Thursday 26 May 2011

Dent in the bank balance

Well I was going to do a bit of descriptive writing today about the wonderful bike journey I make to and from work, and all the interesting things I see, but to be honest getting around on my bike today was bloody horrible.

Usually I take a nice leisurely ride into work, with a route through my local park, but there was such a storm force wind that I was riding into this morning that it made it horrible. It doesn't help that I have to tackle two fucking massive hills on the way into work, which is tough enough on a calm day. Trying to do that while riding into the wind was nigh on impossible. I was pretty much broken by the time I arrived at work at 7:30am.

After a day being out in PE and getting caught in a couple of showers, there was finally a break in the cloud at 3 o' clock and I thought, shit yeah I should make it home in one piece and miss any more rain.

Sadly mother nature had another idea and five minutes into my cycle home it pissed it down. Seven minutes into my ride I was soaked right through. I arrived home feeling pretty cold and disgruntled, but I'd booked myself in for a (long overdue) hair appointment, so had that pick me-up round the corner to make up for the fact that I'd been pissed on all day.

Got hair done, felt awesome, nice treat. Then needed to run an errand to my favourite cake shop in Soho, and while I was there I decided to indulge myself and get one for me. It's a chocolate cake with a penis on top. Only in Soho!

Leaving the cake shop I then spotted Ann Summers and thought, ahh sod it, I'll just have a look. Half hour later I possibly walked out with more items than I meant to - as in I didn't intend to spend anything - but fuck it. I hardly ever treat myself. I'm now trying really hard not to think about how much I've spent this evening, and to help me forget I got myself a chippy. Was soooo good.

I'm so used to scrimping and saving that I've forgotten how to indulge myself sometimes and I hate the pang of guilt I get after it. Even though I pretty much live hand to mouth at the moment, I am only 24 and I need to be able to enjoy some little things using the money that I work hard for rather than having to spend it all on rent and bills.

From here on in I will say YES to little pleasures and occasional indulgence!

Rose C

Wednesday 25 May 2011

Mayonnaise on toast does not taste good

Hectic times these last couple of days and there's been some frickin' awesome stuff going on, as well as some slightly less enjoyable realisations.

So lets get the down stuff out the way first; basically I don't think I'm going to be able to cross off Go to Australia from my 2011 list. Complete arse, but sadly me and The Boy didn't budget for the crazy ticket prices that the month of August seems to carry with it. Boo and hiss, BUT on the upside we've decided that we're going to take a little jaunt to Edinburgh.

You may be thinking "God, that's not nearly as exotic," but I'll have you know that I've never been to Scotland (or Ireland), so I'm looking forward to it. The cherry on top is that we'll be there during the Edinburgh Fringe and my lovely housemate is gigging up there so we'll get to see the shows she's written and directed. Very exciting.

Onto the frickin' awesome news: the first bit being that I've finally been assigned to a media studies class that I can work with each week. Like I said in an earlier post, going back and working within secondary media studies means I get the chance to completely geek out and with a bit of luck the kids may even learn something too!

Also, within the next month I will be able to cross off Have a feature/article commissioned by a publication because I've been asked to help out and write for a friend's new magazine. I'm jumping straight back into the health & beauty chair, much like my Scarlet days, and I feel like I'm being the most creative and proactive about my writing career than I have in ages. I'm loving it and I've barely even begun! Hopefully I'll be onto something good with this and then bigger life/career decisions may become apparent.

Loads to do and deadlines already looming, I'll try to post again soon, but advance apologies if it's another day or so before we chat again.

Rose C
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Monday 23 May 2011

Sitting under a monkey blanket

I'm in a bad mood today because I'm ill. I have a wonderful house mate, who I often share things with, like dinner, DVD's and funny anecdotes, but now she has decided to share with me her horrible head cold that has made my sinuses hurt, my nose run, my throat close up and my ears continually pop. Not a happy bunny right now and I've always been a terrible patient, but rather than let this anger go to waste I thought I'd try and channel it into something more useful and get a few things off my chest this weekend that has also worked me up into a rage... 

