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As of May 31, 2009, this journal is semi-friends only. Most of the entries will be public, but others that I feel are very personal to me will be f-locked. Comment here if you want to be added~ :D
( intro post with rules, fandoms and contact info )
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Sticky: semi-friends only
May. 31st, 2015 04:30 pmAs of May 31, 2009, this journal is semi-friends only. Most of the entries will be public, but others that I feel are very personal to me will be f-locked. Comment here if you want to be added~ :D
( intro post with rules, fandoms and contact info )
Hello, journal!
This is a bit of a catch-up post and a bit of a “present” post, so hopefully I can start posting about what’s going on in the present in future entries without the need for any more catch-up posts.
First of all, work situation! After being unemployed since last January (special thanks to my mother, who, by forcing me to stay in Italy for three months more than I expected last year, had shafted any chance of me getting a summer job and as a result my CV suffered immensely because of it and I think that’s the main reason I didn’t get any jobs), I finally found a job at the end of March!
I work as a Digital Marketing Intern in a small company in Perth. The job is pretty standard — it’s an office job, 9 to 5 and my work consists into scheduling posts on Facebook, retweeting stuff on Twitter, finding promotions and events to put into the company’s CMS… so yeah, nothing too exciting. BUT it pays living wage (£7.85 per hour)! I was super happy when I got it. It really helped me pull through the debt that I had with the university.
I got into debt with the university around December. My dad, like the idiot that he is, made me get a room at the university accommodation. I told my dad repeatedly that SAAS (the agency responsible for student loans in Scotland) wouldn’t be funding me during the year and that I might not be able to afford the room there. His reply basically was: “Get it anyway, we’ll see if we can pay it later.” And that was truly a dumbass thing to do.
But it got even worse: I was in a double room with a French girl. I thought it was okay, I could make a friend and have help me with French. Well, not only was she the most unfriendly person I’ve ever met in my entire life (seriously, when I was in the room, she would take her laptop and go into the kitchen for hours; she never talked to me, spent all of her time on the phone with either her parents or her friends and she just wouldn’t talk to me. Like, I get that maybe you don’t want to be in a double room, but can you at least make an effort to be nice to your roommate? Geez), but she. Freaking. SNORED.
Seriously, the first night I slept in the room and she snored, I knew I was fucked. The first night she woke me up at 2 in the morning and she just wouldn’t stop snoring. That night I had to go and sleep in another campus room, because I was so sleep-deprived that I was picking fights with everybody and I was seriously pissed off.
The campus staff was, if I have to be honest, completely and totally unhelpful. When I told them that my roommate was keeping me up at night, their suggestions were:
a) Try to make friends with her and tell her about her snoring problem. Wow, guys, great idea. I’ll just tell this big French girl who doesn’t want to spend time with me and who I do not know at all and am in no comfortable relationship with to tell her something as personal as the fact that she snores. I’ll just bring it up while I’m trying to make awkward small talk, I’m sure it won’t make either of us incredibly uncomfortable. Top advice, guys.
b) Sleep on the couch in the kitchen. So, let me get this straight: I am paying around £400 a month for a room just so I can sleep on the fucking couch? Again, amazing help.
(I bought earplugs by the way, tried listening to music while she snored and all that jazz, but nothing helped.)
They were not sympathetic and they would not help me at all. I told them many, many times about the fact that I was being deprived of sleep, but they did nothing — they din’t talk to my roommate, they didn’t care if I was getting enough sleep, just nothing at all. I got really fed up with them. And, of course, I was locked by contract to pay for the room. They wouldn’t help me find a solution for my roommate, but they were more than happy to request payments for a room that I was effectively not using.
So I relocated to Auchterarder again, which wasn’t ideal, but it was necessity — if I didn’t sleep, I was going to completely fail my course. And, you know, I’m studying Computing, I kinda need my brain for that and I need some good rest to understand code. (My roommate was studying Music, by the way. She was almost never in class. She had lectures like two days a week, then nothing for the rest of the week. And she would sleep, a lot. Once she didn’t get up until 2-3pm and another time, when I had been out since 9am because of lectures, I came into the room at 5 in the afternoon and she was STILL SLEEPING — the curtains were still shut and everything. How the hell can a human being sleep so much?? She was my age as well (23), it’s not like she was a teenager or anything… She was weird.)
