Laptop trauma

I know I haven’t blogged for ages, this is largely due to a lack of hardware. My laptop had developed an audio card problem so I phoned up PC World as it’s only six months old and was really annoying me. “No worries,” they said, “we’ll come and pick it up and the repair is likely to take five days.” So I thought that sounded all rather reasonable and sent it off. BIG MISTAKE.

Three weeks later there is no sign of my laptop, they are still waiting for a part and I have been struggling along with internet cafes and now - thank Crunchie - a borrowed laptop. Mysteriously when I have phoned up about the missing computer, the ‘average’ length of time for a repair has gone from 5-7 days to 7-10 days and is now a whopping 10-14 days. We are now on working day 15 and I am fairly livid. Annoyed at not having my laptop and REALLY annoyed at their crappy customer service.

So apart from frequenting many an internet cafe, what else have I been up to?

Went to Antibes for the weekend which was jolly nice except for the resulting sprained ankle - I still have black toes two and a half weeks later.

Have been trying to find some short term work and failing rather miserably. This is very annoying as there is loads of stuff out there but it’s all for at least three months and I’m off to Africa in less than two.

So I’ve been doing my TEFL course - although to be honest that’s been scuppered by the laptop situation - so I’ve only been able to do a bit this week. Got 91% for one module though so quite pleased.

Been doing tons of recovery work with varying degrees of success. On the whole it’s been okay but spent a lot of Sunday in the bath, in tears and on the phone to the Samaritans (not necessarily all at the same time) so probably a fair bit of room for improvement.

Day time TV has been a dominant feature. Not exactly thrillsville although Dallas remains gripping as it’s building up to the whole “who shot JR?” thing which was jolly exciting back in the day so (I’m hoping) will be equally gripping second time around.

I have also tried, and failed, to avoid Big Brother. Having convinced myself that I will not be in the country for the final few weeks, I was looking forward to a housemate free summer but no, some gremlin has got into the scheduling and, more often than not, BB fills that programme gap. My current thoughts on all the housemates are: Twins - surely not fair to lump them together all the time but they are pretty lightweight and pink so not much else to recommend them; Carol - heart’s in the right place but not everyone enjoys mothering, likely she’ll go this week; Chanelle - ah bless, a girl with issues and amusing hysterical outbursts (a la Nicki 2006), but her heart’s in the right place; Charley - annoying, self-absorbed, irritating, please remove her; Laura - annoying trouble-maker; Nicky - needs to lighten up, will her slight interest in Liam be her saving grace?; Tracy - seems a laugh but bit too remote from the rest of the group. As for the boys: Ziggy - takes himself a bit too seriously; Jerry - he’s growing on me, can’t quite decide if that’s because he’s increasingly appealing or because he’s like the vine weed that is the bain of my garden; Seany - see Charley, please get him out soon and someone also tell him cultivating the Mick Hucknall look os not to be recommended. Brian seems fun, he’s good-looking and seems to have a genuinely pleasant air about him; Jonathan - met far too many people like him and don’t like him; Liam seems a little dull although I think the target audience of BB will think he’s good looking and want to keep him in the house. Billy - can’t quite work him out yet but the Zoolander look is interesting. That is really sad, I have just spent ages writing about people in a house on a television, the phrase: “get a life” springs to mind.

Scream

I have to vent as I am being driven mad by my workplace. Thank crunchie I’m finishing here tomorrow as I think I am about to blow a fuse. There was a time when “no challenge” work was exactly what I needed but I’m definitely ready for more of a stretch. Hopefully I’ll find some freelance work which will be just the right amount of demanding. I’d also like to work for someone who is a little less of a control freak although obviously PR and control freakery are very common bedfellows.

Life update

Most of my blogs have been about football recently. This is largely because it’s the end of the season, but it’s also because going to watch football in pubs has made up a large chunk of my social life in the past couple of weeks.

So thought I would do a general round up of “other stuff that is happening”.

On the work front I think I may have been rather rash as I have decided not to extend my contract at this current job. Considering this started out as a three week job back in January I haven’t done too badly. I’ve even been offered a full time job here but it’s just not stretching me and I have got to the point where I’m really not enjoying it, in fact it was starting to make me miserable and I don’t really need any more miserable-making things in my life at the moment. So I’m back on the PR scrap heap in a couple of weeks - oh joy! Hopefully something will come along soon.

I’ve also been thinking about a bit of a change in direction but it’s just a germ of an idea at the moment and requires some fairly major changes in terms of lifestyle, location, finance, relationships etc…potentially terrifying but potentially very rewarding. I have to try to make some time to think about it but I seem to be lacking time at the moment (imminent unemployment should solve that). It’s not that I’ve been hugely busy doing anything very exciting but I’m going to two or three recovery type meetings a week and I’m trying to have a social life and trying to see people I should see etc etc. I know I’m whingeing but I haven’t actually eaten anything in my own house for 11 days…I’m aiming to correct that tonight with some asparagus from my parents’ garden, the cooker won’t know what’s hit it.

I now have no pregnant friends which is a complete relief (pregnant friends are largely obsessed by icky body things and they’re useless in the “sharing a bottle of wine” department). I’ve yet to meet the two most recent babies (both boys - apparently something to do with high testosterone levels in working women in London) but hope to rectify this quite soon - hurrah an excuse to buy cute small clothes! Actually babies terrify me slightly as they’re extremely floppy, will insist on depositing half-digested milk all over you and have a habit of crying for no apparent reason which makes you feel crap and that you would never make a good parent so it’s probably just as well you’re not (for the word “you” read “me” - yes the recovery’s going very well thank you!).

I am not a plastic bag

I have been the proud owner of one of these little babies for quite a few weeks now (thanks B/L - you are a shopping star). Today they went on sale to the masses so I had to have a slight sigh of sadness that I’m not the only cool kid in school (although with a limited edition of 20000 methinks they are still going to be a rare and sought after commodity).

I was rather amused to read on the BBC that staff at Sainsbury’s had been putting the “I’m Not a Plastic Bag” into - yes you’ve guessed it - a plastic bag. A bit of training might be required.

People are being very sceptical about whether a bag like this really will help to reduce use of vile, landfill clogging plastic bags - apparently we use 8 billion every year. Well I’m sure with only a few thousand of them they won’t on their own but it’s all about raising awareness - it’s called PR doh!

As a footnote: I rather hope that the person that tried to nick my lovely fashion accessory in Wimbledon on Saturday didn’t get her mitts on one today.

The joys of the job interview

I don’t get nervous about job interviews any more, for heaven’s sake I’ve been to loads but today I encountered new areas of job interview weirdness. The first was at an interview where I realised pretty quickly that I didn’t have the skill set for the job and - more importantly - I wasn’t particularly interested in acquiring said skill set. So dutifully I reported back to the recruitment consultant and head off what I thought would be the inevitable rejection. A few hours later I got the call that they loved me and thought I’d be really good at the job - go figure.

So on to the second interview which had to be the oddest ever. No chatting about my experience, career to date la la la. No, instead I was treated to a list of very peculiar questions. Well they were okay questions and required me to be quick thinking, demonstrate knowledge and show examples etc BUT it completely ruined any flow. It was like boxed ticked, move on. V odd. The problem is I’d really quite like this job. I have no idea how I did because it was so odd. Oh well I’ll just have to demonstrate patience (not my strong point) until I (hopefully) get some feedback.