The thought of working here until I'm 70 is very disheartening.
I'm so close to my holiday now I can almost touch it, but the world is conspiring against me to make my last few days so much harder than they need to be. I'd like to be effortlessly daydreaming of Icelandic vistas and glaciers, but instead I keep forgetting I'm going TOMORROW because of all the external gremlins taking my attention away.
Firstly, it is The Week Formerly Known As Freshers' Week, so work has gone quite demented. Students everywhere. Noise everywhere. Constant interruptions. I'm trying to get through my workload before I finish but I also need to support Emma on reception and answer so many strange and unusual queries from lost or confused students. I do not hate students - individually they are generally very nice people - but collectively they are a pain in the neck. Do returning students have to greet each other so effusively right outside our office? It would seem so. Do they have to expound about their fabulous holidays in Corsica in loud, Southern accents? It would seem so! Do they have to walk so damn slowly everywhere? It would seem so. I miss the peace and quiet of the summer break.
Secondly, we found out a couple of days ago that our bathroom is leaking into the car park below us. (Thankfully we're in a first floor flat.) I'm finding it hard to care that some cars are getting a morning shower, but apparently it's frowned on by the building's caretaker. They've been in touch with our landlord, the feckless Rob, which has finally shocked him into doing something about the problems with our flat, most of which we've been chasing up for over a year now. So he's promised to fix all the things, which is all well and good, but James has agreed that he can come in to the flat while we're away to do this work. So I've spent a couple of evenings exhausting myself trying to clean up so that the place is presentable when he turns up. I'm not keen on the idea of someone we've never met in the flat without our presence, but I guess it is his flat after all so I can't complain. I'm still worried about what we'll find when we return - probably half fixed electronics hanging from the ceiling.
Thirdly - and this is probably the worst thing - James told me yesterday that he's just noticed that he has booked the wrong dates off work for our holiday. Yes, he told me two days before our flight. He's officially an idiot, and thought we were flying on September 29th instead of 25th and booked time off accordingly. And never thought to check, or look at a calendar, and didn't think about it again until yesterday. So he's supposed to be working next Monday and Tuesday, not visiting Icelandic Turf museums with me. He told his managers yesterday and they agreed to discuss it with him today. He was really worried last night, but it's only two days and so I don't think it's such a big deal really. He's just an idiot.
I did start making plans for a holiday on my own just in case. Better cancel that car hire package as it won't be much use for me without a driving licence!
Fourthly, I'm worried about my mother as she was supposed to be flying back from her holiday in Nice this morning, but her flight was cancelled due to strikes in France. The French need to get a grip really - moving the date of retirement from 60 to 62 is not that bad - they should try working in the UK! Get back to work and stop making my mother upset. She text me early this morning and asked me to look up train routes for her, so now I think she's on a train from Nice to Paris, which will take all day, then she can get the Eurostar to London and a train from there back to Liverpool. She won't get back home until sometime tomorrow, so I won't be able to talk to her before my holiday, and it will cost her a small fortune in train tickets so I hope she has good insurance. Apparently the route between Nice and Paris is lovely, however, so I hope she tries to relax and enjoy the scenery.
Other than that, though, everything's fine! I have two big jobs and a few smaller jobs to complete before the end of the day in work, then more cleaning to do in the flat, oh and packing I suppose, but by this time tomorrow I will be on the plane to Reykjavik and I won't care in what state the flat is, or even if James is with me, because I'll be on my holiday!
Firstly, it is The Week Formerly Known As Freshers' Week, so work has gone quite demented. Students everywhere. Noise everywhere. Constant interruptions. I'm trying to get through my workload before I finish but I also need to support Emma on reception and answer so many strange and unusual queries from lost or confused students. I do not hate students - individually they are generally very nice people - but collectively they are a pain in the neck. Do returning students have to greet each other so effusively right outside our office? It would seem so. Do they have to expound about their fabulous holidays in Corsica in loud, Southern accents? It would seem so! Do they have to walk so damn slowly everywhere? It would seem so. I miss the peace and quiet of the summer break.
Secondly, we found out a couple of days ago that our bathroom is leaking into the car park below us. (Thankfully we're in a first floor flat.) I'm finding it hard to care that some cars are getting a morning shower, but apparently it's frowned on by the building's caretaker. They've been in touch with our landlord, the feckless Rob, which has finally shocked him into doing something about the problems with our flat, most of which we've been chasing up for over a year now. So he's promised to fix all the things, which is all well and good, but James has agreed that he can come in to the flat while we're away to do this work. So I've spent a couple of evenings exhausting myself trying to clean up so that the place is presentable when he turns up. I'm not keen on the idea of someone we've never met in the flat without our presence, but I guess it is his flat after all so I can't complain. I'm still worried about what we'll find when we return - probably half fixed electronics hanging from the ceiling.
Thirdly - and this is probably the worst thing - James told me yesterday that he's just noticed that he has booked the wrong dates off work for our holiday. Yes, he told me two days before our flight. He's officially an idiot, and thought we were flying on September 29th instead of 25th and booked time off accordingly. And never thought to check, or look at a calendar, and didn't think about it again until yesterday. So he's supposed to be working next Monday and Tuesday, not visiting Icelandic Turf museums with me. He told his managers yesterday and they agreed to discuss it with him today. He was really worried last night, but it's only two days and so I don't think it's such a big deal really. He's just an idiot.
I did start making plans for a holiday on my own just in case. Better cancel that car hire package as it won't be much use for me without a driving licence!
Fourthly, I'm worried about my mother as she was supposed to be flying back from her holiday in Nice this morning, but her flight was cancelled due to strikes in France. The French need to get a grip really - moving the date of retirement from 60 to 62 is not that bad - they should try working in the UK! Get back to work and stop making my mother upset. She text me early this morning and asked me to look up train routes for her, so now I think she's on a train from Nice to Paris, which will take all day, then she can get the Eurostar to London and a train from there back to Liverpool. She won't get back home until sometime tomorrow, so I won't be able to talk to her before my holiday, and it will cost her a small fortune in train tickets so I hope she has good insurance. Apparently the route between Nice and Paris is lovely, however, so I hope she tries to relax and enjoy the scenery.
Other than that, though, everything's fine! I have two big jobs and a few smaller jobs to complete before the end of the day in work, then more cleaning to do in the flat, oh and packing I suppose, but by this time tomorrow I will be on the plane to Reykjavik and I won't care in what state the flat is, or even if James is with me, because I'll be on my holiday!