Suzy McHale’s Diary: 2001
Events of note: Left my hated menial 12-year (!) job at Bentleigh Safeway for what would turn out to be very long-term unemployment; I became a semi-recluse. I started using a computer and the Internet for the first time. I developed an obsession with spaceflight and the International Space Station that would last for much of the decade. Dad repainted and recarpeted my bedroom in October so I had to move to Michele’s old bedroom for a few weeks. He had also done the kitchen earlier.
October
Friday 12/10
Welcome to my first attempt at keeping a journal on computer! I have kept journals for many years, but ended up destroying them because I later get embarrassed at my inane ramblings! The books I kept them in were also bulky and a nuisance to store. So, I’ll see how I go in this format.
I am new to using a computer – I only worked up the courage to have a go on the Internet last June (with help from Dad!). Since then, I have become an addict! Bentleigh Library has free Internet access, so I am a frequent visitor there (you can book a computer for an hour). The catch is that you have to pay for printouts – and I have spent rather a lot on them! Being currently obsessed with space (for a couple of years or so), I must be one of the most frequent visitors to NASA’s websites! There’s also a few good Russian sites for their space program.
Dad bought me this IBM Aptiva computer on 22/9; it was on a special ($1099) as it is a couple of years old and has Windows 98. But it still has much more than I can currently use!
11:38 a.m.: Interrupted for a while, there! Just drove to Chadstone Shopping Centre with Mum for the usual wander around. At 30 (soon to be 31 on 9/11), I still live with and am dependent upon my parents. I can’t drive, have no friends (I’m a semi-recluse), no money, no career, no future. I’m trapped in the Job From Hell – I won’t say what it is. I marked TWELVE YEARS there on 26/9, to my horrified disbelief. I’ve only ever been part-time (currently 13 hours a week, earning $161.19 after tax) – I don’t want to work any more hours as I utterly hate it. It was only meant to be a temporary job until I moved onto better things … so much for that. A total waste of my life – I have no interest in my work whatsoever; it is not a part of my identity. 12 years of misery and boredom, all to earn a meagre wage. There’s no hell in any afterlife that could be worse than what I have endured at That Awful Place. I am surly and difficult – I’m certainly not liked at work – as I care nothing for it. The work is utterly useless – I’m not creating or learning anything. It’s drudgery, pure and simple. I am nothing but a worker drone, lowlier than a worm. I can barely hold back tears of frustration, anger and despair. I hate being trapped there, with hordes of horrible humans coming endlessly at me, staring at me and thinking God-knows-what about me. Hell, absolute hell. I have come close to breaking down completely there more times than I can count.
I have a shift this afternoon – 3:00-7:00 p.m. Same hours yesterday, and Monday is 11 a.m.-4 p.m. I spend the day dreading it. I and one of the supervisors share a mutual dislike of each other, which only adds to the unpleasantness.
Anyway, enough of my dreary job. What I live for – what keeps me going – is my imagination, the vivid daydreams I create. The worlds inside my head are like my own personal virtual reality. I wish I could exit the dreary reality in which I live and escape into my imagination! There, I can do anything, be anything or anyone. There are no limits. If you want to describe me, “dreamer” is the most appropriate word. It’s what I have spent my whole life doing, ever since I can remember. I am very introverted, and live in my own world – I’m perhaps mildly autistic. The real world is an unpleasant intrusion. I create human characters, like in a novel or movie, and prefer them to real people. If only I could draw, paint and write – without having to worry about doing some horrible job to earn a living – I would be (almost) happy.
I haven’t painted since I was a teenager; I can’t seem to sit down and get started. I have been depressed for many years, and this seems to have affected my ability to concentrate. I still do some drawing now and again, so all is not lost, but I have a myriad of images inside my head which I can’t seem to bring into the real world, onto canvas. If only there were a way of downloading them directly into a computer program from my brain! But that sort of technology, if it is ever invented, lies far in the future.
My current obsession (along with aviation – fighter jets) is space, especially the International Space Station. I wish I could go up there for a visit! But that seems unlikely, in this lifetime. I don’t have $US20 million, like space tourist Dennis Tito did, or have any qualifications. I didn’t even finish school – I had a nervous breakdown in the first term of Year 12 and bombed out. I was the only one in my class who left early, who failed. I am a loser and failure in life. I hate myself; what I have become.
I’ve read some of the astronaut biographies on the NASA website, and they are intimidating to a nobody like me – they have all sorts of degrees and qualifications, have had brilliant careers and are high achievers; and are amongst the most intelligent people in society. They only make me feel even more hopelessly inadequate.
I’m more into the Russian space program; I’ve been pissed off at NASA ever since they virtually forced the Russians to deorbit the Mir Space Station on 23/3, and then tried to stop Dennis Tito going up to the ISS for a week with a Soyuz flight as a space tourist (ironically, Mr. Tito used to work for NASA as a rocket scientist). NASA are elitist and arrogant and act like they own space – my nickname for them is the “Space Mafia”! Admittedly, the Russian program is, like the country as a whole, seriously dysfunctional and chronically underfunded – it nearly collapsed altogether in the 1990s, and only NASA funds (via the Shuttle-Mir program) helped keep it alive. The Russians really need to get their act together and get organized! Easier said than done, though, given the endemic corruption and apathy there. The country is a basketcase. I guess I feel kinda sorry for them – they were a superpower a decade ago, and now they’re in a sorry mess, almost a Third World country. Russia is becoming a backwater again, like it was a couple of centuries ago.
“Space Station Spotting” has become a favorite hobby – I get the ISS passover times for Melbourne off the NASA Internet site, then go out to look for the Station as it arcs across the sky high overhead. Unfortunately, more often than not, it’s cloudy. It’s visible either in the early morning or evening – it changes every few cycles. Currently, it passes over in the morning – I got a good view on Wednesday 10, at 5:12 a.m., WNW to ESE, and was a fairly bright magnitude. The Expedition 3 crew – U.S. Commander Frank Culbertson, and Russian cosmonauts Mikhail Tyurin and Vladimir Dezhurov – are currently aboard, due to be replaced in November. I fervently wished I could be up there, too! A waning quarter-Moon was in the sky, and what a magical sight it would have been from the ISS, hanging above the Earth as dawn brightened over the Australian continent.
