Slacker

That would be me. Maybe. I guess society would view me as such. I'm currently having a self-funded, mid-life retirement. Some people would call it being "unemployed". I disagree. I've found many useful ways to occupy my time; I'm 'employing' myself in a number of constructive pursuits (the recent deluge of blog entries being a testament to this). I'm just not getting paid. So 'frugal' is a word I've come to know. But I don't need a lot of money to live; I don't have children or a mortgage - things which can require large sums of money. I can darn my socks if I need to, I can cut back on my shopping trips to Paris (OK, not really; but I know of people who have done this - people who live in Melbourne - it's probably not so extravagant to go shopping in Paris if you live in Paris).

I feel like I've spent enough years working; I'm over it, the thrill has gone. However, I'm still looking at job ads. They usually say things like 'fast-paced', 'busy', 'multi-tasking', 'full-time' - no, no, no, no. These things are not for me. I want 'reasonably paced', 'easy-going', one-task-at-a-time', 'part-time'. I don't think I was meant for this 9-to-5 life.

Sometimes I need to meander through the day - through my life - just see what happens. Some people would find this unfulfilling. Not me. I have a very high boredom threshold; I can stuff around for hours. It hasn't always been this way. I've had periods of high energy, intense motivation. November of 1991 was very productive. And let's not forget the heady, wild days (and nights) of 1998, which lasted from mid-September until Christmas. Mad times. I got things done, baby. Oh yeah. Unfortunately, I can't recall any of it now; those times are just a hazy, vague memory.

At some point, god knows how, I managed to get a degree in Science (with honours in organic chemistry), which has served me well. And now I think it would be fun to get a PhD (so I can be Dr Nicole), but I don't want to do the laboratory work, which is fairly unavoidable if you're doing a PhD in organic chemistry. Hmmm. Tricky. But maybe not impossible. I'll have to have a long, hard ponder about this. Perhaps there's a really, really, obscure and seemingly ridiculous project that nobody else wants to do because it involves long hours of stuffing around and minimal lab-time. And if I have to move to a far away location with unusual fauna and odd people, that would be okay.