Tag: who is ‘joan’

Being brave

It was the end of the formal part of the Friday luncheon. The speaker was thanked and everyone was invited to stay for drinks.

I knew what ‘drinks’ meant. ‘Drinks’ is a chance to get up and network with people. Have you ‘networked’ before? Sometimes I call it ‘schmoozing‘. You talk to people and somewhere in your mind (it could be at the back or the front), you are conscious of making a good impression because this person could be important to you one day.

It’s scary. If you’re nervous about cold-calling, of introducing yourself to random people, of breaking into conversations that have begun without you, then networking is scary. I think it must be even scarier when you’re a junior engineer and there is no compelling reason for the others in the room to speak to you.

I stood up with my glass and looked around. I sipped. Oh. I was looking at the white table cloth again. I forced myself to look up again and caught the eye of my big boss. Quickly, I averted my eyes. That was the easy option, talking to someone I already knew. My boss probably knew that too. I wasn’t going to burden him with my conversation.

As I hovered by my table, I thought about leaving. Others had. It would stop this feeling of wretched stupidity and awkwardness.

Okay, that’s it.

I turned and walked past other tables, past my boss, past the floor-to-ceiling windows framing the sunset over the Yarra River, and approached two men sitting near the front.

“Hello! Can I join you?” I smiled.

“Sure,” they said.

I pulled over a chair and sat down.

They’re very proud of you

I arrived at work this morning, and did something I shouldn’t but I always do: I checked my personal email.

Sitting in my mailbox was an email with the subject, ‘Results of your interview for a Gates Cambridge Scholarship‘. Very calmly, I clicked it and started reading.

On behalf of the Trustees of the Gates Cambridge Trust, Dr Gordon Johnson and I would like to thank you very much for being available for interview for a Gates Cambridge Scholarship.

A whole sentence and I still hadn’t gotten to the part that mattered. Then:

The Trust is delighted to offer you a Gates Cambridge Scholarship from October 2006, subject to the normal condition of your being offered admission to Cambridge. Please accept our warmest congratulations.

I considered it and tried a small smile. This was good news. Great news, right? Yes, of course. Great news.

A little box popped in the bottom right hand corner of the screen. “It’s Joan! Hi Joan!” So Vera became the first to know.

After signing off my illegal chat, I began an email to my lecturers and work mentor to tell them my results and thank them for the references they wrote for me. Jamie came in as I was about to send it.

“Hi Joan,” he greeted me.

“Hi Jamie. I just won the Gates scholarship. I’m going to Cambridge.”

He stopped, then broke into a huge smile. “That’s great! Wow. Congratulations. Wow. God, Joan. That’s so great! You must be excited.”

“Yeah,” I nodded, a little concerned by my equanimity.

“Have you called your parents? Have you called Damo?”

“Oh no. I’ll talk to them later. I’ll just send them an email.”

“I think you should call them! Wow. That’s so great. But damn, we’re going to miss you.”

I was more pleased by this comment than anything so far.

“It’s still ages away, Jamie,” I said. “The course starts in October. There’s still four months, a third of a year.”

“Now I’ve forgotten why I’ve come in,” Jamie said ruefully. We soon figured it out and began talking work.

After he left, I hit ‘send’ on my email to my referees. I thought about what Jamie had said. I picked up the phone to call dad.

“Hi dad,” I said when he picked up. “I won the scholarship.”

“Oh! That’s good.” I could hear the sudden smile in his voice more than in his words. “So you’re leaving us.”

“In October,” I said. “So you and mum can start planning your trip.” Mum and dad will incorporate London into a round-the-world trip next year.

I called mum next.

“Hi mum.”

“Hi Joan. What’s wrong?” I don’t often call mum at work.

“Nothing. I just wanted to tell you I got the scholarship.”

“Scholarship! That’s good. Ooh. You’re leaving! Well. I guess it can’t be helped.” I hear the mixture of pride and sadness.

“Only for a year,” I assured her. “You’ll have to think of all the computer questions you want to ask me before October.” I am mum’s IT support.

