Dim Pages of History, and Hunting for Work

Today was well below 30°C but humid and warmer than I'd like again. Exhausted from the past week and the Franco dictatorship presentation preparation — I was practically reading articles and taking notes night and day for a while, and on the day of the presentation I had to cycle from the Freie Universität to the Humboldt Universität and back again (I only had 30 minutes to do each trip if I wanted to arrive to class on time; but it takes at least 45 minutes for me, if not 50, so I was chronically late) — I only got up around 11 a.m.

Then my siblings returned from their travels to Ireland, sleep-deprived but happy, and we feasted on porter cake, Oxford cake, and vanilla fudge that they had brought back. We postponed the viewing of their travel photos to a later date. In the evening, Uncle Pu popped by for a visit.

My only outing was shopping: at the zero waste store, for eggs, powdered sugar, cocoa powder, and tomato passata.

***

Friday was easier, university-wise.

In the afternoon the Greek History professor gave his usual video class. He was, lamentably!, confident that we had all read the prescribed texts and therefore did not need to be told year by year what happened during the Greek Civil War. But after the Franco research, and last week's immersion in the Pontic genocide after World War I and the fall of Constantinople in my other Greek classes, I was all warfare'd out. Before the class I'd opened up the website that hosts our course materials, twice, and tested myself by looking at the links he had posted; it was rather as if I'd had the stomach flu and were checking if I could stand the thought of eating certain foods again. But both times I felt an instant aversion. So I definitely have not read the prescribed texts, did need to be told year by year what happened during the Greek Civil War, and will have to review that material in future.

***

This week I also did my personal household accounting for May. It was of course easy, given my somewhat limited set of expenses and a very limited set of incomes. My largest cost centres are the rent, food, and health insurance.

Then I sent off an application for a job at a political think thank that would require 10 hours of work per week.

In general I feel uncomfortable about figuring out which jobs to apply for and how to configure my CV. Firstly, I haven't entirely figured out which way I want my career to go, secondly I have many interests, thirdly I wish I'd had at least one other full-time job of 2 years or more to fill out my job history (my volunteer work timeline feels more impressive than my paid work timeline), fourthly my 40 years of living are breathing down my neck, and lastly I'm sitting on many fences when it comes to junior vs. senior qualifications. The pragmatic thing to do would be to finally self-study math, statistics, computer architecture and computer programming, and put my last full-time job to good use. But another central problem, aside from qualifications, is that I detest tooting my own horn, and (to paraphrase Burns) have never been given the gift to see myself as others see me.