Meaningless, meaningless

Oh, so Facebook does actually have a blog, they just call it "notes" instead.  How am I supposed to know that?  Anyway, I'm here now, and I'm going to tell you about my new life, so there.

For those who missed it, I am now in the wondrous town of Edinburgh, just oustide the Old Town, which is all windy roads and houses stacked on top of each other, and FUCKING COBBLES, which are playing merry hell with my precious road bike.  Grr.

Work is about a million times better than in Sheffield... although despite myself I am missing the people a bit.  There aren't as many eccentrics here.  But the Scottish Exec has a POOL!  And a SAUNA!  And a big basket full of flippers!  And an aerobics studio.  I did Pilates this morning.  Alan would be proud. :-D

My flatmate is a police officer.  She has handcuffs and a stab-proof vest and everything.  And she is a fitness freak and lives entirely on raw fruit and vegetables (almost).

I tried fencing a couple of times, but I gave it up.  Now I'm playing mixed football, which is well good.  I get RESPECT off the blokes because most of the girls aren't that good.  It makes me happy.

There's a place about half a mile from me where you can take your bike and for £3 an hour you can use all their tools and they help you fix it yourself.  Tom and I went there yesterday and I changed my brake pads, which strangely is something I've never done before.  And when you finish up and your hands are all covered in black greasy dirt there's a magic paste that looks like hummus you can use to wash your hands.  It's a world of adventure.

Time for me to shut up.  Will write more soon if people leave me comments.

*mwah*

Rosie 

Ohhhhhhhh.

I was just about to post saying has anyone seen this? and then I looked at Alan's blog and he had.  I'm obviously not the only one who listens to the Today programme.

It did bring to mind the bit of Everything is Illuminated (the book, not the rubbish film) where the whole of the shtetl takes up novel writing and they end up with a whole library of books which they never read. 

Back in Sheffield. Was feeling quite glum last night, what with not having any friends here and having seen all the astro people and all the juggling people far too briefly. Better today though -- I've been reminding myself how fun it is to be a geek by installing ubuntu. And I've made rice pudding in the slow cooker my mum got me for Christmas. And done lots and lots of laundry.

I've been thinking about death a lot recently. I don't like living on my own, it makes me think about dying alone.  And there's no one to distract me from thinking about it.  I don't think you can gain a lot from thinking about dying.  No one wants to, everyone has to -- that's about as far as you can get.

I'm not good in the winter, that's for sure.  My brain doesn't work properly as soon as darkness falls.  I wish I could hibernate.

I think I either want a flatmate or want to move into a shared house.  But then it's really nice when Tom comes up and we have the flat to ourselves.  And it's nice not having to look at other people's washing up (or lack of).  Maybe I could buy a house and have a lodger, then they'd have no choice but to submit to my control freakery.  And I'd have a house.  Though given how hard I find choosing even trivial things, the prospect of house hunting is terrifying.

Working tomorrow.  After a brief period of job-loving, I'm now back into job-hating mode.  I need intellectual stimulation!  Is that too much to ask when you work for Government?

Bah, humbug. 

Yet again I managed to type a whole post and then lost it in the uploading.  Waaaaaaa!

Please can you text me and identify yourself so that I can store your number in my shiny new phone.  I had them all stored in the memory of my old phone instead of the SIM.

There was more to say, but I'm sulking now.  *pout*  

My life's taken a rather nice turn for the brilliant recently. I'm in Leicester at the moment, which is always good. Had lovely meal and lots of laughing with Clurb, Plumsie, Uncle D and Alby on Saturday night. I've managed to shake off the mild Dean obsession and be quite matey with him. Viva is passed, thesis is printed and has been deposited for binding.

Three main wonderfulnesses:

1. Being Dr Rosie, obviously. I can now get on with the next phase of my life. Which is rather enjoyable, for the following reasons.

2. On my Government stats induction course last week I happened to meet a dreamy, floppy-haired, funny, nice bloke from London called Tom. And now I don't have any corrections I have time to go and see him at the weekend. Yay! As well as being nice to see him, since I'll be staying at his flat I'll have an opportunity to check out how much of a messy/tidy person he is. These things are important, if love is to blossom. ;-)

3. Went back to Sheffield yesterday for our unit's "away day" -- icebreakers, finding out what all the other teams do, etc.  Got there and was told that we'd won the "Top Team award", which I'd spent my first couple of weeks compiling the nomination form for.  So now, along with a cash prize, I have another reason to go to London... :-) :-)

One not-so-good thing is that the week before the induction course I chanced to meet a similarly nice statistician called Tom in the pub in Sheffield.  And I acted all interested.  And so he did too.  And now I feel like a mean nasty woman for having to pretend I just wanted to be friends all along.

I'm getting bloody men are like bloody buses syndrome again.  Apart from that, everything seems to be going a bit too well.  I suspect someone will pull the rug out from under my feet soon...

1.  I'VE SUBMITTED MY THESIS!

2. I'VE FOUND A FLAT!

3. I CAN'T WIPE THE BIG STUPID GRIN OFF MY FACE. :-) 

(Thesis 200 pages, went in an hour and a half ago, so glad the bloody thing's done.  Flat is 2 bed in Sharrow, 8 years old, high ceilings, rocks big time.   Going to the pub (Marquis) in a bit if anyone isn't in Bristol and fancies joining me.)

I *will* come to Bristol in the week, even if it's just for overnight.  But the weather has to promise to be nice as my tent only has 1 layer.  Have fun until I see you!