I think space and flight appeal to me in part because they symbolize escape – breaking free from confining gravity and the weary woes of the world. Distancing oneself from the teeming masses of humanity. Freedom and escape are what I long for in my own life, and can only find through my daydreams. Spaceflight would also be a transcendental experience, a glimpse of which I have envisioned in such dreams.
Only 2 hours to go before I have to re-enter That Awful Place (my parents drive me there; it’s only a couple of minutes away by car, and I then walk home). I am tired of it, utterly weary of this seemingly interminable ordeal. Is it ever going to END? I have been trapped there for 12 years and there seems to be no escape, despite my sullen attitude and bad behavior.
I’ll leave it there for today.
~ Ended 12:52 p.m.
Monday 15/10
A dreary, awful ordeal awaits me in 2 hours … WORK. 5 hours of misery and utter boredom, of impatiently watching the clock and counting down the hours till my shift ends. I really didn’t want to wake up this morning
Last week – Saturday 6/10 – marked a year since Gran’s death (if you count by weeks, not dates, it was 52 weeks/Fridays since she died). I miss her, her house, and the way things used to be in our family before the 1990s. For me, that decade was bleak and dreary, and my life went absolutely nowhere; my development was stalled. This decade – the early 2000s – is not looking any brighter. How long is my life going to be like this? How long will I remain trapped in this dreary existence? I do not know how to break free.
I have started on my life chronology, creating a folder for it in this computer. I am working from the history I typed last year on my typewriter; a tedious process that was! Using a word processor is far superior. The events in my life are hardly riveting reading, though; it’s a rather dismal tale of wasted talents and opportunities. I suppose only close family members might find my memoirs of any interest! I’m doing the project for family history purposes, and to aid my own memory. People can create their own websites and record their history and whatever else they wish on the Internet; something I might be inclined to do in the future! Though there’s much that I wouldn’t wish to reveal to strangers.
I don’t have my own Internet account, but am connected to Dad’s through an extra phone line he installed in my bedroom. I would be on the Internet for hours almost every day, but Dad is limited to 10 free hours per month – any extra he has to pay for. Rather frustrating! I can escape reality for a time when I am exploring the Net.
~ Ended 9:22 a.m.
The usual awful day at work; horrendously busy at times, especially towards the end. I am tired, sore and stressed-out. I get so traumatized; I feel as though I am about to explode. I am trapped there with hordes of humans coming at me in an endless procession; it is a nightmare from which I can’t awaken until my shift ends. This is truly the Job From Hell.
Saw Charmaine, a friend whom I have known for many years; we met at the Bentleigh Baptist Church Youth Group as teenagers (the group has long since been defunct). I went out with her a few times in the early 1990s. She married John in 1996 and they moved to Bundoora. Their first daughter, Stephanie, was born in 1997; Erica was born in 2000. I stopped seeing her after her engagement; I am not comfortable around married couples my age – it makes me all too aware of what I have missed out on (I’ve never yet had a boyfriend, and don’t think I ever will, being of such a difficult temperament). I am also very uncomfortable around children, and avoid them as much as possible; my sister Michele’s four have never even met me. Charmaine said she might ring me; she and John moved back to Bentleigh in the same street as her parents live. I always enjoyed her company, though we have disparate interests and personalities. I’ve not had any friendships with people in my age group for years – the only people with whom I interact frequently are my parents, who are becoming old and grumpy, and we get thoroughly tired of each other at times, as anyone would after over 30 years with the same people.
My computer began playing up this morning, displaying an error message when I turned it on, then it began freezing up later on when I tried to access files. I went to shut it down, but it refused to turn off. Dad turned it off at the wall (a last-resort measure), then turned it on and activated the Norton Cleansweep program, which got rid of about 7 megabytes of junk retained from the Internet! Later, he also did a disk fragmentation, which tides and cleans things up. The computer seems to be okay now (fingers crossed!). Computers really are temperamental machines with minds of their own. Weird things happen in those electronic chips and circuits. The ISS is very much computerized, and there has been, inevitably, some trouble with their systems crashing and so forth! The crew access the system via IBM 760ED (later XD) Thinkpad laptops, scattered around the ship. The operating system on it is Solaris UNIX. The Station Support Computer uses Windows 95 – no Apple fans here! I’m getting this information from the International Space Station Familiarization manual, which I discovered on a NASA website and subsequently printed out at the library. It’s a basic introduction and overview of the ISS’s systems – though much more technical than I can handle! There’s even more detailed manuals on the American and Russian systems, but these, unfortunately, aren’t on the Internet. They can be ordered from a site called World Spaceflight News on CD-ROM and in printed book form; but it’s an American site and the currency exchange rate makes ordering rather expensive in Australia. But I ordered some magazines and a book on Mir earlier this year from Spaceflight magazine in England, so perhaps I will. The CD-Rom has info on the Russian systems, which the Internet manual doesn’t have.
I wonder if those on the Station can access the Internet from there? I can’t find any info about this. There’d be a worry, I should think, about picking up viruses and infecting the ISS’s computers, or some nefariously-minded hacker breaking in – imagine the havoc that would wreak! (A good story idea – heroic crew battling an evil unseen hacker bent on their destruction!) There’s people – mostly teenage boys – who seem to like nothing better than creating and releasing new viruses onto the Internet and inconveniencing everyone. A stupid and pointless activity. I love using the Internet (when it cooperates!), and detest the people who foul it up.
I wonder if I should consider joining a chat group sharing my space obsession, but I don’t know how to find one. No one in my real life shares my interests, and I feel isolated. I would feel shy about joining in, anyhow; I don’t feel I have enough knowledge, or that my opinions are informed and valid (though I have no trouble venting them in my journals!).
I might leave this for today as my eyes are tiring and I just want to snuggle up in bed!
