i don't suck at kickboxing. I won the boxing 'match' on Friday against Leo (2x 2min rounds), who was a very worthy opponent, and got a medal stating that i am a 'Thai boxing Champion'! CHAMPION! I wanted to get 'thanks to the chocolate chip cookie' on it, but felt that might be disrespectful. However, really it was thanks to the cookie- a white chocolate and raspberry one actually, they are VERY good.
It is great to not suck at something finally in my life; I am not even good at walking along without tripping on stupid curbs and bumps. Well actually there are some other things i don't suck at. I am good at looking scruffy (a serious art i have perfected- today i had a hole in the leg of my jeans, obtained a red stain on my white top making tea first thing, then hastily tied my hair up due to the heat which exposed my very dark roots and as i was not raised as a girl, i am unable to tie it back without getting some weird lumps and bumps appearing on the top of my head which don't go away no matter how much you hit them). Can you imagine me appearing on your doorstep telling you how to live your life better? Good job most of my clients are teenagers who wouldn't even notice.
I am also good at being embarrassed, making funny self-depreciating comments and also making chocolate truffles that look like spat out half chewed sweets, but really taste very nice once rolled in cocoa powder. Yippee. My CV is complete!
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Monday, July 26, 2010
NOOOOOOOOOOOooooOO!
My Camera is broken! Well in fact it never worked. Argghh. No matter now organised i try to be i never manage to organise my time well. Why am i now sending back my camera to the Internet shop and waiting for a replacement with less than 2 weeks to go! Darn! I hate to think what i will be doing on Friday night the day before i go.....
I'd like to show you a picture of my trashed camera, but alas i have to send it back like it is, not express my emotions on it!
I'd like to show you a picture of my trashed camera, but alas i have to send it back like it is, not express my emotions on it!
Thursday, July 22, 2010
My New Camera
My new Camera!! i choose it with wise criteria 1) looks (well a new gaget has to look sexy) 2) zoom 3) what everyone else tells me is important. So volia! I'm one step closer to being ready to leave! 10x Optical zoom, 12 million trillion megapixels (whatever they are), dual image stablisiation and thanks to Juniors hours of research- only £110.
I couldnt make the camera look cool in a photo so i put it next to the most boring book i could find and altered the colours. Lets face it, its only good looking in camera world, not the real world. But hopefully the pictures i take will look awesome. Watch this space!
I couldnt make the camera look cool in a photo so i put it next to the most boring book i could find and altered the colours. Lets face it, its only good looking in camera world, not the real world. But hopefully the pictures i take will look awesome. Watch this space!
Monday, July 12, 2010
Email uploading!
Is this going to work? please :)
checking my email uploading, only 26 days til we go!! Gotta get practicing!
Get a free e-mail account with Hotmail. Sign-up now.
checking my email uploading, only 26 days til we go!! Gotta get practicing!
Get a free e-mail account with Hotmail. Sign-up now.
Work Reflections:
Since i will soon be leaving my job, I've been thinking back over the highlights of my time with the team. Following are my top 5 days:
1) The day we had an oil sick and our lives were put in minor peril.
I seem to have a habit of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and consistently throughout my time i am ALWAYS up to something stupid when the head of our building walks into our room. On this occasion Rowl had knocked a bottle of olive oil on the floor in between our desks, which also doubles as the only way to access the other desks on the other side of the room (this is why giving us lunch rooms would actually be a good idea). We both looked at it glugging onto the carpet for a while before deciding to try and mope it with a paper towel. Little success, and by this stage Junior had wandered over. We then decided to wash it with soapy water, this now seems like a stupid idea, but I'm sure some sort of logic took place at the time. So Junior got down to wash it with a little bowl and cloth, and VT our managers manager wandered across. He helpfully observed the situation also whilst i made a sign to put on the floor near by (as it had become very slippery) stating that people needed to be careful as there was a risk of minor peril ahead. I then rejoined the observers and the big head manager unnoticed slipped in also. Once we had got over our positive encouragement and criticism of Juniors efforts we notice him and someone remarked how accurate this was of a council situation, one person working with 4 looking on and criticising and managing them!
2) The day when 9/11 almost happened again.
