Work and Play

Not much has been going on work at the moment - just a lot of training and sitting around. Unfortunately, I seem to have started work at the wrong time, what with Xmas just around the corner.

Ho hum, at least it hasn't been too stressful - my body is slowly adjusting to having to get up early - i haven't had problems getting up, but I find that my energy levels in the afternoon are pretty low. I've been living on Red Bull but I don't want to make it a habit!

Saturday, we attended Josephine's birthday party and it was an excellent night out. The food at Cubana was amazing (shame we didn't know the proper name of the dishes - somehow we managed to translate a dish into "Jamacian pattie"!). I'm very much looking forward to seeing the photos that Josephine took! Also, I wish I could have drunk a bit more - going to the blooming bar was a nightmare - it took ages to get served!

p.s Josephine's colleague is luvely! :)

Poker

Hehe, I had a fantastic night of poker on Saturday night - managed to double my stake at the game at Mike's house. I think the credit maybe due to the fact that I didn't drink that night!

If you've been to Mike's house, you'll know that he has the best collection of booze in the world! For someone who likes a drink, its like someone handling you the keys to a bank!

Anyway, come Saturday afternoon, I was slightly dreading the game as I thought I would walk out penniless. But come the game, I managed to stay composed and on top of my game. I knew that watching those late night poker games would pay off!

p.s you looked lovely on Saturday, Jo!

Oh well, bring on 65!

Well, looks like this is my last day of "freedom" - I start working on Monday.

Its so strange that I was quite happy to be unemployed until around August, and then it suddenly hit me that i missed working. Ok, its not just the work aspect, I guess I missed the social aspect too - talking to my cat is fine, but there's only so much conversation I get out of her.

I also think that being away from people has dented my social skills a little - I find that I talk less now to my friends and that I'm less inclined to go out and have dinner and drinks. The act of having a shower and getting changed seemed like such a hard thing to do - "Oh, I'll do it a bit later on".

I'm not saying that having a break isn't a bad thing - I didn't get to finish college or go to University, so I've been working from the age of 18 onwards. But I think my break may have continued a bit too long!

Kingston is a great place to work - the Bentall Centre is a very good shopping centre, and there are also loads of major stores around it. Also, our car park is literally a 10 second walk to the office, which is a major bonus!

Relevant Lessons Of Life

I watched School Of Rock on Sunday night, and i thought it was a great movie! While I'm not a great rock fan, I have been known to play the odd Air-Guitar from time to time (isn't it just embarassing when someone catches you doing that!!)

Just got me thinking about my time in school and how I wished I had a teacher like that, who tried to share a passion of something (music) to their students. I personally think that I learnt nothing relevant to life from school - everything I know is self taught.

• Lets use Maths as a starter. There are some people who want to measure the strength of a geometric triangle, but what use is that? I'd rather know how many litres there are in a pint so when we switch over to Euro measurements, I won't be ripped off. In my day, Maths was such a general subject that embraced all the disciplines - geometry, algebra, statistics, etc etc. Why couldn't they have given us a choice instead? For example, split the subject into different disciplines - all those who want to learn the geeky stuff can study it as a standalone subject. While those who want to learn Maths relevant to life (how to calculate APR so you won't get ripped off while working out your credit card statement) could study it as another subject.
• I learnt to play the violin at school. It was either that or learn to play the piano. Thats it. And you didn't have a choice either in what you had to play. I think its such a shame because if I was given some input in what kind of music I wanted to play, I would have chosen more modern pieces, such as The Beatles or maybe The Who. Probably this is one thing that may have changed in recent times, I don't know.
• Oh ok, this one is a bit silly, but it still bugs me even know! I'm quite a fast reader, and I was probably one of the fastest readers in the school. Everyone I was a book work who loved reading. In English, we had to review a book, and because there weren't enough books to go round, we had to share with the guy next to you. And who do I get stuck with? A guy who reads a page per hour! It took him forever to read the book (The Hobbit by the way) and by the end of it, I was ready to eat the book to kill myself. I mentioned this to the teacher and that maybe we should swap partners, as it wasn't doing either of us any good. Teacher looked up at me and just said no. Grrrrrrr!!
• We had the worst library in the world. I'm sure that the local prison had a better library system than us. Yet for some reason, my school could afford to own a playing field! It wasn't just books that we were short off - there was a lack of computers (its a miracle I even passed my GCSE Computing, I barely saw one at the time!), a lack of teachers (loads of substitues all the time), and the furniture was purchased sometime during the reign of King Henry the Eigth! But hey, at least we had the prestige of owning a soggy playing field!!

Conclusion of all this? My kids are going private.

Start Date

Surrey County Council have finally given me a Start Date of Monday 11th December 2006.

Finally!

Not going to say too much about this online, but lets just say I'm not happy at how long this has taken.

Anyway, I have a nice new wardrobe to impress my fellow civil servants. Its strange because for the last 15 years, I have had to wear a suit, hence there was no need to plan what i was going to wear.

"Lets see now, the blue suit or the grey suit"

Now, it seems that i've stepped into a woman's nightmare now! Doubts have been entering my head like;

"Do my shoes look too casual?"

"Does this shirt make me look like someone from the Scissor Sisters?"

"Why can't white jeans come back into fashion?"

Hopefully, i've managed to buy stuff thats both casual and formal at the same time.