~ Ended 6:47 p.m.
Thursday 18/10
The dreaded ordeal of work lies ahead this afternoon (3-7 p.m.). Yesterday, Mum, Dad and I went for a drive to the Clarendon cemetery, where we scattered Gran’s ashes last year. We also went up in 1999 (my first visit since my teenage years). Dad does all the long-haul driving (I can’t drive). We went via the West Gate Bridge and Geelong Highway, which is being widened. I find it distressing to see housing estates spreading out over formerly open countryside like unstoppable cancers. Melbourne’s population is increasing, and people need to live somewhere, but it means you have to go ever-further out to escape horrid overcrowded suburbs. Tall barriers have also been erected alongside residential areas, which totally blocks off the view, and makes one feel hemmed-in. A depressing drive out. We also passed the former ASTA hangar at Avalon Airfield, a painful reminder for me of what could have been if I hadn’t quit my apprenticeship there in 1989. It took about 2 hours to reach the cemetery. Michele had driven down on Saturday 6/10 from Rochester to put flowers on the gravesite (2 of Gran’s uncles and her grandparents are buried there; her mother and father lie nearby somewhere, in unmarked graves). We then had lunch on Mt. Buninyong, an extinct volcano (there are many of these in the area; Melbourne was surrounded by volcanoes thousands of years ago). There’s a fire watch tower you can climb which gives an awesome view of the surrounding plains many kilometres around – I love being up high! It’s exhilarating. Imagine being able to leap from the tower and go soaring over the land below. After lunch, we then drove home via a different route, along the Western Highway which goes through Bacchus Marsh. We stopped for a tea break at Pykes Creek Reservoir, a place we used to stop at during similar country drives in the 1970s and 1980s. We went all over the region back then, to Ballarat, Bendigo, Castlemaine, Mt. Franklin (another volcano) and other places. Such places often appear in my dreams, of driving through vast country landscapes. The region was the site of Victoria’s Gold Rush in the 1850s, and the odd nugget or two is still found. Dad used to go hunting with a metal detector – unfortunately, he was never successful!
A break from the usual numbing routine, though being in a car for that length of time (left at 9 a.m., returned before 4 p.m.) is rather tiring. Won’t be able to do that for many more years, either – a day will come when my parents will no longer be able to drive.
The house opposite us, #90, is being renovated, and a unit is to be built behind it. The house 2 doors up is to be auctioned. Development continues unabated in Bentleigh and it is distressing and frustrating to see so many old familiar homes be demolished and replaced by cramped units or ugly 2-storied monoliths. The Murrumbeena High School was sold off 3 or 4 years ago, and now a housing estate has replaced it, consisting entirely of the aesthetically offensive 2-stored homes which have regrettably been in fashion since the 1990s. I don’t know why people want such huge houses – it seems wasteful and environmentally-unfriendly. Such houses are not suitable for Australia’s hot climate, requiring extensive air-conditioning.
Gran’s home was sold at auction in 1997 and bought by a developer, who demolished it and built four 2-storey townhouses on the site. A depressing and distressing event, as the home in which my grandparents had lived since 1941, and which had been my family’s second home, was erased as though it had never been. It exists now only in memories and photos, and I still dream of it. I would like that developer’s head on a plate. I wish all similarly uncaring developers could be burnt at the stake! I noticed yesterday, when passing Bridge Street on the Nepean Highway, that 2 more houses in the street had been demolished and units were being built. The street’s “character” is well and truly ruined. The houses there dated from the 1920s and 1930s, and the area had an atmosphere or aura which appealed to me; one of continuity from the past, echoes of another world.
Another source of distress is ever-increasing light pollution in the city and suburbs, which outshines all but the brightest stars. The night sky over our house in Bentleigh, when overcast, is bright enough to read by. Light pollution in the world is a real problem as populations increase, and there seems to be an urge to light up the night as much as possible. My pet hate is outdoors advertising billboards, which are wastefully lit up at night with lights illuminating the ads from below, thus scattering more light into the atmosphere. I have never seen the night sky in its full glory – if I could, the sight would blow me away! But I never will while living here.
Time for lunch, now, so I’ll sign off.
~ Ended 11:02 a.m.
Sunday 21/10
A dreadful few days after my last entry. On that Thursday shift, the head supervisor gave out new contracts, with altered hours, to sign. Mine were changed to Mon 9 a.m.-2 p.m.; Wed 3:30-7 p.m.; Fri 2-7 p.m. I hate 5-hour shifts, which seem to drag on interminably, and I told Jan that I wanted to leave – I’ve had enough of being stuck there, of the supervisors sniping at me, of my hours being changed like that, of everything. I gave her a note the next day, saying this would be my last week here (new hours begin on Monday 29). I have been at That Awful Place for 12 years, and if I don’t leave I will be there for another 12. I have no skills, no qualifications, nothing to show for my time there; I was never interested in the job, or in moving up to a supervisor’s position and so on. A total waste of my time; my whole life so far amounts to nothing. I have not been for a job interview in all that period, and certainly don’t feel up to it now. I have only a little over $2000 in savings, which will only last a few months. There are thousands of highly-qualified people looking for work; there is no way I can compete. I feel at an utter dead end; I do not know where to go or what to do. I haven’t told my parents yet, and you can imagine their furious reaction, which I am dreading. Dad will go into his usual lecture mode about how they won’t be here forever, that I have to take responsibility for myself, etc., etc. I am so tired of it all; walking in front of an express train is looking to be an attractive option. If euthanasia clinics were in operation (catering for everyone, not just the terminally-ill), I would sign up. I have been thinking of suicide for years, though so far I have lacked the courage to go through with it; most methods are inconvenient and painful, with the risk of permanent disability if the attempt is unsuccessful.
