Only 5 months since my last post. An improvement. Just.

So yeah. In the end I gave in my notice and spent a week avoiding people saying "Staaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay. Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease!?"

On my second to last shift Gavin appeared looking as insanely cheerful as ever. "Lottieeeeeeee! Just the person I was wanting to speak to. Catch you on your break. I'm not letting you get away that easy!"

Oh buggeration.

Gavin had been extra fab and considerate since hiring me when I was in dire need of a job. The last person I want to explain that I have had enough of burgers and being demeaned by half-wit customers, was him. I was adamant at that point that I wanted to leave. I didn't have enough time to do anything at the weekend, I already had enough money and I just wanted to work somewhere different before I had to get a real job someday.

The man drives a hard bargain though.

He proclaimed exuberantly that he would "bend over backwards" to have me stay and probed every reason why I wanted to leave. I mentioned that I thought it was a good idea to get some other experience of work to enhance my CV. Then, something extrordinary happened...

--------------------------------------------

"I can enhance your CV beyond your wildest dreams!!"

"..."

"I know the editor of The Star and I am sure I can get you some work experience when I tell him what a wonderful person you are!"

"..." [Good but I can already get that through Uni]

"... and I can get you experience in the PR department. I know the regional head of communications and I am sure she would be happy for you to shadow her.

"..." [Oooh. Interesting]

"...and I have connections in the Council. I am sure they would have you too."

"Oooh"

"So. Have any fixed shift you like. If you want three weeks off or whatever just say 'Gavin I want three weeks off' ....... Your still going to say no arent you?"

"Well..."

-------------------------------------

So I stayed. How could I not? I now basically work when I want and am due some work experience at easter. Kerching! : )

Since then I have looked in to PR and I actually am very interested. Interested to the point where it actually looks a lot better than Journaism... In fact I have decided to pursue a career in PR instead of Journo!

To be honest the prospects of Journo had been weighing on my mind for some months. I still do like the idea of being a journalist, but am not as prepared to do all the crud I need to do before I get to where I want to be as before.

If I leave and somehow manage to get a job on a local paper (fairly tricky in itself), I will earn £13000 for 2 years until I have the chance to get my NCE (proffesional qualification). Now the NCE is notoriously difficult. Only 40% of people pass! This, although possible would require me to get my 100WPM in Shorthand which would take a real gruelling slog to do. In the event that I somehow managed all of this I would recieve a pay rise of around £3000 a year.

£16000 a year after 5 years of training? Where I would go from there would depend on getting noticed, but mostly luck and making connections in high places.

Do I want to be a respected journalist who breaks groundbreaking stories ?= yes
Do I want to be put through all that for a slim chance of it? = no

Of course if the PR doesn't work out then I might give it a go, but I am not sure I have enough determination to succeed in such a cut throat business anymore. Meh.

Now then. PR is also very competative and cut throat but there are a wealth of jobs out there. Everyone from biscuit factories to Councils have PR departments. With journalistic training and knowledge about Media and copyright law and politics, I am sure that I could do well.

I have looked at what sort of jobs I could get on leaving. Starting as a junior PR hack I would Earn around £13000 again, but would get the chartered status in 1 or 2 years! This would quickly bump up my salary to something you could realistically live off and get a mortgage with. Phew.

As much as I am a champion of "It doesn't matter about the money so long as you can live on it if you enjoy your work", I do not want to live in a mouldy old bedsit on the outskirts of London for the rest of my life as is likely if I take up Journo.

The stupidest twist in this story is that aside from giving me the money to live on for my first and second years at Uni and getting me vital work experience, McDonalds may AGAIN save my bacon and change my life with their graduate training scheme. They have a fab training scheme based in Machester where the very office where I should hopefully get work experience trains you for a year and pays you £13000 for your trouble. Essentially it is a year in industry after my degree. If I could get on the scheme then that would have me made as a junior PR exec. Hooray!!

Ah McDonalds. Hate or Love you, you always seem to save the day. Bah.

