Ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-changes...

I am observing the huge packing job that looms before me and I now think I maybe shouldn't have left it so late. Then again, there are a lot of things I've left late - among them cutting off all the services in the flat before we leave. Something tells me I was meant to give more notice than this.

I appear to have a home for at least the next two months, and it's in a nice bit of the city, which is fine. I then will have to get my finger out with finding paid work and all that until my planned career in publishing takes off.

I just hope it all falls into place.

Normal Service Has Been Resumed

Right...those of you on Facebook may or may not be aware that my blog wasn't importing this last week. I have fixed this. I think.

Anyway...I seem to have two potential choices of new flat. This is a bit of a relief.

Did you know that www.imdbvip.com was voted as the best website to watch movies online, and do you know that its a part of www.imdb.com?

Why no, I did not know that. Thank you for that incredibly useful info.

Note that I'm not sure if I'm being sarcastic or not there

Ask me anything

I will one day. Not today :)

Well, okay. Have it your way

Ask me anything

Just a small-town girl, living in...Glasgow.

I know...not hugely catchy.

So yes - today, after viewing a rather nice flat in the south side of the city I went into town to sign on. A lot of questions were asked, and now, next week, I have to go for an interview to help me find a suitable job. Starting to think that just phoning the pub I put in an application form to might be a bit easier. At least I have an internship (for skills and something to keep me occupied) and even a crap menial job would at least keep me in digs (although there's always the chance that somewhere like a pub or a supermarket would play the 'overqualified' card).

Ah well - at least I have no more exams to stress me out on top of all this

I feel EXACTLY the same! I'd say I'm always here to talk if you need but you don't know who this is!

So make yourself known to me, friend?

Ask me anything

A Farewell to Academia, Part 4: Last Ever Exam

So yeah...my academic career is, for now, over and done with.

My Last Ever Exam was at about 2pm today. I think it went as well as it could have done, considering I did fuck all revision for it. Ah well.

I'm still going to be homeless as of next weekend - on the night of my grad ball, no less. Gutting. :( Hopefully something flat wise will come up, I'm only wishing I'd thought to look sooner. That was stupid of me.

Meanwhile...going to sign on tomorrow, and probably look for a job while I'm actually in the Job Centre. Oh, and phone Wetherspoon's too, they'd be better than nothing for just now.

Anyway...off to bed. Going to finally finish reading 'Norwegian Wood', been on it for months now. Then to start on the rest of the books I've never managed to read yet. Can't. Fucking. Wait.

Good News, Bad News

Well...ish.

Right, so - I mentioned a couple of developments had been happening in the last little while. Well, in full, here we have it:

Basically I applied for an internship with an independent publishing house here in Glasgow. Despite there having been stiff competition for it, I was shortlisted. I'm not going to go into vast amounts of detail but the long and the short of it is this: I was offered the job at interview. I was elated. For one thing, the company boss made me feel completely at ease. It helped that it was taking place in a coffee shop (I've developed a love for white chocolate mochas I think - yum!), but I've never felt so relaxed in an interview environment. I think that helped.

It's great in the sense of experience. I decided this year that I wanted to get into publishing, and it'll get me a foot in the door. I'll be trying to get the company's books distributed to places to sell them. However, it's an internship. This means that I don't get paid. I instead get paid back any travel expenses incurred, plus any contributions to my mobile bill for any call, plus any share of a grant they may get. Apart from that...I need another job so I can actually keep living here, which, at this rate, is gonna be in a pub.

I also need to find somewhere to live - and move in ASAP. Pungs.

Ah well - last exam tomorrow. One load off my mind.

Here comes the sun, and I say it's alright...

So...Glasgow has been scorching hot these last couple of days. I know it's May, but where did that come from?! It's not helping study, that's for sure ;)

My last ever exam is in two days, and I've still not found a flat at the time of writing this. But yesterday I sat out on a patch of grass in my bit of Glasgow with a good friend of mine. We had a couple of cigs and a couple of beers, and a long talk about things that had happened to each of us over the past year, and in amongst it all we ended up dragging out one of the disposable barbecues from my flat and cooking two sirloin steaks on it. Yum. I've not had a barbecue in so long - certainly didn't have one last summer (although I meant to). Here's hoping for a few more while this nice weather lasts. Hooray for summer.

