Let Down.

This is going to be a rant-y post.

We'll consider that fair warning. If you choose to read onwards of this point, well, you do so at your own risk.

I've been let down. And I'm really pissed off and disappointed about it. I suppose that I should give you a little of the premise before I start complaining about my friend. Here goes:

Lizbean is a friend from my first university. We get along famously. We made friends in the back of the university transport bus after a shift in Bully's (one of the shops we both worked for) while discussing blow-job techniques. We've been fast friends since that very day, and although we sometimes "differ" and have tense conversations, we've never actually fought. Not that I can remember, anyway.

Two years ago we went on holiday together, with five other people. There was myself, Lizbean, Ali, Riann, Zara, Ian and VJ. Lizbean was friends with Ali, who was friends with Zara and Ian. Riann is Zara's little sister. VJ was my friend from uni. That's how we all came together. Well, everyone fought. VJ left early (mostly due to her mother being unwell, but other things too) in the most extreme case. Lizbean and I didn't. We haven't seen each other since we parted at Rome airport, although we talk often.

A few weeks ago, we planned a weekend away to Amsterdam. She is coming here on Thursday, and then we're taking the ferry to Holland on Friday. We have a few hours in Amsterdam on Saturday before we re-board the ship and arrive home on Sunday. Originally Lizbean would stay with me for another night, but she's actually going to go straight from the ferry to the train to return to Bournemouth, because she has a shift at work on Monday and a lecture she can't miss.

The trip is really cheap. We got it for £56/each on lastminute.com. We've both been looking forward to it for ages, and it was going to remain cheap because a friend of mine at work also works for one of the train companies. That is, Prancer. She's a Train Manager, and she can get tickets at 75% off. She offered me this option before the trip to Amsterdam was even a twinkle in my eye. When Lizbean and I first came up with it, I asked Prancer whether she could arrange for Lizbean to have these 75% off tickets because without that discount, it would be prohibitively expensive for her (and for me, because I would obviously pay for half of her travel).

Prancer said, "no problem." Her actual words. Weeks ago. More than a month. For days now I have been trying to get in contact with her. I have texted her -- and she always replies to texts -- and have received no reply. She's out-and-out avoiding me. I have a shift with her tomorrow night. It's from five o'clock til half-past-eight, and we always do that shift together; every week. It's our shift. Every single member of the FoH team knows that on Tuesday evenings, Prancer and 'Ren get together and they clean a single gallery from top to toe.

I just have this feeling that she's not going to turn up. Now, we have an agreement that if one week, one of us can't do it, we're to let the other know. So I'm either going to get a text from her half way through the day, or she's just not going to turn up.

The problem is, Prancer is trying to earn as much money as she can at the moment. Her boyfriend is Peruvian and has gone back there for five months. She's planning to go and see him half way through his visit, in January, for a month. She's saving to pay for her flight. If she doesn't turn up, she will be missing out on 3.5 x £8.68 (£30ish). That might sound like only thirty quid, but for three hours of cleaning glass and hoovering, it's a good deal. Especially when you literally live in the street behind the museum as Prancer does, and don't have to pay any travel costs.

So she may turn up. And if she does, it's going to be awkward as hell. I'm going to be annoyed at her for ignoring me, and she's either going to be a) "I don't see what the big deal is," b) "Sorry, ----excuse----," or c) "I don't owe you anything, why are you being snappy!"

Well, I disagree. As my friend, she owes me honesty. And common decency. The least she could have done was tell me there was a problem, so that Lizbean and I could have budgeted for this. As it stands, I'm going to have to take an extended lunch break tomorrow, losing wages, and pay £85 directly into Lizbean's bank account, so that we know she can at least afford to get here.

If Prancer turns up, and if she can still get the discounted tickets, she will have to go and get them herself while I'm at work on Wednesday, and post them to Lizbean for me. And then it will be like she's doing me a massive favour when really she's only pulling me out of a hole which I'm only in because she let me down!

Grrrrrr!!!!!!

Growing Up.

So, it seems as though I'm growing up. I'm not convinced that it's been a conscious choice, but -- all the same -- it's been happening lately. The biggest step is that I'm in the midst of preparing to move out of my family home and in with my hairier half.

Shh, shh... stop telling me that it's about time. God damn, I know that. I've had everyone telling me for ages, and it's nearly always the first thing someone says to me when I tell them the news.

Yes, we've been together five years. Yes, we've been engaged for three almost. What's your point?

Be quiet and let me tell you about my new flat while I listen to Hey There Delilah, the song that plagued my 2007.

A few weeks ago, the boyfriend asked me whether I felt ready to move in with him yet. I've been saying no for the past two years, trying to put it off. I'm not sure why. I think mostly it's because I wouldn't have been financially independent, and I would've felt as though I owed him something. That's not the case any more. I'm earning plenty. Certainly enough to pay for my own keep, although to be fair, he is paying most of the up-front costs. So far.

We started looking, and we committed the ultimate property sin...we fell in love with the first place we saw. It's in Monkseaton, which is a dormitory town for the city of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and it's a two bedroom flat in a new-build apartment block. I say "new build," really it's been there for four years or so. It was being built when Peter and I started seeing each other, when he still lived in Monkseaton himself.

I don't think he's realised it yet -- and if he hasn't, I'm waiting until we've moved in to tell him so -- but the window of our front room will literally look over the exact spot where he first told me that he loved me. The fact that that spot is in a back alley is beside the point; it's romantic, damn it!

Now, the photographs I have to show you are the ones taken from the Lettings Agency website. Fortunately, I saved them before the advertisement was removed upon our payment of deposit. Rather retardedly, I forgot to take a camera with me when we went viewing, so I have no photographs of the bedrooms. Nevertheless, we shall soldier on with what we have.

The photo above is our living room. It's rather more large than it looks, and we've ordered two brown leather sofas from IKEA. A two-seater and a three-seater. I'll happily admit that they're not the most beautiful sofas around, but they'll suit us just fine. It's our first home. We like them. That's good enough, no? We've also purchased an amusing picture that we're not supposed to hang on the wall, and a cream rug to try and force a coffee and cream colour scheme onto a cream and green-ish room. We still need to find a coffee table, TV stand and TV big enough for a front room, but to be quite honest, those things can wait.

Our kitchen is actually a part of the living room. This row of counters runs parallel to the wall of the photo above that shows a pair of French windows. It's one big room. I think this was the major selling point of the flat for Hairy and I. We just loved it, and could completely envision ourselves living in it. Now, the colouring is a bit... y'know, y'know? I'm not sure I like the look of all of that wood. But it's tolerable. And it's neat and tidy, shiftily hiding a huge fridge-freezer on the right, a washing machine, a tumble dryer and a dish washer in amongst the cabinets.

