Posts

Job Japes: The ND Diabetic's Grueling Gamble for a Salary.

-
Image
An apology is in order. My work on this blog slowed to a crawl recently. I couldn’t muster up the energy to commit to writing routinely. It’s not that I didn’t want to, don’t get me wrong; I still have lots I want to say. My resistance to posting anything right away is because I don’t want to talk about exclusively negative topics. But there’s one inescapable fact that has influenced my decision-making throughout Summer and Fall: The job hunt where I live is demoralizing, yet despite that, I’ve been hyper-focused on it. My mind is at odds with itself. If I’m investing too much time in a job hunt, it begs for me to stop. But it simultaneously urges me to keep going—because it feels like it doesn’t deserve to stop fretting about my employment prospects until I’ve applied to something. There have been multiple times when I’ve applied to a position that I knew I’d dislike or be a poor fit for. Whether it be due to my lack of experience, the complications of my disabilities, or havi
Post a Comment
Read more

Job Troubles 2

-
  An update: My father has become tolerable to be around. But job-hunting—it feels more like gambling, honestly—is as demoralizing as ever. I got as far as an interview with a library page job I wanted, but another candidate was hired. My options remain dry thanks to my living situation and my single year of retail experience. No meaningful in-person connections outside of my family and one friend means nepotism is nonexistent for me, too. I could write just about any spiteful thing I want to about this ableist society, or my equally ableist former coworkers, all factors that made it hard to maintain the jobs I worked. But I don't want to. I just want to survive, but I feel utterly forgotten about. I want to live peacefully, but the world doesn't care about what I want or need. It just wants me to be another cog in the machine, constantly rubbing in the fact I'm missing teeth and sometimes can't make the mechanism work properly.
Post a Comment
Read more

Job troubles

-
I'm feeling exhausted and frustrated as of late. I've been trying to find a job, but not only do I lack qualifications for the ones available, but my pool of options is limited because of my living situation. I only have an Associate of Arts to my name, as I did not transfer to another college after completing my time in the local community college. I have to stay close to home to help manage a dementia patient. With my mental bandwidth spent worrying about my family most of the time, it's difficult to work through these emotions and mental hurdles. The dementia patient is growing difficult to work with in many ways. I'm not unhirable. I've held a data entry position for a non-profit organization and two retail jobs. But there were always ableist coworkers or superiors who made my life harder. A few high blood sugar episodes later, and they wanted me gone. It's probably because I live in the South, where everyone fetishizes this bootstrap-pulling mentality that
Post a Comment
Read more

A Neurodivergent Artist’s Art Retrospective: Part 1

-
Image
I’m presently going through some art block right now. I do like digitally illustrating, but sometimes, it can be hard to engage with the hobby how I wish to. This time, I don’t have the excuse of mourning a pet. Between diabetes management and needing to help care for my father, I often feel like I lack the time and mental bandwidth for it. But on the same token, I know deep down that this isn’t true. If I push myself to engage with my art, I’ll discover that I have a surplus of time to expend. A multi-part retrospective of my art seems like a good way to reinvigorate my drive to create. I’ve tried out many different techniques over the years, and I would like to amalgamate the best qualities of each, which I’d only determine through careful study. At the end of this journey, I will come up with a mission statement for my illustrations… and whatever I intend to do with them in the future. I won’t cover every piece I’ve done, only some of the most notable. I may go back to the one
Post a Comment
Read more