Monday

Okay, I haven't posted on here for a while and I guess its time I did some sort of update! Had an enjoyable day at Collectormania just over a week ago and saw Iron Man at the flicks in the afternoon with Derek and Carla. I am not sure what I made of Iron Man to be honest. I thought it was okay and fun for the most part, certainly not one of those movies that you need to think too hard about. I liked Robert Downey Jr although I did struggle to warm to his character. Before the film was a trailer for Indiana Jones and much like Iron Man, it didn't really blow me away, although I got hooked by the music! I love John Williams' Raiders March - he does marches so well! I am looking forward to seeing the film in Brum at the end of the month. It should be a fun weekend as on the Friday I am going to the National Railway Museum at York. Although I managed to get a bargain set of fares on the train, the cost of staying over in Brum is expensive. Still, its not often that I go away so why not make the most of it?

I've also seen the trailer for Star Wars: Clone Wars, which also left me feeling completely underwhelmed. Oh dear... There is no question of not seeing it, I just won't go in with any high expectations. It looked to me to be rather light on plot and character development and heavy on visual effects and big battle sequences. Nothing wrong with that I guess but it does get tedious in my view if that is all the film is going to be.

I am still waiting to hear if/when I start my permanent job. I say if, although I don't know why there should be any doubt about it. I think I am nervous because of my bad experiences last year and have this fear that they're going to tell me that they've made a mistake and sorry the job isn't mine. I wrote before on here about how I felt dissatisfied with what I was doing. I've sort of got over that phase by focusing on things that I am doing out of work and trying to make the most of my time in the office and getting to know the people I am working with better. I find it hard to get to know new people - I am not a great conversationalist and I don't much enjoy small talk.

Out of work I am fearing that I have begun to take on too many commitments. Already I run a web site for one of the railway clubs that I belong too and recently joined the committee of another. Now, I've volunteered myself to run another web site, although I took it on the strict understanding that the input from me would be limited. Then, there is my OU studies, which I should really devote more time too and the possibility of studying for a Diploma in Insurance through my new job. Not to mention my volunteering at Bletchley Park, which I still hope to start soon... When am I going to fit all this in?

One thing which I really need to work on is my time management and being more disciplined in getting things done. I sort of had the right idea last Monday - the Bank Holiday - deliberately getting up the same time as I would going to work and using the extra hours to get to grips with my OU coursework. After that, it all went downhill and so the plans for doing some housework and those other boring tasks, slipped back a day. I find that I let hours drift by, not through doing nothing but by diverting myself into doing things which don't really deserve a priority like a sudden decision to have a declutter and move a pile of magazines and stuff from one place to another! I start things and never finish them because I either lose interest part way through or find something else that I perceive as more interesting to get done. I really need to learn to focus on one thing at a time and see it through. I do spend far too much time surfing the net and before I know it, there is another couple of hours gone. Then I am too tired/bored/disinterested to be doing the jobs which I should have got done.

Exercise is a case in point. I made a promise to myself that when I got home from work I would do ten minutes a day on the exercise bike. Its not much but I rationalised that ten minutes would be nothing, it would be done and out of the way and by getting into the habit I would gradually want to do more. I've failed to achieve even this simple objective nearly everyday because I dread doing it all day, although really it is hardly a chore, so that by the time I get home, I find other things to distract me - a sudden job that must be done. So instead I put off doing any exercise and then by the time I realise that I haven't done it, like now, its too late and time for bed! And thus the self-defeating circle continues. Does any of this make sense? If I know what the problem is and understand that I am doing, why can't I simply overcome it?