So it was supposed to have been the end of the world this weekend (May 21st), but unsurprisingly we're still here. The world didn't implode, hell-fire didn't rise from the depths of the Earth, and flesh eating demons didn't materialise to rip us limb from limb. This isn't the first time that Nostradamus (or whatever prophet it was that said the world was set to end on May 21st) and his religious, scare mongoring cronies have got it so wrong, however there are still those niaeve beings that believe it despite there being no shred of evidence apart from maybe a few miss added and conincidential numbers taken from the Bible that somehow adds up to the date given.

One such man was a street sweeper in NYC who spent $80,000 of his hard-earned, saved up money on publicising the end of the world. I can imagine he maybe got a little bit excited when he heard about the volcano in Iceland going off, but by the 22nd he must have felt pretty bloody stupid, and in my opinion rightly so. What a complete mug, but as he's American I've little doubt that he won't somehow find someone to sue and get his 80 grand back to flit it away on the next religious fad. Has anyone told him about Scientology yet...? 

Even though the world didn't actually, literally, end, it kind of did die for me a little bit this weekend.  Apparently it wasn't just prophets that were talking out of their arses, it also happened at the BAFTAs when rhyme and reason went out the window and The Only Way Is Essex (TOWIE) actually won an award: the YouTube Audience Award. What are people thinking?!

Now, I've tried to watch this show, as a couple of the house mates are fans, but after five minutes I found myself shouting at the TV at the sheer falseness and stupidity of the pople on the screen.

I was quickly asked to leave the room.

To see such complete materialistic airheads win an award for badly acted scenes about high-school type arguements, is demoralising. I can't understand how this constitutes as entertainment? It's not reality TV as it's all staged so it's not like we're getting an insight into a way of life, but it's not a soap, because even by soap standards the level of acting in TOWIE is fucking diabolical.

Already feeling like hunality was down the pan, when I returned home I found the housemates watching the spin off, Made in Chelsea, which only deepend my dispair (I'm not even over reacting to how much I hate these stereotypical, debasing, dross programmes). Like it's predecessor, this one was also full of truely horrible individuals that have more money than sense and are the kind of pretentious fuckwits that you wish you could lock in an Aldi just to watch them squirm as they're faced with the torment of being surrounded by unbranded goods.

In this episode I learnt that men should only have long hair if they can look after it, that they shouldn't put in-the-closet gay men on TV and then try to convince us that they're dating attractive model-like women who oddly looks very similar to the 'gay' guy in the first place. Oh and that onesy's for men should be officially against the law and whoever thought giving a knitted adult baby-grow to a man is better than perfume/aftershave, should be shot. Men should also take note that asking a girl if they're single or not within 2 minutes of being set up on a blind date is a bad idea, and no man should ever turn up to a lunch date in an oversized knitted polo jumper that's as long as a dress, and play the grand piano because it's honestly cringe worthy and she didn't even notice you playing anyway, instead she looked more pissed off that she was possibly being stood up.

All I learnt from Made In Chelsea is not to go to Chelsea because the men appear to be as sleezy as fuck. I dread to think what the upcoming Geordie Shore (I shit you not) will have in store, but you can fucking believe I won't be sat quietly in the living room watching it. 

RoseC

Wednesday 18 May 2011

Super Scrimper

Has anyone see this Channel 4 show? It's all about people that know how to do things on the cheap, so they become 'scrimpers'. It seems like a really good idea for all those people, like myself, that generally find themselves short on cash and this prog shows you how you can save a few pennies here and there.

My initial reaction is this is great, the general public's wacky ideas on how to save money like using a child's toothbrush because they cost about 20p, or using odd socks to make them into sweat bands, or even hanging old curtains over your original ones when the weather starts to get cold, all seem quirky, but quite clever. That's all very well and good, but if you've paid through the nose for some designer curtains that specifically match your carefully picked decor then you don't really want to be hanging grotty old ones over the top just to save you a few pennies.

