Kate’s Rants

i’ve lived in scotland for almost 3 months now (crazy!) and i have never said one thing about iron bru. what is it? you ask.

it’s scotland’s drink of choice. apparently it has magical hangover-repairing qualities.

it’s fizzy. it’s orange. it’s sortof like soda i guess. but it’s iron bru. nothing else quite like it. (except for orange soda, in my opinion.)

besides iron bru, this post is chock full of craziness.

first of all, last night i saw, for the first time in my LIFE, someone literally getting thrown out of a bar. literally. thrown. down. onto the street. it was crazy.

also, today was soooo windy. i’ve never experienced wind quite like this. it was blowing so hard, brianne and i were getting blown over. ok, i know you’re all thinking brianne getting blown over wouldn’t take much. but me?! yes, it was some crazy wind.

today is St. Andrew’s Day! happy st. andrew’s day! (sheila from bunac said it’s kindof like st. patrick’s day, but i havent seen much spirit around here, so i dont think it’s quite the same.) anyway, because of that, they opened up the castle for free! usually it costs 10 pounds to get in! so brianne and i took advantage of this free day and woke up early to get in line at 9am. brianne also had to move her stuff into the hostel before then, so she had to get up even earlier. anyway, we got in line in plenty of time and waited to go inside, while occasionally getting blown over. it was ok.

the castle is a huge jip. if i had paid, i would have been really sad. but it’s good for free. there’s lots of cannons, and we got to see the crown jewels and the stone of destiny!

today was also move-into-the-hostel-day!! i’m so happy to be back. not only is there free internet (which i realized i’m addicted to and cannot really live without), but there are PEOPLE here to talk to! i already talked to lots of our old hostel friends. some have left, some are leaving (sad!) but still it should be fun times.

my room is really small, crowded, and messy. apparently it’s the worst longtermer room to be in. but hopefully i’ll be able to move outta there asap! even still, i’ll be happier here than in the flat, because i realized i need friends and not having people around me was depressing. even if i’m really sick of this place, i’ll just have to remember how lonely it was in the flat and i’ll be happier being here.

so to sum up: it’s been a good (but very windy) day, but i still don’t really like iron bru.

This Thanksgiving strange. Here are the highlights:

 -Worked

-Had a fight with Brad

-Got caught in the windy rain on my way home

-Ate Kettle Chips and M&Ms for my feast

-Talked to my fam.

-Watched Annie Hall

 yep. Thanksgiving over here = meh. the only good part was talking to my family. Annie Hall was ok. but basically woody alan sometimes makes me want to scream because his jokes just go on and on and on. if i knew him in person i think i’d smack him.

 anyways, tonight is BOMBSKARE!!! i’m really excited. i’m going to dance around all night. yay! none of my friends here have heard of ska music. i’m sure they’ve heard it, but they just didnt know what it was or something. i think i have some CDs to make.

 well today has been busy here at work. not really for me because i’m never BUSY. i guess i’ve been busier than usual, but i still  have enough time to post, daydream, check my email, look up life in ireland, etc.

somehow today at lunch dissecting animals came up….. and the fact that i dissected a cat in high school came up, and now i have been labeled “cat killer”. that makes me sad, because i LOVE cats. and i never killed the cat. i just …… took it apart…… they were only joking of course, but still. i love cats.

meow.

i’ve been looking up plane ticket prices to get to Galway (not glasgow silly me).  i did a bunch of roundabout searching, looking for the cheapest way to get there. i thought it would be bus, ferry, bus (because of all the baggage restrictions on airplanes) but actually it turns out that a plane is the fastest AND cheapest way to get there! how sweet is that?!

i just have to book early to ensure the cheap ticket. and make sure i have the right weight on all my bags.

 but the whole trip (from edinburgh to galway) would cost less than £40. that’s awesome. (that’s including a bus from shannon airport to galway). that’s also including all the luggage fees and stuff.

