Marina

An exciting update since my last post: I broke my ankle! *facepalm*

( anatomy of a work accident )

Dear writer,

( Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019), The Gilded Age (TV 2022), House of Guinness (TV) )

A wild post appears!

( a purely personal update )

Welp, I've started a new job! It has happened!

( boring financial things )

*

I've only had 1 day of work at the new place, due to holidays and the fact that I was sick for the past 10 days (boo!!!) and asked to postpone my start date by a few days.

But it definitely feels like a level of fancy tech that I've never personally experienced before, with an actual HR department that made sure I'd have all my equipment ready for me on the first day, and a little welcome sign, and some company merch.

There are things I definitely haven't figured out yet, like how to best get to the office to deal with my disability/health issues, especially considering the fact that the laptop I got is much heavier than anticipated (my previous company replaced some of the laptops shortly after I joined and I managed to get in on the deal and get a really great, light computer).

The office itself is really nice, even though the building is sadly in the middle of a construction zone. My previous work was in an extremely central downtown area where you were close to a bunch of greenery and shops and restaurants. This place is tragically kind of isolated in a sea of dust and hazard signs.

I haven't figured out the dynamics of my team/department/org so much yet, but everyone I've met has been nice, and my boss seems to be a pretty great guy, according to reports. He's also been nothing but kind and respectful towards me.

So, overall first day was pretty overwhelming but nice. Tomorrow will be my first day of work-from-home, and I plan to spend most of it reading a ton of documents. And then Tuesday we're having some kind of all-day workshop for the entire team that means I'll need to get super early to the office, even though the workshop will be virtual. But you know, if it wasn't literally my first week I might find a more sensible way to do it, but since I'm extremely new and this seems to be the expectation, I'll be there with bells on lol.

Well, it's been 2 weeks since my last post, so here's an update.

( mentions of health issues )

*

In job news, something pretty huge and happy-making has happened???

One of the 4 companies I interviewed with has gotten back to me (after like 7 stages) to say they want me to work for them and they'll send me a contract offer in the next few days (which is standard). Fingers crossed, nothing certain until papers are signed etc, but. BUT.

It's been over a year, and finally I have a job offer.

At least one company wants to pay me a decent salary with all the nice perks and everything.

Now, if I had no other offers and was not in the running for any other position, I would take this one IN A HEARTBEAT. I would take it and be SO GRATEFUL.

But since I am still somehow in the process with 3 other companies, I'm in the weird position of mentally wondering which one I'd choose if they were to make me an offer.

Company #2 - I've finished all the interviews, and they're supposed to get back to me tomorrow on whether they want to check my references, which usually takes 1-2 days and is more of a formality. There's good reason to assume that if they say yes to me tomorrow they'll make me an offer next week.

Company #3 - I'm doing my final interview with them on Thursday, a big presentation, and after that they'll let me know if they're interested, no reference checks. If they want me they'll just make an offer.

Company #4 - the actual company of my heart, that all other considerations aside I would probably choose to work for because I love their product so much - I'm doing my final interview with them on Monday (next week). Of course they have the WORST HR process, so I actually have no idea what their next step is and whether there's something else they'll want to do before deciding yay/nay after Monday.

Now I'm mostly stressed because Company #1, that's already told me they want me, will probably try to pressure me to finalize a contract with them before Company #4 has a chance to decide whether they want me, sigh.

All of these potential roles are so good. None of them are "I can live with that" compromises. All of them are amazing, it's more a question of specific types of amazing, and of course I ideally want the combination that works best for me.

It is utterly surreal to be in this position after a year and 2 months of being unemployed. UTTERLY SURREAL.

But you know, maybe all the other companies will reject me and only Company #1 will remain, which will still be perfectly fine and even great.

Or maybe I somehow manage to fuck up this whole thing and will be left with nothing ////o\\\\ IDK it's just too good to be true at the moment.

Phew. Deep breath. The next 2 weeks will be continued stress, especially since I have a big presentation on Thursday and on Monday, but then... then. I don't know. Maybe, just maybe. *fingers crossed*

The last week or so has been A Lot.

