At the car wash .. woahoahoahoah

Who would have thought that attempting to wash my little car would be such an epic! 

I thought all I would have to do is open the garage get the bucket sponge and car wash stuff and off i trot with a hose pipe.. bish bash bosh .. jobs a good'un.

No.

1) Parentals thought it would be a good idea to lock me in house

2) Go through back door and then it wont close ... decide to leave it open and 'air' the house

3) Let in giant wasp

4) Find front door key. oops.

5) Try to get in garage. locked. since when do we lock our garage.

6) Find a pile of keys are start trying them all

7) Break lock to the point where if falls out the garage

8) Garage still locked.....how.....there is no lock anymore!

9) Find key labelled garage key

10) Finally get garage to open but lock still broken also

11) No bucket

12) No sponge

13) No car soap stuff

14) Go to get hose and find hose is now attached to wall as part of our new 'irrigation' system that we were so desperately needing

15) Get back garden hose

16) Hose doesnt work

17) Decide to use fish crate as a bucket

18) Fill fish crate with water and fairy liquid

19) Find sponge

20) Cant lift crate ... get very wet

21) Begin the washing process

22) Realise sponge is not sponge but is for inside of car

23) 'Sponge' getting very black and not much cleaning is happening

24) Get round entire car and realise it looks worse and gone streaky

25) Throw a lot of water from carrier onto car in hope it gets automatically cleaned

26) It doesnt

27) I get very wet

28) Try it again incase first time I threw it wrong

29) I didnt

30) Get more wet

31) Go to get mini vac to clean inside

32) Mini vac broken

Decided to go to one of those hand wash car places ...... bloody hell!

50 things that make me happy ...

Stolen from Lindsay:

1. Starbucks

2. Top Shop

3. Handbags

4. The Chris Moyles Show

5. The Scott Mills Show

6. Rabbits

7. Beagles

8. Jason Mraz

9. Sun

10. Saunas

11. Florida

12. California 08

13. Laughing

14. Sit ups (wierd!)

15. Drinking with Bethany

16. La Senza

17. Tiffany Jewellery 

18. Tea and Scones

19. Musicals

20. The Apprentice 

21. Shubert Alley (At stagedoor)

22. Happy Birthday sang in perfect harmony 

23. Getting £25 incentives 

24. Nandos

25. Rose Wine

26. Twilight/New Moon/Eclipse/Breaking Dawn

27. Scrapbooking with Jennifer and her friends!

28. Step Class

29. Running

30. Dancing

31. Diet Coke

32. Grimsby Town

33. Atmosphere at football matches

34. New Clothes

35. New Shoes

36. People playing with my hair

37. Live Music

38. High School Musical

39. Americas Next Top Model

40. Scrubs

41. Hugh Grant

42. Jolly Boys

43. Aeroplanes

44. Bummies

45. Agrah

46. Slumdog Millionaire

47. Cesar Milan

48. The weekend team

49. Horseriding 

50. Skydiving

Animal loving.....

So folks ... the votes are in ... and yes ... I am ... employee of the month!! Check me out! My love for animals is so great that I actually excel at all things animal related enough to win a box of chocs! yum yum yum! And my chocolate ban is up on Sunday so it seems the perfect time to win such a thing!  Here is a few things I have learnt about animals in the past 24 hours ...

1) Greyhounds and Whippets have thin necks with not much muscle ... therefore normal collars can effect their trachea's so they have special collars ... they should also never wear a choke chain.

2) Drontal is the only worming medication that covers dogs and cats against all worms ... and these worms are not pretty, I saw pictures.

3) We own what may be the cutest bunny known to man .. and it has funny tear ducts ... and its ugly .. which makes it even cuter.

So there you have it ... my top 3 animals facts for the week! Although the last one is not really a fact .. except it is.

To end this note I would like to say that I have infact FINISHED my dissertation.....thats right! all done and dusted! fantastic!

Au Reviour! 

Africa - The South of

So after a hard day moving dog beds around my store and finally fitting out 14 of the 16 remaining back stock beds onto some racking I returned home thinking my day had actually been rather productive and ... for a good 99% of my working day ... I had a good laugh! I do thoroughly enjoy my weekend team and managers team of dreams we have going on! We do what we do, and we do it well! Dare I say I am almost at the point where I love my store AND my stock! Shocking. Me and my co-worker actually had to remove ourselves from the 'we have finished our shift and are standing outside gossiping' situation earlier due to our over excitement of which brands make which dog food. For those who are wondering ... example 1 ... nestle = bakers. fact.