Only trouble is, I came in from being out yesterday and now appear to have heat rash, despite having liberally applied sun oil (SPF 30, I might add - none of that SPF 7 shite that's as much use as cooking oil!) to my arms and face. I've been repeatedly attacking it with after sun cream, which works for a while, and then it just flares up again. Aside from that, I like the sunshine.

A few more things happening this week that will hopefully improve this year overall and may mean my degree wasn't a complete waste of four years of my life - will keep you posted with more info as and when I receive it.

Ever felt depressed? Like you didn't want to go on?

Ha! You bet. Happens to me more than I'd like it to :( And I'm sorry if I sound like an emo twat saying that but it's true. So many times over the years - especially lately, being faced with being at a loose end - I've felt utterly miserable because I don't know what direction my life's gonna go in, if any of my hopes and dreams will be realised. If I were to live a boring life, there'd be nothing worse, and it's the thought of that above all that depresses me more than anything. But then something happens that cheers me up, and the feeling subsides. I love it when that happens.

Ask me anything

yo lets talk anonymously on zoosk rather than here because i have something to admit come here www.bit.ly/zoosk-anon-chat

Oh fuck nuts, the spammers have hit Formspring now...and I don't use Zoosk, nor do I have any intention of doing so. Piss off.

Ask me anything

Where would you like to live?

Well, I should like to settle for now in Glasgow. I guess if I had to move to Edinburgh someday - I'm thinking of going into publishing before I get a book written and most of the publishing jobs in Scotland seem to be there - I wouldn't be too averse. In terms of cities abroad - probably New York, Brisbane or Tokyo.

Ask me anything

Daily Mail, You've Done It Again

Oh, for fuck's sake...

So yeah - the Daily Mail have given Janet Street-Porter a platform to spout off her inane opinions on. Daily Mail + JSP = match made in hell. At least, if you ask me.

In case you've not read the article about depression, click here.

Read it? Fucking ludicrous, innit? I can't help but explode. How dare she think she can make such a comment? How dare she?

For one thing, she implies it's only middle-class women who get depression. She's talking out her arse for a start. Last time I checked it was fairly common amongst the working classes too. My mam's friend was diagnosed with depression some years back - one factor of this was her job. She works in an old folks' home and at the time of her diagnosis a number of residents had recently died. When you consider how long some of them had probably been there for, you can imagine she'd probably become quite attached to them. JSP, meanwhile, has never suffered from this. So what right does she have to say anything?

There's this statement, to begin with:

"I find something very repellent about this recent epidemic of middle-class breast-beating. This tidal wave of analysis about why'having it all' isn't what it used to be. [...] Get a grip, girls."

And then this:

"Nowadays women who've never been in a war zone or experienced an act of terrorism are claiming that are suffering from stress when all they do is run a home and get the bus to work."

Well no - it's a known fact that you can never 'have it all'. You can have all the material things in the world you could possibly want and that isn't enough. I should also like to request that JSP try, perhaps, purchasing a copy of the Oxford English Dictionary and look up the meanings of 'stress' and 'depression' - I'd be inclined to say that she's completely mixed them both up. Trying to juggle a job AND run a home is not an easy thing to do - my own mother could vouch for that, as could countless other mothers I know. Then there's the small point of being human. There could, for instance, be other problems in your personal life. It's all in our heads, is it? We all bring it on ourselves? Try telling that to my flatmate whose granny died in February, or my cousin whose baby was stillborn in March. I wouldn't dare say that their feelings over those incidents were in their heads - because they certainly are not. I know other folk who have depression of various sorts for various reasons too. The reasons are not in their heads, because in most cases, people can see them.

Janet Street-Porter is about to singlehandedly undo the work that many have done to reduce the stigma of mental ill health. Many people with depression are afraid to be open about it because they think people will either shut them out, uncertain how to deal with it, or accuse them of attention seeking behaviour. And yes, there are those who use mental ill health as an excuse for their behaviour (*ahem*EMOS*ahem*), but certainly not everyone. Many people who are mentally ill do have a genuine affliction. How dare she say it's been made up when there is OVERWHELMING evidence against her? She sickens me. What a frosty, cold-hearted cow.

