Finding Direction

   There's been quite a lot going on in the world of me in the last month or so. Firstly I made a firm decision that I need to choose a more definite career path. Secondly I decided that path is going to be veterinary nursing. It seems like a good choice for me because it combines aspects of animal care with more medical aspects. So it will be more suited to my sciencey nature and challenge my brain more than other animal care jobs. The downside to this is that I will have to study again and re-train. Although actually, I quite like learning.
   The next thing that happened was my discovery of a job with a chain of vet practices as a patient care assistant (aka travelling dogsbody). One of the conditions of taking the job was agreeing to undertake vet nurse training- bonus! A chance to get paid (albeit a feeble salary) while studying. I re-vamped and emailed my Cv straight away. To my great suprise, I had a reply the next day saying it had been forwarded to the area manager and the day after I had a phone call. I arranged an interview the next week (they wanted me to come in the next day, but I needed to get time off work).
   The interview went really well. I wasn't nervous at all and I actually rather enjoyed the friendly chat. I had another phone call as soon as I'd got home to arrange a trial session for the end of that week. It all seemed to be going rather quickly and in an uncharacteristic move, I actually let myself get quite excited about a possible change. 
   The trial was pretty much as I expected, maybe a little disappointing. I was told to be following and observing the head nurse and was doing quite well at the observing part- tucking myself out of everyone's way.Then the head nurse got called in to do a consultation and I was just left waiting. Nobody was particularly friendly and there were no offers of tasks or anything interesting to do, so I waited. Eventually, just as I'd read the last remaining notice on the wall, someone came and gave me a job of washing things. This was as exciting as it got, apart from cleaning a couple of cages. Anyway, at the end of the long 3 hours the head nurse was really positive and said that she'd pass on that I'd done my trial, that it went really well and she hoped they'd see me soon. I went home tired but upbeat to enjoy the weekend. 
   During my lunchbreak on the following Tuesday I was checking my emails and I noticed I had one from the vet manager. I wasn't going to read it because I wasn't sure I would be able to contain myself for the rest of my shift if I knew I could leave. Then I decided the nagging curiosity would be much worse. So I read the email. I was totally confused when I found myself reading a generic rejection- "thankyou for applying...bla bla bla...we won't be taking it any further at this point in time etc." Baffling considering how quick they were to respond, how positive they were and that I got as far as having a trial that went "really well". The last 2 hours of the shift were spent resisting the alternating urges to cry and hit things. Not fun.
   So basically in the space of 3 weeks I managed to choose a career, find a way in, try it out, confirm it was a good choice for me, talk myself into making the change and then been completely rejected with no idea why (I'm still waiting for a reply to my feedback request). I can only assume they didn't want me based on something to do with meeting me and my performance on the trail session because I can't see why they would take the application that far if I didn't have all the credentials. This makes the rejection feel all the more personal.
I'm not going to let it put me off though. The next step (once the festive season has passed) is going to be to throw my Cv around all the local registered training practices to try and find somewhere willing to take me on as a trainee. If that doesn't work (and I suspect it won't) then I will have to attempt to do some work experience and apply to college myself. The colleges provide placements while on the course but they will be unpaid, making this will be the most expensive way to train.
   Anyway, that's my new plan. Unless I have a radical change of heart or something really drastic happens, I'll hopefully be on the way to starting a proper career by this time next year. Until then I'm preapring myself mentally for another 2 years or so stuck at home. I'm also going to try and stockpile as much cash as I can to prepare for the leaner times ahead.

Sat Nav for my life

It's been a goodly while since I've thought about this blog. I've not really had any bright ideas about a direction to take it; much like my life is still rather lacking a definite direction. I have however stumbled upon an urge to follow a more positive and upbeat train of thought.
There is a lot I want to change about myself and about my life, but it's too much to take on all at once. I've discovered the key to feeling better about it all is to accept it can only work if I take tiny steps. I'm not going to be able to up-sticks and move overnight, so I'm trying to create a fund for when I finally do. I won't be able to suddenly get healthier overnight, but I can make small changes to my lifestyle. I won't feel anymore relaxed at home any time soon, so I'm trying to do more things that involve me going out. The problem with that is people are generally much busier than I am. I'm going to try and rectify this by finding activities I don't mind doing alone. I need to stop being such a recluse! There aren't any real prospects of me being able to transfer jobs (I'd like to keep working in the same area of civil service) at least not in the immediate future; so I'm trying to find ways of making it more bearable where I am. I know I've said similar before. This time it seems to actually be working.
I've also recently taken small steps back into the world of writing again. When I was a child I always had my nose in a book and I was always scribbling something down. When asked what I wanted to be when I grew up I would always say an author. It was always something I wanted to take further, but I ended up being persuaded I wasn't really good enough and I lost my motivation. I went back to my primary school recently for its 100th anniversary. While there I ran into 2 of my favourite teachers. As soon as I had introduced myself they remembered me as "the writer". It made me feel sad and quite regretful. So I decided to do something about it. I've had a story bubbling around in my head for a long time now. It feels good to be finally taking the first steps towards getting the story out of my head and onto the page. At the moment I'm just getting things done slowly; a little bit here and there in between other things. It's all very rough and is going to be a long time before I feel confident enough to let anybody look at it. It just feels good to have something to be working towards. And hey, if mediocre literature like the Twilight saga, Eragon and the like can be published and successful there must be some hope for me! Although I still doubt I'll ever have the motivation and drive to see it all the way through. For now though, I'm enjoying commanding a pen again and that's all I want from writing at the moment.
Another scheme I'm also in the process of concocting is the possibilty of making a little extra cash from my drawings. I think I could be quite good at creating pet portraits. I'll have to get a bit more practice before I take paid commisions. I'd feel guilty taking money for my inferior work. Maybe I'll experiment with friends first at a discounted rate!