The quality of our equipment at work is questionable and whenever the fire alarm goes off you are dubious at best. I for one enjoy fire alarms as i have not grown up and come from the school of thought that if you hear a fire alarm you should shout/scream joyously, be very noisy, and run out the building in as silly a manner as possible, only after collecting anything you want to take with you and hitting save on your computer. On this particular day several people adopted my philosophies'; especially as the fire alarm would be fixed only for us to have to leave the building again ten minutes later. On the third time of this happening as we were slowly packing up and considering leaving the office for another jaunt outside, a colleague in all earnestness declared, 'Come on people! this is how 9/11 happened!'. This caused us great merriment to imagine that 9/11 could occur again in Peckham in a crappy 3 story social services office where people cannot be bothered to leave the office quickly on a fake fire alarm. I'm not sure many people died in 9/11 because they saw the planes crash into their office but stopped to press save on CareAssess before leaving.
3) The day we developed the box game and were caught on the brand new CCTV camera
New CCTV camera's were installed in the meeting rooms and we were given one of these rooms as an office for several days temporarily. Along with this temporary move, we had no computer access and so work was limited. We developed an awesome game where we hid something in the empty 30 boxes lying around the room and then time someone to find it. We played this game in as noisy and violent a manner as possible, forgetting all the while that these CCTV camera were hooked up. Once we realised we were being spied on we thought the easiest solution was to block the camera as there was no reason for them to be on us (there was no risk of client attack). We then (Junior- it is always Junior who leads me astray) thought we could remedy this by sticking a piece of paper over the camera, which we promptly did and thought nothing more of it. In typical council fashion however, they noticed and without coming to check they called in an engineer to fix it. Imagine our embarrassment when he came in, removed the piece of paper and charged the company a huge call out fee. They never did find out this was us.
4) The day N-Man's draws were reversed.
To deal with the boredom of our office sometimes little pranks get played along a theme and these escalate more and more until we get too busy to be creative, or think independently and have to return to the monotony of record making. On this occasion a theme of altering each others person draws below our desks was picked and several items moved around, draws swapped with other people or even made to look as if they had been emptied. The height of this enjoyment was when we turned around N-man's draws and drew on some lines and blue tacked on her key so it looked like to was the right way around. It was very funny when she spent a while trying to open her draws and then looked around embarrassed as she realised.
5) The day StaceyG told me i was boring.
I work with teenagers, and every now and again i like to think I'm good at it and that i really know how to understand them and get on their level. And then people like Stacey come along and put me straight. Once during, what i thought was a great session about feelings and dealing with emotions, Stacey stopped me mid activity AND sentence and innocently asked, 'Are we nearly finished yet? I'm bored'. Well i was stunned, and promptly wrapped up the session amid stuttering and stammering and embarrassment. That'll teach me for thinking I'm cool.
1) The day we had an oil sick and our lives were put in minor peril.
I seem to have a habit of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and consistently throughout my time i am ALWAYS up to something stupid when the head of our building walks into our room. On this occasion Rowl had knocked a bottle of olive oil on the floor in between our desks, which also doubles as the only way to access the other desks on the other side of the room (this is why giving us lunch rooms would actually be a good idea). We both looked at it glugging onto the carpet for a while before deciding to try and mope it with a paper towel. Little success, and by this stage Junior had wandered over. We then decided to wash it with soapy water, this now seems like a stupid idea, but I'm sure some sort of logic took place at the time. So Junior got down to wash it with a little bowl and cloth, and VT our managers manager wandered across. He helpfully observed the situation also whilst i made a sign to put on the floor near by (as it had become very slippery) stating that people needed to be careful as there was a risk of minor peril ahead. I then rejoined the observers and the big head manager unnoticed slipped in also. Once we had got over our positive encouragement and criticism of Juniors efforts we notice him and someone remarked how accurate this was of a council situation, one person working with 4 looking on and criticising and managing them!
2) The day when 9/11 almost happened again.
The quality of our equipment at work is questionable and whenever the fire alarm goes off you are dubious at best. I for one enjoy fire alarms as i have not grown up and come from the school of thought that if you hear a fire alarm you should shout/scream joyously, be very noisy, and run out the building in as silly a manner as possible, only after collecting anything you want to take with you and hitting save on your computer. On this particular day several people adopted my philosophies'; especially as the fire alarm would be fixed only for us to have to leave the building again ten minutes later. On the third time of this happening as we were slowly packing up and considering leaving the office for another jaunt outside, a colleague in all earnestness declared, 'Come on people! this is how 9/11 happened!'. This caused us great merriment to imagine that 9/11 could occur again in Peckham in a crappy 3 story social services office where people cannot be bothered to leave the office quickly on a fake fire alarm. I'm not sure many people died in 9/11 because they saw the planes crash into their office but stopped to press save on CareAssess before leaving.
