Masterpiece

Tut! It's been a week again. Bad blogger!

It's been a heavy week, because I've been working my butt off to get my last assignment done in between shifts at work.

But behold! 'Tis complete!! (Although technically I also have to finish off the 750 word rationale that is supposed to accompany it, but shhhh.)



It took ages to get it to look right and stupid Publisher was annoying me because it refused to print without white borders (why? WHY?? Probably now someone will comment telling me exactly how I could have overcome that particular difficulty).



But actually, Publisher was nothing - N.O.T.H.I.N.G - compared to the problems I had at the copy shop! For one thing I was charged an unbeliveable amount of money which, despite me having shown them my student card, I don't believe for one second they actually gave me the discount, but just tried to get as much money out of me as possible.



Not only that, but because the Publisher issue meant I had trimmed the edges and therefore the double pages were slightly less than A3, the kid who served me copied them so that the pages didn't actually align on each side. When I went back he reckoned he was going to charge me again, but I nearly broke down in hysterical tears and the new copies came free of charge after all. Of course, this was after I showed him how, if you line the fold in the centre of the page up to the halfway mark both times, then both sides will be aligned. How clever! What genius! How ironic that I apparently know more about photocopying than someone who actually works in a photocopying shop, who told me that the only way to line it up was to scan it into a computer and print it out at £10 A SIDE! and that if he didn't push the paper right into the corner of the photocopier it wouldn't copy. SURPRISE! It did. Clearly I am a photocopying genius and should give up my teaching career to join the lofty heights of copying. Judging by what they charged me, I probably would actually make more money!

The logic of fools

So, Friday night Milly and I were having some people over. We went to Asda to get wine and nibbles and a few other essentials we would need during the week - as we frequently do, Asda being the biggest and cheapest supermarket nearby.

We got to the checkout and divided our stuff from the trolley, splitting the stuff for that night so we'd each pay for a bottle of wine and a couple of bags of crisps. Milly's stuff was put through first and I went to help her pack and fit it in the trolley, which we had already loaded up with our purchases from other shops.

As the cashier scanned the bottle of wine she turned and asked us both for ID. It's pretty much a nationwide policy to check for ID if the person looks under 21, even though the legal age for buying alcohol is 18. I can't really decide if I'm flattered or annoyed at being asked for ID now that I'm 26, but I got out my driving licence anyway and showed her. Milly had forgot hers and she rifled through her purse trying to find it to no avail.

"Don't worry," I said, "I'll pay for the wine."

"I can't sell it to you," said the cashier. "She hasn't got ID."

"But I have," I replied. "You've just seen it. I'll pay for the wine."

"No I can't let you do that. I need to see ID from both of you. It's the law."

"It's NOT the law!" I raised my voice a bit, uncertain if I was actually correct.

She called her supervisor over.

"We have to see ID from both of you," said the supervisor. "You can't buy wine for her if she's not got ID."

"Fine," I said, "but I can still get the bottle of wine I was planning on getting, right? The one that's with all my shopping here?"

"No, I can't let you buy that either."

"Why not? I'm 26 years old and you've seen my ID, why won't you let me buy a bottle of wine?"

"Because you're together and she hasn't got ID."

"Right, so if I load all this into the car and come back in on my own, with my ID, then I can buy some wine."

"No, because you've just been refused."

Steaming and wineless we left Asda. I spent a while Googling when I got home because I could not believe they had refused me just because I was with Milly (who is, incidentally, 21 and more than old enough to buy alcohol even if she did forget her ID). What if I'd been with a child who obviously wouldn't have been old enough? Would they have refused to serve me if I'd come in with a little kid? Then again, children are allowed to drink in their own home at some ridiculous age over here. I think it's 5 or something. So I could well be buying alcohol with the intention of giving some of it to a child. Plus, my understanding is that if I were to ever have a moment of stupidity and buy alcohol for some of those kids who hang around outside off-licences and try to get adults to buy beer for them, I'd be the one who was liable for prosecution, not the shopkeeper who sold it to me.

