Synthetic Ego

Realisations....

posted by NarcissusAU @ 11:59 PM 0 comments

Hehehehe.....

posted by NarcissusAU @ 12:10 AM 10 comments

Google me this....?

Google me this?

Where are all the big muscle guys?? I've been working out in the city for a couple of weeks now and one thing Ive missed are my big boys from back home.
Now, don't get any ideas about upcoming stories involving me and these guys in the steam room...they are my boys, we all help each other out and work together to get bigger. Of course Im the smallest of the guys, but Im also the only non-steroidal body builder amongst them....
Its great to have these huge 120kg hulks of meat to look up to and remind me how hard I can work and need to work.... Guys of their stature are missing from the gyms I've been going to in the city.
But this is the largest city in the country, so statistically there should be more of em!!

So I send out the message to my cyberspace slouthes... where is all the muscle?? Which gyms are the safehouses for the masters of beef, where do the freaks go to get sweaty? If you've got a collection of pin coushons at your local, be nice and share....let me know where I should be working out to get some real mentoring going on....

Oh and tomoz is my big "casual" interview to decide my fate with my latest courtier of a company....
I've put everyone and all other interviews on hold until I nut this out....I don't like complicating these things with too many options....
Ill let you'all know how I go....

posted by NarcissusAU @ 11:32 PM 1 comments

Responses from the Employment sector....

Wow, as this week starts my efforts of last week paid back all over the place. Two big responses for two very different job opportunities.

One was from an interview that I was luke warm about. Really it was just me panicking as I do from time to time, and then when they did make an offer after my blow away performance in the interview the true reality of the job was hard to mistake... It was a disguised sales job, pretending to be a marketing strategy job. But when the offer came through with a job description, it was bloody obvious....they deserve to get the idiot who falls for their bait and switch as an employee....

The other one was far more positive, this is the one I was sweating over all weekend. The answer came back as a absolute.....maybe. The problem as they see it is that they absolutely want me to work for them, but they don't think the role Ive applied for will fully utilize all the skill sets I bring to the company.... So Im meeting with them again..."for Coffee"....so they can pitch some different roles at me to see if I would be interested in higher positions with more strategic outlooks and more project management and business analysis components....
Which is a long way from the communications/marketing theme I've been working with for the last couple of months.... so Ill go with an open mind. Remembering what my goals are, what will make me happy long term and trying to not follow the money, even though I think the money will be big.

I just hope they don't give up on trying to fit the round peg that I am into their square holes and just walk away from a mutual opportunity.... the games begin.

Fingers crossed for me people!!

posted by NarcissusAU @ 11:17 PM 1 comments

Long weekend of relaxation...

What a weekend. Been pretty quite, I've been on edge the whole 4 days.

I had my job interview on Thursday night, last thing before the long weekend. Which of course means that its been 4 days of suspense to find out how it went.
To add to that drama the interview which I thought was going to be just with the person in charge of the department ended up including the CIO of the entire global company.
And they GRILLED me....they tag teamed me, it was relentless.

Then mix into this whole, brain rattling experience that fact that I thought the questions were soooo off base in terms of the requirements of the job. I tried my hardest to relay the skill sets and experience that I have which make me PERFECT for their role, but the questions they were asking were so unrelated Im not sure I was able to fully show how skilled I am at the areas they need for this role.
That's probably related to the fact that they are from a technical department and looking for a marketer, which is very outside of their comfort zone. Its just fortunate for me that I also have a degree related to their comfort zone so could answer most of their questions with my usual pizzaz.... and I think that the depth of my technical knowledge unrelated to my marketing surprised/impressed both of them.

So after that little experience and the following up and down of trying to not think about the interview and fantastic offices and the great simplicity of living and working in the area they are stationed.... I was a little quite.

