Sunday 19th September

This last week has felt like I've been running from one end of Glasgow to the other! And being hauled from up in the air to the pit of despair - alright perhaps not quite the bottom of the pit, but well pretty near to it at some points.
Firstly I got the job - yep this one I've been moaning on about every now and again for months it seems like. You would think this would have me leaping up and down in delight, and I'm certainly not complaining about it, but I do rather feel that I've been in the process of applying for it for so long now I'm exhausted with the whole thing. Then there's the fact it doesn't start until the second week in October, and I need to be working (and earning!) now!!! But still, one doesn't look a gift horse in the mouth, and you just damn well get on with it, and sort out the financial stuff, and you never know, something else might just come along to pad out that bit. At least that's what I'm sternly telling myself in the dead of night when thoughts of gas bills etc etc come creeping along.

On a way more positive note, uni has gone and got itself all organised. I shot off to my meeting with Alex, and I'm signed up to do courses on the Normans, and Renaissance-Anti-Renaissance next term. I don't know very much about the Normans - ha, what else is new, it's like everything I've done on this entire course has been about something I don't know very much about, but perhaps a smidge more than total ignorance. I did do courses on them in the way distant past, when I was doing Med History 1, etc, ie, in the first year of being an undergraduate. So as I say, a smidge more than total ignorance. This course looks interesting too, it's not about the Normans per se, but the Normans as invaders, colonisers etc, so as outsiders. That is always interesting no matter who's doing the invading or colonising, and a lot of this is looking at the other parts of their invading and colonising, in Italy, Scicily, etc. There was a fair bit of contact between them and the Byzantine Empire for example, and their relationship with the Papacy - well, let's just say it varied between non-existent and touchy.
As for Renaissance and Anti-Renaissance, I'll get to this later in the year.
So that was that sorted out, but back to the old financial doldrums, I decided to try and put in a claim for council tax benefit, and housing benefit, which is why I've been racing around from one end of the city to the other. Get the registry to stamp one form, then head back over to Parkhead Council Office with the form, they give me more forms so I have to get those filled in and go get the supporting evidence - I never seem to be terribly lucky with benefit claims, so we can only keep our fingers crossed. A bit the same as Jo, who as a good number of you know is not at all well at the moment, and is trying to claim a bit of disability allowance. First time in her life she's ever needed to claim a benefit, and she falls foul of this government and it's cuts. Her timing couldn't be worse eh? And if she's finding it difficult, imagine what it must be like for someone who's less able to stand her ground and fight her corner. It doesn't bear thinking about, particularly as people claiming disability allowance aren't in any position to be having to fight for things.
As for me, well I don't know. I can try to claim, and just see what happens - it's a bit of a pain to have to produce all this paperwork, but then again, fair that everything is properly checked and stuff. And I must say that they've been sending me letters and stuff awfully quickly, which I felt was very on the ball of them. I hadn't expected to be hearing from them for at least what, another week? But then I tried to claim benefits earlier in the year, and got absolutely nowhere. On the other hand, I feel quite strongly that as someone with no income at the moment, that I should at the very least get something off my council tax.

And I dare say some of you are wondering what the Pope's visit was like. Alas, I can't really tell you, except that on the day it happened, the buses took about twice as long to turn up as clearly half of them had been sent off to ferry people to Bellahouston Park. There'd been a lot of expecting the centre of Glasgow to be gridlocked with traffic, and the motorways to have seized up, but I have to say I saw no sign of it. So really in a way, no news was good news, and a bus did turn up eventually that did get me to where I was going, so... not a lot more I can tell you about that really. At one point, I had to go to my rental agency to collect some paperwork, (yes, more paperwork!) and my walk to this took me past a Church, with a large banner outside it announcing Pope Benedict's visit, and presumably this was where people had gathered to catch a bus to the event, but this was some hours after they must have done so, so I saw nothing of it. Nice looking little church though. (Says her father's daughter. Ah yes, the years of being dragged around churches rub off on one..) And they did have very good weather for it. Its been a bit breezy, but otherwise this week has been fairly dry - Monday and Tuesday felt a bit like everytime I set foot outside the heavens opened, but otherwise it's not been bad weatherwise.
So that's been the week that was, and the week that will is ahead of us, with first point of call being the Benefit Office, with the batch of requested papers. Then I shall be off to the library to pick up a few books on the Normans!

