update of sorts

I'm still here, lurking (not sure you can lurk on your own blog, though).

I'm sick after a month of dodging the flu going around the office, sick on my day off, sick for the weekend I was meant to be in Edinburgh. Of course I am.

I am terrible at taking time to rest, so, today, I have forced myself to do it. Sofa, blanket, TV, laptop. My job is quite demanding in terms of hours and brain power, though nothing as mad the time and energy my lawyer friends put in at their offices. I'm looking forward to the Christmas break.

I have enjoyed it though, for the most part. There are days that are beyond miserable, but that's true of any job, any life. I am not a corporate girl in the long run, that much is clear, but I guess I knew that, anyway.

So much else has happened that I can't talk about yet. But the thing that has emerged more than anything in the last three months is that I need to take more time for myself; I need to write more, if I am ever going to be anything I'm proud to be. And, I need to take more time to be with my friends.

Merry Christmas. It's unlikely I'll check in before then, as we know.

here we go

The first two days of work have been full of new faces and new rules to learn. It's Big School all over again.

I haven't been very well.

still

Another rejection from another job today.

Most times I'm fine with this I really am just not, today.

It's exam time and I've got a cold and I'm unhappy and FUCK.

Each rejection makes you stronger, blah.

I will never love London

I went to a fireworks party on Thursday in Finsbury. That was the good part, the wine and the sparklers and the fifteen girls screaming in unison as the boys lit roman candles under a big tree.
Then I stood at a bus stop for forty minutes, watching four buses sail past, the smell of dope from the man smoking a spliff ten feet from me turning my stomach, a memory of a bad night two years ago.

I made a telephone call and bitched about it.
"If bloody Boris had a daughter [just wikipedia'd that and, er, he has two] do you think he'd be okay with her standing on her own in North London for nearly an hour?"
Hadn't heard about him chasing off the Oiks in Camden at that point.

Eventually a friend turned up and we got lost together while he berated me about wandering around on my own at night.

I am rubbish at living in London. There is so much to do but I have no money to do it. When I do have money to do it, I will no longer have any time, apparently.

I have a horrible cold and this is a horrible city.

albahaca

I wouldn't come too close. I've got food poisoning for the second time this summer.

Dad got stuck in the lift the other night, for over an hour. We bent all the utensils trying to lever the doors. I think he was happier in there than in our company.
My mother was more concerned about what time the poisonous chicken needed to be removed from the oven.

Albahaca means Basil, and as such has nothing to with any of that, but I am in Spain and it is a Spanish word. Check out that craziness.

well

...that was overdue.

An hour, a few buckets of tears and a confession of fragility later I'm still at home when I should be in the city.

I am tired, unwell, back to the bottom step.

...

do not read this box

"Gosh," says Wonderful Tutor, as I walk in. "You look... tired."
She is being polite. I look like death. I have just had a coughing fit and my make-up, applied in the hope that eyeliner would counteract the sickness, is smeared down my face in emo-wannabe stripes.

"Yes. I'm ill." I hand her some paper. "You just have to tick boxes. Please. Tick boxes."
Wonderful Tutor looks at me strangely. This is the woman who described me as "optimistic" on my mid-year progress report. I have wobbled over to see her in order to get these Boxes Ticked. Otherwise I don't get to go to Law School. Whatever.

She studies the Stupid Form. "Which box should I tick? You're between a 2.1 and a 1."
I know this. I feel so worn out that I don't give a shit. "I have written 2.1 on every bit of paper that asks for my degree class. Just in case."

"Should I write something in this Pointless Box?" she looks up at me. I can hear the fluid in my chest when I breathe. It's distracting. "Or are you going to go and get your transcript?"
I haven't realised either of these tasks is necessary.

Subsequently I find out that I have to pay for my transcripts. I have to give the University money to write my results on a piece of paper. So I don't do that.
Irritatingly, and prior to this discovery, I have also dissuaded Wonderful Tutor from writing Nice Things in the Pointless Box, and am now worrying vaguely about not getting a place at all.

Bureaucracy sucks ass. So does being ill.