So, busy busy times. I’m not even sure if I can remember everything that happened last week, but I’ll give it a go.

Sunday (ok, so it’s not technically last week, but the week before) - I went to see Becoming Jane with Laura. It was surprisingly good, and I was pleasantly suprised by Anne Hathaway’s acting – she’s amazingly good outside of her usual clumsy nerd(ish) style roles.

Monday – I spent the day working on my essay. It was Vitushni’s meal for her 21st birthday that night though. I got to catch up with the other Laura, and I met some fun new people, and the food was good too. The only downside was that is was absolutely freezing waiting for a bus afterwards. And I got to bed quite late considering I had to be up early…

Tuesday – I got to work about 9 am, only to be told to go and write my essay (!) Yup, Jenni messed up and forgot that work had been cancelled so she could write her essay :S Still, I went to the library and wrote a kick ass conclusion, and spent time working on my essay without the distraction of the Internet. After lectures/seminars, I went to see the head of my Medieval Studies module for a dissertation meeting – she was very nice and very funny and I felt a whole lot more relaxed about the whole thing. We have to be approved for our dissertations, and it depends on various factors that we can’t control, at the same time.

Wednesday – That morning I had a seminar, then a coursework meeting for Drama, then a meeting with my tutor to discuss module choices for next year. Luckily as I was walking out, Hwan-Min saw me and gave me a lift home, where I made a few small edits to my essay, printed it off, and then he drove me back so I could hand it in at about 2 pm (deadline was 3:30 – probably the closest I’ve ever come to not being on time, lol). That night Hwan-Min, Richard, Lara, Reena and a few others had a BBQ. Alana made some really nice spicy chicken kebabs on skewers with veg. to take with us. It was pretty damn cold, and it started to get dark sooner than I expected as well, but it was nice catching up with some people I’d not seen for a while

Thursday – I went swimming with Laura in the morning and then had lunch with her. After that, I went to my lectures with Sarah. And then to the library to write my dissertation proposal and hand it in (I still have no idea why that took me an hour and a half when it should’ve taken about 20 mins). And then that night we went to the theatre to see a play called The Kiss for our Drama assessment. Lots of good acting, and it was only an hour and a half so it managed to keep my concentration.

Friday – Day off – no lectures (thank God!). I can’t even remember what I did all day, but it didn’t involve work. That night was Kerry’s 21st birthday party, and I got chatting to a cool gay guy called Nick, who has a hatred for the same people on my course that I do (that sounds kind of mean, but seriously, if you don’t know these people you can never understand!!!)

Saturday – Home for the weekend; my sister’s birthday was the following Monday (i.e. 26th), and she’d planned a BBQ for that day. I meant to get an earlier train, but after cleaning the house and tidying away all my essay stuff and packing, there was no way I was going to make the train I wanted to get so I got a later one. It was cold so we ended up eating inside, the food was great though, and my mum had done loads of extras like dressed tomatoes and different kinds of rice and potato salad and stuff, so it was good.

Sunday – We were supposed to be having a family meal and trip to the cinema but it didn’t happen because my dad ended up working, so *shrugs* I think I played a lot of Wii (especially Zelda) instead.

Monday – Lara’s 16th birthday, and the official start of my Easter break. I got her a limited edition collector’s Dr. Who plate, a Torchwood poster and a Nightmare Before Christmas keychain/pendant thing, which she liked. She didn’t get loads of presents because her main one was a trip to New York with my dad (they wanted me to go, but my sister goes absoutely insane in America, I’ve never seen materialism like it, so I declined – plus, I have another 4 essays to write over Easter).

Since then, I’ve been chilling out – literally, our boiler broke and keeps breaking in different ways. Well, that’s the official story, but the real version of events is that my dad’s friend clearly can’t fix a boiler to save his life and needs to be slapped rather hard. So it’s pretty cold, and taking Pom out actually keeps me warm so I’ve been doing that rather a lot (particularly as he was pining for my dad when he left and refused to eat – he seems to be better now though). I’ve also been working on a couple of essays in a very relaxed, not very productive way – so I could do with stepping that up a bit I guess. I’ve also been spending some quality time with my mum No real plans for the next three or four weeks as yet, except Nando’s with some of my old college friends on 2nd, which will be great.