 £40!! woo! (just in case you’re all not in on the exchange rate, it’s less than $80)

 i’m excited to go now. thinking about all the traveling makes me excited. don’t get me wrong, i like it here and all… but i’m not cut out for living in a city. it’s ok. i miss my bike and the small-town-laid-back-atmosphere. i miss seeing people who i recognize, but who i don’t really know, but making up stories about them in my head anyway. (in the city, everyone starts looking the same, and you never really see the same people twice.)  basically, city is meh.

 when i get to ireland, i’m SO getting a bike. yay.

GALWAY HERE I COME! (in 3 months….)

dear A.E.,

 i clearly recall my assignments, and i’m working on them.

the kilted man is hard to document, not because there are a lack of them around. mostly because the ones who are wearing kilts are usually crazy. and i’m not sure if they’d let me take a picture with them. but i WILL try.

 loch ness: will happen. don’t worry about that. but it’s not right at my doorstep. i have to take a bus, etc. but i do have a picture of myself there, from last year, i can post that if you want.

 however, i clearly recall the last assignment you gave me: HAVE FUN. and i think i documented that well in the previous post. so there.

 so, you can’t say i’m not completing any of my assignments, as i am clearly completing the “have fun” homework that you gave me. yay for having fun.

tah dah!

” alt=”Our Night Out” />

from left to right:

random guy!, pepijn (pronounced pep-in or pippen), linsay, me, val, luca (who actually spells his name lucas, but it’s pronounced luca), pepijn’s friend eric (i think), jenna the new girl, and leslie at the bottom in the green shirt.

how old are they? ranging from 18 (jenna) to probably somewhere in their 30s (val and leslie).

we all had a fantastic time. yay.

oh yeah, random guy: i guess he felt so comfortable standing next to our group that he decided to join in the picture. oh well!

yay for going out with work people after work. it was a very long night. (we started at 3:30pm, and ended at about 3am. whoa!)

i already stated my opinion on mullets: they are gross.

 i wrote a post on paper while i was in Leeds, hanging out in a Starbucks. (yes yes, i was. bah.) basically it was addressing how gross fake tans are, and how lots of people here seem to have them. i suppose they are trying to make up for the lack of sun they get. however, being from california i can appreciate a real tan, and i know what a real tan looks like, and i know that a fake tan is not even close to a real tan. and people here who sport the fake tans look orange. actually i mentioned one woman in my paper-post who was a “glowing bronze” literally. she kinda sparkled as she passed me in the street. and living people are not meant to have sparkly skin. unnatural. but i have yet to see a woman sporting both a fake tan AND a mullet. we’ll see.

i changed desks at work. i like my other desk better. i feel cramped at this one. plus my chair is different and not as comfortable. bah. also when i print stuff (every 30 mins or so) it goes to a printer in a different room. does this make sense to ANYONE??? anyway, its kinda annoying. plus all my friends are wayyyyy on the other side of the room and i’m never going to see them except when i eat lunch with them. hopefully they will still eat lunch with me.

the switch has confused lots of people. my computer didn’t have all the archive files on it, so those had to be transfered over. plus my phone number changed so people had to be informed of that. and it was just confusing to the organiZers who put things on my old desk and then realized the person sitting there was NOT me, and then they had to find me way across the room and they….. well yeah they got confused.

 to address my parents comments and concerns on the previous post:

