Donnerwetter noch mal!!!!

Ah, such odd weather today. In the middle of the afternoon, it went really dark and still, it was very warm and dry and then Thor's stomach started rumbling.

Anyway, September is beginning. Oh dear that means I'll be 25 in six days. Ten years ago, I really thought I'd be married and stuff by the time I was 25 or at least be in some sort of relationship with a blokey. Alas, my life right now is pretty much the same as it was when I was 15, except now I have a pet rat instead of a cat and the bus fares are more expensive.

haha I've just been on the local news!!!

Just seen myself on TV. There was a camera crew in from UTV today filming and on the news just now I saw a close up of me showing people things on a map hehe. Ah I'm famous now. I was on the local news in Aberdeen briefly as well in my last job. And I was interviewed on UTV years ago at an exhibition I went to with my school.

I just seem to attract camera crews, they follow me around hehe

"Do they use British pounds in Scotland?"

Well we had a huge cruise ship full of Americans in yesterday and they were so ignorant. They are so demanding, they want everything done last week.

"Can we pay in US dollars?"

Yes, of course we'll take any old monopoly money!!! Why do they expect to be able to pay in dollars!!!??

"Excuse me, ma'am!"

They kept interrupting while we were serving people "I just wanna ask a question" "I just wanna buy this"

Get in the fucking queue. Read the sign, you wait until someone is free to serve you and they'll call you to their desk. Don't you know what a queue is!!??? Do we need to bring in a sheep dog to sort you people out!!!??

Everytime I was serving one of them, I got interrupted by at least three in the process and the ones I was with got grumpy cause I was interupted while helping them and then the ones that did the interrupting got pissed off cause I didn't drop everything and serve them immediately.

I hate being called "ma'am" I think it sounds rude and insincere.

I had a Black Books moment when a man asked about the Rotary Club in Belfast and where he could find it. Well I had heard of it, but didn't really know what it was. Anyway I looked up the phone book for him and there was no office of it in Belfast just a number for the Great Britain and Ireland branch base in England. Well, he wasn't pleased and insisted that there was one in Belfast. I mentioned that I hadn't really heard of it and then suddenly, he became a gale force wind of indignation.

He gave me a very loud lecture (people actually turned to watch) on the Rotary Club, how many countries it is in, how many members it has, what it does, that he was the vice President of the New York branch, all the wonderful stuff that Rotarians had done for charity and helping raise money for research into diseases etc........

"That's great" I said. "But it's not in the phonebook."

Well, he just went on with his little show anyway. I could almost feel the wind of fury blowing in my face and had to physically step back from this torrent of anger.
And when he'd finished his little speech, he just turned and walked away.

I felt like Manny when the customer yells at him to leave him alone cause he's just browsing. It was in fact pretty much identical to that. For a moment I thought I was in a sitcom or a sketch show, it was so very surreal.

Anyway I suppose the sort of Americans that go on incredibly expensive cruises are the worst type of Americans. Nearly all of them were middle aged and I got the feeling it was the first time they had left America. Apparently three quarters of Americans don't even own passports. I can't imagine never leaving my own country no matter how vast it is. No wonder they were so ignorant and full of the stupidest questions.

There were some that were ok, it was obvious they had travelled before and were capable of adjusting to their surroundings, but there were many who were annoyed they couldn't pay in dollars, were loud and pushy and were very insulting about our money, asked us twenty things at once and while we were answering asked another twenty and worst of all , they would NOT stand in a queue!!!

Well...........

Had quite a good day today. Working in town which was good because it meant I could go to the pet shop and pop into HMV on my lunchbreak.

When I walked into HMV Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Call Me the Breeze" was playing very loudly which made me smile alot as it is not a song that I have ever heard anywhere other than in my own room and from my own stereo. or in Jackie's room and from her stereo. Jax and I used to dance to it when we were pissed at uni, especially in first year dancing along the corridors in halls. Those were great days.

Also, when I walked into HMV, the three cds I wanted were right beside each other, so that was nice. That made me smile as well.

