Indiana Jones and the Truely Dreadful Film

1. Do not waste your money by seeing the new Indiana Jones film - it's not worth the money let alone hours of you life! It was pointless, and not in an entertaining way (like the first 3) either: it was filled with stereotypes, bad accents, dreadful 'acting', cliche after cliche, all sorts of rubbish detail problems (e.g. a 'crystal skull' which can magnetically attract gun powder - yeah, there-in is another seperate problem - from across a vast warehouse while in a sealed box in a pile of large boxes, and yet somehow doesn't attract anything when wrapped in a blanket). And of course, as anyone who has seen the trailer will be able to tell, they introduce his long-lost son and the woman he left at the alter (incidently, I'm convinced the actress must have had a serious brain injury since the last Indy film she appeared in - all the acting ability of a newt). To conclude: very bad.

2. Never, ever play Drink-along-with-Terry while watching the Eurovision Song Contest: you will only ever regret it.
The Rules
i) Drink anytime Terry Wogan mentions the following: Balkan States, Political Voting, "big shock/suprise", "I would never have seen that coming",
ii) Drink as Terry gets gradually more offensive about the acts
iii) Drink any time Terry makes a vaguely sexist/racist remark
...and so on.
Optional rule
i) Drink when the act is just downright sleazy (this was the killer for me this year!)

All in all, a very entertaining evening :D

Wibble!

Well, that was the most shocking thing to have happened to me in quite a long time!
I was in Sainsburys buying some stuff for dinner, got to the front of the checkout queue when the girl serving me had an epileptic fit. She had stood up and then lurched over sideways: I thought she had caught her foot in the base of the chair, so leaned over to make sure she was ok (it looked like a nasty fall and I was concerned that she might have hit her head on the way down) only to see her fitting. I did what anyone would do in the circumstances and rushed round the back of the counter. I wasn't sure what to do, so I did what I could: put her on her side, held her steady, made sure her head didn't hit anything, made sure she wouldn't swallow her tongue and kept talking to her. It was a terrifying situation to be in: she was the last person on the row of counters and no one would have noticed her go down if myself and another guy hadn't been in the queue. I was there for a couple of minutes until the first-aider was called and then the paramedics, who got there very swiftly. There wasn't anything else I could do except tell them what happened and what I did, buy my shopping and leave. I really hope she's ok - I'm still concerned that she may have concussed herself, but the Paramedics will ensure she's ok.
Just hope I never have to deal with that sort of situation again - I was pretty shocked afterwards and started crying. Felt extremely stupid doing so - what were tears going to do afterall? But I couldn't help it, so I let them come. I'm fine now, and I hope the girl is.

Random bits and bobs

Have been doing fieldwork for my dissertation down at Ocean terminal this week: it has been going well, but I'm now utterly shattered. I start down at Princes Street next week. It has been pretty sucessful so far, but I keep wanting to sell stuff to customers because it's really just like when I worked there at christmas. Anyway - 8/30 interviews done and some pretty useful data coming out of it.
Got a nice new dress today from TKMaxx - really like it :) But am feeling rather ill, so not in the mood to go out.
A family of ducks have moved into the pond under the Scottish Widows building at the top of Dalkeith Road :D Very very cute! The pond is on two levels and the water runs from the upper one over a ledge into the lower one: it would seem the ducklings were having trouble with this so someone has put a plank between the two levels so they can get back up :D Hehe! I love ducklings - fluffy yellow bundles of cuteness.
A bit ill today - have caught some sort of bug: left OT a bit early but the traffic on Leith Walk was so bad that I got home at the same time as if I had left at 5pm :(

I really really need a hug right now. Don't know why. There's no one around either, which kinda sucks. And there's no chocolate in the house. And I left my bankcard elsewhere and have no money in my purse. Fail.

Also have a stupid number of bruises at the moment :S Clumsy so and so lol!

Feeling a bit rudderless...

So I've done my final ever exam and now it's the long, slow crawl towards the dissertation - 29th of August here I come *sigh*. This being the case I'm applying for every job I can find - it's really pretty depressing actually, the most (relatively speaking) important experiences of your life compressed into a CV. I guess I'm just feeling a bit grouchy as the final go-ahead for fieldwork has not yet been given and I really just want to get on with it already! Lol! It'd mean I wouldn't be in the office for a couple of weeks anyway except for writing-up field notes etc. Oh well, I just have to hope that the ethic committee finally get back to me today.

In other news: my p/t job finishes next week. Tutoring has been a fun experience, but I'm shattered and it has really only confirmed in my mind that there is no way on Earth that I'd want to be a teacher. I've applied for a p/t filing job in the evenings, which would be ideal, if rather boring, but the pay (£6.70 p/h) is pretty damn good and it'd be 5-8pm Monday - Thursday, which works pretty well with my timetable. They haven't got back to me yet, but I hope they do soon.