We've bought a few bits and pieces for the kitchen, like a toaster, a kettle, a corkscrew (that's important, you know)... I still have glasses and plates and cutlery and such from my time in Reading, so that's already taken care of. I have my one-person cafetiere... and I think that's all I care about in there.

The two bedrooms I don't have photos of. They're both good sizes, and will fit double beds. Or king-sizes, in our case. (We're quite fat, you know. ;) ) We have Pete's bed from home which Jan has very kindly donated to the cause. That's a double wooden frame which is mildly knackered from energetic bonking, although she thinks that it's because Hairy stood on it to change a light bulb. Apparently. Personally, I think that she's too savvy to fall for that, but never mind. If it makes Pete happy. Anyway, that's going in the spare room. It's going to be a tight fit, but fortunately the bed doesn't have a footboard, only a headboard. It may be a case of guests having to crawl up the bed and get in and out from the bottom. Not the best, but... meh. That's how it is.

Earlier today we bought a silentnight king-size divan for ourselves. We wangled free delivery and got £100 (almost) knocked off it, so I'm very pleased about that. It ended up costing us about £400 for the base which is sprung itself, and the mattress. That's a good deal, peoples!

We've got the wardrobe from Pete's room, too, which will be going in the spare room also. (There's more than enough room for plenty of furniture, it's just that the room is a little bit narrow, hence the having to clamber up the bed to get into it.) It's going in there because I don't like it. His computer desk is going to be going in there, too, and he seems to think his fishing and golf gear will be also. I have other ideas, and those unsightly horrid things are going to be crammed into one of the hallway cupboards (of which there are two) or got rid of.

I'm yet to convince him of the importance of buying a few bookcases, but he will come around to the idea when he sees how many books I'm bringing with me. That is, all of them. I was talking about this with him today and he asked me why I was bringing them -- was I ever going to read them again? His amazement at my "of course" answer confounded me, until I discovered that he doesn't keep books. He reads and throws away. I cannot describe the look of horror that must have struck my face at that point, but he chuckled quietly to himself. I think that was step one won on my behalf in bookcasegate.

Our bathroom is rather small. Compact, you might say. To the right of the photograph is the toilet. All three are in a row there. There's a nice heated towel-rail about where the picture-taker is standing, beside the door. Meh. It'll do, right? Two people. I bought a mirror to go above the sink there in that little alcove, and I'm excited about getting it all together. I was working hard on getting towels to match the colour scheme when Jan butted in and bought us some red and blue towels. They're...okay. They'll do the job, and I'm going to sound incredibly ungrateful, but they're very, very bright. It's a muted bathroom. Jan bought them "to brighten it up." Well, guess what, Jan? I don't want it brightened up. Brightened up will be tasteless. I like it the way it is.

I'm now fighting a losing battle with Pete about my still looking for ones that match. He thinks I'm wasting money. I agree a little bit, but also, I don't. I want my house to be nice. I think things like that matter. But, he's right... I mean, now, we have some towels. So it can wait. But she and he can go shove the towels where the sun doesn't shine if they think I'm sticking with them. Still, if giving up on towelgate wins me bookcasegate, I'll happily go along with that.

I know that sounds like whining. I'm really not as ungrateful as it sounds. I'm just... I can whine here. It's a safe outlet.

So there we have it. That's my new flat. The rent will be £490/month, inclusive of building fees, secure parking and water rates. We will have Council Tax and electricity to pay for. There's no gas to the apartment.

I'm excited.

Goodbye, MA!

On the 12th of September, 2008, I finally handed in my postgraduate thesis. In the end, I loved it. I'm not convinced that anyone else will love it; but I did.

My title was "Realism and Fantasy in Homeric Descriptions of Warfare." I worked through five chapters, focusing on issues of Wounding and Death, Arms and Armour, Poetic Techniques, Battle Frenzies and the Role of the Gods. I had to limit it to a maximum of 15,000 words, with an intended goal of 10,000 words.

I wrote 15,600. I'm yet to see if I'll be penalised for that. You might think that I'd be able to cut out six hundred words just by changing my language a little bit. You're probably right; I probably could have. I didn't want to. I love my style of writing. I write the way that I want to read, and I couldn't just ignore that in something so important as a two-year MA thesis.

So it's done. I'm pleased with the end result. I think it reads wonderfully. I do, in fact, know that there are lots of mistakes. That is, typing errors. Occasions I have let my word processing program change my spelling to American and not caught it in the act. This is due to the fact that I was so familiar with what I had written by the end of it that I just read what I meant to read, rather than what was there. I could have used an editor.


Unfortunately, I don't think that it's a master-piece. But it wasn't written to be one. Some time before I actually put words down following my masses of research, I realised two things. One: this was never going to be an important thesis. It won't be published, even if it's fantastic. The analysis of Homeric Mycenaean culture is no longer a la mode, and it never has been throughout my tenure in academia. But still, it is what interests me, and what sets the fires of intrigue within me. Had I been a scholar fifty years ago in the time of Lorimer and Snodgrass, I would have made a killing.


Secondly: no matter how excellently I wrote my dissertation, my MA grade was going to be hampered by my performance over the past two years. As I understand it, there're two passing grades. That is, the passing grade, and the passing with a distinction grade. And then there's failing. I highly doubt that I could have failed, unless I have somehow plagiarised without knowing it and must be disqualified that way. In order to pass with distinction, one must meet two criteria: a certain mark in all modules, and a certain mark with the dissertation. If I scored 99/100 with my dissertation, I could still only make the passing grade for my MA, as my modules have not all met a high enough mark. And there's only one that hasn't, as far as I'm aware. CRMR - Classical Research Methods and Resources. The exam I took while I was miscarriaging.

So when I put the metaphorical pen to paper, I bore this in mind. My dissertation is not and was never meant to be breath-takingly important to Classical Scholarship. It is the work of a girl who struggled through her Masters and came to hate academia with the same kind of passion that she once loved it. I'm tempted to say that I wish I had never read my Master of Arts, and that I had just stuck with loving scholarship after my BA, and wishing always that I had done it. Rather than regret that I had wasted two years with it.

I don't wish that. Give me some time, and I will look back on my Masters and forget the disgusting workload, the pressure, the need to strive to be good enough; and never being good enough. I'm sure in a year or so I will be grateful for the extra two years of studentdom.

The Board of Examiners for the University of Durham's Classics and Ancient History Department met on Wednesday, 22nd of October, 2008. My mark has been decided. They know, and I don't. I'm assuming that I have made the passing grade. I'm not considering that I haven't. It's possible, but Johannes saw draft upon draft of my dissertation, and if it was that bad, he would have said.

I am set to graduate at 2pm on Friday, 16th of January, 2009. I don't get to wear a mortar board this time: that depresses me.

So... goodbye, MA. I don't miss you.

Fingers in pies.