And how long would I have had to wait before I could go in and buy alcohol there having been refused? If I'd driven the car away and come back 2 hours later would that have made a difference? They can't possibly refuse to serve me alcohol in Asda for the rest of my life because I once tried to buy a bottle of wine with a 21-year-old who didn't have any ID. Plus, there are so many checkouts at Asda I doubt they would have even realised if I'd come back in and gone to a different one.

Google didn't tell me anything conclusive, but nowhere did I find proof that an adult should be refused because they are with someone who may be underage. I know we have a dangerous culture of youth binge-drinking in this country and I think it's great that supermarkets are joining the fight to somehow prevent it, but there comes a point where it really has gone too far.

Organisation and communication: a study

A year ago this Friday I went to bed like normal. At around half past two I was woken by the piercing scream of the fire alarm. I lay there for a moment, my sleep-fuddled brain trying to process what was happening. I figured someone in one of the other flats had burnt some toast or something dumb like that, but the alarm persisted so I figured I should get up and see what was going on. I went to flick the light on, but when I hit the switch nothing happened. Odd, but I barely gave it a second thought, still semi-dozing even though I was on my feet.

I went to get my dressing gown as it was bad enough to think of facing my neighbours looking as rough and half-asleep as I did, let alone wearing my pyjamas. I opened my bathroom door to take my dressing gown off the hook on the other side of it and was enveloped by a thick cloud of black, toxic-smelling smoke. Through the haze I could vaguely see what looked like flames. I may or may not have said a couple of four-letter words and ran to get my phone. I called the fire brigade as I ran down the stairs, trying also to tell my neighbours over the screech of the alarm that it was a REAL FIRE, as they were tutting and shaking their heads at the fire alarm panel because it wouldn't reset. Well, duh!

So the fire brigade came and did their thing and I was homeless for three weeks while my flat was repainted. The damage was minimal really, but one thing that did get badly damaged was my ICT coursework, which was lying on the living room floor - open and almost completed - at that point and got trodden on by several firemen.

I got an extension on it, no problem - no one can really say anything to you when your flat's just caught fire - and I handed it in in April I think as I had to start again from scratch.

Skip several months to early September, when I'm waiting for my results to come back. Just before the beginning of the new academic year, the university sends you a sheet of all your results, saying whether you passed or failed and therefore, whether or not you may continue into the next year of study. When mine finally came through, it said I could continue into the second year, but that I had failed ICT.

I couldn't believe I had failed it, as although it was quite long and boring to do, it wasn't really that hard. I was annoyed, but rang the university to arrange to pay to retake the module and then emailed my ICT tutor to ask for my work back so I could see where I needed to improve.

He emailed me back almost straightaway to say that I hadn't failed, he just hadn't marked my work yet! He had mislaid it, but he'd just found it and would mark it as soon as possible. I couldn't believe it, but waited patiently for the result. A few days later he emailed me to let me know I had got 69%. 1% away from a First. Pretty good really. So I rang the finance department back to let them know I had passed and didn't need to retake the module, therefore, shouldn't have to pay the money (which was £100 in case you're interested).

They said they couldn't take my word for it, but said the mark would come through the system from my tutor so I left it. A month or so later I got a letter from the finance department, asking for at least half of the £100 for my repeated module. I rang them and explained the situation again and was told to take it up with my tutor.

I spoke to my tutor again and he assured me he had sent the mark through, but would chase it up. I thanked him and got on with my school placement.

In December I got another letter, asking for my LATE payment of £100 for my repeated module. So I rang the finance department AGAIN and told them the whole story AGAIN and was AGAIN told to take it up with my tutor. So I emailed him AGAIN and he took the name of the person who had written to me and emailed her personally, cc-ing me and my personal tutor. He apologised but explained that there was a huge amount of bureaucracy and red tape between himself and the finance department but that he really hoped it would get sorted this time.

