Aspirational Goldfish

Ever since I got my job offer and I've been prepping for work next week I've been thinking about the future. There are certain things I think you start to think about at particular times in your life. Mine so far have been a place of my own to life in with my OH, children but before all that a job. Now I have a job I can move onto the other things. I don't think I'm quite ready for children just yet and we haven't really accrued enough money yet to buy somewhere (we could start thinking about renting though). OH's mum made us smile this morning (well me this evening when OH told me). She suggested now I had a job that we might want to get a double bed! So it's not just me that's thinking ahead. Oh course the logistics of that are a little tricky considering the rooms we inhabit but the idea does sound very inviting.

I on the other hand have been going down the adding to the family numbers route. Whilst children are off the menu for now a pet would be quite nice. We can't really get a cat or a dog or something small and furry as there isn't really room or time for them and some family members have an aversion to certain animals. When I was in town the other day buying clothes I spotted an aquarium shop and went in to look at the fish. There was a £28 starter kit that included a fish bowl, some weed and food, a net and 2 goldfish. A bargain price I thought. However a fish still needs some looking after, feeding, cleaning out the bowl and such which all cost money on a regular basis. So they've become aspirational fish. Ones which I will buy when I have more money to burn and a better place to keep them. Instead for now I've set my sight on some sea monkeys. If you've not heard of them before they're basically little Brine Shrimp. They cost less than £20 and live for 2 years and come with a packet of food that's meant to last a year. So that's a pet that'll cost you £20 for one year plus about £1 a year to feed them once the first year's food runs out. I've had them before and not been as successful as I would have liked but I think I've learned from my success so I'm hoping if I do get some then I'll become a sea monkey expert. I'll make a mother of me yet!

Do you have a teacher voice?

Today's post is a little short owing to me having a job interview tomorrow and spending most of the day and this evening trying to prepare for that. It's a job I'd really like, good location, school looks good too and it's the age range I'd like to work with so I'm keeping all my limbs crossed for it and working supper hard to be prepped ready for it.

Luckily my cold symptoms seem to have worn off now so I won't be lurgified tomorrow at my interview. My OH's on the other hand are still there. He's croaky and grouchy. The grouchiness forced me to use my teacher voice on him earlier because he got all crabby with his new Star Wars game and me because he said I was saying it was easy. Co-incidentally if anyone knows how to get past the Raxus Prime level on Playstation 3 where you have to defeat that mini boss robot then please leave a comment (and don't say it's easy otherwise I might have to use my teacher voice on you- it's not pretty!). He must have played that level a million times now. He got past the boss at one point but then fell off the bridge and got very cross (hence me needing my teacher voice).

Everyone always asked me when I was training if I had a teacher voice/stare and I said yes but I can only do/make it work when I really need it. Suffice to say that I think my OH learned how scary it was the hard way!

Gone but not forgotten

Today has been a pretty fraught day today. I awoke feeling gloomy remembering  yesterday's interview and not having gotten the job. I mustered some spirit to switch on the laptop and check for more jobs and to think about filling out the application forms I'd still got to fill in for another job and the interview I have on Tuesday.

I'd just about perked myself up when I got a phone call. It was from one of the school's I'd assumed that the boat had sailed on when it came to interviews. They rang and said that it was really short notice but could I make an interview tomorrow. I paused for a second and said would it be O.k. to phone back only I had to check transportation arrangements. They said yes and said "oh and we'd like you to read a 30 minute story to a group of children you can use your own resources like puppets and things". Flashes of panic went through me and I could feel my blood pressure rising. I should be happy I had another interview right? Well I would be if they'd asked me any other day than today and if they'd given me more time.

I've spent the rest of today stressing over whether or not to say yes to it or not because I felt so under pressure and ill-prepared for it. I ended up saying no because it was hiking my stress levels practically to the same levels that they'd been before I'd had to defer my course. I tried to get myself back on track again by filling out the medical forms so I could get them in the post but that just depressed me further because I have to somehow explain I've been depressed without sounding like I could fall apart at any moment.

