What's your biggest turn on?

I like it when:

- People are honest about who they are
- We have similar, but not exactly the same, interests
- They don't constantly try to please me - I'd like to think I'm not a control freak
- People who are generally nice to me

Again, there are more

Ask me anything

What's your biggest turn off?

There's more than one:

- People who are arrogant / ignorant
- People who try too hard
- People who are bad mannered
- Creepy people
- Forceful people

There are more

Ask me anything

Job Hunt 2

I've actually written lots of blogs on this similar topic before...but this is only the second one on this here blog. All the previous ones got wrote on my old Myspace blog, and they were about getting part time retail work for my undergrad.

This is the big one, though. This is me trying to keep afloat following the end of my degree. Yes, my main ambition is to finally get a coherent novel published and sold, but until that happens I need something else to do. I may as well apply for something I'll get satisfaction from, plus it'll give me purpose. I've said I want to go into publishing, but essentially something arts-related would be equally good. I'm just digging around by keeping feeds going for arts / culture jobs. Of course, my degree hasn't given me many skills >_> Woops.

I'm thinking if the job is in Edinburgh I may end up having to stay in Glasgow and commute - Edinburgh is expensive living these days

This Week

So - this week, I:

- Handed in essays. The Penultimate Ever Essay went in on Monday and the Last Ever Essay went in on Thursday. I am, for the foreseeable future, essay free - although I've still exams to do. I like this feeling.
- Had the student achievement awards at the union on Wednesday night.
- Went to see my aunt on Thursday. She lives in Newcastle. We had an eventful couple of days in which we ate sushi, went clothes shopping and saw 'Cemetery Junction' - which was actually better than I thought it would be.

I'm a little knackered now.

I've also just remembered that Thursday is my birthday. I would like cake please.

A Farewell to Academia, Part 2 (or How I Discovered Stevie Nicks)

I realise I have not blogged in a week. Or more.

So...having just handed in my Penultimate Ever Essay yesterday (it's totally bombed), I am now trying to polish off my Last Ever Essay in time for the awards night at the union tomorrow. Exciting stuff. Just think - years ago I wasn't even sure if I had a definite place at either of the unis I'd applied to. Now I'm about to graduate, crossing my fingers that I might just fluke a low 2:1 rather than a high 2:2, thus making me more employable.

I have applied for another job - this time one that I really want, in a publishing house in Edinburgh. I hope they at least consider me for interview because I've decided publishing - if the novelist thing doesn't work out, which it sure as hell won't at this rate - might just be my niche.

In other news...

Earlier I was listening to the 2-disc anthology by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. Basically it's 34 of their best songs from their Shelter / MCA years (including Petty's first solo album, Full Moon Fever) - although I'm gutted that Anything That's Rock n' Roll didn't make the cut. Anyhow - one of the songs that DID make the cut is his duet with Stevie Nicks, Stop Draggin' My Heart Around, from her first solo album Bella Donna. I'd actually initially discovered it because we had TPHB's song Insider on a video compilation, and Nicks sings the harmonies on that. My pa noticed that I really liked that song and dug out the copy of Bella Donna he had on cassette, and spooled through it to Stop Draggin' My Heart Around (track three, I discovered many years later). He played it to me and I remember I liked it - though not as much as Insider.

Years later, Jack Black's film School of Rock - still one of his finest in my opinion - came out, and of course Edge of Seventeen was on the soundtrack. I believe I ended up going to see that film three times during the weekend it was played in Shetland (inadvertently, I promise you) - the third of those times with my pa. He seemed to like it - jokingly suggesting he should incorporate some of Black's character's techniques into the guitar class he taught - and I was prompted to dig out the Bella Donna cassette from the living room. I can remember us driving into Lerwick in the van he had for his then-job and listening to it on the van's tape deck, and him being delighted at remembering how good the album was.

What I'm trying to say is...I wish I could go back to a simpler time.

Another thought:

Kate Moss once said 'Nothing tastes as good as being thin feels.' If that's the case, maybe she should learn to cook?

Stuff what's happening in my life just now

And so...