So like I said yesterday, I have my fingers in a few pies. The biggest and most important is that I've been working at the Discovery -teque for about two months now, and I'm enjoying it. I'm working Front of House, which means that I'm one of the girls with the radio on her hip, and that I discreetly watch you for your whole day in my museum, and leap to it if you annoy me and I want you out.

It's fun. I enjoy it. To begin with, my feet hurt so bad after every 8.30-5.10 shift that I had to spend a good half an hour rubbing them when I got home each evening or they would still be sore when I went to work the next day. I hate having pressure-sore feet. It's horrid. Nothing makes time pass more slowly, and nowhere in the world can time move more slowly than in a quiet museum.

The people I work with amuse me lots. There's one girl in particular that I've made a bond with, and when we're both in a shift together, we spend the whole day winding each other up. [I'm at this point here, right now, where I'm trying to decide whether I ought to disguise my life, even though there is only the one person reading this blog. There is the possibility that other people may, so perhaps I should.] Anyway, this girl, she makes me laugh. We get on really well. We started at the Disco at the same time, and we just linked to each other quickly. There were four girls that started at the same time: me, Prancer (that would be the girl that I prance around the museum with -- see what I did there?), Gossip-girl and Curator-girl. These nicknames amuse me. They're very apt.

I'm coming around to Gossip-girl eventually, although she alienated herself to me to begin with. She is a gossip, you see. I have no time for gossips. (That's not to say that I'm not one. I am. But this is private. Ish.) She never gossiped about me, but she did about my friend Prancer, and that just put me off her. Still, I spent a couple of days with her last week the way that I spend my shifts with Prancer, and I kind of saw that she's not as cocky as she appears to be. The reason why she's "Yes, sir, no sir," with the seniors is not particularly because she's wanting to please, but because she's nervous. Still -- I'm wary around her. I'm conscious of what I'm saying all of the time and that she might repeat it.

Curator-girl had a few shifts and then stopped. She got a temporary position as a Curatorial Assistant. So for two months, the other three of us have been working together with the whole team, getting to know them, letting them get to know us, and she has been "upstairs" in the offices. There's a very real divide between Them and Us in the museum, and it's depressing. I enjoy what I do, but I don't want to be Front of House my whole life. This is supposed to be a temporary gig that is my way into Museum Services. The snobbery is pretty much only one sided: Front of House staff don't tend to think anything bad about Office Staff, at least individually, until they do something or say something unfair. For example -- last Tuesday, I worked late covering a gallery opening. Some woman asked for help disposing of the leftover food and drink. She had already put it into bags, but needed access to the basement, which only Front of House staff has, because she didn't want to leave it for one of us to take down in the morning.

This sounds like a nice thing, right? She wanted to save us hassle, and to stop the food from smelling overnight. Well, I took her down to the basement. I carried half of the bags. I opened the doors. I went into the bin room and put up with the smell and slung her bags in for her. When we were going back up to the public areas, I saw a trail of orange goo. After a few steps I bent down and poked at it and went "oh, it's still wet." At that point she thought it good to tell me that her bag had been trailing it since we left Turbinia. Her tone indicated that she knew it all along. She was very "*shrugs* Someone else will clean it up!" about it.

Stupid woman. That someone else is me. She pranced off and got to go home, and I had to stay back another twenty minutes -- keeping the whole Front of House team another twenty minutes -- mopping up a trail of sweet chilli sauce that led from the middle of the museum, past two lifts, through TWM reception - staining the carpet - down some stairs, and onto the newly painted basement floor.

...that is the kind of attitude that annoys Front of House staff. She could have told me that the bag was leaking as soon as she noticed, and I could have put another bag around it. Or she could have put the lid on the damned pot of sauce before throwing it in the bag in the first place. I'm constantly taking phone calls from Office Staff asking me to come and get a parcel from their office and take it down to be picked up. They get snarky when I, usually politely, explain that it's not my job to be their courier. I take parcels up to them when they arrive, because they look messy if they're just left at Reception. If there was somewhere tidy to keep them, I wouldn't bother. I do not run around after them, doing all of the things that they can't be bothered with. Don't get me wrong; I'm sure that they're busy too. But they could be polite and say "When you have a moment, would you mind popping up and getting this parcel for me?" They'd have a far better chance with that kind of attitude than "I have four parcels in ___ office. You'll need a trolley." It's those people that get the "I'm sorry, I'm Front of House staff. I need to stay Front of House. If you'd like a parcel taking to the Transit Door, I suggest escorting it to the lift, and then escorting it out of it again *hangs up*" answers.

That was quite a rant, but my opinions aside, there isn't much scorn from the Front of House side to the Office side, it's generally the other way around. Apparently, once you're Front of House, it's hard to climb up into anything else. ....so, that's just what I wanted to hear.

Curator-girl is apparently coming back to our team. That'll be good, because although she did appear a little bit snobby with her "I'm not here to make friends!" (she actually said that) attitude, she was nice enough. She's going to be behind, though. She's going to annoy the seasoned Front of House staff with her questions. She's going to annoy me with them.

So out of the four of us, I think I'm the most settled in. I just kind of get on it with. Prancer is a darling, but she floats through her shifts without doing any real work. She'll do something if she's asked to, but won't just go and do it. Gossip-girl isn't liked by a few people and is dismissed as a gossip and/or brown-noser by the rest. Curator-girl hasn't been around enough to be settled in. I'm very sure that there are opinions made about me, too, but if any of them are negative, I'm yet to hear them.

I will, of course, be crushed when I do.

Waffle.

It's been quite a while since I've posted. I suppose that I was always bad at keeping journals, long term. There was a period when I was sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, when I would write in an online journal that I shan't link from here (because I'm very glad to forget it) almost daily. I suppose that after that, I actually got myself a life and no longer had time for it.

Obviously that's not strictly the truth. I still have no life and I'm just talking nonsense to make myself feel better about not posting. The blessing of being able to bullshit yourself.

Things are good on my side of the internet. I have my finger in a few pies and things are starting to take shape. It seems as though my carefully constructed façade of happiness, which has taken me years upon years to create, may actually be turning into happiness.

We'll see.

Employed.

On Saturday morning at 11.27, I got a call from a local number that I didn't recognise. While I wouldn't usually answer a call from a withheld number or one that I simply didn't know, I have put that aside for the past two weeks in the hopes of hearing from Arbeia, and have ended up talking to all kinds of goons I didn't want to.

So was it them? No.

Arbeia still haven't got back to me. Nevertheless, I know now that I didn't come through that interview and get the job. I knew it at the time, truth be told. I don't know who it was, but I hope it was that nice gentleman I talked to all day. I guess it would be kind of galling to be him and do that job anyway as a volunteer, and have applied for and failed to get the job yourself, and have to watch someone else, someone new, come in and be paid for what you already do. Sucksville.