As if today couldn't be any more depressing, it marks the date 4 years ago that my granddad passed away.  It's true what some people say about not realising what you've got till it's gone. He's left such a big hole in my life that I just don't know how to fill it. He died the day before I started university. I was packed off on my own to uni where I spent a week trying to cope with grief on my own with no friends. Making friends is hard to do when you're grieving and feel so alone and all you wish is that you could be at home with your family. I don't think I've ever properly had time to grief for him and I never will. Everyone else in my family seems to have moved past where I am and I can't talk to them about it. Especially my Nan. She has a new man now and she seems to be trying to rid her life of all things related to my grandad. What feels worse is that I used to be able to talk to her because she was alone too. We held each other together. But now she seems to have given herself permission not to do that. She told me when I visited her last that I'd told her that she had him now so she didn't need to talk to me as much. I don't ever remember saying that and if I did I never meant it I just wanted her to feel O.k.

I want to know when life is going to be good to me. There were two things that made me feel slightly happier today. My OH because he always makes me smile no matter what and a Post Secret card I found on an archive site that said something along the lines of "every story has a happy ending. If you're not happy yet then it's not the end". I'm keeping my fingers crossed that what they said is true.

Back to black

I'm having a rough weekend this week. Maybe it's the thought of another impending interview and the looming fear that yet again I'll be rejected. I feel like this year has been one big train wreck. My confidence (what little I had) has gone, my dreams are in tatters and I've lost the one thing I thought I was good at ¹. If I can't get a job then what am I going to do. It would be the ultimate rejection. 'Never mind' said everyone when I had my meltdown and ruined my chances at getting my PGCE. 'You have a degree and a 2:1 is an excellent mark'. What good is a degree if I can't do anything with it though. It's a degree in education and even the education establishments don't seem to want me. Especially the ones I was training to teach in (primary schools).

I've been feeling lately like my life is so empty and like I'm running on auto-pilot. I do the same thing every day, I go the same places every weekend and soon I'll not even be able to afford to do that I'll just have to sit at home because that's free. The only thing good in my life and that's keeping me clinging on is my OH and I'm worried that I'm going to loose him because I can't tell him what's going on in my head. I want to but the words just won't form themselves and I just can't answer. I don't know myself what's happening. All I do know is I feel like I'm drifting back into the black abyss that I was in 6 months ago when my life fell apart and I have no way out because this was my way out. Getting a job and having something to distract me was meant to help but it isn't and I don't know what to do.

I'm frightened. I don't like where I'm heading but I feel powerless to stop it. I can't just smile and everything will feel better. I can't tell people what's wrong because they just don't understand. 'Everything' it seems is not a suitable answer. It's like witnessing an all-out massacre in front of you and someone asking 'what's wrong' and you just see so much that you just don't know where to start. Worst still there is no where to escape. You just think you've conquered it and then Wham there goes another wave and you don't know why or where it came from. You were happy to minutes ago why now.

When that wave does it, so unexpectedly you're left dazed and confused and with people asking all sorts expecting you to have the answer and you can't look them in the eye and tell them because you have no answer and the look of fear that you see in their eyes is so gut wrenching that you just can't bring yourself to look at them. No matter how bad you feel inside you dread to make them feel the way you do and though you try and you want to tell them what's going on inside. You know that if you do speak it out loud and let those words go there's no going back, no way to undo them. You're scared that once let loose that things will never be the same and that you'll make them just as unhappy as you.

What crushes me most is the doubts it creates in others. Most of all my OH because I love him so much and I want to spend the rest of my life with him. He understands me like no other person, he has the patience of a saint and puts up with all the crap I throw at him and still he's by my side. Yet every time I'm down there's that little niggle. 'Do you still want to be with me?' and it puts doubts in my mind too not about whether I do want to be with him but because I wonder if he still wants to be with me. Am I still what he wants? How much more of this can he stand because I couldn't stand to loose him.

