(Actual) Working Girl

I have news. Big news. Maybe not HUGE news, nothing earth shattering but in my world, it's pretty damn near asteroid sized. At last, my days of interning are over.

After 18 months of slave labour, I. Have. A. Job.

And I start tomorrow.

Gulp.

Shoots and shoes

So, today I got a call from an Editor of a magazine that I was meant to do work experience with earlier this year. At the time, it all went tits up and I ended up not doing the placement for various reasons. Anyway, she asked me to assist on a shoot tomorrow. I was happy to be asked as it's always good to meet people and said I'd do it if my current boss let me.

Current boss said yes as we're not vastly busy and so I called the Editor back and said I'd be happy to do it. She emails me the call sheet and all's well until I see the call time - 7:30am. I don't even get up on work days at 7:30am! I will have to use all of my will power to force myself out of bed at 5:45am (ouch!) tomorrow and remain chirpy as I repeatedly burn myself with a steamer. Oh boy.

Another one of life's lessons: never agree to a job until you know all of the terms and conditions.

On the plus side, I finally got my sandals today. Yeay! I have been traipsing to various Topshops trying to find them in the dusty pink and size 4 and at last I have succeeded. Hurrah!



Aren't they pretty? What made it doubly sweet was the fact that my gift voucher that was left over from my birthday meant that I paid the bargain price of £2. You really can't get much better than that.

Celebration of the unemployed.

I have returned to unemployment with joyous abandon. Yesterday was my last day of work experience and as of such, I have no plans for the next two months, until I go back to the magazine for a six month internship. I'll be doing some freelancing and working on some other projects in the meantime though so I'll be keeping busy but also keeping my own hours.

To celebrate my new unemployed freedom, I've spent the last 15 or so hours in bed. It's now 3:30pm and apart from getting out of bed for a can of coke, I have not needed to move since around midnight last night.

All of this lying down has not been in vain, oh no. I have quietly been scheming and plotting to drag myself out of bed and up to the high street to eat a big mac and get some fresh air since my mac attack hit around noon. Hopefully the combination of grease and being somewhere other than my bed will finish off my gradually disappating hangover, caused by last-day-drinks last night.

I really must either stop drinking entirely or start drinking more and rebuild my tolerance for alcohol. These days I find myself falling about, waving umbrellas, being surly to the chinese takeaway man and engaging strangers in conversations at bus stops after three drinks, whereas little over a year ago three drinks would've allowed me to still be for the most part coherent and the least, able to still walk in a straight line. I miss those days.

When a Big Mac is not a Big Mac

If you don't want to read three* paragraphs of me ranting about my shit big mac, I understand. Move along.

Fundamentally, I am a person who delights in small things. Tonight, after a Staples run, we decided to stop off for Big Macs to avoid cooking. Whilst I know that they all greasy and evil, I love them. I can't help it.

Unfortunately, the nearest golden arches was located in a neighbouring industrial estate. It's one of those really tiny franchises that's actually inside another building, in this case, a bowling alley. And unfortunately for us, it clearly wasn't a busy night. How did we know? Our big macs must've sat under those warmer lamps for quite some time, as gathered from the grey lettuce, rock hard buns and curdled big mac sauce. Gross.

*I apologise, I lied - it's only two paragraphs. If someone from Macdonalds should happen upon this, I am not pleased. I'm filing this under mcjob prospects because I don't have a when shit food happens to hungry people tag.

The Perfect(ly Horrible) Storm

As you may or may not know, the UK was hit by a huuuuuuge storm that made the entire transport and road system grind to a halt, cause £1billion worth of damage and sadly, killed 11 people. I know that a storm in America recently killed 50 but in terms of ratio, you can fit Britain into California three times over and still have some spare fields, so 11 is a much higher micro percentage than 50 in comparison to population levels.

I found the tree in the picture was blown over on the route I that I walk most days; having given up waiting for a bus in the standstill traffic, I braved the winds and rain to walk home that night. I can't say that it was still standing in the morning as I'd chickened out and wisened up, catching the bus instead of schlepping on foot as I didn't want to look like I'd washed up to work on a tidal wave.

Thursday was the most amazing day. To cut a long story short, I called in and styled my own mini shoot for the magazine where I'm doing work experience, the offer of which blew me away last week. Subsequently, I became too superstitious (sp?) about to mention to most people, even my mother, until the night before the shoot. The experience was truly unbelievable and I had so much fun all day that I was fit to burst when I finally rolled through the door that night. Not even the cramped and damp tube ride home could keep the smile from its position, plastered across my face like the local loon.

Enough simpering like a love struck teenager. Normal service will resume shortly.

Mcjob Prospects

Tis the Sunday before Christmas, I didn't get up until noon and I thought I should take advantage of my blog mentality before it slips away in a puff of Sunday lethargy and newspapers.

One of the first things I read today was Time magazine's Person of The Year 2006...You (as posted on Perezhilton.com). I often wonder if I'm alone in my hobby-quest and the article made me feel a little less weird. If there's some dude denying himself Lost to make films starring his Iguana, then I'm definitely the less weird of the two, spending 10 or 20 minutes to write a post about something inane that probably won't be read by more than five people. I admit, that sometimes at work, I'll dedicate an hour of my time to kicking back in my chair and mentally composing a post, only to forget it in the rush of lunch or the dizzying activity of making tea and coffee for everyone.

However, I finish my job on the 22nd and then, I'm giving myself the month of January to find something new or else, I may be forced to apply for a McJob. Bored curiousity (and the sight of a Big Mac) led me to the McDonalds site a few nights ago. In one of my filthy nihilistic moods, I decided to humour/torture myself by clicking on their McJobs section. However, rather than be repulsed outright by the prospect of smelling like Mcchip fat and burgers for 40 hours a week, I found myself being drawn in against my will. Mccompany car - Mini Cooper, nice. McPension plan - can't see Mcdonalds going bust now that fat people can't sue them anymore. Mcnice wages - lots and lots of shoes.

Thankfully, I pulled myself back sharply and reasoned that I had not spent the last three years doing a degree to sell burgers for a living. I know someone's got to do it but that someone ain't being me.

For the love of God, someone hire me before I'm reduced to this.

Somebody, hire me!

Urgh, the depressing reality of once again starting the job hunt is hanging over me like a dark cloud, ready to piss it down at any moment. It's just so bloody daunting, writing endless cover letters, trying to keep the pleading tone out of the text and tweaking your CV relentlessly.

I think back to my first job, working in a video store and it all seemed so easy. It was one of the first places I dropped in my virtually blank CV and lo, behold, interview!

On the day of the interview, I remember feeling somewhat nihilistic, having failed my driving test about two hours before and I think my then potential bosses quite liked the fact that not only was I black mooded but my favourite film was Clerks.

Whilst the pay was appalling, the job made it totally worth it, as did the people I worked with there. Many hours were spent sitting on the counter, watching movies and eating chinese takeout from a few shops down. The people at Blockbuster down the street never got that and boy, did they hate us for it.