So I lived in Auchterarder until the end of February and during that time I was basically paying for the room and the travelling costs. It was ridiculous. To be honest, I am very tempted to file in a formal complain to the college. You can’t have double rooms on your campus and then offer NO HELP at all when someone has trouble with their roommate!
But I guess some of my bad luck must have rubbed off my roommate, because she was forced to go back to France after the Christmas holidays… and THANK GOD that happened. So I moved back into my room, this time with Kirsty, Andrew’s sister, who I have become pretty close to this year.
But see, even if I didn’t have my roommate, I still would have had the problem that after November I had no money to pay for the room. My dad had no money, he was sending me very little every month, just about enough to scrape by and I became indebted with the university. They even threatened to not let me go on to do my HND if I didn’t pay off my debt to them, even though I was one of the best students in class. So yeah, I went through an incredibly stressful period, thanks to the university staff. For a while it looked like I had to go to the citizen advice bureau for some help. This all thanks to my dad, who was a complete twat.
Thankfully, Andrew’s parents came to my rescue. They paid off most of the debt and I managed to pay off about half on my own, thanks to the living wage job that I had found. I’m obviously going to repay them, but at least for now I can go onto my HND and I don’t have to deal with university accommodation ever again. It did mean though that I couldn’t save any money from my job as 90% of it went to the debt every month.
So this is my last month of internship — it was a 3 months contract and I’m contracted to work until the 28th of June. After that, I’ll be starting another job — I’ll be Vice President of the Students’ Association of my college! I got elected in May, there was another girl running for it as well, but I won! I will be working 10 hours a week and I will be paid living wage too, so hopefully I can save up a nice sum. Right now I’m working 3 days a week (22.5 hours), one more day than what I’m contracted to do and they have to pay me holiday pay as well, so I’ll be saving a nice sum from this job as well. :D
In addition to this, I have applied for a web design job at a small company in Perth and the people there said they’d be happy to take me on as their web designer! They need a site made and they said they’d like to start part-time and it could lead up to a full-time position! So now I’m just waiting for an email from them saying when they want to meet up and have a chant about the job. They even said they could be me a PC! It wouldn’t be my own PC, just a company PC that I would use for the job, but still! That’s pretty promising! :D The pay is minimum wage, which kind of sucks, but it’s good experience and if they like me and want to keep me on, I will definitely try to negotiate a better pay!
Also, Peter, Kirsty and I want to get a flat together. We saw a gorgeous flat on Gumtree and we went to see it on Wednesday. And guys, it’s absolutely stunning. It’s one of the most beautiful flats I’ve ever seen, it looked even better in real life than it did in the photos! Just in case you’re curious, this is the flat: http://www.gumtree.com/p/3-bedrooms-rent/gorgeous-3-bedroom-open-plan-flat-to-rent/1118664070. The current tenant is moving out at the end of August, which is perfect for us, because we really needed one for the start of September. The landlord seems like a good guy as well — he’s not in it to make money and he seems like he cares about the tenants and wants to make the flat affordable — and the price is really cheap for us! And he said he’d be okay with pets, so we could even have a cat or a couple of rats in the flat! :D
So yeah, it’s the perfect flat and we really, really want it. I emailed the landlord the next day saying we want it and that we’d be happy to discuss with him if there’s anything we can do to secure the flat (he was showing it to other people as well). But we’re the first ones who saw it and the first ones to say we want it. So I’m really crossing my fingers and hoping he lets us have it!
What else… oh, I passed my HNC, obviously! And I was really pleased to get an A on my Graded Unit exam! 87%, not a bad mark. :D And this should help my application for a £1000 scholarship I applied for in May, which will be given to the best students at my university. So I’m crossing my fingers for that one too!
Oh, and I’m planning on starting my societies this year — the Sci-fi & Fantasy society and the Japanese Culture society — and a university newspaper! I’m just waiting for emails from the university Students’ Association, hopefully they’ll reply to me soon.