More humiliation for me today. I was riding my bicycle back home from the library, when some young men in a white Commodore-like car cruised past and threw a plastic soft drink bottle at me. They were obviously bored and looking for “entertainment”. Not content with that, they then circled a roundabout and came back; one throwing contents from another soft drink bottle at me (water again), laughing raucously as they drove away. I was furious, but powerless to retaliate, as I have been too often in my life, in similar incidents. I would have loved to rip their faces off and blast them into their component atoms. It’s incidents like this which only intensify my dislike of humanity in general. I wish I could go and live somewhere far away from other humans, like in space or on another planet. Some people – usually young males – seem to go out of their way to bother and humiliate vulnerable people. There must be some aura about me which marks me out thus. I certainly don’t bother others – all I wish is to be left alone. I was teased at school; I have had endless humiliation at work (no doubt others there say unpleasant things concerning me out of my hearing). It never ends and I am so f**king tired of it.
One of my favorite fantasies when depressed is of a huge asteroid or comet impacting the Earth, and rendering humanity extinct. It happened to the dinosaurs, and could well happen again. Humans currently have no way of repelling such a rock. The question is, is humanity worth saving, considering the awful things people continue to do to each other (the September 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre towers in New York the most recent example), and the way we wilfully destroy the environment and other lifeforms? I, for one, would have serious doubts.
I have no idea what I am going to do. I don’t think I am eligible for the dole; there’s stringent conditions attached to welfare payments, now. My only other options seem to be to turn to crime or starve to death. I don’t really want to die, though – just to escape myself and my dreary life. I can’t cope with reality.
~ Ended 3:13 p.m.
Monday 22/10
Another dreadful shift at work as it was horrendously busy – a nightmare I couldn’t awaken from until the end of my shift. I cannot do this anymore; it is mentally and physically intolerable. I still have not told Mum and Dad, and I am dreading this.
One aspect of my job I hate is people looking at me and seeing my awful skin; I don’t know what they’re thinking. Some stare at me as though I am an alien life form; I find it very stressful to look people in the eyes and have avoided this as much as I can more and more in the last few years. I find eye contact very unnerving as it is a direct way of communicating with others – I feel that I reveal too much of myself, somehow. I also hate people making small talk, at which I am hopeless. If I am in a bad mood, I am very sullen, and some sense this and make fun of me or are unpleasant to me. I absolutely abhor contact with the public now; for me it is a nightmare.
In my job I am a lower life form. People judge others by what they do – what their occupation is – which is why I am reluctant to tell anyone what my job is. There’s a negative, derogatory stereotype associated with my job, and my inner image of myself is at odds with this – in my daydreams I am a daring adventurer, spacefarer or whatever. The disparity between my inner and outer lives is unbearable.
I feel hopelessly bleak about my future, now. My age is a disadvantage (as Dad keeps pointing out), I have no skills or qualifications. I seem doomed to a life of struggling to exist by whatever menial jobs I can find, dreaming of things I can never achieve. A wasted life of frustrated ambitions, frustrated by my own dysfunctional nature. I don’t have whatever it takes to succeed in life; I don’t have the confidence and drive to enable this. I dread being this way for the next 40 or 50 years, or however long I live – I’ve seen newspaper articles saying that depressed people tend to have shorter lifespans as their condition damages them physically; weakens their immune system and heart. So perhaps I won’t be around all that long; I hope I won’t, given my dismal prospects.
~ Ended 6:37 p.m.
Friday 26/10
Today is my last shift at That Awful Place. Hard to believe, as I have been there so long … too long. Kelly was unpleasant to me yesterday, so I shall be glad to see the back of her (and she, me). I have no time for such small-minded people. Bet she doesn’t think of much outside of her narrow life – no interest in the Space Station, for example. There’s a few others who would be of a similar nature. Some have been there for as long as I have, or longer, and I don’t know what motivates them to stay there. People who spend their lives in dreary jobs … if that’s all there is to life, then it’s hardly worth living.
I’ve still not told Mum and Dad, and I can imagine what their reaction will be. I wish I could escape my life and myself.
November 2 marks 1 year since the ISS was first occupied (as noted on the NASA website). 3 Expedition crews have been up there so far. The third Soyuz crew is staying there at the moment for just over a week. Space tourist Dennis Tito, who was on Soyuz 2, does not get a mention at all on any of the pertinent NASA sites (I’ve checked), which is very churlish of them. NASA really carried on in a disgraceful way when they objected to Mr. Tito’s going up, doing everything they could to prevent him – and he was a former NASA employee! As I’ve said, NASA are like a space mafia, and think they own and should have exclusive access to space. Bugger that philosophy! In February, there was an article in The Age’s Good Weekend magazine called “The Murder of Mir,” by Gregory Klerkx, about how NASA pressured the Russians to ditch Mir as the old station was a rival for the ISS (the latter station being NASA-controlled). An extract from another article in Air and Space magazine (“Fallen Star,” by Anatoly Zak, June/July 2001): “Kirushkin believed that rampant corruption in the Russian government, combined with what are perceived to be efforts by the United States to squeeze Russia out of the ISS, has already doomed the national space effort. ‘Essentially, we are serving the U.S. space program, and Americans will throw us out as soon as they get from us the hardware and experience they need.’ ” Russia has previously given away innovative rocket engine technology to American aerospace companies. “Some resent the way in which the rocket program’s family silver has been sold off at bargain basement prices to rivals who stand to gain huge profits from their lifetime’s investment. The joint ventures have drawn criticism that they will lead to a brain, patent and knowledge drain to the United States and that the once-great Russian rocket industry will lose its ingenuity and ability to innovate.” (Russia in Space: The Failed Frontier?, Brian Harvey). It seems to be all gloom and doom for the Russian space program, though they are at least still sending people up (for now).
NASA chief Dan Goldin is retiring in November, after 10 years in the job – he was there nearly as long as I was at T.A.P.! The 2 jobs couldn’t be further apart on the social scale than if they were on opposite sides of the Universe.