DAD: brianne and i are totally warm enough. that bush-sleeping incident was a fluke (because we didn’t plan ahead enough, partly due to our lack of internet). and therefore even if we DID have blankets or something we probably wouldn’t have brought them with us on that trip because it was supposed to be a day trip, which turned into a sleep-in-the-trian-station trip, and it was a pack VERY light trip, so we didnt have to carry stuff around with us. so we most likely would have left blankets at home. brianne brought my sleep sac (which is really a sleep sheet) because she knew she was staying overnight at Leeds with our friend Kristin, and was not quite sure of her sleeping circumstances, so she wanted to bring something just in case. and she didn’t really want to bring her sleeping bag cause she’d have to carry it around. basically i’m saying please don’t send me anything like blankets because it will just be more things for me to carry around when i move or when i go to ireland etc. and when i travel, i’ll probably have to send stuff back home so i won’t have so much crap. if i travel. yeah so anyway, please no sending stuff.  and yeah, oh bush oh bush. there was an article in the paper here right after elections which said he basically was asking anyone and everyone for ideas on how to end the war. um….. come on. (he’s considered a really big mistake for a president over here.)

MOM: we went to newcastle because we’d never been there and we wanted to see it. and i’ll never forget it either.  and no worries, we’re pretty safe even sleeping outside for a night. which i hope i never have to do again, because it was COLD but hey. now i can say i was homeless. (well….. arguably…) what an interesting topic of conversation!

 anyways i’m at work right now and i should probably DO some so i’m going now.

dad, you can send me some socks. (brianne has these really cool “soccer” socks from american apparel, but just having knee socks would be cool. like some baseball socks from big 5. or some soft socks like mom sent me. socks are good.

 THE END! (for today)

Brianne and I slept in a bush this weekend. We experienced what it is like to be homeless, and let me tell you: it’s not very nice.

Your questions:
Why? Where? How? Huh?

My answers:
Because. In Newcastle. Not very easily actually. Yes.

I know, now you just want me to elaborate. I guessssss I can do that. I’m actually writing this in my room on a word document. For some reason writing in word is different than writing a post on the internet. I don’t know why. When I’m posting the words come so easily. When I’m in word I have to keep stopping to think. Maybe it’s the distracting spell check underlines. And the fact that it capitalizes my words for me. I like my uncapitalized words. It’s my signature. Stupid word.

Anyways, I suppose you want to know why we slept in a bush. I should start at the beginning.

