Well, hello there 2011

Having stopped and thought about it, a few major financial and health issues aside, 2010 was actually a pretty good year. It was the year of the ITBN! There were amazing conventions, fantastic concerts and even better friends. I moved back out of my mum’s house, and am getting on with much better again as a result. I lost weight. I came off the anti-depressants, I realised I don’t want to be dead and think I may have won this battle in the war against depression. I don’t feel guilty for feeling happy.

2011 started off having fun with friends, and I think that’s what I like the year to be about. Good times with good people… you can’t go wrong with that. And really, since it’s only like 2 hours to Louise’s and 3 hours to Susan’s, there’s no excuse!
I’m seeing Good Charlotte in February. I’d like to go to more concerts because it’s been far too long since I’ve been to any recently and I fuckin’ miss it!
There’s A6 and A7. There’s T2. There’s Con 1. Depending on guests, there’s Vampire Ball 2 and Roadhouse 2.

I’m starting the year with a better paid job, a 12 week contract, that’s closer to home and better paid.
I want to get my bookshelves moved to my place. This is my priority. I miss my books.
I want to get a cheap two-seater sofa, put it where my desk is, then turn my TV round so I don’t sit in bed all the time.
That looks and sounds like a plan. I approve

AND HONEY, YO HEY IT’S A ONE WAY STREET AND I’M GOING THE OTHER WAY

I just logged into LJ and the poll of the day question is ‘Have you ever driven the wrong way on a one way street?’. This made me smile and have tour memories. Neither of them should be good memories but they’re related to having a damn good time so they count.

Twice, I’ve done that.

Once was in Ireland. Jo and I had a very last minute trip to Ireland to see Simple Plan. When I say last minute, I mean the band invited us over. At 1am that morning. In Glasgow. Passports were in the midlands. Mad rush back down home, grabbed passports, booked ferry, 2 hour nap on living room floor. Raced across Wales to get the ferry. Half way across the Irish Sea we realised we had no idea what venue the gig was in or where it was. As soon as we got into Irish airspace we were both on our phones trying to find it.
Dublin was a very confusing city to drive around and yeah, I literally ended up going the wrong way. Down a bus lane. Aaand there was a bus coming. So there was a swerve into a side street, tears and an asthma attack.
IN MY DEFENSE I would just like it noting that there was absolutely nothing to say it was a bus lane or one way, so yeah.

The second time was in Glasgow. Also on a Simple Plan tour. Anyone seeing a pattern here? It was night, I was over-tired, we turned the wrong way. There was nothing coming. End of story.

It’s aliiiive!

Loving
Tracy Bonnie Jess Cecilie Solnushka Rammi Emily

Hah so much for saying I was going to blog more often… I say that then fall clean off the face of the internet. It’s a good job I wasn’t doing NaNoWriMo or MiniWriMo or NaBloPoMo because I would have failed and epically so!

Work – or more specifically, the training course, had completely eaten my brain over the last two months. It’s been very intense but I am now on my last couple of days of training and passed my assessment with flying colours. We’re talking NINETY FUCKING EIGHT PERCENT HERE!
Very pleased about that.

I’m hoping that now I’m not studying and revising so much I’m going to start having a little ‘me’ time of an evening.
We’re talking I’ve been that bogged down I’ve barely even had time to play Farmville!

So, what have I been up to since I last blogged?
Same old, same old, to be honest. Not that that is necessarily a bad thing, actually, because I quite enjoy ‘same old’ since… well… its what I enjoy!
Although, admittedly it has just been lot of studying and revising for work, mostly. But I guess it paid off since, like I said, I passed with flying colours!

