Die, troll, die

I am frustrated. Since Wednesday I've been trying to kill this fucking troll on Baldur's Gate II. I actually managed it yesterday, but my quick-saving wasn't quick enough and I was killed by a big green snake man.
I'm not a gamer really. I look upon female gamers either as a bit butch or just trying to fit in with the boys. I guess if I WAS a gamer I'd be the latter, so don't worry, I'm only jealous. I play BGII for nostalgia reasons, as my brother and sister had it when I was about 11 and I borrowed it from them. I was crap then, I don't think I even got out of the city gates.
I am still crap. I can't kill this fecking troll. SADFACE

Sickness Trip

I went on my first business trip this week. My company organises and hosts the Coach Tourism Awards, as exciting as they sound, so a bunch of us went off to Stratford (that's Stratford-upon-Avon Stratford and not shitty East London Stratford) and my boss was sweet enough to invite me along.

We set off first thing on Thursday morning, stopped at Tesco and McDonald's on the way and ate fuckloads, then got to the hotel motel Holiday Inn and worked a fairly boring afternoon. It was boring. My job was to stand in the hallway and ask anyone looking a bit lost if they needed our workshop, then direct them there, but someone said I looked bored and then someone else asked if I was there for 'decorative purposes'. Cheers, luv.

At six o'clock I was allowed to change into my LPD (little purple dress) ready for the awards, and a bunch of us sat in the garden drinking the free wine, stuffing canapés in our faces (ok, that was mainly me) and chatting. It really was pleasant. The weather was lovely, and with one glass of cheap plonk inside me I can talk to anyone. Shame I didn't stop at one.

I don't remember much of the awards themselves. Anyone know Bob Mills? A famous comedian apparently. I've heard of him, but couldn't tell you what he's done. Anyway, he sat next to me and I charmed the pants off him. According to my colleague anyway, who gushes a bit once he's had a couple. I asked Bob if I could have his autograph and he said, 'No. Not unless you can name something I've done.' What a legend. I never did get that autograph.

I felt definitely worse for wear by the end of the awards, so I didn't hang around long before going to my hotel room. I rang Jiff then got ready for bed and slept for a bit. My colleague Lauren woke me up when she came to bed a couple of hours later, which was when I got up to throw up.

I thought I'd feel better then, but no, I woke up several times in the night to throw up. After the third time, when there was naught left to spew but a tasty mix of bile and stomach acid, it dawned on me that I'd caught the bug my sister had been ill with earlier that week and I wasn't just drunk. Took me long enough.

It was a rough night. I missed Jiff and also my mum. I was all alone in a town far from home and Lauren was snoring. I had to wake up stupidly early so we could all be back in the office by 10, but I got up at six to be sick anyway so I didn't bother going back to bed after that. I threw up in the car on the way back, which was when my workmates conceded that I had to be genuinely ill and not just hungover/skiving. Bless them.

Jiff fetched me from my office and took me to his. He put me in bed and let me sleep all day. When I woke up in the late afternoon and didn't feel sick anymore, he made me some soup. He ran me a bath in the evening, then held me until I went to sleep. Don't mean to gush, but he's awesome.

Freedom of Experience

In an unprecedented show of good will and kindness, I emailed my boss last week to say that I was just finishing college for the summer and would thus be available to work more hours or change them over the next few months, should he need me to. He emailed me back straight away to say we’d have a chat the following day about his ‘thoughts’ on this, and my heart sank. I’d been looking forward to the next four months of essentially having two weekends every week, and I was convinced he would have me in five days a week instead like any normal person.

So we sat down for a chat, and he announced he’d like me to do some work for the editorial side of the business instead of just admin, which is pretty much my dream come true, with maybe some studio work thrown in too. Then he said, ‘We won’t pay you for it,’ in one quick breath. Oh no. Apparently it’s supposed to be just AWESOME for me because it’s work experience, and as I’m a student I suppose they feel that they can take advantage a bit. No matter that I’m probably as good as any of the existing editorial team, though I suppose I don’t come with specialist knowledge of buses and coaches. But I’ve been there for nine months, I know more than enough! I think the real reason they won’t pay me is a) obviously they’re a business, not a charity, and as such will do all they can to conserve money, and b) they can’t be arsed to alter the pay roll for four months. Oh well, I guess it does give me the upper hand if I'm doing work for free. Plus it'll only be one extra day a week.

But really I can’t complain at all. I’ve been so lucky with this job. It pretty much fell into my lap, and I didn’t even have to have any kind of formal interview until last month. Plus they can’t have me full time till 2012, which is a fucker for them but they’ll keep me anyway. It’s thanks to them that I’m even doing a degree, since I don’t have any A Levels. My boss is like my Dumbledore. He even put a magazine on my desk the other day with an article about young journalists getting careers, bless him. Apparently to break into the business you need patience, tenacity and most importantly, experience. Fuck, man, I’m already there.

An atypical bus journey

I left my earphones at home. I have my iPod on me, you understand, but I’d recently been listening to my old iPod for a nostalgia trip and I’d left the earphones connected to it, at home. I was rootling in my ridiculously capacious bag for them all the way to the bus stop. When I got on the bus I emptied the bag and was finally forced to conclude that it just isn’t going to be a musical day.

This is the worst bus journey ever, save perhaps the time some arsehole sat next to me and used his elbow to feel me up. Some cow is in my usual seat at the front of the bus on the right hand side. As soon as I saw her from the bus stop I felt an irrepressible bad mood coming on, which may well last all day. There is a child – sex indeterminate – at the back of the bus, who is silent when the bus is still but makes a truly horrible wailing noise when it’s in motion. If I listen to it hard enough it’s like a siren’s song.

To add insult to injury, there’s a man sitting in front of me with earphones in and I can hear the noise from them. Not loud enough to actually hear, just loud enough for that audible ‘tsh-tsh-tsh’. I am jealous. Usually it’s me annoying everyone with loud music, occasionally tapping a foot or nodding my head not quite in time with it and trying hard not to hum.

The worst thing, the very worst thing, aside from the wailing sprog and the fact that I am deprived of tuuuuunes, is that when I opened my notebook at a random page to scrawl down some angry thoughts, I found that my brother had written at some point in the past, ‘Dear Jess. Whatever you’re doing now, I’m still having a more awesome time. Regards, Ben.’ He couldn’t have been more right.