Westminster City Council

Well it’s my 4th day working as an administrator for Westminster City Council’s libraries department. An unglamorous job but it’s A OK. I get paid a ridiculously good amount really for such a lowly role, maybe because of the Council’s prestige as the London borough which encompasses Buckingham Palace, Soho, Hyde Park, Oxford Street and Leicester Square. It’s also piss easy work in a low stress environment because essentially it’s local government and therefore civil service; No 70 hour weeks here, you can take the City and shove it where the sun don’t shine! Even my manager works a 35 hour week and its strictly 9 to 5. The canteen is subsidised and produces edible meals of decent portions for around £1.50. For the rest of my lunch hour I can stroll round St James Park or walk along the river. My manager seems like a nice bloke, laid back and good to work for and the people in my team seem jovial enough.

Mmmm I bet in a few months time I’ll be moaning about how boring it is and bitching about the wankers that I work with! The maximum I’ve ever stuck with one job so far in my 15-year employment history is 1 year.

And could I cope with being an administrator for the rest of my life? Surely I need to get a better career, something more glamorous? But if it low stress, not too boring and it pays well, who cares, does anyone else ever think that careers are overrated?

A little sleep deprived this week, too many late nights, but then I’m always sleep deprived. Maybe I don’t need 8 hours sleep anyway, I never seem to get it and seem to have coped OK. I think I think about sleep too much!

I’ve been dead classy lately, went to Yate’s Wine Lodge in Stratford Friday Night with Bernie and Jo, my teacher friends. Paid £3 to get in and shout at each other to try and be heard over the loud R&B music. Managed to pursuade my friends that we should accept our losses (£3) and move onto a quieter pub where we could sit and chat. Was much happier sat in a cosy local pub and caught up with all the gossip. I’m bored of going to loud bars, maybe I’m too old? If I’m not going to dance then I want to be able to talk! Otherwise with nothing else to do I simply give up shouting and straining my ears, prop up the bar and start necking drinks very quickly. This always results in me waking up the next day feeling sick with a big hole in my wallet.

Looking forward to going on my friend’s Stag Do in 3 weeks but worried about wearing a kilt for his wedding in Scotland and doing the Best Man’s Speech. I’ll probably write it the night before, like at my brother’s wedding.

On another note me and Val must start looking for a flat soon, otherwise we’ll have to stay in a Youth Hostel or something – Shudder!

Back to work

OMG - please ignore that hideous pic of me with a beerbelly and a can of booze that I posted yesterday by accident. (It was a test. I was trying to replace the old photo on my profile).

Anyway 4 days sorting thousands and thousands of Pink Forms into piles according to date and other variables and then filing them into folders has introduced me back into the dreaded world of work after a 2 month absence. But mustn’t grumble, I’m able to surf the internet when the managers aren’t around and then work fast when they are, so it breaks up the tedium of the day quite nicely. And there’s people to chat to and the tea room to visit every hour or so. And there’s absolutely no stress or brain strain whatsoever!

And the reward is that next week is my first paycheck – Woohoo. And hopefully soon my tax rebate of £678 should come through, that is if those bastards of the Inland Revenue decide to pay me what’s rightfully mine. I’m still owed Tax and Pension money from Australia too, but it’s such a hassle to sort it all out for just a few hundred quid, maybe later in the year, maybe not.

Tonight I'm meeting up with some of my old buddies from my PGCE Teacher Training course. This might help me decide whether I should do my NQT year in September or not? Basically either this year or 2008-2009 I have to do a full year as a classroom teacher, otherwise my PGCE qualification becomes void. So just one more year then I’m a qualified teacher for life. I don’t want to do classroom teaching, but if I stick it for a year it will open up other career opportunities (E.g. full time tutor) in the future. But can I hack a year of classroom teaching, I hated it!!!!!!!!!!!!! Dilemma!!!!!!!!!! Well a bit of a natter over some drinks tonight might help me decide.

