Mordant Carnival in "actually finishing something" shock

Help me out here. I have a month left on my course and I'm not behind on anything. I have no overdue paperwork, I don't suck at some crucial aspect, and worst of all I--God, I can hardly choke out the words--I've been being...punctual. I've even been told that I might be in danger of getting a job at the end of it. Obviously this is a strange and unnatural state of affairs which must be corrected forthwith.

Option 1) Not studying.

This probably the worst option. The course is almost entirely practical. Since I'm on a building site, there's little to do except build stuff. The only theoretical aspect is some stuff on calculating surface areas which unfortunately I already know.

Option 2) Get really really drunk every night.

Age has taken its toll on my alcohol tolerance, and a crippling hangover at least two or three days a week would help to reduce my attendance and ensure that any work I did do was suitably crap. However, I just can't muster the enthusiasm that I once had for getting unspeakably wasted midweek. I fear I lack the proper motivation.

Option 3) Assault a staff member.

I have identified at least one staff member with the required degree of wankitude. However, he's way taller than me and has access to pointier tools.


Christ, I may actually be going to pass something. I feel...sullied.

Reasons to be cheerful

Some guys are doing some kind of building work on my building. I can here drilling, shouting and bits of wall dropping off. I'm afraid to look. Stressed?

Stress is stupid. I mean, yeah, it's a positive force blah blah blah in some ways but if you can't immediately do anything about the stresstastic situation then it's just a pain in the bum. Stress should happen in a pop-up window that you can close again easily, with options and tickboxes. Mira...

*PING!*

You have (3) stressy things happening.

You can resolve (0) of these stressy things at the present moment.

OPTIONS:

(_) Lie awake until stupid o'clock going biscuits
(_) Think about it in the morning
(_) Ommmmmm
(_) Cinema
(_) BEER
(_) Faceknives
(_) Remind me again in (_) weeks

(_) OK (_) CANCEL


The thing that bugs me most about stress is not the stress itself. What bugs me is the attendant general inability to get one's head in the goddamn game. Studying? Thinking about lunch. Eating? Thinking about jobs. Apllying for jobs? Thinking about the electricity bill. Paying the electricity bill? Thinking about a computer game. Playing a computer game? Thinking about studying. Give. Me. Back. My. HEAD.

Hmmm... updates... yeah, that might be an idea.

Well, I've had stuff on my mind--nothing new, just the same old shit I've been dealing with for the last couple of years, only, y'know, moreso. Boring to live through, boringer to read about.

I have started those free Castillian lessons and I'm doing well. The tiling/decorating/plastering course is going great; I'm really into it. On Thursday I stripped all the tiles I'd stuck on my little pretend bathroom off, which was oddly satisfying: chiselling them away from the wall with a hearty SMASH as they hit the floor, getting a wheelbarrow-load together and then carting them across to the skips. The skips are massive, twice as big as the kind you see outside people's houses, with a walkway of planks leading up between them. Because the planks are steep and a barrowload of tiles and dry cement is heavy, the only way to get as far as the top is to start with a good run-up--you have to show the incline who's boss. Man, I was sore the next day! Fun, though.

Today I start working in earnest. I'm doing my masterpiece, another pretend room which must be tidied-up and tiled extra-spiffily coz we're being graded on it. Hey, I was thinking the other day--wonder if there's a market for a magic- and kink-aware handyperson?

Quickie.

1) Tiling going well.
2) Random paranoia in overdrive.
3) Probably going to get free Castillian lessons.
4) I <3 Fridgemagnet.

Hmmm...

I'm thinking seriously about going over to help with the tsunami rebuilding effort once my course ends in mid-March. (There's little point in my going before then as frankly I have no useful skills.)


Things to consider:

1) I'm flat broke. How do I get there when I can't afford a ticket?

This leaves me two options:

a) Sign up with some sort of voluntary organization.
b) Get the money together privately. Since I don't really have anything to sell off, except maybe a kidney, this means donations from friends or family, and probably blegging. Very very awkward and something I would hate to do.


2) How long for?

I was thinking of 2-3 months. It's my understanding that most voluntary organizations generally require one to commit for a minimum period of time, and I don't think anyone is going to be terribly impressed if they chip in for a plane ticket and then I'm only gone for a long weekend.


3) And do what, exactly?

When my course ends I will have some building skills. However, the bulk of my course consists of decorative stuff like stuccoing and tiling. Not sure that a handsome wall mural or a shiny new splashback is really going to be a big priority for a tsunami survivour.

I have a sound background in electronic* engineering, but I can't see how that'd be much use.

I do have some experience in fixing up electrical* bits and pieces, fitting light sockets and power outlets ect. However, this is mostly stuff I've learned on the fly. I never had any proper training and strictly speaking I shouldn't really have been doing it. I don't have any formal training or references or anything.

Apart from that, I can: doodle, clean floors, sweep streets, make tea, make sandwiches, do basic first aid. Not much else that I can think of.


4) I'm afraid.

It's pathetic, but there it is. Not just of being in a disaster area, although that's a thing. Mostly it's... well, I'm generally clueless about travelling since I didn't go abroad at all before I met Lurid and I've never been outside of Europe. Living in Barcelona is the abroadest I've ever been. Ever. Contemplating two or three months in SE Asia is very very scary.


*Electrical engineering vs. Electronic engineering: The difference, you ask? Oh, 'bout two hundred volts, mate.

Advice and input welcomed.

We could be heroes...

The builder's tale.

I don't mind admitting that this made me mist up. Then I realised--in a couple of months, I'll have the skills I need to go and do something just like that!

Keeping this handy...

Castillian verb lists.

Actually that whole site looks awesome, it's got Cervantes and everything!

"Cuppa tea, cuppa tea, almost got shagged, cuppa tea..."

Does anyone else ever feel like all they've done with their adult lives is work, or look for work? Been dredging through my past looking for something to feed to the ol' mill, and I'm coming up all dole queues and filing.

In other news, there appears to be a slight constitional crisis happening here over the Plan Ibarratxe. Will go into more detail when I track down some English-language links for ya.

And now, the weather: First grey day for weeks. We're into the coldest part of the year--I actually saw some frost on Friday. Mostly the sky is pristine, free of any cloud, turquoise horizons fading to violet overhead. The sunlight is pure red-gold, magically picking out all the fine detail of the old buildings with perfect clarity whilst at the same time lending everything the quality of a dream, a fantasy. Scaffolding crawls along the streets month by month from one edificio to another, renewing crumbling stucco, cleaning stonework, enlivening the colours of the painted plaster.

One day, that'll be my job. Tal vez.

Dominance and submission

Having been vaugely assuring myself that I'm going to start submitting things again anytime now for the last three months, I've finally realised the importance in this sort of enterprise of setting some form of cap on "anytime now." Hencly and theretoforewards, I shall be submitting not less than one (1) piece of written work to some paying market or another in a time period of not more than one (1) week.

I'd prefer to send off more than one bit, of course, but one bit's a start. Hopefully this will kick my little metal hoop a-rolling. What I really need is a morsel of acceptance, a smidgin of success to oil the pan of my literary frittata.

I'm just so unappreciated. Can't think what I'm doing wrong; I mean, everyone loves Comic Sans, don't they? And eight-point fonts are so stylish, whilst yellow text on a magenta background would brighten up an editor's day far more than that boring old black-and-white stuff they normally get...what? What?

Speaking of faceknives...

It's sad when cousins marry.

Look, can we just get rid of the fucking Royal Family now? Even leaving aside the whole "pointless anachronism" thing, they're a bunch of smug, callous, know-nothing, bone-idle, pompous, inbred thugs. That's all they've ever been and that's all they ever will be. We could make them all get proper jobs and then we could have something nice instead, like some hamsters or puffins. You ever see a puffin in a swastika armband?

Thinking of having this as the new piccy on my sidebar. I got sick of the star thingy.

He escrivado.

Couldn't sleep last night, not even after generous doses of stinky valerian tea and BEER, so surfed and cracked open one of my old yarns to do some clean-up.

It was one of my sex robot pieces. At the time I wrote it I was fairly pleased with it, but on re-reading it last night I discovered it was full of this writerarily retarded thing I do which is to bung in several wodges of text in there explaining very clunkily why I wrote the story. "Do you see? This is a metaphor for our consumerist culture! This is a critique of the Barbie aesthetic! Look, I'm all political and a Feminist and everything! I'm not just a weirdo who likes to write about limbless sex robots, honest!" Clunky, clunky, clunky, makes reading the thing like pushing a wheelbarrow full of bricks over a cattle-grid.

Man, I should just chill out and accept all that. I'm a fucking weirdo, the story is about a sex robot, take it any way you want it.

You know what?

Fuck 2004.

Fuck it right in the ear.

I had an okay time apart from the whole no-job-thing, because I love where I am. It's really really hard not to be happy in Barna. For just about everyone else I know, last year was a fucking bitch queen from hell.