The Discovery Museum called me. They informed me that I wasn't picked for one of the two positions at Arbeia, but that they would like to offer me some casual work within their establishment, should I be interested. The Discovery Museum is the biggest and best known of the Tyne & Wear Museums directorate, following the Hancock. The Hancock is closed until 2009, so I suppose that, for now, the Discovery usurps that.

Now, I don't know what the term "casual work" means to the Discovery Museum, but I guess I'm going to find out shortly. The whole two years that I worked in Reading University's Student Union, I was on a casual staff contract. I still had plenty of hours. I'm not naive enough to think that I'll be able to grab 25hours a week when I want them and 5hours a week when I don't, but I'm hoping that it's not going to be a "we're short staffed this Saturday, can you..?" I'd rather it was something more regular than that.

Either way, I now have my foot in the door. If this works out, I should be in a better position for the next museum-y job I apply for. I will have actual experience. I'm so pleased that that interview came to something, even if it is just the odd hour here or there. I can live with that, I guess. I should find out soon - the Discovery Museum are sending me out some forms to fill in. I'm excited.

So... hi. I'm 'Ren. I'm a Museum Assitant!

Absolute Bollocks.

I've had a boringly interesting day today. First, I woke up three minutes before my alarm. God, how that pisses me off. I invariably turn my alarm off because I think I'm up and then snooze for twenty minutes. Stupid 'Ren. Then I lost a contact lens down the plughole of the sink. That was excellent.

And then some rude woman decided that she was having a shitty day, ergo I should, too.

I was stood in the queue for the cash machine. The queue wasn't very long, it consisted of me and her. She was taking ages, and started rambling to herself, so I very politely asked her if she was okay. She explained that the ATM hadn't given her any money, but it had seemed as though the transaction went through. This is how our conversation went, word for word:

'Ren: Oh, that's not good. You could try putting your card in again and seeing if your balance has changed.
Woman: Yes, I'll do that. Thanks.
[pause]
Woman: Oh, it won't take my card!!! *angry*
'Ren: I guess it's broken. There's another machine down the street by the Spar.
Woman: *snapping* Yes, I know that, thank you!
'Ren: [brief pause] There's no need to be rude, I was just trying to help you.
Woman: [like a petulent five year old] Yes, yes, sorry. *bustles busily*
'Ren: Yes, I should think so. And they say the young are rude! *walks off*

Haha. She was only about thirty-five. You should've seen her face. I am quite fond of being a cow to people who deserve it. She caught me up at the end of the street near the other ATM and apologised properly, and I just smiled and headed to the Metro station.

When I got to uni, I found the department getting painted. This wouldn't normally be a problem as I don't generally walk along rubbing my arse on the walls, but as I've all the balance of an elephant standing on a beach ball, I not have paint on my jeans and on my backpack. Typical.

I spoke to Johannes, who made no comment about misspelling my name, and he gave me some pointers for my dissertation. I really ought to be following those leads right about now but I would rather write here and mess around on youtube a little. I went to the bathroom a little while ago, and ended up bumping into Rik like I always do. We stood and chattered for just long enough for my PC to be logging itself off when I returned to it, and I somehow got roped into looking over his past essays and pointing out mistakes in order to help him out with his English.

I'm not sure how that happened. Boo.

MA Final Year.

I can't begin to describe how difficult I've found this year. As of the 17th of May, I have been more-or-less finished, with only my dissertation still to write. That is due in the first week of September, and I have one of five chapters already written. I'm gradually working my way through it, and have a good chunk of my research done, even if it's not written. I'm in a good position.

But I've struggled to get here. In my first year, I had two modules. These were CRMR (Classical Research Methods and Resources) and Akkadian. I found Akkadian difficult, although CRMR was innocuous enough. The grammar gave me no trouble, although I did find remembering the vocabulary harder than I have for any other language. That's because it was so different. At the end of the day, all languages have the same kind of grammar rules; even if the patterns are different, they are the same kind of patterns. This is true of Akkadian and French, Latin and ancient Greek. The words, though... the words themselves were very different. Even when transliterated and then normalised out of cuneiform, they looked different. My favourite Akkadian word, kalbatum, looks normal enough when it's normalised like this. Before this stage, when just transliterated from cuneiform to latin letters, it looks like this: ka-al-ba-tum. For anyone that speaks an ancient language, that's just weird. It's hard to explain.

Anyway, the point is that last year was hard. Nevertheless I got through it and did well. This year has been harder. This year I've had only two modules again, but both have been really heavy on the work side. One of them ridiculously so. I've had "Religious Life in the Roman Near East" with Ted Kaizer and "Greek Sacred Regulations" with Andrej Petroviç. The latter has been fun, and while there has been iffy moments that have involved presentations and plenty of difficult prep work, I've enjoyed every single seminar. The former was hard. I didn't like it. I didn't like the subject matter, despite being a Near East student previously, with my study of Akkadian. I think, although it did pique my interest at times, I disliked it so much because of the sheer amount of work Ted set us.

Durham University assesses its students in two ways. The first is with a piece of Formative work, submitted early in the year. After this, there is a piece of Summative work. The Formative assessment is a minor submission, worth a low percentage of the overall grade. Basically, it is an opportunity for a lecturer to be sure that you are working well and identify areas that you need help.

The average module is as I've described it above. One Formative, one Summative. This is how Greek Sacred Regulations worked. Our Formative was a presentation to be given before an audience. We had to read and analyse an article, and present this analysis. It was a piece of piss, audience aside. Our Summative was a 5,000 word essay on a subject of our choice. In Religious Life, however, Ted set us a lot of work. On top of 10+ articles and 4 or 5 books to read in every three week period, we had an essay to write. A 2,000 word essay should not have been too challenging, but my god, they were. He set the questions, and he certainly didn't do us any favours. They were hard. It was difficult to get the 2,000 words. It was difficult to argue the points. I never scored higher than a 2.2 on any of these essays. Four Formative essays; three more than the standard. On top of this, for our final seminar, he set a presentation, to be given in the class. This was harder than the essay. To talk for twelve minutes is to say more than 2,000 words. Add in the pressure having to present your finding to your peers rather than merely write them out and hand them to a lecturer where your marks can be kept private, and it's difficult.

I hated that class.

I got my results today, and is it any surprise that I didn't do too well in it?

From: HAUBOLD J.
Sent: 02 July 2008 14:38
To: POLLOCK J.L.
Subject: MA Results

Dear Julie,

I have just spoken to Graduate School about your MA results. They will not send out individual marks, but they have now given us the go-ahead to pass them on to you. So, here goes:

Religious Life 60
Greek Sacred Regulations 63

I would like to see all MA students this coming Thursday (4th July) between 10am and 12noon, to discuss their marks and prepare for their work over summer. Please do drop by on Thursday morning, whenever is most convenient for you.