Back to the point.

I was sat on my bed happily enjoying the sun beating through my attic window and warming my room, preparing myself to read approximately 300 pages of marketing (Smith et al) in preparation for my final week of marketing discussion posts ... when my phone rang.  It was a number that I didn't know, but it wasn't with-held, so .... out of character .... I answered it.  

As it happens it was a guy who interviewed me to go on a volunteering project to South Africa.  I got the gig! So in a mere 5 months time I will be shipped off to Ladysmith to work with the community on a variety of cultural heritage projects, as well as teaching in some of their schools. I am VERY excited! I will be there a month. And get to travel afterwards. I get to see wiiiiild animals! RAAAWR! I don't actually know any other details yet but I will keep you posted. 

In the mean time.

Up top is  pic of where i will be going... 

Goodbye facebook .. you have treated me well.

There is a fine line between stalking and just taking a slight interest in some person (Who you have probably not seen since school) life.  Facebook takes this to a new level, allowing people to judge you for many years after your last conversation.  All facebook users are guilty of this pleasure we call facebook stalking, and it is used as a procrastinator for many students across the world.  With deadlines only a few weeks away for major pieces of life altering work, it amazes me how many people still sit on facebook for hours on end, checking out people they don't really care about, but they care about more than doing actual work.  I am one that is very guilty of this, and therefore, I have deleted (or deactivated) my facebook account.  I am 24 hours in and it is going ok, I have found YouTube to be quite a healthy distraction from any work I do actually need to do, as well as Twitter, which is an up and coming favourite distraction website of mine!  After all .. facebook is now turning into twitter .. so what is the difference anyway! Now instead of stalking my friends from years past, I can stalk celebrities. Good plan.

On a side note, I am going to see Lily Allen tonight, and I am also wondering where my Jason Mraz tickets are, surely they should be delivered by now. 

I am also on the final (2 week) countdown until Easter! Horrah! I cannot wait to sit in my bedroom and gaze out at the sun wishing I could be out there but instead I am inside writing and editing.  Thank god this is my last year in education, the thing I am looking forward to right now, is the ability to come home from a days work and relax, not have to think I need to read two chapters of Smith et al (2007) before tomorrow! Happy Days! Bring on the summer!

Times a Ticking

When I arrived at work today I was a calm collected and normal human being.

When I left work today I was a person of mad panic and the ability to self destruct at any moment.

I realised, halfway through my shift, the extent of the amount of work I actually have left to do in the following 6 weeks.  And no, I am not talking about cute little rabbit and other small animal related work.

In the next few weeks, I am going to be bogged down under a pile of dissertation papers, writing and re-writing my work, to get it condensed into a short 12,000 word piece of something that is worth marking.  I thought I was going along well with it, until I realised that the big chunk of it in the middle I have yet to start, and that I should really get started on that! Shit a brick ... it takes it out of you.  And I also need to re-post on the marketing discussion boards.  God bless my university and its thinking that posting on internet discussion sites is a valid 50% of a final year piece of work. Bull shit.  If I come out with a good grade I will jump off a roof in shock.  At the moment I am on a 71.5% for my course which leaves me with a first class honours degree ... which is not what I am going to come out with at the end of the year after the shambles of this semesters classes.

Anyway that is enough ranting and raving from me .... I am going to be productive and go and watch dancing on ice!!  

The return of the MJ!!

After careful planning (and a lot of luck) ... this morning ... I managed ... to get ... MJ TICKETS ... for the 10th July 2009!!! That's right folks ... the most anticipated tour EVER is hitting London's O2 arena, and as a loyal and worthy customer of o2 for many a year now I have 4 brand spanking tickets!

This is not all without cost though ... obv the tickets cost a fair wack (Thank you dads credit card!) and my contract is not exactly free ... but at this moment in time I want to kiss the lady who convinced me that cancelling my o2 contract would be the most ridiculous thing I would ever do.  She was right.  If I had done that ... and then MJ announced this tour ... I would have cried! She even gave me £150 credit to help pay my bills ... and £14.50 off my tariff every month. What a nice lady she is. If I could remember her name I would write to o2 and tell them of my saviour who is disguised as a member of their call team.

