[m i a o w] the cat

Just sent in the first draft of my report or whatever the hell it’s supposed to be. An overview. Or whatever. Haven’t even sagged with relief yet, am too scared I am going to be able to hear my boss’s sharp, horrified, intake of breath all the way from Melbourne. In between ~~trying to pad it out~~ finishing it off to the point where someone else can actually look at it I’ve been on call to M, who is hobbitlike, under the house. I help pull copper pipes through the floor without kinking them. Big cheers to M for putting up with my throughout my report nightmare - making me cups of tea and breakfast, ignoring my capacious eyebags and seat flattened bottom.

The reason that I don’t know whether to call the thing I’ve been working on a ‘project’ a ‘paper’ a ‘report’ or an ‘overview’ is that basically, I have had no instruction. My boss is vague to the point of meaninglessness - first he mutters about using aeroplanes to fight fires, then a few weeks later he mentions something about economics, then a few weeks after that (by which point I am grey and shaking) he lets loose with the terms ‘wildland urban interface’ and vulnerability. Which leaves me to translate that he wants me to read up on everything and then regurgitate it, catwalk model style, into something for him to read on cold nights. Is it any wonder they invented age-defying face cream?

So anyway, I was googling two nights ago in a desperate attempt (after typing blah blah blah for about 16 pages) to gain some final understanding of this thing, and…no kidding…I found an outline of my actual topic…well I mean, I found a definition of my actual topic, outlined by my boss, with his name at the bottom of it, on some whacko non-university connected website. Naturally most of what I’ve produced had no real relation to it at all, but after spraying the ceiling with bits of exploded brain, I have become zen. I no longer care. I have always wanted to work from home, but at this point I would welcome being a check-out chick - anything rather than live with this uncertainty of whether I’m doing the right thing. I can’t believe that I work for someone who is a specialist in uncertainty. No. Hang on. It’s all making sense….