Weds 11th August

Ok so I got the date wrong on the two posts below. Sorry about that, date blindness has been haunting me since I stopped working - but, this post is going to be all about... yay, WORK!
For those of you who don't know, last week I actually got a call from one of these applications I've been making for jobs you see on these websites - I have been seriously suspicious of this, since I keep applying for them and getting no response. But, yay, last week someone called, and off I trotted on my birthday, and even more yay, I got a job. It's only for four days, so it's not leap screaming into the air, but it's a start, and better still, the agency tell me that they always look for their previous employees to fill a vacancy before advertising it, so (should this be the case, rather than simply something I'm being told) I may get even more out of it than simply 4 days work.
But, today I went off to the training. The job is a market researcher, for a company in London who do this sort of thing for various chains, and shopping centres, and frankly it sounded like fun when I heard about it, and now it's turning out to be serious fun having done the training. What I'm going to be doing is following people around in various different shops, with this little handheld computer thingy, tapping 'labels' - ie, lone woman, lone man, looking at item, touching item, measuring item, (it's clothing people, relax!) looking at the price, all that kind of thing. But all of this is done surreptitiously!!!! Yes, I'm going to be a spy!!!!! Oh I'm sorry, I know I shouldn't get excited, but I have seriously always wanted to do something like this! And it's not really spying per se - well it is, but not spy type spying, but it's sort of spy-craft. I had a go this afternoon, in the menswear department of a local department store, and for the first time in my life, my shortness has been a plus - I can lurk behind racks of clothes, and my eye line is just perfect for the gap between the shelf on the top, and the rail that has the hangers on! Everything I've read in all those Le Carre books is just perfect for this. I keep them in my eyeline, and 'follow' them by veering off the 'path' through the department, carelessly handling piles of t-shirts as I go along. God I am loving this job! I dare say I'll be fed up to the back teeth with it by the time Sunday comes, but in the meantime, I am having such fun!


It's not all following people. We also have to count footfall, which means going to the requisite shop, finding a place to casually lean, or sit or whatever, and draw an imaginary box around the door we are watching, then count the people going through the box, those that go in, those that leave, and if they're leaving do they have bags with them? This is not quite as much fun, but I imagine - provided I can find a little seat to do this from, a bit of a rest which will be very welcome. And yes, we will have to do a bit of asking people to answer a short survey. But the big news on this is we have another interactive gadget, so they will be able to do it for themselves whilst I hold the thing. Way better than asking people if they want to contribute to a charity via direct debt for a living. (Mind you not to say that this isn't also a perfectly valid means of earning a crust!) If there was anyway I could do this for my weekends for the rest of my uni career I'd be in seventh heaven, but alas, four days and that's it. Still, in the meantime I shall enjoy it!!

Monday 8th August

Oh dear, Villa are in trouble. Alas Martin O'Neill has left - actually resigned, which is a thing Premiership managers virtually never do. There are clearly deep and dark reasons behind it, which we don't know, and it's very frustrating. Clear contenders are the fact no money has been released to buy in any big players, which leaves us understrength and now he's gone, you've got to put money on no one arriving until the January transfer window. There's no immediate appointment, so this has clearly come out of the blue. Oh God, here we go again. That's all I keep thinking, is this the 70s come all over again?
And that raises more interesting thoughts. Exactly how much of the 70s are we seeing re-played here? We've got a depression. People are being thrown out of work, and we have a caring sharing Conservative government to ease us through these troubling times - personally I'm begining to see a lot in the concept of revolution. There was a very interesting article in the Grauniad yesterday about the North South divide, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/aug/08/north-south-divide-soon-become-chasm which really says it all. Anyday now I expect brown and grey to become the most popular colours, Cameron will start clutching a handbag (frankly I'm surprised he doesn't already carry one, not to mention how fetching he would look in a two peice navy blue skirt suit), and well.. not much more you can say about this really, except how bloody depressing it all is.