After today, I will be unemployed, a nothing. I went through a few months of unemployment after I quit ASTA in 1989, before I found work at That Awful Place (to my eternal regret). My parents were working and could support me, so I did not go on the dole. I was still young then, and still had some sort of future prospects. Now I am old, with absolutely no skills or qualifications. There’s no point in trying to get a job, as I have nothing to offer. Only alternative is a course of some sort, but what? I wouldn’t mind doing an Art course at TAFE (as I nearly did in 1991), but I’ve not painted for years, and don’t have much of a folio. All I really want to do is retreat into my bedroom away from the world, and daydream, draw and write to my heart’s content. I have saved some newspaper and magazine articles on authors such as John Marsden and J.K. Rowling (the latter the author of the bestselling Harry Potter series) who have gone through troubled times in their lives, but have made a success of themselves despite this. I have vague ideas for stories churning away in my head all the time – my daydreams – but I don’t know if I could write a novel. It’s hard work! You need discipline, dedication and perseverance. I don’t think anyone else would find my stories interesting, anyway. They seem to flow so easily in my imagination, but when I’ve tried to put them into writing the words struggle to come out. (Though I seem to have no trouble writing in my journal!) I have most trouble with conversations, but I am good at describing things.
The ideas and images for stories and pictures remain locked inside my mind, frustratingly. Perhaps my depression is affecting my ability?
Four more hours of tedium tonight, then I am free of That Awful Place forever. I never want to do that sort of work again – death is preferable. I’ll sign off for now, and perhaps write a little tonight, if I am inclined.
~ Ended 12:34 p.m.
Well, now it’s over. I told Mum and Dad before I left, and they weren’t too happy, to say the least. A miserable shift as Kelly was still unpleasant to me, and I just couldn’t be bothered with her (she finished at 4 p.m., so I didn’t have to put up with her for long). Most there seemed to know I was leaving (good news spreads fast). I really wanted to just vanish quietly. It was a busy shift, unfortunately, and I was impatient to just get out of there. Dad came to pick me up as it was raining, but I didn’t want to go through one of his lectures, so I just ignored him and walked home.
All I want to do is just stay in my room and talk to no one. I’ve had enough of the human race – certainly, more unpleasant encounters than I can remember on register. Twelve years at T.A.P., and I’ve absolutely nothing to show for it. Might as well have been in prison or in a coma. Some might say that I should have moved to another department, but I couldn’t be bothered learning anything new, there. The whole place is dysfunctional – people gossiping and saying nasty things about others (I can just imagine what K. had to say about me behind my back). A bad place to work. The building is also filthy and has a peculiar smell. I hate the whole place, and the industry in general, in which I have utterly no interest. It is a mundane and dreary occupation as you could imagine; anyone who finds it interesting must have something wrong with them.
I wish I had not been born. My life seems utterly without purpose. I’ve wasted the first third of it already. Most people my age are at a high point in their careers, and with thousands of dollars in savings. I have a little over $2000, which will dwindle over the next few months. Then I will be broke, and I don’t know what I will do. Left to myself, I would just fall into a lethargic depression, neglect my diet and health, and perhaps I would die soon after. I don’t have that much motivation to live if things get that desperate – I think I would rather starve to death than turn to prostitution or something, for example. I can’t be bothered going to Centrelink and enduring all the bureaucratic bulls**t in order to get the dole, or whatever – I don’t think I’m eligible, anyway.
I’ll leave this for tonight. I’ll just curl up in bed, where I wish I could stay for the rest of my life.
~ Ended 8:27 p.m.
Wednesday 31/10
Last day of the month. One year ago, the Expedition 1 crew blasted off from Baikonur to dock with the International Space Station.
Dad has finally got around to wallpapering my bedroom! He last did it in 1987, the week I went away to New Zealand. The wallpaper and carpet now look old and tattered. I picked a cloudy blue wallpaper yesterday – $50 a roll, and 5 rolls are needed! So Dad is now stripping off the old paper and backing, a tedious job. I’ve had to move into Michele’s old bedroom, and Dad has moved his computer and other stuff out into the shed. We seem to have so much stuff! The redecorating will take several weeks (have to get new carpet, too).
I got my last pay packet today, holiday pay owed included, so my bank balance is currently $3229.55. It will only dwindle over the next few months. What will I do when I’m down to my last $500 or so?
I booked a short course at the Moorabbin TAFE – “Introduction to Computers” – covering basic Windows, Internet and e-mail; Mum and Dad thought I should do it. It was $255, but with my Health Care Card discount was reduced to $204 (Mum paid for it). Still very expensive – and that’s one of the cheaper courses! The more advanced computer courses are the same price, or dearer. The government makes noises about encouraging people to further their education, or return to study, but courses are very expensive – TAFE isn’t government-subsidized like it used to be. They really should bring back free education and university if they wish Australia to become the “Knowledge Nation” they are always promoting. If courses were free, or cheaper at least, I would happily do dozens of them.
Mum and Dad are driving up to Michele and Chris’s place at Rochester on Friday, where they will stay the night. I will mind the house as usual.
Got a good view of the ISS on Sunday morning at 5:36 AM, going high overhead at 62°, SW to NE. The sky was clear for once, and it took 3-4 minutes to cross. It’s visible all this week – morning and evening from Tuesday to Thursday, then it switches to evening. I’ve been thwarted by clouds since that sighting, frustratingly. Orbit sightings seem to follow a cycle of morning for a few weeks, then evening. If you knew mathematics and orbital mechanics you could figure out why, but that is far beyond me, unfortunately! I wonder who works out the sighting data for the hundreds of cities on the NASA site I get the information from.
I don’t think that there is anything that I want to do as a career. I just want to remain in my fantasy world, without being distracted by reality. I don’t have any ambition – I do have dreams, but these appear to be unobtainable. One of these dreams involves going into space, as Dennis Tito did. But I am regrettably short of funds – I need about $40 million! (That’s in Australia’s dismally low-valued currency.) Any donations are gratefully welcomed!
It’s Halloween tonight, when ghosts walk the Earth. My birthday next Friday; I’ll be 31.
~ Ended 3:26 p.m.
November
Tuesday 6/11
Melbourne Cup holiday today (for some). I have no interest in horseracing and dislike the culture surrounding it. I feel sorry for the horses, who get raced till they break down and end up at the knacker’s.
