rob_willatts' Journal

5:56pm: bored
right, having a really un productive day. mainly doing laundry as we need it and managed to get the early morning washing up done. found an interesting show called weapon master on discovery and watched a few episodes but then my house mate basically said 'well why dont you go and do something productive rather then watch the series as that is most of your day wasted' she was saying this as she was cutting out a pattern for a new outfit she is making. well lets see, im not a seamstress and when it comes to clothes i dont know what im doing. my main hobby at the moment is brewing which is sorted in a matter of say half an hour and then is left to go bloop. i could go to a park or something but im trying to conserve petrol at the moment due to finances. basically im totally uninspired to do anything at the moment and its all well and good to say that watching the goggle box is not good for you which is perfectly true but i really done have the drive to do anyhting at the moment as im still very much in unemployment mind set which sucks mightily, its like having the energy sucked out of you and after a while you just feel utterly useless and cant see the point in anything, especially after you have the speach from parents the other day and nothing seems to be going your way. at present i have days when i wonder what the point of getting out of bed is and i feel like at the moment all im really doing os providing moral support for everyone around me and wasting oxygen.

all i want is some sort of structure in my life some drive with a goal but presently my future is just streching away in a vast sea of beige with every day much like the next, never getting the call from the agency to say they have something for me and applying for jobs only to hear nothing back from them and real;ising that at this rate im doomed to be locked in temp jobs for the rest of my life.

im sure things will pick up but just at the moment im not that optimistic.

11:11am: life and stuff
well move to notts has been a success. sanity has been snatched from the jaws of something or other. the house is much better then we coud have hoped for and with a bit of luck something work like may be on the horizon as autumn beckons and all the teachers decide its too cold to get out of bed and that the kids ar note the lovely little bundles of joy they had managed to convince them selves that they were. beaky may well have a job at a housing office which will make life better.

however due to critical lack of cash we decided that a loan was the only way to go, we had accepted that it was going to be a high rate of interest and that it was going to be shitty as a result. sorted the paper work and sent it to parents as we needed a gurantor, all well and good. parents read the ts and cs and decided that it would be better that they subbed the cash and we paid them back ( better for us in a way). que my 15 min phone conversation with my dad and another with my mum later on the need for getting jobs and why did we move for friends when we should have got jobs first rather then after the move. the answer was simple where we were living there was no work for me at least and beaky was being driven into the dirt at her job. i had tried to get jobs in nottingham prior to the move with out success, if we had gone the way of the job first move later it would have ment another 6 months on the lease in wales and the whole uncertainty of not being able to sort a house out until a job happened. however in my dad's defence my gran is going ever more steadily batty and he is probably very worried about her, as we all are, and its not helping having to worry about the state of his son's finances.

still sooner or later things will have to improve because teachers cant stay healthy forever.

2:07pm: thoughts on wales
i have decided that wales really wants me to leave. i got home on saturday and all was well. i knew that beaky was going to be paid on monday and that capita were generally ok for finding work. monday hits, pay doesnt, capita dont call, i call capita, they tell me that nothing much is happening at the moment, i go to bed stressed. tuesday, i call capita they tell me that basically this is the end of season until september, i decide to check if pay has come in and it appears to have done but barclays server appears to be down so money cant be with drawn. not been a good couple of days.

however while writing this i had a call from another agency who said that they have a 3 month things going in merthyr which i could do but it might involve working in wales while beaky is in notts . will talk to her about it as regular income would be very handy now and they are paying 7 quid an hour which isnt brilliant by supply teaching standards but would be better than nothing and i could always go back on weekends as it would be for a short time and i could always just not come in one day, i can live with that.

5:25pm: southsea
well got back yesterday all nice and safe (well apart from running out of fuel at the start of the journey and having to be rescued by chris and em and nicky).

maelstrom was great fun apart from the tents blowing away but in a round about way this was benificial as we latched onto a group with a pd tent so all in all a bonus. i am looking forward to the joys of the navigation system. we made money, we sold alcohol, we were accused of killing someone, all was good.

southsea was everything we remembered. there were the usual bunch of nutters, all of whom were lovely, happy to beat or threaten or lie to children for their own amusement and to make the whole experience for the children as fun as possible and great fun to be with. dan as usual was fun and helpful and kept us all suitable reigned in when we were getting out of hand. i may have been partially responsible for the sheer quantity of drunken sillyness that happened on monday (running around the battlements in nothing but underwear) but i was better behaved for the rest of the week and only used the berry vodka as a reminder of the hangovers for the rest of the week.

i had massive fun playing the archer and the armourer as well as being a time guide on friday which was awesome.

dom ran a wonderfully silly and disturbing game of tempus fugitive which may have accidentally ended with the whole of time being stopped (oops)

now im back home, beaky is at a conference for the rest of the week, so i have a few days of teaching to do and on wednesday i will be viewing a house with Kate Lake and talking to the nottingham branch of Capita so that i may have some work happening when we move.

presently the future is looking bright and with the knowledge that there will be so many friends near us when we move both beaky and i are really champing at the bit to leave the valleys and have another go at the whole life thing again. seems the valleys just wasnt the place to start one properly.