It all started back when we moved into our flat and stopped getting internet. Because of this lack of internet, things like booking train tickets becomes a lot harder than usual. Train tickets are a lot cheaper when you get them in advance. However, we kept not going to get them because we’d have to find a café that’s open with free wifi, and we just never did. We went LAST weekend to find internet at the forest, but the forest was always closed when we went. It was a huge bummer.
Well, finally on Monday of last week brianne had the day off of work, so she went to the forest (a volunteer-run café that has odd-hours but free wi-fi) and was there for 5 hours just trying to find us tickets. I had told her I only wanted to go if it was less than 30 pounds round trip, because we were planning on just going for the day. But of course brianne found some cool fireworks thing going on Friday that she wanted to see. However, I worked until 4 ish on Friday, so we’d have to catch a train after that and we’d probably miss the fireworks anyway and then we’d have to find a place to stay.
In the end brianne decided to go on Friday and stay with our friend Kristin who we met in the hostel here in Edinburgh, but who is studying in Leeds. (she’s from Berkeley randomly, and studied at davis! Small world.) anyways, brianne booked me a ticket for 6am on Saturday. We wanted to come back Saturday night, but we wanted to watch the juggling show too, so she tried getting us the latest return ticket. Since there’s not a train that goes straight from Edinburgh to leeds, we had to take several connecting trains. Newcastle was our connection. Since we wanted to take the latest train out of leeds, there weren’t any connecting trains back to Edinburgh from Newcastle on Saturday night. We’d have to wait till 5am on Sunday morning. So we decided, hey, why don’t we just stay the night in Newcastle and hang out there for the day. So that’s what we planned on doing. Brianne tried to find a hostel, but she said they closed at 11pm. So we planned on just staying in the train station. Brianne had been in the Newcastle station before, and thought it was a 24 hour station so we’d blend in OK.
We had a really fun time in leeds. I spent most of the day by myself, wandering around the city and then I found a starbucks and parked there. I read my book and wrote some letters. I got some gloves at a store, which was nice since it’s getting too cold to go without them. At 6pm I met brianne and Kristin in front of the art museum (which had a really neat exhibit of da vinci’s drawings) and we went to an Indian restaurant for dinner. Then we walked really fast to the university because the juggling show had already started. Kristin said goodbye to us there, and brianne and I went in. it was pretty entertaining. Some of those jugglers do some really amazing stuff. They had a really long intermission (30 mins!) and then they had a raffle. We only stayed for one act after the raffle, because we had to go catch our train.
We got there with about 5 minutes to spare. Lots of people poured on after us, and most of them were pretty drunk. Brianne and sat in our assigned seats, but I think we were the only ones. I was unsure if we could pick any seat, because each seat had a little ticket on it saying where the person was coming from and going to. So it seemed like every seat was taken. In the end there were tons of open spaces. Sheesh. Anyway, we sat next to each other, but we both had an aisle seat. Brianne had one of the seats that has a table. about 3 minutes after we got on the train, this group of about 5 guys, all pretty drunk, came into our car. Of course we were both thinking “I hope they don’t sit by ME” and of course they all sat by us. More sat by brianne because she had the table. nobody sat right next to me, but they sat in front of me. They were talking the whole time, saying lots of random stuff. Mostly they made fun of one guy in the group. They called him “gee gee” I guess because his name was benji… but I’m not sure. They were pretty random. They were making fun of him about some girl, and even went so far as to call the girl and ask her about him. Poor guy.
Anyway, they were pretty funny. I know you’re all thinking why didn’t I move over a seat and let brianne sit next to me so she didn’t have to be surrounded by all the drunk guys?? Well. I had a good reason. She offered to let them have her seat, and they said “no no, sit down. Everyone always leaves when we come, and if you leave too we’ll think something is wrong with us.” They were probably trying to be polite or something, but really they probably made it worse. So brianne was stuck there for reals. Finally one guy wanted to sit in the empty window seat next to her. At this time, I probably could have scooted over to my empty window seat and let her sit in my seat. HOWEVER, I knew if I did that, they would make a huge stink about it and wouldn’t leave us alone for the rest of the trip (which was at least an hour). I really didn’t want them to hassle us for an hour so I just stayed. I figured if we just let them be, they’d let us be. And pretty much that’s what happened.
One of the guys was pretty shrimpy (short) and at one point a HUGE guy walked past. The shrimpy guy said “hey look, it’s a midget!” probably louder than intended. Luckily the huge guy didn’t hear him or didn’t care. But as soon as the huge guy was out of earshot, all the shrimpy guy’s friends were asking him why he said that, and that he was lucky he didn’t get pounded into the ground.
Soon after that a girl walked past. She was pretty drunk as well. One of the guys asked her something or said something to her, and she decided to stay and talk. Then a FIGHT busted out from where she had just come from. We all looked back and there was the huge guy fighting some other dude. Of course the guys around us were teasing the girl saying she started it, but she kept denying it.