Saturday 7th August

Busy week this, what with re-opening the Ebay shop, birthday and all that. What is it about birthdays that makes me feel ambivalent about them? This year's was really great, so many people ringing, texting, leaving messages on FB and all, it was a really great day and yet at the same time I feel like to mention it is somehow to be shouting about what a great time I had in the face of someone who's accidentally wandered onto this blog and may be in the pit of despair - why? Because they've had a lousy birthday that's what!
At any rate I had a very good day. Particularly so because first thing in the morning I went off to East Kilbride and saw an employment agency that not only had a bit of work, but some that they needed to get other people to do - ie, I have a weekend's worth of work next week. This is major to me, and of course they were saying how good they were about finding work for people once they're registered etc - which does rather leave me wondering about whether this alleged opportunity will ever materialise. You know? Everywhere you go and talk to about work, they'll always tell you oh yes, send us a cv, we have various permanent contracts, we'll be in touch. Or some sort of variation on the theme, and you never hear from them again. So I'm not holding my breath, but in the meantime I have as I say a weekends work, and let's not look this gift horse in the mouth. Market research, in other words I shall be one of those women standing outside of a shopping centre begging people to spare me a moment of their time.. like I say let's not look a gift horse and all that. There is genuinely no selling involved in this, it's really interviewing, so it might be more fun than anticipated.
What else did I do? Well we went to Tibo's for a meal on the day itself - very nice. I had beefburger. I was hoping for a nice fishy specials board but there was none, and apparently hasn't been for a while now. I found that a touch alarming, I wouldn't like to see it go downhill. But a good time was had by one and all, and it all led to a slight hangover the next day and it's been a while since I had one of those!
I got some wonderful earrings off a mate, really gorgeous, and a few other bits and pieces (thanks to Ness, Abbs, Aimee!) and even the family remembered - something of a minor triumph there I think! I even had a call off Nick, a day late (what else is new, I'm lucky he remembered it was this century!)

So.. post birthday letdown now....!

Late Sunday night... not the greatest time in the world to be feeling down. Got some bad news this morning about a job that I'd applied for, and for no reason had felt would just be right for me - and although I've no reason to be feeling like this, it feels like it's been snatched away from me like that plum cherry you've just been fancying and reaching out for, and suddenly it's just not there anymore. Yet I've got no more reason to feel like this about this particular job than any other of the multitude I've applied for and haven't got.
Thing is, I suppose, the longer this goes on for, the more unemployable I feel I'm becoming, which is not a good thing. I've organised myself to go to the job agencies tomorrow, see if I can pick up something temporary, but I'm not particularly hopeful. I tell myself sternly that this is simply how I feel, I don't actually have a sign around my neck saying 'unemployable', but when you get into a cycle like this, it's hard not to feel it's there, and dragging you down. And I know myself too, it's at times like this that I get to feel so desperate that I'll take anything, something that I really can't do, and it all goes pear shaped, I'll end up exhausted, earning a pittance, and in some crappy place where I don't want to be.

And then when you add all this to the trail of unpleasant events that have been happening recently, well it's just one long tale of disaster! In fact, it's almost funny what's been going on for the past few weeks - and I suppose that's my saving grace, that at the moment, I can still laugh about all this. Ah well, enough moaning and groaning. Life goes on eh?

Ah, the end of the World Cup. I shall miss it - until the premiership starts at any rate. Personally I'm going for Holland, much as I like Spain, I just think Holland's time has come. It's supposed to be summer here, but frankly over the past few days you'd have been hard put to tell it from mid-October - wind, rain.. not quite cold enough to demand heating, but you know that's merely weeks away.
I'm trying to think of something interesting to write about. I've been making up new bookmarks - the shop has been shut for quite a while now, but I was thinking I would open in up in later August, and do a sort of Autumn - Christmas stretch, and then see how it goes. Times have not been so good for your average on-line seller, and I'm hoping for a better Xmas than last year. Anyhow, I have had enough time recently to put a good few stints in with the pliers and cutters, so I shall have some new stock.
Went out to meet up with friends for coffee on Thursday afternoon - I've been to the library a few times over the past few days and I should drag myself over there again soon - plugging away at the old dissertation research.
All told, life plods on. I still have high hopes of a job that I applied for recently, although the waiting is interminable. Isn't that always the worst part of job apps?

Monday 28th June

Well I guess we all have to come down from this football style hangover that we seem to have been collectively indulging in. I think I'm so past it that I won't even go on about it - just roll on August and the start of the new season. Yay.. (whispers) Go Villa!!

This isn't going to be a long post because as this evening has been going by I've been feeling just that little tingle at the top of the head that whispers sweetly, migraine.. migraine.. take pills now.. and I haven't, and really must go and do so. With my last cup of tea (ginger) of the evening.
Anyhow tomorrow is library day, I'm hauling my sorry self up to the tenth floor - yes, the delights of the theology department, where I can drag out the actual physical copies of Acta Sanctorum - no I still can't download the damn thing - so looks like I'm in for the hard copy version. I shall copy and take it home to work on it with dictionaries and grammar books to hand (it's in Latin..) I can also start mining the no doubt inexhaustible depths of Analecta Bollandiana. We're also having a sort of meet up of History pgs, in the pub natch.
Went to the fliks last night with Aimee, we ended up seeing this Wild Targets thing. It wasn't bad... but mm.. I don't think I'd describe it as being good either. You know the sort of thing I mean, in my opinion it needed a lot more work on the script, the plot.. the cast was good though. Anything that has Rupert Everett & Bill Nighy in it can't be all bad - that was my operating theory going in to it. However Nighy is a bit too creepy in it, & Rupert Everett just isn't in it enough. And the girl -- the one everyone's running around after - is frankly just too whiny and self satisfied, irritating to hell.
Ah well, yes, I must go get my migraine pills.