I got some more bird seed for my bird feeder and a natural logs thing for Henry. They are very cool, you can bend them and stuff. I shall have to take a picture of them at some point. I also got him a ball thing which you put treats inside. The idea is that he is supposed to roll the ball about to get the treats to come out the little hole. He doesn't seem to know that he is supposed to do that though. I suppose he didn't get a chance to read the instructions on the box before I threw it out.

BIRDS

I joined the RSPB a couple of months ago and only received my free joining gift about a week ago - a bird feeder. It was hard finding somewhere to put it because I wanted it somewhere I would be able to see the birds, but also somewhere the birds would feel safe. We put it eventually on one of the poles of the washing line by our kitchen window. At first, I was concerned that it was too close to the window and the birds would be afraid to come to it, but as these photos prove, the wee birds didn't mind too much. It's quite hard to get good photos because the zoom in the camera doesn't go very far and I didn't want to move too close to the window in case I frightened them off.

Anyway here are two visitors, the first we think is a Greenfinch although it doesn't look that green really. I'm not sure what else it could be. The second I'm pretty certain is a Coal Tit

Sunflowers

Well since Biscuits and Factobrunt have been talking about sunflowers. I decided to make my own sunflower contribution. I have delved into the family photo archive and found these two gems:

Me and my brother with our sunflowers. I was age 8 at the time.

and

A short time later.........Me in my Brownie uniform with the sunflowers.

Well I thought I had it sorted out!!

Bah!! I registered for those courses at the Belfast Institute today. Cost me £160 for both of them. I thought the OCR one I registered for included the optional modules, well that's the way it sounds on the website and on the leaflet. However when I got home and looked at the prospectus, all the "optional" modules are listed separately with separate prices and separate classes, so it looks like all I have registered and paid for is the basic Text Processing course and if I want to do Audio Transcription, I have to pay for it separately and go to a separate class for it. It's all very confusing and badly explained really!! Well, I really want the audio transcription one, so I'm going to have to phone up tomorrow and get the course changed. I don't want to pay for it as well as the text processing one. I'll already be doing six hours a week with the ECDL. I don't want another four hours on top of that!!

The only problem is that the audio transcription is only taught on a wednesday evening from 6 to 8 and I have my piano lesson on a wednesday evening. I'm going to have to try and reschedule that. Ah things are so complicated and fussy!!!

And there is a bloody helicopter making an awful noise directly above us again!!!! I think it's cause some bloke from round here was shot dead this morning because of that loyalist feud thing. Well he was shot at the other side of town. I think the helicopter is just hovering to look out for any signs of trouble. It's really starting to get on my wick though!!!

Well, I have just written the most boring and moany post ever!!!

I shall have to make up for it by posting some sort of amusing picture later.

A Walk

Today I went for a walk up the Cavehill with my dad. Unfortunately at the entrance was a group of white-tracksuit-wearing drunken teenage boys with what looked like a good few hours supply of alcohol. Well I wisely resisted the urge to ask them if they were taking part in the Daz Doorstep Challenge. They were swearing and shouting at people who walked past. Even without their loud obscenites, their very presence was intimidating. I had originally been going to go up for a walk on my own. I'm very glad dad was with me, I would have been quite frightened to walk past them on my own. With all the attacks that have been happening in Belfast recently, you just don't know what drunken brainless twats like that are capable of especially if you are a girl out on your own.

The most ridiculous, pathetic, infuriating thing is that as we were walking up the road to the entrance (which is a cul-de-sac) a police landrover had come down the road past us. So it was obvious that:
A) The police had seen these inferior beings and
B) Hadn't bothered to do anything about them. This is quite remarkable considering these youths were breaking several laws by drinking in a public place, causing a public nusiance, loitering with intent, Aggressive anti-social behaviour, damaging council property (Cavehill is owned by Belfast City Council) and dropping litter which is an offence (The place was strewn with empty cans and WKD bottles).

They were certainly worthy of an ASBO up the backside.

I don't know about other countries, but the police in Northern Ireland don't believe in upholding law and order, they believe in picking up the pieces after a serious crime is committed. They don't concern themselves until someone is acutally murdered or violently attacked. And even then they don't really try too hard to bring the perpetrators to justice. The police are in fact too scared to intervene to prevent crime from happening and it involves too much paperwork anyway.

