Just a quick update

I have been neglecting this page. I do feel badly about that, since it defeats both purposes of having it – to keep people updated and to actually do some writing this summer!

But anyone who knows me will hopefully excuse this, as I have been crazy busy this past week and a bit. It makes a nice change, I must say, from the boredom of the past month,but I do wish I could find a happy medium instead of two extremes!

So, what have I been up to? Plenty, but nothing much of interest worth reporting! My days have been filled with friends, work on the Pompey Guide and busywork (those little everyday chores and ‘paperwork’ that just have to be done). My evenings have been spent either re-discovering Bewitched – seriously, why did I ignore those box sets for over a year? – or at work, being bored out of my mind!

It’s massively frustrating – my days are filled with lots of things to do and barely enough time to do them, but I then stop doing them and go to work, where I spend eight solid hours being idle. (I got the swine flu helpline job by the way, though “job” is stretching it a bit as I average one ten-minute call every two hours.) Most people would be glad to have a job where they were paid good money to do nothing, but most of us here agree that if it wasn’t for the pay we would have walked by now. There’s only so many ways to keep yourself amused in this place, and we’ve exhausted them all by now!

I’ve seen Kung Fu Panda at least six times (silent, with subtitles, and have yet to find it funny), read four trashy magazines (Cosmo and Glamour, old and new issues), beaten every level on Superstacker 2 and achieved a Tetris personal best (we have games and TV screens, but no internet or remote controls). I’ve also eaten a lot of vegetable sticks, apples, chocolate and Twiglets!

And that, dear friends, is the extent of the entertainment here at TLC – I say here because I’ve just discovered that you’re allowed a notepad and pen and am actually handwriting this at work, to be typed up later; yes, I am that bored! There’s very little to keep one amused. Unless, of course, you count my co-workers, who are a fascinating study of human behaviour.

There’s the carb-conscious, HTTP manual-reading fellow, who tries to convince me red peppers and daily vitamins are bad for me then goes and gets chips with curry sauce for dinner. And a medical student from Cardiff – who is CUTE with a capital Q by the way – who smokes and reads George Orwell. And a feminist who pounced on me when I toted out a Modern Studies approved statement about women simply being biologically disadvantaged when it came to inequalities in the workplace (apparently pregnancy is a pure myth invented by meek subservient women like me...) And a fellow who didn’t understand my joke about “drinking only to excess”, because he didn’t know what the last word meant. Et al – there are about 45 of us here at any one given time, so plenty of future novel fodder! Eclectic, fascinating, amusing; yes. Worth coming to work for; no (no offence guys!) But they help pass the time, and we’re all in the same boat.

Anyway, I sense I’m beginning to ramble. Just thought I’d surprise the few of you who care with a drive by update – I will try to do better in future, so please keep reading!