Anyway, back to the present.
Know where I am right now?

On a big rock.
Overlooking a stunning sunset across the whole of the west side of Sheffield and the surrounding rolling valleys. The valley is all misty and mysterious. Thinking about it, I think the distant hills are the Peak District. Very pretty they are too.

It really is very beautiful.

I decided to come here today because it was such a lovely day with blue sky and lots of sunshine. It looks like spring is here already from all the flowers that have come up and insects getting in my cous cous and on the lappytop screen. Squee!

This place is in a really random spot. Just the other side of Crookes road where Tapton is and just the around the corner from Veronica Hardstaff who I interviewed last year. None of the other students seem to know that this place exists. Nice really cos it means the only people here are dog walkers and the occasional school child shouting "Mummy! Why has that lady on the rock got a computer?" To be fair its not only children giving me funny looks.

But never mind! It is very worth it : )

I am used to getting stares in my general direction now since
A) I wear a skirt and heels to court and bus drivers pass by every few minutes
and
B) I go places with Megan and THE hair

Megan has been trying to get red hair for ages. I have personally dyed her hair 3 times various shades of purple and red with results varying from brown with a hint of purple to blonde streaks. Therefore when we had a nosy round the local Blue Banana [goth shop] clone "Rocky Horrors" she spent an unnerving amount of time looking at the super luminous colours behind the counter.

Well. She bought the stuff. 2 Packs of bleach and power bleach and a pot of "tulip" colour ( "Colour may vary at the manufacturers discretion. Do not apply to eyebrows. Risk of Blindness" etc ). From the samples the colour was red with a hint of fuschia. Very nice.

Thursday night after Meg's last exam and before the appointed end-of-exam bash outing to Fuzz, it seemed only appropriate that we were to do the deed then.

Out comes the bleach and powder. When mixed it looks blue. Hmm. I tentatively put it on hoping that it will turn just the right shade of blonde like the tester. Halfway though.

"Ooooooh it itches!"
"Don't worry not long left."
"How long?"
"........50 minutes"
"Oh Fuck."

Somehow she endured the itchyness and I watched her hair go from a dark brown root with reddyness from the previous dying.. to something not a million miles off Gewn Stefani. With red streaks.

Time to wash it out. The result is pretty startling. The once brunette Meggle is now a bimbo. She attempts to comb her hair but it is incredibly knotted. She looks worried. I insist on taking a photo of her blonde and try to get ther to go out like that. She has better judgement however.

On to the redness!

The stuff is so easy to apply and really takes to her hair (and face and ears). The paste looks a little pinker than was hoped but then the orange-red dye I used to use started out purple. So what do I know?

Time to wash to gunk off. Woah. This is some ultra colour. Good job she does physics. Its looking really pink.

Time to dry the hair. This will inevitably make it brighter as all hair is darker when wet. God. What is this going to turn out like?

Done.

Holy Guacemole.

Megans hair is positively neon in its hot pinkness.

"WOW!" Rachel comes down from her room
Lizzie giggles and says "Oh my God!"
Indeed.

The hair goes down a storm and but attracts surprisingly little attention from the Fuzzters. Probably because its dark, but maybe because they are all SO ALT3RN4TIVE DOODZ.

Since then randomers keep on talking to her. Within 5 minutes when she was stood outside of McDonalds 2 people talked to her. One to ask her where the local rock club is and another to ask for a light. Yep. Sounds like she looks like a proper physicist!

n.b. Here is a demonstrative photo. Looking directly at the hair may damage retinas.



Well. My hands are like ice it is getting really freezing (and a little dark) so I guess I had better get home. Hopefully the next post will only be in 4 months time...

Must.......write................stuff.......

Hello again.

Sorry it took so long for me to actually get back into actually writing something but at first I had nothing to write about....then I had one or two boring things.....then I had LOADS but couldn't be bothered....then I had left it so long I felt I should have a reason for writing something and decided to wait for one....then I completely forgot about this blogs existence....

You know how it is. Maybe.