My 31st birthday this week, on Friday. At least I won’t be at That Awful Place! I’ve made no effort to even start looking for work, though. I don’t know what to do and it’s hard to motivate myself. 12 years at TAP and I’ve absolutely nothing to show for it – my resume (not as yet written) will look very dismal. Bombed out at school and ASTA, spent 12 years in a worthless job. No skills or qualifications (though I can use a computer now). The “Introduction to Computers” course begins tomorrow (2 Wednesdays, 6 hours per session). They’ve not rung me yet from the TAFE, so I assume they’ve found enough people to fill the course (minimum of 5 needed), or perhaps they will ring me tomorrow morning if not. I hope it isn’t a waste of $204. I know some of the basics, but certainly not everything (I’ve not yet used e-mail, for example).
I have finished my life history up to 2000; a much easier task than doing it on my typewriter! I have also saved a copy onto a 3½-inch floppy disk. My only worry is that the technology I am using will become outdated one day, and then I won’t be able to read my work using whatever replaces floppies and PCs. I also don’t know how permanent the materials are; they could deteriorate over time. The trouble is that nothing is permanent! If only there were somewhere safe and permanent historical data and artifacts could be stored.
Federal elections coming up on Saturday, when we have to vote. I have no enthusiasm for or much interest in the campaign, and loathe the political ads full of empty promises. The parties all seem too much involved in internal bickering, back stabbing and maneuvering to ever actually achieve anything; to change society for the better. People could create a wonderful society to live in if they really wanted, but no one seems willing to.
Mum and Dad drove up to Rochester on Friday to stay the night and attend Chris’s induction as a minister.
Spotted the International Space Station twice since I last wrote, on last Friday and Saturday. It’s visible late in the evenings on this cycle. I am still too often thwarted by cloud cover, frustratingly.
Be going to Southland with Mum and Dad soon, so I’ll sign off for now.
~ Ended 9:06 a.m.
Had a session on the Internet earlier. I was downloading a document of 175 pages or so, but it was taking forever, so I disconnected. I might try again near the end of the month, else I’ll use up Dad’s 10 hours. The document was a ISS medical manual from a website called Spaceref, which has various ISS reference manuals in Adobe Acrobat document form. I downloaded one on operating the Russian Orlan space suit, and another on ISS emergency situation procedures. I noticed in the medical documents section that there was a procedure for a pregnancy test!! Guess the long-stay mixed Expedition Crews might indulge in rather naughty activities if they are feeling bored, so the pregnancy test is a prudent measure. I wonder if the medicine cabinet has some condoms stored there as well?! Practice safe space sex!!
Another medical document was on restraining a psychotic or suicidal crew member, the procedure requiring drugs, grey duct tape, bungee cords and towels. Presumably there’s a chance of someone going nutso and trying to exit the airlock without a space suit. Certainly would be interesting to watch what happens to the human body in the vacuum of space! I’ve read that all the body’s fluids will escape through various orifices and that the body then shrivels up like an Egyptian mummy, becoming freeze-dried. There’s a fascinating scientific experiment! Fly up some unpleasant person such as a serial killer, sedate him and chuck him out the airlock. Record observations on a video camera. Write up report for “Effects of Vacuum upon the Human Body.”
I tried sending off a question on the NASA site’s “Ask the ISS crew” section (“Can you access the Internet from the Space Station?”), but I don’t know if it even was recorded, as a form letter was instantly displayed, saying:
Thanks for your question, Suzanne McHale!
We receive hundreds of thought-provoking questions each mission and wish we could answer every one of them. However, our primary job is, and always will be, to safely and successfully accomplish the mission’s objectives, so that just isn’t possible.
I invite you to check the answers periodically during the mission to see if we have replied to your question.
… Best wishes, Expedition 3 Commander Frank Culbertson
Obviously not a personal reply. I am tempted to send wacky questions like “Do you have condoms on board?” or “What is the procedure if someone dies in space?” but I doubt they would find them funny! That’s if they even read any questions (they would have to be filtered through NASA first). I wonder if they have body bags stored on board? Would they bring the body back to Earth, or eject it from the Station into Earth’s atmosphere to burn up (get a free cremation!)?
A novel I bought and read a few weeks ago is Cosmonaut by Peter McAllister, an Australian author. It’s his first novel. An American astronaut on board the ISS is murdered in mysterious circumstances by one of the cosmonauts on board, and “troubled ex-astronaut turned homicide cop ‘Edge’ Reynolds” is flown up on board the Shuttle to investigate. Turns out that the “incredible secret of Cosmonaut” is the name of an experiment where Russian children were genetically engineered in the Soviet era to be adapted to a space vacuum environment with hardened skin, blood which can store extra oxygen so they can go for 20 hours without breathing, and a second transparent eyelid to protect the eyes from exploding. They can go out into space without a spacesuit. This interesting idea is unfortunately presented as evil in the novel, obviously reacting to the current hysteria over genetic engineering. I think it’s a fascinating concept and, if I were in the government, would give full funding to genetic scientists and tell them to go for it!!
Oh, and the author manages to include a couple of zero-g sex scenes! Between Edge (a silly nickname, that) and a female cosmonaut who happens to be one of the genetically-engineered humans. As is her intention, she falls pregnant and wants to start a new race of humans who will colonize the stars. Shock, horror! thinks Edge, who ends up killing her. But there is some hope for the remaining beleaguered cosmonauts; a couple survive at the novel’s end.
