Paper paper everywhere!

I've just spent the last three hours almost exclusively stood, paying homage to the god that is the office copier! Add this to the hours I've been there for the last few days as well, and the 8 reams of paper I've fed in to it, and I'm still not finished!

Wouldn't life be much better if we weren't inspected! The bit of the College I'm currently work for is about Work Based Learning and Apprenticeships. There's an inspection next week, and there's still a large pile of documents that need copying and distributing before then!

To try and save another amazonian rainforest, I've used back-to-back copying where possible, but 8 reams of paper (4000 sheets) is still absolutely ridiculous, then take in to account, that most of the docs are on the computer system, printed and distributed originally, and they're duplicated now 'for the inspectors' and you wonder why the planet is in the mess it is!!!!!

Weekend

The weekend was spent mostly being educated. That's being taught how to be an Explorer Leader (at long last!). It involved an early start on Saturday (arrive @Hesley Wood for 8.30am) followed by being talked at all morning. another couple of modules in the afternoon - one of which involved building towers with wooden blocks! and another unit after dinner on Sat evening. We eventually got to the bar at 9:30pm! Sunday was similar with an 8:00 breakfast and 4:30 finish.

We've got the same this weekend coming, except that it's a friday evening start. After that, all I have to do, is the module validation, and (except for Nights away) I'll nearly have my wood badge I think!

This afternoon

I have mostly been rolling up "Certificates"* for the NVQ achievers for their presentation evening tomorrow night and tying them up with a bit of ribbon (Don't tell Charlotte, or she'll have me tying ribbon round the Christmas presents!)

* They're not really certificates, just something knocked up in 5 mins and copied onto headed note-paper!

Follow-up to the Corrs

Following a comment about our visit to the Corrs at Sheffield Arena, I looked up the review on the guardian website about their Wembley concert, and what they said applied just as much to Sheffield. To reiterate, it was stormin'!

WHY?

Why am I stuck in a b£**&y temping job, and why does nobody want to employ me in a 'real' job with long term prospects, security, decent paid holiday, decent pension provisions, etc etc. The only thing decent about what I'm doing at the moment is that it gives me SOME money (not enough), it's in a warm office and they're decent people I'm currently working with. Only trouble is, is that I may not be here for long and I'll have to change jobs again :-(

I've got an MSc, what am I doing wrong on my application forms? What jobs should I be looking for, if I'm looking at the wrong ones? Where can I find out if there's any PhD's available? What else can I do?

Last night

Went to see the Corrs last night at the Sheffield Arena. The first warm-up act (Mark Joseph IIRC) was a lone man with a guitar, playing to about 1/4 capacity, but apparently normally has a band on his album. He was OK. The second support act was a band from Poland called Myslovitz. Neither me, nor Charlotte thought much of them, and couldn't spot how the fitted in with the Corrs' music! The Corrs themselves were fantastic, although they took a while to get the crowd going. Once they got going though, it was really good. They were on stage for nearly two hours, which I thought was good. Some bands I tech'd for when I was at Bath were only on for around 45 - 60 mins (the ones who thought they were bigger than they were, were the worst culprits!)

It ended up that we didn't get home 'till around midnight, so we're both quite tired today.

We're off to Newcastle this evening for the weekend to see my in-laws, and they'll meet Daisy for the first time... Talking of Daisy, C took her to a doggy beauty parlour yesterday, so she now looks quite a bit better than she did! She's got rid of all the scraggy bit of matted fur around her rear quarters, and hopefully they now won't get poo stuck to her!

Must go, as my hot pork sandwich has just been delivered to my desk...

doubling doubling up up

Bu&&er - That'll teach me not to press the publish button a second time when I thought it hadn't done anything the first time!

(Update 08.11.04: I've been informed that I can delete the first copy of it, so it's now gone!)

First Week

I'm now embarking upon my second week here, and so-far-so-good :-) It's just a shame that it's not a relevant permanent job :-(

The weekend was OK, Saturday afternoon was spent 'refreshing' my first aid knowledge so that I can be a proper Explorer leader, while Sunday afternoon was spent trecking around the woods near the Rivelin Dams trying to find some more geocaches. Unfortunately, we had to return with two 'Did Not Finds' as we don't have a GPS machine yet, so couldn't tell if we were in exactly the right place. We could fix our position using map, compas and surroundings to around 50m, but when you're on the edge of a wood with heather on the ground, and the clue is 'Under a tree beneath the heather' this location wasn't good enough :-(

Note-to-self: Must tell people we want a GPS for Christmas!