Haha - just checked my email and my ethics has been signed off: I'm good to go! Woot! :D Now I can go and harass people in the street!

Ok, less grouchy now :)

Shall try and apply for 3 jobs this PM after I've monitored J and N's assessment: all research jobs, but they pay well and that's all I'm really bothered about. Having said that, several of them are in London, so I really need to start considering whether moving there is something I'm willing to do. If they pay well enough to support me then there's no conceivable reason why I shouldn't, but I feel like some thing's holding me back. I don't really want to leave Edinburgh, and there are a good number of reasons why I shouldn't, but at the same time I have to go where the money is and where opportunity is. If I'm offered one of the jobs I plan to apply for this afternoon, then I will go wherever it takes me and will have to deal with the consequences as best I can.

Crappy crappy evening

Basicly I was attacked by a bunch of drunken, stupid women at a flatwarming party. Some sort of misinterpretation was made involving me saying to one of the girls that I really liked her shoes and her taking this as a deadly insult (God only knows how, but there was quite a lot of drink involved and a game of Chinese whispers no doubt). They made a bunch of insults as I was leaving that cut to the bone; comments about my weight and dress-sense and so on. Stupid things in themselves, but they brought out a load of my old insecurities and made me feel about 15 again (which was probably what age these girls were to be quite honest - their 'wit' and 'logic' would certainly suggest it). I made the stupid mistake of reacting to this (sometimes I curse my quickness of temper) and made the situation worse. I don't know if they were just agressive because they were drunk or looking for fight or what, but it just makes me very very glad that I was never like that and I pray that I never will be.
It makes me thankful for the fact that I have a wonderful group of friends who stand up for me - especially Maya. If they hadn't been there I almost certainly would have ended up in a fist-fight: I'd have landed a few blows but there were quite few of them so I wouldn't have made it far I doubt.
Why do people feel the need to act like this? I don't understand it. I can't help but think that it's the result of some lack of fulfilment or perpose in their lives; maybe a lack of self-respect.
What I've learned from this is that I need to manage my temper better (turn the other cheek), that I have fantastic friends, that some people are just aggressive, and that I shouldn't blame myself for the actions of others.

Hmmmm......?

Rather random conversation over lunch: we were discussing a form of punishment Justine had heard of a while back (following on from a conversation about the evilness of Seagulls - we have very odd conversations in our department). Basicly what would happen was an offender would have a fish strapped to their head then be pushed overboard or thrown into the sea, and the fish would attract dive-bombing seabirds! You can imagine the results.

Ealasaid's reaction: "Eeewww, sick!"

My reaction: "Hmmmm, creative."

Oh dear...

Big box, little box, giant SQUID!

Hmm, where to start?

Well, first off: All my coursework is now done and handed in :D This leaves me with an exam on Thursday and the Dissertation at the end of August. My intention is to start fieldwork later next week (if all goes to plan!) and hopefully have a more-or-less-final draft of the dissertation ready for the start of August. If this, by some miracle, actually happens then I should theoretically be able to enjoy some of the Fringe and catch up with visiting friends. Obviously this is an ideal situation and will probably end up with me doing the last minute thing again ;) Hehe - hopefully not, not after the undergrad dissertation (although I'm not the best at learning from my mistakes it has to be said)! So if you see me swanning around at the start of August looking far to relaxed then I'm counting on you lot (who ever might read this) to tell me to "Get on with your bloody dissertation, you lazy so-and-so".

Saturday was a busy day: Firstly, it was Josie's wedding. Lou, Ads and I went out for brunch before walking to St Cuthberts for the service. The day itself was overcast, but warm, so was able to wear my polkadot dress (I didn't manage to find anything else in time). The service was lovely and the choir performed very well. It was lovely to see so many Savoyards of all generations together again, and catch up with people I haven't see for a while. Then myself, Lou, Ads, Kirsty and Steven had lunch together before I went of to the Friends of Bedlam 5th birthday party. Again, lots of catching up got done. Sunday was nice a chilled out :)

Saw Iron Man on Friday: LOVE IT! Mmmmmm, Robert Downey jr. The whole thing was great :) Thoroughly enjoyed it - especially considering I wasn't overly impressed by the trailers. Shall probably go and see it again on Thursday evening - will see.

Hopefully shall get my poor, under-used bike out tomorrow if the weather holds - I feel guilty every time I walk past it :S But I did work up the motivation to go to the gym today for the first time in ages - t'was nice :)

Doing the job-application thing at the moment: there are a few research jobs I'm interested in at the Scottish parliament, and a couple at Westminster. And I should probably hunt for a p/t job for over the Summer - need to email John about the Archives job that he mentioned a week ago. Ah well - it sounds mind-numbingly dull, but it's flexiable which is the main thing.

Can't think of anything else atm - shall probably remember more in a bit.