My main complaint with the novel is the portrayal of the Russians as the bad guys – get over the Cold War, already! And Mr. Reynolds is such a cliché: the embittered American cop, as seen in innumerable crime novels and TV series. He is thoroughly unlikeable – the stereotypical Ugly American – and there is an overuse of slang which becomes grating. Any Russian cosmonaut certainly will be rather pissed off if they read the novel. Still, Mr. McAllister has done well to even get a book published. It’s the only novel involving the ISS (which gets blown up, by the way, in the book) that I know of. Most sci-fi novels are set in the far future, and are the authors’ personal visions of whatever universe they create, as are fantasy novels. I prefer books set in the present, in a world I can relate to. I do like to read sci-fi and fantasy sometimes, though – anything to escape the dreary reality I live in. I also create my own fantasies, of course. The world of my imagination is a personal virtual reality to which I escape; unfortunately I still have to continue my existence in the real world so I can perpetuate my daydreams. The disparity between these inner and outer worlds can be an unbearable torment at times as my real life is so limited, my potential unrealized.
~ Ended 3:57 p.m.
Wednesday 7/11
Today I went to the “Introduction to Computers” course. The teacher was an older woman, June Thorne (I think – that was the name she wrote on the whiteboard). There were 4 others, 2 men and 2 women, all middle-aged professional business types. I felt somewhat out of place and spoke little. The operating system was Windows 95, which isn’t too dissimilar from Windows 98. June was quite good, and we covered most of the basics, though there was a lot of information to absorb. The 6 hours (9-4 + an hour for lunch, shortened to a ½ hour so we could finish correspondingly earlier) went quickly – compared to the agonizingly slow crawl of a 5-hour shift at TAP. I feel rather fatigued after several hours in front of a monitor though. There is one more session next Wednesday.
Dad has decided to paint the walls of my bedroom instead of wallpaper them; I prefer them painted. I’ll go for a pale blue, I think. It is a big job so I’ll be in Michele’s room for a few more weeks yet.
Last night I learned how to unzip a compressed file I downloaded from the Internet. I needed Winzip to read the file, which I didn’t initially have on my computer, so I had to load it from a CD-ROM supplied with the Internet for Dummies textbook. After much confused messing about, I finally learned how to open the program by selecting “index.htm” from the file’s menu. It was a basic beginner’s course in Russian I found at the Friends and Partners site, an American-Russian friendship association. I don’t know if I’ll manage to learn it, considering the decayed state of my brain, but I felt pleased I’d managed to figure out the unzipping procedure! Learning to use a computer is sort of like learning a language. I have done nothing for 10 years so I find it hard to focus and concentrate.
~ Ended 7:20 p.m.
Thursday 8/11
My last day of being 30! My 31st birthday tomorrow, come all too quickly. Dad has been painting the walls of my bedroom a nice pale icy blue. Chose some carpet today (a man came around with samples); parents selected a rather boring beige, like the carpet in the rest of the house. I wanted one with a blue tinge, but they said it was too much blue. Oh well, I guess they’re paying for it. My room is now the “Blue Room”! Might use a darker blue on the cornices and knobs on the wardrobe to complement it. I would like the same darker blue horizontal blinds, but I’ll have to see what transpires. I’d like to try painting a small mural on a wall – perhaps a porthole looking out over the Earth with a cosmonaut doing an EVA, or a view of the ISS. I’ve not painted since my teens, though. It’s just an idea.
Discovered how to put a background photo in each folder display from a magazine called Windows Made Easy, an Australian publication aimed at beginners (unlike other magazines). It’s full of handy hints and runs through various procedures. I only discovered it a couple of months ago (it’s been going over a year). I used various NASA photos from the ones I saved.
I seem to be stuck for words this session, so I’ll quit.
~ Ended 7:18 p.m.
Saturday 10/11
Federal elections today. I voted for the Democrats only on the Senate ballot paper, and for House of Representatives voted (in order) Democrats, Greens, Independent, Labor and Liberal. I put both major parties towards the end as I am unimpressed with both, though one will inevitable win the election as they have been the dominant forces in Australian politics since forever.
My 31st birthday yesterday, which was quiet as usual. Mum and Dad gave me a pair of sapphire earrings and $50; Michele gave me a lava lamp. Went out for lunch with parents to Smorgy’s, an all-you-can-eat restaurant in Burwood (near Chadstone). Not bad, though the fake tribal-themed decorations throughout looked rather tacky. I rather wish I had some friends my own age to go out with, to a nightclub or somewhere. I’ve never been to a nightclub at all. I like the techno-dance music played there and at rave parties; I’ve a few CDs of this sort of music.
Only 2 weeks since I quit TAP. I find it very hard to motivate myself to do anything. I have no self-confidence at all and no idea where to begin. None of the courses I’ve looked at in a university and TAFE guide seem suitable; it’s too late to enroll now for next year, anyway. I don’t know what to do or where to go.
Michele rang last night; just talked about the usual inconsequential things.
My parents are the only people whom I see and talk to every day; I’ve no friends my own age. Mum and Dad are getting old and grumpy, and I get tired and frustrated at times just being with them. I’ve forgotten what people of my generation are like to be with! What it’s like to actually have fun. I’ve never had a boyfriend and it seems less and less likely that I ever will, now, not being the way I am. Much of my daydreams are centered around this. I feel lonely and isolated, but I have not socialized for years and am very unpractised. Also I am not physically attractive, with my glasses and bad acne-prone skin. Why would any guy want to go out with me? I am awkward and unlikeable. I would describe myself now as “nothing,” which is no more than the truth.
~ Ended 3:12 p.m.
Saturday 17/11
I completed the computer course okay. Don’t know what else to do now. I have been thinking of doing VCE as a mature-age student; Chisholm has a program that caters for this. But I haven’t done anything resembling study since the secretarial course I took in 1990 and I have real doubts that I could cope with the VCE workload. I hated studying at school and would really rather sit in my bedroom and daydream. If only there were a course that catered to my interests.
John Howard won the election again, as predicted. So we are stuck with his conservative values and retrograde policies for another 3 years. Watch Australia sink further behind in the world.
Passed a couple of teenage boys loitering on East Boundary Road during my morning walk and of course they had to make some stupid remarks. I did nothing but wanted to rip their faces off as usual. I have developed a pathological hatred of Stupid Young Males (SYMs) and would love to blow their heads off with a shotgun. If I pass such a group of boys when walking alone or on my bicycle it is a certainty that they will be compelled to hassle me. I don’t know why they can’t just ignore me and leave me alone. I’m certainly doing nothing to bother them (I am dressed in baggy tracksuits most of the time, which are hardly provocative).
