Oh no, not again!

Oh no, it's happening again. I feel like I'm losing another friend! Booo hooo hooo! This time it's a friend from work, which is harder to bear because I see them nearly everyday. When I said good-bye to her today, she just totally ignored me and drove off in her car. I felt like total crap when she did that. She's not as friendly to me as she used to be, and I really have no idea how it became like that. At the conference last year, she was giving me the cold shoulder too, and I was like "what?" And when I asked her about it at the time, she was like "Oh no no no, I'm just stressed! I wasn't talking to anyone". She's in a role now where she can find out about my nitty gritty details, and my skeleton might be my qualification.
I am proud of my qualification (and the title that went with it), but I have played it down so not to seem so big-headed. I have never ever liked the idea of big-noting myself. Even when I temped, I didn't crow on about how I was too good to do certain jobs. I just did 'em. The people there just seemed so nice that I didn't want to alienate anyone. Of course when a certain research officer came in, I found a comrade who I could talk to, about academia and the life of academics. She was the only person who I could actually talk about these things to. The officials seem to understand more than the admin.
Where I work, paranoia and jealousy seem to be rife, as are the politics. I stay out of these things where I can help it because it was just never my gig to begin with. I like my job, and the variety of things that i can do with it. But I'm getting side-tracked here...
Her best friend is a quiet one, and I have a feeling that she's never really warmed to me, and while she doesn't seem like the spiteful type, she has an influence. But losing a friend and knowing I've pissed off someone really painful. I just seem to be having this ongoing pain... I feel I can't talk to my closest friend at work about this because I have spoken about things like in the past and all I got was just the feeling that I was being paranoid and oversensitive... I really hope I don't go into depression.

long time no blog

It's been a long time since I wrote my blog. I warned you that it would be irregular. Just that so many thoughts have come into my head and so much has happened. It started with that new opportunity in the pipeline. The window has closed on that opportunity and another window has opened. Last December, I started on a new project that was a collaboration between the UQ School of Medicine and a certain training centre attached to Queensland Health. It all started fine, and my job was to write curriculum documents for various medical programs that catered for doctors and/or nurses. I was to start with writing the Maternity Crisis Resource Management program under midwife, P. P was very nice upon meeting - we clicked very well at the beginning and I had some headstart with the Maternity program, having gone through the maternity process myself (without the yukky traumatic bits). It all started to go downhill the second week, when I had to take time off to look after a sick kid.

When the New Year started, I couldn't start straight away with it. I had to wait until Justin's childcare had commenced for the year. Hopefully this wasn't a big problem. When I reflect upon it, I had the feeling that K, one of the ladies would be my indirect supervisor, was starting to get cagey about me. I think maybe her sentiments about me must've rubbed off on M, the senior director. I don't think he liked me very much :(. I always got the feeling of being overlooked everytime we came face to face, like he never saw me.

Most people there was nice enough and friendly enough, but the reality was, I just didn't fit in. Or I couldn't. I had the feeling that the people there held me at arm's length. I thought that if I moved into the open plan office where the action was, I'd be part of the crowd. I was wrong - and I think it was the thing that may have triggered my quick and sudden departure. I only got really friendly with one lady, D. I really appreciated her open nature and ability to chat.

In a way, I shouldn't have moved. I was getting to know J, a lovely (and handsome) registrar (who was almost an uncanny resemblance to Colin Firth woohoo) - I was a bit quiet with J the day I left the faculty office, but J didn't do anything wrong - just that we'd run out of things to talk about for the time being. But it would've been nice to stay with J. I do hope that I can run into J again - because he would have been a lovely friend to add to my burgeoning circle.

But, I think it's a blessing in disguise not to be there anymore. I feel well, a bit more "free". I've never valued my freedom (work-related) so much, in ways I really cannot explain. I am back with my old research life, where it is okay to work from home. But who knows? I've gotten in touch with an ex-PhD colleague, C. I'd always gotten along with C - he needed an RA, I needed work. We met on Friday, and there was so much to catch up on!