(Oh btw, you the initiated are all invited to my parents' house to juggle fire/ otherwise have fun/ weep and say goodbye on Monday 26th.  Haven't cleared it with my parents yet but I'm sure they'll be fine.  If not, Clare and Pete's place ;-) .) 

Got sent last Friday's edition of the Sheffield Property Guide yesterday, so I've been perusing. 1/2 bed terraces seem to range from about £350 to £500+ pcm depending on the swankiness of the area and its proximity to Studentland.

After spending an hour looking at ads and flicking back and forth in the A-Z I decided that the best place to go looking for a house is indubitably Nether Edge. For a start, the name is fantastic. Also of import are the location (a mile or two south of the city, less than a mile from the workplace), the fact that my old schoolfriend lives there and that the prices are within my range. Winner!

Getting a bit nervous about going househunting, which is probably happening next Monday and Tuesday. I've never used an agency to find a house, and I'm not quite sure how to go about it, and how not to get fleeced in the process. Do I just turn up at one and say, "I want a house in Nether Edge - can you show me some?" or should I identify hopeful-looking properties then ring up this week and arrange to visit those specific ones? Or I could try the sheer luck approach, which Dean managed, and walk along the streets looking in the windows of rental property until a builder comes out of a house being refurbished and offers me the landlord's phone number.

It's a big, scary old world out there and I must admit I don't feel quite ready for it.

I hate making phone calls. Really hate them. I usually put them off for days and days until they're absolutely urgent, in the hope that by some amazing telepathic link the person I need to talk to instead will ring me, a slightly lesser evil.

So today was my phone call day. 3 to make this afternoon. The one I was worried about was the council football pitch bookings woman, who was quite arsey and also confusing last time I called.

Phone call #1: John, retired vicar who leads services at our church once a month or so. Utterly nice bloke. Rang to ask him if he'd be mentor for our football club management committee, and meet with them once a month. He agreed straight away! Then I asked him if he could think of anyone who could come and be on hand at our matches, as the church league requires that either the captain or someone present at all the matches is a "professing Christian". (Given the more-than-slightly-evangelical nature of the church league, I almost asked, "Are Catholics allowed? What about Quakers?" but thought better of it...) Anyway, John said he'd be happy to do that as well the weeks he around. What a thoroughly nice bloke.

Phone call #2: Managed to defer this one. Needed to phone Voluntary Action Leicester about their committee training course. Found their e-mail address online so sent a message instead. Hurrah!

Phone call #3: Council pitch bookings. No arsey lady! Instead I got the wife of one of the church league managers whose team we've played, who knew me by name though I've never met her. Really helpful, got us the pitch we wanted, and goals (which we were struggling for). Yay! What a thoroughly nice lady.

So, phone calls done, can relax and get back to work. Which I should do now, given that I've just had a two hour lunch break, which began with Clare accompanying me to Homebase to buy Duck tape.

While I'm on the subject, I don't look like a duck, do I?

1. Finally figured out how to draw ellipsoids around my particle distribution. I cheated and used spheroids. Much simpler. Looks very pretty. :)

2. Random e-mail exchange with Fugly Bloke, cut short by the mail server going down and/or my use of the word "rampant".

3. I decided that I will only do Difficult Sudoku from now on as the others are getting boring.

4. Entered my football team in a "inter-cultural" tournament. Asking for trouble considering the racist abuse they regularly come out with, but as I'm planning to be away that Saturday then what the heck!

5. Couldn't get any of the physics blokes to offer to fix my printer, just lots of "helpful" advice on what to do with it. (Martin: Have you tried turning it off and on again? James: Buy a new one.)

6. Spent ages messing with a routine for plotting pretty graphs of my results. Have just finished my first set - that's thesis material!

7. Noticed that Roger has a "countdown" list of time until various things, that updates when you refresh the window. He's even got a countdown to thesis submission. Very cool, I want.

8. And with that, I am going home to pasta with aubergine and tomato sauce and lonely printer fixing...

I sat in chewing gum on the park at lunch time and didn't notice until I went to get out of my chair a few minutes ago and was stuck to it. Can't decide whether to go home and change or not. Might be pubbing later - don't want unappealing arse adornments cramping my style.

Everyone say hello to Graham, by the way. He's decided to drop by.

I've now been told pretty much the full story by Rob about Tuesday night. He's a bit confused as to what order things happened in as he took quite a few blows to the head. Fortunately he's OK, just sore and impressively bruised, and it doesn't seem to have done him any psychological harm.

He was walking down the path on Vicky Park that goes past the children's playground when 2 youths came up and asked him for a cigarette. Then a third lad came up behind him and said, "Let's make this easy - wallet." He says he paused, not really believing that it was happening, and he can't remember whether he got his wallet out before they started hitting him or not.

Well, that's where I thought it ended, but then he told me that they led him onto the park, where it was darker, made him tell them his PIN, and left two guys with him while the rest went to empty his bank account. He had to sit with his shoes off and his head down so he couldn't see them - although he'd lost his glasses in the scuffle so couldn't see anything anyway. The others took so long coming back that guys with him went off to look for them. Rob decided to run for it, but ended up running into them at the gates. I'm not sure what followed - presumably they duffed him up a bit more. Anyway, they finally let him go - pointed him in the direction of the lights on Queen's Road and taunted him as he ran - "Faster! Slower!" He called my parents from a kebab shop shortly after midnight.

He says he's not angry with the lads who did it, he just feels sorry for them. Black lads, British accents - probably from off Highfields, probably didn't get the best start in life or the best parents. Society may be to blame but they were the ones who hit him and I want to kill the fuckers, or at least beat their faces to a pulp with my own fists and leave them alone in the dark to bleed.