So over the next week and a half, I have to:

- Finish (and submit) my 3,200 word essay

- See 2 plays and make notes on them

- Put in a hell of a lot of hours at work

- Do a group work assessment and submit it

- Decide on the modules I want to take next year and fill out various forms

- Ask for advice on my dissertation proposal and fill out that form

- Go to Kerry’s 21st party

- Go to Vitushni’s 21st meal

- Go and see Becoming Jane with Laura

- Sort out all my stuff for going home for Easter

- Go home for my sister’s birthday weekend

- See my tutor (bless her)

- Do all the preparation needed for another 4 essays and an exam.

I really, REALLY don’t think all of these things are going to happen and I’m mildly worried…*shrugs* Oh well.

I’m just so annoyed right now for so many reasons.

Actually, it all boils down to the same reason; that people are wasting my time!!

1. So apparently I had to throw together some kind of essay plan really quickly for one of my tutors because she didn’t have faith in me to write an essay on Blake. BLAKKKKEEEEE. Never mind that I have studied him in great depth for a year of my life (ok, to be fair she wasn’t aware of that), and never mind that I gave a kick ass presentation on him and know rather obscure facts about him, down to his dislike of semi-colons, she still has to see that I’m ‘on the right track’. And it’s all been rectified now – at least at her end, since she is safe in the knowledge that I have some ‘good ideas’ – but my dignity took a hit.

2. The most bizarre waste of time award goes to… Strange Fish, the production we watched a video of today. Until you’ve watched a symbolic/interpretive dance involving lots of pebbles, people in platinum blonde wigs, sex, and a half naked lesbian anorexic Jesus on a cross, you really haven’t had your time wasted effectively. 

3. I went to see Hot Fuzz last night, and was mildly appreciative until about an hour and three quarters into it, when the screenplay writers clearly decided that they were bored with dialogue and had constant and implausible shooting for much of the rest of the film. Plus, they emphasised the ‘Englishness’ a bit too much – hardcore stereotyping, deliberate over-emphasis of things such as money, etc. Added to that, I also noticed a couple of bizarre things – for example someone says ’squiffy’ (meaning drunk) instead of ’skew-whiff’ (meaning mixed up), and the police officer says ‘real good’, which isn’t English. The fact that I got home at like 1 am and then had to get up at 7 am did not put me in a good mood either. So, yes, silly waste of time, albeit mine/Hwan-Min’s fault.

4. I ordered a book on Blake from Amazon, from a marketplace seller, specifically because they said they ship 24-48 hours after receiving the order. 6 working days later, no book. I emailed them and got an auto response telling me to put ‘zebra’ in the subject if I wanted a human response, and telling me they deliver in 5 working days (wtf?). I email, and finally get a reply saying they shipped it on the 5th and to wait till the end of the week. Okay, either they a) haven’t dispatched it yet and are lying to me or b) despite the ridiculous amount of postage I paid, they haven’t sent it first class. I *need* this book you morons, that’s the last time I buy from you.

5. Okay, so since I apparently haven’t been degraded enough by the whole Blake thing, I went to my training session at work today, and got ‘taught’ image mapping. And how to use the strong tag in HTML. I cannot remember the last time I was so insulted…OH WAIT, MAYBE IT WAS THE BLAKE ESSAY THING. So basically I got paid about £3 ($6 USD) to sit there and be taught implementation, image mapping, and incredibly basic HTML very badly. That being implementation they have already trained me in several months ago, and image mapping and basic HTML I taught myself about six years ago. The worst thing was that they had two other people there, neither of whom had any experience with any of this stuff whatsoever. And to be perfectly fair, if I had no idea and I’d had that guy trying to teach me, I would be tearing my hair out/going ‘buh?’. But they were rather optimistic and were like, yeah I’m sure it’ll be one of those things you start doing and you get the hang of. Good luck to them.

Of course, it would’ve made a hell of a lot more sense to group the people that had no experience with the people who are familiar with this kind of thing (i.e. me). And on top of that, it would’ve made more sense to actually show them what to do and then made sure they were doing it properly when they actually came to work, rather than doing a separate training session way beforehand when the program script isn’t even ready yet, which made it more confusing. Because they are just going to have to go through it again when people actually sit down in front of the implementation stuff and completely freak out. Which would’ve saved them time and money, but hey, you know, my opinion clearly doesn’t matter any more. Side note: apparently if I work weekends I get an extra £1.50/hour ($3 USD). I’m still considering holding out for double. After all, my time is really precious, despite the fact that people seem out to get me to waste it.

So. I really need to get started properly on my essay tonight, even though I’m irritated and exhausted. My family sent me a ‘care package’ with a photo cd, a booklet of wii games and accessories, sweets, pencils and chewing gum which cheered me up a lot when I got home So maybe I will chew some gum and get down to work.