8:14pm: brewing
well i have been brewing my little socks off and the house presently has 4 gallons of treacle ale bubbling away in the boiler cupboard, a gallon of honey beer in the fermenting bucket frothing away, a gallon of rice and raisin wine ready to be bottled and a load of ginger beer which i had to put back into the plastic bottles due to the glass ones it was in kept leaking.

the bar will be well stocked.

1:11pm: i this and thought of helen


catbus it lives

1:08pm: i this and thought of helen
[IMG]http://i618.photobucket.com/albums/tt265/kahotep_album/catbus.jpg[/IMG]

catbus it lives

3:41pm: gah
Right i have nearly got the whole registration thing sorted, just the CRB to wait for.

so now im properly looking at applying for teraching jobs. so all back from the first application and now i keep looking at applications and seeing scary things like 'how would you go about making your mark on the way we teach the subject' and other things of that ilk. well i dont know, i have not got a clue how you run your department, my ideas may already be in use and therefore i will look a tit, or maybe they are too ambitious and i will look like im too cocky. gah! why are applications such a mess when they get in my head, beaky always seems to have ideas and im just too damn scared to try them because i have no confidence in myself what so ever. i know i can teach and im good at it as it goes but when it comes to pen to paper i assume that the other applicants will have nobel prizes or something. plus it looks as though im going to have to hunt down previous tutors or headteachers to act as a reference despite it being 3 years and my PGCE tutor was a dick to be honest.

just wish it was simple or i had a higher opinion of myself but to be honest i think im going to be a doormatt for the rest of my life.

12:40pm: teachery goodness
I went to the jobcenter today to sign on due to all the work in the world disappearing everytime i look at it. however after asking about help with registering as a teacher i was sent to a place called job match who have just had their rules changed and thus could not help me due to being able bodied and in work every so often. so having tramped to the 4th floor of the building they were in i decided to go into the other job place on the second floor of the building who also could not help me however they did advise me of something called Advisors discretionary allowance. this is a fund that your jobcenter advisor can use if they think that the thing they are helping you with will get you a job, in my case it is 80 odd quid to register then i can at the very least do supply teaching. i asked about this and they said that provided i can give them a reciept for the fee i will get it back. if i had known about this fund a while ago i may be working now.... still i cant complain. al i have to do now is get the paperwork sorted and i should be up and running in a month or so depending on the time the CRB check takes.

10:00pm: application
well i have written some of the application letter for my first school. i hate application letters, trying to make sure you are hitting all the personal spec while not making a list and at the same time trying to prevent yourself talking 2 pages of waffle that has a vague relavence to the post. presently i have yet to actually get on to talking about my pgce experience as im presently making a more relavent case with my 3 summers of teaching 8 year olds how to hit a target with an arrow over my 2 school experiences of teaching bored teenagers about the hypothalamus and chemical reactions while they plot how to pinch hydrochloric acid. trying to avoid mentioning that the second half of my pgce i hate more than i have hated anything before due to the support from the uni being non exsistent and having asked to go to schools either near aber or cardiff getting sent to one that was almost exactly half way between and not a reasonable commute from either. so i got stuck in a b and b for 3 nights a week in a town so devoid of life that i spent an inordinate amount of time skimming stones on a river.

it doesnt help that i have a fear of ever selling myself on any application form lest the buggers ask me to actually prove it. this fear would even apply if i was the only know person on the planet who could actually make a working cold fusion reaction, because if i was asked to prove it i would fear that i would invariably fall apart and cock it up or someone else would have done it first by accident in a more impressive way making me look like a total tit.

also i really dislike the wording of personal specifications because they generally ask for things that are really difficult to actually make work on paper eg must be able to conect with all students in the school, well i can try but to be honest i doubt i will be abvle to know all of them, connecting with a class of 30 children who dont want to be there isnt exactly something you can describe on paper.

anyhoo i will stop ranting as this is looking dangerously longer than what i have written for the application so far and the grammer errors will probably make beaky's brain melt.

6:39pm: new start
Well I’m definitely looking for teaching jobs in earnest and to be honest i'm terrified. I’m not good at job applications at the best of times and in the previous 2 and half years the only thing vaguely related to teaching I have done was Southsea. I’m looking vaguely at supply teaching as well but it still requires me to be registered with the teaching council and so I will still need to find the money for that on top of all the other people hounding us for cash.

While I realise it will be nice to have a career I still find the prospect of going back into school a scary thought given I feel like my knowledge is getting less and less by the day.

On the plus side though getting a teaching job will mean moving to another area of the country as both beaky and I would like to get out of the valleys and closer to the world, not to mention having a proper income rather than my string of uncertain temp incomes that have meant that we have really not been able to achieve any of our financial hopes due to their uncertainty and general crapness.

So having been on the TES site I have nabbed 6 jobs that support NQTs one of which specifically asked for chemistry or biology so I will attempt to get them sorted and who knows. If the son of an ex co worker who was still doing his pgce can get a job on his second interview then maybe I have a slim hope and it cant be worse than the pgce year lets face it.