3) The day we developed the box game and were caught on the brand new CCTV camera
New CCTV camera's were installed in the meeting rooms and we were given one of these rooms as an office for several days temporarily. Along with this temporary move, we had no computer access and so work was limited. We developed an awesome game where we hid something in the empty 30 boxes lying around the room and then time someone to find it. We played this game in as noisy and violent a manner as possible, forgetting all the while that these CCTV camera were hooked up. Once we realised we were being spied on we thought the easiest solution was to block the camera as there was no reason for them to be on us (there was no risk of client attack). We then (Junior- it is always Junior who leads me astray) thought we could remedy this by sticking a piece of paper over the camera, which we promptly did and thought nothing more of it. In typical council fashion however, they noticed and without coming to check they called in an engineer to fix it. Imagine our embarrassment when he came in, removed the piece of paper and charged the company a huge call out fee. They never did find out this was us.
4) The day N-Man's draws were reversed.
To deal with the boredom of our office sometimes little pranks get played along a theme and these escalate more and more until we get too busy to be creative, or think independently and have to return to the monotony of record making. On this occasion a theme of altering each others person draws below our desks was picked and several items moved around, draws swapped with other people or even made to look as if they had been emptied. The height of this enjoyment was when we turned around N-man's draws and drew on some lines and blue tacked on her key so it looked like to was the right way around. It was very funny when she spent a while trying to open her draws and then looked around embarrassed as she realised.
5) The day StaceyG told me i was boring.
I work with teenagers, and every now and again i like to think I'm good at it and that i really know how to understand them and get on their level. And then people like Stacey come along and put me straight. Once during, what i thought was a great session about feelings and dealing with emotions, Stacey stopped me mid activity AND sentence and innocently asked, 'Are we nearly finished yet? I'm bored'. Well i was stunned, and promptly wrapped up the session amid stuttering and stammering and embarrassment. That'll teach me for thinking I'm cool.
Thursday, July 08, 2010
Terroising the terrorist.
Sometimes work can just seem so long, the hours wont pass, and the volume of work overwhelming you stays the same, probably because you are doing all you can in your power to procrastinate, which i think is my excuse for what happened this afternoon when Junior and i terrorised a Peckham terrorist- via email.
It all started with a suspicious email from a girl i went to high school with, Tia, whom i have not heard from in a few years. She asked me for help via email, as she was stuck in London after being held up at gunpoint and had no means left to pay her hotel bill. Well, being the kind, and suspicious, person that i am, i thought I'd email back and see if there was any way i could help. Sure enough Tia, more forthcoming than i knew her, promptly asked me to pay her hotel bill of $1,963 and promised to pay me back as soon as she got back home. Funnily enough, the address where she asked me to transfer the money to was a place literally across the road from my office in Peckham! i could hardly believe my eyes, I was in the process of rip-off negotiations with none other than Peckham's finest! Since 'Tia' for some unknown reason did not answer any of my personal questions about her life and simply demanded over and over again that i send the money NOW, Junior and I thought, well why not encourage a Peckham teen to take some exercise, all this time in front of a computer trying to rip-off Tia's friends cant be good for his health. So thanks to a little ingenuity from Junior we created a transfer code, emailed this and chortled away to ourselves as we pictured the Peckhamite walking to the nearest Western Union. It really is a shame that there are so many Western Union outlets in South London, how much more our glee would have been had 'Tia' had to walk a few miles. Mind you if he has a good swagger like the kids round here do then it would be a lot of effort to get anywhere!
Well half an hour passed and 'Tia' was back, disappointed- proving that no-one likes exercise. I apologised profusely and promptly encouraged the con-artist to return to the Western Union asap, as the money had now transferred, he must have been too fast before. So imagine our delight as this 'artist' again exercised those baggy jeaned, Nike comforted legs and limped/trekked to the shop again. Yippee.
Now this time 'Tia' really felt i had been challenging our friendship and told me so :( Having realised that there was very little chance of getting a triathlon out of this kid we gave up the ghost and Junior composed an awesome email in which he asked 'Tia' for money, African stylee! Since it was getting late and i was worried for my helpless American friend, obviously still stranded in Peckham, i also sent her links to the worst hotel in Peckham - Peckham Lodge, and that if she need further help, she call me (on Peckham Police stations number). Now it is unlikely that this kid followed up, but if they did.........
As Rowl likes to say,' Saving one Peckham kid at a time'. Today we did, by encouraging them to exercise.
