Page 3

I read this article yesterday (only just noticed the relevant title) which led me to  ask myself, 'do I like who I am when I am at work?'. The author is a project manager(?) who doesn't like spending time in construction meetings fighting over budgets.  Today I concluded that I do like myself when I am at work. Especially days like today when my knowledge seems valuable to others and I can share it fluently with a client who respects what I have to say. It helped that the sun was shinning and I got a ride on my bike last night.

As I drove home I listened to a radio program on radio 4 talking about our grandparents' generation being at their happiest during the war because they were tested time and again to their limits and I enjoyed the menial analogy with my own day - walking miles in the cold with a sore leg but getting on with it and forging friendships with strangers that I find myself thrown together with through chance and a common goal - to deliver the same project. With one half of my brain on my earlier statement that I like who I am when I do my job we agreed to let others argue over the finances and get on with the engineering.

I listened to radio 1 for a while. Snippets of information about page 3 girls being ditched from the Sun newspaper filtered through. First with a statement from campaigners about the objectification of women followed by the obligatory counter-statement from a topless model to say we were all missing the point that unrealistic womens' magazines do much worse for young girls mental opinion of themselves - presumably compared to middle aged men drooling over the prospect of her perfectly air brushed pumped up 26 year old (yes they specified) titties.

I wondered if I had ever done anything to hinder her career as a topless model and pondered at the years (and ageing processes) it has taken me to once again feel confident enough in my own skin to see today as a great opportunity to showcase my knowledge and chisel some ice (literally) without feeling smaller or the need to impress, just for being a girl.

Perhaps in the absence of a modelling career, someone would like to come and walk a mile in my steel toe capped boots?

Since political ranting on the internet is bad for my self-esteem I think I'll stop there and drink some more coffee whilst I get some work done waiting for the snow to stop falling so I can dig my car out and drive somewhere new to feel good about myself.