2004, I appreciate your lessons. You were sort of harsh on me sometimes, but I feel I learned a lot from you. But you were really really supre-mean to all my mates. Phooey to you.

Edit: Yeah, I said supre. And I stand by it. Supre.

My head is doing all kinds of weird shit to me these days.

Like f'rinstance, I keep stressing about my housemates. I keep worrying that they're laughing at me behind my back, or that they might steal money from me, or that they'll have a go at me over the cleaning or they won't do their washing up and I'll have to do it, stuff like that.

What housemates? Oh, the housemates I'd have if for some reason I had to go back to the UK without Lurid and if I couldn't get a job and if I can't afford a bedsit and if I had to share a house and if...

My mind hates me.

Writing

I'm embarrassed of my writing. I've hardly submitted anything since the move because when I read back over my old stuff it looks shit. Gahh.

Happy new year.

My resolutions are as follows (in no particular order):

1) Get a job.
2) Get another tatt.
3) Sort out my time management.
4) Work harder at my Spanish.
5) Work harder at my writing.
6) Work harder at my maths.
7) Work harder at electronics.
8) Paint more and generally do more artsy craftsy shit.
9) Really actually sell stuff on eBay this time.
10) Get over my issues with going astral.
11) Work on my micropsi.
12) Stick to my no-cursing people vow, even if they are Fred Phelps.
13) Make music
14) More excercise with bigger weights.
15) Sort out social life.
16) Get bitten by something radioactive.

Still can't get my head round it.

The Grauniad says the tsunami death toll is up to 124,000. Can't comprehend the size of the disaster, all those people, just gone. The worst is not over. Disease, hunger, exposure: it's going to get a lot worse.

I'm not going to get into the contras between the aid given by some western nations and our deadly profligacy elsewhere. You're all growed up, you can do the math.

Happy (belated) hijacked pagan shindig, y'all!

Hope you guys had fun doing whatever it is you do. I had a pretty nice Crimbo: I opened prezzies from home (higlights included a Lovecraft plushy and a box of acrylic paints, which I can't seem to get here--not good ones anyway), and then munched Panettone* and polverone** and watched Buffy Season 4 DVDs with Lurid. Chrismas dinner was salmon*** which I poached in white wine with onion and mushrooms, along with roasties, sprouts ect. Yum.

And Cava. Lots and lots of Cava.



*Panettone: Italian spongy fruitcake made with yeast.
**Polveron: Little powdery biscuits.
***I'm a grownup. I can have fish on Chrismas if I want. Nyahhh.

Just so we're clear...

Myself and Lurid Archive are not going to the UK this year. Our money's okay for festive fun in nice cheap Barna but would turn into pumpkins as soon as we got into Stanstead. 'Tonces, we're staying here and drinking Cava. Anyone in town and wanting to hang should try the usual channels (e-mail, PM, post to my Lj). I promise not to set the dollies on you.

Martin Amis is a fuckstick.

He is a Stick of Fuck.

What? That's always relevant.

Aznar a sleazebag liar, to no one's real surprise.

Aznar's PP party wiped records of crisis meetings after the 11th of May bombings, inquiry told.

Yep, you read that right. All the records are gone, all the backups erased. I mean, erased erased--they got a company in to do this for them so that the data is now completely unrecoverable. Oh, yeah--and they stuck Zapatero's lot with the bill.

Maybe all the war-fetishist numbskulls who still accuse Spain of "cowardice" for voting out the PP in the wake of their shameless attempt to profit from the bombings will shut the fuck up now, but I doubt it.

I have not been writing.

I admit it. Bad wannabe. No biscuit.

Don't really know why. 'Snot like I don't have plenty of time on my hands these days. I'm doing the odd bit: a paragraph here, a couple of lines there, a few revisions of existing stuff. But I'm not really doing it. I'm not doing it in a doing-it flavoured way. Plastic writing.

I'm just having a hard time wresting my mind back from present concerns, such that all my writing go as folow...

Ragnar Orcslayer laid aside his mighty blade, FrostFang, which had cost him many hundreds of gold pieces but which would totally be worth it in the long run, and wiped the sweat from his eyes. "The fight is won!" he boomed. "Now for the spoils!" Stepping over to the first Orc, he skillfully removed its armour which would fetch a bob or two down the second hand armour stall. "Ah, HA!" he barked triumphantly, snatching a gold medallion from the neck of a dead foe, "NOW I shall go forth and defeat the evil lord Ovah-Derrapht!"

I so painfully need a job.

Happy B-day, Lurid!

We're going to go an make Lasagne in a minute. Lurid's not much for cake. He said he didn't want a big fuss so I shan't make one, just Lasagne.

I turn 31 tomorrow and I want to do summink Fun. It's times like this I miss London; it would be nice to be within lurching/wobbling distance of the Devvie about now. As we're living in town I ought to find the Barna equivalent.

I'm happy.

I had a go of pebble-dashing today! It was great, first mixing up the special cement in a big rubber bucket with a king-sized cake-mixy thing, then smearing it all over the walls with various implements that I only know the Castillian names for (sorry) and then chucking gravel made from real marble at it. Ace! Everyone should do pebble-dashing at least once, it rocks. And they gave us all a cake.

Stuff like this, involving special fancy coloured cement and stucco and stuff, is taught over at another site, not the place I'm usually at. I find it noteworthy that on both sites, there is a profe called Ángel.

Same old, same old...

Not much to write about really. Ummm... it's gone a bit cold here. I'm doing okay with the course, it's all going pretty well. I like the site. It's mostly lots of pretend bits of houses, random kitchens and bathrooms standing by themselves as people tile and re-tile their interior and exterior surfaces. A spiral staircase winds up towards nowhere, a gatepost stands by the cement mixer like a sentinal. Faux Egyptian murals vie for space with stone cladding, painted saints gaze warily out from inside half a pretend church.

I had another go of the cement mixer yesterday.

Plinggggg.

I am very very twangy and wound up today.

Things started badly, waking up from a long and peculiar dream involving:

1) Being forced to sit through a stage musical of LOtR (it really sucked and putting Gandalf in Elton John glasses was a dumb idea).

2) Finding that I had to perform a trapeze act about 100 feet in the air with a swimming pool instead of a safetey net. There was a sword in the swimming pool and I was supposed to swoop down and grab it up and do all swordy stuff on a trapeze. I tried to explain that I could not, in fact, do any of these things and that I was terrified but the showman wouldn't let me off because he'd already had posters printed.

3) Shopping on a long high-street where all the shops pretended to be shut, just to piss me off. I finally crept up on one and pounced before the shutters could come down. All I wanted was bread, cheese, and water; all they had for sale was cheap schnapps. But really, really, they were just hiding the water behind the schnapps! I bought several bottles of fizzy water while various staff members cursed me in Spainsh, paying with black-painted fingernail clippings and a pocket-watch.


Real life proved barely more comprehensible. There was meeting with the rest of the women on my course so the organizers could see how we were getting on. Fist people started bickering, then they started snapping, and then there was this full-fledged barney, the kind where people only stop yelling to fill up snotrags. And I'm sitting there totally fucking unable to work out what they were all yelling about, because fast and many new words and shouty people and ARRRRRRRRGGGGGHHHH. For a full fucking hour.

It seem that the Powers That Be are still playing the Make Mordant Deal With Scary Scary Things That Scare Her A Very Lot game. I am very greatful for the opportunity to grow and develop and toughen up or whatever I'm supposed to be doing but I would like a sabbatical now.

Home again, home again...

Finally got a landline in my flat. YERRRRRSSS. At last, I can have a shufti at all those NSFW linksthat have been taunting me since the move.

Important note: I'm getting rid of the bloody stupid comments system as soon as I can be arsed to fix my template, because I'm sick of not being able to reply to lovely lovely comments from nice people. Please use the Blogger comments in future.

Other than that... life's okay. I'm a bit miz because I won't be able to get back to the UK for Crimbo and I miss people. I'm still flat broke and nobody's replying to my English teaching ads stompy stompy sulk sulk stompity stomp.

On the plus side I seem to rock at laying floor tiles. Also I have a hard hat and you don't, nyahhhh.

Nothing much.

Still applying for teaching posts (as well as the other stuff). Still laying floor tiles. I'm getting quite good at floor tiles.

I want to update the green book soon but I just haven't been in the right headspace. Too... twitchy. When I get twitchy, I start second-guessing myself--was that me, was it them, does it matter?--and then I have to go and make a cup of tea. Obviously one should be doing more trancework but when one has been skiving on one's trancework, one is loth to re-engage. It's like a neglected crisper drawer. Will there be nice or at least edible veggies? Will there be a horrible mushy slurry of gone-off yuck? The seeker can only find peace when the crisper drawer is finally opened; the seeker knows that the longer the crisper drawer is left unopened, the greater the likelyhood of horrible mushy slurry. In this way the fear of horrible mushy slurry breeds more horrible mushy slurry.

