings for this doll are a bit mixed, I settle for Skipper. Skipper is politically correct enough. She is flat chested and totally lacks a waist. Just like my new W800. Smiling, I plug in the charger and start to test all the new features.

So, now I am officially burned out... According to my doctor.

Actually, it's nothing to laugh about - far from it. Imagine that you can't really get any work done. Watch the screen for hours and not be able to focus on what you're supposed to be doing. That your mood is going up and down like a rollercoaster. No, like I said, it's not something to laugh about, quite the opposite, in fact.

Still it feels strange to be among this group of ppl who just can't cope with society and its rapid pace. You are part of society, yet not. People who never really notice me come up to me, with a concerned look, asking how I am. Suddenly it's very much ok to skip this or that meeting. Or out of the blue you're just offered a pay raise and a work computer at home.

Sure, it's nice to be so much cared for, but where were all these helpful people before it got this far. If I had been given these opportunities before, I might not even have found myself in this situation.

Still, it makes me feel a bit sad. The work load is still there. I know I still have a lot I have to do. Even if people understand, I can't really let go. My doctor just let me go on sick leave, part time, which might have been the best thing to do. Right now, the summer feels very far away considering all the work I have to do before that.

I have a job that I love, usually anyway, but now I'm looking for a new one. A job where I can be free when I'm supposed be free. Where I can have a resonable work load. A job where I can be appreciated for who I am and not only for the work I'm able to do.

Right now, everything is kind of black for me and I can't find a way out of this state of mind. I thought writing about it would make me feel a little better, but it didn't. It only got worse. So, this will be enough for this time. I will be back when I have something nice to write about...

I live in Sweden and the events I'm referring to happened here. However I think that most people can relate to this anyway.

A little while ago I read about a man that couldn't get a job. He was convinced that it was because of his foreign name. He might have a point there. We have one of the highest percentages of academics working as taxi drivers in Europe. You meet racism where you least expect it. People I know who appear to be both intelligent and reasonable that suddenly say something very discriminating.

Does the racism exist inside us all? Or do some people hide it on purpose and then act on it when they're among what they perceive as 'their kind of people'.

Anyway, about that man who couldn't get a job. Was the foreign background the only reason? Or could there be other explanations? He might have been very talented in his occupation, but that isn't relevant here. I don't know anything about that, but on the other hand nor did his potential employers.

Could his age have had something to do with it? He was in his fifties. I believe it's difficult for other people of his age to get a new job. Or was the reason that he didn't have the nessesary connections that he could use? If you are new to a place you haven't got enough friends to help you like people who have lived there for a long time.

Perhaps it's too easy to just to pick one reason. It's easier to blame it on other people's prejudices when the problem might be much bigger. You can experience discrimination because of your gender. Young women aren't considered to be loyal enough and might out of the blue get pregnant. Strangely enough, men of the same age aren't considered to be a problem.

Older women don't get any jobs either, but that depends on their age. You can get discriminated because of your sexual orientation. The potential employer might feel uncomfortable having a gay person in her/his organisation or perhaps be afraid that other employers might feel that way.

When I read the article I was at first irritated about how the man was treated. After that recognized myself in the treatment, even though I'm not a man, over 50 or foreign. That might sound strange, but let me explain. I too have difficultes to get a job. I applied for a lot of jobs, but only one potential employer replied (I didn't get the job).

What was it about me that they didn't like? Was it because I'm a female who might get pregnant? Or that I didn't have the necessary connections? Or that I'm single? Or that I'm not attractive enough? I have no idea. What I do know is that it can't be that I don't have enough experience. I have 5 years of experience in my occupation. On top of that I have a BA and some other degrees.

Today, I have a job. I got it thanks to my very limited connections. I like to work there, and my collegues like me and I'm good at what I do. Despite that, I'm convinced that I will have the same problems getting a new job if I find myself unemployed again.

Do you feel discriminated? I did.