Passport Photo

Hello all, well it’s been quite some time since I last wrote to you all.  Not much has been happening really.  I’ve been snowed under with uni work, but yesterday I made a break through and wrote far too much so I have awarded myself a snow day.  What have I done on my snow day?  A load of washing and cleaned my bedroom.  Was it worth taking a snow day?  No.

You’ll be glad to know my postgrad applications have been sent off (my parents won’t.)  Personal statement was finished thanks to Catherine’s help and it didn’t make me sound like a total arse.  It was a great feeling getting them finished.  All I had to do after the form filling was done was get passport photos to send off with them. 

Easy. 

Not so much. 

Trying to find a photo booth that is not out of order is murder so I decided to go to a shop that takes the photo for you. 

Worst decision of my life.

I walked into the tiny one-hour photo shop to find it relatively busy for a shop with a customer area of about 4 foot square.  Walked up to the counter and asked if I could get my passport photo taken.  This in itself led to an awkward moment of being asked what kind of passport, for me to babble on about how it’s not a passport just a passport size photo.  Shop assistant thinks I’m crazy already.  But, what happened next was the most surreal photo moment of my life.  He came out from behind the counter with a camera, pulled down a blind at the window and produced a seat for me to sit on.

IN THE MIDDLE OF THE SHOP! 

Who does that?  Most places take you into a nice beige room at the back of the shop to avoid the embarrassment of the decision making process.  My first photo, obviously, looked disgusting so I had to say I needed another one, second photo was just as bad.  Take it again.  Third one was horrendous.  What did I do?  In a state of total panic I said it would be fine.  I did not want to spend any more time in the middle of a shop having people stare at me as I get my photo taken.  So that was fine.  Photo taken, I have viewed it, let’s get it and leave.  Except I can’t because now he’s showing the whole bloody shop.  Well, not so much the whole shop - just Catherine - but still, don’t do that.

After the horrendous event I wanted to run away with my photo and never see any of the customers or staff ever again.  Unfortunately, there was another person waiting for a photo too so I had to wait for the smug bastard to get his one bad photo taken, wait for him to adjust his collar, then be happy with the second.  I never knew too much neck in a photo was a problem for customs.

It then took roughly 15 minutes for the photos to be processed, cut up (in full view of the shop) and then given to me.  Needless to say, I will not be returning to that shop ever again.

I Love My Job

Oh how I love my job.  Truly, I do.  I told you earlier, if you were paying attention, I work in a theatre.  It is the best job I have ever had.  I get to watch amazing shows (almost every week), meet famous people (read famous as starred in soaps over 10 years ago) and generally have fun.

Another part of the job that is so much fun is the public.  Now, don’t get me wrong, they can be a total, utter pain in the arse, but sometimes there are little gems.  Like today for instance, there was a children’s play on today called Room on the Broom (not important, I’m not going to tell you anything about it, other than the last song is so catchy.  I even tried finding it on iTunes.)  Anyway, I was working in the bar on the highest level of the theatre and a mother/son combo arrived at the top of the stairs for Robbie (son’s name) to get extremely excited and run to the seating area to see the stage and the fun dragon prancing about on stage.  Mother, at this point (who will remain Mother with a capital M because she was horrible) roars at him about not running off and that he must give the girl the tickets.  Robbie does this like a good little boy, then, after being told where to go decides to tear off in front of his mother to get to the seats.  The excitement is too much for him as you can probably imagine.  What does Mother do?  Shouts at him again.  Give the boy a break, it’s 9.30 on a Saturday morning.  He’s probably been up for at least 4 hours.  It was Mother’s choice to come to the theatre, I doubt very much little Robbie was perusing the newspaper one day and thought, “Oh Mother, how I would love to go to the theatre, there seems to be a spiffy play on at the Royal next week by the creators of the Gruffalo. Can we go Mother? Can we?” (although, I would love it if he had done that.)  So Mother comes in, gets a coffee, looking mildly distressed by the whole affair of having to climb a hundred stairs with a hyperactive child en route to the nose bleed seats and I can see in her eyes that if Robbie says one more word she will literally pick him up and throw him over the edge of the balcony, resulting in most definite death and also the probably that of several other children below as his ragdoll body thunks on top of their heads most likely breaking their necks resulting in their death too.  To cut a long story short, Mother did not do this, they both left happily(ish) and I’m assuming made it home safe.

