Category: General

But this is taking the piss:

That’s our back room. In the sun.

This is my ‘office’, or the room of melting Kates:

Dear god it’s hot here. Far to hot. Look, even Aroha is wilting.

I should be working, but trying to get my brain even remotely into gear is like trying to pour treacle out of a fine bore tube. I’ve actually had a pretty good day – I think – I’ve been in charge of the bay again; and actually done a fair job of running things. Of course, I got to hand over and I didn’t know how high someone’s high potassium is (silly Kate); and there’s a couple of people who’s histories are a bit messy on the hand over sheet – and I fluffed’em a bit. But hey, I’m not yet registered. And if I don’t get these assignments written I won’t be.

Please, please make it less hot.

I actually had something intelligent to say when I left work; oh, aye, I was going to wave people’s noses at this – which I’m studiously not going to comment on – except to suggest that you might then want to go here.

*sighs*

Still, incidentally, looking for a job. Should anyone need a nurse I’m your girl.

I just had the best exchange on Freecycle. I’ve been on Freecycle quite a while now, and I decided my CED player and it’s disks should go. I need to declutter, this is part of the process.

So I offered it, and I got back:

“I think your’re using the wrong freecycle?”

From one of the members. It went on to explain that s/he was in the USA and clearly, I was in the UK. 10 points for observation, 0 points for checking which group you’d joined *before* telling someone else they’re in the wrong place.

I did wonder if they were joking but the “How do I get out of this group” message I just got tells me they’re not.

*sigh*

People.

And not in a sexy / good way. Oh no. This is hot as in *oh dear lord I’m melting* hot.

I’ve spent the weekend working at my mum’s house, taking down shelves and packing up the last remnants of my bedroom (3 bigish boxes, most of which can be freecycled; anyone want a Super 8 Movie Camera?).

Or Acorn User? Lots of Acorn User? I’ve just had the distressing realisation that the two BBC Micro systems I’ve been keeping ‘complete’ are virtually worthless anyway, so might as well be freecycled. Well, I need the Master, because I want to use it and the Music 5000 to retrieve my hard-programmed music from when I was a kid. But the rest of it, it should *go*. Teletext adaptors, RAM expansions. All of it may as well go. So I’m thinking that the BBC Magazines can just go now.

At any rate, another knackering weekend – ‘s nice to see my mum, and hopefully the grand tidy of my old bedroom will help the house sell. I think, though, it may just need more clearing out. Possibly even slapping lots of stuff in storage. We’ll see though.

I’m fed up. Fed up and tired and… yeah.

This unhelpful woman (Caia Frances) who’s failed to e-mail me, she’s sucking the life out of me. I just want to know whether I’m doing the right thing, have I understood it? Is the plan appropriate?

But no. No. She can’t give me that information because apparently she cares that little about her students. *sigh*.

I just feel like curling up in the corner and waiting for sleep to wash over me.

Well, not actually in the fridge. But something smells *really* unpleasant in our kitchen. And I mean unpleasant. Really gnarly. But my hayfever combined with it’s fleeting nature mean I can’t find it. I’ve checked the bin, my cupboard, under the sink, the fridges, the dishwasher, the sink…. I can’t work out where it’s coming from. I’ve emptied the cardboard box bin (in use due to my purchase of very small bin bags while I was living semi-alone); I’ve checked the other bin (empty, smells of detergent).

I can’t work it out… I think I need someone with a better nose.

It’s funny isn’t it – I’ve spent three years on my course and never connected with the people on it. It’s not that they’re not nice, nor that we have nothing in common (hell, we’re all student nurses). The major reason for that lack of connection has been me. When I’m thrown into a group of people – a new group – outside of work this is – I become ultra shy. It’s taken me nearly 2 years of being with these people to become comfortable enough to start to speak out significantly in the group. When I do, it’s fine. I’ve really enjoyed it – but it didn’t exactly meet my intentions to be way more proactive about being friendly and meeting people that I had when I started.

I guess a lot of that can be put down to my social and personal life during my course, it’s not been condusive to meeting new people; but I really regretted it today. We had to do a ‘share what you think of everyone else’ type thing – where we all wrote our name on a piece of paper, passed it round the group, and everyone wrote what they thought of that person on that piece of paper. Or some memory. Or whatever. And y’know what it’s interchangable with the one from school – except for two things, two comments, from the two people I always regretted not getting to know better.

They both said stuff about being sorry they’d not got to know me. And that sucks, because I should have. I should have taken that step. I still don’t quite know what causes the shyness in groups that I don’t have in work. I think it’s some fear of opening up to people. Perhaps it’s my history. I don’t know. I need to change it though. Or I’d *like* to change it.