The funniest part about the drunk girl was when she was talking she started waving her arm around. She was also holding an open bottle of water, which was pretty full. It looked like she was going to dump water all over brianne, and possibly me too. I guess I made a panicked face, because brianne saw me and looked up, and then she made a face, and then one of the guys saw us cringing, and put his hand over the bottle, and the girl noticed she was waving her arm about a little TOO enthusiastically. So she capped it. she also asked me if I was from durham or somewhere, and I said “no I’m from California” and of course EVERYONE pounced on me with “WHAT?!?! WHY ARE YOU HERE???” and I hesitated, at which point they all resumed conversation with each other.
All in all, a very entertaining train ride. We landed in Newcastle. It was almost midnight. Our plan to sleep in one of the little waiting rooms was FOILED as they were locked up at 11pm. After going to the bathroom and loitering a little, we looked around and discovered we were the only people in the whole station, apart from a few maintenance people and maybe one train guy. We went over the them and brianne asked when the next train left. The guy said not till 8am the next day! Ahhh! Then he walked to the big front doors and opened them as if to say “out you go”. So we had no choice but to leave. After that we didn’t know WHAT to do. We were stranded in Newcastle with nowhere to go. We walked around for awhile, trying to find a hotel. All of them were booked up. I guess Newcastle is known for its clubs and nightlife, and so maybe its really popular to go out to Newcastle, book into a hotel, and get really drunk. Anyway, we walked around until we found a chip shop that was open. We decided to just stay in there as long as we could, mostly because it was warm.
They finally closed at 3:30am. By this time we were exhausted. I had been awake for almost 24 hours. (I had woken up at 4:30am Saturday morning to get all my stuff together and to catch my 6am bus at the train station.) we were starting to fade. But we were kicked out into the cold again. So we walked around a bit. It was kinda scary, with all the drunk people about, being in a foreign city, with nowhere to go. We found a little church (it was closed: I think it’s one of those old tourist churches that probably isn’t really in use anymore… but I’m not sure… in any case it was closed) and found that the wind was less severe on one side of the church. We were trying to avoid as many people as possible, and this was a pretty out of the way little corner. I sat down on the ground, and brianne sat next to me. Then she said “I think we should go in those bushes.” Yep. Basically she wanted to avoid being out in the open in case someone walked by. She didn’t want a “maniac” to get us. Which I suppose makes a lot of sense. I figured we were already semi out of the public eye, because there was a little half-wall that the bushes were growing against, which protected us from the street next to it. and that street was a little side street anyway, so not many people would probably walk down it. but you never really know. So we pulled out my sleep sack that brianne had borrowed (it’s like a sleeping bag sheet. So it’s more like a sheet than a sleeping bag, but it doesn’t open up. You have to pretty much worm your way into it) and found some little bags to sit on to protect our butts from the dirt. And we got in that bush. Well, more under it. I had my backpack to lean against, so I was half-laying on my back, with my knees propped up. I had my head on some of the bush, but eventually put that over my face to stop the wind. It was cold. We used the sleep sheet as a blanket to cover our legs. And we huddled together under the bush, trying to hide from anyone who could have passed by. Truth be told, IF anyone would have walked past, they might have seen me. And they probably would have laughed.
Anyway, we felt a bit safer, and the bush did provide a little protection from the wind. We stayed there until about 6am. After that I couldn’t take the bush anymore. I had to get out. I figured the train station would be open, because our original bus was due to leave at around 5am, so people would be around. However, it was still closed when we got there. There were a few people waiting in front of the train station doors, waiting for it to open up. Brianne and I walked down the road a little bit and found an arch. Walking through it, we were able to walk right into the station. DUH. I mean, train station: has to have two open ends for the trains to come and go, so silly us. We could have stayed in the station after all. (just not the nice warmish waiting rooms.) it was a lot warmer in there, just because the wind wasn’t able to get through as easily. OH WELL. So we went in there, and went to the bathroom, and sat on some of the benches. We watched some of the workers setting up to open some of the shops. They opened front doors of the station at about 7am.
The rest of the day we hung out in Newcastle. We were tired, yes, but it was still a fun day. We found a performing arts center, where some kind of orchestra concert was going on at 11am. They had a little café there, and after we went there, we walked around the building trying to find some secluded spot because brianne actually fell asleep while I was talking to her. We needed a nap. We found some excellent padded benches in a spot where nobody really walked past. We were able to take some naps for a couple of hours, which was nice. After that place, we went to a modern art museum, and then walked around the city for awhile. We found the china town, which was really only one street and mostly consisted of Chinese restaurants. Most of the Chinese restaurants were buffets. Hah.
Finally we caught our train at 5pm. I slept most of the way home. We got back to Edinburgh at about 9pm. Crazy long weekend.