It gets worse - try this bit, where she tries to imply men do not get mentally ill:

"At this point, I'm afraid to say, I laugh out loud. The idea of feeling sorry for a bloke with low self-esteem is frankly, risible. Let's just call it karmic revenge for all those years men have been in charge of everything."

Fuck off. I'm sorry, but no. That is the most sexist thing I've read in ages. (See, I'm a feminist, but I'm no man-hater.) Of COURSE men get depression. And I wouldn't be surprised if there's more pressure on them to be a certain way. Men are, even in this day and age, expected to be strong. They're not allowed to cry in public or allow themselves to be henpecked by their wives, girlfriends etc. (The latter of which is fair enough - relationships should be about teamwork, if one person takes control it will fail.) That's not really fair, when you think about it. And 'karmic revenge' - pfft. The men of today should not have to pay for the behaviour of their ancestors, that's a pile of shit for a start. The unfairness of this statement again makes me furiously angry. As indeed does the whole scathing tone. The Daily Mail do fuck all for their own reputation either.

To complain, go to the PCC website. Additionally, the campaign is here. It is being run by my friend Nikky and her friend George.

Again, deeply unimpressed by this behaviour. People like her should not be allowed a public platform.

formspring.me

Spring my form, bitches http://formspring.me/selkiesong

An Open Letter to the Small Ideas

Dear Small Ideas,

As you may or may not be aware, my ambition in life was to make a successful living as a novelist. Sure, I'll need a crap job to pay the bills until that happens, but that's how I planned it.

There is, however, the slight complication of my muse working in the wrong way - which is nearly as bad as it not working at all.

Basically I have two large ideas. There's the rock and roll story that I've been dying to write since I was about fourteen years old and getting into punk for the first time. At the moment that's only coming to me in dribs and drabs. So too is the story using training for a marathon as an analogy for a broken mother / daughter relationship that is being mended. Once again, coming to me in dribs and drabs and I can't get a complete idea. I am blaming you for this, Small Ideas. Sure, you're a lot of fun sometimes. But to me, it's like the difference between snacking extensively and having a proper meal. You are the extensive snacking and it isn't good for me. You guys are flowing nicely, but you're stopping all the big ideas from getting through to me. I want a big idea; I'm sick of you small ones and your insistence on interfering. I wouldn't mind if I could only find a common theme amongst you. That way I could make a compilation, extensively redraft and then I'd have something to surrender to a publisher. But no, you have to be awkward and picky and come when I least need you to.

What I'm trying to say, Small Ideas, is this: until I think I have a use for you, FUCK OFF.

Thank you.

I'm down upon my knees, looking for my life...

So yeah...pressure is getting to me again.

I've still not found a Proper Grown Up Job to step into following the end of uni yet. As thus I have not started looking for a flat either. I am finally getting around to applying to publishing houses in Edinburgh asking if they want / need interns. It's getting desperate though. Gonna have to look outside the 'proper high-flying graduate job' box soon.

I wonder if it's my course. Those of you who know me well will know that we had a very public falling-out with our department over the way they taught our course. It was...questionable, to say the least. The course was supposed to be 'Journalism and Creative Writing'. However, it became 'journalism and creative writing'. Note the lack of caps in there. This is because they taught little of either. I would say that what we got was more of a thinly-disguised media studies course, mostly sociological rather than journalistic. We would talk about journalism. How other people wrote it, and what could and couldn't be considered journalism. Blogs, for instance. I don't consider this to be journalism, personally. Sure, a few major events have appeared in it since I opened it up in February, but I wouldn't say it's journalism. It's just me chipping in my two penn'orth on something I care / feel strongly about. There's a pretty big difference. I'd never consider myself a journalist, but that's a whole other point. It's not that the two subjects weren't taught at all - they were, of course, there's no way the department would have gotten away with that. And when they were taught, they were taught wonderfully and we learned a lot from them. They were just not taught frequently enough to justify titling the course as such.

