I'm still alive. Doing well at Tocal, aparts from getting driven insane by stupid and immature teens.

News since last update:

Getting Merits all over the place

Arsehole father died about 4 weeks ago

Zoe, 11.5 yr old staffy got put down on Wednesday, think possible brain tumour as she's had a few fits and ripped poor Darcy's front teeth out.

(Guess which of those 2 I'm more upset about!!)

7 weeks not including the 10 days holidays in just under 2 weeks until I finish my Cert 3, hoping to go back next year... if I don't need to put up with Mr Creepy, otherwise I swear I'll dive back into depression.

Oh and I'm home for another... 19 hours, I don't wanna go back!

A few years ago I fell in love with a mechanical pencil called the Bic Soft Sider, lovely soft grip and a little button on the side that advances the lead instead of having to click the eraser at the end.

Would you believe they're now rarer than hen's teeth and no where around here seems to have them. Thanks to Google I found that there's a few places in Australia that sell them. Unfortunately they are business supply companies who don't sell to the public (and tell you so via a rude and blunt email), supply companies which have a $50 minimum order, promotional companies and surprisingly University of Melbourne bookshop... and of course I'm no where near Melbourne and according to their site it'd cost me about $8 to ship a few mechanical pencils up here.

It's a real long shot but I don't suppose anyone around Melbourne actually goes to that Uni? And of course just cause they have them on the website doesn't mean they'll have them in store.

I just can't win, can I?

I am alive. Between boring gardening, humid weather and a shit of a PC that keeps spontaniously shutting down on me things are OK. In a fortnight I'll probably be unpacking my stuff into my room at Tocal, where the hell did that time go to??

Loved the Doctor Who Xmas special last night, I'm really gonna miss David as the Doctor and don't think much of the young 'new doctor' they've got. (Yeah old news I know) and it makes me wish I got to see the whole season with Chris E in it, not just the last few eps. Oh well, one day.

Don't know how much I'll be on LJ at Tocal, depends on how restrictive their firewalls and all that crap is. Can only wait and see I guess.

Anything new out there?

This time in 4 short weeks I'll be in a car driving down to Raymond Terrace where I'll be staying the night before heading west to Tocal. It's so hard to believe that all those months have disappeared and in 28 days I'll be starting my course.

I've got most things ready and sent off the deposit on Friday which means it'll be there before the deadline on the 16th. I have a bunch of clothes and so forth ready and will be taking my new spinning wheel down, gotta keep sane somehow!

Guess it means I have 3 weeks to clean this place up before I go.

Ok, Doctor Who fans out there... what's your choice for the new Doctor?

Me? Just for amusement. Sean Pertwee. Cause it'd be funny if 2 generations played the same role.

Latest rumour I hear... Robert Carlyle. Hamish McBeth in the Tardis? I still can't see it

So I've been reading a bit lately. At the moment I'm about 2/3 way through "Fatal Voyage", forth novel by Kathy Reichs and to tell you the truth I'm really enjoying her books! And to tell the truth I prefer the Dr Temperance Brennan in her books compared to the version on 'Bones'. I kind of want to meet this Detective Ryan from Quebec too.

Today I learnt, never get in the way of several Irish Setters when they're running through a door. Dog washing starts at 8am but of course someone showed up at 7:50 and rung the bell, you'd think that it'd be obvious that we're not open if the electric fence wire is still across the walkway. Anyway I ended up between the dogs and the open doorway as they bounded out to see what the fuss was about, my left leg was out a bit from my right and now I have a very unhappy ankle.

What was annoying was that when I answered this early person's question of "How are you?" With "Pretty good, aparts from getting bowled over" They laughed. Hello, I'm clearly limping because you decided to show up early and could clearly see we weren't open yet!

At least it's not as bad as the people who showed up before I even got there at 7:40 and said "Oh I thought you started at 7:30", seriously, what part of 8 till 11 don't they understand??

Well.. today was the first day of 'Work for the Dole'. So I was up at 5 in the bloody morning, had some breaky, packed some lunch and headed off at 5:40 for the 15 minute walk to the country club. By the time I got there my feet were sore and I had no idea what the hell to do or where to go. Got shown where to keep my lunch and shown the boots and gloves that they left for me, oh yay lace up boots that looked definately too big while still in the box and MENS leather gloves.

Anyway I was stuck in the ute and sent around to help put out the watering system for the newly laid turf. I was not told however that I would only quickly duck back to the main club house once before 10... so I didn't have any water for almost 4 hours. Thought they'd warn you that you'll be going out for hours on end.