So yeah, this is pretty much what has happened in the past few months in a nutshell and what is happening right now. I will reply to your comments soon, it’s just that I haven’t had time yet! I hope everything is going well for you guys and I will hopefully be posting more often in the future and keeping you updated on all these things that are happening in my life right now! Until next time! :D
P.S. I was very sad when I found out Christopher Lee died yesterday. May he rest in peace now that he’s with Tolkien and his friends in a better place.
This is a bit of a catch-up post and a bit of a “present” post, so hopefully I can start posting about what’s going on in the present in future entries without the need for any more catch-up posts.
First of all, work situation! After being unemployed since last January (special thanks to my mother, who, by forcing me to stay in Italy for three months more than I expected last year, had shafted any chance of me getting a summer job and as a result my CV suffered immensely because of it and I think that’s the main reason I didn’t get any jobs), I finally found a job at the end of March!
I work as a Digital Marketing Intern in a small company in Perth. The job is pretty standard — it’s an office job, 9 to 5 and my work consists into scheduling posts on Facebook, retweeting stuff on Twitter, finding promotions and events to put into the company’s CMS… so yeah, nothing too exciting. BUT it pays living wage (£7.85 per hour)! I was super happy when I got it. It really helped me pull through the debt that I had with the university.
I got into debt with the university around December. My dad, like the idiot that he is, made me get a room at the university accommodation. I told my dad repeatedly that SAAS (the agency responsible for student loans in Scotland) wouldn’t be funding me during the year and that I might not be able to afford the room there. His reply basically was: “Get it anyway, we’ll see if we can pay it later.” And that was truly a dumbass thing to do.
But it got even worse: I was in a double room with a French girl. I thought it was okay, I could make a friend and have help me with French. Well, not only was she the most unfriendly person I’ve ever met in my entire life (seriously, when I was in the room, she would take her laptop and go into the kitchen for hours; she never talked to me, spent all of her time on the phone with either her parents or her friends and she just wouldn’t talk to me. Like, I get that maybe you don’t want to be in a double room, but can you at least make an effort to be nice to your roommate? Geez), but she. Freaking. SNORED.
Seriously, the first night I slept in the room and she snored, I knew I was fucked. The first night she woke me up at 2 in the morning and she just wouldn’t stop snoring. That night I had to go and sleep in another campus room, because I was so sleep-deprived that I was picking fights with everybody and I was seriously pissed off.
The campus staff was, if I have to be honest, completely and totally unhelpful. When I told them that my roommate was keeping me up at night, their suggestions were:
a) Try to make friends with her and tell her about her snoring problem. Wow, guys, great idea. I’ll just tell this big French girl who doesn’t want to spend time with me and who I do not know at all and am in no comfortable relationship with to tell her something as personal as the fact that she snores. I’ll just bring it up while I’m trying to make awkward small talk, I’m sure it won’t make either of us incredibly uncomfortable. Top advice, guys.
b) Sleep on the couch in the kitchen. So, let me get this straight: I am paying around £400 a month for a room just so I can sleep on the fucking couch? Again, amazing help.
(I bought earplugs by the way, tried listening to music while she snored and all that jazz, but nothing helped.)
They were not sympathetic and they would not help me at all. I told them many, many times about the fact that I was being deprived of sleep, but they did nothing — they din’t talk to my roommate, they didn’t care if I was getting enough sleep, just nothing at all. I got really fed up with them. And, of course, I was locked by contract to pay for the room. They wouldn’t help me find a solution for my roommate, but they were more than happy to request payments for a room that I was effectively not using.
So I relocated to Auchterarder again, which wasn’t ideal, but it was necessity — if I didn’t sleep, I was going to completely fail my course. And, you know, I’m studying Computing, I kinda need my brain for that and I need some good rest to understand code. (My roommate was studying Music, by the way. She was almost never in class. She had lectures like two days a week, then nothing for the rest of the week. And she would sleep, a lot. Once she didn’t get up until 2-3pm and another time, when I had been out since 9am because of lectures, I came into the room at 5 in the afternoon and she was STILL SLEEPING — the curtains were still shut and everything. How the hell can a human being sleep so much?? She was my age as well (23), it’s not like she was a teenager or anything… She was weird.)
