For those of you who really want to know what's been going on in this farce that we like to call life, here's the deal - I'll put matters the way I see them, from my point of view. I'm not judging, merely relating. If you are the people involved, please don't take mortal offence or fall out with me over anything you read here, and if you really have a problem with it, tell me. It's that simple.
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Thursday 2nd August 2001 |
| OK, no-one really wants to sit through an entire year's worth of 'what K's been up to', so I'll just skip through the major points and more recent stuff. Cats are well and truly settled now and have developed their own little personalities. Rex is a mischievous little tyke, with a really defiant look to him when you give him a row for anything. Vince is altogether more laid back; he's a little cutie and a big tart who loves getting him tummy rubbed. When I get the site back up and running, I think I'll probably give them a page of their own, then you can learn a lot more about them. | |
| Work's been cool - still enjoying it more than a year on (at least, most of the time...) The new guy I mentioned last time round didn't last very long - he was a bit of a scary freak, and nobody was terribly disappointed to see him go. But, at the beginning of the year I got another replacement, Sharon, and she's an absolute little gem. So, now that there are two of us doing the job I'm not nearly so bogged down as I was before. OK, there are always going to be busy times when even the two of us can't keep on top of everything, but that's just the nature of the job. I've been down to London for exam week three times now, which is always a good laugh, but hard work too. | |
| It's been a busy year for a lot of my friends - Sam came back to Scotland from Lithuania, and is working in Edinburgh now. That's cool, because it means we get to see a lot more of her (although, as is always the case, probably not as much as we should do...) Lindsay's had several job changes, the latest of which means that her office is based in Glasgow and we get to see her more often too. Emma and Andrew got married last weekend - the wedding was lovely, and Emma looked absolutely stunning. And on the subject of folk I went to college with, we recently just got back in touch with Mary and Kate, who were our other flatmates, after quite a few years. Janine and Katrina from my work have been busy too - Katrina got engaged at the beginning of June, and is planning her wedding for next August, and Janine's expecting baby no. 2 at the beginning of December. | |
| J and I are counting down the days to our holidays now - we're off to Lake Garda in Italy on the 18th August. It's quite exciting, really - neither of us have been on a proper foreign holiday before ( and J hasn't even left the country before...). We're only going for a week (no point in jumping in at the deep end) and there's so much that we want to do and see while we're there. We're hoping to go to Venice and Verona, a couple of theme parks, do a wine-tasting tour, mess about on the lake - oh, yes, and RELAX!!! We're both really in need of a decent holiday, so hopefully it'll be a good one. | |
| That's pretty much the whistle-stop tour of the last year. Hopefully I'll keep you up to date a bit more towards the end of the year, but that's your lot for now! | |
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Friday 2nd June 2000 |
| It's been a pretty busy couple of months, hence no update until now. First and foremost, the most exciting news is that we finally got cats! As you know, we'd been thinking pretty hard about it for a while, and on the Saturday of the Easter weekend, we nipped out to the SSPCA cat and dog home at Milton, just to find out some more details - how much they charged, what vaccinations they give them, whether they're already neutered, and so on. Anyway, we had a bit of a look around while we were there - as you do - and it so happened that they had a pair of 2-year-old house cats who were looking for a home together. Well, that was pretty much exactly what we were looking for, but we didn't want to make any snap decisions, so we decided that if they were still there by the Monday, then we'd take them. With it being the Easter weekend, we were up and down the road past the cat and dog home a lot that weekend, and I couldn't help but feel guilty that the poor little things might still be in there, all cold and unloved. But, then again, I didn't want to get my hopes up, because someone else might have come along after us on the Saturday and taken them straight off. As it happened, I needn't have worried, because they were still there on the Monday morning, waiting for us. And that's when we became slaves to the little monsters known as Rex and Vince. Don't get me wrong, they're terribly cute and we do love them lots. But at four o'clock in the morning when they've decided that it's breakfast time? I think the term 'cat sandwich' has come into play more than once. They've had their ups and downs along the way, but they're pretty much settling into things now. They like to sit on the windowsills while we're out during the day, and on top of the kitchen cupboards when we're at home. Don't ever let anyone tell you the rubbish we read in all the cat books, about cats only eating as much as they need and leaving the rest - given the chance, they would gladly eat you out of house and home. I was so worried for the first week or so, because I was convinced that I wasn't feeding them enough. The fact is that you could never feed them enough - they would happily eat until they burst (but that's another story....!) | |
