12:12 a.m. - 2003-12-12
Ennui
"Sixteen Candles...." I can't remember any of the the other words or the singer. It was my youngest's actual birthday today and I spoke too soon. Recall my somewhat snippy remarks yesterday, dear diary, about someone wanting ice cream when the weather was so bitterly cold here right now. So what kind of cake was requested? Ice cream cake - more specifically Black Forest if you please. I'll even admit to eating some myself - sort of. I fed the vanilla ice cream to the kittens and ate the thin layer of chocolate cake with the icing. Just a small indulgence.
Had a quick nap after supper - steak and potatoes at the birthday child's request. Bad move. I can't remember dreaming, but all of a sudden I could smell burnt human flesh. I assisted with the care of burn patients for 2.5 years when I worked at the hospital. Like gangrene, burnt flesh has a distinct odor that is unmistakable and you never forget it. My frightened sleeping mind was thinking maybe a fire on the stove - an accident, but I'm obsessive about fire safety in our home. What the smell also triggered was a memory of a dream I had about five years ago. I'm not sure why.
In the dream I was a small brown field mouse, out on a dark, velvety summer's night, foraging for grain on the ground. Suddenly, searing, burning pain as talons pierced through my back just through bottom of the shoulder blades and exiting out the rib cage. At the time of the original dream, I could feel it physically in my own body. I felt the mouse, me, struggle, begging the mother eagle to release me/it. Telling her that it could be of great assistance to her in feeding her young in the long term, instead of providing only one, very small meal. Mother eagle replied that I was to have the privilege of becoming one with her children, as they ingested my body and it was transformed to give them life. She deposited me on the ledge on the cliff where her eyrie was hidden. The spirit of the mouse left it's body, but watched the dismemberment and ingestion by the fledglings. The spirit witnessed the transformation of its one time body to the energy that fed the eaglets. The cirlce of life in four or five dimensions. Shades of the Lion King - hakuna matata notwithstanding. Truth to tell that dream had me rattled for a long time after and would often play out again while I was awake for months after. Interesting that it's re-emerging just now. I liked being the little brown mouse, I'm not certain I want to be an eagle.
Work was interesting again today. The manager of the library started escalating the tension between herself and the other contract late yesterday and continued that today. She is determined to create a confrontation and she will not accept others refusal to go along with her behaviour. I asked the contract if she would like to go for coffee some time. I can't intervene directly without escalating the problem and I don't have any authority to do that anyway, but there is an ethical question. There is a lot of concern here about bullying in the schools and the resulting behaviour problems among children. The question is why no one is stopping it and why the other children don't speak up. Well as an adult it's very tough to do. Unless we model workable solutions ourselves how are children supposed to figure it out. In the workplace bullying is often seen as a positive behaviour - controlled aggression being interpreted as drive and initiative - not. All I want to ask the other contract at coffee is if there is any other behaviour she thinks can defuse the tension. If nothing else, having been in that situation myself, it helps to know that other people are aware of what is happening and are concerned about your wellness.
My supervisor came by today, so I told him about it in case it becomes an issue. He asked me to stay out of it at all costs. I will but I won't be co-opted by the aggression either. He had actually come by to talk to my liaison from the last contract about extending this one. I've already been here a week longer than the term set. The list of tasks she would like me to take on keeps growing and that is fine with me, as long as the time and resources are available to do my work properly. My supervisor also wanted to work through my report for this week so that it was presented with the greatest clarity. I also wanted it to be clear that I am doing a lot more than the basic tasks set out in the original contract. Not doing so means questions start to arise about why things are taking longer, for example. Filing is one thing, cleaning up the problems in a record is something entirely different. There have to be clear definitions of authority - who do I report to for which issues. Right now there are seven people all giving me direction on different aspects of my job. What are the priorities and who has the final say when setting them. How much flexibility do I have to determine work flow based on what I see before me. Quite often I'm the only one of two or three of the group who will know the entire range of problems I'm addressing. If nothing else I'm not bored anymore. That's a good thing - right dear diary?
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