I’m just so annoyed right now for so many reasons.

Actually, it all boils down to the same reason; that people are wasting my time!!

1. So apparently I had to throw together some kind of essay plan really quickly for one of my tutors because she didn’t have faith in me to write an essay on Blake. BLAKKKKEEEEE. Never mind that I have studied him in great depth for a year of my life (ok, to be fair she wasn’t aware of that), and never mind that I gave a kick ass presentation on him and know rather obscure facts about him, down to his dislike of semi-colons, she still has to see that I’m ‘on the right track’. And it’s all been rectified now – at least at her end, since she is safe in the knowledge that I have some ‘good ideas’ – but my dignity took a hit.

2. The most bizarre waste of time award goes to… Strange Fish, the production we watched a video of today. Until you’ve watched a symbolic/interpretive dance involving lots of pebbles, people in platinum blonde wigs, sex, and a half naked lesbian anorexic Jesus on a cross, you really haven’t had your time wasted effectively. 

3. I went to see Hot Fuzz last night, and was mildly appreciative until about an hour and three quarters into it, when the screenplay writers clearly decided that they were bored with dialogue and had constant and implausible shooting for much of the rest of the film. Plus, they emphasised the ‘Englishness’ a bit too much – hardcore stereotyping, deliberate over-emphasis of things such as money, etc. Added to that, I also noticed a couple of bizarre things – for example someone says ‘squiffy’ (meaning drunk) instead of ‘skew-whiff’ (meaning mixed up), and the police officer says ‘real good’, which isn’t English. The fact that I got home at like 1 am and then had to get up at 7 am did not put me in a good mood either. So, yes, silly waste of time, albeit mine/Hwan-Min’s fault.

4. I ordered a book on Blake from Amazon, from a marketplace seller, specifically because they said they ship 24-48 hours after receiving the order. 6 working days later, no book. I emailed them and got an auto response telling me to put ‘zebra’ in the subject if I wanted a human response, and telling me they deliver in 5 working days (wtf?). I email, and finally get a reply saying they shipped it on the 5th and to wait till the end of the week. Okay, either they a) haven’t dispatched it yet and are lying to me or b) despite the ridiculous amount of postage I paid, they haven’t sent it first class. I *need* this book you morons, that’s the last time I buy from you.

5. Okay, so since I apparently haven’t been degraded enough by the whole Blake thing, I went to my training session at work today, and got ‘taught’ image mapping. And how to use the strong tag in HTML. I cannot remember the last time I was so insulted…OH WAIT, MAYBE IT WAS THE BLAKE ESSAY THING. So basically I got paid about £3 ($6 USD) to sit there and be taught implementation, image mapping, and incredibly basic HTML very badly. That being implementation they have already trained me in several months ago, and image mapping and basic HTML I taught myself about six years ago. The worst thing was that they had two other people there, neither of whom had any experience with any of this stuff whatsoever. And to be perfectly fair, if I had no idea and I’d had that guy trying to teach me, I would be tearing my hair out/going ‘buh?’. But they were rather optimistic and were like, yeah I’m sure it’ll be one of those things you start doing and you get the hang of. Good luck to them.

Of course, it would’ve made a hell of a lot more sense to group the people that had no experience with the people who are familiar with this kind of thing (i.e. me). And on top of that, it would’ve made more sense to actually show them what to do and then made sure they were doing it properly when they actually came to work, rather than doing a separate training session way beforehand when the program script isn’t even ready yet, which made it more confusing. Because they are just going to have to go through it again when people actually sit down in front of the implementation stuff and completely freak out. Which would’ve saved them time and money, but hey, you know, my opinion clearly doesn’t matter any more. Side note: apparently if I work weekends I get an extra £1.50/hour ($3 USD). I’m still considering holding out for double. After all, my time is really precious, despite the fact that people seem out to get me to waste it.

So. I really need to get started properly on my essay tonight, even though I’m irritated and exhausted. My family sent me a ‘care package’ with a photo cd, a booklet of wii games and accessories, sweets, pencils and chewing gum which cheered me up a lot when I got home :) So maybe I will chew some gum and get down to work.