Scaredy Cat - Same song over and over

First a reminder:


I'll be celebrating my 2nd blogiversary on October 17th. And where there's Claire and celebration, there's INSANITY!!! (That's not me going over my exclamation mark quota again. They're part of the name.)

What's INSANITY!!!?

It's a week of contests. 2 or more books up for grabs every day. And man, do I have some books for you guys!

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Anyhoo's, it's the month of all things Hallow, and even though my country doesn't celebrate it, Japan is big on all the visible aspects of American holidays. So, in honour of the creepy crawlies, I thought I'd share a few things I'm afraid of. First up: Staying in one place.

I change my mind a lot. Or rather, change my heart. I'm not driven to do things by what I think about them, but by how I feel. My biggest fear is picking something that I like at the time, and getting stuck with it when I stop liking it, or having to NOT like other things because I chose that one.

This has lots of effects in the real and practical world.

JOBS

Behind Door number 1 is employment. Even though I'm fortunate enough to always find employment within weeks of deciding I feel like being employed (yes, there are times when work seems like it should have gone out with the old millenium), I'm never anywhere near having a career. Like I teach right now. This is my 5th year of teaching. But I never think of myself as a teacher. And when I leave next year or in 2013, I doubt I'll go back into teaching. The same when I worked on the sub. I didn't think of myself as a tourism professional or a submarine copilot, it's just what I was doing to pay for the fun stuff.And because it's kind of fun to be a submarine co-pilot. And as a submarine co-pilot,  you kind of always have the coolest job of all the people in the room. lol.

But some day, I'd like to be able to say, "I'm a [something]" and not " This is what I happen to be doing right now. "

Somehow, I can't make that decision. Well no, that's not really true. I know I want to be an author. And I have another job title in mind that is even less attainable and more far-fetched than that. (It's so ridiculous that I'm even afraid off saying it here, where I bare my secrets all the time.) It feels great to have made that choice, but authors tend to need dayjobs. And I'm really not inspired to make a career out of one.

Which leads me to Door number 2...

EDUCATION

I love learning, and being in school, and debating in classes and all that. ( I don't like assignments in general though. lol) But society (and my mother) has this thing about there being like a point to education. I can't just go to school for fun. Especially not at Masters' Level. People kind of expect you to put a Masters to work and stuff.

Which means I have to figure out what job I want to do before I can head back into the classroom. Every couple of months, I change my mind about what I'm going to study: Translation, Linguistics, French, Spanish, French AND Spanish, Caribbean Studies, MFA Creative Writing (which pretty much always wins in yearning, and always loses in practicality and the fact that the Masters is supposed to find me a day job, not promote the writing "whims"), etc.

And that all gets tied up in Door number 3...

COUNTRY

Here's where it gets freaky. Normal people want to live in one place. And maybe visit a few others. Claire wants to live in a new place ever 2 or 3 years. Seriously the US Military life is looking so ideal right now. Except I haven't been out long enough to forget the things I hate about military life in general. And about the US Military in particular.

I've got a max of 2 more years on this job. As I don't intend to be anywhere forever, I think I'll move on from Japan when I'm done. But I don't know where I'll go. I've got this thing about Brazil. Since World Cup 2014 AND Olympics 2016 are both there. And I think that's the first time that's ever happened. And it just sounds like a 2 year party to me. There's also France, and all the rest of Europe, French Canada, and South America. Notice how none of those places speak English? lol. I kind of hate tying myself to just one language. I know that sounds pretentious, so I don't admit it alot. And I like mulitilingual people around me. One of my best friends in Japan would have these trilingual arguments with me, thoroughly confusing everybody around us. I'd be pissed (clearly, I was arguing) but it was great!

RELATIONSHIPS

Another casualty of my INTENSE desire for something over a super short time, followed by paying no attention to it, is relationships. My friends are used to it. I have a number of "best friends". And I'll be close to one for months on end, and then we'll hardly speak while I'm close to someone else. Boyfriends are not so happy with this arrangement.

Also, because I know how I am, I am superscared of eliminating possibilities. So I've turned down 9 marriage proposals. Some of them were from pretty cool guys too. It's just that for me marriage is all she wrote. Til death (or slow poisoning) do us part. And I know my feelings change. And what if they change and I can't imagine never being able to choose someone else? So, I just don't put myself in that situation.

And there you have it, my biggest fear: staying in one place. Stay tuned for more Scaredy Cat next week.

(The title is a quote from one of my fave movies, HARDBALL staring Keanu Reeves. He asks: What's he listening to? G: Same song over and again. )