She brightened. “I can start buying you winter clothes!”

I finally got back to work. It was surprisingly easy to concentrate. I had already decided not to tell my managers at work yet, not until I had time to absorb the news, overcome that high that was surely coming, and work out the best way to let them know that I was depriving them of their carefully trained engineer for one year. I had been anxious that work would resent me taking off just as I was becoming a useful, autonomous professional. Somehow, I had to convey the gratefulness I felt for all the training and support they had given me, that they hadn’t wasted their time because I would be coming back.

My email inbox refreshed itself and suddenly there was a flood of emails. What was this? The email subjects were lined with ‘Re: [Fwd] RE: Fwd:’ There were emails from my lecturers throughout my degree, the engineering marketing people, and the Dean of Engineering. The news had spread like wildfire. The Dean had even copied in the Chairman of my company. They knew each other?

Cherida, head of engineering marketing, wrote, “We are all so pleased for you – the office is buzzing and your ears should be burning (all nice things)!”

That was so lovely. When I was studying, I made the effort to get to know the admin and marketing staff. It was a pleasure to be remembered.

Hours later in the mid-afternoon, the phone rang.

“Hi Joan, it’s Cara here, along with Paul and David.” Cara was head of recruitment at my company. “I know you’re in Shepparton and couldn’t it make it to this meeting but we thought we’d call you up so we can discuss the final selection of graduates to join the Environmental Management group.”

As you might remember, I helped interview the graduates two weeks ago.

We had four candidates and three positions to fill. One position had already been allocated to one of our vacation students. The position in the Air group we soon filled with a female candidate. So there was one position left and three to applicants to choose from.

It really came down to a choice between two boys, including my favoured candidate, John. They had both scored very highly in all the tests: the interviews, team exercise, personality assessment… It was a dead heat.

Fifteen minutes of discussion, and still, we hadn’t decided. Such a shame, I thought, to let either of these boys go. Can’t we have them both?

Then I realised I could break deadlock.

“I have something I want to say.” The talking ceased. “I didn’t want to tell you like this so it’s going to be a bit awkward.” I suppose they were wondering what I was going to say. “I was offered a scholarship to Cambridge this morning so I’ll be leaving the company for a year.”

There was a pause. “Congratulations, Joan!” exclaimed Cara. A flurry of congratulations followed.

“I was offered a place in the Masters of Engineering for Sustainable Development a month or so ago but I didn’t mention it earlier because I was still applying for a scholarship. I had the scholarship interview two weeks ago,” I explained. “I wouldn’t have gone without a scholarship.”

“No, that’s great!” Paul said. “I was going to ask if there was any way I could stop you from going!” He was joking, of course.

“Okay, so now you can hire both the graduates.” This was what I was trying to get to. If I wasn’t there next year, they would need someone to fill my place.

“That’s right!” said David. “Well, that solves everything. Good on you, Joan.”

This gave me an even greater buzz than the big email this morning. What great timing! I’ve made a difference in someone’s life and except for fifty minutes durins an interview, I barely know him.

“So we’re hiring an extra graduate,” Paul said.

I spotted his difficulty immediately. “I’ll send you all an official email to let you know about the scholarship. Then you can tell others.”

“Yes, we’ll have to explain to Tasos why we’ve getting four grads instead of three.” Tasos is the manager of the entire Environment Group.

So I sent the email, which in the end, was easy to write. The positive reaction from all my workmates so far made me think that there wouldn’t be the resentfulness I had worried about in the past months when I had thought about my application.

Tasos replied. “This sounds like a fantastic opportunity, Joan. We will welcome you back with open arms at the tail end of 2007.”

I got an email from Tia, a friend from work, “WAY TO GO, JOAN!”

“How did you hear the news?” I asked, puzzled. I hadn’t emailed anyone but my immediate managers.

“Paul has been talking about it. He’s very, very proud of you.”

It feels wonderful, to work for people who are very proud of you.

Mediation

I’ve spent most of the week at an intensive workshop in mediation. Mediation is often an alternative to going to court but the process is also used to handle non-legal disputes. My interest is in environmental disputes. In the past, I’ve sat in community consultations and felt helpless because I couldn’t understand why people were so angry, didn’t agree, weren’t listening.