17th June 2004

It's gone midnight, and I've been veging out for a couple of hours, but I'm.. hungry. I have never managed to get a lock on whatever it is in my brain that correlates diet with hunger. I'm not actually hungry, I tell myself, I just want to eat something. I find myself fantasising about things like jam sandwiches, which I wouldn't touch in a month of Sundays, and this afternoon I almost binged out on rice cakes - if one hadn't been revoltingly overly-salty, I would have ended up eating half the packet. Perhaps the over- salted one was added by the manufacturer in the knowledge they were saving someone from a binge.
Actually I have to admit I really like rice cakes. There's something about the texture of them that seems, well, ok, sponge like, and I'm not talking about the variety that comes with buttercream and sugar. Did you not suck the water out of sponges when you were very small? I'm afraid to say that I did, and what's more I quite liked it!

Back to the diet. I have actually lost some weight, just not this week. However, last week I lost 5 lbs, which I think is probably enough to be satisfied with in a fortnight. I would like to loose this weight both hopefully for some time to come (let's not be over-optimistic here! No stupid promises like forever!) and well, loose it too fast and its a sure thing that I'm trying to do this too fast, and eating too little and will end up going off the deep end in a fast food joint or something. So 5lb over a fortnight is ok, it's a substantial loss. Thing is, well, I'm not too sure that I'm actually sticking to this that well. Take today for example. I had the smoothie for breakfast, still love those things, then tuna salad (with no dressing!) for lunch, and tonights dinner was chicken breast - all 4 oz of it, roasted - ha! roasted. Wrapped in foil and baked in the oven - I had to tart it up with something, so I rubbed lemon zest and black pepper all over it, so yes it did have a bit of flavour. I steamed the veg - carrots, potato and green cabbage, and I finished off with a cherry low fat yoghurt. I had an apple a bit later - it's the snacks that get me, because as I think I mentioned last time, come four, five o'clock I want tea and something. Something today was supposed to be two rice cakes and a teaspoonful of peanut butter. I ended up having four slices of wholemeal toast. Am I freaking out where there's no need to freak at all? God only knows. We'll see if I loose anything this week, and if not, well I shall need to do something. It's not like I'm stuffing myself full of chocolate or stuff like that. And that has to be an improvement.

Apart from this life this week has consisted of football and miracles. I take down my miracle records - for the database that my dissertation will be based on, and I listen half heartedly to the football. I have to admit, I did actually stop with the miracles to actually sit and watch Spain get decimated this afternoon - firstly because frankly it was so unusual, and secondly because Fernando Torres has a new hairdo that makes him look pale and interesting. I couldn't quite make out if this was actually his real hair colour, or he's a strange natural mouse blonde. Whatever, he's got a very good hairdresser. I hear the voices of my brothers rumbling in the background, enough with the fashion critique, what about the football? Yes.. mm. I think a lot of people are saying that at the moment. I have yet to see a match that has really caught fire. I did see the North Korean man weep, allegedly with pride at representing his country, but couldn't help wonder if partly it was down to fear at what would happen to them if they lost. I thought Gerrard was just brilliant. I don't care what Franz however you spell it thinks about it, but I did think they weren't anywhere near as bad as the media are currently making them out to be. I'm afraid I was a big Gerrard supporter when the whole captainship thing was an issue in the first place, and I hope he goes on to show why he should have been appointed in the first place. Ok, the whole court thing was a bit dodgy, but hell, over and done with now. I like to see Liverpool men do well. Nothing to do with the fact that I'd take MU over Chelsea anyday, but well, family and all that. We have connections to Liverpool and I always like to see them do well. Well shod of Raffa too I think.
Ok, now to steer myself away from the controversial opinionated bit.. miracles. I've got a whole pile waiting to be input into the database, but it's come time to do the test querying bit. In fact I really should be taking the instruction manual to bed with me to try and figure out how I do it, but I think that's pushing it a bit and I'll leave it till tomorrow morning. It's going to take me forever anyway. And if that wasn't enough, the blasted vpn client went corrupt on me again last night, what is it that makes a perfectly straightforward program that worked last week suddenly stop working when you've done nothing to it? God only knows.

What else? I have the date for my jury service come through. July - so at least it will all be over and done with before next term starts. Alas, the law will prevent me from including any juicy details, so you can expect to hear a lot about sitting around and waiting for things to happen I expect. I've applied for a couple of new jobs, but heard nothing as yet - one I definitely don't expect to hear anything from as it's with the Scottish Ballet, and I expect they will be flooded out with hot young marketing grads. Still as I keep telling myself, experience might just count for something. Its Friends marketing, that sort of thing, and it's been a long time since I last passed through a stage door. Still we can cross our fingers and hope.

Ah well, the witching hour has come and gone and at least I no longer feel hungry. I'm off to bed!