#oneaday, Day 179: Back to...

Evening all. After the considerable amount of depravity that took place last night I'm pleased to report something of a return to normality, though my head doesn't quite believe that yet, still wobbling a little bit as it is. I'd also like to assure everyone that this post is written entirely by me and no other drunken people passing my phone around and sharing their pearls of wisdom with the world.

On a side note, whoever wrote this:

This is going terribly badly, but it pretty much sums up how tonight is going with the drink flowing freely like paradise city if the drink flowed freely instead of the girls being pretty.

I actually love you. Well done.

It wasn't me. I don't think. I'd remember coming up with something like that.

Anyway. Today has been largely wasted in a hung-over haze. We didn't get home until well after 5 in the morning. The sun was rising, the birds were singing; it would have been quite beautiful were we not all quite so obliterated with the incredibly strong vodka we'd been plied with. Still, despite five completely necessary yet discreet early-morning trips to the bathroom that I am assured no-one else heard, we all slept very well. Admittedly, most of us not in our own houses. But we slept well nonetheless.

A little too well, in fact. Despite waking up repeatedly for aforementioned bodily cries for help, I fell asleep until well after lunchtime. There was no sign of my previous night's companions, and a croaky-voiced shout of "anyone up yet?" outside the bedroom doors didn't elicit any response. So eventually I figured enough was enough. I shouted a crackly "goodbye" and staggered out into the street feeling more than a little bit shaky. I realised that I wasn't quite sure where I actually was in town, and the battery on my phone had died in the night.

Luckily, it wasn't difficult to get back into town, and I plied myself with a coffee and a bacon sandwich that I ate very, very carefully. I managed to make it home without succumbing to the hugely lazy desire to get a taxi for a trip of less than a mile. When I got back in, I slumped on the couch for a bit and stared at the wall, half-asleep. But there was work to do; I have a job interview tomorrow, and there's a presentation to deliver as part of it.

Trouble is, this job is in a field that I'm sure I could do but have little to no experience in. I'm not a marketer, though I've written stuff that could technically be classed as "PR" in the past. I know my way around social networking and know how to promote things; but at the same time I don't want to become one of those douchebags who describe themselves as a "social media guru".

Nor am I particularly enamoured with the idea of wearing a suit, which this job sounds like it will require. Suits look great on the right person, sure. But particularly in the summer months, there are few things more unpleasant to wear than a suit. Heavy woolen trousers and jacket? Shirt that seems to get sweaty pits as soon as you put it on? No thanks.

As you may have gathered, for a variety of reasons, I'm not feeling particularly fired up about this interview. I'm not sure why; ever since the company first got back to me and expressed an interest it hasn't felt quite "right". Initially, this was because of the prospect of having to move to a new city for it. I've kind of accepted the fact that that is going to be pretty much inevitable now, given the startling lack of any jobs that are the slightest bit interesting in Southampton. But even accepting that, things still didn't feel quite "right". It doesn't feel like the right fit for me.

The advice of friends has convinced me that I should go anyway, see what the company's like, scope the place out and get a feel for it. If it turns out to be awesome, great. If not, 1) it doesn't matter because I have other prospects lined up and 2) it's good experience.

A job's a job, I know. But there are other prospects on the horizon that, while they pay less, offer the opportunity for much, much more in the way of happiness. And at the end of the day, I think that's the most important thing.

One A Day, Day 24: Any Other Day

There goes another day. There are now two days remaining until the half-term vacation and a well-earned week off for me. I can't wait. I wish I didn't have to go back after said holiday, but at least there isn't that long to survive after it – and then the joy of PAX.

Naturally, since I'm nearing the end of one of the more unpleasant chapters of my life, now is the time for the shit to hit the fan. The school is expecting a "progress inspection" from the inspectors who judged it "shit" in the first place (I'm paraphrasing, of course) and that will inevitably involve yet more lesson observations. I'm half tempted to not even try, and let them get a real look at what the kids in that school are like. Why should I put myself out preparing a full-on fancy lesson plan when it only gets judged as "inadequate" by the local authority anyway?