( warning for sad things )

*

My remedy for this, has thankfully come in the form of a 15 year old TV show that has enough episodes for me to binge when I first wake up and after I'm done working for the day. My little shot of escapism to convince myself to start being functional and to forget reality after I've been immersed in it too long.

Yes, friends, I have started watching Justified.

( content about this fact )

Me: spends every waking moment either job searching or doing job search adjacent activities (meetups, podcast, etc)
Also me: wow it feels like my mental health is not great lately, I wonder why

Anyway, the job market sucks, looking for a job sucks, reaching out to strangers sucks (I have reached out to so many strangers I'm practically an extrovert now lol), having no money to pay your mortgage sucks, just, everything kind of sucks on the personal front right now in general.

As evidenced by the fact that I feel like I have nothing interesting or entertaining to say, because my brain is just job searching stuff and then the taking-a-mental-break stuff I read or watch when my brain is too stressed to function.

I guess one random thought I had today was how weirdly many stories we have now on TV, concurrently, where humanity lives in bunkers underground after some kind of apocalypse (Silo, Fallout, ( a new show where this is a spoiler for the first episode )). The bunkers range from very clean and well maintained utopias, to extremely dirty dystopias full of desperate people. In all cases, the apocalypse outside is actually real - unlike in older stories where the bunker turns out to be some kind of experiment and the outside world is mostly fine.

Anyway, I'm mostly fascinated with how these bunkers are arranged and what sort of assumptions go into portraying these bunker societies. For example, what happens to our modern day society (which in all of these shows is roughly when the bunkers originate) in terms of gender, race, class oppression, once we go into a small, closed social system?

I could ramble about this forever.

Anyway, I am alive friends. The sun is shining, even though it's cold. I am fortunate to have friends who care for me and feed me dinner sometimes. Aside from the things exploding all around us I hope you're doing well.

Usually I use the last remnants of the year to pause and take stock. To reflect on the year behind and the year ahead. To make plans, even if tentative ones.

This year I legit just don't feel up to it.

I've been sick for the past month more or less, and every time I manage to get the bare minimum of existence done I backslide and become less functional again.

The past year has been 2 wars and too many protests to count and not enough happy-making things. Not nearly, nearly enough.

It's been feeling like I'm losing my creative voice, many of my friendships, my very place in the community I grew up in online. It's been... too many difficult, depressing things going on for too fucking long.

It's been keeping my head down and telling myself I just need to get through this, with that stretching out into infinity.

I'm broke and I'm unemployed and I'm not healthy and the worst part is that this I feel like it's all keeping me even from the small world I've made for myself, clawed out of the grip of depression and anxiety so I can at least fill my lungs enough to function.

Tomorrow there will be light. There will be a tree, and snakes (year of the snake = so many adorable snakes being sold in stores near me), and maybe a cake, and people I love, my little family to hug at midnight.

They say you'll spend the year however you meet it - and there's nothing more I'd love to do tomorrow than clean up my place, put all the bits and bobs away and make sure everything is clean and orderly. But unfortunately since December has gone the way it has, I'll spend tomorrow madly trying to get gifts for people, because it's literal last possible time, and I was too sick before. (I'm still too sick, but I'm out of options.)

This will be my ~farewell post for the year, I think. I love you, take care of yourself, may you be the light and receive the light. S novym godom.

One the one hand, I haven't written a proper entry in 2 months. On the other hand, the last month for me has been:

get extremely sick, spend 7+ days totally and completely out of it, spend the next 7-10 days doing multiple things every day in a mad dash trying to make up for all the stuff you didn't do while sick, get sick again, spend 7+ days totally and completely out of it...

Of course a wonderful schedule overall for my mental health, physical health, job search process, etc.

Given this fact, here are some random facts from stuff I've done and seen over the past month. Please understand these were the brief respites when I was not staring blankly for days, unable to talk for days and days due to sore throat, taking like 5 different pills to fall asleep due to sickness, or something else utterly delightful.