I thought with the police force now having more representation from both communites (or is it "both sides of the community"? No-one seems sure!!) that things would change and they would actually DO something to protect people and keep order. But no, they are in fact worse than before!!! Unfortunately it seems to be institutionalised apathy. The police don't want people to hate them anymore so they don't do anything to upset people like stopping them being aggresive and intimidating people. I don't know why we have a police force really!!

Anyway, I was just utterly disgusted that those imbeciles were allowed to sit there like that by a public park where people go for a quiet walk especially families with young children. There were a lot of tourists there as well, I'm sure that gave them a great impression of Belfast!!!

Ah look, it's me at work......

As you can see, our uniform is incredibly sexy!!!

It has the amazing ability of making everyone look ten years older!!

lalalala

I feel I should post, but have nothing particular to post about.

Hmmm...I watched episode 4 of The Mighty Boosh last night and was a bit disappointed. Episode 3 is my favourite ever Boosh episode so far. If you go here and click to watch the latest episode, a box will come up and from there you can select to watch any of the episodes so far. I strongly recommend episode 3........ in fact you MUST watch it and come back here and we shall have a group discussion about its comedic and artistic merits.

Right I'll go back to my red wine now.

Piano Lesson Number 1

Well, I had my first lesson this evening. It was way over in east Belfast so I had to get two buses. The bus got me there 25 mins before my lesson was supposed to start and I didn't like to turn up that early so I wandered about for about 15 mins before going to her house.

I was quite surprised to see that see was very young, I think she's is probably a couple of years younger than me. I had imagined someone middle aged or at least in their thirties for some reason.

I'm looking forward to learning. Wish I had a piano or full size keyboard to practise on though. I need a bigger house so I can buy my own piano!!!

It was really warm here today and now it's gone all dark cloudy and oppressive ohhhh.... It's making me feel anxious and edgy. It's odd the way the weather can affect brainwaves and things.

Hmmm........

ME IN A PUB

.............and now it's time to say goodbye to our viewers in Northern Ireland

Biscuits and I were talking about old children's programmes and CBBC and The Broom Cupboard. Well, you may or may not remember (depending on how old you are) that after Newsround and after I think the thing that was on after Newsround, the presenter used to say "And now it's time to say goodbye to our viewers in Northern Ireland". Well you can imagine that, living in Northern Ireland I was most outraged by this. I kept thinking:

"What is the rest of the country getting to see that I'm not!!!???"

I just realised that probably everyone else was wondering:

"What is so great about Northern Ireland, they get to bugger off early? What are they seeing that we aren't!!??"

Well, I can't actually remember what we saw. I'm thinking it was probably extended local news since we had more things happening here and needed more time to report them. I'm pretty sure we had Neighbours at a different time than everyone else as well which also could have something to do with it. I do remember on a few occasions, not getting to see the end of the programme after Newsround because programmes were running late and we had to switch to BBC Northern Ireland. It was most annoying.

Anyway I'm not quite sure what the point of this post was. But for those who do remember The Broom Cupboard and for those who don't, it's worth taking a look at the aforelinked to site:

The Broom Cupboard

It's very comprehensive. Would be very useful if you were, for example, doing a degree on The History of the Broom Cupboard or if it was your chosen specialised subject on Mastermind.

Anyway if you can't be bothered with the reading of the words, just look at the pictures and scroll down to the bottom and check out those hairstyles!!!

Auntie Emma

This is my favourite photograph ever, me with my baby nephew!!

Ah, a useful life.

I finally feel like I'm having some form of life now, or about to. I'm at last starting driving lessons tomorrow and piano lessons next wednesday. I'm applying for two courses at the local tech: European Computer Driving Licence (I know it sounds silly!!) and some OCR thing levels two and three. I can't remember the proper name for it, but it has options to learn audio typing and legal administration which will be useful as I'm considering being a legal secretary or paralegal type thing. The ECDL one is a general qualification of computer competence and is nearly always asked for in library jobs which I'm also interested in. It is also an easy way to prove I can use Word, Excel and generally can use a computer. It doesn't seem to be good enough these days just to say you know how to do these things. They want certificates to prove it. I hope I can get to do at least one of these. Both would be great though.