| Work has been chaotic recently. To cut a long story short, there was a guy who was taken on at the same time as me to do basically the same job but at a lower grade, and I was supposed to be vaguely in charge of him once everything settled down and we both knew what we were doing. The only problem being that he never really seemed to get a grip on what he was supposed to be doing. It was all a bit of a problem because he was incredibly slow at everything he did, and was generally about as much use as a chocolate teapot. Anyway, everything came to a bit of a head, he decided that the job wasn't really what he'd been expecting, quit and left by the end of the same week. Which was all well and good, problem solved. Except for the fact that it was coming up for the busiest time of year and I now didn't have anyone (semi-useless or otherwise) helping with the correspondence at all. So, I was a very, very, very busy little girl for a while (still am, really). They have got me a replacement - he starts on Monday - but it'll be a while before he's up to speed, of course, and the worst of it's over now. Still, never mind - it all got done in the end, and that's what matters. Next time round, I'll be better equipped - know what's most important and needs to be done first, that kind of thing. The good bit is that I get to go to London for exam week; there's a team of people going down to man a kind of 'Help Desk' at the Barbican and apparently they like the new folk to go and find out what happens down there. I'm leaving next Friday, straight from work, and I'm away until the following Saturday. That's a lot of washing and ironing to be done before then (so what are you doing farting around with your website, K???)! I'm looking forward to it a lot - although, of course, I'll miss my Jamie and my cats. | |
| Talking of my Jamie, he's been a busy little boy as well. Apart from work (which is always busy, you should know this by now), he's spent a lot of time mucking about with Linux recently (go ask someone who knows cause I don't). He's joined the Scottish Linux Users Group (SLUG for short, apparently) and been to a few of their meetings, drinking with other geeks and talking about geek stuff. I don't know, what can you do with them?! It was Michaela's third birthday this week - we bought her a spacehopper and thought we were just the best pseudo-auntie and uncle ever until we gave it to her and discovered that her feet don't actually touch the ground when she's on it. Never mind, we can still use it - she just needs someone to hold it upright and do the bouncing for her! My mum and dad came up to visit last weekend, and to meet the cats. Of course, Rex had chosen that particular morning to find out where we keep the cat food and gorge himself on it. So, having spent the entire morning cleaning the house, we had just settled down to have our lunch when Rex decided regurgitate the entire lot onto the hall floor. So, of course, when my mum and dad arrived, Rex spent the entire afternoon hiding under a chair and looking sorry for himself, instead of behaving like the mental animal that he really is. My other news is that I've now lost 26lbs and I'm still shrinking. I went and retrieved all my summer clothes that I've not been able to get into for the last couple of years from my mum and dad's the other week, and it feels great! I've decided that what I'm really aiming for is to be able to get into the dress that I wore for my 21st birthday party - then I'll see if I want to lose any more. Oh, and I've had my hair highlighted - having lost all this weight, I thought I deserved to treat myself, so I went and got the hair I've been thinking about for years, with the help of Denise, my hairdresser, who takes what I've got in my head and makes it sensible. I've had blonde and coppery highlights put in, and everything that's not been highlighted has been dyed a darker shade of brown, to create more of a contrast. And it's gorgeous, if I do say so myself! | |
| We also managed to get something done with the bathroom last week. The walls are an absolute mess in there - they're all uneven and grotty, and we really didn't know what to do about it. I saw an article in a magazine about interesting paint effects, and thought that could be the answer, to detract attention from the state of the actual walls. So, on Saturday we went out to B&Q, bought all the requisite bits and pieces and set about putting up a white base coat. I was so chuffed just with that, because it looked so much cleaner and nicer than it had done in months. I was on holiday on Monday, so the plan was that once the white coat was up, I'd spend Monday doing the artistic rag-rolling bit with the green paint. So, I got up early expecting it to take me most of the day and got down to it. Except that, having started doing one wall I realised it was a lot