woes of a working wom- er, i mean, person.

i need help, people. i need a decision to drop from the sky, an inward click that tells me i'm going the right way. i hate fluctuations! what chemical imbalance am i living with that steers me violently between extremes?

i want to quit my job. i want to surrender the painfully practical path of doing mass comm and go back to the somewhat unpredictable attempt at teaching. i want to pack my bible, my journal, my camera and some money, leave singapore and go to africa and teach english, history, literature. i want to teach art, i want to strew classrooms with colour and ideas like leaves. i want to learn to function on four hours of sleep. i want to work in an orphanage. i want to be a mural-painter, to save people from the boredom of white walls. i want to have my own art studio. i want to have a small apartment with a piano, wooden flooring, an undivided kitchen-living area and enough plants to fill a jungle. i want to have a small farmhouse in new zealand where i look after 400 sheep and canter over on horseback to visit my nearest friend, 50 miles away. i want a place without streetlamps.

i want to be safe. i want to stay here and continue doing whatever puts me in the least demanding position. i want to keep the same circles of friends and family and be comfortable. i want to learn to be happy with routine, to squash pointless ambition and desperation. i want to stay in the shadow of the city, where no one will ask anything stunningly different of me, or require an excuse for my life. i want to get married and have children and a dog. i want my parents to be near enough to be able to babysit my children. i want my friends to be near enough to remark how beautiful my children are getting. i want to see my sister fall in love and carve her way out of the world. i want to be her best friend.

i want to quit my job. this time is meant to be mine, and i am selling myself into the office. i want to try waitressing, teaching, photography, writing. i want to finish the painting that is sitting sadly on my easel. i want to finish the piece i'm practicing on piano. i want to memorise whole chunks of the bible. but of course, that will leave me considerably poorer, which will put my trip to europe in jeopardy. oh help.