I could go on about this but I’m tired and will now write whatever. So I’ve spent the week learning some general skills like active listening, asking the right questions, reframing. I’ve begun learning the theory of negotiation. My next subject is called ‘negotiation’ so I will study this aspect more in depth later.

Anyway, a lot of the week was spent in role plays. We played mediators, as well as disputing parties. Even though it’s all fake, it’s still very draining and emotional. I’ve had to mediate and act in disputes about inheritance, intellectual property, someone stealing an old lady’s car and crashing it, the dissolution of a medical partnership, a custody battle… The most interesting dispute for me was where the local church had set up a soup kitchen in an affluent neighbourhood and the community members wanted to close it down because it was attracting ‘criminals and bums’ to the neighbourhood. I found that this dispute was a lot like many environmental ones. It was about differences in values and the ‘not in my backyard’ syndrome. I played the NIMBY proponent. I think I did it well too. I channeled the anger I had seen at community meetings about new incinerators and toxic waste dumps.

I had no idea how good I would be at mediation until I actually did it on day two of the workshop. I was crap. We’ve learned a particular model of mediation (the facilitative model) and the framework has been really helpful to work in. But the pressure of thinking and listening at the same time! You have to be so careful to ask the right questions. You have to be impartial and to never show your biases or ideas or solutions. A mediator’s hands should not be seen to be all over the decision.

Why have I been so bad at it? Firstly, my lack of experience and skill. That’s to be expected. Today, though, in our final coaching session, I did really well. I was finally able to overcome my tentativeness. Yesterday, while writing my reflective journal (which is assessed by the lecturer), I decided to stop worrying if I was asking the right or wrong questions. I stopped worrying about being calm and still. I decided to ask the questions I wanted to ask and just to be myself. And it worked!

Yesterday, I had told everyone in my workshop about how discouraged I was at my progress. The lecturer told me that the stages of learning were often said to be unconscious incompetence, followed by conscious incompetence, unconscious competence then finally conscious competence.

I think I’ve made it through all the stages. I actually believe that in terms of mediation, I exist in all four states at once and at this moment.

24 (not the show)

I’ve come home from an evening in the city. I was performing onstage on Russell Street in the city’s Chinese New Year celebrations. I’m not sure what hip hop has to do with Chinese New Year but people seemed to enjoy it.

It’s the year of the dog again, which means I am turning 24 years old this year.

I was in early high school when it was announced that Melbourne was to host the 2006 Commonwealth Games. I remember thinking, “That’s so far away. When Melbourne hosts the games, I’ll be 24.” Well, that time has come.

(Mum says, “Time is so short. Before know it, you’ll be 34, Joan!” to which I replied, “34? Pshaw. That’s ages away.”)

The density of clothing

The madness that is my wardrobe finally got to me. I’ve spent eight hours critically assessing almost every shirt, skirt, pair of trousers, jumper, cardigan, dance costume in my wardrobe. Nothing was sacred.

Hundreds of clothes were dumped on my floor. I put on each item and reviewed the form, fit and fashion in the mirror. Where there was doubt, I pulled out the big guns — my mum.

I ended up with two piles: one for “clothes for which there is no hope, they must die now” and another for “clothes that’ll look great after a few weeks of resistance training” (resistance does not refer to weights alone).

It’s funny the way fashion changes. I found relics that I used to wear proudly (remember Tencel?). Many items were, as my mum said, “not too ugly”, but my tolerance for clothes that make me look bad has plunged. And still, there were tops and skirts that were perfectly serviceable but I hadn’t worn them for two years. Obviously, I can live without them.

The net upshot of all this is that I have purged from my life about 120 litres of clothes. I know the volume because I filled two of these boxes. They were 60 litres each.

Wisdom from TV

I was half listening to the TV on the weekend and this is what I heard on the British show, ‘What not to wear‘:

You don’t make the clothes look bad — the clothes make you look bad.

