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...