Life, the Universe & Everything...

Hello!

Life has been sufficiently random recently. Don't exactly have a lot to say on one topic, but just tons of lil bits of info.

Tomorrow will be my first day doing nothing for ages!!! And boy, do I need it... but then again I've planned to do some stuff... anyway, will get back to tomorrow in a sec.

I worked for 7 days straight! I was there at the bond exhibit every day from at least 9:30 to 6pm... sometimes till 7. There was one night I got to go home at 5pm though... That was New Year's Day... We had this competition at work to see who could guess the number of people coming into the exhibit. I think a full day is about 1800 people, and everyone was thinking in party-people terms ("who does anything but sleep on New Year's day?") but I always remember doing stuff on that day... I still remember visiting my Great Gran and Pop on the 1st Jan cos it was my Great Gran's birthday... I was only about 6 at the time so it must have made some impression! Anyway... gee tangents again... I ended up estimating 1600 ppl... the highest estimate... so I got to go home early!

I've been trying to explore different areas, although unfortunately looking after work doesn't leave much time for the shops to be open... esp so soon after the holiday season! I really have to be careful though... while exploring High St Kensington I was thoroughly drenched, and after exploring Hammersmith I caught the right bus, the wrong way, and ended up faar from home! Had to then catch a train and a tube back! Arghh!

So yepp exploring has been good. There are just tons of areas with shops... tomorrow I need to shop for shirts & ties, so I'm going to go to Hammersmith (primark primark primark!) then probably into the main shopping area in Oxford St. I'm pretty sure most shops are open on Sundays, something like 11-6pm.

Tonight I was shopping as well (oops!). Credit is working... I HAVE been paid for I think 5 out of about 12 days of work, just need to pick up the cash! Ohh and open a bank account to put it in! Yeah so tonight I got two pairs of pants and a jumper... each one less than $30AUD... and some socks :-) Yepp, still no shirts and ties! Oops... it'll look pretty suss if I wear my only shirt-and-tie set to school every day!

So... the last day of my 7 day stint was on Thursday... today and yesterday I was at a seminar for overseas teachers who are going to work in the UK, run by my agency. It was really well organised, and I learnt a lot... geee it's a bit scary! But I get to shadow one of the IT teachers for 6 weeks, and there's prolly lots of resources available since I'm doing the gtp (graduate training programme) thing. But my school is one of those shining, lead-the-way type schools, so it should be all good... So, yepp start on Monday! Arghh!

So, last night after the seminar I decided to go and watch a movie! There's not many people to watch movies here with at the moment (tons of people have seen LOT-TTT :-) already) so I saw it... Kinda enjoyed the first one better, but then again I was pretty exhausted...

... but in the middle of the movie, I got a phone call...

which is strange, cos I don't really get phone calls, unless it's from Mark in my house, who is kewl enuff to ask me out for beers, haha and all my housemates check up on me... hrmm being the "baby" is weird!

So yeah, I did my food shopping after the movie then called the number back... It turned out that I'd got a call from Mairin, who I'd met during my Scotland tour 4 months ago, and she was in London for 1 day before going back to Canada! (Saskatchewan... it rhymes with fun! the capital Regina, it rhymes with..... ?!?!?! haha). So after getting home and putting away shopping and eating dinner (remember this is after finishing a seminar and drinking some champas with the teachers to celebrate getting jobs, then watching a 3 hour movie) I ended up zipping over to Earl's Court and meeting Mairin, and her US friends Matthew, Carly, Paige and Amy. We had a kewl night pigging out on choccies, S & V pringles, beer and (more) champas (I got a free bottle from the agency!), half watching dodgey movies on channel 5 and taking crazy group photos. I left it too late to get home, so I stayed over at Matt's & Paige's and dragged myself up early to come home... the seminar started thismorning at 10am!

So I thought I would be fine thismorning... but I didn't count on the transport system here... the trains to Southfields weren't working! It took half and hour to get to Southfields, and then I rushed home, read a postcard from Auntie Mabel (thanks!), showered changed and rushed off again! But the trains weren't working properly still!... in the end I caught a bus... which after my last bus experience was a bit stressful! But ended up being only 10 mins late, and the seminar hadn't started yet!

Didn't help me to stay awake though... I think having to rush in the morning after a long night isn't a good way to conserve energy! Neither is it such a good idea to write such long web journal entries after such little sleep! Hope you're staying with me here!

OK... I forgot to tell you about the kewlest thing... I got the best calendar ever! I mean, better than my stereoscopic one, better than my remade-star-wars one, better than my 2 dilbert ones... I NOW HAVE A MAGNETIC POETRY CALENDAR!

Have you guys seen magnetic poetry? It's where you get these set of magnets and whack them up on the fridge, and write interesting random nothings with them... Partially to do with this website, I'm getting quite into the whole use-words-more-often thing... hrmm, but maybe a thesaurus would be a better investment?? ;-)

Anyway, so the calendar has a metal bit underneath, and then lots of words you can use to write stuff. On the dates part it also has a famous quote, a good bit of magnetic poetry submitted onto the website, and some motivational words to help you be a better writer and magnetic poet! I can't remember my first poem, but it was quite bizarre... I'll have to write any good ones I can come up with here... maybe I need a new category "Magnetic Poetry"!

Heyy thanks for writing about your new year's people! Everyone else, contribute if you have time! I'll try to write on here more often guys, okay? At least I won't be doing 7 days straight again!

Cheers & keep smiling!

... coming soon, Bond Exhibit photos! :-)

Posted by Sam at January 05, 2003 02:43 AM