It all started with a suspicious email from a girl i went to high school with, Tia, whom i have not heard from in a few years. She asked me for help via email, as she was stuck in London after being held up at gunpoint and had no means left to pay her hotel bill. Well, being the kind, and suspicious, person that i am, i thought I'd email back and see if there was any way i could help. Sure enough Tia, more forthcoming than i knew her, promptly asked me to pay her hotel bill of $1,963 and promised to pay me back as soon as she got back home. Funnily enough, the address where she asked me to transfer the money to was a place literally across the road from my office in Peckham! i could hardly believe my eyes, I was in the process of rip-off negotiations with none other than Peckham's finest! Since 'Tia' for some unknown reason did not answer any of my personal questions about her life and simply demanded over and over again that i send the money NOW, Junior and I thought, well why not encourage a Peckham teen to take some exercise, all this time in front of a computer trying to rip-off Tia's friends cant be good for his health. So thanks to a little ingenuity from Junior we created a transfer code, emailed this and chortled away to ourselves as we pictured the Peckhamite walking to the nearest Western Union. It really is a shame that there are so many Western Union outlets in South London, how much more our glee would have been had 'Tia' had to walk a few miles. Mind you if he has a good swagger like the kids round here do then it would be a lot of effort to get anywhere!
Well half an hour passed and 'Tia' was back, disappointed- proving that no-one likes exercise. I apologised profusely and promptly encouraged the con-artist to return to the Western Union asap, as the money had now transferred, he must have been too fast before. So imagine our delight as this 'artist' again exercised those baggy jeaned, Nike comforted legs and limped/trekked to the shop again. Yippee.
Now this time 'Tia' really felt i had been challenging our friendship and told me so :( Having realised that there was very little chance of getting a triathlon out of this kid we gave up the ghost and Junior composed an awesome email in which he asked 'Tia' for money, African stylee! Since it was getting late and i was worried for my helpless American friend, obviously still stranded in Peckham, i also sent her links to the worst hotel in Peckham - Peckham Lodge, and that if she need further help, she call me (on Peckham Police stations number). Now it is unlikely that this kid followed up, but if they did.........
As Rowl likes to say,' Saving one Peckham kid at a time'. Today we did, by encouraging them to exercise.
Saturday, July 03, 2010
The calm before the storm
Last night I went to the Opera which I thought was going to be The Marriage of Figaro', but turned out it was Le Nozze di Figaro - it seemed almost exactly the same. If you haven't seen opera this is the one to go to: massive voices, set in this grand operatic building, with to yearn for costumes accompanied by jokes, some familiar songs, and when it all gets a bit much you can laugh at the somewhat silly warbley bits. As we had tickets right up the top (they are actually affordable up there- £10-20) I spent most of the performance kneeling on the floor leaning over the balcony to see the stage. But you could see it well (we were close to the stage, just high up) and it was great.
On one of my rests (my knees also got sunburnt the other day so they were not as durable as usual!) I sat back in my seat and looked around at the audience and it was so amazingly calm. A kind of calm that you imagine you only get at the bottom of a giganormous wave when your on a little, tiny boat and you accept the facts and wait, in awe. To be honest barely anyone was even moving at all, just completely still and focused absorbed in the opera. That is apart from the people near me who got a bit annoyed at the ADD girl bobbing around looking at everyone and everything; sighing loudly in sympathy with everyone looking so relaxed. I guess people have apportioned that time of their busy lives to being there and it was so nice. A united harmony. There is something very powerful and beautiful about harmony
On other notes. We have a new flatmate! I don't mind the 'finding a flatmate process' as the last few times we've done it I've met several people I'd actually like to be friends with- this time there was Anne-Marie and Kathryn. Is this a legitimate friend making scheme? How cross would you be if you found out I didn't really have a room to let I just wanted to met new people?
On one of my rests (my knees also got sunburnt the other day so they were not as durable as usual!) I sat back in my seat and looked around at the audience and it was so amazingly calm. A kind of calm that you imagine you only get at the bottom of a giganormous wave when your on a little, tiny boat and you accept the facts and wait, in awe. To be honest barely anyone was even moving at all, just completely still and focused absorbed in the opera. That is apart from the people near me who got a bit annoyed at the ADD girl bobbing around looking at everyone and everything; sighing loudly in sympathy with everyone looking so relaxed. I guess people have apportioned that time of their busy lives to being there and it was so nice. A united harmony. There is something very powerful and beautiful about harmony
On other notes. We have a new flatmate! I don't mind the 'finding a flatmate process' as the last few times we've done it I've met several people I'd actually like to be friends with- this time there was Anne-Marie and Kathryn. Is this a legitimate friend making scheme? How cross would you be if you found out I didn't really have a room to let I just wanted to met new people?
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