What gets me is that all the people on there are upper-middle class, so they can probably afford to not penny pinch in the first place. So it's maybe not that they're 'scrimpers', it's actually that they're tight. For example there was a family on there that were all penny pinchers - the father made a mud guard out of guttering for his mountain bike, the mother made a model village out of old bits and bobs (ok, that was pretty impressive), and the daughter made some tea-light holders using jams jars and some wire. All very resourceful I agree, but as my housemate very rightly pointed out if you were broke why would you waste your money buying tea-lights in the first place? And if you can afford a mountain bike, that probably cost at least £250 if not more (and it did look like a decent one), then why on earth can't you spare the extra fiver to pay for the mud guard? Slight contradiction I think.

Having said all that, we were addicted to the little old dears ingenious tips and tricks to save a few quid here and there. Am such a sucker for crappy TV!

Till tomorrow...

RoseC  

Tuesday 17 May 2011

Back in my day...

Since escaping my last job I've been working in a secondary school as a teaching assistant, as some of you may or may not know. A lot of the time it can be quite challenging, but I do enjoy working with the kids - or I should say 'young people' to be PC - and it's funny when I have days that totally take me back to student-hood and remind me so totally of what it was like to be a student because I was the same. Today was one of those days.
All of my time is divided between science and PE, but on the very odd occasion I get to help out in a year 10 media studies lesson. Obviously I love this because it's my subject and I really get into it. In today's lesson the class was watching Psycho, which I studied virtually scene by scene at A Level and it's easily one of the most amazing slasher films ever made - not just because it was the first, but because of the skill in all of the direction. It's one of those movies that I can completely geek out on when it comes to film analysis and this is exactly what I found myself doing in that year 10 class. It took me straight back to the days when we looked at it with my (amazing and fantastic) media teacher and as today's teacher, Mr Davis, addressed his class asking them questions about audience, camera angles and mise en scene it took all my professionalism and restraint not to start waving my hand in the air and scream out the answers!

I think possibly the kids picked up on my 'enthusiasm', but in a good way because it got them asking questions about what I knew and hopefully they'll have taken some of those points on board. See, here's me doubting whether I want to do the whole teacher training thing, and I have to admit that it's little moments and lessons like that which make me think fuck yeah I could totally do this and actually be good at it. Still though, part of me is determined to be the best media teacher I ever can be and I think a big part of that is having the experience of working in the industry. I always planned to do my teacher training, just not so soon and I think that's something I really want to stick to.

Still, today it made me feel good and reaffirmed that eventually I know where I want to end up.

After media came science and today's topic was alcohol and the effects it has on your body. Now here's a topic I know well! "Oh, sorry, what's that Miss? You don't want drunken anecdotes told to the kids? Right well, I guess that's me out then!"

Ha! Just kidding, I'd never tell a bunch of 14 year olds about that time I fell down the stairs naked with toothpaste dribbling out my mouth...what?

No, no, I was much more teacher-like and we went through all of the risks and dangers of alcohol and how it can pickle your liver to the point that you can't drink anymore because it'll either kill you or you'll end up needing a transplant. My favourite question in regards to having to give up the drink was this:

Student: "Yeah but if you can't drink then that's just really boring."
Teacher: "Possibly, but being dead is even more boring."

A fair point well made I think and maybe, just maybe if my teacher had given me that bit of advice way back when, then I too may never have tasted the amber nectar....Yeah ok, I'm not convincing myself either.

What really threw me back to student-hood though was the discussion about the state of today's alcho-pops. Gone are the days of Hooch and Bacardi Breezers because apparently the flavours are "rubbish", it's now (apparently) all about blue WKDS and Smirnoff Ice's, although one girl admitted that stout was where it's at. Yeah, I was surprised too!

Whatever the beverage though under-age drinking is REALLY bad and I in no way condone it.

On the other end of the spectrum, today I re-experienced that nervous exam feeling which always made my palms break out into a sweat. I was never all that great at exams mainly because I'd find myself pushed for time, or I'd waffle, or I'd end up reading over the same bit several times and crossing it out before re-writing it. Probably not much different to how I write my features and articles even now. Hm, that's possibly something I should really combat.