I forgot to mention about the previous one – the super-ironic thing about that "inadequate" lesson (which my colleague also taught and got judged similarly, remember) is that we were following the guidelines on the National Strategy Framework Bollocks Primary Policy Full Of Shit site, or whatever it's called, to the letter. The lesson we delivered was straight out of the National Framework. And it was "inadequate".

Stupid.

On a side note, I have absolutely no idea why that site gives you the opportunity to 1) comment on 2) rate and 3) share its contents on Facebook. It's a huge pile of shit all round, so I urge you all to go there forthwith and troll the comments sections for each page as only the Internet can.

So what else is going to happen? Well, there's assessments to give in (which I've nearly finished, but not quite – late evening tomorrow… gah) and then there's a parents' evening to look forward to at the beginning of March, at which point I will be counting down the days until I escape so I really have little to no interest in talking to those who spawned the mini-chavs in my care. Actually, there's the potential opportunity for some fun there. There are plenty of kids in that class who need a good bollocking and don't listen when I give it to them, so hopefully the parents will sort them out.

Or perhaps not; since I've only had four reply slips back so far (and inevitably, all of them want to come in the latest possible time slot, meaning I have to sit twiddling my thumbs for about four hours) there might not be much opportunity to discuss it, particularly as all the parents who have signed up so far are the parents of the few actually nice children in the class.

Boo! Rubbish.

One day I'll stop ranting about this. Hopefully it will be the day I leave (or shortly thereafter).

For now, it's survival. Nearly there, though it was touch and go today for a while – though I did apply for another job that I actually want (as opposed to when I applied for the job I'm currently stuck in, which I applied for because I had to – at the time, I thought I wanted to do this, and there wasn't much else available) so hopefully that will come to something. I currently have three applications pending for different jobs, all of which I very much want. Hopefully one or more of them will find me sufficiently intriguing to interview and/or hire me. Time will tell.

Now I'm off to play some video games. Ta-ta.

One A Day, Day 8: Success!

I have successfully managed to arrange my escape from my job! Went to see my boss today and, as it turns out, I was only obliged to give one week's notice to quit. As tempting as it was to say "Well, I'll bugger off next week then. Ta-ra!" I decided against it so I can actually have a bit of money on hand in order to go to PAX.

Because this exciting news means that I will definitely be going! I'm stoked. The last time I went to a big industry event was when they still did them in Europe. I attended ECTS (the European Computer Trade Show, if I remember rightly) with my bro, and that was a long time back now. I've heard my buddies in the Squadron of Shame wax lyrical about PAX in the past and have been incredibly jealous. Now I get to join in the fun. It's going to be an awesome time, and I can't wait to finally meet some of the guys I've only ever spoken to on Skype before… or in some cases (Mr Bowlissimo!) only ever typed things to.

Also, my Bayonetta article got promoted to the front page on BitMob. People dig the IF thing, so I wrote another one. I also downloaded the Inform interactive fiction toolset to have a play with. Inform is bizarre – it's a programming language that works very similarly to plain English. I'm going to knuckle down and have a good go with it this week – probably at the weekend.

So – two good things in one day. It's a nice change. It even managed to distract me from the fact that the kids in my class were being stupid noisy bastards all day and the meeting we had after school was beyond pointless. Now I have a countdown (which I haven't calculated yet) I can relax a bit more. Except for the fact I don't have a new job to go to yet. Still, I have a couple of applications in for some exciting jobs, the closing date for one of which is this Friday, so I'll have to wait and see if anything comes of that.

Then there's the possibility of doing some freelance work. This would be ideal, especially if I could combine it with some music teaching work. I like music teaching. People pay you and you work with them on an individual basis. You don't have thirty annoying children all talking to each other and not listening in front of you. Much more pleasant and less inclined to make you want to throw things.

That's that for today. I'm going to go play some Star Trek now.