(no subject)
Yesterday, I went to Gloucester's BBC Experience, complete with Doctor Who exhibition. It was fab. Or at least, I thought so. Someone else posted on new_who to say that they'd found it 'extremely disappointing,' but each to his own, I suppose. I had never actually seen a TARDIS model, or daleks, or other DW stuff in real life before, so 'twas all very exciting for me. There were no people, but this is not a problem as I would be far too shy to get autographs anyway, and such.
So, I squeed mightily over daleks, TARDIS (admitedly the model of Jon Pertwee was not too realistic, which was sad; I think it would have been better sans model myself), and a multitude of monsters, which shall be detailed in a later post, when I have photographic evidence to display. Because yes, many many photos were taken, but we have unfortunately lost the USB lead for the camera, so I can't get hold of any of them yet. Very sad. But as soon as possible, I shall be posting photos of myself with daleks, Davros, and K9; and also the walking talking dalek which was fan-made, and said 'cheese!' for the camera, and tried to exterminate small children. Hee, it was good. *g*
Then we went shopping...
If I'd ever got round to doing the '10 things I assume you know about me' meme, this is something which would have been on it. Should have been on it, anyway; I suspect it would have slipped my mind, because it's awfully hard to think of things I assume people know, which is why I didn't do it. Anyway...
I live in Worcesteshire, so I often go to Worcester for shopping and to see films and such. However, I live near-ish the border of Herefordshire, and a couple of my friends technically live in Herefordshire, so we also sometimes go to Hereford for coffee and such. To complicate matters further, most of my maternal family live in or around Gloucester (including my Grandma, uncle, aunt and cousins), so we also go to Gloucester quite often, and in fact that's generally where I go if I'm going shopping with my family. Or to the dentist.
So, small explanation of why I spend my time gadding around three county towns; I don't know if anyone's interested, but I thought it might seem a bit strange.
...mainly for jeans, as most of my jeans have been mended at least once; most of them many times, in fact; and most of them are really kind of dying. This brings me to the realisation that I have a crazy number of pairs of jeans: probably about 6 or 7 pairs by now, which (to me, at least) seems like a lot. The main reason, though, is that I can't bring myself to part with them even if they're really past it (as most of them are). I've only got one pair of jeans which is still intact; the majority of them are either waiting to be mended again or are on a pile of jeans to wear only when there's nothing else or at times when I really don't mind having gaping holes. Which doesn't happen often. So yes, I needed new ones. And it's summer, and I only have one pair of shorts, so as well as a pair of jeans and two pairs of cargo pants, I have some cropped trousers. Yay me; I like having new clothes, and they're all different colours (*is a magpie in disguise, and attracted to shiny brightly coloured clothes* Colours other than just blue, anyway). And I have a new, red, summery top, too.
The only thing which could have increased my happiness with this state of affairs would be finding a swimming costume in the right size; they have a beautiful one in M&S (green, with nice patterns ad gold swirls), but they only had two of the style with adjustable straps and bra-style-y-ness, both of which were too big for me, and the other style doesn't really work for me, I think.
So, that has been superficial and clothes-obsessed, sorry; but I only splash out that much on occasion, and it's nice to have new clothes. *g*
In other news, I have a job! I'm cleaning my church until I go back to uni. So that will be only 3 hours a week for the next 3 weeks, but still, it's a way to earn money without taking away too much revision/relaxation time. I am slightly scared of finding myself unable to clean, 'cos you know, it's a church, and I have to clean the whole thing, and um, wooden floors? What do I do with that? And, erm, help? I just feel slightly incompetant, basically, and I haven't even started yet! But hopefully things will be explained well enough in the e-mail I'm being sent, and in the meantime if anyone has any cleaning tips they'd like to offer I'd be ever so grateful.
The other point of uncertainty is how much I'm being paid for this; I think I was told £18 for the three weeks over the phone. However the phone was playing up a bit, and I couldn't hear very well at some points, so I may have misheard. Mum reckons it's probably £18 per week; that seems pretty likely, as it was advertised as 'a good rate of pay'; £18 for three weeks = 9 hours works out at £2 an hour, not much even for cleaning, whereas £6 an hour is just over minimum wage. Anyway, please wish me luck, because stupid as it sounds, I'm kind of worried I'm going to cock this up (which is part of my reason for not having applied for a job before).
