Yey!!

It's not an exciting thing really, but...

I'VE GOT A JOB!!!!!

It's the thing I've been thinking about for so long. And now I don't have to worry about finding a job anymore I can enjoy everything else that previously I've felt guilty about doing because it wasn't job searching. phew!

I start on Tuesday at HSBC offices in Human Resources. We'll see what happens...

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The Dubious Hat

Yes, that's right. I have a dubious hat. My little sister gave it to me last Christmas. It is a knitted beret, with a fleece lining, and is patterned with green, turquoise, mustard, olive and blue. In theory it is a perfect choice for me, and my sister said she bought it for me because it was all the right colours for me. And it is... It's just... Well I have pictures to show you...


...you see, it is a hat that I find very aesthetically pleasing, but it also looks like a cushion cover.

However, no matter how I try to wear it, it looks totally absurd... for example...

...the jaunty angle... ridiculous...and impractical.

Then...

...the over the ears look, which is actually most comfortable, but which is frankly rather old-ladyish and disturbing. This may also be due to the face in that picture, but the hat really does do it all by itself.

I have also tried to wear it in the style of Jenny Agutter in The Railway Children, which makes me look like I've got a dinosaur crest...

I think it might be because it's octagonal. I put it on before going out, and then chicken out of wearing it. It is a very silly hat...

Is there any way to make it less weird?

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The Power of Facebook

Facebook has been in the news lately, warning us that we may all be laying our sorry selves open to identity fraud. I can't honestly see who might be interested in using the details I've included seeing as they are mostly ridiculous, but the identity fraud thing is one of the reasons I resisted it for so long. I also have been known to avoid buying/taking part in/wearing/reading/doing anything that I feel people are doing just because everyone else is doing it.

I avoided facebook for a long time, simply because everyone was on it and I wasn't, but alas, I gave in eventually. The initial experience of finding all kinds of people on Facebook and being able to talk to them and find out about how they're doing was exciting. It's nice to update the pictures you have in your head of people you knew from years back. It's also borderline stalking, considering you can look up people who have a less than favourable presence in your memory banks and see if they look as worse for wear as you hope they do. But my discovery has been better than this.

I have all kind of memories of people at school, who at the ages of 13, 14 and 15, were capable of what I remember as being indescribable cruelty. I was picked on because I wore Clarks shoes instead of Kickers, which were cool but expensive beyond what my parents would allow, I carried a denim rucksack which I decorated with fabric paints instead of a record shoulder bag like everyone else. These crimes of taste and my comparative quietness and sensitiveness meant I was pretty much a sitting duck for verbal, flicking and pushing attacks and all kinds of one offs such as torn up paper dandruff dropped on my head!

Grudges had built up in my mind primarily because of the other kids' behaviour towards me and my friends, twinned with the fact that they were usually seen as "spirited and lively characters" who got good grades and were teachers favourites, and so never got what I felt should be coming to them. (I fantasized usually at least a good verbal dispute where I could tell them how morally pitiful they were, triumphantly winning back my dignity, which would stump them into respecting me forever - LAME!!! of course it wouldn't have worked. I would have been toast.)

But Facebook has enabled me to see how everyone has leveled out, and how my status, such as it is, is totally different. We're all equal, and people who I thought were totally unaware of my existence have turned out to remember me better than I remembered them...which makes me think that I possibly wasn't so great myself, maybe too wrapped up in avoiding the people I was afraid of to notice that there were plenty of other nice people. So I'm quite pleased Facebook exists, because it has let me put my stupid and frankly absurd bruises from the past behind me, which is a blessed relief.

Next post to follow later... brace yourselves to give me fashion advice... hummm...

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Remember Remember

I have been to two Firework displays this weekend of 5th of November, and it was marvelous. On Saturday we went to Mayflower Park, a rather fairground dominated fireworks display, but it was great being by the waterfront and watching the fireworks set off from a barge on the estuary. K and I went along with some friends I made when I started going to Highfield Church, so it was a rather organised evening, and we ended up going to someones home for hot dogs and cheesecake and tea. Jolly good I say! I am particularly fond of this photo......because it came out just how I wanted, which is a rare occasion. In the distance is a cruise liner (if she's famous I know not) but her siren was let off to signal the beginning and ending of the display. The fireworks we saw weren't the official ones: they were being saved for monday night... ...which is when I went to a bonfire party with Elina, who plays in the orchestra I've just joined. We had mulled wine, corn on the cob, and toffee apples... and some Halloween hang-on's made an appearance...