I must open that crisper drawer this very night. Pray for me.

RAHHHHH!

Hey, you! Petty fleshy readership! You are all very tiny and laughably breakable. I mock you with much hearty chortling.

I'm in a really good mood today. You know, not just a lalala, everything's quite nice actually good mood but one of those extra-spiffy, take on puny WORLD moods. What have I been worrying about? I'm too fabuloupolous to worry. It can only be a matter of time before petty mortal world realises that it was put here to amuse and support Me in the manner to which I would like to become accustomed. I laugh at its tiny attempts to resist.

There is no escape from ME.

¿Que significa..?

Spent this morning trying to do this personal evaluation thingy in Catalan. Fuuuun, since I don't speak Catalan and had to keep asking my teacher what all the words meant. And then not knowing what the Castillian translation meant. And feeling like the world's biggest twonk.

I'm doing okay with the course so far. I can't communicate as well as I'd like but I can understand what's being said to me. Tomorrow is the last day of the theory/evaluation/team-building part of the course. On Monday I will actually get to paint stuff. Strangely joyed up about the idea.

I've been punting out emails to language schools in the hopes that someone will overlook my CELTAlessness and take me under their wings. I liked teaching and I think that I could be good at it if I had another go, but my confidence took a big knock over that course. I'm running on a success deficit. I need to do something right soon.

In which the author once again seeks refuge from the horrors of the world.

Relentless self-absorbtion is the fluffy blue blankey which I pull over my head on dark dark days. Joooooiiiin meeeee. It's bliiiiiiiisssss.

Hokayyyy... Got a friend coming to stay for a whole week. Yay friendy goodness! Also, I blew off the Spanish course in favour of a free (Mmmmm, freeee) painting-and-decorating course. Turns out the Catalan govt runs free vocational courses for unemployed and marginally employed mujers such as my good self.

I'm having another stab at the teaching profession after running in to one of my fellow students from the TEFL course, who says she's never even been asked about quals., and I'm trying to build some social links with the other spooky/magicky people in the area. Which is nice.

No, seriously, fuck.

I just wish I was surprised, that's all. Sure, there was a tiny corner of my being which clung to the folorn hope that the other douchebag would get in, the douchbag who is at least not commited to cramming every fetid prejudice he harbours into the Constitution and tearing up Roe vs. Wade, but I never really took it seriously.

Don't get me wrong here, though. Unsurprised does not mean unfurious.

What the hell is wrong with you people? Oh, sure, nation after nation can be put to fire and the sword, your jobs can be flushed down the toilet of greed and capitalist profligacy, your sons and daughters can be drafted off to fight and suffer and die in hideous, evil wars--but so long as they don't go getting abortions or doing any of that gay stuff, hey, you're cool!

Jesus Christ, people, you may be strangers to tolerance, mercy or charity but are you also utterly devoid of any sense of self-preservation? This creature you've elected is going to fuck up your country beyond your worst nightmares. America is so fucked right now and it doesn't even know it. It's like a paralysed drug addict, mind swimming with happy happy dreams while Bush and his grinning crew line up to pull a train on its hindquarters.

Fucking moronic Bush-voting dickheads. You'd vote for a nuke in a hat if fucking Fox News told you to. You deserve everything you get.

FUCK.

I've got to stop writing crap.

For the last couple of months, pretty much everything I have written has been crap. It's either been derivative or sloppy or confusing or just plain crap. This bothers me. I want people to give me money for writing and people are weird about giving you money for crap writing. It's this whole big prejudice against the writerarily challenged. 'S not fair.

The rain in Spain...

...falls mainly on my barrio. I guess Winter's really here.

I really need to get my dwelling sorted. Stuff leaks, the window's still missing, the light that didn't work still doesn't and it's all bothering me and making me hide inside my own head where I can ignore things that leak/drip/fail completely to function ect. Which is really really mature and constructive and totally does not result in the slow deterioration of my surroundings into a big pile of socks and last weeks' Primeramàs.

On a more positive note, I went to the healer's group meeting yesterday. Man, I feel so much better. It was wonderful to participate in something positive with really nice people for a change. We got up to some spookyness and hocum, my first group working for aaaaages.


Made me realise how little I've been socialsing lately; most of my conversations for the last month (that aren't with Lurid) have been with strangers telling me that no, I can't have a j-b. No wonder I've been feeling so trapped and obsessed and sterile. I've done nothing but stew in my own juice for weeks on end. Can't quite see a way out of this mess yet but I feel like I'm closer, you know? Less paralysed.

I'll get it all sorted. Bit by bit, I'll get it aaaaalll sorted out.

I should probably just chill out and try to have some fun with this no job thing.

Weeeeeeee! I am adrift on the shining currents of the ChaoFlux! WooooOOOoooOOOoo! Look at me everyone, I'm freeeeee! I'm flyyyyyiiingggggg! WahaYYYY! Hail Eris, I'm Outside Your Systemmmmm!!!!



Mmm. Not getting my yayas. Maybe this is more fun if you're fourteen and with rich parents?

However... I really must yank my head out of this obsession. Fear is interfering with my ability to attack the situation creatively. I need to step back the ways and get some perspective.

I'm planning some ancestor-related hocus pocus over the next few days. Tomorrow, obviously, is Halloween/Samhain; I shan't be partying as such, so I will be able to focus on the ol' mumbo jumbo. Also, I'm having my healer's meet. I might be able to get some leads from them (if not paid work then at least some voluntary). Then on Monday it's Tot Sants, which is a big holiday here. All job-hunting activities will have to be curtailed in veiw of this so I can use the time for quiet reflection and Sim City 4.

I feel bitter.

And twisted. Twisty twisty bitterology. My quest is fruitless; I nibble not on the fruity goodness of the Hired but on the nasty-tasting, 5p-a-packetonion-flavoured-corn-snacky horribleness of the jobless.

This sucks. I mean, how many agencies do I have to sign up with? How many CVs do I have to hand out? How many want-ads do I have to respond to? What the hell is going on here?

I feel like I'm missing something. Like there's some trick or route or grant or loan or person or body or company or whatever that everyone else knows about and I don't. I need some kind of help and I don't know who to ask.

Rejection.

Got turned down for a couple of jobs yesterday. One had just been filled and another turned out to require fluent Catalan. This is not a kvetch, you understand. I like those reasons. They are good solid reasonable reasons and I respect them.

When applying for jobs in Spain I've been very careful to keep the epilepsy quiet. None of the appos I've filled out have had a "Do you suffer from any chronic disease?" box but even if they had, I'd have been tempted to commit a tiny sin of omission. Why? Because you're all a bunch of ignorant morons, that's why. You read a couple of video game warning lables and your tiny tiny minds leap like circus fleas to entirely the wrong conclusions.

"Well, I don't know why you're applying for this job, Ms. Carnival, since the advertisment stated quite clearly that you'd be doing data entry and you can't use a computer. Your application form says that you have epilepsy!"

(Note: For maximum Pissing Mordant Off points, the word 'epilepsy' should be delivered as if you were going to rinse the phone out with Vim after you've said it.)

My all-time favorite was the bigoted ninny who told me, in tones of barely-restrained glee, that they couldn't possibly employ me because I was a fire hazard.

A fire hazard.

Yes, it took me a while to work out too. As I recall, I said something along the lines of "Beh?" Eventually I managed to follow this idiot's Hornby-sized train of thought back the ways and realised that because her mind was so tragically little, she was forced to file any physical condition she didn't understand under 'disability'. She'd come across the old fire hazard excuse used to deny wheelchair users employment and had liked it. Liked it so much. Fire hazard! Brilliant! She'd probably lain awake at night in bed,* dreaming of the day when she could wheel it out and reduce someone to a puddle of impotent simmering rage. So when she sees the e-word on my form, it's like all her birthdays** have come at once.

When I'd stopped saying "Beh?" I got myself together enough to point out politely that I was not actually in a wheelchair and in fact had (still have) full mobility. Stairs and everything.

"I know," she says, a little disappointment creeping into her tone.

Pause.

"But..."

Pause.

"Umm..."

Pause.

"But! You could have a fit, right, while there was a fire, and people could... trip over you!"

Pause.

"Beh?"





*Or borg alcove or slime-pod or whatever HR officers sleep in when they're not being tubesteaks for a living.

**Possibly Spawning Day. Or construction date.

To do.

Sign up with Spanish course.
Ride Telefonica's collective glutes about why I still have no shagging telephone line in my flat.
Try to get those two water bills taken off next month's rent.
Find an affordable swimming baths.
Sign up with those two agencies I found in the paper, plus assorted other job stuff.
Fix broken window in flat.
Go and look at some Barcelona places of outstanding beauty and awesomeness in order to remind self that the above is all small stuff and should not be allowed to bug me.

The sun is shining.

