Now what?
Normalcy is slowly creeping back into my life and I am really looking forward to visiting Tunde and new family in August, but I find myself wondering how I will make a living after I return. Freelance science writing seems too energy intensive and the temping, well I've done it for over a year and I don't want to make it permanent. Sitting 4-6 hours on the phone five days a week is not exactly my idea of a good time, and my motto has always been that I should enjoy my work.
Even during the worst period at the Voice of America, when the reactionary management was driving me crazy and my friends asked why I was still working there, my honest answer was that the job itself provided enough job satisfaction to outweigh the negatives. In actual fact, looking back, I realise now that at VOA I had the most freedom to choose the subjects I wrote about, the people I interviewed, in all my working life.
So, I have been dreaming about reinventing myself, perhaps using my proven international and intercultural communications skills. On Friday I had a meeting with someone I respect and got a good reality check. I simply don't have the credentials to do it. Things are not as simple today as they were in 1969 when, as a starving student, my friends Nina and Ira dragged me into the Hungarian Service of the Voice of America, and I was hired on my looks, voice and promise of a talent. I may have talent, but today I am old and fat and, besides all that, everyone wants a PhD or at least a Masters degree. I probably couldn't even get into the Hungarian Service of VOA!
I know I was thinking of doing a PhD last year, but right now, with the fatigue and all, even a postgraduate diploma seems too much of an effort. So, I am a bit nonplussed in this department at the moment.
And in any event, I have other, more mundane, concerns. I don't think I've mentioned yet the really appalling thing that's been happening since my hair started to grow back. In addition to the salt and pepper mop on top, hair is also growing on the right side of my face. I mean a beard - really! It's kind of thin and whispy, but hair nevertheless. Absolutely horrifying. Is this cancer now going to turn me into a man? I hope not. I always liked being a woman.
OK, I know it's probably the Tamoxifen and it's probably going to settle down, and if not I can just go and have a facial wax, but it's just the idea that's so appalling. One more thing to worry about. Goodness me. I don't think I've ever paid so much attention to my looks as I have since this cancer came into my life.... OKOK, no comments please!
Even during the worst period at the Voice of America, when the reactionary management was driving me crazy and my friends asked why I was still working there, my honest answer was that the job itself provided enough job satisfaction to outweigh the negatives. In actual fact, looking back, I realise now that at VOA I had the most freedom to choose the subjects I wrote about, the people I interviewed, in all my working life.
So, I have been dreaming about reinventing myself, perhaps using my proven international and intercultural communications skills. On Friday I had a meeting with someone I respect and got a good reality check. I simply don't have the credentials to do it. Things are not as simple today as they were in 1969 when, as a starving student, my friends Nina and Ira dragged me into the Hungarian Service of the Voice of America, and I was hired on my looks, voice and promise of a talent. I may have talent, but today I am old and fat and, besides all that, everyone wants a PhD or at least a Masters degree. I probably couldn't even get into the Hungarian Service of VOA!
I know I was thinking of doing a PhD last year, but right now, with the fatigue and all, even a postgraduate diploma seems too much of an effort. So, I am a bit nonplussed in this department at the moment.
And in any event, I have other, more mundane, concerns. I don't think I've mentioned yet the really appalling thing that's been happening since my hair started to grow back. In addition to the salt and pepper mop on top, hair is also growing on the right side of my face. I mean a beard - really! It's kind of thin and whispy, but hair nevertheless. Absolutely horrifying. Is this cancer now going to turn me into a man? I hope not. I always liked being a woman.
OK, I know it's probably the Tamoxifen and it's probably going to settle down, and if not I can just go and have a facial wax, but it's just the idea that's so appalling. One more thing to worry about. Goodness me. I don't think I've ever paid so much attention to my looks as I have since this cancer came into my life.... OKOK, no comments please!
Labels: breast cancer
posted by Unknown at 7:04 PM
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