So time to bite the bullet, I just wish these bullets were not so hard and moving quite so fast...

6:25pm: back to the job hunt yet again
well i got in early to work today. an hour later i was asked into an office and informed that due to the down turn in claims which was not planned for they couldnt support the new permanent staff and had to lay some off.

so im back on the job hunt and will be finishing next friday.

have already contacted my various temp agencies and have spotted some positions at cardiff uni in admin that i can do so the future is not too bleak yet but it is still a bit of a bugger.

at least i did the overtime when i got the chance.

9:54pm: its finally happened
i have finally retired a character due to not enjoying playing him any more

its a strange experience

6:44pm: i have officially gone permanent
as of monday i am a permanent member of staff.

6 month probation but i am going to ask if it is taking temp work into account as that will shave off 13 weeks.

i should be very happy but im presently thinking about finances a lot as pay day when perm is the end of the month and i am trying to work out if we have sufficient income to stave off bills and stuff and eat and things. i hate my brain sometimes.

10:49pm: mind broken
went to see burn after reading

it left me terribly confused

the cohen brothers have broken my brain

that is all

11:25pm: i fucking hate sewing machines
i hate them a lot!!!
i have just spent an hour trying to sew a single seam for a make shift scabbard. every few stiches all the cotton under the fabric rutted up and blocked and the upper stuff snapped! i have since torn the offending seam open again as it was so bad i just wasnt worth it especially as teh top popped open when i tried to turn the offending iten the right way round. i am not a happy bunny. why do sewing machines have to be so complex!!! i know they are relatively simple but there are so many little bits that jam or snap or just arse up when i tryt to use it. the bloody machine is industrial level as well it should be able to cope with a couple of layers of fabric!!!

11:04pm: jobs
well i started my training at the insurance place today which was ok then as i left having had a day of ice breakers and general first day stuff i discover a message on my phone from a lab i had applied to! going to have to call them tomorrow and find out what they pay and what prospects are there but im sorely tempted as they are a damn sight closer than the insurance people.

12:43pm: stuff
well things have been carrying on as usual. beaky went to the hospital for a general check up and everything is fine at the mo so good there, also we are nearly past the scary scary 17 week stage so fingers crossed.
im going to be starting a temp to perm (assuming i pass the grade) at an insurance company in cardiff so a long commute and the pay isnt great but its a job and it could become something better in a few months.
we are also going to be going to nationwide tomorrow and ask them nicely if they would be kind enough to lend us some money to sort some bills, my car tyre and generally tie us over until i start getting regular pay again. wouldnt be so bad if the bloody welfare state would have actually given me some cash rather than welching out again, bastards, and simply covering me for national insurance which im sure i have been covered for when i was not in work and was paying when in work. but aparantly i still have not made enough payments to be eligable for contributions based and therefore no help.
but in better news baby stuff is starting to happen (although its being kept away just to make sure) and we are going to get a new bed frame which will be nice and im going to make damn sure that its put together to the best of my ability so nothing can come loose or twist or creak or anything i hope.

12:33am: anniversary
at about 3:30 pm today i will have been married for one year. gosh!

11:34pm: as a 1930s husband i am

90 As a 1930s husband, I am Very Superior Take the test!

woot

1:28am: super hero

11:59pm: i is 25!
its midnight so i have finally hit the quarter century mark so must remember to claim my tax credits and call my car insurance people.

11:37am: good day continued
having not spent £100 on maelstrom we decided to have Chinese for supper. we ordered over £15 worth of food to get the inclusive prawn crackers then when the delivery bloke turned up he charged us under a tenner and their crispy shredded chicken is fantastic.

5:05pm: i have had a good day
i have had a good day. i went to ponty today so that i could send the money i owed to my sister. i got to nationwide in time to be the last customer before they closed and discovered that i can pay money straight into another nationwide account provided i have the details, something i have never needed to know but handy none the less. i then pottered around and did very little but did meet beaky's sister for a brief chat. i then went to the park where an environmental exhibition was going on, this was the one that i thought was on last month, and so i pottered in for a look. the environment agency were there i got a phone number to see if i can do some days with teams, which could be fun, and the news that there will be a recruitment drive and there will be at least 6 new people needed so hope there if i remember. there was also a stall for science shop wales who are based in glamorgam uni and recently lost their consultant ecologist due to slight triplets so when i metioned my degree and my pgce the woman on the stall looked all excited and asked me to send over my CV which i will. i also got my twin dagger holder through today and it is very nice. and i have also paid for the next strom for beaky and me and after all the faff we have had with payments we were in credit enough for the tickets to be half price so £50 rather than £100.

and its sunny and its still only saturday and i have less than 10 days to go before my birthday and even less to eos and generally the world is yum.

12:43pm: we has tent
we brought a tent off amazon a while ago, due to being out when the delivery bloke came round it went to the delivery depo, due to being busy we didnt pick it up in time so it was sent back to the supplier. i called them yesterday arranged another delivery, it turned up this morning. it is a big tent, it will be set up this weekend and then it will be admired, it is a big tent

i am happy