Anyway, it wasn't even me sitting the exam today, but I still got that same knotted feeling of tension in my stomach and found myself constantly clock watching, trying to time each question as the minutes ebbed away.

Now we've hit May GCSE season has just kicked off and as a teaching assistant we're assigned to read or scribe for certain students. It's always really difficult doing this because these are kids you've worked with and supported in lessons and you want to see them do the best they possibly can, but of course you're not allowed to lead them in anyway. If they go off on a tangent and tell you they want you to write about blue elephants doing circus tricks in an RE exam, then you've gotta even though you get that sinking feeling and wish you could just drop one little hint. I guess though, essay-tangents are more likely to occur for those students that have to dictate as it must be harder to form a whole essay answer in your head and keep the flow when you're having to stop every two minutes while my poor, aching hand tries to keep up. Definitely hats off to them. *Sigh* but at the end of the two hours what can you do other than try your best as a scribe to get down as many of their ideas as you can.

So, time's up, pens down and I'll see you all next lesson.

RoseC

Monday 16 May 2011

Nothing better than a good book & a cuppa

Hmm, so I feel like today's post might be a little bit of an effort as my fingers seem to be refusing to type the right keys in the correct order to make these things called words. I'm going to blame the massive curry I just ate that seems to have made my brain go all lazy.

Anyhoo, in more important news; today I made my second trip ever to the local library that I joined two weeks ago. I returned Iain Banks's The Steep Approach to Garbadale (good twist at the end, but if you're a Banks fan then you'll figure it out beforehand), and checked out The Black Tattoo by Sam Enthoven after a student recommended it. Review to follow soonish.

So, I haven't been a member at a local, public library for at least 5 years. Of course I was automatically signed up to my university library when I was a student, but that's different. There you're forced to join, and forced to use it or else you'll probably fail the course you're paying thousands of pounds for, and knowing that reality and placing so much pressure upon 'the books' kind of takes the fun out of it.

I feel now, however, that I'm over the scarring experience of the university stacks where you eat, sleep and breathe books and can actually get back into enjoying them. I'm also trying to make a conscious effort to rebel against these new kindle do-dad's as I'm a traditionalist and I like my books to have pages rather than just one screen. Anyone that knows me will see that I apply the same argument to my CD collection too, but how that's organised and categorised is a different story.

Since moving into my house I've been eyeing up my local library, but it's taken me since September to actually join. I can't actually believe it took me so long to do, but I partly blame it on there obscure opening hours as well as my laziness.

Usually when you move to a new place the only things you get to sign up for is the doctors and the council tax - neither of which are fun, but I had this total sense of geeky excitement when I got my library card and practically skipped home and paraded said card in front of house mates saying that I feel like a "proper member of the community now I've signed up." There's also still that air of pomposity about being a member of a library, that naturally comes along with books and being 'well read', even though this is a ridiculous thing to think in this day and age as books don't make you any more knowledgeable than logging on to Google. Still, I like to think of those connotations and stereotypes that if you've got a book in your hand then you look that little bit more educated than the empty-handed person next to you. We'll blame my middle-class upbringing for that one. 

Going back to my geeky excitement of being an active member of the community and using their resources, I guess that's what it's all about for me: it's nice in a city as massive as London that you can find some sort of place where you might actually be able to strike up a conversation with a stranger. God forbid you should ever try it on the bus or tube.

Originally coming from a small Leicestershire village, when I was younger the library was pretty much the centre of the community and everyone had a library card, and used the service, so you were more than likely to see friends/people you knew and end up in a conversation. That's hard enough to do in London, and I'm not saying I'm short on friends so I'm going to hang out in the library, I just think it's cool that they can still evoke that feeling of belonging to a community even in a place as big as the smoke.

My final geeky admission in this post is that I've always quite fancied being a librarian. In my gap year before uni I even went for an interview at a library but sadly got turned down because they wanted someone a bit more permanent. I remember feeling gutted at the time.

