News and emotional confusion

Aarggh I don't know what kind of mood I am in at the moment - the opposite to how everyone would imagine I would be feeling just now...

I have some news to catch you up on, and that is that Mr H. has a new job and will be moving home at Christmas!   What a relief to have an end to the 'indefinite period' in Scotland... not that either of us regret it in any way at all, we have both learned a lot from the experience, but we'd both got to the point where we just wanted to be together (and be able to DO things at a moment's notice.  That is darn tricky when you are 450 miles apart, everything becomes a logistical nightmare).

He is moving out of forestry, by necessity rather than choice. ie. in the end, the need for him to come home out-weighed staying in forestry.  But the new job he has is pretty cool - trimming classic Jaguar cars (ie. upholstery and making carpets, hoods etc.).  And better still it is about 2 miles from our house, better than we could have imagined. Sooo he comes home before Christmas and New Year and doesn't go away again!

Meanwhile I fly to Phuket, Thailand (sorry Carol) on Thursday morning to work at a big regatta there.  I'm not a particularly good long-haul traveller in that I get dreadful pre-travel nerves, although I am usually fine as soon as I am in the taxi - it's the few days beforehand that make me a wreck. But hey, a week of sun, sea and sand is something to look forward to, even if I do have to still work as well.

Two things to be excited about, so why do I feel that I've had an emotional relapse and am suddenly depressed...?

Action stations! Actually a nice cup of tea for me please

I've only been studying social justice for about 6 weeks, but already I'm feeling the disadvantage of being a middle-class, white, employed, healthy female. I have nothing in my day to day life to be an activist or campaign about.  Although that's not strictly true, I could be campaigning on behalf of women, since Mr Normal is - obviously - male, white, employed and healthy.

I cannot relate at all to those who are activists (and I know that people who read this are, and I am in no way belittling it) because I have never had issues or felt passionately enough about something to do so.   It makes me feel apathetic in a way, because people who do feeling passionate enough to campaign and put heart and soul into something make me feel bad that I don't.

The National Union of Students are having a 'student activism conference' in London tomorrow. It reads like a kind of market for 'things to campaign against' because that's what students do.  "Activists will have the opportunity to attend more than 60 workshops organised and run by campaigning organisations, trade unions and student activists from across the UK".  A bit like going to a university Open Day?

So now I can feel bad that I'm feeling cynical about the whole thing.  And I am a student but I won't be there.  Because I'll be at work.

Mrs Normal, that's me.

Keeping in touch for Generation Y

I have lost touch with almost everyone I knew at school and college.  Most went off to University (I didn't) or I was just never good enough friends with them for either of us to make the effort. In the 80s the only ways to keep in touch were by telephone or letter, if they weren't local.

Those who went to Uni often met their future spouses there, or settled out of the area for other reasons, so didn't come back to their teenage stamping grounds very often.  My circle of friends at school was never huge, but it sorted the wheat from the chaff when one had to put effort into keeping in touch when we no longer saw each other every day; and now I am in regular contact with only one person from college days (who is in fact now my best friend).  Some have come back into contact but have not stayed as we have nothing in common now, other than having been friends at school.

Now teenagers have Facebook and other networking sites which take no account of distance, they can keep in touch easily and with minimum effort, with tens (and in some cases hundreds) of school friends.   Will they stay 'friends' with them all because they never lose touch? or will friends naturally fall by the wayside in the same way? I imagine it will take longer than when one had to pick up a phone and pay for a call, or take the trouble to write and post a letter.