Anyway yeah - the course previously had accreditation from the NCTJ, which was removed because, guess what, they weren't devoting enough time to real journalism. We complained loudly about this but were mainly ignored, and they basically ended up giving us a useless course. See, I can understand why we need to know research but there's no point learning it if we don't get an opportunity to put it into practise. But yes - the nub of my gist is that I have very few skills with which to get a good job. Yes, my main ambition is to write someday. But until then I need something to stay afloat. And my course has probably gotten a really poor reputation following all these losses...think I'm screwed.

Thought of the day:

Am I the only one in my circle who isn't getting married or pregnant?

More Potential Goals / Hobbies

Well now.

Had another little think about stuff and whatnot. Decided on another few things I want to do following graduation:

- Get back into playing guitar again. I've genuinely not played in ages. Perhaps even take up another instrument.
- Write more.
- Read more.
- Rejoin the uni theatre group. It operates semi-independently of the uni so I can still join as a graduate. I joined in first year, then never did anything with my membership, then it expired and I forgot to renew it. I always meant to go back to it. Now maybe I'll manage. I wasn't too bad at acting when I did it back home, maybe I won't be in future either. Who knows? Could be another option if I can never get a coherent novel published.
- Get as much work experience as possible.
- Just be the best I can. It has to be good enough for someone.

Looks like I'm going to have to look for work in pubs, call centres etc. to carry me over at this rate...

A Hung Parliament, You Say?

Well now.

So...after everyone complaining about how we shouldn't vote Tory, they've got a majority in Parliament. Just a slight problem - it's not a proper majority.

See, this is the trouble with first past the post. So many votes are wasted. Sure, it might look like that candidate won fair and square but did they? Well, not if their majority is less than 50%, thus being a marginal victory. It has also led to this:



I really do wonder why I bothered now. Admittedly I kind of had to pick a party and a candidate - my mam was actually casting my vote by proxy for me (I was registered to vote in Shetland rather than Glasgow) and so I couldn't protest at the candidates by drawing a phallic symbol or writing 'yer maw' on my ballot paper. Now I'm thinking I should have got my mammy to do just that for all the fucking good it clearly did ¬_¬

You know what's especially gutting is this: the high likelihood that it'll be David 'Enchanted Pancake Face' Cameron that gets the leadership. I'm sorry, I can't believe people in this day and age voted Tory, with their dated opinions. Not to mention, us lot North of the Border still haven't forgiven them for Thatcher. I still can't believe she's getting a state funeral after the massive cock up she made of things. I'm going to be paying taxes soon, I'm not going to if I'm funding her funeral. Unless they bury her alive of course.

It also annoys me because frankly I'd just like this election to be over. It's all we've heard about over the last few weeks. As far as I'm concerned, in terms of hung parliament, hang the lot of them I say.

In other news - ZOO saw sense and elbowed Danny Dyer. With that level of backlash it was inevitable.

Thought of the day - why are hiccups so hard to shift?!

On Text Speak and Linguistic Bastardisation

Hello all.

Here I am, stationed back up here atop my snob tower. You'd think tonight that I'd be posting something about the elections. Well, I shall get to that in another post, because this is something I feel more strongly about in politics and have been dying to address for some time now.

I'd like to add that if you're going to insist that this blog is an insult to your intelligence you might want to stop reading. And if you're dyslexic, apologies in advance - it's not your fault.

Basically, the point is this: I love our language. You probably thought, 'She's an English student, how inevitable / predictable'. And I wouldn't blame you, because you'd be right. And one thing I'm always railing against is its blatant misuse on a constant basis.

To start with:

Grammar.

Why do so many folk struggle to get this right? It's not THAT hard, surely. To kick off with:

They're = they are
There = referring to a place
Their = belonging to them.

Of course, when you're speaking all these words sound the same, but they're not written the same. After all, you wouldn't pronounce the silent letters in words even though you write them down. (I hate silent letters myself - but sadly I have two in my full name. Pot, kettle, black etc. Damn parents...)

Anyway - for example -

They're parking their car over there.

See? Not hard.

Also:

Your = belonging to you
You're = you are

For example -

I hope you're going to exercise your democratic right to vote today.

There we go - nice, topical sentence. See, I DID get the elections in there after all. Anywomb...yeah, again it's not that hard.

There's also:

'i' before 'e', except after 'c'.

For example:

I do believe that I have been deceived.

There. (I'm aware there are exceptions to this rule but we'll sweep them under the carpet for now...)