Anyway, before I read the comments – we left them to read after the session – I dashed off. And I regret that now, in fact I regretted it pretty much as soon as I read them. Before, and most of the time I’ve been there, I’ve kind of felt like I was skirting the edges of the group – but the comments actually made me feel much more included than I did. Still, I promised to go to David’s party, so I shall. I’ll even stay over at Maria’s. Ironic, I’m leaving so I’m gonna get to know people.

Hrm.

It’s really time for me to start working. I’m writing this on the laptop – which has just thrown up a blue-screen, not of death (though I’m awaiting that); which might be related to my playing with Firefox 2 Beta 1. It’s nice and quick though.

Anyway, in other news my copy of Firefly’s arrived – it’s different to Lauren’s (I wasn’t expecting that) – no booklet in mine and a different case. Mine appears to be the Australian edition. Heh. It’s not actually quite as nice as Lauren’s, but then it was free (well, ‘loyalty’).

In other news, my friend Nikki’s asked me to do some music videos for a few of her songs. This is weird. And possibly hard. I’m not used to directing other people; which makes it hard. They’re her songs, which also makes it hard, she knows what she had in mind making them, so my suggestions my go down like a ton of lead, but then she may love them. It’s weird though. Whatever happens I’ll be ceding some of the control to her, and I’m not used to letting other people have much involvement in ‘my’ videos. It should be fun though, and interesting. Especially because I have some quite strong imagery in my head for some of it.

Incidentally, we’re now wireless for sound and vision, except that being my ‘music server’ the loss of my main PC (although I still turn it on to check mail, I know I shouldn’t) is quite a spectacular pain in the arse. Although at the moment I’m listening to Ladytron. I’m not that impressed, ironically, with the quality of this record. I’m not *sure* but it sounds noisy, it had finger prints on it when I got it out of the sleeve. I’m going to see what the second disk sounds like, but I’m pretty convinced it’s got damaged, either that or it’s not very well mastered :(

The DVD with the ‘Extended Play’ EP is fantastic though.

Anyway, I should work. Not, you understand, that the lecturer Caia Frances has bothered to get back to me. A week and she can’t even be bothered to say “that’s not enough for me to comment on”; “that’s appropriate” or “that’s useless”. No. Nothing. Sod all. Fucking UWE. This is the level of support you get? I don’t understand an assignment, I’ve gone from 70% to 30% and there’s *nothing* there to help. Nothing a-fucking-tall.

Yeah, see, there’s noticable regular crackles on this disk. Bollocks. Anyone with the CD of Witching Hour – are there deliberate crackles on it?

Here…

In other news, I’m very tired. Brazil has arrived on DVD and looks lush, as has Saving Grace. As has my Ladytron Album (Witching Hour, on 180gm vinyl with a remix disk. Can you say ‘happy bunny’?).

I slept like a log yesterday, but today. Today was less good. Woken by noisy people outside, the postman and a phonecall, I gave up at 1400. Which is bad, that’s 5 hours sleep after a 11 hour shift. And the drive home was a killer this morning, traffic was frequently stationary for long periods – and it took over an hour and a half to get home.

*sigh*

And I can’t use my Wireless card yet due to a fuckup with disk selection (Lauren’s accidentally left the key on a linux floppy disk which neither of my PCs will look at).

I think I may go lay on my bed s’more.

Very bad.

No, badder.

I have only done a minimal amount of work today. I’ve watched my video through a few times though. I’ve booked tickets to Canada I can’t afford, or justify, but worse. So much worse. Before that, feeling mizog as I was, I bought 15 quids worth of DVDs. Why? Just because I fancied them. So now I must stop spending money that I don’t have. Because:

In early September, Lauren will be moving out (assuming we hand in notice nowish) and I will have to move. I will have to move to… where? Where I don’t know, because at this point I have no job. Apart from the HCA work I’ve got here…

… of course, as Rochelle reminded me, there’s lots of other jobs I can do and which will help keep me solvent. So. Yes. It’ll be fine. If somewhat tight. And I *know* I shouldn’t have booked it, but I *need* a holiday, and this is something to look forward to. And believe me I’m looking forward to it.

Of course, having spent real cash money on flights (it being cheaper than using Nectar points to get discounts, the tax and left-over-to-pay being substantially more than my tickets were flat out); well; I was left with 12,000 nectar points. And, y’know what I’d discovered when I was looking at Nectar points? The Brazil – Criterion collection 3 disk version that I’ve wanted for years… well, it was there. And so was the Firefly complete box set. And so… they’re mine. Mwuhahaha.

I have been a good little consumer today. Oh, and I printed this because I want to frame it. Because at the end of the day, I’m still a little geek girl.