I was flabbergasted. Of course! Here I was, feeling inadequate because I felt fat and ugly, but it’s all the clothes’ fault!

The truth of such a simple statement bowled me over.

Unhungry

It has been drawn to my attention that people often eat when they are hungry, and in many cases, are lucky because their hunger coincides with meal times. Believe it or not, I was surprised to learn this. I thought about this for a while and have come to realize that I don’t eat because I’m hungry; I eat because it’s time to eat. I eat because it’s breakfast time, or lunch time, or dinner time, regardless how hungry or full I feel.

Because I eat so regularly, I’m hardly ever hungry. It also means that being unhungry is not an impediment to me eating a full meal. It’s probably one of these tragedies of modern life, when the act of eating is disassociated with hunger.

I also think that this is why I have trouble recognizing when I am actually hungry. I remember once saying to Damjan, “My tummy feels funny.”

“Does it hurt?” Damjan asked.

“No… It doesn’t hurt. It just feels strange.”

“Try eating some food,” he suggested. So I ate some bread.

“Oh!” I was surprised. “That feels better. I must have been hungry.”

The opposite problem happened on Friday. I sent an email to Damjan complaining that I was really hungry but had to wait half an hour for lunch. At last, 12:30 PM arrived and I could eat some food at the office’s Spring Carnival lunch. I honestly thought that the food would alleviate my discomfit, as it did last time — but it didn’t! I kept eating and still, my tummy was unsettled. I’m not sure what the problem was. I only felt better by the end of the work day.

It looks like I still have to learn to recognize my hunger cues.

Sorry KR, no personality for you

While I was walking yesterday morning, I spotted a small scrap of white in a garden bed beside the footpath. I was in a hurry so I bent down and scooped it up. As I continued walking, I looked at it. It was a bunny rabbit toy, covered in loose soil and twigs. I brushed the twigs away and it revealed a cute, clean, soft Mashimaro (aka “half-eaten marshmallow”).

Now usually, I’m not at all inspired by Japanese/Korean toons but Korean Rabbit is just soooo cute! If it was any less cute, I’d give him away but I’m going to keep him. I like patting his head and pushing his ears back. He fits nicely in my hand when I wrap my palm around its head.

My brother and I grew up with soft toys. Our ‘Cutie Family’ includes seven smurfs, Tweety and Sylvester Junior. There are some distant relatives in the form of Kiwi toys (the fruit, not the bird or human variety). All our toys have back stories, personalities and voices. Jason and I don’t like getting new toys because it’s a lot of effort integrating them into the family. We have to invent personalities and introduce them to the others with appropriate histories. The last addition to the family was Liddle Smurf, who turned out to be a cunning, nasty piece of work. He’s always picking on Big Smurf (who is unfortunately a bit slow), bouncing on his tummy.

I don’t think Korean Rabbit will be joining the Cutie Family. I’ll just keep him separate and use him as a sort of stress ball. Sorry KR, no personality for you.

Lecture debut

A friend told me that she has just made her lecture debut. She muttered a comment and when the lecturer asked her to repeat it louder, she obliged — and was surprised when everyone laughed. This is unusual behaviour for her. Despite the success of her lecture debut, she reckons she’ll go back to being quiet now.

My first ever lecture at uni was a 10 AM maths lecture. Being first years on our first day, the lecture theatre was full by 9:55 AM. Students sat quietly in their seats, staring straight ahead at the empty blackboard, avoiding eye contact at all costs.

By 10:20 AM, the lecturer still hadn’t shown up. A rumour started circulating: If a lecturer hadn’t come 15 minutes after the scheduled starting time, you could leave. But, you know, it’s scary being a first year on your first day. It was almost 10:30 AM when, after looking around uncertainly, we decided that the lecturer probably wasn’t going to come.

I got up with my bag, walked to the blackboard, picked up a piece of chalk and carefully drew a dinosaur.


I call him Dippy (for diplodocus). I’ve been drawing him since Grade 2 (now I’ve drawn him for my 300th blog post!).

I put the chalk down, dusted off my hands and skipped out of the door.