When I leave this internet café, it will be hitting the painted plaster of the buildings just so. I will feel better just for looking at it.

Things are brittle in my life right now. Everywhere I put my mind, it bangs up against the sharp edge of something: work, the temporary nature of my dwelling, my anxieties for the future, the gnawing, itching gaps in my knowledge and education.

I'm making tentative plans again now, very tentative. I'm going to sign up for one of those cheap language courses, though I don't know if I'll be able to complete it (I'm sure anyone who knows me well is just dying of shock at that notion; it's just that if I find work I might have to quit).

I've been applying for more and more jobs; I have a daily minimum of 6 job leads, which I usually exceed. I've had a few nibbles but no interviews as yet. I've been making things again, and my writing's picked up a bit. Tomorrow I will go to the park and flypitch for a few hours, see if I can't get a bit of cash that way.

I don't feel lucky. Something needs to change.

My imagination is broken.

I can't work; there's a hole in my brain. When I poked around in it, I saw it had two narrow lips and a rudimentary tongue, the better to whisper of cash and the lack of same. On the uvuala was tattoed a Euro-sign. I've tried taping it up with elastoplast but it works itself free every time, muttering on and on about all the things I can't do or have. Between paragraphs it tuts like a clock, or sniggers at the ragged lines of my CV. It lays out every mistake, every missed opportunity like a Tarot hand and it reads me a shabby fortune. At night it doesn't sleep. It spins the same line out into the deeps of my dreams, dangling a sharp hook baited with fear and greed. I wouldn't mind but the voice is so much like my own.

Shouty people.

I was coming back from the shops yesterday and there was this woman waiting outside the main door to my block of flats. She stops me as I go to open the door, and in this rather peremptory manner she asks me if I know anything about a flat to rent. I tell her I don't. She keeps me hanging around whle she rummages in her purse for a bit of paper where she's written down the details: apparently she has arranged to meet the lettings agent, R., at six. (It's now ten to, something she confirms with a grudging look at her own watch.) I confirm that she's at the right address. She asks if I'm R. I tell her that no, I am not R. She asks which flat is being let. I tell her I don't know. She won't accept this and asks me again, a bit louder. I repeat that I don't know. She asks me where the lettings agent is. I tell her that I don't know, but that R. should be here at six. I ask her if she'd like to wait in the lobby; she angrily refuses.

Durng the whole conversation she's getting snappier and snappier, with much tutting and sighing and rolling of eyes. I'm trying to find a polite way to disengage myself from the situation, but she's just asking more and more questions. Finally she asks one that I not only can't answer, but can't understand. I ask her to repeat it. She rolls her eyes so hard I think they're going to fall out, and repeats herself. I tell her I don't understand, and apologise for my weak Castilian. She repeats the question several times more, louder and louder, until she's yelling at me, yelling this incomprehensible question in my face like an insult. I apologise again and tell her that I still don't understand. "Well, you should understand!" she screams at me. "You should understand! You should understand!"

At this point I decide that hanging around this crazy freak is over and above the call of duty. I tell her to stop shoutng at me and finally get the door open. I hurry inside but the woman's shrieks of "You should understand!" don't abate. I snap. As I close the door I say, in English, "You are a very rude person!" and then practically run up the stairs.

I know that it's not really acceptable to do that (have a go at someone in English when you know they don't speak it, I mean) but I just lost it. I mean, all I was doing was trying to help her. I still don't get what she was so pissed off about.

I really hope she doesn't move into my flats. I think I've had more than my fair share of psycho neighbours.

Superpissedoffness.

So I wake up this morning and discover that there is no running water in my fucking flat. No. Running. Water.

Panic panic, zoom around trying to work out what the matter is, phone water company. Am informed that I haven't paid my last two water bills. Explain that I've only been there for three weeks. Attempt to convince woman on phone that I am not responsible for bills. Woman on phone is unconvinced.

Trudge into town with rent contract, find water company's office, show rent contract to woman at desk, explain sitch. Explain that as I have only been living in the flat for three weeks I am not responsible for ect ect.

Woman at desk a picture of distain. I live at the address on the bills, ergo I am responsible for paying them and it matters not a whit that I am not the person whose name appears on the bills. After much back and forth I am forced to accept that the only way to get the water turned back on is to cough up for two quarters' water, for a flat where I've been resident since the end of September. Fifty fucking euros just because the wankstack before me was too tight to pay her bills before she moved out.

I am unimpressed.

I'b god a code.

I hate getting colds, even more now than I used to when I get them all the time. Now they've got shock value. I've been sick as a dog. Except that a sick dog has a dry nose.

Quadraplegic killed for smoking dope.


http://www.norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=6282


From the article, it sounds like they whipped this poor paralysed guy off to gaol (for a first fucking offence, mark you), failed to provide him with a ventilator and essentially let him suffocate.

All this over a little bit of mary jane. I'm trying not hope that the judge chokes to death; it's really rather hard work.

(Via bigdave357)

Edit: More over at the Washington Post.

Hey everyone.

Apart from the fixable by me stuff, all that stuff in my flat that was shagged the last time I wrote is still shagged. The promised repairman never arrived and my landlady remains incommunicado.

I'm feeling bleh. Sedantary. Sullen. My head crashed during the move and I'm having trouble rebooting it. For the last few days I've been jobhunting like a... like a... like a... well, like a very broke Mordant looking for a job and not much else. All I do is dump CVs at temp agencies, bother agencies who already have my CV ("¡Hola! ¿Usted me recuerda? ¡Estoy aún buscando trabajo!"), eat, sleep and excercise. Haven't been sewing huge felt doll heads with misaligned googly eyes and pointy teeth; haven't been taking bad wonky photos of the new barrio; haven't even been writing. (Well, not proper writing. I'm still blogging, making increasingly bitchy messageboard posts, and churning out word salad.) Which disturbs me, coz writing is sort of my basic level of functionality normally, and non-writyness tends to mean that a certain degree of hatstandness has crept in.

I need a push. Someone push me.

Stuff in my flat that is shagged:

1) The fridge. Yes, it is nice to have a fridge again, finally, but the seal at the bottom leaks. Duct-tape will make all things right. Duct-tape is one of my favourite substances in the world in space.

2) A window. Or rather a foot-square pane of glass in the door to the balcony. Not a security issue coz there's a big ol' wooden shutter that can be bolted across it, but not good from a heating perspective.

3) The sofa. Being somewhat penurious, we plumped for an inflatable job from Ikea. On opeing the box we found not a sofa which was inflatable but eight sort of rubbery rectangular bottle things that can only be inflated with the aid of a hairdryer (which in our case we have not got) and which need, in order to function sofarily, to be inside the special Ikea cover (sold seperately).

4) A light. The wire which dangles from the ceiling is mended in the middle with a smidge of tape. Many things can be fixed with tape and will function as advertised. Not this.

5) The loo. The flush is knackered.

This irks me. I am irked. I hate it when things break that I can't fix with duct-tape.

Busy busy busy.

Been a pretty active time, what with one thing and another. Went back to the old flat to pick up a few things and do a spot of cleaning on Thursday. This, of course, rapidly mutated into a full day's cleaning and three bags of stuff which had to be lugged back over packed public transport. Still, it's all over now and I can focus on the really fun stuff, like finding room for all our crap in this itty little flat and trying to persuade someone to give me a job. I'm already signed up with 3 agencies in the area and they're making fairly positive noises.

Artistically: I haven't been up to much, due to extreme and protracted moving related interference. I've managed to work on my puppet heads and this felt doll thing, which I hope to make a few of to sell in the park.

On the mumbo-jumbo side: I have been feeling my oats lately. Been doing a lot of the usual healing stuff, with some okay results. Other than that I've been doing money drawing and work related bits and pieces using hoodoo equipment and techniques. (One of the great things about my new gaff is its proximity to several handy magick shops.) Mostly I've been focusing on the training and strategic spending of hunting money, with some hopeful results, but now that things are a bit more settled I'll be doing something a bit more substantial--reforging my hematite bracelet, putting together a spell-in-a-bag to take out when I go job-hunting, stuff like that.

Over and out.

AWESOMENESS!

Hellboy is finally coming out in Spain! I loved those comics (back when I lived in London the local library had a "Graphic novels" section so I read all of them. I can't afford comics now. I really miss that library). So when I heard about the film I was thrilled, and then the film people spoke unto me from a magazine and they went "Yeah, well we're putting Ron Perlman in it and he's Hellboy" and I went "YAYY!" and they went "And it all looks really cool, look, here's a couple of stills" and I went "YERRRRSS!" and then they went "Hey, watch this trailer, pretty nifty eh?" and I went "H'RAAAAAAAYYYY!"

And then they went all quiet.