harder than it sounded and I was making a bit of a mess of it, really. The problem was that I'd put too much paint on the wall to start with, so when I rolled the rag-roller over it, none of the white was able to come through and it just looked like a really patchily painted wall. Not good. This was about half past nine in the morning, at which point I phoned Jamie to whine and tell him that it wasn't going to work and I was just going to paint the entire bathroom green and be done with it (I get slightly irrational when things don't go my way). Thankfully, he put his foot down and told me to clean up and leave it alone. We're just going to paint the wall I've mucked up white again, and we'll try the whole rag-rolling thing another time, when we're both in to work at it together. But, hey, it's a start, right? And the main thing is that it's not entirely un-decorated with big patches of plaster showing through the walls any more. | |
| Okay, I think I'm done now. It's pretty much been a potted guide to the last couple of months, but like I said, I've been busy! Have a good month, everyone, and I'll let you know how I got on in London! Oh, and I hope to have some new photos up next month too - so you can all see my cats! | |
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Sunday 9th April 2000 |
| Okay, okay, okay, I'm a week late. So what are you gonna do about it, eh? I'm sure you can forgive me, it's been fairly hectic of late what with the new job and all. Speaking of which, it's all going well so far. I basically have to answer any correspondence that comes into our department. So, it could be students whining about their exam results, telling us about their disgusting illnesses that stopped them from sitting the exams, deaths in the family that affected their performance in the exams and so forth, or writing to tell them that they stuffed up filling in their entry forms and we've basically had to guess what they wanted. Well, that's what most of it is just now, anyway - obviously, the kind of requests we get in will change depending on what time of year it is, i.e. whether we're coming up to an exam sitting, just finished one, or whatever. | |
| I'm glad that I finished up with SPH when I did, because there were another 4 people starting on the same day as me, so it was all a lot less daunting than it would have been had I started on my own. So far everybody's been really nice and friendly - I knew a couple of people there previously, so that's always a help. The workload's quite heavy at the moment, though. Obviously, I'm going to find that because I don't really know much yet - but I do find myself disappearing under large piles of papers on a fairly regular basis. Still, I just keep working my way through it, weeding out another couple of things that I've realised what I should be doing with, until I'm on top of it. I'm sure I'll get there eventually!! | |
| We've had a couple of nights out this month - obviously, there was my own leaving night from SPH, and then Fiona's leaving/birthday night a few weeks later. For my do, we just went down the road to Bar 396 on Sauchiehall Street for a few drinkies, then on to Pizza Express for some food. It was a good night, not too drunken, not too sober. Fiona's would be another matter, however. I met up with them all after work and we headed to D'Arcy's in Princes Square, to take advantage of their specials on champagne cocktails (champagne, vodka and Red Bull) and beer (6 bottles for a fiver). I hadn't really intended on drinking much - I had sworn to myself that I'd alternate alcoholic with soft drinks - but, the champagne cocktails were so nice, and we started a kitty, so it was just so much easier to drink what everyone else was drinking... well, I'm sure you know the rest. Jamie came to collect me at the back of nine, and we headed home at about ten, whilst I was still standing. After that, apparently Karen and Fiona went escalator-surfing and ended up in the October Cafe on the top floor of Princes Square, where they had a special on tequila slammers. All in all, I think dangerous amounts of alcohol were drunk and a good time was had by all. As a special treat, I've got my backside into gear and produced photos of the occasions in question. Any dubious images will be removed on request (or should I say, bribe?) from the involved parties! | |
| What else has been happening? My diet's going better than I'd ever imagined - I've lost 12 lbs so far, hoping to be at a full stone on Monday night (but let's not count any chickens, eh?). Clothes are starting to get looser, and I can definitely see a difference myself, so I'm well pleased with things so far. It's not even that painful, to be honest - I'm in the habit of not eating chocolate or snacks or anything like that anymore. I let myself have a small bar of chocolate on a Saturday if I really want one, but otherwise, nothing. And to be honest, it's not that difficult cooking dinners that are lower in fat either. The quality of what we eat hasn't really suffered much at all, which is good. We also bought a freezer this month, which I'm sure is going to make life so much easier - we'll be able to actually take advantage of three for two offers in the supermarket, and we can always have a spare pizza standing by for Jamie. God, how pathetic do I sound - getting excited about special offers on food? Guess that's the effects of old age for you! | |