In a blast of enthusiasm, I have also applied for another job! There's a company called Semos who do translating, proofreading and editing, as well as some writing, and want linguists to do this for them. When I say linguists, obviously I don't necessarily mean language students/graduates, because I wouldn't be applying if that were the case. While they do want 'real' linguists, they also employ other students/graduates to work on papers in their field. So as a science undergraduate with an A-level in French, I might get given someone's Physics PhD thesis to proofread, or translate an article on Hawking radiation. Obviously for me this would be fantastic, it would help me keep up my French, and I'd be paid for reading around my subject, at times. And it ought to offer a decent rate of pay, as you're technically self-employed and taking on jobs from Semos, and it's not exactly a non-skilled job anyway.
So, I will be absolutely over the moon if I get this job. It has loads of other advantages too; it's very flexible - you tell them how many hours per week you're willing to spend working for them, and you can alter this as circumstances change; you're not obliged to accept every job they offer; etc. - and it's home-based and not exactly timetabled, so up to a point I'd basically be able to fit it in at times which are convenient for me. Utterly, utterly my dream job of the moment (I mean, I could do it during term-time, and then take on more during the sumer if I wanted).
But, I may well not get it. I'm at a disadvantage, being only a first year undergraduate. Their website actually says they only emply undergraduate students from elite universities. I cringe slightly at this; I'm not entirely sure why but the idea of caling my univeristy 'elite' makes me feel rather guilty. Obviously Durham is a great university, but it's not the best for everyone, and there are plenty of other good univerisities. I don't know, I just don't like tabling universities in some ways. I think it's a side-effect of Oxbridge supremacy, which rather irritates me (although I admit it's probably because I didn't get in, ok? Yes, I'm biased). Anyway ... I'm assuming I'm at an 'elite' university, since I heard about the job through our Physics department, who had been e-mailed by Semos. I may be wrong. And even if I'm right, I'm still only a first year, so I really (sadly) don't think I have much chance of getting a job with them. Which is such a shame, because it would be great experience, and good money, and just really my sort of job. *shrugs* I should hear by the end of the week, I think, so until then I shall simply be crossing my fingers and toes desperately.
Ah! Something I forgot to mention last week, which deserves mention, because although by the time I updated I was feeling rather naf and as such it slipped my mind, at the time, it made me rather squeeful. I got post! From insaneizzi. And very enjoyable it was too. So, that deserved a mention, and I shall do my best to scribe a reply sometime very soon (it might have been yesterday, but I ended up being out all day, oops).
Now, I must return to work. *sigh* I've already highlighted four chapters of Waves and Oscillations, and one of Optics, and have yet to make a start on any other Physics topics or any of Michaelmas term's maths. Hi ho, back to work...
So, I squeed mightily over daleks, TARDIS (admitedly the model of Jon Pertwee was not too realistic, which was sad; I think it would have been better sans model myself), and a multitude of monsters, which shall be detailed in a later post, when I have photographic evidence to display. Because yes, many many photos were taken, but we have unfortunately lost the USB lead for the camera, so I can't get hold of any of them yet. Very sad. But as soon as possible, I shall be posting photos of myself with daleks, Davros, and K9; and also the walking talking dalek which was fan-made, and said 'cheese!' for the camera, and tried to exterminate small children. Hee, it was good. *g*
Then we went shopping...
If I'd ever got round to doing the '10 things I assume you know about me' meme, this is something which would have been on it. Should have been on it, anyway; I suspect it would have slipped my mind, because it's awfully hard to think of things I assume people know, which is why I didn't do it. Anyway...
I live in Worcesteshire, so I often go to Worcester for shopping and to see films and such. However, I live near-ish the border of Herefordshire, and a couple of my friends technically live in Herefordshire, so we also sometimes go to Hereford for coffee and such. To complicate matters further, most of my maternal family live in or around Gloucester (including my Grandma, uncle, aunt and cousins), so we also go to Gloucester quite often, and in fact that's generally where I go if I'm going shopping with my family. Or to the dentist.
So, small explanation of why I spend my time gadding around three county towns; I don't know if anyone's interested, but I thought it might seem a bit strange.
...mainly for jeans, as most of my jeans have been mended at least once; most of them many times, in fact; and most of them are really kind of dying. This brings me to the realisation that I have a crazy number of pairs of jeans: probably about 6 or 7 pairs by now, which (to me, at least) seems like a lot. The main reason, though, is that I can't bring myself to part with them even if they're really past it (as most of them are). I've only got one pair of jeans which is still intact; the majority of them are either waiting to be mended again or are on a pile of jeans to wear only when there's nothing else or at times when I really don't mind having gaping holes. Which doesn't happen often. So yes, I needed new ones. And it's summer, and I only have one pair of shorts, so as well as a pair of jeans and two pairs of cargo pants, I have some cropped trousers. Yay me; I like having new clothes, and they're all different colours (*is a magpie in disguise, and attracted to shiny brightly coloured clothes* Colours other than just blue, anyway). And I have a new, red, summery top, too.