Best wishes,

Johannes

I am surprised and disappointed by my mark in Sacred Regulations. I thought I did well in that essay. In fact, I thought I did well in my Religious Life Summative, but Ted had been telling me all year that my essays simply weren't good enough, and although I tried a drastically different technique for my final essay, I didn't really expect him to mark it high. I'm not blaming him; clearly it's my technique that isn't good enough, but I could have done with being helped when I asked for it. Sacred Regulations, though... *le sigh*

Oh well.

I would just like to add this, for your amusement and my frustration.

Dear July,

Apologies for the mistake in my email: the meeting for all MA students is tomorrow, 3rd July. Please let me know if you cannot make the meeting, so that we can arrange an alternative time.

Best wishes,

Johannes

Dear Johannes,

Tomorrow is not a problem, although I am glad I re-checked my email this evening or I would not have checked tomorrow in enough time to make it. I shall try to aim for eleven o'clock.

See you in the morning!

Julie (Not July! ;) )

Grr.

Why Durham University Blows.

I can't even begin to describe how angry I am at the moment. A few minutes ago, at 17.04, I logged into my internet banking service to check that some transfers I had arranged between my accounts had occurred. This is what I saw:

(Click for larger if it's unclear)

Now, to explain what you see here. The first transaction is the University of Durham taking £88.75 from my bank account. The second is £20 paid in to cover my contact lens costs. The third is the return of the £88.75 that the University of Durham took from my account, and the fourth is a £35 charge my bank has made for bouncing the payment that I did not authorise.

I know what has happened. Last month, I couldn't pay my bill, the last of my tuition fees, in full. I went to the payments office and asked for help. I explained that I could pay £150 of the £238.75 last instalment on time, on the 1st of June. I said that I couldn't afford more, and that if they could do nothing to help me and the payment had to go ahead as I had previously agreed, then the payment would bounce and I would accept the consequences of this. Preferably, though, I would like to split the payment into two.

The lady I spoke to was very kind and helpful, and agreed to change the direct debit agreement. £150 would come out of my account on the 1st of June, and I would pay the balance within two weeks by handing in a cheque for £88.75 in person, before the 14th.

This I did. The cheque was dated the 12th, handed in that day, and was honoured by my bank and drawn from my account on the 17th. After this, I got a letter which was dated the 13th (and so was at least printed after I had handed in my cheque) informing me that a direct debit for the amount I had just paid would be coming from my account on the 1st July. I reasoned that I had been sent this because my cheque had not cleared when the system was checked, or something, and forgot about it.

Today the payment was removed. I am so angry. I don't have £35 to just throw away. I called the payment office as soon as I saw what had happened, at 17.04 still, and discovered that the staff had already left. I have left a terse but polite message on the voicemail service explaining the situation and giving my name and phone number. I will be even angrier if I am not called back before ten o'clock in the morning. I understand that mistakes happen but if I have to phone them, again, to get this sorted, I will file a formal complaint with the University. Twenty minutes later and I'm still seething.

They will have to cover the charge of my bank fees, won't they? It's their mistake, not mine. I had already paid when they decided to take a direct debit.

The Birthday Month.

Today marks the beginning of the birthday month. This is, quite frankly, the worst month of the year. We begin today with what is not only my mother's birthday, but Canada Day. Or so I was informed at silly o'clock by a certain patriotic ex-pat. Happy Birthday, Canada!

Today seems to be a popular day for birthdays. Apparently the first of November is a good day to get jiggy. Not only was my mother born on this day, but Ceecee was, as was my friend Nicky/Nasib, from uni. I must remember to wish them both well. I made and sent Ceecee a card, but she'll not get it. She never does. Or, at least, if she does, she never says thank you. And she would, so I just assume that somewhere between here and South Australia, there's a greedy postman.

In precisely one week, my papa will turn fifty-four. He's getting old, hm? He's almost fully grey these days, although he still stubbornly (and most amusingly) insists that he's not turning grey and getting old, he's just going blond again, the way he was when he was a child. He's a dork. I love him. I don't have a clue what to get him. The problem with my dad is that if there's something he wants, he buys it. He has a couple of solidly founded interests that've allowed me to buy him spot-on gifts in the past; he's a fan of fairground rides, of the Clyde islands, of basking sharks, of the paddle-steamer Waverley. Whether I've bought him a nice framed painting of an Ark he worked on when he was a teenager, or a DVD of the Clyde in the years that he was there with his family, or a book focusing on basking sharks or a DVD or small model of the Waverley, or a trip on a hot-air balloon, it's gone down well. The problem is, I'm kind of running out of ideas. Anything further I buy him is likely to just sit somewhere and become junk. I haven't a clue, and it's frustrating. When I'm older and can afford it, I'll buy him a little boat and pay for it to be moored at Largs. He'd love that.

Then, on the thirteenth, it's Pete's mum's birthday. I haven't a clue what to get her, but that's Pete's responsibility. He buys for his family and sticks my name on, and I do the same for mine. I think I might suggest that he buy her a new phone. She wouldn't cope with something high-tech, but when we were visiting Stevie this weekend, her phone kept on cutting out while she was talking. It must be very frustrating; I've had phones that have done that. She's currently coping on one of Pete's old phones, so I think she's definitely due a new one. Good idea, 'Ren.

Then, on the twenty-fifth, it'll be my own birthday. If you're squeamish, don't click my links. Have you heard of Goatse? (Really, don't click if you're easily grossed out.) All I want for Christmas my birthday is a Goatse cake.

Lilly's Birthday Party.

A certain little madam I know turned two yesterday. Her uncle Peter and I went down to Riby to visit, along with her Lola. For the record, I hate the way that Jan insists on being called Lilly's Lola instead of her Grandma. It started because she wasn't spectacularly happy that Stephen was having children while she felt too young to be a grandmother. She won't get away with it with my children. She will be their Grandma.

Jan's eccentricities aside, we had a nice weekend. Peter drove, which is a miracle in and of itself. Jan is a little bit of a control freak. I don't say that in a mean way, but she is very definitely a Mummy and will treat both of her boys as though they're still children if they will let her. Peter doesn't really let her anymore. Out of the two cars, Peter's 306 is far more comfortable for more than two people in it. Jan has a three-door Citroen C2, which is not big nor comfortable. As if having to clamber into the back through the front doors wasn't awkward enough, with two people there, neither the one in the front nor the one in the back has leg room enough to wriggle even in the slightest. Every time the three of us have gone down there, Jan has driven. This time, Peter was determined that we would go in relative comfort, and that he would drive. Jan agreed with little but token argument, although I suspect that is because her car lost electric power earlier in the week and that she has lost confidence in it. So, for now, Pedro has succeeded in asserting his I'm-not-a-kid-liness, and is rather on the happy side about that.