Today I went to the computer suite to go online during my 3 hour break between lectures, but coulnd't log on. I asked at the desk and when the lady there tapped in my ID number she told me there was a block on my account. I had to go to the Registry to hand in my Ed Studies assignment anyway, so I figured that while I was over there I'd ask what was going on.

But when I tried to hand in my coursework they wouldn't even let me do that because of the block on my account due to an outstanding £100! They referred me to finance and I went over, nearly in tears from frustration by this point and spoke to the lady at the desk, again explaining the entire situation. She took my name and ID number and the name of the module, spent 10 minutes or so on the computer and maybe 2 minutes on the phone and sorted the whole thing out. I handed in my coursework and went back to the computer suite to look at cars on autotrader.co.uk.

Now why couldn't they have done that back in September?!?

Don't forget you can still delurk! You have alllllll week :)

*drumroll please*

I GOT THINGS DONE TODAY!! I know, shock horror, please no one faint. Today I have:

• Taken notes on the autism books I got out of the library
• Done even more ironing (and yet still the pile seems to get no smaller. I have enchanted laundry!).
• Done a whole pile of washing up that has been in the sink for way too long.
• Gone for a walk in order to not be a total slob and actually get some form of exercise today (I considered going for a run, but really, let's not get too carried away, eh?).

Anyway, that's actually pretty much all I've done, but it took a long time, so there. I also managed to sleep through meeting my friend for breakfast. That was quite an accomplishment. Apparently, when I set my alarm last night I managed to turn it off by accident and without realising. Yes, the same alarm I have had for about 3 and a half years and have used every day since then. I woke up at 20 past 10 when my friend text me to ask if I was on my way as I was supposed to be there at 10. OOOOOOPS!

Tomorrow I am meeting another friend at lunchtime (aha, can't possibly sleep through that one!) and going out with some other people in the evening, so I need to ensure that I once again have a PRODUCTIVE day and do some USEFUL things.

I have made a decision about moving. And I have decided to go ahead and move in with the girls. Which feels a little scary, to say the least, but I think it'll be good. As trite as it sounds, I think it is character building to live with other people and put up with their habits and idiosyncracies. And have to deal with their reaction to yours. But it all got a bit crazy because I spoke to the girls just before Christmas and they said their landlord wasn't happy for me to move in after all because I'm just a student and don't work. My lack of a steady income beyond my student loan would put his insurance up apparently. Anyway, it finally all got sorted a week or so ago, with the landlord agreeing that I could live there but not have my name on the contract and so I got a text message saying it was okay for me to move in. On the 10th February.

THE. 10TH. OF. FEBRUARY!

That is just over a month away! So alongside having to get this assignment done, there is also a lot of practical stuff I need to get on top of and don't even get me started on the state of my car, which the garage have pronounced "unfixable" WITH THE SAME PROBLEM THEY ALLEGEDLY FIXED BY REPLACING THE ALTERNATOR A COUPLE OF MONTHS AGO!!! Or whatever, not unfixable, but fixable at a price WELL over the value of the car, which equates to the same thing really.

So I need to sort out a whole load of stuff in order to move, like, for example, what am I going to do with my cooker and my washing machine and my sofa? And do they have broadband, please say they have broadband. Part of the point behind breakfast this morning was to chat about details like this with one of the girls I'm going to be living with, but of course I had to pick today to have a complete meltdown in terms of alarm clock operation.

So I still have lots to do. But the excitement doesn't even end there because I got back from my walk to find two of my neighbours in the lobby because the fire alarm kept going off. Every time they reset it, it went off again, which, you'd think, would indicate an actual fire, but the light was flashing to indicate a fire in the communal area, i.e. where we were standing and there was a surprising lack of fire or smoke. So we ended up calling the landlord so someone could come out and reset it properly, and setting the alarm to "silence" which is a lie, because it still beeps quite loudly every 5 seconds or so, but not as loudly as the piercing squeal of the actual alarm.