And...what else? Ah yes:

I hate textspeak. Hate, hate, hate it. I remember being horrified when my mam told me there were kids in the primary school class she was helping out in who were using it in written assignments. This was some years ago when it was a new thing.

It's just laziness, really. I can understand why it was coined - which is the rise in the use of mobile phones. To this day most mobiles have a cap on how many characters you can put in a text, although this seems to increase as newer models are brought out (my current phone, for example - a now-dated Samsung U700V - can have up to 765 characters including spaces. I'm sure my first phone, the much-missed Nokia 3310, held less than this). However, one thing I cannot stand is the use of text speak on computers or in other media that is not SMS. The only things remotely acceptable in my book are acronyms. Howevr if u typ lik dis on d cmptr, missn out vwls an whtnt, I will very probably ignore what you are trying to say to me, frankly because I can't be bothered to decipher it. To be honest, text speak is even becoming redundant in texts now. I never use it anymore anyway - I used to, all the time. If you find my old MSN blog a lot of entries in there are written in text speak, I'm ashamed to admit. But I haven't used text speak in around four or five years (unless to be tongue-in-cheek). I just write full words. Predictive text tends to help this. You can spell full words so why abbreviate? I have even encountered people who think predictive text has helped them improve their spelling. Additionally, you also have to consider the level of phones now that have QWERTY keyboards rather than touch tone pads (although to be honest I dislike these too. Yes, I'm a cynic and a change-fearing technophobe as well as a snob).

It's same whn yuh typ dis, neva usin propa spellin bcoz u cnt b rsed. Yes, 'neva' 'eva' 'propa' etc piss me off too. Particularly when they are being written by Scottish folk. Dropping the 'r' in words (or throwing it away as the Proclaimers famously stated) is an English thing. While I have no problem with the English, if I read something written like that by a Scottish person, I end up trying to read it in their voice (it's usually on Facebook and therefore written by someone I know / have met in real life) and it grates on me something rotten. For some reason this never happens the other way around, I don't know why.

The other one is wh3n f0lk us3 numb35s 2 r3pl4c3 c3rt4in l3tt3rs, p4rt1cul4rly v0w3l5. See how ridiculously untidy and grotesque that looks? Again, I can't even attempt to try and decipher stuff written like this. The fact that I was pish at Maths at school probably doesn't help me - I'm a linguist, not a numerist. If you write to me using numbers in place of letters I'll ignore the message. Hell, it'll probably offend my poor eyes so much that I'll delete it too.

And finally - misuse of words in general not intended as malapropisms. In this case - 'sick'. The Oxford English Dictionary has this word listed as follows:

sick (adjective): 1 affected by physical or mental illness. 2 feeling nauseous and wanting to vomit. 3 (sick of) bored by or annoyed with someone because one has had too much of them. 4 informal behaving in an abnormal or cruel way. 5 informal (of humour) dealing with unpleasant subjects in a cruel or upsetting way. noun Brit. informal vomit...

And so forth.

Anyway...what I'm trying to say is, nowhere is the word used in the same context in the chorus of a song by a certain Ms L Gaga:

Let's have some fun
This beat is sick
I wanna take a ride
On your disco stick

Well, I'm sure we're all clear on what 'disco stick' means. However...'this beat is sick'? I'm sorry, is she saying it's nauseous? Or vomit in its physical form? Or just plain annoying? Personally I'd bank on all three, but then again, I'm not a fan. I'm led to believe it means she likes it. This - sorry - sickens me, in the sense of the second meaning listed above.

Since when did it become trendy to use that word in a positive context? I first fell foul of this practise when a young wannabe rapper (I think) messaged me on Myspace many years back demanding I listen to his stuff. He made the mistake of opening his message with something along the following lines:

"(sic) Yo, wassup! Been checkin out ya profile and its lookin pretty sick, man..."

At this point I stopped reading and deleted it I was so offended. Again, am I missing something here? Since when did it become cool to talk like that? If you ask me, I think it sounds neddish. I associate it with the little pricks who sit on the top deck of the no. 40 bus service, playing their generic 'sick' beats off the shitty tinny speakers on their MP3-compatible mobile (I was sure those things came with headphones?! Mine certainly did, anyway). I don't know if this is me trying to come across as an educated, intellectual snob type, but frankly...I've harped on about it for long enough, think my feelings about it have been made perfectly clear.