We arrived at lunchtime on Saturday, and were immediately launched into baby-sitting duties. Stephen and Sara are, afterall, Malones, and are therefore poor planners. Sara was working and Stevie had plenty of things still to take care of for Lilly's party the next day, including shopping for all of the party food. So half an hour or so after our arrival, Stevie and Jan nipped off to Morrisons, and we stayed with the girls. Lilly was as easy as she always was, happy, bouncy, starting to push her boundaries and ignore you when you said "no, Lilly, come away from that," but lovely nonetheless. Ebony, on the other hand, was a tyke. There was absolutely nothing wrong with her, and we both knew it, but she cried every few minutes nonetheless. I kind of think she was just bored. We'd sit with her and bounce with her and play clapping games, or something, and she'd be fine for a short while, but start whining shortly after. If we moved her to look back at us or out to the room or if we swapped her between us or if we took her for a short walk around the house, she would stop. It wasn't too stressful or anything, but I did find myself wondering what the heck was up with her. Admittedly, I hadn't seen her since she was two weeks old, and now she is four months old, but by all accounts she is a calm and smiley baby who only cries when she's hungry. I figure maybe she doesn't just like Pedro and I. :D

It wasn't bad, although I don't think I'd like to be left with them too often. I don't mind helping out, but I don't feel with Lilly and Ebony like I can tell them off or just be as relaxed with them as I always have with my own niece and nephews. It's difficult, because I know that Peter would feel the same way if we were looking after Jamie or Lauren, but he's unwilling to tell Lilly that she's being naughty or that she needs to come away from this or that. His attitude is very much "she's only playing," whereas mine is "Yes, but she's playing with a carving knife, Pedro!" I mean, okay, it wasn't a carving knife. But it was the same principle.

Stephen and Jan were back within an hour or so, and we had lunch and continued to play with the girls. The afternoon was pretty much spent just like that, playing and basically sitting back and wondering how so much energy could fit inside such a little girl. She's a livewire.

When the girls had been put to bed, we spent the evening looking at photos of the boys that Jan had brought along with her. There were some of them as babies, all of the way along to Stevie being fifteen or so. I was assured, amongst much laughter at Stevie and Jan's sake, that there were bagfuls for me, too, when Peter and I were settled. Colour me amused. :D

Sunday was Lilly's birthday. She was awake before me, and had already had her breakfast and was running around bottomless by the time I emerged from our bedroom. She knew that it was "Lilly's Happy Birthday Day!" but wasn't particularly aware of what that meant further than that she was having a party with her friends from nursery and that she was getting a Princess Cake. She wasn't expecting presents, and watching her face when they were brought out was an absolute treat. She opened her cards first, and was thrilled to find that they almost all had princesses on. She squealed very cutely when she opened the card from Pete and I, decorated with her princess, Cinderella (Cinderella is blonde, and therefore her in princess form, and Sleeping Beauty is a brunette, and therefore her sister, Ebony). That was the first of our lucky hits. Our presents hit the target, too, although they could very well have been a miss.

Peter and I agonised for a few weeks over what to buy her. She's a very lucky little girl, you see, and essentially has four sets of grandparents from whom she is always given expensive and impressive presents (Jan and her boyfriend, Michael; Aidan and his until-very-recently girlfriend, Sandra; Sara's mum Ida and her husband, Harry; Sara's dad Joe and...well, I don't know if he has a partner or not, to be honest). In the end, we settled on a few very inexpensive gifts. We bought her some foam bath toys that were basically shapes that she could stick on the bath-tiles and make animals out of, a paint-your-own piggy bank that she'll love making a mess of, a plastic shopping trolley full of pretend food boxes and tins and such, and a little till that she could use in conjunction with that to play shop. We spent a sum total of about £20 on her, which was very little, but that wasn't the point. We wanted to get something that could be easily packed away and wouldn't take up too much room when she wasn't playing with it.

She loved it. Once that parcel was open, she wanted to play with it right away and couldn't be coaxed into opening any other presents for half an hour. Quite amusing. We spent a little while playing shop, in which she would bring us various things and take the money that she had already given us, and then bring us our change. She's a very sweet little girl, really she is.

She carried on opening her presents for a little while, and then we spent the morning playing with them together while her parents were bustling around putting up the garden toys for her party and preparing the food for the barbecue and such. The girls went down for their afternoon nap and we all sat out in the garden, having a light lunch and finishing with the lawn toys before her little friends arrived at three o'clock. There were two little girls, both called Isabelle, both blonde with curly hair, and two little boys, one called Robin and one called Danny, who is, apparently, Lilly's first boyfriend. :D

I don't actually remember much of the party, and we left only two hours into it after Lilly had blown out the candles on her much-anticipated Princess cake. She grinned excitedly as we all sang Happy Birthday to her, blew her candles out very happily, and then went incredibly shy all of a sudden when people cheered and clapped at her. It was an instant and very cute transformation. I was highly amused. And sorry to leave so very soon afterwards.

We had a lovely time, all in all, and I believe that Lilly certainly had a Happy Birthday indeed.

Salvaged.

Some bridges that are burned are salvageable. Sometimes, when someone leaves your life, they're gone, and they're not coming back. This has happened to me quite a few times over the years, and I have to say, I've not always been sorry about it. Sometimes, though, I have. Sometimes, it's broken my heart.

One such occasion concerns my nephew and niece, Alan and Lauren. Now, for the sake of anyone that doesn't already know, I shall briefly start from the beginning.

My eldest brother is Alan. He's twenty-nine now, and still annoys the piss out of me, but was eighteen when he became a father. Well, not technically. There was once a girl called Sarah. She was a few months younger than my brother, and when they were both seventeen, she fell pregnant. The thing is, she wasn't my brother's girlfriend. She wasn't even his friend then. She was his friend's girlfriend. Sarah fell pregnant to Shaun. Sarah and Shaun broke up, and she and my brother got together, despite her pregnancy. They decided to raise the child together, and, when they were both eighteen and on the 6th of March, 1997, my "nephew" was born, and named "Alan James" for my brother. He wasn't of Alan's blood, but that little boy couldn't have been any more Alan's son if he was. He was my nephew from the start. He wasn't my brother's step-son, he was his son. Two years later, on the 7th February, 1999, my niece Lauren was born. Now, Lauren was and is Alan's true daughter. Nevertheless, both kids were his, children of his heart if not his hearth.


Unfortunately, when Lauren was two, Alan and their mother broke up. I don't know the ins and outs of it, to be completely honest, but my brother swears that she didn't cheat on him, although she and Shaun were back together pretty darn fast. Now, although little Alan had been visiting his real father and his real grandmother all through his little life, when Shaun and Sarah were together, her new (old) partner started throwing spanners in the works for him. First, he wasn't allowed to visit little Alan. He wasn't *really* my brother's son, you see. Then, when Alan went to visit Lauren, he would arrive and be told that she was visiting Cag (Shaun's mother), or something.

