It’s Christmas Eve and I’ve only wrapped two fuckin’ presents…

Nope, I still don’t feel even the slightest bit festive. It doesn’t feel like Christmas and… well… meh. Hopefully the snow will clear so I can still get up to Weasel’s for the New Year *scowls*

So, job wise… I didn’t get the job at Dodds – which, as it turned out, wasn’t enough money. It would have involved taking a 3k paycut. Yeah, I don’t think so. But according to the email I got back, they were both very impressed with me at the interview and will be keeping my details on file as, and I quote, We do have several potential opportunities in the pipeline in the new year, and I shall be in touch to discuss then with you.
Which, is usually just a standard line but its how I found out about this one so we shall see.

I handed in my notice at QMP yesterday as well. And it was amazing how much of a relief doing that was. I got SO bored and the drive was stressing me out. I just hadn’t realised how bad it had got until I don’t have to do it.
Doncasters is in Shrewsbury. It’s 14.2 miles away, so that 28.4miles per day compared to the 26.2 each way I’m doing to Stourbridge. I’m taking a 25p per hour paycut, but with it being 8 hours more per week, and half the journey, I’m gonna be circa £50 a week better off.
That’s a lot, y’all.

And so many of my friends have just got new jobs, I think it’s going to be a damn good 2011 all around. I have good feelings for this coming year. It’s going to be a year of positivity, I’m determined it will be.

Seriously, HOW Is It Thursday?

I have an awkwardly timed job interview this morning. It’s at 11:00. So, basically, with the way the road to work is, by the time I’d have got to work (ie now), I’d have had to have turned straight back around to have got back to Telford for the interview. Yup, that’s right, it’s taking me at least an hour and a half to do a 26mile drive.

Although yesterday, I didn’t bother. I drove as far as the first roundabout, had skidded and slid across the road a couple times and thought fuck this, it ain’t safe, and turned round, drove back home again!
I have to get in at some point this afternoon though, even if its just to pick my stuff up and hand my notice in!

I also hate how this cold and damp is getting into my joints. We are NOT AMUSED. It’s -11C and snowing. Again. Or is that still? I’m moving like a freaking pensioner. *sigh* I know 30 is old but this is just ridiculous. I’m totes emigrating… who has heat?

My mum’s Christmas present finally came yesterday morning… but made me realise I have no idea what I did with her card. Which means I’m going to have to brave the ASDA again to buy another “to my mummy” card. And probably get her a box of dark chocolate or something.

A fuckload of sirens have just gone down the Telford circular. We’re talking at least 3 police cars and an ambulance. I’m guessing a car accident with this weather

I hate my internet connection. The weather isn’t helping of course. I just uploaded an mp3 for Nicole and seriously, it took over 10 minutes to upload one song. 10 MINUTES. One measly little 3mb mp3… yeah, I hate my internet connection!

I think that’s about it for random bursts of updateness for today.

Talking with you is sort of the conversational equivalent of an out of body experience.

Monday, it seems, despite getting off to a rather rocky start was a pretty good day.

The rocky start was pulling up at the petrol station and realising I’d not got my purse. Turn around, drive 15 minutes back home, grab my purse, fill up… and drive straight into roadworks in Norton *facepalm* I got to work 10 minutes late but hey, who exactly is going to know that since… oh, right I was all on my own.

With no work.

I got a lot of Frontierville missions accomplished mind!

No, to be fair, there was a fair amount of post that lasted me probably through til mid-afternoon but then I was going slowly and playing Frontierville at the same time. If I’d concentrated solely on invoices I would have been done by lunch.

A moment of self-congratulation and pride happened too. We had over £18k worth of cheques come in and I had to do the banking. Now, I know how to do the banking – credit control basics people! – but have never done it for QMP myself before. So getting that done made me feel quite good.