So I lived in Auchterarder until the end of February and during that time I was basically paying for the room and the travelling costs. It was ridiculous. To be honest, I am very tempted to file in a formal complain to the college. You can’t have double rooms on your campus and then offer NO HELP at all when someone has trouble with their roommate!
But I guess some of my bad luck must have rubbed off my roommate, because she was forced to go back to France after the Christmas holidays… and THANK GOD that happened. So I moved back into my room, this time with Kirsty, Andrew’s sister, who I have become pretty close to this year.
But see, even if I didn’t have my roommate, I still would have had the problem that after November I had no money to pay for the room. My dad had no money, he was sending me very little every month, just about enough to scrape by and I became indebted with the university. They even threatened to not let me go on to do my HND if I didn’t pay off my debt to them, even though I was one of the best students in class. So yeah, I went through an incredibly stressful period, thanks to the university staff. For a while it looked like I had to go to the citizen advice bureau for some help. This all thanks to my dad, who was a complete twat.
Thankfully, Andrew’s parents came to my rescue. They paid off most of the debt and I managed to pay off about half on my own, thanks to the living wage job that I had found. I’m obviously going to repay them, but at least for now I can go onto my HND and I don’t have to deal with university accommodation ever again. It did mean though that I couldn’t save any money from my job as 90% of it went to the debt every month.
So this is my last month of internship — it was a 3 months contract and I’m contracted to work until the 28th of June. After that, I’ll be starting another job — I’ll be Vice President of the Students’ Association of my college! I got elected in May, there was another girl running for it as well, but I won! I will be working 10 hours a week and I will be paid living wage too, so hopefully I can save up a nice sum. Right now I’m working 3 days a week (22.5 hours), one more day than what I’m contracted to do and they have to pay me holiday pay as well, so I’ll be saving a nice sum from this job as well. :D
In addition to this, I have applied for a web design job at a small company in Perth and the people there said they’d be happy to take me on as their web designer! They need a site made and they said they’d like to start part-time and it could lead up to a full-time position! So now I’m just waiting for an email from them saying when they want to meet up and have a chant about the job. They even said they could be me a PC! It wouldn’t be my own PC, just a company PC that I would use for the job, but still! That’s pretty promising! :D The pay is minimum wage, which kind of sucks, but it’s good experience and if they like me and want to keep me on, I will definitely try to negotiate a better pay!
Also, Peter, Kirsty and I want to get a flat together. We saw a gorgeous flat on Gumtree and we went to see it on Wednesday. And guys, it’s absolutely stunning. It’s one of the most beautiful flats I’ve ever seen, it looked even better in real life than it did in the photos! Just in case you’re curious, this is the flat: http://www.gumtree.com/p/3-bedrooms-rent/gorgeous-3-bedroom-open-plan-flat-to-rent/1118664070. The current tenant is moving out at the end of August, which is perfect for us, because we really needed one for the start of September. The landlord seems like a good guy as well — he’s not in it to make money and he seems like he cares about the tenants and wants to make the flat affordable — and the price is really cheap for us! And he said he’d be okay with pets, so we could even have a cat or a couple of rats in the flat! :D
So yeah, it’s the perfect flat and we really, really want it. I emailed the landlord the next day saying we want it and that we’d be happy to discuss with him if there’s anything we can do to secure the flat (he was showing it to other people as well). But we’re the first ones who saw it and the first ones to say we want it. So I’m really crossing my fingers and hoping he lets us have it!
What else… oh, I passed my HNC, obviously! And I was really pleased to get an A on my Graded Unit exam! 87%, not a bad mark. :D And this should help my application for a £1000 scholarship I applied for in May, which will be given to the best students at my university. So I’m crossing my fingers for that one too!
Oh, and I’m planning on starting my societies this year — the Sci-fi & Fantasy society and the Japanese Culture society — and a university newspaper! I’m just waiting for emails from the university Students’ Association, hopefully they’ll reply to me soon.