Anyway, the day's not over yet, and maybe I will attempt to convert my copious and illegible notes into the beginning of a legible leaflet. Or maybe I'll just do that tomorrow.

Talkin' 'bout procrastination

That whole efficiency thing I had going for a while? Yeah, that was just a phase. Regular service has been resumed. I am hopelessly inefficient.

I started my 7 week block placement today and realised I hadn't yet made contact with my Link Tutor - the guy who has to come in and observe me teaching 3 times over the next 7 weeks. We were told to make contact with our tutors over a week ago. Oops!

Also I was supposed to have read through the school's policies and medium-term plans. Yeah, didn't do that either. Also I need to purcahse some kind of sandwich filling this evening, otherwise my sandwiches are going to be pretty, well, empty and tasteless tomorrow. I feel so disorganised that I don't think I will ever get organised. It frustrates me so much.

But school was fun. One of the kids has this weird patch shaved out of the side of his head. The teacher and I were debating whether or not he'd had a lobotomy over the holidays, but it turns out his dad accidentally left the cover off the clippers and instead of giving the kid a number 2 all over, gave him a 0 in this one single stripe, but then the kid's mum wouldn't let the dad do 0 all over, so the rest was done as usual with the clippers on a number 2. But the poor kid has this practically bald patch. It does look funny.

I got to leave pretty early as my teacher had netball club after school so there wasn't much for me to stay for. Instead I got to deal with the crazy people who drive down the country lanes I have to take to get to school. It's insane. Most of the lanes have a 40mph limit, which personally I think is crazy as they are rarely wide enough for two cars to comfortably fit down side by side and are full of blind corners that are so sharp you have to take them in 3rd gear. And yet some maniacs still whizz down there at 40, practically taking my wing mirror with them. Not to mention the idiots who seemed to conveniently forget that when a car is parked on their side of the road I have right of way, but just continue bombing it down the road, swinging out around the parked car and nearly plowing into my front bumper. Get off the road, morons!

Well I'm going to sit down and have a cup of tea and then try and get something productive done (we'll see!) before I have to go out again. I've been going to a new church for a couple of months and one of the girls there invited me out for dinner. I'll check back in later if I have anything interesting to say.

The politics of friendship

My friends are nagging me to go out with them tomorrow night. Now, don't get me wrong, I love my friends and love spending time with them, but there are two major flaws in their plan.

First of all, I am broke. Seriously broke. They have offered to lend me money, but it's a bit dodgy borrowing from friends isn't it? Plus, I am a nightmare for impulse buying and spending beyond my means and it's about time I had a word with myself and only spent money I actually have. (It's gonna be tough, but I'm gonna try!)

Secondly, the are going to a town near me, that I wasn't going to name, until I realised that I've tagged my two nearest train stations at London Bloggers so my location is hardly a secret. Even less so now that I've just announced to the Internet where they can discover my nearest two stations...as if you'd want to anyway.

Okay, that was a bit of a crazy run on sentence wasn't it? I'll try to do better.

Anyway, so my friends are planning on going to Bromley. Ugh. Why? Why? Why? Would anyone want to go to Bromley on a Friday night? Bromley is the nearest town to us with anything vaguely resembling a club, although in this instance these premises are best referred to as "the fiery meat markets of Hell". The only reasonable alternative for a night out beyond sitting in a pub (which, by the way, I'm more than amenable to, pubs are good, if not too smoky!) is London, which, although it isn't far, does tend to cost the gross domestic product of a small country if you want a good night out.

Not improving much with the run on sentences. And I allege to be good at English. Pah!

So yeah, I love dancing. A good night out dancing is one of my favourite things. But I don't do it often because London is expensive and Bromley.....O Bromley, why must you be so wretched?

