#monday post

Well, Monday, at least.

I'm not feeling too good today 🤒

I managed to keep myself in relatively good health all of last year, but I suppose my luck has run out. I don't know if I caught something in the cold, or if I inadvertedly gave myself food poisoning again. It doesn't help that I haven't been as careful as I should with my prescription meds and as a result, I'm having withdrawal-like symptoms, - head buzzing, shivers, cold sweats, drowsiness, difficulty focusing, and so on - which I would not wish on anyone. This one is my own fault however.

That being said, my mental state is better than my physical state. For what my body lacks in energy at the moment, I make up for in motivation. I have mostly gotten over my exam results and I have renewed purpose in my job search. My side projects are also starting to flourish.

To give credit where credit is due, it might be - at least in part - due to joining a Discord server and being somewhat active there. It's a new experience for shy, awkward me. Granted, it can be daunting, especially as a neurodivergent person who has a history of their foot in their mouth and offending people when they didn't mean to. Nevertheless, if I never put myself out there and work on myself, I'll never get better at socializing properly. Something I was fine with for most of my life, and still would be if there wasn't the risk of hurting someone else's feelings with my lack of finesse. And I'm not going to become the life of the party anytime soon - if ever. Yet, sometimes, it feels worth it to try and make the effort. "Stay afraid but do it anyway" as the late Carrie Fisher said.

Discord itself is a bit eerie to me. It's like a big group chat, the likes of which I had not seen in my adult life except for work purposes - and sure, I admit I'm largely clueless here. But the lovely people there have been so welcoming ! Not to mention that for many of them, I've admired their art and/or writing for years ! It's making my head spin at times. I'm trying to play it cool and not be too awkward again 😌

But between that, and some of my wonderful mutuals encouraging me, I feel something of a boost in my creativity, and I hope to see where it leads me. Circling back to last week's reflection, perhaps I've always had the potential to make something of myself, but was the only one unaware of it. Maybe I was too afraid, lazy, or immature. Or a mix of all of the above. Regardless, it's a new year, why not try something new and see where it goes ?

Happy Monday everyone ! I hope this new year is treating you well so far.

I have to admit I'be been morphing into a slug these past few days; I've done little except scrolling and gaming. Let's put an end to that this week. Although, I can't deny it's a (bad) coping mechanism to stress : on Wednesday, I'll have the results of my interview from back in December. If I passed, it'll mean moving to the south of France for a year, and then wherever there's a job available. A big commitment, but one I was ready for when I signed up. Still, it would quite literally uproot my life in a way it's never been before. Perhaps it's for the best. Perhaps I've been in my comfort zone for way too long and need the change. Can't help myself from being nervous at the thought of it however.

At the same time, if I don't get it, I need to find a job elsewhere. The sooner the better; my unemployement benefits are ending this month. I can petition for additional aid, but even on the off chance I'm eligible, it won't cover rent - cause everyone knows you don't need money to survive if you're single and childless 😤 (okay, I'll stop complaining; I know I'm lucky to have anything as it is).

Moving on from serious subjects, I finally started using Discord this weekend ! Why didn't I do this sooner ?! It's so much fun ! I need to have more discipline though : I've spent the last two nights on it and barely gotten any sleep ! 😅

As for this week's program, I need to :

Get some administrative tasks done

Apply for jobs

Email my doctor to get my prescriptions in order

Have some blood work done (been putting it off since September 🫣)

Change my internet subscription (been putting it off since May... of 2024 ! Procrastination World Champion, right here ! 🥇🤦)

Email acquaintances for New Year well-wishes (I don't like networking, but it might be necessary to find a job)

Text friends for New Year well-wishes (easier, but no less awkward)

And because I shudder at the sight of this list, let's throw in a couple of fun ones :

Catch up on the many fanfics I want to read

Work on my own fanfics

Play Wind Waker

There. That should do. I can do this.

I admit I was lazy yesterday, and didn't have much to say.

I'm trying to do a major clean-up of my apartment, by doing a little everyday so as not to get fed up with it. Then Christmas shopping. And I started playing Animal Crossing again to get my island ready for the LoZ update.

Speaking of LoZ, it's an important week for Zelgan shippers on AO3 ! I haven't read all of them yet, but it's a delight to see all the fics popping up these days, especially for a rather small ship ! Thank you all 🤗

So, this is it. On Tuesday morning, I'll take the train to Paris and have my interview in the afternoon. I'm very nervous - which is also why you might have noticed a spike in my posting; I'm anxiety-scrolling and trying to think of anything to keep my mind off of it.