| That's about all I've got for you this month - hopefully the next one will be more eventful (or at least, I'll remember what on earth I've been doing for most of it). Take care of yourselves, everyone, and I'll see you in May (when hopefully it'll be a bit warmer, weather-wise). | |
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Sunday 5th March 2000 |
| First of all, guess what?!?! I got a new job - I'm so chuffed!! Okay, so now you get the whole saga thing from beginning to end. Right at the end of last month, I had two interviews lined up - one with a recruitment agency looking for an administrator, and with with ACCA, for Customer Services. The agency one was first, and I thought it went okay but wasn't entirely sure about it, cause I didn't really get much of a feel for the company straight away. They called me back the same afternoon and asked me back for a second interview two days later, to meet with the people I'd actually be working with. Again, I thought it went alright - had to do a typing test, which generally doesn't cause major difficulty for me, but you never can tell. I didn't have any idea how many other people they were seeing for second interviews - it was meant to be two or three, I think - and when they didn't call back the next day, I pretty much decided that I hadn't got it. I was kind of pissed, because I'd really liked the office and the people when I met them, and it sounded like a brilliant company to work for. I was holding out a little bit of hope that maybe they'd just been busy, but I got a letter from them the next week saying that they'd found someone who fitted the bill completely (i.e. had accounts experience, which I don't really...), so that was the end of that. | |
| Anyway, then I had the ACCA interview, which was really pretty much an informal chat and then a test - I had to write a letter in response to a complaint, cause that's pretty much the main point of the job I was up for. Anyway, again I thought I'd done okay - if there's one thing I can do it's write a letter (even if I don't get round to it as often as I ought to, I know!). They said they were seeing quite a few people, so they'd want to do second interviews and make a final decision within two weeks. So, when the days turned to a week and beyond, I pretty much thought that was it since I'd not been contacted for a second interview. To be honest, I kind of wondered what on earth I'd done wrong... maybe I wasn't as good at writing things as I thought I was?! But, on the Tuesday morning (a week and 6 days after the interview) I got a phone call at work from the agency that I'd applied for the job through, to let me know that I'd got the job. So, there you go - I've managed to wangle my way out of the statutory notice period at SPH and I'll be starting at ACCA on Monday 13th March. It's all happened kind of fast, and I still can't quite get to grips with the fact that I'll only be at my current work for another week, but I'm really happy about it all. No doubt next month you'll hear all about how I'm getting on. | |
| On the same note, I'm pleased to say that Fiona's got a new job too! She's finally got the arts admin job she's been waiting for all this time, and we're all well chuffed for her. So, it's good news all round! | |
| Okay, so what else have I been up to apart from job interviews and work? I joined Weight Watchers last Monday - I'd been in Safeway on the Saturday afternoon and saw a poster advertising classes in the strange little hall across the road from our flat, and it's so close to home there was really no excuse for me not to go. I just don't have any success trying to cut down myself (I'm good for a couple of weeks, then I get bored and it all starts to go pear shaped) so maybe this'll work for me. I've been very good so far - I even managed to save up enough points during the week to go out for a good number of drinks with Penny on Friday night to celebrate my career move. I think the weekends are going to be the most difficult - we tend to either go out or have more for lunch at the weekend, which means there's less flexibility in what we have for dinner. Poor Jamie's going to be a very hungry little caterpillar indeed for the next wee while - he's having to top up what we have for dinner with crisps and chocolate on a fairly regular basis. | |
| Nothing much has happened with the house. I made a new curtain for the bedroom back at the beginning of the month (I was so pleased with myself - wundaweb is truly a wonderful invention), and today I've been painting a shelf yellow to go in the kitchen, so I've got all the stuff I use regularly to hand by the cooker, and also to give me a bit more cupboard space. Our washing machine is currently playing silly buggers - it starts off okay, then stops for an hour or so, then does a bit more, then stops again, then eventually finishes off, approximately six hours later. We're going to have to get it looked at, but neither of us can take time off for at least a week for someone to come out, so we're slightly stuffed to say the least. | |