Anyhoo. I thought I would make a bit of an effort and have a bit of a clearout of the right hand bar of all the slightly-naff-but-was-once-amusing stuff. You now have the privilege of browsing a few tasty morsels of randomness and geekery hand picked from the dark murky underworld of nerds. I spoil you : )

So....
A lot has happened since my last proper posts in which I didn't really say that much about life in general at all so heres a superfast [ha as if I could do concise!] breeze over what has been going on:

• I finished finished the year and did my exams. Got a 2:1 overall woo! Even passed the NCTJ Politics tests : 0 No sign of a shorthand qualification yet though : (
• Moved out of Tapton back to sunny Donny with the intention of getting a job for the summer so I actually had money for this year.
• Nobody wanted a worker just for the summer. I was reduced to crawling back to the old dungeon of misery and torture but even they didn't want a summer worker. The cheek! I even passed Dean on the way in but strangely he had legged it by the time I turned around. I guess he is still a bit awkward about the shortlived datingness...
• Decided that as I had an empty house sat waiting in Le Sheff (a house! MY house! Ooooooooh!) I may as well make use of it and look for a job there. There had to be a job in an entire city. Surely....
• After the initial headache of sorting out bills and getting used to living on me lonesome I bombarded the place with CVs and applications.
• I even handed in a CV to the high Street McDonalds. Well I had to earn some pennies somewhere. What if nowhere else would have me?
• 15 mins later whilst I was just about to harass KFC I get a phone call...

------------------------------------------

Man: "Hiya is that Charlotte?"

Me: "Yes..."

Man: "I'm Gavin from McDonalds High Street. I am VERY impressed. I just phoned up your old store and they said you were brilliant and I should definitely hire you. Where are you?"

Me: "Erm. Just down the road at KFC."

Man: "Fabulous! Do you fancy coming back for a chat?"

Me: "......Yeah sure I'll be there in 5 mins"

Man: "Fantastic! See you soon!"

----------------------------------------------

This guy was unbelievably enthusiastic and cheerful. How could I say no to a chat? More to the point, how did the place of hell get even more unrealistically pleasant about me than before? Oh well can't complain : ) Off I went...

5 minutes later I had a job with as many hours as I wanted for the hols and a job in term time to fit around my timetable. AND the people seemed really nice and mature, AND they all seemed to be enjoying what they were doing, AND everything looked in working order and in a reasonable state of cleanliness. Wow.

• Started work and things were just like I hoped. Everybody worked hard, the equipment was fab, there was no drivethrough (Woooo!) to stress about and I actually got the hours I requested and no random ones during days off. Dare I say it, I actually enjoyed work some days or at least didn't mind going in.
• It finally dawned on me that actually the company is a good one. Yeah so you get payed minimum wage but you do get flexible hours and good training if you actually work at a decent [i.e. not franchise as in place of hell] store. Turns out Gavin used to work at that place and the first thing he said was: "God that place is a shithole! It was the worst time of my life! Its full of twats and chavs!" So glad it wasn't just me then. I had also realised by this point that Gavin is genuinely a flamboyantly enthusiastic and happy person.

Example:

Scene: A quiet crew room with 5 staff members softly munching their burgers....

*BANG* - Door flies open

Gavin marches in, slaps Alan round the back of the head, grabs Azad's hat, throws it at the floor, stamps on it then charges into the boys staff toilet.

*pause*

Gavin: "FUCKING HELL! What have you been doing in here??"

Alan: (mumbling) dunno

Gavin: "You are dirty bastards aren't you. I don't know you are a bunch of scrubbers.... Fucking hell...."

Gavin makes for the door, turns

Gavin: "See you later darlings!!!!!"

*BANG*

Exits

Gavin is a dude.