I went to a friends birthday party on the Friday which was its usual hell. She understands my position tho, her birthday is always right in the middle of the hardest, most strict part of my diet.
So I sit around sipping water and trying to not notice the delicious finger food and the big, huge, chocolatey, home made birthday cake (that I could smell in the next room).... but they are my friends and they understand.
Im getting more and more anti-social as my diet get stricter and the cardio and training again ramps up for the home stretch.
Of course I have my party trick, where I get people to put their hands on the side of my chest (on my ribs) and because there is nothing between the skin and muscle I can flex the muscle and they can feel the ridges of the muscle move across my ribs....freaks em out every-time!!

So it was another non-eventfull weekend....well, it was eventful in that I feel relaxed and ready for the new week. I just hope that I can start this week with a job offer....

posted by NarcissusAU @ 5:58 PM 3 comments

Job update...

Oh and I have another job interview tomorrow. When the shortlist got sent from the recruitment consultant to the client, the client came back with a pretty definitive answer..... We only want to see this one.

And that one is me!

They have a second choice, but that aren't even arranging an interview until after they see how it goes with me....

posted by NarcissusAU @ 11:09 PM 2 comments

Movement on the train...

I've been reading this book on the trains in the morning (another perk of the commute...I get time to do those things that have always slipped by.....).
The book is called Muscle by Jon Hotten (I know, how predictable) its a fantastic, enlightened uncynical and open eyed look into the sport I love and live by.
Suddenly I got to a part of this book about muscle, roids, sacrifice, competition and narcissism and hit this passage.... I cried. A grown man crying on a train, hiding behind his Diesel sunglasses....

I hope you read this passage and understand the story, I hope you read the passage and get an insight into the sport which changed my life and a sport that dictates so much of who I am.... I understand that some people just don't get bodybuilding, I hope this is one insight they may understand and empower them to see into the passion in my heart.

**And a cheat note so you understand what happens at the end Dexter Jackson, Chris Cormier, Dennis James and Ernie Taylor are in the top 6 bodybuilder in the world at the moment. The top of the sport.

"Backstage, another bodybuilder was pumping up. I'd seen him earlier and hadn't thought anything of it. He looked pretty much the same as all the others - big guy, warm-up suit, moving slowly (perhaps even more slowly than the rest) - but he wasn't/ He was there to guest pose. Kerry introduced him to the crowd during the break between the free-posing round and the announcement of the top six finalists.
'When I first knew Simon Robinson, he was a lad trying to get a pro card,' Kerry said. 'He used to drive all the way from Mansfield to my gym in Manchester so I could check him over. Late one night I had a call from Simon's brother asking what time Simon had left the gym. he hadn't com home. Turns out there'd been a very bad car accident, and Simon was in a coma. Doctors had to amputate his right leg below the knee. A few days later, he had problems and it was amputated above the knee. His other leg was broken in nine places, and when it healed, it healed crooked so it had to be re rebroken. He had broken ribs and internal injuries. When he came out of the coma, I had to tell him that he'd lost his leg. I said to him, "Be strong. Your family is outside and they need you to be a man.: Simon looked up at me and nodded.
'When we first started running this Grand Prix in Manchester three years ago, Simon came to the show in a wheelchair. Two years ago, he came in on crutches. Las year, he walked in unassisted. Tonight, he's guest posing...Simon Robinson...'
It was an astonishing sight. He appeared from the back of the stage, swinging his hip to lift his artificial leg up the steps. As he neared the stage front and began his routine, everyone in the room stood up and acclaimed him. There were tears on his cheeks as he struck the poses. What a moment it was. His body was a marvel, even in a hall full of them. The circumference of his left thigh visibly exceeded that of the artificial one. His waist was tight and his shoulders and chest broad and thick. His arms were smoking. He was dry and hard and vascular. He was in contest shape, but he's already won all of his contest. This was his valediction. The ovation went on long after the music stopped. Plenty of people in the audience were in tears along with him. They understood enough about training to know one thing: that they could never really understand what it was to be Sion Robinson.
That understanding was important - without it, it would have been just another made-for-TV moment. Every time bodybuilding challenged me to call it small-time, and irrelevant, and worse, it threw up something funny, or mad, or touching, or even redemptive, and this was one such thing. Unprompted and without prior arrangement, Dexter Jackson, Chris Cormier, Dennis James and Ernie Taylor walked onstage and stood in line with Simon in the middle, the highest position. Kerry called them through the seven compulsory poses, and that night, Simon Robinson's circle was squared."