Maybe it's because I'm getting old now (or older at least), but Bromley on a Friday night just does not hold the appeal it used to. I don't know if I've changed or if it has. It's possibly a little bit of both. But these are some of the thrills you can look forward to on a night out in Bromley:

• Being groped, fondled or otherwise inappropriately touched on several many occasions
• Breathing air composed entirely of cigarette smoke and evaporated sweat
• Being surrounded by 14 year old girls in boob tubes and skirts that show their buttocks
• Being surrounded by chavs, as this is what the majority of the population of Bromley is comprised of
• Having at least one person drunkenly fall on you
• Wondering what would happen if someone committed a crime somewhere other than the High Street as the entire Metropolitan Police force of Bromley gathers to deal with the drunken fights.
• Having overpriced, greasy kebab-shop wares flung at you for no reason (yes this actually happened to me once)

Understandably I really have no desire to go, but I don't want to offend my friends or have them think that I look down on their choice of venue. If they want to go, they are welcome to and I won't judge them for it. I just don't have the temperament to stand it without getting irritated. I hope they can appreciate my feelings and not think I'm weird for preferring to spend my Friday night alone in front of the telly, than amongst drunken idiots (other patrons, not my friends - haha).

I am the lizard queen! *

* First person to correctly identify the quote in the title wins a year's supply of Cillit Bang. Why Cillit Bang? Because it is funny. At least, it is funny to me in my sleep deprived delirium.

It is possible, perhaps, that I am a little off the planet, having amassed an impressive 1 and a half hours sleep last night (or really it should be this morning as I drifted off around 9). Actually, it may be 2 hours if you include the half hour I snoozed the alarm. Which I don't. Because really, sleep that only lasts 10 minutes without interruption is really not worth counting.

So I got up at around 10:50 this morning. Mostly because I had a training meeting to get to this afternoon, but also because this whole being awake all night thing? Yeah, it's wearing a little thin.

So I crawled out of bed, bleary eyed and requiring vast amounts of caffeine and managed to make myself look semi-presentable (if you ignored the suitcases under my eyes that concealer just would not, like, conceal!). I walked down the road to the bus stop because due to complicated travel arrangements I had to meet a friend of mine in the next town, where she would have her car and then she would drive me, and others to and from the meeting, dropping me home afterwards.

I hate the bus. The bus sucks. But at least I got to chill out with my iPod and try not to fall asleep to the gentle roaring of the engine (which I decided to sit above, smart move). The worst thing about the bus, though, is the old people, who get on in their droves and then proceed to give me the dirtiest looks ever because I haven't given up my seat for them, even though there are like, 5 other empty seats all around!! At one point I looked up and they all seemed to be really scowling at me and I was all like What, my iPod is NOT that loud! But afterwards I looked at my phone and saw I had a missed call and realised that was probably what the evil eye was all about. At least when my friend calls me my phone plays 'Get Happy', which they should appreciate, it being an oldie and all, and not some crazy techno hiphop concoction that exists solely of swearing and sexual references, like the phones of most teenagers seem to these days.

(OMG I'm getting old!)

More disturbing than the assortment of moody old biddies on the bus, however, was the old guy jogging down the road. He wore nothing but a pair of fetching blue shorts, ensuring all who saw him got a perfect view of his saggy, jiggling man boobs. I think I just threw up a little in my mouth.

The training meeting was good. It's training for a charity I sometimes work for as a volunteer, who do assemblies and RE lessons in Primary schools. We were discussing the things that influence today's children - good and bad - and how this affects our work within schools. It was a fascinating discussion that brought up some interesting points of view, but the highlight for me was my friend's story about her little boy.

We were talking about the pressure children have to face these days that wasn't so prevalent before the National Curriculum, such as the fact that 7-year-olds have to take SATs. Her son has just gone into Year 2 (the first SATs year) and his teacher sounds like a bit of an ogre who is convinced she can make her whole class achieve level 3s (what the average 9-year-old achieves). A lot of the children in Dan's class have felt the pressure and there have been a lot of tears by the school gates in the morning. Apparently Dan was praying the other night, before he went to bed and said, "Dear God, Please give me a sore throat so I don't have to go to school tomorrow."