The Americans got to watch Hellboy. I didn't. Then the British got to watch Hellboy and I didn't which I resented bitterly. So what I did was, I put on my coolest clothes, like my trenchcoat and everything, and I found the guy in charge of which films go in Spain, and I broke into his office and got on his desk and I had a huge SWORD and I said: "Deme Hellboy! Deme Hellboy AHORA MISMO!" and now it's coming out here on October the First and I am just so happy.

I've moved.

Okay, so I'm all moved out of the old place and into the new. Which is cool. However, there's a complete lack of furniture here, not even a fridge, so today we embark on The Hunting of the Fridge and Some Shelves and Some Chests of Draws so We Have Somewhere to Put All Our Shit.

There's a green flourescent tube in the spare bedroom, tho', which is very cool.

Life with a tragically obsessive Star Wars geek, Part 3105.

Was in conversation yesterday (one of my mates was staying over. I love it when mates stay over.) and the whole Reiki thing came up.

"Yeah, don't mess with Mordant," Lurid cuts in. "She can zap you."
"I can't zap people. It's a healy thing."
"You could zap people."
"No, I couldn't.*"
"Yeah, you could go--"
"Dude, there is no such thing as Dark Reiki."
"That's just what those simpering fools at the Reiki Council want you to think!"
"There is no 'Reiki Council,' okay? No Dark Side of the Reiki, no Reiki Council--"
"They're holding you back. They just don't want you to know the truth!"

I am never letting him play KotOR ever again.



*Of course, I had to tell them that I can't zap people. But I might be able to zap people. You don't know. You just don't know.

I have completely fucked my right arm.

Seriously, I've got about 50% mobility in the bastard. And it shagging hurts. And I'm moving on Monday.

Arses.

'Shawoman.'

Okay, this is one of the reasons why I fucking hate all you people and wish I could just sell crap on eBay instead of having a job where I have to talk to any of you pointless, feebleminded doombrains EVER AGAIN. You see this? You see this word? What the fuck is this word? "Shawoman." Anyone over the age of fucking 12 who uses the term 'shawoman,' especially if it's in a self-descriptive sense, should be bludgeoned unconscious with their Talking Stick and garroted with their £60 made-in-a-fucking-Korean-sweatshop dreamcatcher.

You know what calling yourself a fucking 'Shawoman' says about you? It says: "I am an ignorant loser who, in trying to inject some meaning into my sad, vacant existance, have embarked on the Shamanic path because I though it sounded cooler than Wicca, without the tiniest, bittiest notion of what I'm doing, and because I'm such a total fucking tool my first step along this path, instead of READING A GODDAMN BOOK OR TWO, has been to set up a fucking web-page with pictures of my cats on it and loads of search terms and FUCK ALL ELSE so that when Mordant Carnival is looking for shit on Google she ends up at my fucking webpage and suffers ONCE A-FUCKING-GAIN the agony of realising that she is ENTIRELY SURROUNDED BY IDIOTS and has to go away and kick stuff until she feels better. P.S.: I am also a 'femeinist', a word which I can neither spell nor properly understand, since I think it means bitching about my ex-boyfriend a lot whilst taking absolutely no control or responsibility over my own life."

Listen up, Lady RedHawkeDolphinSeleneFaekneesElvenHair and friends. I've adapted this from wikipedia and other sources so you can get your tiny fucking minds round it.

The role of the fucking Shaman varies between cultures, but it usually denotes a person of power and influence within the tribe (so, not you then), who provides medical and other fucking aid to their fucking community, through supernatural means. (Incidentally, this means that if you decide to go with this whole shamanic path thing, you'll need to get some kind of community other than Pixie and Mojo, your fucking cats.)

Now, this next part could save you from having your FUCKING WHALESONG CDS SMASHED INTO JAGGED SHARDS AND FORCE-FED TO YOU WITH FUCKING TABASCO so listen carefully:

Shaman: (saman) is a term in fucking Evenk, fucking Manchu and other fucking Manchu-Tungus languages. The word is FUCKING GENDER NEUTRAL, you stupid jackass, and can refer to either fucking male or fucking female practitioners. The fucking plural is shamans.

This has been a public sevice announcement from the Stop Pissing Off Mordant Before She Kills Again coalition.

Linkity.

How to become a Bitch-Hermit.

Duuuude! I've just found my ideal career! I could totally be a bitch hermit. How come I can't live like this? I've even got the clothes! (Admittedly I can't actually get into them anymore, but I've got them).

Just a quick one...

... Before I fuck off into town.

Jeez, I am shattered. I've got about 99.999999% of my shit together to move, but the nature of the Universe is such that the remaining shit is piled up all over every single flat surface of my current flat and it's having a NEGATIVE IMPACT ON MY FRAGILE PSYCHE. Oh yeah and my foot hurts because I stood on this huge chunk of broken glass that was on the floor, and my head hurts, and my limbs and back hurt from hauling boxes around the place, and I'm just royally pissed off with everything.

Moving on Monday. Cleaning on Tuesday. Doing something obnoxious to someone on Wednesday just to relieve my feelings. Maybe I'll flaming fudge bag an estate agent's house.

Additional: Worked out the other night that this will be my 23rd home. Unless I've missed one, but I think I counted them all.

¡Mis pies!

Oh man, my feet are killing me. I was in full Hunting of the Job battledress today, and my nice shiny sensible shoes have carved up my heels summink rotten. Still and all, I got signed up with a new agency, touched base with a couple of old ones, and generally kicked job-hunting arse. Tomorrow I'm going to have a shufti round a couple more agencies that seem to take care of the industrial areas round Barna.*

I also went round the new flat with an assortment of cleaning materials and spruced the place up a bit. The kitchen looks a bit better now, more like somewhere you'd cook food and less like somewhere you'd nuke from orbit.

Also, I had a bit of a reccie and found this kick-arse magickal supermarket! With a little caff for to drink cervesa sin and infusiones! I will definately be showing my face round there, get known a bit. See if I can't drum up some reiki and assorted hocum business.

All in all, a Good Day.

Apart from the feet.

*Barna is the city, I am reliably informed. Barca is the football club.

Things are looking up...

Slightly, anyway. Had some very bad news from the UK which I won't go into, as it concerns people who are not connected with this blog. I will say that it does not affect me directly, although it saddens me very much.

On the positive side, where I'm told I should be looking: We have a flat. It's not huge and it's not terribly cheap, but it's about as good as we're going to get. It's quite a cute little place, though unfurnished and rather a fixer-upper, and the location is pretty central.

Next step: I need a jooooob! Haven't really been able to look for anything in the last couple of months what with that course and the intensive flat-hunting. I'm going to transfer myself from the temp agencies here to the ones in town, and also explore a couple of other avenues.

Trained up some hunting money the other day, just a couple of small bills which I broke buying a few cheap writing, craft and job-hunting supplies. I reckon it must have gone a bit feral tho', coz today I found some poor sod's wallet... fair bit in there too. Not enough to break someone, but enough to do me a bit of good.

I went over the thing with a fine-toothed comb, but there was no ID in there, no name, no address, no nothing. So I kept it, bwahahaha.

I feel bad for the other guy, but what can you do? Nothing much except thank [insert whatever Providence watches over the grubby likes of me] for the carelessness of tourists, and try to send the wallet-loser some good vibes. I hope he or she doesn't suffer too much from the loss and that some good fortune comes along to make up for it.

But on a happier note...

A., if you're reading this--thanks for your help, mate. I really appreciate it.

Another car-bomb in Iraq.

I feel sick just thinking about it. Are things over there ever going to get better? Is the country even going to be habitable in a couple of years? Christ.

Wish I could say that global events eg war death famine plague hurricanes ect. were giving me some perspective, making my own problems seem insignificant in comparison, but I can't because I'm an unbelivably self-centred bastard and everything that happens to me is more important than anything that happens to everyone else ever. I still don't have a place to live lined up for when I leave here and flat hunting is pissing me off bigtime. Today I saw a fairly nice flat, not too small, but the woman wanted 3 1/2 months rent up front, one month being her fee which we'd never get back. Great. No viewing lined up for tomorrow, but I'm seeing a place on Friday. Wish me luck.

Civilians blown to bits in Iraq, live on air. Military still lies through teeth about it.

Overview from the BBC...

...Who also have a video, if you can stomach it.

Firsthand report over at the Grauniad.

SWEARYNEES.

The flat is gone. Also I'm having no joy at all getting new viewings today. Seeing a place on Friday which is all very well but I have to be out of here on or before the 30th of this Month that you Linear Mortals know as September.

Bugger.

I'm pissed off now.

Think I'll take it out on you lot. Yes! Filthsome readership! Filthsome readership shall SUFFER. (NSFW because I hate you all and I want you all to get fired.)

SUFFER!

Yet more playing cards!

Three, just outside the internet cafe as I was coming in. Queen of coins, 3 of coins (people use Tarot cards for gaming here, y'see) , and one other which was face down. I'll go and check what it is in a minute.