I can list the next couple of weeks of my life up until a point this year.

April 19th: One essay due.
April 21st: Awards ceremony for union volunteers.
April 23rd: Deadline for other essay and also the uni's creative writing competition. Sadly, these will have to be pushed back by at least a day for me because...
April 22nd-24th: ...I am going to see my auntie in Newcastle.
April 28th: Helping out with the uni media groups at an out of school club in the southside...if I can sort out my disclosure form on time :/
April 29th: I hit the first palindromic age I've been for 11 years and that I will be for another 11 years. This growing old malarky scares the crap out of me, because growing old means I will eventually die.
May 11th: First exam
May 16th: Going to see the Bundles at ABC with my good friend Martin. They feature cartoonist / performer Jeffrey Lewis and singer-songwriter Kimya Dawson (yes, her of Juno / Moldy Peaches fame). Sounding pretty awesome so far.
May 26th: Second and last-ever exam. Yes, being that I'm a Lazy Arts Type I therefore only have two exams. It's the fewest number of exams I've ever had. I'm not complaining.
May 29th: 50th birthday party for my uni newspaper.
June 6th: My grad ball, when I finally get the excuse to wear my Vivien of Holloway dress for the reason which it was originally purchased. This is also the day my flatmate and I will be vacating our current digs. We'll need to find a way to somehow work around this...
June 20th: Paul McCartney at Hampden. Actually...I've just remembered that. :D
July 12th: Graduation. Yes, as of this day I shall be what's known as a graduate, no longer the scum of the earth...unless, of course, I am on the dole by this stage. Which I'm sure I will be. Which is why the job hunt is happening now.

I'm scared. Again.

So much happening...

Hello ladies and gents.

So yes - I have not been on lately. Well, for one thing my cousin was visiting. I haven't seen her in ages so it was good to do so. We did lots of fun things together, from going to ABC to seeing Alice in Wonderland (at last - I liked it). And we went for a wander around the West End.

I have also had essays to do - eek! Two due within four days of each other - and I lose a day on one because I'm going to Newcastle D: Sigh. I cannot fail these essays either, they're both worth a large portion of my overall grade. Remind me, why did I not take classes I could actually muster interest in? It doesn't help that my uni's library is about as much use as a chocolate teapot. I might actually have to venture to one of the other libraries in the city to obtain sources relevant to my subjects. The only thing that reassures me is that both essays are now at about 40-45% of the approximate required word count.

What makes it worse is that my uni are holding their annual writing competition and the deadline is the same day as one of my essays. ARGH. I really wanted to enter this year. Okay, with the standard of writers on my course (I can assure you all now, I am NOT the best one there) I probably have no chance of winning. But I got commended last year. Admittedly little effort went into last year's...ahem...effort. I used a play in Shetland dialect that I'd had for years, it was so old it went into my Advanced Higher English creative writing portfolio from 6th year of high school. Commended is not bad. Commended is acknowledgement, it gets into the booklet and therefore still exists. That was all I wanted for years and I got it. I suppose I'm happy with that. The bother is, I have a new idea, but I'm not sure I have the time to write it. I guess I could try during study breaks?

Ocht...I'm fed up now.

Oh no, it's another music meme (stolen from Gillian)

Stolen from Gillian, a music meme. Feel free to pinch.

Put your MP3 player on shuffle, and write down the first line of the first twenty songs. Post the poem that results.

I gotta whole lotta things to tell her
Maybe somewhere in the Southern Hemisphere
You're a part-time lover and a full-time friend
I work all night, I work all day
Well I won't back down
You say you stand by your man
In this faded room I sit
Well my heart knows me better than I know myself
I am an anarchist
Wanna be the ruler of the galaxy
Don't know why I have to work
I'm going down to the house in the woods
Kiss me, out of the bearded barley
She said, "I'm Rosie," I said "I thought you were Rose"
I've just seen a face, I can't forget the time or place
Roll up, roll up for the mystery tour
I wished I was smarter, I wished I was stronger
Chewin' out a rhythm on my bubblegum
Cause he gets up in the morning, and he goes to work at nine
Run and tell all of the angels, this could take all night.