| As I mentioned earlier, I was out celebrating with Penny on Friday night. We started off in the Lansdowne, a really funky little cellar bar not far from Pen's house - neither of us had been in before, but we liked it a lot - busy enough to people-watch, but not so busy that you couldn't have a conversation or get anywhere to sit. Then we moved round the corner to Oblomov for a couple. It was a good night, but we were slightly worried about Lindsay - she said she would come over, but then changed her mind. That in itself is okay - it happens to us all from time to time - but we both spoke to her on the phone and she just doesn't sound her usual chirpy self. I'm sure there's probably nothing seriously wrong but even so, I hope she's back to her normal self soon. | |
| Well, I reckon that's probably enough of my wittering for this month - I'll be back in April, so behave yourselves until then! | |
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Saturday 5th February 2000 |
| Ha! First entry in my 'Hot Gossip' page, and I don't really have anything that you could describe even as tepid, never mind hot! Still, never mind - here goes anyway! | |
| Work is really pants at the moment, so order of the day has been getting a new job. So far it's not going too badly - I've only been really trying for two weeks or so. I've applied for about ten jobs, and so far I've got two interviews (one pending, if you count it!) coming up in the next week. If nothing else, it's been an excuse to go shopping for smarter clothes. I bought some funky new shoes at the end of last month, which I love to death. They're still very me, kinda clumpy and comfy looking, but I think they're a little bit stylish too. They're basically Doc Marten versions of the kind of shoes you wore in Primary One - you know, just plain with a strap across the front. Well cute. I also got a smart shirt and a nice little cardigan in DPs mid-week, so at least I'll have a chance to wear some of it now! Well, I'd made a bit of a New Year's resolution to be a little bit smarter for work this year, having descended to wearing my jeans three days out of five towards the end of last year, so what the hell? | |
| I've been trying to persuade Jamie that he wants a cat this week. I've come to the conclusion that it will be a very, very long time before I can have a dog (i.e. not until I don't have to work full-time, or I have a job where I can get home in a lunch-hour) and since cats are a lot more self-sufficient, I'm sure we could have one of those. Everyone I've spoken to about this says yeah, cats are fine by themselves, but maybe if you're going to leave it alone in the house all day you should get two cats. Not a bad call - then they'd be able to play with each other (and not the furniture!) while we're out. I don't think Jamie's entirely convinced yet, but we took a trip to PetSmart this afternoon just to price up what we'd need to get, and to see if there were any 'Free to Good Home' signs up on the noticeboard (which there weren't - boo!) | |
| The infamous bathroom remains undecorated, but we're really skint this month so it'll have to remain so for another month, I guess. It's really upsetting when you keep seeing articles about decorating your bathroom on the cheap and you know you still can't afford to do that. I'm still desperate just to get a coat of paint up, so it doesn't look so gosh-darned bare, but finding a weekend that we both feel like doing anything around the house is a bit of a struggle, since we're both having such a crappy time at work! | |
| I finally got around to getting a haircut this afternoon - I think it's been about six months since I last had a trim, so I got a bit of a stern look from Denise, my hairdresser, when I walked in the door. I really ought to go a lot more often, cause when I leave it this long she punishes me by taking loads of it off. Okay, okay, I know it's probably all split end, but it still hurts!! Then we popped up to The Canal in Anniesland for a cheap sandwich lunch, which turned out to be a much more expensive lunch since they apparently changed the menu a couple of months ago and no longer do cheap sandwiches. Oh well, you win some, you lose some. | |
| I've not seen or heard much from the girlies so far this month (what do I mean, this month - it's only the fifth day of the month so far, but you know what I mean...). I saw Penny a couple of weeks ago, when she was off work with a throat infection - she was only on day two or so of her sick leave, but she was bored out of her mind already! Fiona and Karen have been fighting like cat and dog this week over various things. They're both a bit stressed out what with looking for new jobs and all, so I suppose it's only to be expected. At least I'm pretty much applying for different stuff to them, so I don't have any reason to fall out with either of them for the same reasons. The atmosphere in the office is really terrible as well, which doesn't help matters in general. | |
| I think that's pretty much it for now - it's been a kind of dull month, but it was January and it always is, due to après-Christmas cashflow problems. Who knows, maybe this month will be more exciting. Keep your fingers crossed for me job-wise, and you might get a new, improved, happier Kirsty soon! | |
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