Sunday 12th September

Ok here we go, this week uni starts, and I've got to go to a few meetings - teaching doesn't start just yet so it's like go see Alex Shepard and get my courses sorted out. I have a startling lack of enthusiasm for this, I freely admit. I'm still worried sick about this job, for which I have heard nothing further beyond that I passed the interview and they are waiting for the references to kick in. I keep telling myself that this could well be down to the fact they have to get a new disclosure certificate for me, which takes forever. But it's very depressing, there's no doubting that.
So what have I been doing to fill my time? Trying not to pay too much attention to those who've handed their dissertations in and are now fancy free, etc! Even in one case, off on holiday! This seems like rubbing salt in the wound. But not to worry, ok, yes I'm worrying, but I'm trying to keep a grip on it.
It was Martin's birthday yesterday - his birthday is now indelibly marked by the events of 9/11, which frankly always seems to me to be wierd, because it should be 11/9. Every time this comes around, I remember talking with him on the phone when I was coming home, on the day itself and saying we could be at war by the time I get there. War with who, one of us said, and I'm not sure we're any the wiser now. At any rate I feel I should pay tribute to the post office who did a really sterling job this year of getting his package to him in less than 24 hours - I posted it around 3.30 to 4 o'clock on the Friday, and was stunned to hear it had actually arrived. The reason for the delay was in the late arrival of one component, an Aston Villa Miscellany from the club shop. He tells me it's full of interesting stuff, including about Pongo Waring, who he remembers Dad going on about quite a bit. Pongo apparently got his nickname from setting off for a trip (presumably a game) with only a toothbrush as luggage, not even a change of clothes. Either it's that or smelly feet allegedly. Personally I cite the influence of PG Wodehouse, who wrote memorably of Pongo Twistleton, a member of the Drones Club and pal of Bertie Wooster. Think of the derogation this poor man's memory may be undergoing if the nickname merely originates from Pongo being his favourite character or something.
And how come no one gets fancy nicknames like Pongo these days? It must have been a 20s/30s thing, and perhaps - well I know I wouldn't want such a nickname! At any rate he must have been a very good player, to still be being talked about all these years later.
Ah, Wikipeadia to the rescue.
Thomas (Tom) "Pongo" Waring (12 October 1906 – 20 December 1980) was an English professional association football player. Nicknamed "Pongo" after a famous cartoon of the time, Waring is one of Aston Villa's all-time great centre forwards. In his career, he scored 243 league goals in 363 matches over 12 seasons for 5 different clubs.
1928 to 35, apparently, died in 1980 and had his ashes scattered at the Holte End prior to a match with Stoke. Seems appropriate somehow. Couldn't find a photograph of the man, which is a shame. At any rate, Martin seems to like the book, which I have to say ranks as a triumph, present wise. What is it about men and presents? You just can't find anything they a) like, or b) really want!

