G and I bought a flat in Cape Town! Well, G did. As a student I cannot really make any contribution to a bond. It seems awfully grown up and scary, but then, he is 38. Everyone has to grow up sometime, right? Actually, no, owning a place is not necessary for grownup life at all, much as we are conned into thinking that. And I even question the financial sense of why everyone does this now that I know how much freaking money you spend in the process, and how little you make as profit when you sell? There must be a reason...
On that subject we also bought our first ever couch. Hilarious. They are expensive too. People keep asking how we survived without a couch but the truth is, we are not very sociable and when we had people round in our tiny granny flat in England people sat on the floor or a chair or the bed.
When I say we bought a flat, it is not actually ours yet. We agreed to buy in September. And the lawyers have still not come through with the final paperwork! A friend of ours signed to buy in December and had his place by the end of Jan. How is it possible that we are still waiting? We are renting the place that is supposed to be ours. Most useless lawyers ever.
Real estate is heartbreakingly expensive in Cape Town. I sometimes browse the property pages for other cities to make myself sad. I am not sure we could ever afford to buy a house in this city, at least not in the central areas.
I am hating every minute of every day of my Masters. It is sad to admit, but I dream every day of quitting. I have major homesickness for my previous work place. I have tried for months to convince myself that I am overreacting, but I am just unhappy with so many aspects of the supervision that I have that I can't move past my dissatisfaction. I wonder if I will be able to hang in and finish it? I spend all night dreaming about how I will quit with minimum drama and accusation, but at the same time make my issues heard. I feel like a quitter these days. Do I quit everything? At the same time, misery is not healthy and I would be much better off without this level of unhappiness and stress. Who knows what will happen. Every day I try to hang on a little longer, mostly because I am completely averse to drama and unpleasantness.
I have been in Johannesburg for two months, living on an active building site with jackhammering and drilling day and night, and missing my G like crazy. The only way for me to finish the work my supervisors want me to do is to work day and night without cooking breaks. G has started to decorate our flat without me. I feel like I am nearing the end of a long prison sentence and I cannot wait to go home. No offence to Johannesburg. I am sure you are a lovely city. I, however, will never get to see you because I am chained to a lab day and night. I did not realise you rained so much. It's a bit extreme.
I blame the ANC.
2 comments:
I don't know what to say about your job. I want to say hang on, because the cliche is that we encourage friends when things are tough, so they can persevere and then when they win awards, they say," I want to thank Damaria blah de blah..." But the fact is, only you have the potential answer. I've been where you are, studying a science degree. And I was bloody good at it if I say so myself. But my soul... well my soul was not a scientist's soul. The toughest thing for me was to acknowledge that I was on aexpress train going to a destination I didn't want to go to. There was no doubt in my mind/my teachers/parents that I could easily get there if I wanted to. BUT, did I really want to spend the rest of my life travelling that journey?
And ja, there was a huge fall out... the kind I never recovered from. Sometimes I do wonder about the scientist's life I didn't live, or if there was a compromise somewhere I was too young to appreciate.
Anyhoo, I hope that deep down you know what you're supposed to do, even if you don't like your options and that when you do eventually decide to take action, those people who love you and matter will remind you that to change your mind is not always quitting. Sometimes it's rectifying your path so you are on the course.
Re house prices in CT - I can't imagine being able to buy property there. At. All.
Joburg prices are more forgiving, I think, though they too are very high for starter homes.
And I was lucky my Joburg house was an investment from the start (worth more than I paid right at the beginning, even through the market crash. It's rough out there.
I just sold it, by the way. Signed this week to sell it. I haven't lived there for more than two years since I moved and it's about time I let go, especially as the maintenance was one more thing I had to worry about. I was lucky though. I put the house in the market two weeks ago, had a showhouse this Sunday and offers that same day.
Hey Damaria, I was wondering how you are doing, have not heard from your blog for a while!
I do not have scientist's soul either! That is for sure. The thing is, I really don't mind doing the work so long as I can go home and do other things and have lots of hobbies that have nothing to do with science. This MSc has sucked all of my time. The problem I have is that I don't really need it at all. What I am expected to do for this Msc is half what I did for my honours 12 years ago. It is a waste of a qualification, and all I have learned from it, is how NOT to do science. Which is a lesson I did not need to learn as I have years of experience in learning good ways to do it.
My supervisors tried to force me to complete all of my labwork in 2 and a half months - an unrealistic expectation that they do not apply to any of their other students who all live here in jhb and can work in the lab as long as they need to. As a result I have harmed my health by not being able to cook or do my back exercises and not being able to sleep. And that makes me angry because it is unnecessary. Rushing only causes mistakes and badly thought out experiments. I am in my second year and they still keep changing what they want me to do, because no one is prepared to sit and give the project some thought. It is disappointing because I know they usually do good science but my project is a disaster and I seem powerless to set them straight! I have talked to each of them and nothing gets through to them. If it was not for my years of experience I would not have been able to do the work in the time given to me. I feel that my work experience has given me everything and this qualification has given me nothing but the sad reality is that an employer will take someone with 2 months experience in a lab with an MSc over someone with 6 years experience and no MSc.
Sorry for the rant! I am so frustrated. I truly admire you taking the step to walk away from science when you did, it takes courage to recognise what you don't want in life.
Congratulations on selling the house! I am sure it must be a bit sad though, saying goodbye to a house can be like saying goodbye to a friend. But that was a superquick sale. Impressive!I am sure that money will come in handy! Johannesburg is so much more affordable, it is amazing.
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