And people wonder why I'm not a fan of Lady Gaga...but that's another rant for another time, thank you very much.

If you've read this far without getting bored or offended, congratulations. Have a Digestive.

Response to ZOO letter

So - for those of you who requested it of me (on FB) please find enclosed the response I got from ZOO's editor.

Frankly I think it looks pretty generic, as he didn't even start it with a greeting, although a slight improvement on the open one posted yesterday to the site:

Thank you for your email regarding this week's issue.

Firstly, let me unreservedly apologise for the inappropriate and indefensibile response to a letter which appeared. I am very sorry for any offence it has caused.

Danny Dyer, and everyone else that works on Zoo condemn any violence against women, and by way of a sincere apology we are making a donation to Women's Aid.

An internal enquiry is underway to find out how this extremely regrettable production error occurred and I will be tighening up any procedures necessary to ensure it cannot happen again.

We have already posted an apology on our website and will also be printing a fuller apology in next week's issue.

Regards

Tom Etherington

Editor

Zoo Magazine

I sincerely hope he sticks by this. After all, yes, men's magazines are a form of mysogyny but that doesn't give them the right to threaten women with violence.

This is Not an Invitation to Slash Me

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A Farewell to Academia, Part 3: Graduation Maths

I fucking hate maths, which is why I'm doing an English degree. I actually have no real skills from said degree; I have discovered this when job hunting. My degree essentially states I am qualified to read and write. I could do that from the age of four. ¬_¬

Anyway - as follows:

Graduation ceremony - £35 (although my ma paid that bit because the deadline for registering for July graduation fell the day after my birthday).
Grad ball ticket - £45. Which I'm led to believe is cheap for a grad ball, because we're having ours in the Oran Mor on Byres Road, as opposed to the Glasgow Radisson, Marriott or Thistle. I'm led to believe hotels tend to be more expensive anyway, and the Oran Mor is gorgeous from what I've seen of it. Plus we're not doing what the English grads did last year and having a 'party' in one of the city's crappiest nightclubs *shudder*. Moving on...
Robe hire - £25.
Parchment (or something vaguely resembling one for me to hold during photos) - £12.
Photos themselves - £58 for a full blown graduation set - three big ones, four small ones, two family portraits and a sheet of smaller copies for wallet, keyrings etc.
Delivery of photographs to Ma's abode - £5.

Total cost thus far = £180.

This, keep in mind, does not include the stupid amount of money that will be spent on the graduation meal I'll probably end up having with la famille plus any partying that may ensue following it.

In other news...I am truly screwed for these exams. Truly screwed.

Potential Hobbies Following Graduation

So, first things first - double deuces.

That's right, my friends. On Thursday I hit the big 2-2. (I hope this is the only 2-2 I get this year, I would instead like my degree to be a 2:1). I spent a lot of this in the pub, although I dipped out for the Mexican themed night at the union, where my friends and colleagues there presented me with a nice big cake. It was delightful :)

Today I went to town with my friend Meredith. We were going to an open day being held by a studio that runs...wait for it...poledancing classes, which we were thinking of taking up as a hobby.

Now, I know what you're all going to say. What are you thinking? I hear you cry. Well, here's an idea - note I said HOBBY. There's something very different from a CAREER. Yes, my financial situation is nothing short of dire but it's not that dire. I should point out that pole dancing is actually pretty good exercise, plenty of people do it to keep fit. Indeed, Meredith and I were permitted shots on the poles earlier and I was breaking a sweat doing even bog-basic beginner exercises (although I can imagine that (a) being pretty unfit and (b) wearing jeans did not help matters an awful lot). Besides, it depends on what happens re money at the end of uni. I'd need a job to fund my new habit.

Also - I went out to my friend Kelley's flat for a games night, in which we christened the Scrabble board my flatmate got me for my last birthday (poor neglected thing that it was) and played a gay-friendly version of the Game of Life.

Tomorrow night - 90s night at the Cathouse. It'll be the first time I've been in that awful place in three years, but tonight could be a lot of fun.