Sunday 5th September

God but this possible may, or may not have a job is giving me kittens. For all those of you who've been reading my FB updates, maybe I'm being too optimistic here, and I'll try to explain why I feel this way.
Firstly, this is a very good job - for a student at any rate. The other thing is it's only a temp job until Christmas, which is actually not too bad, because they employ lots of people and there's always a good chance that something a bit more permanent might turn up. Which is sort of why I'm quite keen on getting it. But...
Ok, so Friday I had to go to this assessment day thing - turned out it was only a morning, we had to take a mountain of paperwork with me, so much ID stuff that I was almost crazed before I set off. Birth certificate, passport (I only have an old out of date one) photo id, utility bill, so much stuff I had to pack it into a folder to make sure none of it got lost. Then, before I went, I had to try and figure out where the place was, which wasn't as simple as you'd think it was.
Yep, went on to google, and used the street view bit, but it was the address that was screwy, they reckoned they were at an "X square" rather than "X street". The street was on the map alright, but not a sign of the square anywhere to be seen, and I was virtually marching up and down there for hours. Turns out the square is the address of a multi storey car park behind the building that they're actually in. I had to even ring them up for instructions it was so peculiar. And given this, I decided I'd set off in plenty of time to ensure I arrived in good time (they said in their email turn up at least 15 minutes early to fill out the forms...!) Happily there was a coffee bar sort of over the road, but my God I won't be going there again in a hurry, it was the worst decaff Americano I've ever had.
Anyhow I get there, with my forms, paperwork - I forgot to tell you, I was supposed to fill out an application form before I got there, and I'd done this, took me two hours but I'd got a really nicely word processed variety. Only when I arrived, and opened my folder of paperwork, thinking I was going to be able to blind them with my efficiency, it turned out I'd picked up the blank copy that I'd printed off and not filled in!!! Talk about - well, showing yourself up to the worst possible advantage. And they were so insistent about it! I had to sit there and try and fill it in from memory, which frankly is not my strong suite - but I eventually persuaded them I'd email the finished copy as soon as I got home, which I did and called them to ensure they had received it. Anyhow, having done that I then had to fill out the form for the disclosure stuff - this is where you get your (lack of) police record checked. This I have no problem with, beyond that I put my old address down on it first, and my current address underneath that, which I didn't think would matter, but they insisted that I re-do it, the right way around.
By this time, I was getting a touch flumoxed I'll admit. In fact, I think I was slightly past caring, thinking I've made such a stuff up of this, it doesn't really matter what I do at the assessment itself. At any rate, it wasn't too bad at all, no interview as such, no the only time their people talked to me it was about bloody paperwork - it was sit in a group with all the other people applying, and chat about pre-recorded calls from this helpline, and say what we thought was good about them, and what was bad. Oddly enough, one thing I found really quite useful for this was the various times when post graduate teaching has cropped up on the agenda, and we've been roundly told that post grads are the worlds worst markers, because they're so harsh. So I was actually specifically looking for the hidden good stuff, and I think that came across a bit. Besides, I have to admit, I hate being negative about everything, you've got to find a positive to end with.
So we did this, and I feel I did quite well. They were really tight about keeping us to deadlines, and there were three calls, one we had to crit on forms, one we had to discuss between ourselves (being listened to) and one we had to 'present', or rather one poor girl had to present, which I felt was a bit, well, odd. There was no time to discuss who was going to do this, the girl who was sitting nearest to the board had to do it, and we had no time to write down headings or anything like that, it was just simply there you are get on with it. I can distinctly recall making a pest of myself by telling them we didn't have enough time for the finicky bits, we have to move on to the next, so I guess I was sort of timekeeper woman. Again, all the presentation stuff in RRSH came in useful here, and I must remember to tell Mark! Given the mess I made of my dissertation presentation, I think he'll be pleased to know I did at least take in the salient points.
So having done all this, we had an English test - I'm sorry to say I found this a bit of a doddle, I must've finished it 5 minutes before everyone else, and I have to say that I think that's an age thing. You just know stuff as you get older, and you don't have to faff around thinking a, b or c. You just know it's c, and there's no need to worry about whether it could conceivably be a, because a is plain wrong.
At any rate, then it was off to have your paperwork interrogated, or in my case, my lack of paperwork, and then off home. The funny thing was when I left, I started to feel so sick - really quite physically sick, as if I'd been bottling up all of the stress and tension etc - this really isn't like me at all. I had to go and have a sit down and another cup of coffee, and I was thinking about it, and it's my belief that it's taking me so long to find a job that no matter what people say to me, I'm totally stressed out about it. I'm financially strung out, and all the psychological terror that accompanies that is getting a bit too much for me. So - I shall be inordinately pleased if I do get this job, but it's down to references and the disclosure check. I'm not worried about that at all, happily I know I have no criminal records etc, but references? Ee-yuck is all I can say, I'm not at all sure about them. We all know how bad the 'reference' was I got from a certain someone, who when I asked for one I could show to people, constructed one that was extraordinarily peculiar and left me feeling I should slash my throat now, because for sure I was never going to work again. So I'm kind of feeling very ambiguous about this. Which is why I'm not to sure that I will actually get this job, and that I may well end up back at square one, and in real trouble because then I'll know I've got a problem with that specific reference, and what the hell will I be able to do about it? It's hard, particularly when you know that you've given time, and trouble and sheer effort in the job, and gone to a lot of trouble to be helpful and offer cover for when people are off, and stuff like that. And it's even harder when you know that you could have done so much more, if you'd been ever asked to have undertaken some kind of task or what have you. At least that's how I feel about it. My guess is that I make some people very nervous, and I've got my own views as to why that is. But what the hell, I'm not at 'back to square one' yet, fingers crossed eh?