In a quandary

I am not sure what to do about my job. I know I spent the best part of the end of last year and the beginning of this bleating about being unemployed and so now that I am working, I may seem incredibly ungrateful to be moaning about it. Not that I have a problem with work just that I wished it was more interesting and more challenging. I find the days drag by and I am getting bored because what I am doing is not using my brain at all and I don't feel stretched. On the plus side, there is absolutely no stress, little responsibility and I have good hours. The people I work with are okay but the office is completely without any dynamic. In some ways that is nice. I have worked in highly-politicised office environments before and so to find one that isn't like that is refreshing. However, it seems to be absent of any interaction at all and although I do try to involve myself, the fact that I am sitting at the end of a row of desks, with my back to the colleagues I am working with, is not conducive to feeling part of a team. I do feel sometimes like the outsider, particularly when I hear references to 'the temp or temps.'

Moreover, I guess the deeper feeling is one of failure. Here I am, thirty-two years old, doing data input all day. Its the sort of a job a school leaver would be doing. I am not earning much but that doesn't bother me as much as my loss of pride I guess in what I am doing. I don't feel great about going to work; I feel I should be making more of my life, that it should have more importance than it does at the moment.

I raised the subject of my current assignment with the agency because a). I have no idea how long it is for, and b). to see if there was another opportunity available that would use my skills and experience more effectively and challenge me more than what I am doing now. I got a polite rebuff on both points. Apparently 'I was told' that this assignment would be long term, which is not my recollection and could lead to a permanent post. I can't see myself doing data input for the rest of my career! The agency suggested that I contact them today to discuss further, which I did but it seems that they're 'too busy' to talk to me about any of this and that really pisses me off. I find it downright rude and discourteous for someone to ask you to call them and to then not call you back when they have promised to do so. I am not likely to push the issue any further but I am not happy about it.

So where do I go from here? Do I just sit tight and plod along, looking for other opportunities that come my way? Or do I bite the bullet and insist on something else?

I have been looking at other jobs. One I've applied for and am waiting to hear back from. Another agency contacted me about a job in MK but as with most vacancies I have heard about through agencies that has come to nought. There is another job that I am considering applying for at the moment.

Sigh. Is it so hard to find that 'right' job?

A bit of this, some of that and quite a lot of the other

Over the weekend I dipped into the Classic FM Hall of Fame 2008 Countdown. Its been a long while since I have listened to Classic FM. I went off it a bit to be honest but listening again I noted that its changed a little, got some new presenters (mainly as a result of its sister station TheJazz going under) and a new sound, which I am not sure I entirely like. The Hall of Fame is a countdown of the supposedly 300 most popular pieces of classical music, which the station does every Easter weekend. I've voted for pieces the last few years and I try to be quite careful and thoughtful with my choices. Although I did enjoy a lot of the music I heard I do have some reservations about the Hall of Fame idea. Part of me thinks its just not right to do a 'Top 40' style chart of classical music; it just doesn't seem to fit comfortably. My bigger concern though is that are these choices really the nation's favourite pieces of classical music? I ask because all too often it is the same movement or excerpt that is played from a work, year in, year out. Therefore, do people who vote actually like the work or just the piece that is played every year in the Hall of Fame? To give a couple of examples - the opera Peter Grimes by Benjamin Britten is always represented by one of the four Sea Interludes and Elgar's Enigma Variations is always Nimrod. These pieces in themselves are wonderful and Nimrod is absolutely exquisite but they are just part of larger works both of which I like in their entirety, not just for the selected highlights played in the Hall of Fame.

Also some of the selections seem unfair. For example, while Spitfire Prelude and Fugue from First of the Few is worthy of inclusion on its own, Star Wars presumably encompasses all six movies and Lord of the Rings similarly all three movies. Again who knows, because it is the same piece played each year, giving no clue as to whether this represents a single film or the whole saga in these cases. Which brings me to my final point, say for example that I voted for The Emperor's Death from Return of the Jedi, does this count as a vote for a) Star Wars, b) Return of the Jedi or c) for the track The Emperor's Death? Methinks that the voting is not particularly transparent and is unfairly weighted towards certain pieces or works.