So I spent my day putting out hoses, pulling in hoses, getting wet from sprinklers, standing on a 30+ degree hill whipper-snippering foot long weeds, filling out a time sheet, more moving hoses and sprinklers and more whipper-snippering. Finished at 1:30 cause I didn't have a lunch break (had smoko at 10 so ate then) and had done my 7.5 hours. Walked home and found that my old boots had worn a hole into my brand new supposedly "work" socks, should take it back to the guy I bought it from and say "Is this suppose to happen after walking 2kms in a pair of workboots?"

Oh and those boots are waaaay too big, my big toe JUST touches the start of the stealcap, ie about 2 inches from the top of the boot. Needless to say I'll be wearing my other pair of workboots.

And I got a voicemail saying that my request to be transfered to another provider was rejected... so no nice woodworking for me. I'm now sitting here feeling overheated, probably suffering some sort of sun stress and on top of that my head is throbbing.

"Work" for the dole? Slave labour if you ask me!!

I'm still alive. More than a bit pissed off at crapalink's shit but what can ya do? On Tuesday I had to go to a meeting with some work for the dole provider; H&H (don't worry I've never heard of them) for some really odd reason before we even got told anything about what projects they offered we had to sit through a OH&S video and fill out several shitty forms. One of the projects was out at the racecourse, where I had done it back in early 2005, so I went with that. Then yesterday I get a call saying that it's full and nope, need to do something else. Mind you I was suppose to start on Tuesday so it's pretty much next day warning. So the other projects are like gardening council grounds, go through a police check and garden in schools or work in the 'Lifeline' Op Shop... boring as all shit? Hell yeah!

So I contacted Wesley United after I got that call from H&H, the WftD people I went through before because one of their projects interested me, woodworking and making wooden toys for kids etc. I loved woodwork in Yr 10 and would love to learn more. Found out that YES there's a vacancy in that project but I need to contact my job network (aka ETC the useless pricks) and see if I can be swapped over from H&H to Wesley.. mind you I had ASKED to be put with Wesley but nooo she stuck me with H&H. Half way through this call I got one from H&H so I told her I'd call her back as I was on another call on my landline... when I called back I was told 'There's a vacancy out at the country club', pretty much meaning I'd be doing greenskeeping etc, start on Wednesday at SIX in the morning (seriously WTF!?).

On Tuesday mum has to drop me off on her way to Coffs and I have to see what the hell can be done, I would rather learn something new than be stuck doing lawns and weeding, hell my own garden looks like shit, I'd do that before doing someone else's gardens. So HOPEFULLY I can swap over and do this woodworking project and advance my knowledge there... and yeah, I'm suppose to do WftD till mid March... I start Tocal in February and can apply for Austudy in about 7-8 weeks time (maximum of 13 weeks before my course starts), meaning I'll probably only be doing this crap until Xmas anyway.

Life is fun... NOT!

I got myself an dragon's egg. Hopefully the first of many!!



My Scroll

And no I didn't steal it, it was abandoned. I couldn't leave the poor thing to die :(

So everyone is talking about Torchwood. I was unlucky enough to only see the first 5 or so episodes that were shown on TV here last year and because I don't have fast internet I can't download them to catch up. If I was to supply DVDs or money for DVDs is there any lovely fellow Torchwood fan in Australia that would be willing to share the love? (aka burn me a copy of everything possible)

Well I'm back in the world of the unemployed. I honestly don't know what to think, I thought I did very well but obviously wasn't good enough. My 'supervisor' wasn't much of a supervisor as I had to do lots of work by myself, a bunch of people walked through the shed smoking, including right next to me (illegal of course). Yesterday while packing some orders up I got told "When you're doing this on Monday.." so I thought 'I must have the job then if I'm getting told what to do on Monday' and got a 'See you Monday' from one of the other workers, then today JUST as I was leaving I said "See you Monday" half as a question and half as a statement and got told by the not so supervisor "Ooh no, the other person was better suited to the position"... could've told me earlier in the day that I didn't get it! What if I hadn't said anything and turned up on Monday morning?? At least I got paid for it. Blah!!!

Oh wow, ETC (that useless job network provider I'm stuck with) has actually done something... I have a job interview tomorrow for some company that uses cold forming to make tiny things for plumbing, or something. Now I'm told not to mention anything about Tocal in Feb and if I get the job just quit when the time gets closer.... Oh yeah they're really gonna be happy about that seeing as I applied and was accepted before I even went for the job.