So yeah, this is pretty much what has happened in the past few months in a nutshell and what is happening right now. I will reply to your comments soon, it’s just that I haven’t had time yet! I hope everything is going well for you guys and I will hopefully be posting more often in the future and keeping you updated on all these things that are happening in my life right now! Until next time! :D
P.S. I was very sad when I found out Christopher Lee died yesterday. May he rest in peace now that he’s with Tolkien and his friends in a better place.
back from a busy period
May. 30th, 2015 03:27 pmHello, journal!
It's incredible that half a year has passed already. I have been so incredibly busy these past few months. I had university and a job! Which I am really happy I found, but that has limited my free time (and my university time) quite a bit. But I will talk about that in the next entries.
For now I just want to write that I am finished with university, at least for this year! I passed all my modules, got an A - an A! - in my Graded Unit and summer has officially started for me, which means I have more free time! (I'll still have my job, but being part-time, it will leave me some free time.)
I shall write the last of my catch-up posts soon, then try to write more often after that. :)
Hope you guys are doing okay! Till the next entry!
It's incredible that half a year has passed already. I have been so incredibly busy these past few months. I had university and a job! Which I am really happy I found, but that has limited my free time (and my university time) quite a bit. But I will talk about that in the next entries.
For now I just want to write that I am finished with university, at least for this year! I passed all my modules, got an A - an A! - in my Graded Unit and summer has officially started for me, which means I have more free time! (I'll still have my job, but being part-time, it will leave me some free time.)
I shall write the last of my catch-up posts soon, then try to write more often after that. :)
Hope you guys are doing okay! Till the next entry!
guess who's back?
Jan. 25th, 2015 05:55 pmHello DW, hello wonderful people and hello journal! I hope you've all had some great holidays and Happy Belated New Year to everyone!
I cannot believe how long I've disappeared from DW. Every time I disappear, I go through a very bad vicious cycle. First, I write a huge catch-up post which burns me out from writing for a while (which is why I don't reply to comments – I really want to, but I'm just too tired and can't come up with replies to all of them – please don't take it offensively or personally). Then, because I'm burned out, I can't find the energy to write more entries. Then more and more stuff happens and I get super busy. Because I'm busy, I forget to post entries here. More and more stuff happens. Time passes without me even noticing. Eventually whole months pass without me even writing a single entry (which is what happened recently). I feel bad about neglecting my journal and not keeping up with people's journals. So I feel like I can't come back because of my long hiatus. I feel guilty so I keep away. More and more stuff happens, which would mean I'd have to write more huge catch-up entries. I get overwhelmed by it all and I don't post.
So I've decided to try a different approach. This is not a catch-up entry. I will write catch-up entries in the next days. But for now, I'll just write this post to say that I'm back, so there's not a lot of pressure on me to write everything that's happened to me in these months.
Also, there will be a small change in the way I treat this journal. As time passed, I've realised that I really missed writing here and that having a journal and writing things down is very therapeutic for me. This is the place where I can rant, vent, write my thoughts and my worries down instead of keeping them in my head, and once they're down, they don't haunt me anymore. It really helps me in many ways. So I've decided to go back to this little journal and keep updating it as much and as often as I can. But it will be mostly for myself, to keep me sane and healthy. I don't know how much time I'll have to read your entries and keep up with your lives, I might not comment much on your journals and I'm sorry about it. I will try, but if I don't reply to your entries and comments, please don't take it offensively or personally. I like all of you and I care about all of you – I'm just very busy and I will be using this journal mostly for therapeutic purposes. This takes the pressure off me a bit and will make it easier for me to post even if I do go on hiatus for a while. (That said, if I do get more time on my hands, I will definitely try and interact on your posts.)
I don't know how many of you still use DW or will read this entry, but I just thought I'd write this. So yeah, I'm back! And here's to me not disappearing - or at least not for long - this year. :)
I cannot believe how long I've disappeared from DW. Every time I disappear, I go through a very bad vicious cycle. First, I write a huge catch-up post which burns me out from writing for a while (which is why I don't reply to comments – I really want to, but I'm just too tired and can't come up with replies to all of them – please don't take it offensively or personally). Then, because I'm burned out, I can't find the energy to write more entries. Then more and more stuff happens and I get super busy. Because I'm busy, I forget to post entries here. More and more stuff happens. Time passes without me even noticing. Eventually whole months pass without me even writing a single entry (which is what happened recently). I feel bad about neglecting my journal and not keeping up with people's journals. So I feel like I can't come back because of my long hiatus. I feel guilty so I keep away. More and more stuff happens, which would mean I'd have to write more huge catch-up entries. I get overwhelmed by it all and I don't post.