The only (and I mean ONLY) downside to this entire situation is that o2 priority only let you buy 4 tickets for each number, and as I am the only member of my family on o2 (Fantastic with my unlimited o2 - o2 calls i might add) I had the sole responsibility of getting the tickets.  Which I did. Except we needed 5. Which i did not get.  THEREFORE after getting up at 6am today ... I now also have to get up at 6am on Friday (The night after my housemates birthday party so it will probably be just as easy for me to stay awake!) and try and acquire more tickets.  Lovely. I blame my parental units for this early wake up call as they will be sunning themselves in the Caribbean .. and therefore cannot make the call/stalk internet websites themselves.  How inconsiderate of them.

My music tour o9 as it is now known starts in a few weeks with Lily Allen at the Leeds o2 academy (Yes apparently I am obsessed with o2 venues!) and then in a mere one month I will be hitting the Manchester academy to see Jason Mraz which I am EXTREMELY excited about! I love his music and I cant wait! Even though I have to drive there and back and then hit work the next day at 7:30 .... it's totally worth it! You should check out his website .. its rather humorous if you set it to voice .. funny guy!

After that its the Leeds Universities Summer Ball in which we get the delights of Katy Perry, Reverend and the Makers and Pendulum.  This is our last ball as students ... so its going to be a messy one! 

Then its on to Glastonbury for 5 days of fun (after the previous 5 days are spent in Sweden on a football tour!) Acts include Blur, Lily Allen, Dizzee Rascal, DJ Yoda plus loads more to be confirmed! 

And following that (with my graduation in between) is MJ! 

Its going to be a busy summer.

Do I know this?

So .. while doing my reading for marketing week 7 ... i came across this..

There is something I don't know

that I am supposed to know.

I don't know what it is I don't know, 

and yet am supposed to know;

and I feel I look stupid

if I seem both not to know it

and not to know what it is I don't know.

Therefore I pretend to know it.

This is nerve racking

since I don't know what I must pretend to know.

Therefore I pretend to know everything.

I feel you know what I am supposed to know

but you can't tell me what it is

because you don't know that I don't know what it is.

You may know what I don't know, but not

that I don't know it,

and I can't tell you. So you will have to tell me everything.

(R D Laing's Knots)

In a nutshell .... that is the basis of my entire academic life!

Sucking up ... beyond belief

So yesterday me and my house mate, Soph, went to an exhibition down in London, to help further our ever so non existent careers.  After waking up at silly o-clock to get the train we were well on our way to becoming CEO's of any company we wanted! 

We managed to kiss ass with many of the industry's finest which has given us contacts for future 'free' work we get to do! Lovely Jubly.  We then got a little tipsy with a few of them ... even more fun! Can't beat a free drink or two now can you.  

We also smoozed with lecturers from our current establishment and I have now been roped into producing a 400 word business enterprise award, in which i am guaranteed to win, as no one else has entered.  I then get to go to a meal with all the lecturers ... can anyone say swot.com?! I might as well have brown noser tattooed across my forehead! 

I would say the most exciting thing about our day was the photo hat challenge ... in which we had to have photo booth pictures taken with four different hats on 

My favourite (Basically the best one of me!) ...

We then decided to head on down to a mexican restaurant for 241 cocktails and some grub, only to find out (When we got the bill) that 241 is only downstairs.

Remember kids ..... always read the small print!!

Post numero uno

Well ... since the world is now doing it .... I guess I should do it as well, after all I tend to follow the ways of others, otherwise why would I have joined a gym and put myself through hours of running? To get fit you may think, but actually, I don't feel like I am getting any fitter ... just a little less red in the face, maybe it is the influx of Leeds Rhino's that appear every few days to use the sauna and hot tub, I must admit that this is a huge factor in the apparent 'choice' of joining my particular gym, but the main reason is that my other three house mates also go there, and I would never want to be left out of such a bonding experience, even though we (1) do not always go together and (2) do not really speak if we are there at the same time.  But lo and behold, every month a mere £46 pounds exits my bank account so I do not feel left out!

So this is my first blog, I don't really know what else to say now after my gym rant, except that you should all follow my sisters blog, about her charity bike ride to amsterdam! I am rather impressed although slightly concerned that while biking she is listening to the Juno soundtrack, I would much rather her listen to on-coming traffic, but what do I know, I must be getting old! (After all 22 is when you are supposed to start using wrinkle cream ... right Lucy!)

This blog is more than likely going to become an outlet for all my anger towards the dreaded big D (My dissertation) that is due in in exactly 8 weeks..... that may sound like a long time, but actually, it is not, at all. I have to start thinking of what to do with my life.  Next month I have an interview with a certain cruise company and if I am successful my life will be a lot less stressful, and if it is not successful, then I will be back to square one! 

So fingers crossed!!