I read online that about 15% of candidates pass, and that has not helped to reassure me. I also read that a lot of them take classes or hire coaches to prepare up to six months in advance - a stark constrast with my own preparation, which I'm now second-guessing, thank you very much ! 🙃

In a nutshell, I'll have five minutes to explain my background, motivation, and qualities that I think would make me a good court clerk. After that, there's a twenty-minutes conversation with the jury where they'll ask questions related to the justice system, procedures, and how you're expected to act in certain situations. Sounds feasible on paper, right ?

While I know it's within my capacity, I wonder if I'm prepared enough, especially compared to those you could afford classes or coaches, and are probably going to give a better performance than I will, regardless of how good I end up doing.

On top of that, I really hope they won't ask too many procedural questions, as that has never been my forte - even though, of course, I brushed up on that as much as I could.

Then, there's the matter of Paris itself. It may surprise you, but despite living on hour away by train, I've only been there twice, both times on school/university trips. And I strongly dislike the city : it's packed, dirty, and unsafe. One might argue that's the case for all the major French cities, and well, kinda. I've planned my route ahead, as Paris is notoriously hard to navigate, and hopefully, it will be alright.

As usual - and despite my protests - my mom has been a real angel throughout. She stopped by for coffee this afternoon to check on me and fill my fridge with her wonderful homemade food. She's THAT close to ditching work on Tuesday and take the train to Paris with me - I vehemently asked her not to; her presence would only make me more anxious, and I'd rather she picked me up from the station and drive me home when I return.

However, the real MVP is Artémis, who's been a lovebug for the past week. She's the best, and I hope she knows how much I love her and how grateful I am for her.

Once the whole ordeal is over, I'll have a few errands to run before the holidays, and I'll take the opportunity to clean and decorate my apartment - which I've put off until the interview, as the latter took precedence over basically everything else. I also want to take some time and finally work on the fanfic projects I've had for a while. After all, while there are some administrative tasks to take care of before the end of the year, I'll only have the results of the interview in early January, and considering the year I've had, I'd say I deserve to take it easy for the last three weeks of it.

So yeah...

There we go. For better or worse.

Even if I fail, it's not the end of the world - or so I keep repeating myself, but old perfectionist's habits die hard. In the meantime, I'll do my best to survive the upcoming week.

I'm late, I know. I spent most of my day in bed with a migraine - feeling a lot better now thankfully.

I'm a bit upset going into this week. Not only is my interview fast approaching, but I also feel like I'm late on everything else - chores, holiday decorating, christmas shopping, administrative tasks... you name it. Not only that, but I had an argument with my mom yesterday, and although we both apologized - cause I'm not going to pretend it's easy for her to respect boundaries when I'm terrible at setting them in the first place - it's been on my mind, as I know she means well and was hurt by my outburst; I'll try and make it up to her this week.

Maybe the stress of the interview is getting to me; I need to get my sleep schedule back on track and go to the gym to blow off some steam A.S.A.P..

I don't really have anything new this week, just the usual. So I hope everything's going well for y'all, and have a picture of Artémis to help you get through the week. 🐱

I'm doing my Monday post later than usual because I had lots of paperwork to do today (we French love our paperwork 🙃) and it kinda took precedence. But now that it's done, I'm back to my usual schedule.

Nothing new this week, I have a couple of appointements coming up, plus preparing for my interview in early December. The more I think about it, the more I feel like I can pass if I put in the work beforehand, which I will. So, I know what I'll be doing for the next three weeks, but I'll still make sure I have enough to cool down on the side - fanfic, gym, etc.

It's 1 AM and I can't sleep so I might as well post. I've been thinking about my upcoming interview all weekend and I'm both nervous about it, and happy to have made it that far into the admission process. Allow me to elaborate.

The tests I took in late September/early October were nation-wide exams to join public service in the French justice system. This year, there were about 4500 candidates, and I'm one of roughly 400 that made it to the second round of admissions. It might sound great, but out of 4500 candidates, it's estimated that only about 1000 actually took the written tests. To put that into perspective, nearly half of those who took the tests were deemed decent enough to get to the second round, myself included.

Let me be frank : I was not satisfied with my answers in those tests at all, and I would be extremely surprised if the jury was. I may have qualified for the interview, but that doesn't mean I didn't get a terrible grade for the written exam. If so, I need to ace the interview to compensate.

Still, I'm kinda proud of myself. My mom always says I tend to sell myself short when it comes to my abilities - but most moms think their kids are geniuses, don't they ? - but she might have a point here.

So, the order of business this week is prepare for the interview, study, and do enough fun stuff on the side to avoid going crazy. Which is cool, because I recently got new fanfic ideas - nevermind the fact I started writing one and I haven't finished a single chapter yet. 😅 But hey, I said I'd write to help deal with my feelings, so it's a good opportunity to try and do just that.