So that was our crazy train-riding-bush-sleeping-weekend. It sure was an experience!

*pictures of adventures in leeds/newcastle on brianne’s flickr: www.flickr.com/photos/britree

office politics really crack me up.

in my office, there’s several ongoing battles. the biggest battle is between the Organisers and Admin.

the office is pretty big. it’s divided into sectors. each sector has a few organisers. and each organiser is in charge of maybe 80 workers. that’s a lot of workers. it’s the organiser’s job to match their workers to the people who need help. they base it on location mostly. like if an old person needs help, and there is a worker who lives close to that organiser, most likely THAT worker will be assigned to THAT client. that’s the way it works.

at this point, there are so many clients in need of help and not enough workers. i mean, you REALLY have to want to do this job. and i doubt many people would really want to be a social worker. you have to really really like helping people. and be willing to not get paid a lot. because this job doesn’t pay a lot. (that’s what people keep telling me.) so there’s not enough workers to meet the demand of clients. how is that supposed to work??

well it doesnt really. more and more clients keep coming in and the organisers are juggling their workers around constantly to try to cover all these people. it’s a mess!!

also, the setup of this office is pretty bad. since most of the organisers are sortof older, they are mostly not interested in the computers because they don’t really understand them, and don’t really WANT to understand them. they like what they know, and want to stay that way. unfortunately, their way is slow and less efficient. so….. they really need to learn how to use the computers a bit better, and it would make things so much easier for EVERYONE.

 that’s the main problem: the unwillingness to learn. if they know their job is on the line, they might be more open. but i have to talk to the head manager about that. i classify myself with the Admin side of the battle. even though i’m not really admin. i’m sortof in a class by myself.

I’ve never really tried to explain my job. most people reading this probably don’t really care. it’s actually a very simple job, but sortof hard to explain. but i’ll try.

I work in a building called Chesser House. it’s a large office building. I work for the city council. we are called “home care direct” and it’s basically a call center. the council used to have each sector in a different building, but they decided to lump all the organisers together in one room. i think this transition happened in may 2006. not too long ago. so everyone is still sortof adjusting. Bill, the guy who trained me to take over his job, was hired because the managers realized the way they had hoped things would turn out wasn’t really working, so they needed someone to help out for a bit. it was supposed to be a temporary thing, but i suppose transition takes a bit of time.

there is a group of people called the Service Matching Unit. (SMU) they are the people i deal with every day. in fact, my position is the SMU coordinator. snazzy huh? well, basically what happens is the SMU gets a bunch of calls/emails/letters or some form of communication from various sources asking for help for their clients. there are doctors phoning them saying “hey, this guy has dementia. he needs to be looked after.” or “hey, this lady needs her house cleaned and she can’t use the kitchen anymore cause she is going blind so she needs someone to make her meals.” stuff like that. so then SMU sends these emails (in the form of spreadsheets that make all the needs really nice and neat) off to ME. the basic idea was for the organisers to get the emails and just do everything on the computer. but soon after they set up this contact center, the managers realised that the organisers DONT check their email and so they needed someone to do it for them. pretty much. so that’s where i come in. i check the organiser’s email. yeah. lame? yes. but it’s just the way things are. so after i get the emails for ALL the organisers (none of them check it… it’s through outlook express so they set up my computer to have everyone’s folder and so i just recieve emails for each sector) i then print out the spreadsheets and hand them directly to the organisers. so they have a hard copy of these spreadsheets, and they are supposed to fill them out (by the due date that i write at the top) and hand them back to me. this happens sometimes. for awhile when i first got here, they were just forgetting to do it, or not bothering, or losing the sheets. BAD. so we worked out a sortof system.  we have a database (well, i have access to it, and i think everyone should, but again it involves a computer and everyone is scared of them) so we are able to see which clients still need help. you see, if we don’t match the client by the due date, SMU will go ahead and contact a private agency to get help to this person. this costs a lot of money, and is making the budget “spiral out of control” according to the head boss.

