the weak end

friday was good, because i successfully completed a chunk of work before i went home that ended a week-long run of successfully demonstrating my competence to my coworkers to the point where my achievements were called out in a meeting i wasn't present for. friday was not good, because i received a post-discussion email from my manager effectively threatening my job.

it's hard to dial down the anxiety even though i feel confident that i'm capable of doing what's being asked of me to prove myself, primarily because it's so unfair to be under fire after demonstrating to him the day before that he's the reason why i haven't been performing at the desired level. come to think of it, maybe it's because i did that...

anyway, friday evening was mostly pleasant in spite of that and the weekend was spent feeling sluggish but Doing Stuff regardless. yesterday morning was spent putting together a toy with mr smear, a successful endeavour both in terms of outcome and in terms of getting mr smear engaged and participating. he actually helped, and i was really proud of him! we also watched a really cool documentary on the universe together and that was fun.

in the late afternoon sailor invited us to join him for a hike on table mountain, and for the first time in forever we were able to go as a family and aside from a hiccup or two (well, one main one that was caused by a cupcake that wasn't for mr smear) the walk was really great!

and then we came home, enjoyed a delicious curry club dinner and a long philosophical talk that clarified some interesting things for all of us, eventually managed to get sailor out of the garage without a remote (but with a warning from security) and finally went to bed.

today was as rainy as friday (our pool's pretty much filled), it began early with shopping for brunch (gd'd invited my mom, my aunt and my aunt's boyfriend over) and while there was a fair amount of setup required (including clearing my desk, finally!) it was really nice and i had a very interesting chat with my aunt's boyfriend that i'm hoping will turn out to be productive.

also in the positive news, my professor responded to my email with an encouraging and enthusiastic first impression of the book i've put together which was extremely gratifying ^_^

mr smear and i spent the rainy afternoon watching pinocchio and peter pan, followed by a lot of crazy tantrum behaviour that took a concerted effort to manage and finally resulted in mr smear saying "i guess that's a 'no', then", apologizing and ending the day on a much better note. some of the long fight (which spanned a toilet, an extended timeout and a shower) was sad, some of it was enraging, and some of it was absolutely hysterical. all's well that ends well?

i don't know. so this job anxiety thing is on / off / on / off, but as upsetting and frustrating as my situation is i've decided to make the best go of it i can and if it doesn't work out, well, i'll move on and find another compromise. 'cause that's all there is for me unless i magically find a consistent way of funding my own thing.