As well as all that I'm going to Curves almost everyday. I was going to put a link to the Curves website but it's so hideously American and cheesy that I won't inflict it upon anyone. I like the 30 mins move round in a circle excercising thing but I'm not bothered about how it gave Tanaya her self-esteem back or how it's changed Dani Miller's life or that sort of thing. The website's all like that with cringeworthy quotes and lots of unnecessary huge smiles from women with big white teeth. It is quite funny to take the piss out of it, I suppose, ah here you go then: Curves

So there are useful things I'm doing outside of home. I'm trying to make myself do useful things inside the house as well. This may sound rather insane, but I'm going to draw up a sort of useful activity plan thing with stuff on it like Read a book, read mediaeval history magazine, watch German TV, read up on musical theory, play keyboard/guitar/tin whistle, read over History of Art notes etc........ things that should hopefully get my brain back to where it was. Since I left uni and especially since I've been in this crappy job, I've started to notice that my brain cells are dying. I've forgotten pretty much all of my degree, I find it hard to concentrate or get motivated, I make constant spelling mistakes and I always had immaculate spelling and I've also started to forget where I've put things a lot.

This, I feel is all due to brain inactivity. I'm not going to make a timetable for my "useful activities" or anything cause I'm just useless at sticking to them, but I'm going to list the things under each day of the week and tick them when I actually do them. I'm not even going to give myself a specific time frame for the things either. Perhaps I should give myself a gold star if I do four things a day and if I do more than four I could eat a Mars Bar haha. Hopefully having a nice shiny list will just make me do the things.

Anyway, word of the day is USEFUL

The Driving Lesson That Never Was

Well............I was all geared up to have my first driving lesson at 3pm today.

No instructor appeared at 3, no instuctor at 10 past or 20 past!! So I called the driving school and the woman said she'd call my instructor, Tommy and call me back. She called me back a few mins later and said Tommy had tried to call me yesterday to tell me he wouldn't be able to get me until later today.

Well yesterday I had a missed call on my phone while I was at work from a random mobile number. I texted and asked who it was. No reply. Two hours later they rang me again but I couldn't answer the phone because I was at work and I texted telling them that. I heard no more from them.

Well, anyway, it was obviously this Tommy who had called me. He hadn't left a voicemail or bothered to text me.

Anyway, the woman said Tommy would call me in ten minutes.

Forty minutes later, Tommy hadn't called. I rang the driving school again. The woman said he had left a message with someone last night to ask me to call him. Mum and dad were in all day and no-one had phoned. Anyway, she gave me his mobile number and I called him.

He was so incredibly evasive!!! He said he wasn't able to take me on a lesson today. He said something about not having his diary with him today so he couldn't call me. Yet he spoke to the girl at the main office and she could have given him my number!! He also told her he would call me in ten minutes despite apparently not having my number.


I said "The woman said you left a message, who did you speak to? "

He said "I was trying to get you on your mobile."

I said "Yes I saw I had missed calls but no voicemails. You should have left me a message."


He said "Sure don't worry about it, I'll give you a call in an hour to arrange another lesson."


Well I sort of said ok grudgingly, but was really unhappy about it. I didn't like the way he had been so unprofessional and obviously evasive and I felt no confidence in having him as an instructor.

My mum, who is very good in these situations, phoned the driving school, told them I had to go out and explained I was very disappointed and unhappy with this man and that I would like another instructor.

So I have an instructor called George now on Wednesday at 3. I hope he's more reliable!!

The annoying thing is I've already paid in advance for 10 lessons, that's £180!! I thought the driving school would be fine because they are a UK wide company. Mum just spoke to someone whose son had trouble with this company as well.

Anyway, if anyone wants to avoid this company, they are called Acclaim.

Strange

I've just seen two army landrovers going down my street very slowly which is something I've never seen before.

Very odd. I got the feeling they were looking for someone.