(Currently I'm towards the end of the latest illness, so still sick for hoping to feel human again in about 3-4 days)

*

- I went to Jerusalem and ate pelmeni at a new restaurant up there with some friends. It had really hilarious décor and indeed nice pelemni that weren't even overpriced. They only served black tea, no other kind, and it was a thick layer of leaves at the bottom on a beer mug, covered by boiling water. Truly makes you feel one with the spirit.

- I watched a play called Mary Stewart which was pretty good. It was about Elizabeth and Mary and their relationship before Mary's execution and the two lead actresses were over 50 (which I know is not historically accurate lol but felt nice to see a play for two female leads like that) and each performance starts with a coin toss that determines which actress will play which queen.

They also had a massive glass cage on stage, and everyone was wearing BDSM gear and there was one actor with a film camera who was filming live sometimes and his footage was part of the performance... very ~modern but with a very old text, translated to Hebrew. It was a very fun experience overall, and far more historically accurate than I anticipated.

- I've watched 4 and a half seasons of Yellowstone, the show with Kevin Costner that's like some kind of weird Republican fantasy soap opera. I binged it for a while mostly for the one trope they were doing in an interesting way, in my opinion, which is an extremely rude, selfish, manipulative, violent female character who gets to be one of the good guys and have a romance with a very ~strong traditional man who loves and accepts her as she is and they have a happy ending together.

I mean I'm not explaining this right, but that one relationship on that show is definitely worth fast-forwarding past Kevin Costner imo and all the other nonsense. Also poor Wes Bently, the guy who defined a generation by staring silently at a plastic bag (in American Beauty), I think they told him he'd get a lead role in this show and then... something happened and that didn't pan out lolol and so he's just kind of there sometimes.

- I've started watching Arcane, just finished S1, and I'm so puzzled by it. The animation is absolutely stunning, the worldbuilding feels (for obvious reasons I assume) like generic video game slop, I don't give a shit about most of the characters but my god Vi/Catelyn is truly an f/f ship to write home about. What an amazing, amazing character set up for the two of them. Even if Catelyn's uniform includes a frilly mini skirt that like most of the women's costumes on this show makes me want to bleach my eyes.

- I was invited to a recruitment event for a local branch of the Free Masons. I feel like the way it happened was pretty hilarious - the event was called "Tea with the Masons" and I somehow assumed it was like, a lecture about the Free Masons or something and also tea? So I convinced my cousin to go, because if you write tea in the title of the event I will attend.

And then it turned out that the event was at an actual Free Masons temple and the tea was being drunk with actual members of that ~lodge. It was kind of a free Q&A thing around a table with snacks and drinks, we sat there and listened to stories for about 90 minutes and then could walk around the temple area and take pictures. And in the end they said we could ~apply to join and explain the process to get in.

It was... very surreal. Like I truly cannot describe the level of surreal that it was. But mostly every time I was like "well you know, it WOULD be curious to..." I remember that this particular branch only accept theists (which from what I understand is common but no longer the only option) and so since I can't say I believe in god they wouldn't accept me anyway. Feeling relieved that this fact will keep me from ever going down that rabbit hole lolol

*

Anyway, I feel like this is already impressive enough considering HOW MUCH of the last month I've spent extremely sick, blah. I need to figure out my anemia to hopefully get better with this shit, but there are just a few more pressing health problems at the moment so like, it keeps getting pushed back as a complex issue I haven't managed to figure out yet (all the usual measures have been tried).

God, it's almost the holidays soon. I feel nothing but crushing despair, but again that might be the fact that I haven't left my apartment in 6 days.

How are you friends? I hope you're doing well.

I'm going to be on a panel in 2 weeks where we discuss the novels that were nominated for the Hugos this year, so I have... had to read all the novels nominated over the past few months lol. Some of them were books I woulnd't have picked up otherwise, so predictably they weren't my jam.

Anyway, here are some very brief thoughts about the 6 nominees:


( book talk )