ONCE UPON A DREAM; My Mercurial Mind

Preparing to dive into a new essay assignment...

Tonight is writing weather...by that I mean it's dark, stormy, wet and windy...the perfect weather for hiding away in my little study and putting together this blog post. It's been a while since I posted anything on here and that is because I've been concentrating on my night school classes, course work, my columns and freelance writing.  Oh and I had my birthday last month too! So I've been quite busy.

This past week we were given one of our assignments for the course; an essay to be completed in the next four weeks. I have been gathering together my counselling books to assist me as we have to include references throughout the work. This doesn't really sit well with me to be honest - I'm used to writing all my own words, not relying on other authors for back-up! It's one of the differences between commercial and academic writing. 

I am still finding the whole academic side of things to be very pretentious.  Basically, academics like to take a very simple thing and dress it up in as much pomposity as they can manage in order to try and pass it off as something extremely complex that only they and their ilk can understand.  But I just can't buy into that kind of bullshit. I find it totally ridiculous.  The other day for example, our tutor must have spent at least an hour defining the word 'evaluate' - an hour!! I mean, it's not rocket science is it? It's just a word.  I find it difficult not to roll my eyes. 

Some of the course content is quite interesting. I enjoy the self-awareness side of counsellor training and when I can relate to something I find it keeps hold of my attention for longer. But the rest is just too far up it's own rear end for my tastes. It brings out my moody side.  

I have always had a very mercurial mind and I do experience swift and sudden changes in temperament; it is easy to make me laugh, but it is also easy to make me furious!  This is magnified whenever I get stressed and it triggers my forgetfulness too, so for the past few years, what with juggling the course and my writing and coming to terms with five deaths in three years, I have been a mood-swinging enigma!  

People never know what kind of response they will get from me - good or ill-tempered.  Recent bereavements have only added fuel to the temperamental fire, as it would with anyone. But I'm starting to move into a much calmer place now.  I'm still sad at the passing of three of my friends in the Highlands, but there is a quiet serenity to my sorrow these days.

That's not to say I'll never display another ill-tempered backlash to a time wasting cold-caller, because I probably will. But I am remembering to try and breathe through the stress before I respond to anyone.  To slow down. To think before I feel.  And true friends make allowances anyway.

The silver lining is that, just like me, some of the strongest women in history have also been of a very mercurial mindset - Anne Boleyn, Elizabeth I, Queen Victoria - so maybe it's not such a bad thing after all. Maybe it is  a mark of my strength. 

Could it be a sign of your strength too?