My friend said she was so shocked by his ability to think this through that she just went, "Errrr, amen!"

Kids say the funniest things!

Well, I'm off to wallow in my sleep-deprived delirium some more. Hopefully I will actually sleep tonight!

Oh that's so much Beta

Conversation between me and a 13-year-old girl:

Her: Have you got that new MSN Beta?
Me: No. And it's pronounced BAY-TAH.
Her: Oh, I thought it was 'better' like when you text and you're like, "r u feelin beta now".
Me: No, it's not better it's beta. It's the second letter of the Greek alphabet.
Her: Oh right. I thought it was called Beta cos it's, like, better.

It was an amusing discussion at the time. And now, woooo, I've upgraded to Blogger Beta. Note to self: Beta DOES NOT mean 'better'. ARGH!!!

Does anyone actually understand XLS or whatever. I tried to put HTML tags in there and it was all "Erm, excuse me, but what do you think you are doing, sullying our beautiful XLS with your cheap and basic HTML."

So I was all like, "But I don't understand XLS. *sob* My knowledge of HTML is basic enough, dating back to when I made that David Duchovny fan site (that totally rocked) when I was 16. That was like, 9 YEARS AGO, people."

"Well your rudimentary HTML is not welcome here, please use our drag and drop layout editor instead. Even you can use that without too much trouble."

Well yah boo sucks to you Blogger Beta. You are annoying. And I will find a techie XLS-knowledgeable friend to help me too. Until then, my header will look a bit crap. Sorry people.

Water palaver

I am now in the last few weeks before I get the first installment of my student loan for this school year, so I'm sure you can imagine the current state of my finances. That's right, they are redder than Ronald McDonald's hair.

So imagine my dismay when I discover Thames Water have upped my monthly water bill from £17 to £47. Honestly, forty-seven pounds! So I rang them up to query this insane amount of inflation and was informed that as they bill from an estimate, it appears they underestimated my water usage from last year and so are billing me to make up the difference. But that increase seems ridiculously high. The woman I was speaking to asked me how many people live at my residence and I informed her, "Uh, just me."

Even she was shocked that one person could apparently use £47 worth of water every month. I swear I don't know how they could have come up with that estimate. I'm rubbish with washing and I always leave it festering in the laundry basket for AGES before seriously overloading my poor washing machine.

Well, she agreed to lower it to £30 a month for me (thanks so much!) and basically if at the end of the year when they actually check the meter I've paid way too much, they'll knock it off my monthly bills from next year. Great!

Until then I have to fork out £30 each month when I'm a poor, penniless student. This whole grown-up, independent, financial responsibility malarkey sucks!

If I had a hammer...

So. Apparently I look like a 15-year-old!

I went into Wilkinsons today, to buy a hammer. I wanted to hang a picture, so I needed some picture hooks and a hammer as I lack even the most fundamental of tools. So there I am, perusing the fine selection of hammers available at Wilkinsons, when I'm approached by a security guard. "You want something from there?" He asks with unnecessary incredulity.

"Yes, I want a hammer."

"What you want a hammer for? You got ID?"

"ID? For a hammer?"

"Yes, ID, you have ID?"

I have a brief flick through my bag. "No, I don't have ID. But I'm 25. I didn't think I'd need ID. Especially just to buy a hammer."

"Well, it's the law that they will ask you for ID if you try to buy that. It's against the law. We have to ask for ID."

"Well, I'm 25," I insist, somewhat taken aback to say the least. "Anyway, it says there that ID may be asked for if you're trying to buy knives, blades or solvents. It doesn't say anything about hammers."

"Hammers are weapons. You could hammer someone over the head with them."

"Yes, but it doesn't say on the notice that you need ID to buy a hammer, it doesn't say there's an age restriction on that."

"You need ID."

"Fine, I'll get my hammer somewhere else."

And I did. Woolworths, as a matter of fact. And the lady who served me there didn't bat an eyelid when I placed my hammer on the counter in front of her. What is up with the world?