 anyway, my battle with the organisers is to get those spreadsheets filled out and back to me before the due date. it’s def. a constant battle. they are constantly losing them and i have to go bother them to fill them out and pretty much DO their job! what is that about?? they are so irresponsible that the managers hired a temp to bug them to do their job. sheesh! and apparently the organisers are really bad about filling out their paperwork. that again is part of their job, but since they are on the phones all day they just don’t do their paperwork properly. and the Admin staff are constantly trying to decode the chicken scratch that the organisers scrawl on the bits of paper they hand over to Admin. it’s a mess. and linsay (the new admin girl) keeps saying “this is MAD!” we had a meeting with Andy, the manager of the Administration people, and Linsay brought up all the problems with the system, and he just said “well, that’s just the way it is.” and all of us kindof rolled our eyes and wondered why we dont try to CHANGE it, because it’s not really working.

 i actually wrote up a proposal on how to slowly eliminate my job and introduce the organisers to outlook express, and try to get them to use the computers more and paper less and yeah. who knows if it will work, but it NEEDS to. the just need someone to sit down and explain it to them. so……. i might do that. who knows. it shouldnt be that hard. right?

 anyway, yesterday at lunch me, linsay, luca and pipyn (the young admin crowd) were eating lunch together. luca was mad because he was helping out with the southwest sector admin stuff (because the southwest lady was out sick) and one of the southwest organisers came up to him to complain about the work he did. she actually said “why aren’t you doing your job??”  we all heard it, because our desks are all clustered together. so at lunch luca was saying how angry he was. pipyn offered to go over to the organiser and smack her across the face with her keyboard. yes, violent. we then proceeded to make lots of plans on how to hurt the organiser. yes yes, we are mean. yes yes, how sick is that? but whatever, we were only kidding.

 anyways, i’m soon moving over to the old lady area. the cluster of desks where the meanest organisers reside. the dragon’s lair. it’s on the opposite side of the room from all my buddies. how sad is that? PLUS the printer is located on this (admin) side, and i dont think there’s a printer on the other side of the room. so every time i print out a page (which is like every 10 minutes) i’ll have to walk across the room to retrive it. doesn’t make any sense at all. just one more reason to get those organisers using the computers more.

 anyway, since i’m at work i should really do something. i came in early today and havent really done much. haha. whatever. i’m over it.

hey! i cracked the code!

 well not really. i was given a password that lets me access some more of the internet that i wasn’t able to access before. like wordpress. and Gmail! so i’m pretty excited about it. i can finally check gmail again. if you have my gmail address, send me emails there since my work email EATS them.

 anyway, i’m really glad i can post again. i’ll probably post every day. the only bad thing is that i’m moving desks away from all my friends to the dragon’s lair. yes. i’m moving to the old lady area where all the mean old ladies work. yikes!! some of them are nice, but it won’t be as much fun as the admin area where all the younger people work. sad times.

 but i’ll probably have lots more time to post since i wont be goofing around as much. we’ll see.

 anyway, just posting this new announcement. i’ll probably make another one later on today! woooooooooooo!

hey, two posts in two days! record!

 anyway, i’m in the leeds public library, and hey they have free internet! woo! so i thought i’d take advantage.

leeds was very surprising to me. i’d never really heard anything about it, but it’s a pretty big city. when we were pulling in at the train station, i was thinking “this can’t be leeds… i thought leeds was a small little town.” but nope. big city. metropolis even. which i guess makes sense because they have a university here, so yeah. but whatevs.

 i’ve just been wandering around the city. there’s an art gallery next door i might check out. i bought some gloves yay! it’s a pretty nice day today, despite the cold. next thing to buy: earmuffs!!

 well, today’s a quick post because i only have 25 minuntes left on my time. so, goodbye everyone for who knows how long…