There was a proper bonfire, and a somewhat disturbingly well thought out hanging and burning of the guy...

...here, Guy is dragged to the fire on a chair, which was not really for any reason except that he was a rather fragile, newspaper Guy...

...so fragile in fact that his body didn't make it to the hanging... his burning head can be seen swinging from the washing line while his legs are in the bofire...
...kind of sadistic really, which is something I've always thought about this bizarre tradition we English keep up. Burning ephigies usually happens just once, in protest rioting, along with burning of the flags of enemy countries. I wonder why this particular event turned into an annual one night of subdued political triumph and parade for something that happened in the 17th century. It was also a weird evening because I only knew one person. Such is life when you move somewhere new. I really love talking to new people though, as there's really nothing to lose...

Alas, it is my bed time...

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Bad News for My Teeth

As an add-on to the previous post, we didn't get any trick-or-treaters at all. I kind of panicked and sent Mr K out to buy plenty of chocolaty goodness as I thought we might get at least two little oiks at the door as although we live in a student area, there are plenty of well-kept family type homes around here with inevitably young enough children. But alas, the trick-or-treaters missed out cruelly in that case by not knocking on our door, but now we have rather a lot of sweets to eat. So, here, in the form of a montage, is the range of marvelous chocolate creations we have in our cupboard.Mmmmmm... As I say... the trick-or-treaters missed out...

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Temping, Pumpkins and Cats

Just to explain, blogging about anything at the moment seems pointless, mainly because I am finding life a bit dull. I live in a great flat, in a nice place, with a supportive allbeit strange flatmate,(:oD) but I'm still feeling kind of useless because of my lack of purpose. It's ok to be out of work for a few weeks, but now it's starting to feel like sending off for things is a waste of my time. There are plenty of people who have said to me that getting a job after Uni is difficult and that I shouldn't feel bad if it takes a while.

My new job seeking tactic is to sign up to temping agencies, and also to look for a couple of days work to fill in some of the time I've been spending humming and hahhing about not having work. I went to the doctors, partially to ask if there were any coping strategies she could recommend to help me feel better about the situation. To my surprise she has recommended I see a counselor for a couple of sessions. It's weird to think that's what I might need but I think maybe it actually might help. I'm prone to being a little sad at times, and with nothing to do I guess I have time to think about what makes me sad, which is currently my lack of work. It's easy to work out what's wrong, but not quite so easy to solve the problem alone.

On to more jolly things though, as I am currently really quite a jolly lass, I went to a Halloween Party. I had planned to go as a pumpkin, purely because I think it's a fairly hilarious concept to walk around for a few hours as a giant orange vegetable. I was all for making my own costume, so I went to B&Q to try to buy one of those paper lantern lampshades that cost about £2. I wanted to get the biggest size so that I could cut the bottom and top off and somehow fit myself inside with some ribbon to make shoulder straps and paint it. Marvelous fun would have been had. However, although they had one the right size, they wouldn't let me buy it as it was for display purposes only. This was a sad turn of events, but I decided to walk back to the other end of Portswood road (the longest road in the known universe, or maybe just in the UK) Alas, I ended up buying a hairband, some black and white felt, and black insulation tape, and making a cat costume instead. Simple but effective.

Turned out the theme of the Halloween party was not just scary Halloween cliches, but more generally, political incorrectness, one of my favourite party themes *SIGH*. Therefore, rather tasteless costumes were on display. Kieran's "Zombie Kieran" costume (which was really quite awful) and my cat costume rather paled in comparison. For example, one guy was dressed as a Marlborough cigarette box with the label "smoking makes you live longer" on it, another was dressed as Freddie Kruger, and another was dressed as something I won't spell out that involved wearing orange overalls. Maybe my costume could have been changed to "objectification of women", but I fear I wasn't showing enough flesh to justify that one.

I'll see if I can put some pictures up later.

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