The only thing which could have increased my happiness with this state of affairs would be finding a swimming costume in the right size; they have a beautiful one in M&S (green, with nice patterns ad gold swirls), but they only had two of the style with adjustable straps and bra-style-y-ness, both of which were too big for me, and the other style doesn't really work for me, I think.
So, that has been superficial and clothes-obsessed, sorry; but I only splash out that much on occasion, and it's nice to have new clothes. *g*
In other news, I have a job! I'm cleaning my church until I go back to uni. So that will be only 3 hours a week for the next 3 weeks, but still, it's a way to earn money without taking away too much revision/relaxation time. I am slightly scared of finding myself unable to clean, 'cos you know, it's a church, and I have to clean the whole thing, and um, wooden floors? What do I do with that? And, erm, help? I just feel slightly incompetant, basically, and I haven't even started yet! But hopefully things will be explained well enough in the e-mail I'm being sent, and in the meantime if anyone has any cleaning tips they'd like to offer I'd be ever so grateful.
The other point of uncertainty is how much I'm being paid for this; I think I was told £18 for the three weeks over the phone. However the phone was playing up a bit, and I couldn't hear very well at some points, so I may have misheard. Mum reckons it's probably £18 per week; that seems pretty likely, as it was advertised as 'a good rate of pay'; £18 for three weeks = 9 hours works out at £2 an hour, not much even for cleaning, whereas £6 an hour is just over minimum wage. Anyway, please wish me luck, because stupid as it sounds, I'm kind of worried I'm going to cock this up (which is part of my reason for not having applied for a job before).
In a blast of enthusiasm, I have also applied for another job! There's a company called Semos who do translating, proofreading and editing, as well as some writing, and want linguists to do this for them. When I say linguists, obviously I don't necessarily mean language students/graduates, because I wouldn't be applying if that were the case. While they do want 'real' linguists, they also employ other students/graduates to work on papers in their field. So as a science undergraduate with an A-level in French, I might get given someone's Physics PhD thesis to proofread, or translate an article on Hawking radiation. Obviously for me this would be fantastic, it would help me keep up my French, and I'd be paid for reading around my subject, at times. And it ought to offer a decent rate of pay, as you're technically self-employed and taking on jobs from Semos, and it's not exactly a non-skilled job anyway.
So, I will be absolutely over the moon if I get this job. It has loads of other advantages too; it's very flexible - you tell them how many hours per week you're willing to spend working for them, and you can alter this as circumstances change; you're not obliged to accept every job they offer; etc. - and it's home-based and not exactly timetabled, so up to a point I'd basically be able to fit it in at times which are convenient for me. Utterly, utterly my dream job of the moment (I mean, I could do it during term-time, and then take on more during the sumer if I wanted).
But, I may well not get it. I'm at a disadvantage, being only a first year undergraduate. Their website actually says they only emply undergraduate students from elite universities. I cringe slightly at this; I'm not entirely sure why but the idea of caling my univeristy 'elite' makes me feel rather guilty. Obviously Durham is a great university, but it's not the best for everyone, and there are plenty of other good univerisities. I don't know, I just don't like tabling universities in some ways. I think it's a side-effect of Oxbridge supremacy, which rather irritates me (although I admit it's probably because I didn't get in, ok? Yes, I'm biased). Anyway ... I'm assuming I'm at an 'elite' university, since I heard about the job through our Physics department, who had been e-mailed by Semos. I may be wrong. And even if I'm right, I'm still only a first year, so I really (sadly) don't think I have much chance of getting a job with them. Which is such a shame, because it would be great experience, and good money, and just really my sort of job. *shrugs* I should hear by the end of the week, I think, so until then I shall simply be crossing my fingers and toes desperately.
Ah! Something I forgot to mention last week, which deserves mention, because although by the time I updated I was feeling rather naf and as such it slipped my mind, at the time, it made me rather squeeful. I got post! From insaneizzi. And very enjoyable it was too. So, that deserved a mention, and I shall do my best to scribe a reply sometime very soon (it might have been yesterday, but I ended up being out all day, oops).
Now, I must return to work. *sigh* I've already highlighted four chapters of Waves and Oscillations, and one of Optics, and have yet to make a start on any other Physics topics or any of Michaelmas term's maths. Hi ho, back to work...