Having said all that I was pleased to see that Ralph Vaughan Williams' The Lark Ascending remains at Number One. Whatever such an accolade might mean, it is still one of the most beautiful and exquisitely English pieces of music I have heard,

Along the way I was inspired by a couple of pieces I heard by living composers and have been prompted to buy CD's to try their work. I will let you know what I make of it when the CDs have arrived and I have had a chance to listen to them.

An article on the BBC News web site about London's bendy buses caught my eye. These buses are loathed apparently and two of the candidates for London Mayor have said that they would withdraw them. I used the bendy buses on route 73 frequently when I was working in London last year and I don't understand what all the fuss is about. I think the bendy bus is a great idea especially in congested urban areas - they are quick, easy to get on and off and I thought quite fun to ride on. Only very rarely did I have to stand and often it wasn't for long. There seems to be a lot of misty eyed nostalgia for the Routemaster, which to an extent I share. They were after all the only bus to be purpose built for London and they fulfilled their role admirably over many decades but lets be honest they are hardly the most user friendly bus in the modern age, especially for people with disabilities. It seems that Boris Johnson wants to bring back some version of the Routemaster although I don't really see the need and why replace something like the bendy bus that seems to work so well?

I had a bit of a sort out over the Easter weekend. Well, I say that but truth be told it was really more a paper shuffling exercise because I am so loathed to ditch anything. I am amazed at just how much paper I collect - newspaper cuttings, magazine articles, brochures, leaflets, timetables, pamphlets, correspondence, bills, junk mail, things that really should have been responded to weeks ago and just miscellaneous other stuff. I keep newspaper cuttings and magazine articles that catch my eye and file them according to whether its something to do with Milton Keynes or anything else. I am a terrible hoarder of magazines, whether it be film or railway mags and I was flicking through a couple of the latter from the 1990s and was surprised at how little has changed. The railways were going through the same convulsions of self-doubt and public criticism then as they are now! Timetables I keep because they are useful (whilst they are still current) and still interesting even when they are not. Okay, I might be alone on that one, lol! Seriously though, some good money can be made from old timetables and some are more collectible than others. I do tend to pick up a leaflet or pamphlet from everywhere I go. I gather them as eagerly as I do fridge magnets, bookmarks and pens!

Correspondence there is not so much of these days. I think its a shame that generally people seem to have lost the art of letter writing. E-mails just aren't the same. I've had a wonderfully catty and gossipy e-mail from someone who I used to work with but can't help feeling it would mean more and read better if it was good old pen on paper, lol. Bills I seem to gather with alarming ease and although they're all paid (I ensure that everything goes out on Direct Debit) it still worries me when I find the gas or telephone bill or some other such request for money from some months back.

I feel better for having sorted through it all or rather, moving it all from one pile into new neat collections in various folders, to be put away.

I sometimes wonder what someone would make of the things that I have collected if they came and had a rifle through my bookcases and folders. What would they think it said about me? A lot of it I keep private not because it is not things that I wouldn't share with anyone else, just that I don't think it would be that interesting.

One of the things I suppose I am doing as I am sorting through all this is censoring myself, deciding what can be left on display and what has to be discreetly packaged away, kept for my eyes only. I am the same when writing e-mails. I might have said this before but I will often write and rewrite parts of an e-mail until I get it 'just right.' I always worry that I might be too indiscreet or come across as being pompous, stupid, boring or lecturing. There are probably as many e-mails that I don't send as those that I do because I think they'll be boring or sound stupid or come across as me trying to drum into my friends that they should be interested in all the things that I am interested in.

Work is going okay at the moment although I have realised that every office that I have worked in, including the current one, are clones of each other. They are inhabited by the same basic collection of personalities, have the same politics and dynamics and are very much indistinguishable from each other when you get down to it. Not to say that is necessarily a bad thing, just that I find it amusing to realise that all these people that I am working with now I've worked with before, although they looked different and had different names!

Not sure what I will do long term and I don't have a clear idea how long this temp position will last. However, I am still looking at other jobs and keeping alert to what opportunities there are. I will need to find myself something permanent by the summer I should think.