1. Which everyone says is temporary and once I believed them but I'm not so sure any more.

True love

I saw this post secret the other day and it made me smile and I completely agree. Of all the people I've known in my life It's been (dare I say it) the slightly geekier ones that have been the most caring and sharing. I think it was because they were never in the 'it' crowd and they didn't have a pretence of being cool and popular to keep. They were just genuine. I'm not sure I really like the label geek. I was always branded as a geek in school because I had glasses but I never considered myself one. Secretly I think I wished to be cool but now I've grown up I've realised I'd rather be unique and be me.

My OH is a Star Wars fan and if you've read my blog you'll know he got me to watch it recently and I'm totally converted. I can wholeheartedly agree with that postcard. My OH is my one true love. My first love. He is the kindest most sensitive person I know. He loves me even when I don't love myself and accepts me for just being me. He is perfect.

Loosing something you never had

I've felt quite down today. It's probably the hormones. Aunty Flo has arrived today. She's caused a lot of angst this month to the point of forcing me to take a test last night to check if she'd gone on a 9 month vacation. The test said no she hadn't but I was anxious why she'd not shown any signs of arrival. Both my OH and myself sat anxiously in the bathroom for what felt like the longest 2 minutes of my life.

I'd spent all of the weekend umming and arring about taking the test and what on earth we were going to do if it came out positive. I have no money and no home to call my own, me and my OH aren't even engaged and I'd hoped that I'd be married if such an event occurred. I was so afraid of what might be. But secretly I was also fantasising, imaging what I'd look like with a bump, the clothes I'd buy for them, bathing them, feeding them, playing games and being a family. So whilst I breathed a sigh of relief when it turned negative I also felt quite disappointed and like I'd missed out on something very special.

It feels lately like I haven't had many special things happen to me (except my OH who is my rock). I've had one really rough year. I left my PGCE course in April after suffering  from what I think was a major bought of depression and stress. I've got the opportunity to go back in January and finish it off but I'm just not sure that I'm ready to. Instead I'm looking for jobs as a teaching assistant because I like working in schools and with children and it'll hopefully help me to decide if I want to carry on trying to be a teacher, do something else, or maybe just carry on being a TA. So far I've had interviews but no job offers, I've got less money than when I was a student which seems a bit of an oxymoron really. I like to know where I'm going and what I'm doing so not knowing what I'll be doing in 6 months time let alone 9 or 12 is killing me. I'm going to go an get job seekers soon. I've resisted till now out  of cowardice. I hate form filling and I hate asking for things especially if I feel I don't deserve them.

In a way I feel a little gutted that the test did come back negative. In those few days I had my next 9 months planned. They would have been hard but I'd have had something to show for them and something to do. I'd have a purpose. I think ever since I was old enough to contemplate having children I've wanted them (not as in being a teen mum or anything... always when I felt ready) and I've sort of had this mental map of how my life would look and it looks nothing like how my life is now and I wonder if it ever will. I know it probably won't ever and it's probably completely unrealistic but I'd love it if some part of it were true at least.

Easy like Sunday...yawning

Today has been pretty leisurely and laid back again. We've been continuing our Star Wars fest with a sprinkling of Juno (one of the best films ever in my opinion) and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless mind for a little variety.

I don't know whether it's just me or whether other people feel it too but for me Sunday's have this unnerving feeling about them. I think it's because they mark the end of the weekend and the return to the work day grind (well it would if I had a job. At the moment it represents going back to the newspaper to trawl the ads, watching re-runs of danger mouse and developing a slightly scary obsession with talk shows (Nothing beats a bit of Jeremy Kyle to set you up for the rest of the day). Have you ever noticed how the hands on the clock seem to turn quicker on a Sunday? I think that they must know that the weekend's nearly over and decide to trickle away faster like the last few grains of sand in an hour glass.