And then, all of a sudden, he just wasn't allowed to see them. It wasn't as ill-reasoned as it seems on the face of it. To be honest, I don't generally think that my brother is a very nice person. He goes on constantly about what he's going to do to such and such a person to get them back for some slight against himself, or how he's going to break this person's windows and trash that person's car. Mostly, I ignore him, but that pretty much tells you everything you need to know about his attitude: he thinks that the world owes him something. Frankly, I don't see how it can since he's never put anything useful into it (lovely niece and nephews aside!), but this is how he thinks. Therefore, it's quite alright for him to steal from people. Which is what he was doing back in those days. He was in and out of jail for stealing cars. The final straw for Sarah was the last time he was sent to jail, not for car theft this time, but for affray with intent. That's the technical term, so I hear, but basically... he chased someone down a street with an axe. Like I said; he's not a very nice person.

My problem, and I know that it's selfish, is that I wasn't allowed to see them either. I was to begin with. I would visit their house once every two weeks or so, have a cup of tea, visit with the babies, go home. Unfortunately, that didn't last. Shaun and Sarah decided to change little Alan's name. He no longer had our family surname, which is understandable with his real father back as a major influence in his life, but his first name was dropped. He was, from then, known as James to his family. I slipped twice in one day, and that was the end of my visiting. It wasn't a gradual thing. I wasn't given time to adjust. I was just told one day that now his name is James, and that was that.

I managed for a few visits, but as I was playing with them one day, I said something along the lines of "that's not a very nice thing to say, Alan." He looked at me, very pointedly for a four year old, and said "my name is James." I apologised to him immediately, with an explanation of how it was hard for me to suddenly call him James when I was used to Alan, and that I might make a few mistakes for a while but that I would try my best and that he should keep reminding me if I did slip. He smiled his beautiful smile, said that that was okay, and we kept playing. Then I did it again. He told me again that his name was James, and as I was in the middle of apologising, Shaun grabbed my arm and summarily turfed me out of the house, and told me that if I couldn't get it right, I wasn't welcome. Sarah, this woman I called my friend, said nothing. I was only sixteen myself. I think it was a forgiveable mistake.

I haven't seen Alan James since.

For seven years, we heard nothing. Despite my sending Christmas cards and birthday cards to them for years, always in an envelope addressed to Sarah and unsealed in their own envelopes so that she could read them if she wanted, I heard not a sausage. I gave up. Can you blame me? I lost my niece and my nephew, and I thought that I was never going to get them back. This is how I remember them:



On the 8th of May, this year, my internet perusal was interrupted by a message on our answering machine. The internet won't connect if there's a message on there. It's weird, I know. Anyway, I picked it up and listened to it several times, and didn't understand it. My brother was sat in the living room watching a movie, or something, and since I could hear that it was for him, I asked him to listen to it. I thought it said something like "Hi, this is a message for Alan, Laura blah blah blah. 077-whatever." When he listened to it, he got it immediately, it said: "Hi, this is a message for Alan; Lauren needs you, can you call Sarah on 077-whatever."

We both panicked. We sat together for about two minutes trying to figure out what could be so wrong that Sarah had to leave a message on the family house phone (considering she didn't even know he was back living here) at five past eleven in the evening. We just kind of figured she was ill. Really ill. Alan was too nervous to deal with it, so I called Sarah back. Our conversation went something like this.

Sarah: Hello?
'Ren: Hi, this is 'Ren. You just left a message on my answering machine and I'm not really sure what it said. My brother's not in right now, is it urgent? I can call him.
Sarah: Oh, hi 'Ren, it's Sarah Surname.
'Ren: [pause] ...is everything okay?
Sarah: Yeah, yeah, everything's fine. I was just leaving a message for Alan because I didn't know how else to contact him. Lauren wants to see him.
'Ren: Oh! Thank god that's all!
Sarah: Yeah, I mean, she's nine now and she's asking questions about him, and I don't think it's fair to...
'Ren: I was so panicky. I heard part of the message but not all of the message and when you said "Lauren needs you" I thought, 'shit, she's in hospital and needs a kidney,' or something!
Sarah: Oh no, no, nothing like that. I didn't mean to worry you or anything.
'Ren: Well, I'm glad she's okay. Do you have a message for him, then?
Sarah: Yeah, just tell him that Lauren is asking about him and wants to see him.
'Ren: I'll do that. Like I said, he's not in right now, but I'll tell him when he gets in from work.
Sarah: Okay. [pause] It was nice to talk to you, 'Ren.
'Ren. Yeah. I'll tell him. [click]

I hadn't, and still haven't, forgiven her, in case you couldn't tell. And since Alan was sat right there listening to the whole conversation, I had no message to relay. His instant reaction was suspicion. Sarah has contacted him twice before to renew contact with Lauren. I didn't know about this until that night. Both times, all she really wanted was help with something expensive, and then contact stopped.

He didn't call her back right away. He waited a few days, getting his head around it, and then called her. They arranged to meet in North Shields, which is where they live, and talk things over. They met at eleven in the morning, and Alan came back after midnight. Sarah brought him a letter from Lauren, hand-written and decorated with stick-on love-hearts. It said that she missed him and loved and and didn't understand why she couldn't see him. Bad spelling (and really, it was atrocious) aside, it was a lovely little thing, and I know that he's treasuring it. By all accounts, Sarah and Alan spent the whole day in the pub, laughing and talking. Very friendly. No barbs. No flirting. I was surprised.

In fact, I'm pleasantly surprised by Alan's attitude towards Sarah. Perhaps being burned by her and then later by Vanessa has finally taught him a lesson. He's not interested in Sarah. He is only paying attention to Lauren. That's not to say that he's ignoring Sarah or James, he's not, he's just protecting himself. I'm proud of the way he's handling himself.

Anyway - they arranged for Alan to re-meet Lauren. He took her and James and Sarah out to Pizza Hut, not wanting Lauren to be on her own and scared or nervous. Alan has so far managed to avoid the dreaded slip-up of calling James 'Alan' by referring to him only as "your brother" to Lauren, or by any number of pet names (of which 'son' seems to be a particular favourite, but that's a Geordie thing. Me putting my happy "I want to be his Auntie again!" spin on it doesn't change that) to James himself. They had a good time. The week or so after, Alan took Lauren to the park by himself, not for long, but by himself, and they had a great time. In the past month or so he's taken her all over the place. They went ice-skating, they've been to every damned park in Northumberland, more or less, same with beaches. He took her shoe shopping, bought her new school shoes and extracted a promise from her to keep them nice for at least three weeks (the shoes she was wearing when he picked her up were all scuffed and awful and she'd only had them for two weeks). And she has.