I went to a couple of Jason Manns gigs that were absolutely awesome, but then his gigs always are. It was great to catch up with the girls too – I only really see some of the girls at his gigs so its always a good couple of nights.
I went to three of the five gigs he did over here – Bewdley with my friends Emma & Jude, and then two in London with Susan, Claire, Helen, Dan & Helen.
I’ve seen the guy play far too many times but I doubt I’ll ever stop going – I love the intimacy of the gigs, I love how it’s the same crowd have been going for 2 years and we’ve all got to know each other and he’s gotten to know us and its just so laid back and relaxed.

I’ve been starting to socialise with my training group. And yes, this is actually quite a big thing – going out with people in RL is not something I do but we all went for a meal in Nandos last week and I… actually had fun. Quite surprised myself actually
An hour or so later when a food allergy kicked in I wasn’t having quite so much fun but what can you do?
Evil peppers!

The two main things I’ve done that I’m in serious glee about are booking my ticket/flights for ConCon and joining the gym.

ConCon is the official convention for the TV show Leverage – aka my favourite TV show – that’s happening in Portland in March 2010.
Susan and I are flying out on March 18 from Heathrow and spending a nice long weekend with lots of friends: Amara, Lisa, Sarah, Flipp, Shel, Dee, Katie et al.
And, most importantly, it’s a nice long weekend spent with my girlfriend Nicole ♥
All the cast are going to be there (SQUEAK CHRISTIAN KANE ZOMG!) and the creators and the writers and there’s a set tour and a banquet and a cocktail evening and autographs and photo sessions and and and and apparently a Kane performance too (OMGOMGOMG CHRIS AND STEVE SQUEE)
I CANNOT WAIT – IT’S GONNA BE A KICK ASS WEEKEND

Last Saturday I made the very random, completely out of the blue, decision to join my local gym. Rang them then and there on the spot, they had a vacancy for an induction in like ten minutes time. So I raced down, filled in all the paperwork, paid over my hard-earned cash and joined. For the monthly fees I get a personal trainer, access to the gym at any time, the swimming pool, the health suit (mmm jacuzzi!) and all fitness classes too (yay aquaerobics!)
So far all I’ve done is gone swimming a couple of times but tonight (in about half hour) I have my meeting with my personal trainer to put together my workout plan etc. Quite excited but very nervous too!

Anyways, that’s me
How the devil are you?!

Why am I watching Coronation Street

Monday started off being quite nasty to me really – it was trying to harsh my squee. Although I tried really hard not to let it!

It pretty much started as it meant to go on… petrol station was closed, then i got stuck in traffic on the motorway leading me to be almost 5 minutes late. On the first day of week 2… not a good start!

Got in, got slowest computer in the world booted up and start off Monday morning’s training with a test on everything we learned last week: charging zones, property types, alternative supplies, alternative drainage, alternative billing, measured and unmeasured calculations, the account screen, the property screen, the financial details screen and data capture.
Then we had to calculate some unmeasured bills
Took me three goes to get the bills calculated but I got there \o/ and got 100%.

Also, I was the only person to get 100%. Everyone else got less than 60% – and you had to get 75% to pass the first week!
So, they’re all having this workshop next Tuesday to go back over all the basics… and I’m getting Tuesday afternoon off. So I might be heading to do Southampton to see MC Lars & Last Letter Read, we’ll see what happens.

After the test, we went on to data capture and data protection – it was actually all very interesting.

Throw in a fire-alarm-test and standing freezing in the car park for half hour… oh well, at least it wasn’t raining, right?

After that we continued reviewing data protection, then looked at the credit history screen and the payment plan screens. Very excitingly (!!) we got to log onto the live system, rather than the training system, to see a current payment plan in action which made a lot more sense than looking at in on the training screen.

The afternoon we spent most of the time looking at contact management, point of contact and other notes on the system.

Tomorrow we’re supposed to be starting on payment plans, which considering that’s a lot of what the work will entail, I’m REALLY looking forward to it.

This was not the post I’d intended on writing… It was going to be a fairly rambling introspective post like I said this morning talking about the last four months, mental health, work, love and Nicole but it seems it’s not ready to come out yet