Fuck, why is everything blurry again.... no really, I just have something in my eyes....

posted by NarcissusAU @ 11:08 PM 0 comments

Updates...

So that last post was a week ago, and this is now...today or tonight, even though my day hasn't finished yet.

Im sitting here in my gym gear, eating my protein bar dinner on the way home. I was out of bed at 5am this morning to get in my morning cardio before starting my 2 hour commute. I wont get home till 11pm and will have to cook food and prepare my bags for tomorrows repeated adventure.
This is my life at the moment. Travel, work, gym, travel, get prepared, sleep...repeat.
I knew a guy who did this for a few years, the commuting to the Emerald city. Its fun, Im enjoying it. But I couldn't do it for any long period of time.
Its espeecially hard since Im still training like a beast for my competitions, training hard and eating strict.
What makes that hard now it the fact that over there is a guy sitting on the train eating his fresh and steamy Pizza Hut pizza...and a guy over there eating his Burger King meal, with salty salty chips..... Urgh the smells.

Despite all this busyness Im still going to job interviews and have gotten through to the final round of one in particular that sounds just insane, awesome and exciting. Thankfully, unlike last time where I tried to not get excited and failed, this time its taking so much focus to keep everything rolling and on track in my life that I don't have the time, energy or brain cycles to get too worked up over this one. Even though deep down I know I really want it and want it BAD!

My comp training is going well, Im ripping up really well and on schedule. My six pack is stacked with vengeance. My obliques ripple as I twist and flex and they are staring to feather and vascularise. The veins on my lower abs are popping out all over the place. Im really excited about it all and still going strong on that front. Hopefully I can take this ripped up body of mine and get into some trouble.... I need to get back to the sweat that makes this blog so popular!!

posted by NarcissusAU @ 11:08 PM 0 comments

Comming up for air...

GASP!!!
The sound of me coming up for air.....
I actually wrote this entry last week or so, in the back of my gym journal.... I was on a train...somewhere Ive been spending a lot of time. In fact I'm on that train right now. This time armed with my Laptop, so I can bring you guys the updates.... and break this uncomfortable silence.


"
So I had my first day working for someone or some company other then one owned or controlled by my family.
Effectivly this is the first time I've ever worked for someone...anyone.
It started as just a single day consulting in an office, helping out the company who had gotten into trouble with a glut of new work being held up by the process and paperwork in their administration dept.
I turned into two days.... and now they've asked me (really strongly) for me to stay another 3 weeks. (Since writing this they have asked me to stay until I get a new job....)
I'm not sure if this is something I should be doing but still I said yes. So Im working in the city for another three weeks or so (or longer as it now turns out). Which means I'm going to be halla busy.
The whole thing helps me get used to the idea and function of working in my Emerald city. And the associated 2 hour each way sojourn. So far its going okay but it does knock a big chunk of my day into the waste bin.
In reality I get off on being this busy. Always being on the move, and always 'doing'. Hopefully this will mean that Im more interested in partying on the weekends and letting my hair down. I haven't been that into going out and having fun before because I didn't really feel as though I deserved it...I mean really, other then apply for cream jobs what was I really going with my time??
Now, I deserve my weekends. Time to relax and chill out.

Im tired, and busy... my body aches with fatigue and I am the happiest...most centered and content.... relaxed as I have been since I got back from the States. Things are moving and Im happy."

posted by NarcissusAU @ 11:06 PM 0 comments