Maybe I don't like Sundays because it means I've got to wait another 6 days to spend the whole day with my OH. It's nice staying with him and seeing more of him but it can get a little lonely when he's at work. I know I have jobs to look for and a million things to entertain me but somehow they're not as good as being able to snuggle up to him with my head on his chest listening to both our hearts beating as one (yes I know very mushy but I'm allowed to be it's my blog and I'm in love!).

This weekend seems to have gone alarmingly quickly and has been accompanied by a lot of frowns and worried thoughts and discussions. I'm not up to telling anything just yet. I need to get my head around what I want to do about the situation first and how I feel. 

Having one Hellboy of a weekend

Today I've been a little lazy. I spent most of the day in my PJ's either sending up the Z's or snuggled up with the one I love getting an education in using the force...yes I've been sucked in to the phenomenon that is Star Wars. My OH took me to see the new Clone Wars film the other week and thoroughly confused me because I'd only ever seen episode 4 (what was originally the first film in the trilogy before Mr Lucas made the prequels). We spent the whole journey home plus another 20 mins on the drive with him trying to explain to me who it was I'd seen in the film. I thought it was Luke Skywalker but apparently it was his dad and now he's bad. I was more confused having watched the film and had it explained to me than before I'd watched it! Consequently I made him play the films in chronological order of the storyline. So prequels and then the trilogy. We've just finished watching the 4th one which makes so much more sense now I've watched the prequels and I've banned my OH from telling me how any of the characters are related!

In fact I think I might have become a little bit addicted to them. But shhh don't tell my OH ;)

With our tastebuds wetted from our half marathon of the Wars we went out to meet OH's mates and went and saw Hellboy 2 at the cinema preceded by a very tasty KFC. I can't say I enjoyed it as much as I did the first film. I think it was one of those sequels that didn't really need to be written. A bit like The Mummy 3. That was a complete waste of film reel. For starts they'd replaced Rachel Weiss in the role of Evie (big mistake. If they couldn't get her then they shouldn't have bothered to make the film. Her and Brendan had on screen chemistry). Hellboy didn't really need a number 2. The first one pretty much told the story. Devil boy fights evil and saves the one he loves. It sort of came to a conclusion.

Hmmmm I wonder what other sequels should never have been made?

 

Internet Addiction

It's surprising the hold that the Internet and computers have on society. I was a child born into the age of the computer and as such remember very little about life without one. My parents both have degrees in computing and as I've grown up I've been surrounded by all sorts of technological gadgetry.

When I moved away to university I almost went into culture shock. My student halls had yet to be linked up to wi-fi or any kind of network let alone the Internet. I was forced to go to the library every time I wanted to check my email, bank online or simply faff around on myspace. It also resulted in me getting a hell of a lot more fresh air than I did once they installed wi-fi in my halls (I was forced to go and play outside rather than sitting playing video games).

Consequently when I moved into my first student house I made it my mission to have working Internet before I would even consider setting foot in the house. Boy was that a traumatic experience and moving house the next year didn't help as I had to start all over again setting it up (who thought moving 3 doors down could be so complicated for a telephone company to work out?!). What made things worse was the fact that I had a newly found boyfriend who I'd met via a forum ( yes thanks to the Internet you can now trawl through an even bigger net of fish rather than your local rag's lonely hearts column. Of course you still can't guarantee that they won't turn out to be a 50 year old pervert who likes watching episodes of Bargain Hunt whilst dressed as a penguin. Thankfully none of those describes the love of my life.) and all of my communications with him were largely done via the Internet. Therefore I had a vested interest in getting it going again ASAP.

So great was my want and need of the Internet I would stop at nothing to get my net connection working. I've even stooped to contorting myself into interesting positions and cladding my aerials in tin foil to get a better reception.

 

God help me and other geeks and net junkies if the big www. ever shuts down.