Saw the ISS last night, a good view at 9:40 p.m., 53° from S to E. Watched until it vanished into the Earth’s shadow about 44° above E. It begins to fade then vanishes into darkness. The Expedition 3 crew are due to be replaced in early December.
The new NASA Administrator is called Sean O’Keefe. Things aren’t going well with the ISS program. A scathing U.S. Congressional report was released detailing NASA’s financial mismanagement with the Station’s costs estimated to go billions over budget in the next few years. Overall expenses have already topped $30 billion – although that is still small compared with the development costs of military programs, such as the much-criticized Missile Defence and the new Joint Strike Fighter at $200 billion. Why don’t they just direct money from the military budget into the space program? The exploration of space is surely more inspiring than finding more effective ways to kill people. The ISS has already had the Habitation Module and 7-person landing capsule axed so only 3 crew will be able to inhabit the Station.
There’s also been a proposal by Russia to build a mini-station that could be used to host commercial space tourist flights as an alternative to going to the ISS. Don’t know how viable this is but if it comes into being Russia would at least have its own station again.
A manned mission to Mars remains a wistful dream. There’s plenty of proposals floating about – there’s a website called the Mars Society dedicated to the topic – but the tremendous cost deters governments who have little interest, anyway. A privately-funded mission is a viable alternative, but again there seem to be no space-mad billionaires (Dennis Tito excepted). Someone with Bill Gates’ wealth could fund several missions, not to mention having their own mini-space station (like a holiday home in orbit!). I think the majority of Earth’s population is uninterested in spaceflight, seeing it as something remote and removed from their daily lives. If it were more accessible – i.e. cheaper – this might change. But with current technologies, cheap spaceflight is also a dream.
~ Ended 3:53 p.m.
Wednesday 21/11
4:19 p.m.: Went to Chisholm yesterday to visit the VCE office and get some info. Ended up making an appointment with a student career counselor for tomorrow ($22 concession fee as I am not a student). I really don’t know if I want to do VCE though. I noticed there is a Russian language course at Melbourne and Monash Universities; full-time for 3 years so it looks intensive. I am almost too late to apply though (have to pay a very late fee of around $70) and on the application form you have to give reasons why you wish to do the course, what relevant life experience you’ve had, etc. I am stuck for words with such questions. I don’t know if I could cope with it as I have never studied a language before, except for 2 years of French in early senior school where I did poorly, mainly because I didn’t apply myself and it seemed to have no real relevance then. Of course, I wish I had now! Learning Russian would tie in with my interest in their space program and knowing another language is a good thing to have in any case. It is difficult though – more than the European languages, but less than, say, Chinese. Russian has a different alphabet (based on the Greek and other alphabets). I am plodding through the beginner’s course I downloaded as a zip file, so I can pronounce a few letters already! I find I have to keep repeating things until they sink in – I’m not a quick learner and can’t instantly absorb information. I don’t know how I’ll go.
Spent a little over an hour downloading just 2 documents from Spaceref, both Adobe Acrobat documents which took ages to trickle through the phone line. One was the medical document I mentioned in my 6/11 entry. I wish Dad could afford a broadband cable connection! It would be much faster.
Went to the city today; visited Andrew Barnes at the Military Melbourne in Prahran to sell a few books (didn’t get very much as they are readily-available books). I’ve been there a few times before this year. Ended up having a long chat with him (well, he did most of the talking) about writing, getting books published and so on. He reckons it’s easy to put together a magazine article or book using information and photos from the Internet. A woman who works there, Kate Doolan, is a space writer who knows lots of astronauts, travels widely and has had books and magazine articles published. She has a dream job! But I am utterly lacking in self-confidence and doubt my writing (so far limited to my journal) would be adequate. Not to mention being chronically shy and tongue-tied.
Andrew said that, in his opinion, I should forget about doing VCE and get on with doing what I want to do (such as writing). But there is that little problem of my having no income … he said I should apply for the dole, but I am reluctant to. I don’t think Mum and Dad would approve of his advice. Their thinking is that I should secure a well-paying job of some sort and do creative-type things as a hobby. But would I be happy? Why should people have to be trapped in awful jobs just to perpetuate their existence? I’ve wasted 12 years of my life already in an awful job and am not keen to repeat the experience.
Spent over an hour there then I took the train into the city from Prahran Station (I catch the Frankston line train; to get to Prahran I change to the Sandringham line train at South Yarra station). Wandered around my usual haunts (bookshops on Swanston and Elizabeth Streets). The city as usual was horribly crowded and noisy; lots of weird and aggressive humans about. A dirty, polluted place. I don’t stay for long as I get panicky in crowds; drives me mad. One shop I visit is the Minotaur bookshop, which sells imported fantasy and sci-fi novels, comics, videos, etc. A lot of it is rather expensive!
~ Ended 6:41 p.m.
Wednesday 28/11
Nothing new since last week. I have lost enthusiasm about doing adult VCE; I doubt I could cope with the study required and would have to do a lot of projects in which I wasn’t interested. There really aren’t any subjects which appeal to me. If only there were a university course or something about space flight! One suitable for the non-technically minded. Unfortunately there is nothing which caters to my interests, so I don’t know what I am going to do.
Space Shuttle mission STS-108 leaves for the ISS on the 29th or thereabouts, carrying the fourth ISS crew to replace Expedition 3.
Last Monday 19 were the annual Leonid meteor showers which were viewed at their best this year from Australia. They put on an awesome show – unfortunately which we in the suburbs missed out on, no thanks to light pollution. Michele rang us and told us that she went out to a farm to watch the meteors and she saw quite a few. Lucky her. They came between 3 and 5 a.m.
Feeling despondent and depressed this week (some PMT). Feel hopeless about my prospects. It is so hard to motivate myself to do anything as I feel lethargic.
~ Ended 3:36 p.m.