Blue screen of purpose

I'm sitting at work right now (a rare event) writing this. You of course are reading this a couple of days later as I'm not actually able to type this at work. I have to use good old-fashioned pen and paper. I'm sitting alone in a computer room at the moment (an hour and a half so far; around seven hours by the end of the day). My job for today is to sit and wait for parcels the magic machine can't read to appear on the screen. I then have to enter the code to send each one down the right chute. Most of the time I'm just staring at a blue screen which tells me "Waiting for new parcels, please wait". Needless to say I am currently rather bored indeed. In fact, not too long ago I was fighting the urge to fall asleep. I've also been fighting the urge to scream over the walkie-talkie. As i don't really talk much at work I think that might freak my colleagues out a little too much to be comfortable.
Anyway, the main point of this is that while contemplating the extreme dullness of my existance it occurred to me that if it's boring to be living, it must be a thousand times less interesting to read. I think this blog needs a direction. Who knows? Maybe it will even help me find more of a direction. Yes, I like this idea; give this blog a purpose.
The problem is that I don't think I really know what direction to take. I don't really take an active enough interest in politics to write about that. My job is too dull. I enjoy reading, but I don't read enough for a book blog. I dabble here and there in craft projects, but not enough to inspire or to instruct. I have a limited interest in science and technology. I enjoy nature, but I don't really keep up to date with the latest news and discoveries in that field. I don't even really get to spend much time indulging in my love of natural things. [Note to self: I must find time to get out more (and not to the pub!)] I do enjoy films and when I can find someone to come with me I do go to cinema quite a lot. I also rent films through one of those postal things, so maybe a movie blog could be an idea... I could relate mildly amusing anecdotes, but eventually I'd have to find more which might prove tricky as I don't really do a lot or interact much with people on a day to day basis.
I could ask what people would like to read about, but as nobody reads this anyway that would be a fairly pointless exercise. If the blog had more structure it might be more worthy of an audience. So really this actually has no purpose. I still have no direction- in this blog nor in life- and I'm not sure I'll find one.

O hai blog!

It's been much longer than anticipated. I mentioned in the last post I'd just heard back about a job. Well it was all go from there. I started work the week before christmas. I had already booked tickets to see one of my long-standing favourite bands, Sonic Boom Six on a Sunday night. This meant I had to turn up to my first day of work with next to no sleep, which was extremely fun! I also went to see Tim Minchin after my second day; again, no sleep. Things really got exciting on the Friday. I should mention that this was the week when all the crazy snowfall hit the UK and we crumbled under it. I got back to my Nan's house after work to find she'd had a fall in the bedroom. In the end I had to get my Sister to come over and help me lift her (we were due to meet there for a gig anyway) and Mum was on her way home from work. The next thing I knew my Sis was talking to Mum on the phone. It turned out Mummy had to get off the bus a couple of stops away and she'd slipped over in the ice. I decided to head out and find Mum, running (yes, me actually moving faster than a walk!) around the corner to find her in a heap on the ground. Apparently the ambulance was going to take 3 hours! Anyway, to keep this brief Dad came and took Mum to hospital while my sister and I carried on and went to the gig (Madness, who were brilliant). So I ended up spending my second week at work staying at Nan's to look after her and waiting to find out when Mum would be home. Mum eventually came out of hospital at 1am on Christmas eve with her ankle broken on both sides; a pin holding one side and a plate in the other. This left me almost entirely in charge of the Christmas festivities, which I can now say went rather well.
I have pretty much spent the last couple of months juggling the new job with looking after Mummy and Nanny at Nan's house and with keeping things ticking over at home. Needless to say I haven't really had a lot of time to do anything for myself for a while and I haven't really been my usual self.
The good news is that Mummy is on the mend and now I feel like I can breath again. I'm actually managing to spend some more time at home and fitting in social activities again. I booked this week off work for a bit of a catch up (the housework has fallen grossly behind as it seems only I am trained in the art) and so far I haven't done nearly as much as I should. I seem to have accidentally started watching Dollhouse again which is proving distracting. Housework is boring. I must get on and do things though. I need to get focused on relaxing again!