I'm not totally sure why I'd like to be a librarian? There's nothing sexy about it, like I don't want to be one of those that has the big specs and the tied up hair, then when I take the glasses off and let down my hair I'd be like a beauty behind the geek. I just like the sound of the combination of being able to chat to anyone and everyone and...well I'm not sure if there is an 'and', it more just boils down to me thinking it'd be a cool job and I like books and surely that's reason enough?

With that in mind I'm off to start the first chapter...

RoseC  

Sunday 15 May 2011

If you're not on the list...

There are two types of people in life: those that like making lists and those that don't. Ok, so that is a bit of a generalisation, very vague and a fairly inadequate way to categorise people, but for the purpose of this post I'm going to say you either fit into list-maker lovers or haters. Me, well I'm definitely in the former group.

Some say that people who make lists are just trying to put off the stuff on the list they need to do for longer, and sometimes they may be right - I've been guilty of doing that on more than one occasion, but there's one list I've made that I can't ignore.

I'm particularly into organising my life into lists at the moment I suppose to give myself some sort of structure when everything else seems a little bit chaotic. I swear I don't suffer from OCD and I'm not usually a control freak (although I'm sure my fella would argue otherwise), but right now jotting everything down that I want to get done seems to be a good way to keep myself motivated.

The most important one I've got pinned up on my board right now is titled (yes, you read that right I do indeed sometimes title my lists) 'Things I'd like to achieve in 2011' and has, at the moment, eight items on there of things I'd like to get done - or start to work on - before the year is out. My main reason for putting this together was because at the beginning of the year I was stuck in a job I didn't like and I kept talking about leaving and sorting myself out, but I never actually put it into action. As I'm not a psychologist I can't explain why then as soon as I put down on a list that I need to get a new job that I find interesting and fulfilling, it made it feel more official and I knew that if I didn't do it by the end of the year then I'd be a bit of a failure, I'd only have myself to blame and I'm all mouth. I guess I felt that if I wasn't actually doing anything about it then I had no right to complain about the situation I found myself in day after day. That went down as priority number one.

So anyway, I added a few more things that I needed a kick up the arse to do and put them down on my inventory and this is now how it looks:

2. Start a blog that's interesting, unique and reflects my writing style
   2.1 Define writing style
3. Go on holiday with the boyfriend 
4. Get fit
   4.1 Join a gym or class
   4.2 Walk or jog more
5. Go to Australia
6. Start to learn German
7. Have a feature/article commissioned by another publication
8. Go to Download festival to see System Of A Down play

So the last one was a bit of a whim and a bit indulgent as it won't improve my life long-term in any way, but I felt determined to see them although now that ain't going to happen as I have a more important engagement on the same day. Hey ho, maybe next time.

I'd like to think these are all achievable goals. Today I brought my bike down from Leicester to London so I can definitely tick number four off as that coupled with all the gym stuff I did at the beginning of the year means I've been able to work off the unhealthy lifestyle I had when I was a bit of a desk monkey and chained to my computer.

For two and three we'll have to wait and see, I don't suppose I've written enough on this thing to decide if it fills the quota of interesting yet.

Three may sound like a simple one to have on there, but until this year I'd never been away on holiday with a boyfriend. Crazy hey? So that was something I wanted to experience and so off me and The Boy went to Portugal and I discovered that going on holiday with someone you connect with so well means you have an awesome time - even if all it involved was lazing on the beach, drinking and eating. Astonishing that I'd never tried it sooner!

As for number one about the job, I guess that's the biggie. Although I achieved my original aim of getting out of the job I was in I still don't feel satisfied enough to tick that one off. Don't get me wrong my work as a teaching assistant is fulfilling in many ways and I enjoy it, but it's not the career for me, so I don't feel like I can justifiably cross it off yet.

Anyway, they're all the hopefully life/career changing things I'd like to experience before December 31st rolls round and with a bit of luck as this blog goes on you'll see me able to cross off the rest. For now though, the next thing on my slightly smaller and less important list for this evening is to cook me some dinner.

Bon Appetite!