I need a some flat-nabbing luck. Found the perfect place yesterday--a dear little flat in a primo location, nice and cheap--but two other couples had found it first. Most vexatious! I want them to get distracted by shiny objects or something! Hands off my flat!

(Edit: the other card was the 3 of swords. FUCK ON TOAST.)

Cunning Plan.

I haven't told you guys my latest Plan yet, have I? They almost never actually work but I do like seeing them up here in white and black. So, here is my current Plan:

Step 1) Move into new flat.
Step 2) Teach English and get paid for same.
(here I should mention that there's a Step 2b) Make dolls & get paid for dolls ect, but this is a bit complicated because the only really good place to sell my dolls is on teh intarnet and the P&P to send dolls to Foreign Abroad eg America is almost as much as I would make from selling the dolls. I'm working on it.)
Step 3) Use money from Teaching of English to finance Reiki 2 & 3 attunements.
Step 4) Get a massage table
Step 5) Have a Reiki practice.

I like this Plan. It's short and has a massage table in it. Also I can be reasonably sure that at least Step 1 (move into a new flat) will actually happen, which is a 20% improvement on previous Plans. Yay!

No flat yet.

This is bollocks. Why aren't landlords all queueing up BEGGING me to occupy their fetid hovels? I'm Important and Clever and Special. In years to come blue plaques will be placed on the walls of the places I've lived saying "Mordant Carnival Lived Here! Fucking ROCK!!!" While we're on the subject, what's with this "rent" nonsense? Why aren't people paying me to live there? Why isn't everyone giving me free money? I am your superior in every way! GIVE ME FREE MONEY! And also cake and socks.

Just some of the fabulous things I do that you should all be paying me for if there was any justice: Inlightenedment and Leftover Parfait.

The Hunting of the Flat, Part II

Okay, the attic place turned out to be less of a flat and more of a small receptacle. A perfectly charming small receptacle, but a small receptacle nonetheless. Ended up going to an agency (who I'm not supposed to call an agency; they seem to see themselves more as discreet matchmakers) and paying them a largish fee to get our names on the books. The housing sitch here being what it is we were bound to get shaken down, and this seemed like the least painful option. Ahhhhnyway, they got us a few names and things are looking up a bit. Saw a place yesterday which we both liked, and this evening we're checking out another attic. With any luck we could have a place sorted by the end of the week. Yay.

The Hunting of the Flat.

Went to check out a new paaaaad yesterday. The location was pretty awesome: right in the Eixample, a stone's throw away from La Sagrada Familia, close to the Tube, all that good stuff. And the rent was pretty sweet too. (Or so we thought! Dar, dar, DAAAAR!) But it turned out to be so titchy, and so poorly laid out (dude, it's a shoebox. Having a second toilet is not a priority.) that even I didn't want to live there. Plus the agency fee would have been a stonking great 10% of the year's rent. (Yeah, you read that right.)

So now I'm going out again to check out this little attic place I found online. Wish me luck.

(Oh, and just on the off-chance: if anyone happens to know of any little tiny flats in BCN, penurious academic + partener, for the use of, drop me a line. Ta.)

You keep hoping.

You keep hoping that somehow there'll be a miracle, that somehow there'll be a peaceful ending, that the carnage will be averted. You know, from common-sense and from the hard cold knot in your stomach, that there's no real hope; but you keep hoping anyway. Until there's no hope left. Until it's over.

"But all my friends go to this school!"

We're moving. I'd kind of like to not move until I have a job or summink, but the Uni people don't have a flat for us after the end of the month so there ya go.

We were looking for a place more in the centre, but the rents are pretty heinous. So we're probably going to be stuck out in the sticks, tho' hopefully somewhere a bit less remote than here. (I'm fed up with having to get a train just to go to the video rental place.)

Other than that, bleh. I spent an appreciable amount of time yesterday fixing my jeans, because they're falling apart and I can't afford new ones. It's so beastly to be poor. I keep nagging the spooky perverts to write me a bestseller, but they're not keen.

Sod spirituality, giz the dosh.

I'm bored.

You all have to entertain me. Go on, do a dance or summink.

I'm in a funny mood, all sort of bleh and foggy. Okay, I'll be honest, I'm in a perfectly foul mood. You know when you have a problem, and you're not quite sure what to do next to fix the problem, but you have a pretty good idea of the sort of avenues you should be exploring, and yet the gumption to actually really make a serious start down any of those avenues seems to have deserted you? Yeah, that.

I'm still a wee bit knocked back by the course and all that. Realistically I know that it was the right thing to do, realistically I know that I'm in a far better position now than I was before, but... well, one feels such a friteful dunce. And one has the hardest time concieving of oneself engaging in anything in a non-duncetastic manner.

The hell with it. I'm going back indoors for much evil-strength Cafe Filth. That usually helps.

Spacebar.

I'm in town to do a wee bit of flat-hunting, so I thought I'd stop off at bagsnatcher central, otherwise known as the easyinternet caff. This place is a total shambles. There's no chair-fights today, but someone has broken the keyboard next to me and nicked half the spacebar. Who nicks half a spacebar?

I should be putting up ads to advertise my valuable services as a teacher of The Language of Shakespere (and also the language of McDonald's. And, increasingly, the McDonald's of languages. Meh). However I'm having an attack of the dithers; not sure where or how to start. Private lessons are a bit different to working in a classroom. I'll just have to bite the bullet and jump in there... Wish my Spanish was better. I can read it really well now but I still sound totally paella'n'chips when I open my mouth. Still and all, I must try. Sorry, I'm obsessing a bit.

Talking of obsessing....

Dear BTcentralplus-using person,

Have you really got nothing better to do? I mean, really, nothing? How many times a day do you need to visit my blog? In a hunter-gatherer sense, that is. What exactly are you hoping for? A divine revelation? The face of the Blessed Virgin? Fifty pee off your next purchase of Noodle Doodles?

Of course, I write to be read, so in that sense your interest is gratifying. But dude (or dudette), you really need to get out a bit more. Take a walk. Smell the flowers. Have a donut. Take up macrame. Do anything, only get a life.

Love'n'huggles, Carnie xx

http://nlp.snowseed.com/index.html

(Appears to be a free NLP intro.)

Well, it's over.

I didn't get the certificate. My work just wasn't quite up to scratch.

I don't feel too bad tho'. I worked bloody hard the whole time; there was no getting pissed and playing Heroes Of Might And Magic until three in the morning involved. I just had to cover too much ground in too short a time: nothing, nothing whatsoever, in my background prepared me for the kind of work I'd be doing.

I got a lot out of the course, and I feel confident enough in my actual teaching abilities to look for some private tutoring round the uni (something I'd have been completely unable to do befre the course started.)

No reputable school will hire you here if you are short on quals, but rumors persist of certain disreputable schools that will. We'll see.

Meanwhile, I'm going to take it out on Inlightenedment and make her flunk her GNVQ in IT.

Oh shit.

Lurid set the Grauniad as our homepage, right? (Bless his cotton socks.) So every time I crank up Mozilla to look at Homestarrunner.com or ball-kicking porn or whatever, I get their front page. Usually this just results in mild infuriation until I can get Strongbad's Emails loaded, but today they've got a picture of Julie Birchill on the front.

Ms. Birchill is one of those pompous, arrogant, knownothing tubesteaks whose pompousity, arrogance, knownothingness and overall tubesteakosity pisses me off so much that I can't even look at her shagbastarding photo without wanting to hulk out and break stuff. On the universally accepted scale of facehate, she rates like 805 milli-Bushells.

Well, I'm sorry, but someone had to say it.

Anyway I've finished all my assignments so I get to rant about how much I hate everyone now. Weeeeeeeeeeeeee! Next on the list....

Dear Person Who Keeps Googling Me From BTcentralplus,

I appreciate your interest. I'm touched that you visit me so often; it shows a tender concern and a childlike curiosity rare in this jaded world. However, I just have to ask: What the hell is wrong with you? If you have to read me fifty-three times a day, why don't you just bookmark the goddamn page? Or memorise the URL or something. Or, I don't know, read something else. Plenty more blogs in the sea. Of blogs. You know, not a sea made of blogs, just a sea with some blogs in it.

In conclusion, you are a big freak and probably smell of cheap biscuits. Love, Carnie xx

http://esl.about.com/library/courses/blcourses_lower_intermediate_grammar.htm

Nothing to see here...

One small but vital question...

Why the fuck can't that gibbering wanker, Annie Jacobsen, just admit that she's a stupid hysterical idiotic plane-endangering flight-mashal-pissing-off racist shower of dysentry and that her whiny little article was not a blast of the trumpet against the monstrous regiment of PC arab-lovers who want planes to get blown up, but rather the histrionic blithering of a self-obsessed and deluded fuckbubble? And that furthermore, the only people who are still impressed by said article are other self-obsessed and deluded fuckbubbles?

Anyone up for a wee Googlebomb? Let's make Crazy Annie's article number one for Hysterical Bigot.

