Monday I’ll be boning up for
the PD, Tuesday is hire-car pick-up and a trip to Collingwood to fill the
vehicle with resources for the following three days. Wednesday morning I’ll be
on the road at six for the breakfast forum.
Today I’m gearing up for next
week. There are emails to HQ in Adelaide: what’s our position on suicide, what
can I say, not say? It’s clarification, not permission, but it’s a touchy
subject at the moment. And the plain fact is that I feel a bit compromised, insecure.
My two Victorian colleagues,
Comrade S and Comrade V, seem to get things right. I don’t. Comrade V has been
an MM project officer for six years. She knows the history, the context, the
politics around the issues. Comrade S is employed full-time, is on the phone a
lot, is privy to information I can’t hope to match. She’s alive to the politics
too.
I’m just not that interested in
the politics—of funding, departmental schmoozing, jangling the jargon in
reports, choosing words carefully, hedging bets. I write and say what I think;
it gets me in trouble. I never have all the facts, sense the political nuances.
It’s the great trap of working part-time—feeling I’m not contributing, fucking
up when I take the initiative.
I’ve resolved to shut up. In the
meantime …
I pad back and forth to the
storeroom, check my resources box. I organise a new plaything for my PD—play
doh. I can hardly believe I’m making pugs of play doh. People love modelling
while listening to heavy discussion about mental illness, bullying, resilience,
this model and that model.
I bundle coloured textas for
small group brainstorming exercises. I check catering details with our admin,
car hire times, when name badges and sign-on sheets will be ready.
I’ve been in neutral,
occasionally reverse, during the school holidays. They end Monday. I’m in first
gear today. Next week I shift into overdrive.
Rock on.
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