The Vagina Monologues was another gem of a show to come.  Bringing with it a very specific niche market of middle-aged, generally drunk women who find it hysterically funny to listen to Anita Dobson talk about her “cludge-bucket” (or as I like to call it, the gaping abyss.)  Now, most shows have a late-comers policy.  You can’t let the late patrons in until a suitable point in the show for several people to be a total nuisance and ruin the enjoyment of the show for everybody else for 10-15 seconds.  So, one evening this late-comers policy was put into action with myself helping keep the patrons at bay.  I had a charming group of older ladies, a few of which had the beautiful aroma of beer and cigarettes mixed together (I think they call it ‘eau de boke’.)  While chatting away to try to keep their mind of the fact they were missing ten minutes of the show one of the group kept butting in with the fact they were only two minutes late, they need to see it blah, blah, blah, for me to reply with company policy blah, blah, blah.  Then came my favourite quote from any patron, “Oh, come on son, you must be able to get us in.  You look just like Harry Potter.”  Well yes Mrs Patron I do, however, unlike Harry Potter (the fictional character) I do not possess the power of magic.  Neither do I have a cloak of invisibility in which I could cover us all and get you to your seats without anyone noticing (which I might add were in the front row.)  This woman was clearly either insane or so drunk the lines of reality and fiction were totally blurring together.  This, in my mind, was not a good state to go into an auditorium and listen to three women constantly talking about their vaginas. 

Anyway, I must try to sleep as I have to be up in 5 hours so I can go to work in the morning and do the whole children’s play again.  Hopefully some beauties will pop up and I can inform you again.  I bet you are on the edge of your seats waiting.  Well, not long to wait.  Enjoy.

TV Night

Hello there, how are you all?  Not that any of you will answer and if you do that will just be weird given you will be talking to yourself.

I have been away for a while trying to do something productive, but if I’m honest, it has not worked.  I have done very little the last couple of weeks what with my ‘viral infection’ (not chicken pox in case you were worried.) 

I am in the middle of my Sunday night routine of sitting in bed watching X Factor results, getting very angry by myself and randomly writing about it.  Usually do it via Facebook but why not let you all hear about my opinion.  What is the point of the Sunday show?  You are all miming.  And at that, you are miming badly. 

Paije is a little (insert black racial comparison.)  I don’t like him.  That is all.

Aiden – they will hand out knives as you walk into his concert so you can commit suicide when the fancy takes you.

Mary – my God, you are boring.  I slip into a coma every week.

Katie – I like her (don’t lynch me and keep reading, please) She seems like a bit of a twat, but never mind I like her voice.

Matt – Undecided.  Sometimes I think he’s amazing, other times he sounds like he’s just shouting.

Cher – Great, love her.  Even if she does look like she knows how to break into your house, kill you and steal all your worldly possessions. 

Wagner – What’s the point in saying anything.

One Direction – Please learn to harmonise.

Rebecca – Phenomenal.  I don’t care what anyone says, she is absolutely amazing.  She’s the opposite of Leona.  But better because she has a personality and isn’t dead behind the eyes. 

You don’t need three guesses to see who my favourite is. 

Oh, hello Westlife will you be doing something up-beat?  No, of course you won’t.  A ballad it is then.  Although I kind of liked it.  Don’t tell anyone.

Wow just watched an advert which essentially showed me what member of JLS masturbates the most.  Terrible.

I love Mr Williams.  You can do no wrong.  Ever.

I am going to stop writing now because he is coming on.

I promise I will write something relatively good next time.  Stay tuned.

Motivation (And Other Topics)

I think motivational speaker, as a career, is a no go area for me.  I have been holed up in my room like a wee hermit for the past two days, the perfect chance to do some work for uni, but no.  What do I do?  Sit on the internet all day, mindlessly refreshing Facebook and Twitter, waiting for something exciting to happen.  Guess what…it never does!