Edit: I've just checked and the first 6 results for Hysterical Bigot all point to Dan's treatment of the article. Which is pretty hilarious, but not as much as if the actual article was Number One.

I'm going crazy.

Did a ton of work yesterday but I've still got loads to do. Just finished re-writing an assignment that I completely failed. Hopefully this draft will be better.

Aside from that, I've got another assignment (only 300 words), two more Green Forms to completely re-write, and my lesson plan for tomorrow to finish. I can get it all done, but it's not going to be a lot of giggles.

My head hurts.

I just want this whole thing to be over. I'm terrified of failing the course.

Edit: And then I went in the kitchen and poured myself a mugful of freshly-brewed espresso, and suddenly the world was a brighter place.

Just summink else I want to keep handy: http://www.collegeem.qc.ca/cemdept/anglais/

You know, for a moment there I was almost feeling sympathetic.

Louis de Bernières, the bloke who wrote Captain Corelli's Mandolin, has had his laptop nicked. Bit of a pisser, especially since he had about 50 pages of his next book on it.

I mention this not because it's particularly interesting, but because of the author's response when asked if he had it backed up:

"I never make disk copies of my work because I am not a computer boffin. I prefer just to do print-outs on paper after I have finished each chapter . But I had not been doing that because I had been writing in the summerhouse and the printer was indoors. "

That's right, everyone, you need to be a "computer boffin" to back up to disc. Well, the police shouldn't have any trouble finding the laptop, it'll be the one with fucking Tip-Ex on the screen. Wanker.

Just some stuff I wanted to keep handy...

abcteach.com

onestopenglish.com/

(Teachy sites.)

OhdeargodIamsobloodyTIIIIIRRREEED!

For the last two weeks I have et, slept and breathed this course. Apart from the slept part, because I haven't had a solid 8hrs since it started. I find myself waking up at three, knowing full well that I have to get up at 6:30 if I'm going to get my things together, and yet unable to go back to sleep until I've just given my lesson plan the once-over. Said once-over taking until four, at least, and involving a substantial re-write.

See, I'm digging the actual teaching. I'm finding it a blast. It's very fulfilling and stimulating and all that girly shit I'm supposed to be into, blah blah blah. But the paperwork is doing my head in. See, we have to submit these forms with a breakdown of what we're going to teach, how we're going to teach it, and why it should matter two hoots to the students. And I can't get mine right. I've had to redo the last two, I never know what's wrong with them until the tutors explain it to me, and it's driving me nuts. I feel like I'm in a text-based adventure game and trying to get Thorin to pick me up or summink.

THOU ART IN A TEFL COURSE. WHAT DOST THOU WISHETHEST TO DO?

>look

THOU SEEEST: A GREEN FORM

>fill in ye form

THOU HAST COCKED UP YON FORM ROYALY.

>fill in ye form again.

THOU SEEEST: A TUTORE, WHO LOOKEST AT THEE WITH A PAINED EXPRESSION.

THOU ALSO SEEEST: A BIG FAT WASTE OF 1500 GP IF THOU DOST NOT GET THINE ACT TOGETHER.

>fill in ye green form again?

NOT GOOD ENOUGH. THOU ART CRAP. THY SCORE IS 1.7% PLAY AGAIN Y/N?

TEFL crush puny human.

Finally got that blessed assignment out of the way. Ended up writing six times what I needed and having to do a total hatchet job. ARRRGH. I've been working on that sucker since half-past eight and its twenty-five to four now. My world has shrunk to the size of a VDU and I can't feel my back.

Anyway, the sucker is put to bed. I have some other stuff but hopefully it'll only take another 5 hours or so.

Then I'm going down the pub.

Edit: No, I'm not. Apparently it's St. Allthebloodyshopsareshut's Day. No beer. No... Beer! ARRRRRRRGHHHHH!

Maybe the hotel bar is open.


Edit edit: Hotel bar open, but naff and depressing. Even more depressing than No Beer. So I came home.

I'm bored now.

Jangle.

Feel a bit peculiar today. I've been trying to cut down on the coffee because my sleep patterns have gone totally paisley, and I've got caffine withdrawals. Went into Big Skool to nose about in the library, then went to lunch with one of the other students. We ended up sitting in Pans for about 2 hrs, talking about flight-related horror stories.

I think the thing that's making me feel peculiar is this: I'm not flunking my course. That's just plain weird. I mean, I've got stuff I need to work on, for sure, but it's mostly unfamiliar jargon and paperwork. the actual standing-up-and-teaching part is going great.

Had a crap lesson on Fri. I was supposed to be teaching my people words for film-related stuff like "director", "cast", "extras" and so on. I'd prepared this really detailed lesson plan to help everyone get to grips with the new vocab., but 10 mins into the lesson it was blindingly obvious that they already knew everything I was trying to teach them, making my entire lesson plan totally redundant and if I carried on like this I would have a mutiny on my hands. So I ended up turning my whole lesson into a big guessing game where one person had to sit with his back to the board, I wrote a film title on the board and everyone else had to tell him stuff about the film until he guessed the title. In my plan I'd allowed time for one or two people, but this way everyone got a turn. Which was a gas, strangely.

I've got an assignment due in on Monday. It's only 1500 words long and will take me maybe a morning to complete, since I've done half of it already. But there's this nagging voice in the back of my head that says I'm not going to be able to get it done in time. I can see what the little voice means: I pretty much fail everything, and since I'm not actually failing my course in the sense of being unable to do the work, then I'll have to do something utterly self-destructive and stupid in order to maintain my perfect record, like just not turn up and not turn in any work or something.

Not. Going. To. Happen. I'm finishing my assignment. I'm getting my lesson plan done for Tuesday. I'm getting my certificate.

I'm enjoying my coffee in this family restaraunt.

Inlightenedment gets spammed. Overreacts.

ok come in

Been reading this sucker for the full three-and-a-bit years? Still find yourselves a touch confused as to what I'm on about half the time?

meet my guru. he hav bin around longer than any of those discordian fules, and he speke Lat. beter than a lot of thelemites. he kno more about hogwarts than h. potter chiz moan drone.

arise sir nigel

But... but... but...

...but that's what kids' telly's SUPPOSED to look like! I was raised on this cr-- Oh, wait...

+ve terminal

'Sfunny: My personal life is in a state of extreme flux right now, but it's also more hopeful and promising than it has been for years. Unburying a skill I had vaguely suspected I might posess is good, of course, but mostly I just have this overall feeling of hopefulness and high-on-the-hogness. I feel... good. Like everything's going to be okay.

That's awake. Asleep I am at the mercy of my paranoia. I keep having these anxiety dreams, which always seem to follow the same pattern: Me and Lurid move to [insert Foriegn Abroad place here] and I end up working as a [insert unlikely job here] on/in a [insert even less likely location/organisation here].

Like as a for example, I drempt a few weeks back that Lurid got a job at an Indian university and the only job I could get was a gopher on a Bollywood film set. Then I drempt that L. got a job at a Chinese university, and I had to get a job as a data entry clerk only all the keyboards had Chinese characters on them so I couldn't use them* and my boss got angry. Then last night's dream put us in Finland (I mean to say, Finland?) and my job was looking after talking cats, and there was a guy who kept trying to chuck the cats off the landing of the block of flats where we were staying.**

Why can't I go back to dreaming about being shot at? It wasn't pleasant, but at least it was simple.

*Except for this one key that had a picture of some cherries on it, and when you hit it there was a sound effect and a big random cartoon picture came up on the screen.

** Don't worry. Turns out that talking cats can also fly, or at least glide gracefully across to the next landing, so I didn't get fired from my completely imaginary job.

back in the jug agane

Well, they haven't booted me out yet. So far so good. I have a horrible gnawing dread that I may be learning more grammar off of this course than the actual students are. Somehow I manage to cover up for that during teaching practice.

Mostly you just figure out who's got the best grasp of English in the class and when someone asks a question you say something like "Ah, yes, good question. Mr Bestgrasp, can you help explain that?" Other than smartypants identification, it's mostly drawing sticklymen and finding ways to explain stuff. Like, on Friday one of my learners asked me what "shouting" was, so I yelled at him.

Well, it worked, didn't it?

(Note: if any of my lecturers are reading this, what I meant to say is I'm developing a student-centered teaching style and devising organic, holistic, real-world excercises to promote understanding. Honest.)

All joking apart, I think I'm doing okay. The students come out knowing pretty much what I was trying to teach them, which I guess is the main thing. I'd hate it if they were coming away either out of their depths or totally unchallenged, and so far I seem to be keeping a balance. The paperwork, however, is a killer.



PS: Fiction addiction? New Inlightenedment.

Inlightenedment!!!1!

I was having so much fun with that Lj voice (y'know, the CUTTING EDGE HYPERSIGEL one), I decided to give her her own account before she takes over my fic journal altogether. In future you will be able to read her here.