So I've decided to try a different approach. This is not a catch-up entry. I will write catch-up entries in the next days. But for now, I'll just write this post to say that I'm back, so there's not a lot of pressure on me to write everything that's happened to me in these months.
Also, there will be a small change in the way I treat this journal. As time passed, I've realised that I really missed writing here and that having a journal and writing things down is very therapeutic for me. This is the place where I can rant, vent, write my thoughts and my worries down instead of keeping them in my head, and once they're down, they don't haunt me anymore. It really helps me in many ways. So I've decided to go back to this little journal and keep updating it as much and as often as I can. But it will be mostly for myself, to keep me sane and healthy. I don't know how much time I'll have to read your entries and keep up with your lives, I might not comment much on your journals and I'm sorry about it. I will try, but if I don't reply to your entries and comments, please don't take it offensively or personally. I like all of you and I care about all of you – I'm just very busy and I will be using this journal mostly for therapeutic purposes. This takes the pressure off me a bit and will make it easier for me to post even if I do go on hiatus for a while. (That said, if I do get more time on my hands, I will definitely try and interact on your posts.)
I don't know how many of you still use DW or will read this entry, but I just thought I'd write this. So yeah, I'm back! And here's to me not disappearing - or at least not for long - this year. :)
long entry, but good news!
Oct. 19th, 2013 10:25 pmI can't believe how long it's been since my last post! I've just been so busy, I don't know where my time has gone. So this will most likely be a pretty long catch-up entry on what's going on my life.
( real life behind the cut: job interviews, getting a job, Dundee Literary Festival, updates on my freelancing dream jobs )
On the fandom front, I'm now rewatching Mawaru Penguindrum for the second time with Andrew and his sister (they are watching it for the first time). I'm understanding the plot a lot more this time around! Also, I started reading The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness (just in time for the Dundee Literary Festival!) and I've almost finished it. I hope I can read the whole trilogy before I meet Patrick Ness next week, but it's fine if I don't. I'm enjoying it so far. I love all the sci-fi elements and the mystery in it. I also started reading Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell just for the crack. This book makes me laugh so much. It's just... so bad. Eleanor & Park was horrendously cheesy and made me laugh at times, but this one brings badness to a whole new level. I shall review it fully when I finish it. But it's safe to say that I am enjoying it... but for all the wrong reasons. XD I somehow don't think Rainbow Rowell intended this book to be a humorous one. And for a not-humorous book, it's making me laugh. A lot.
So that's everything for now! :D I will reply to all your comments soon and hopefully I will be able to catch up on everyone's entries.
( real life behind the cut: job interviews, getting a job, Dundee Literary Festival, updates on my freelancing dream jobs )
On the fandom front, I'm now rewatching Mawaru Penguindrum for the second time with Andrew and his sister (they are watching it for the first time). I'm understanding the plot a lot more this time around! Also, I started reading The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness (just in time for the Dundee Literary Festival!) and I've almost finished it. I hope I can read the whole trilogy before I meet Patrick Ness next week, but it's fine if I don't. I'm enjoying it so far. I love all the sci-fi elements and the mystery in it. I also started reading Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell just for the crack. This book makes me laugh so much. It's just... so bad. Eleanor & Park was horrendously cheesy and made me laugh at times, but this one brings badness to a whole new level. I shall review it fully when I finish it. But it's safe to say that I am enjoying it... but for all the wrong reasons. XD I somehow don't think Rainbow Rowell intended this book to be a humorous one. And for a not-humorous book, it's making me laugh. A lot.
So that's everything for now! :D I will reply to all your comments soon and hopefully I will be able to catch up on everyone's entries.