• So I worked 5 or 6 shifts a week till term came around again earning plenty of wonga. Suddenly I had as much money as I had before I started Uni. Wooooo!
• Uni this year is pretty cool. So far its all been Law [101 ways to write things, be annoying to the judge and not get sued], broadcast [101 ways to get ignored by the general public in the street] and.... French.
• It is quite odd to be doing French again but it is quite satisfying. After all half of the people at work are overseas students or just full time workers from some exotic places [China, Zimbabwe, Ghana, India, Turkey, Iran, Yemen, Portugal and er, Ireland] and so speaking just one language makes you feel rather ignorant. All being well, by the end of the year I should be A level standard in French. Yay!

Well I think that about sums up what has been going on.

Right now things have just started to get up to speed in terms of actually having a reasonable amount of things to do. Tomorrow for example I have to go out at 9.30 with a marantz [groovy reporters mic and recording thingummie] and do a vox pop which basically is getting loads of peoples opinions on tape.

I was going to do that this morning but I felt a bit rough and so put it off till today. It took me ages to come up with a decent subject - "Halloween, frightfully dull or a bit of fun? Are you trick-or-treating tonight or are you hiding indoors?" Ad infinitum. Of course I realised on the way back from my lecture that tomorrow this is hardly current and worthy of comment. Hopefully I can ask the question in the past tense and edit it together as the present :s

I did try and do my voxpop at the beginning of last week however finding a place to grab people for a second was nigh on impossible. The shopping area was already dotted with preachers, salespeople, big issue sellers, buskers and the like so getting a decent spot that was a fair distance away from any of these people and not near a road or that bloody trumpet player was tricky. I eventually found the perfect spot only to see Brett and Lesley from Journo move into it.

I tried to grab a few people and got a handful although they didn't comment on anything. Apparently nobody is bothered (least of all the black lady I asked) that the police have been told to actively target young black boys to stop and search last week. Well I guess I got an answer to my question. Unfortunately apathy does not lend itself well to being edited into a 3 minute package for radio.

Such is the way of Journos I suppose....

I also got thinking yesterday that maybe I should quit my job. I am just bored of it to be honest. There are only so many times you can clean things in the same order between 4pm and 2am and not go insane. Also it does mean I get less time to study which actually seems to be a concern this year. I have so far been fairly successful in being proactive in studying (wow) and having 1 day a week in which you also have to revise for tomorrow's law test and do the washing hardly allows for quality study time.

On the other hand the hours are handy (although preposterously long) and I am earning a lot at the moment and not feeling really worn out or anything.

On a third (and genetically unlikely hand), If I could get a different job it would inevitably pay more per hour and probably offer normal length shifts and not 10 hour marathons of ajaxing and somehow transplanting all the grease off the machines onto myself.

But will I be able to find another job?

There are certainly a fair few vacancies but will they hire me? Hopefully I will find out. I have drafted my resignation letter and filled in a application form to work at the Union Studio Shop. If I somehow managed to get a job there I would get paid an hour more to serve a handful of customers and look at all the cool stuff for sale, occasionally unpacking a box or two. Sounds amazing.

Well I have enough money to last the year even if I can't find another job so I think I should take the risk. If I hand in my letter on Friday then I will leave on the 18th Nov which means I get my birthday off. Hooray! Done and Done.

Byebye McDonalds!!

Again...

Well I think I have waffled enough for today. Hopefully the next post will be a bit more exciting. I feel I should leave you non students with a fab example of what us yoofs call "randomness"....

Lottie is watching television

L:"Oh my god Patrick Stewart has a moustache!"

Megan: (from the kitchen) "Oh. Cool!"

L: "AND! He's playing a Nintendo DS!"

Megan: "What?!"

L: "WITH JULIE WALTERS!!!!!!!!"

Megan: "OH MY GOD!!!"

(Clattering of pots in the kitchen as Megan abandons the washing up)

L: "Hurry up this is a televisual event!!!"

M: "I'm coming!!....... OH DAMN!"

TV flicks from Patrick and Julie to an advert about tile cleaning

M: I can't believe I missed that! Oh I hope it comes on again...."

I spent 15 minutes this afternoon looking for that advert. I am nerd.

Whats this?

A post?!

More coming soon. Promise!