Ello! in OD

Just realised it’s been a while since I wrote a general life update type entry. So, here it is.

Last week I had an apointment with someone at the job centre. This is the appointment I was supposed to have after I finished with A4e, which just goes to show you how up to date the job centre here actually is (I finished with A4e at the begining of the year).

The person I spoke to was, to be blunt, a complete bitch. She asked me, as I am looking for retail work, why I’m only applying for full time jobs. Erm, cos if I don’t I’m no longer entitled to JSA and will lose my benefits? May be a motivating factor. I simply said cos I need full time work to cover rent and bills and still be able to survive.

She then asked me why I didn’t apply for a job at Poundland. I pointed out that I had absolutely no idea that they were looking for anyone at the moment. She had a go at me for the fact that I claimed to use the job centre website to look for work (this is the same website that thinks Bristol is in the local area for Middlesbrough BTW) and then pointed out that the job in question HADN’T been advertised there…

So, I have to go back to see her on Monday. She’s going to do a calculation to prove to me that I’d be better off in work than unemployed. Well, DUH! I think she’s going to prove to me that I can survive on a part time wage with my current expenditure, but she’ll be giving me a false reading. As she well knows. I told her, explicitly, that if I got a job I would be moving out of where I am right now. So, my rent withh significantly increase (especially if I go through with my plan to get a flat instead of a room in a shared house) as will my bills. So, basing any calculations on my current expendature is completely pointless.

World Book Night went OK. I may write a ranty entry later about the organisation, but for the moment I’ll just say this: DO NOT ENCOURAGE ME TO SIGN UP TO THE WEBSITE WHEN IT’S DONW 9 TIMES OUT OF 10!

Tried giving away books in the town centre. Gave some away, but got suspicious looks from a lot of people. There was an event at the reference library in town that I was told I could give books away at. So, went along only to find the person hosting the event was a giver herself and had the same book as me. So, went to an event at MIMA (if you watch Top Gear, it’s the place where they had their art exhibition) to give some away there. Some other givers turned up and guess what?

I went home that night with about half my books left. Thankfully, I’ve managed to find homes for most of them, but I’m still going to have about 10 left over. There’s a place in Boro that I might approach and see if they can help shift the remainder.

Apart from that, not much has happened. Went to a tweetup in Middlesbrough over the weekend, which was fun. It’s also where I was told about this piece of awesomness: Replace the N word with Robot in Huck Finn. And much (delicious, home made) cake was had by all. Looking forward to the next one.

Much writing to be done. There’s stuff for TTZ (which is due in this weekend, so I’ll have to get cracking), my Angry Robot submission (is a wizard PI story sci-fi or fantasy?) and my submission for a local thing for new writers (which I still need to start and will cost a fortune to get to them).

I’ll leave you with a couple of videos. The first proves that there really are no untalented sbilings in the Whedon family:

And this is just awesomely geeky. Or geekily awesome. You decide:

Don’t forget, you can find me on facebook here and on twitter here.

Have a good one!

Will