I have resorted to just molesting my flatmates page with endless comments on her status so she has hundreds of notifications when she logs on.  Such fun.  (Well, actually, it’s not.  It’s just as boring as not doing it.)

So, back to the motivational speaker part.  My motivation levels are around about zero at the moment.  I say “at the moment” but you should read that as “all the time.”  I have deadlines slowly approaching, but I have no worries about these because I am such a good academic I will breeze through it without breaking sweat on my way to get my First.  If only.  This is the problem; I will never be able to get a first because I’m a lazy, lazy student.  16:50 and I am only just starting to use my keyboard.  Maybe later I will realise I love doing endless writing that will eventually be deleted as it’s total rubbish.  I think I may be getting a bit of practice in here.  Apologies. 

By the way, is anyone that reads this actually a motivational speaker?  I could really do with a little chat. 

I’m also still scratching away.  I bet you’re delighted to know that.  You’re welcome. 

I finally phoned NHS 24 today to see what they have to say on my possibly childlike condition and essentially got abuse thrown at me because I don’t know who is/was my doctor.  Again, look back to the lazy, lazy statement made earlier.  I was meant to register with a new doctor when I moved, but it got pushed back to make way for other things I had to do.  I think these mainly consisted of drinking and probably some other really “important” stuff.  So now it has resulted in me not knowing if any medical expert knows anything about me. 

Back to NHS 24 though, so I got all the abuse and lectures from them to then be asked questions which were so specific it was unreal.  Do you experience light sensitivity? No, I don’t have meningitis.  Do the spots go away if you roll a glass over them? Yes, seriously, I don’t have meningitis.  Have you got stiffness in your neck?  A little, but that’s because you are annoying me with the meningitis questions, lady.  Have you urinated in the past 3 hours?  Yes, have you?  Irritating questions over she then proceeds to put me through to a nurse.  Thank you kindly.  Two minutes later, the same voice comes back on.  You are not a nurse and I don’t have meningitis.  No, she is not a nurse but a nurse will be in contact within the next three hours.  Three hours?  Seriously?  So now I am just waiting for the phone to ring and obviously can’t start working until the awkward conversation is over as it will totally disrupt my train of thought.  Perfect excuse not to do anything.

I shall keep you informed as usual.  And again, sorry if you read all of this.

Itchy Bits

So, I haven’t been feeling too healthy the past week or so.  Just thought nothing of it until today when I couldn’t stop itching.  Decided I’d have a proper look and I’m now coming out it little spots which I have already assumed are…chickenpox. 

I’M 23!!!

I am too old for children’s ailments.  A couple of years ago (the day after my 21^st birthday in fact) I thought I had measles.  Luckily it was not, I had just vomited so much that my entire body broke out into a huge rash-like mass of ugliness.  Something to do with blood vessels.  All very odd.  So I am now sitting in bed hoping it is something like that, but not really convincing myself. 

At this point of writing I have taken around about 3-5 mins off just to have a good scratch.  God it’s satisfying. 

One of my friends thinks it’s karma for my huge tax rebate, I can have the money, but I can’t leave the house to do anything with it.  Unfortunately, my iTunes obsession is taking over.  Already bought Cheryl’s new album and rented a couple of films.  I can see it being a long day/evening/night.

I am in a show in March as well (Carousel, 28^th Feb – 5 Mar 2011 in East Kilbride, bookings will be taken any time) and we have been rehearsing every Monday and Wednesday.  Now, I was at a rehearsal last night with just the principle characters.  What are the chances of me being able to single-handedly take down the entire main cast of the show?  It’s a worry, but also if I managed I think I would be secretly impressed at myself.  Although not so secretly given I have just put it on here.

I guess this is another pointless entry, but be warned, there will be so many more if I am going to be living the life of a hermit for the next week or so.  I can tell you are waiting with baited breath.  You surely won’t have to wait long.

I’m off to scratch some more.