And then I had some fantastic news. The stress and panic of my assignments on Cleopatra and Cezanne was well worth it. I got my results back today with a 70/100.
Now, my assignment booklet says that 70 is

[a grade] awarded for work that is well-constructed, well-argued and clearly written; which is well supported by evidence or argument; and which shows and intelligent grasp of the study materials

The grade was split 34/50 for Cleopatra and 36/50 for Cezanne. My tutors comments were for Cleopatra

This was a very good answer in many respects – well done! You responded sensitively to Dio’s account and picked up on most of the more significant aspects of his attitude towards Cleopatra. You left out references in a few places and at one point repeated something you had already said but in a different way. However you established Dio’s place among other Roman authors who criticized Cleopatra, quite clearly. You tend to write in short paragraphs: note where i have suggested you merge them. Otherwise – great!

and for Cezanne

This is a sensitive response to Cezanne’s painting, Paula, and I could tell you understood the course materials and why the work was so scathingly dismissed. You made some important points but at times your phrasing is a bit askew, especially in the second half of the essay. Perhaps you might like to have another attempt at some of these sentences for TMA02?

But a good start to the course overall – well done!

So yes, very pleased indeed.
*PREEEENS*

And huge thank you to EVERYONE for the handholding and backrubbing and cheerleading.

Slouching Towards Bethlehem

Monday was survived quite nicely. The first couple hours dragged and oh my god my stomach thought my throat had been cut I was so freaking hungry! I swear I didn’t stop eating all day. Well, during my breaks anyway. Kinda glad we’re not allowed to eat at desks LMAO

Dean’s getting really into Supernatural. He’s already on S3 and completely in love with whole show. He’s definitely coming to Roadhouse and might even be coming to Asylum in May.
Win!

The radio’s been on an 80s radio station, so lots of cheese. Lots of singing along. And um.. at one point me, Dean, Jason & Holly actually starting to dance to Karma Chameleon. Only then Judy looked at us so we all sat back down again.
We weren’t NOT answering the phone at that point, we were on AQs.

Oh. God. I had this one AQ… it looked really straight forward. It was a letter from a property management company advising tenant moved out of property on the 20th with a final meter read.
We’d closed the account down to an estimate and I just needed to cancel the bill that was issued to the estimate, added the actual read and rebill the account.
Simple.
Except, not…
I could see the account was closed down to the 20th, could see the estimated meter read. Could NOT find any bill dated 20th.
Got very confused. Called Sophie, the coach over. Now, Sophie knows everything about everything. She couldn’t find the bill either.
The mind. It boggles!

That was about it for the day. Nothing particularly exciting happened. Or anything really horrible.
I did speak to a proper old posh gentleman though. He was adorable, really nice to talk to and made a nice change from kids who don’t know how to close their legs or get off their lazy asses and get a job

*giggles*

Now though, I’m carrying on with Angel S4

Why is it Monday?

Why is it Monday?
I really don’t want it to be Monday.
At least not this Monday.
Or the next one either, come to think of it.

Why is that?
It’s now Main Billing. Water bills are issued the end of Feb/beginning of March, they run from 01 April 2010 to 31 March 2011. The first batch of bills have just been issued. This means work gets insanely busy for the next couple of weeks. Mostly its going to be setting up direct debits and taking payments.

That’s only part of the reason for not wanting a Monday. The rest of it is due to the REALLY shitty shifts we’ve got due to the levels of calls we’re expecting.
Today I’m working 10:30-20:00
Tomorrow I’m working 08:00-17:00
Wednesday I’m off
Thursday I’m working 10:30-18:30
Friday kinda saves the week with an 09:00-15:00
(Although I am technically on ‘standby’ to be called in if Saturday gets busy. Which makes a whole lot of sense since I live fucking 20 miles away!)

Next week is more of the same:
Monday 10:30-20:00
Tuesday 08:00-16:30 – with a side order of ZOMG CHRISTIAN KANE’S EP IS RELEASED!
Wednesday 08:30-17:00
Thursday I’m off
Friday 09:30-16:00
Saturday 09:00-13:00

Hmm… rather than just skipping Monday, we’ll have enough of the 9th to download the EP then we’ll skip straight to Wednesday 17th of March… does that sound good by you guys?
Because, just in case you been living under a rock lately, 17th of March is when my holiday starts and I drive down to Susan’s house ready to fly out to Portland on the 18th!
*bounces*

Anyways, I need to go run a bath so shall leave you with a couple of pretty pictures

and throw in an extra “I REALLY DON’T WANNA WORK 10:30-20:00! IT’S A FUCKING LONG SHIFT, I’VE GOT A BITCH OF A COLD AND DO NOT WANT!”