Artists and Titles:

1. When I Get Home - the Beatles
2. Orion in the Sky - Shawn Colvin
3. Anyone Else But You - the Moldy Peaches
4. Money, Money, Money - ABBA
5. I Won't Back Down - Tom Petty
6. Train in Vain (Stand By Me) - the Clash
7. Can U Wait That Long? - Shakespear's Sister
8. Black Horse and the Cherry Tree - KT Tunstall
9. Anarchy in the UK - the Sex Pistols
10. Song for a Future Generation - the B-52s
11. Save Me a Place - Fleetwood Mac
12. House in the Woods - Tom Petty
13. Kiss Me - Sixpence None the Richer
14. Creepin' Up the Backstairs - the Fratellis
15. I've Just Seen a Face - the Beatles
16. Magical Mystery Tour - the Beatles
17. Top of the World - the Dixie Chicks
18. Rockaway Beach - the Ramones
19. Well Respected Man - the Kinks
20. Learn to Fly - Foo Fighters

Things That Grind My Gears, Part 1

Tonight's gripe:

People making assumptions about my career options.

So...in July, I am due to graduate. My award will be a BA (Hons) in English with Journalism and Creative Writing. Note the order in which I said those three subjects. They are ordered in such a way because that is the order in which they will appear on the parchment that will make up my physical degree. However, my order of preference and priority in the interest of these subjects is roughly the reverse of the three. I've made that clear enough since I started this blog.

So anyway...of course, when folk ask me what I study, I again state the three in the order in which they will appear on the degree parchment. This has a tendency to spark one of the following questions from people:

1: "Are you going to be a teacher?"
2: "Are you going to write for [Shetland's local paper]?"

My response is to usually politely answer both of these with a 'no'. In fact, these are my real verdicts on these questions and how tedious I find them:

1: No, I have no intention of being a teacher. Believe it or not, teaching is not something that should be taken lightly or written off as a 'last resort' when no other fucker in any other industry will employ you. I have been taught at school by teachers who frankly should not have been teaching - they either couldn't have cared less about or struggled to engage / control the class in their chosen subject. (I'd like to point out that not all my teachers were like this - a lot of them were actually pretty good. But it's the crap ones that I remember sheerly for their crapness.) I am pretty sure that I couldn't deal with trying to engage or control pupils who didn't want to be there. If I taught English, and ended up teaching kids like those I was unfortunate enough to end up in an English class with, I'd find myself at the end of every school day wishing it was legal to shoot disruptive pupils with a bow and arrow. I could do lecturing. At least with lecturing you're working with folk who want to be there, who are interested in your subject, and who will not try to wreck the experience for others. Teaching, though - not for me.

What I'm trying to say is, you have to WANT to be a teacher, just like you would WANT to be a doctor, lawyer, engineer, journalist or any other occupation. I'd like to point out that with the above post, I'm not trying to slag off my friends, family and acquaintances who either are teachers or want to be. I know these people are actually the right sort of people to be teachers and they will do well when they join the profession. It's just irritating for me, who DOESN'T want to teach, that people assume that's what I'll do, and it also makes out that teaching is a Mickey Mouse career that people do as a last resort, or that English is a Mickey Mouse degree that renders you useless for anything else. That said, it doesn't stop people giving me a look that says 'You're destined for the Dole, you wasteful child' when I tell them I don't want to teach. Grr at prejudices.

Fee-yoof, glad I got that off my chest. Moving on...

2: Oh please, are you taking the piss?! Even if I still wanted to be a journalist (I think I've more or less given up on that idea now) I'd rather be on the Dole.

I like when folk ask me instead what I want to do with my life. People who are not presumptious tend to be at a social advantage. For some reason, though, I'm loath to tell folk I want to write. I don't know why that is; they're so much more accepting of it in Glasgow than back home. I feel like I'm denying who I am by doing that, but folk still either laugh in your face or ask about your work. So I instead say I'd like a job in the arts, or in publishing. That way I'm not entirely lying.

In other news...2am sushi cravings are a pain.