*sigh*

Well I didn't get the bank teller job :( Got the call about 2pm while making cookies for this darn linen party tomorrow. They thanked me for coming to the interview, gave me some feedback and apologised that they wished they had more positions vacant.. Oh well, at least now I can focus on getting stuff ready for Tocal next year.

It's Murphy's Bloody Law isn't it?

Just when I give up on the local job market and get accepted into Tocal Agriculture College I get a call from the local credit union offering me an interview for a job at the 3 nearest branches... I'm not giving up on Tocal just yet, it's only an interview and I have no idea if this job is right for me. Just wait and see.

I GOT IN!!!!!

That is all.

Yeah I got a letter saying I'm accepted and to fill out some forms and send them back. Luckily I'm seeing my doctor on Wednesday so I can get a blood test to see if I need a Hep B booster and a Q Fever vaccine or not. Plus also work out if I should take my Depo down with me or just have it done up here when I come home for holidays.

Well yesterday morning my mum and I left here at 5:45am for the 4 and a bit hour drive down to Tocal Agriculture College. Aparts from the roadworks that cut speeds down to 80km/h, getting stuck behind some slow cars and hitting every single red light through Maitland, it was a good trip down and we arrived at the campus at 10:15.

About 10 minutes after arriving we were called into the lecture hall where we got a brief overview of the courses and told about some things on the campus like no alcohol and no drugs (thank goodness for that!) and I had to keep reminding myself that most of those at the open day were 16-18 years old and they will go out and party on weekends etc. However so many of the prosective students were female and talk about "Prissy" (prim and proper), seriously one week into the course those french polished fake nails are going to get ripped off or broken... sometimes makes me wonder if they know what they're getting themselves into.

Other than that the informal interview went well (I think), got asked the usual questions 'Why do you want to be here?' etc and answered them truthfully. They made sure that I understood that I'd be working with a bunch of teenagers which I said I don't mind... which I don't if they're as serious about their studies as I am. Although because of my age I might be put down in 'Glendarra' which is just across the road from the Campus but I'd get more room to myself as most teen students are housed at the main campus... I said that I'm quite happy with my own company and I would be happy down there (hell I've lived by myself for how long now?)

They took copies of my TAFE transcripts and said that the principal had to look at them and I might have to provide school reports (even if they ARE almost 8 years old) just incase but they were pretty sure that I'd get in (ie 95% sure)... now I just need to work out if I want to spend a year doing Certificate 3 before going onto 4 the following year, or spend a few hundred dollars doing courses like Chemical Users, First Aid, Tractor Operations etc and skip right to Certificate Four and Diploma... and of course the NSW Agriculture website that has info on the tractor operations courses etc are all down today (typical!!).

We went for a tour around the farm in a bus and got bogged cause the driver thought he could get through the rather wet area, however we got out of it and returned to the campus. We got away about 3pm and had a better trip back, arriving back about 7, definately a long trip but worth it.

Now to do some research into these courses, surely spending $500 odd on these courses will be better than spending the $10 000 on a year doing the basics which I pretty much already know.

So that was my Friday

I'm alive. I've spent the past few months building up my mood and all it takes is 2 weeks of this stupid 'Job Search Training' to make me feel like shit again. I already HAVE a resume, I already KNOW how to look for work, write cover letters and all that bullshit. I did this all in January 05 and I have to do it again. And 'canvas' 4 jobs a WEEK!? You must be fucking kidding, there is NO work in this area and I have more luck getting hit by a car than getting a decent job in this area. I know this but they don't seem to give a crap... then again what's new.

At least I have my plan. I'm applying to Tocal. I've filled out the application form and I'm posting it off on Monday. Hopefully I'll get in (though with my history of cattle etc I can't see why I shouldn't), fingers crossed.

I'm still alive (durr). Not a lot of new things to add. Still unemployed. I think that I've got over this bug that I had, although I still have a bit of a sore throat and the occasional cough.

Done quite a bit of spinning lately and I'm quite proud of it no matter what the older ladies at the spinning and weaving group say... why is it that some people want you to do everything THEIR way. Pfft to them. They really know how to make new spinners feel really unwelcome by picking at everything they do.

But, yeah, hopefully something interesting will happen soon.

I'm still alive. Still unemployed and now am battling the bug that seems to be going around. Oh well, such is life.

Life is boring but I'll be fine. If I had news I'd share it but nothings new here, back to bed for me