I'm a TEACHER!

You all have to give me apples, and also polish the apples so they're shiny.

Yeah, so the course is okay. They're really nice there, I like the other trainees, and my victims students are super-nice cosmopolitan Barcelona types who have cool interests and have been to loads of different places. Just been doing my homework: I'm doing teaching practice tomorrow, so I've drawn a bunch of violent stick figure cartoons on post-cards to demonstrate the past simple versus the past continuous. "Fred was ice-skating when he broke his leg," stuff like that.

The first day was the scariest. They threw me right in the deep end, turning round and telling me to get up and teach for 20 mins. ( ARRRGH.) But it turns out I'm actually pretty good at this. Looking forward to a longer sesh tomorrow afternoon. Hope they like my sticklymen.

Argh argh ARRRRGH.

Okay, so it's my first day of my course, and I got about 3 hours sleep last night and when I woke up I couldn't find my glasses and I looked everywhere and then they were on my nightstand all along, and because the whole transaction was done by email I don't have any kind of reciept or anything and what if they tell me it's all been a big mistake and ARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHH.

"Isn't she loooovely..."

Been doing a spot of work on Ms. Psycho Beauty Queen. At the risk of lapsing into toxic perfectionism, I decided that her outfit (whilst perfectly splendid in its own way) was more "Housewife Goes Mental" than "Psycho Beauty Queen." So I got her a new dress, and did a little grooming too.

Before

After

What's that, Ms. Psycho Beauty Queen? You like your new dress? I'm so pleased. You look so pretty too. Will you stop haunting my nightmares now? You will? No more getting up and trying to gouge my eyeballs out with your comb? Thank you, Ms. Psycho Beauty Queen! Oh, thank you! Thank you! Of course I'll buy you some new shoes! Anything!

I see dead camera straps... flapping around like regular camera straps.

I also see daft bidders... walking aroundlike regular bidders... they don't know they're daft...

Reeling, writhing and fainting in coils.

Today I bit the bullet and bought my first textbook for my course.  Woo.  The full reading list would set me back about €200, so I'm having to be a bit selective.  They don't tell you that you have to buy all, or indeed any, of the books, just that you'll get more out of the course if you buy some of them.

This has been good for my head.  Ever since I signed up I've had way more oomph than recently.  I'm the sort of person that deals pretty well with unemployment, but after more than a year of it I think anyone would flag a little.  This was just what I needed.  Now I have some hope that I might one day get out of the kind of shitty employment I've been stuck in (or no employment, ha ha.)

On the theremin front:  The ultra-simple kiddie science fair circuit is sort of working (most of the time) so I guess I'll start refining it soon.  Still looking for cheap kits.

On the doll front:  Dug out the Beauty Queen and did some more work on her.  Repainted her eyes, which previously I'd just scraped off and filled in with red paint.  Now I've given her a squint and a sneer.  Got round the severed arm falling out of the handbag problem by making some dolly-size barbed wire out of bell-wire and wrapping it round the bag over the invisible string that ties it shut.  She looks a bit better now.  If I made her a case or something to sit in I think she might fetch more.

I'm also working on another fake Barbie doll, nothing special, just replaced its head with an epoxy model.  Sort of horse/lizard face thing.  Mixed up too much Milliput like always, so I made her a sort of grub critter to live in her handbag.  Infant or pet?  Whatever. 
The art shop had a special on papier-mache puppet-heads so I got a couple to paint.  Finished one, a sort of horrible deformed dog who I put in Goth makeup.  Now I'm looking for a suitable body.  Ideally this would be from an existing toy, something some kid has chewed up and chucked out.

Pix as I get to 'em.

HARPOON GUNS!

I just like to say "Harpoon guns."

I'm on a roooll... this time...

I'm evil. But I'm happy.

Juicy Sweeeeeeet!

(In which Lurid is mocked unmercifully.)

So a few days ago me, Lurid Archive and our friend A. were in this restauraunt in Barceloneta*, see? It's my favourite eatery for a numbert of reasons. One, it has really awesome food at about half what you'd pay on the main tourist drag round the corner: tasty, perfectly cooked and lots of it. Two, it is one of the grooviest-looking places in town, being done out with footie pix, images of tiny fluffy kittens, a fishing net on the ceiling with little witch dollies hung off it, a huge red meat-locker of WINE ect. Three: the orujo there is fabulous.

So anyway, there we all were. The menú that day consisted of various starters followed by the main attraction: choice of paella or arroz negro. (Arroz negro, my children, is rice cooked with nummy bits of dead seabeast and cuttlefish ink, hence the being black. In the touristy restauraunts they also add shedloads of food dye, so it looks more like it was cooked in engine oil. )

I am now back on the seabeast, but I plumped for a salad and a selection of tapas. Lurid and A. go for a menú with a huge heap of mussles to kick off and the black rice for a main.

This, as I have said, was not a touristy restaurauraunt. The Arroz arrives, and it looks so very good I almost** regret my salad'n'tapas. Unlike most places, which rely on the exoticism of the whole "Look! BLACK FOOD!" thing to carry the day, they had not stinted on the bits of actual fish. The whole was more sepia than actually black.

All of which threw Lurid, who called the chef back to check that this was the arroz negro and not the paella.

I don't think I've ever heard a chef growl before.

My Castilliano isn't good enough to properly render the stream of ire that followed, but here's the gist: "What? What? Of course it's the arroz negro! What's wrong with it? I cooked it myself! My arroz negro is the best! It's the best in Barcelona!" He shouted some things about cuttlefish ink, then he stormed off into the kitchen for a breather.

During the lull I explained to Lurid about the food dye and the abscence thereof and A. giggled. Then the chef re-emerged with his dudgeon unabated. By this time he'd abandoned reason in favour of English. "Black, black, what is black? It's a stupid colour! A colour for tourists who don't know better!"

Lurid by this time was practically prostrating himself in apology, but the chef was having none of it. He continued to tear strips off Lurid for awhile, then rounded on the table behind us. "What about you, eh?" he demanded of the terrified and boggling diners. "Is your food all right? Any complaints?"

They squeaked their approval of the food. Unmollified, the chef stalked round the room, glowering and snarling (and when I say snarling, I mean it literally; he was making a noise which can best be rendered as "SNHGGGRRRRRR!"). Then he put the football on, with much noisemaking to the effect that if the patrons didn't like it we could lump it.

I didn't stop giggling till well into desert. I have to say that my tarta Santiago was just a smidgen on the dry side, but was I going to complain?

Best. Seafood restauraunt. Ever.

*Barceloneta: former fishing village, now part of Barcelona proper, where you go for to eat tasty fishes.

**Almost.

Ice Cream.

Last night I went to Gracia with Lurid and our friend A., who is visiting. Ate far too much Lebanese food, then had ice-cream from this little place on the Placa Sol. They do the very best ice-cream ever, especially the dark chocolate. I usually have that and one other flavour, like mint or tiramisu. It's wicked stuff.

After that, we all piled into the Verdi and watched the new David Mamet film, Spartan. Very good but sad. Then brewskis, then nightbus. Got home around 3.

Couple of things to do today. I've got to pick up supplies for my course, lined pads and white-board markers and so on, but I also want to get doll-vandalising supplies. Last night I dreamed I was in this fantastic art shop with loads of amazing stuff, really cheap. I was super-pissed when I woke up. Man, I hate dreams like that. I get them all the time these days.

I've updated my other blogs, including an entry in my fiction Lj. Now stop nagging me.

Swimming.

I got on the course after all. I start in a couple of weeks.

One of my sex robot stories got rejected again. Dammit, why don't people want to read about headless amputee sex robots? What's wrong with them? I hate it when those get rejected. I feel all embarassed, even when the same publication has poems about fisting and stuff.

Had an idea a couple of days ago: being eaten by your furniture porn. There must be people who want to read about that, surely.

Anyhow I'm bored now and I'm going swimming.

Argh shit.

Y'know I was worried about various people back in the UK? Turns out I was right to worry. One of the people I was concerned about has suffered a major health disaster that could put hir in a wheelchair. I'm horrified and, as usual, completely bloody unable to help.

'K...

So I'm still--still!--not sure if I'm going to be doing my course next month. Lurid is getting an extra 6 months from his boss here so that's all sorted, but there's still the money. We need a bank loan, and there's no guarantee that it will go through before my place is given to someone else. Meh. It's cool, really, because I know this is just a postponement, but I can't say I'm huuuugely thrilled at the thought of another couple of months' fruitless jobhunting.

The Kelly in town is doing free telemarketing courses. I'm going for it. Fucking hate telemarketing but I haven't worked in a year and a half, and am beginning to fear I may never work again. "Stressful" doesn't cover it. "Adrenal glands being squeezed like the udders of a small and highly strung cow and their contents left to sour in my viens until I sweat anxiety" might be nearer the mark.