Maybe it’s the best thing to do after all? Whilst I think of another career to undertake, I may as well sort that one out. I still haven’t thought of another career after all. Journalism would interest me, but it’s difficult to get into and often shit pay. Accountancy, easy work, good money but so Boring. Classroom Teaching, tried that, I think not. Social Worker, I like helping people, but not ungrateful bastards who don’t deserve to be helped, and again shit pay. Psychologist, well I’m not spending 3 years doing another degree. An author of a book. Won’t earn money for years. Hmmmmmm....

Oh why couldn’t I just win the lottery or marry someone rich and not have peasants for parents, all these horrible thoughts about careers etc. I suppose I’m just not the typical bloke. I don’t want to have a career. I don’t need success in work to prove my masculinity. I would be just as happy being a househusband or something. Sometimes I think us blokes have it hard, all this expectation put upon us. OK enough of the whinge :-) Nothing like work to bring out a good old moan!

Otherwise everything is good. Domestic bliss between me and Val, so nothing I’m going to report here :-) It’s also a good thing that it was the summer solstice last night, as I’m stuck working in a room with no natural light, so when I come out of work, my eyes hurt and I’m blinking like a mole whose just broke out of the soil. So I’m appreciating the fact that its light till late, had some lovely evenings lately with Val. Mind you last night I was disappointed that I didn’t spot any druids when I went for my evening stroll around the quaint streets of Finnsbury Park. It's glad to see that over 20,000 people made it to Stonehenge for sunrise, it's comforting to know that so many nutters are out there. Maybe one day I'll join them.

Right gonna go try and get a little shuteye before I head out for a few bevvies, can't seem to get an early night of late ;-) Ta ra.

Home Sweet Home

Well I’ve been back home in London for two and a half weeks now. Had a wonderful reunion with Val and we spent our first weekend together catching up with each other. Then the last 2 weeks have seen her go off to work whilst I spend the day busy sleeping, erhum, I mean doing chores. Been job hunting, registering with agencies, deferring my student loan, trying to arrange Chris’s stag do, sorting photos out and catching up with people. Most evenings we’ve been staying in together relaxing and the weekends have involved seeing friend’s, drinking and generally having fun..

Start working again tomorrow full time - boo hoo.

We are actually getting on very well and it's been happy days. Only problem being both of us living in her bedroom in a shared house with no living room. So space issues. Val, being a woman; has a ridiculous amount of clothes. I reckon if she wore a different outfit every single day for a whole year she still wouldn't get through them all. So clothes are spilling out of the cupboards and drawers all over the floor. She's also messy and just leaves everything lying around and never clears up. So its mess & chaos in her bedroom and no matter how much tidying I do nothing's ever in its right place. My poor OCD brain can't cope! I'm fighting a losing battle to impose orderliness and organisation into the room, so I’ve accepted that only my two draws will be tidy and organised. Still it’s only a temporary measure, this sharing of her room.

Despite all this I absolutely love living with her and its great being back home. I can't believe how lucky I am to have had Val wait for me. We are getting on better than I ever thought and she is an absolute gem.

On another note I’ve started to upload some photos from my travels

Here are the photos from Last Summer before I started my journey
http://uk.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/dizeestroudy/album?.dir=/265fre2&.view=t

Here are the photos from the start of my travels, my month in the United States, Sep 06
http://uk.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/dizeestroudy/album?.dir=5dccscd&.src=ph&store=&prodid=&.done=http%3a//uk.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/dizeestroudy/my_photos

I have yet to upload the photos from my 2 months in New Zealand, Oct& Nov 06 but here are my photos from Perth Nov 06 - Feb 07 where I lived with my Dad, his wife Lilian, my Nan and my 5 year old brother Josh.
http://uk.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/dizeestroudy/album?.dir=/e07are2&.view=t

Photos from New Zealand, Sydney and China will be uploaded at some other time.

Right gotta go now, do some shopping, cook dinner and then chill out before my first day at work tomorrow - Ugh. Basically agencies got me a week’s work of data entry before I start a 2 month contract doing admin work for Westminster City Council yet again, this time for the library service.