RoseC

Wednesday 11 May 2011

The harsh reality

It came as a bit of a shock to me, but I have recently found out that I'm going through my quarterlife crisis. I didn't know it at first, but I am.

For some time I've felt rather unsettled in my professional life, not really knowing what I want to do career wise, having no goal or aim to strive for, worrying about money and how much I think I should be earning, and after eight months or so of having this neverending feeling of uncertaintiy as to what direction my life might be going in, I can catagorically say that I've had e-fucking-nough.

Having spoken to friends and peers it quickly became apparent that I wasn't the only 20 something to be going through this. It turns out that since being spat out of university and entering the big scary world of work, taxes and never ending bills, that quite a few of us have become bored, fed up and confused as to where exactly our lives are heading as we methodically go through our daily routines of getting up with a scowl on our faces, going to an unsatisfying job, and then returning home for dinner, TV and compulsory bitching about how bad our day was. Monotonous pretty much sums it up.

Not knowing why I felt like this when I should be excited that I've metaphorically got the world at my feet, only added to my frustration, but thankfully The Guardian has come to the rescue! I should have known from the start that this paper for wannabe yuppies like myself, was going to hold the answer to my career angst, and a wave of relief washed over me when I was able to self-diagnose that I was in fact going through phase two of my quarterlife crisis. Phase one is the feeling of being "trapped" in a job you feel you can't get out of. If you know me, then you'll know that I can definitely tick that box.

Phase two is a bit more severe though. This is basically when you're at breaking point where the temptation to turn round to your boss and shout "GO FUCK YOURSELF, YOU BIG....BLOody, erm, something!" before resorting to childish tactics of simply sticking your tounge out at them and skipping away while giggling manically and shouting "I'M FREE!" until the reality of what you've just done dawns on you and you have no other choice but to ring your parents  hoping for a bit of TLC, whimpering, and trying to explain to them that at the age of mid 20 something and after thousands of pounds worth of education you still have no fucking idea what you want to do with your life. So demoralising.

So this is basically where I'm at, apart from, of course, I've not and would not tell my boss where to get off. And the phone call to the parents didn't provide any much needed sympathy as my Dad saw fit to make it clear to me that yes my life is in turmoil but I better man up and get on with it because sometimes life is simply unpredictable and you have to ride the years of confusion and uncertainty before you can really get to where you want to be. 

So thank you Dad for highlighting the fact that I've possibly got years ahead of struggling uphappy years of work ahead of me with maybe the outcome of a happy ending, and thank you Guardian, for giving my so far angst ridden young career-life a diagnosis. It's not my intention to dwell on my lack of direction and money worries too much throughout this blog and part of the reason for me getting my arse into gear and doing this is so I've got some sort of escapism and giving myself a way of looking forward, but I guess it's always good to give the readers a bit of background.

Till tomorrow...

RoseC -x-

If you, or someone you know has been affected by this post and think you're experiencing similar symptoms of quarterlife crisis, then you can read the full article here. Enjoy! http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/may/05/quarterlife-crisis-young-insecure-depressed

Tuesday 10 May 2011

Popping my cherry

So here we go. I've finally had enough kicks up the arse to get my blog up and running. "About bloody time," you may be saying, especially if you know me, and if you know the number of ideas I've toyed around with and chewed over just to get to this point, constantly asking 'what exactly can be so interesting about my life that it's worth blogging about?'

The conclusion I've come to though is that I don't think there is anything highly significant going on in my life right now that would make this an amazingly interesting read, but I do have many dreams, aspirations and musings about things I'd like to do, or ideas about what I as an independent 20 something on a low income and living in the big smoke might like to do with her life.

Although the subject and thread of this blog isn't completely clear to me right now - it's more just a rough idea with a couple of splodges of inspired thoughts and a sprinkling of imagination and hopefully witty anecdotes of dreams yet to be fulfilled - I'm aiming that the more I write and explore my interests it will in time take form and become a string of coherent thoughts in some way or another. We'll see though. For now I'm just going to dwell in the happiness that I've managed to pop my blogging cherry and survive my first post!

Till tomorrow...

RoseC
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