I've met her again. It was only for a few minutes, and she was shy and nervous. It was on Father's Day, actually. Alan brought her home on the pretence of dropping off a card for her granddad, and I almost missed them. I had just jumped in the shower when they came in. I heard him talking to someone, but I just assumed he was wandering around and talking on the 'phone. I couldn't hear her. When I was out and dressed and was combing my hair, he shouted up the stairs for me, told me that they were there and would be leaving shortly. I think I've never come down the stairs faster.

I signed the card he brought in for my dad, said hello to her while I did. She was quiet, and Alan led the conversation. She showed me the Father's Day card that she'd bought for him, and the two little presents. A "World's Best Dad" tankard and trophy. Sweet. Alan is currently displaying them very proudly on the bookcase in our living room.

She is so grown up. She's nine now. It's been seven years. Seven years. How much have I missed?

All I can say is that, biased or not, I think that she's beautiful, and that I'm glad I'm not going to miss any more. I hope.

Diving in.

So, I'm just going to dive right in. I hate starting new blogs; I'm so bad at it. I figure that I'm not going to bother "starting," I'm just going to begin the waffling without pretence or introduction. Besides, if you found your way here, I know you, wanted you to find your way here, and you don't need to be told how old I am, what colour my eyes are and where I live. You lucky sods. To begin with, I expect this'll just be my new way to commune with Nahbois; beats the hell out of Amazon, at the moment.

In case you didn't know: twenty-two, blue, and Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England.

I feel like I have loads of news to update with, but I can't be bothered to write it out. The most important, then? I guess that would be my interview with Arbeia, on Tuesday. I don't really know what I was expecting, but it certainly isn't what I got. Perhaps I imagined a small-ish meeting room with two or three Tyne&WearMuseum Staff, six to eight candidates? Afterall, the job on offer was only a twenty-five hour part-time gig, one week on and one week off. Right?

Wrong. They received one hundred and forty applications. One hundred and forty. I couldn't bloody believe it. They cut that list down to forty, and decided from that twenty to interview. So at least I was in the top lot, right? Sounds like a good thing, and I think that I presented myself well throughout the afternoon except for one minor (I hope) boob. But, half of the people in that twenty were already volunteering for the museums: they do that job already, and are just looking to get paid for it. There was one absolutely lovely gentleman in his early forties who had been a nurse in the army until the year before last when he started a degree in Tourism. He volunteered at Arbeia itself (most of the others were volunteers at other museums/galleries under the same directorate), and gave tours on campus to potential mature students. He was so pleasant and happy to chat with me, I talked to him most of the afternoon and took the metro home with him. If I don't get the job, I hope it's him that does. On top of the volunteers, though, there were people that were reading/had finished degrees in museum curation and such.

Blah, it makes my Masters and complete lack of experience look paltry. I can't believe I went into it slightly on the smug "I'm bound to get it" side. For shame, 'Ren.


We had four tasks to do within the three hours. The first was to partner up with someone else in the room and tell them about our keys. lol. It was really quite weird. We had fifteen minutes to just keep talking, and I suppose the point was to make sure that we could natter on when we needed to. I imagine that a tour guide needs that ability. I did it, and so did my partner, but invariably we ended up in "and then I realised I'd lost my keys" or "I was so drunk I couldn't get it in the lock" stories.

Amusing, but perhaps not what the museum Staff were after.

After that, the eighteen of us (two of the invited twenty didn't turn up; can you imagine that?!) were split into three groups of six, and we played a game which was about team-work. It involved wrapping up an "artefact" for transport, with silly rules. We all had to wear a glove, and only use that hand to do anything that was involved in the task. If the item was to be moved, two people had to be touching it with one hand each, and could only move one step in any direction before another pair took over. It had to be wrapped in tissue paper and then two different layers of bubble-wrap. It had to be secure enough to actually transport somewhere. I tell you, trying to find the end on a roll of sellotape with someone else holding it and your usually invaluable thumb-nail encased in a rubber glove is awful! Our team finished first, but then we for sure had the easiest item. We had a telescope, which meant we basically just rolled it up in each layer and were done, where the other groups had a wooden box and a carpet-beater.

The third task was to imagine that we had been trapped in a museum after closing for the holidays. You weren't alone, but couldn't get out and had to assume that you were there for the duration; no food left in the café and no electricity or phone or anything. Which out of a list of fifteen items that you and the people locked in with were the most useful? There was water, six bags of sweets, six dust covers, whisky, two torches, a mirror, a heater, a knife, a tin of red paint, ladders, a first aid box, a pile of fire wood, matches, and three other things I can't remember. Everyone put the whisky last but me. I put it towards the top. My argument was that if you were trapped in there over the Christmas holidays, you might as well enjoy it. The two Staff sitting with us that were scribbling on notepads now and again grinned at me, but didn't write down that I'm a drunk. lol. At the bottom of my list was the heater. Everyone else had but it third or fourth, after the water, dust covers (blankets) and sweets. One of the other candidates said to me "don't you think it would be better to use the heater before starting a fire for warmth?" My response was a blank look accompanied by "there's no electricity; it's useless." The two Staff scribbled at this point, so I assume that noticing that was a good thing.

The fourth was a plain interview, and this is where I think I made my minor (I still hope) boob. We were taken out of the room individually whilst the mass-group were completing a "Would you (A), (B), (C), or (D)?" questionnaire, and asked what our availability for work was, that there was the possibility of casual work at any of the sites if we weren't picked for the main roles, was there anywhere we would rather not work? I looked at the list and said that Sunderland would be hard for me to get to (which is completely true) and that would be at the bottom of my preferences, but that it was still fine. The look on his face told me that I was supposed to have said that they were all fine and that I would be happy to work anywhere. I mean... they are, and I would. I just thought I was being asked for preferences. That's what he said, that's what the sheet in front of him said, that's what previous interview experience said. That's not what his face said. D'oh.

Still, I don't think that that in itself is enough to let me down. It was a tiny thing, and the rest of the interview went well. They said that they would pick and let us know by the end of the week, and today is half way through Thursday. I guess I'll hear tomorrow. I don't expect to do well frankly because there were better candidates there. I'm not without hope, though. Some of those that appeared to be the perfect candidates were really quite arrogant and bossy and outspoken during the group work, and I hope that this works against them. Equally, some that had perfect qualifications but no experience were a bit on the field-mouse side. I was somewhere in the middle. Where I expect they wanted us to be.

Oh, I don't know. I'm trying not to think on the results too much. If nothing else, I now know what to expect, right? And if I don't get one of the two posts or some of the casual roles, perhaps I'll be just after those people that do and the Staff will remember me if something else comes up. Perhaps not, but I can hope...right?