Happy 2012 - The World Will End in 348 Days

So, we're over a week into 2012 - and probably the world won't really end on the 21st of December, but who knows?    Anyway, this isn't a the world is going to end post so much as it's a generic New Year's resolutions and stuff post.

New Year's resolutions - don't have many.  The typical one, starting tomorrow (I was on vacation on the first and wholly refuse to start dieting while on vacation - and while I can follow a diet on the weekend, starting one just seems wrong somehow.), start eating better, start exercising regularly, be bikini ready by the summer (this is going to be extremely difficult, because I need to loose almost 15 pounds and turn my remaining belly flub into toned muscle in a few months) and look amazing for my sister's wedding; Learn enough Slovak that I can talk to mi novio's parents without a translator; get another novel published; write every day.

It doesn't really seem like that much to do, typed out neatly in a list like that, but I don't have any illusions that any of this is going to be easy.  A lot of people manage.  People who, even if they're really amazing, cool people, you just want to hate because they're so together and seem to manage to work full time, follow a tone of other hobbies/dreams/ ambitions and look amazing while doing so, but people none the less.  I'd like to be one of those people, I think.  It would probably suck to have everyone be jealous of you and secretly hating you, but I think it would be worth it, really.

I think mainly, I just need lists.  Or something to help me concentrate.  Ritalin?  I don't know. 

I don't much feel like ending this with some inspirational crap about how this year will be different, how I'll force myself to focus on what matters, etc, because, frankly, I don't know that I will.  But I will say that 2011 has been absolutely amazing, without a doubt, the most interesting year of my life so far and certainly the one in which I was most proactive.  If I could boil this all down to one resolution, it would be to make 2012 even better.

I Know...

So, I've been away for a while.  Not really away, just away from blogging.  Busy and stuff.

I got a job.  It's a good job and I like it, even if it's not the kind of job I ever imagined myself doing.  The perks are excellent and the people are wonderful.  Our department's Christmas party was Friday.  I had my first (and second (and come to that, possibly 3rd, though I can't remember for sure)) Jagerbomb, 2 G&Ts and a glass of champagne.  With the exception of the second G&T, which a coworker bought for me, these drinks were all free, paid for by the company.  It was great to see everyone let loose, even if some of them let a little looser than they should.

I sadly did not finish my NaNoWriMo story, Quicksand in November.  I made it to about 21,000 words and couldn't manage any more.  This whole working full time thing has gotten harder since I was doing it last.  I honestly think that's just the weather, though, because I work until 6:00 and right now that means I'm there until after dark.

I sold enough shirts to get the Reactionary Motors one for my Dad for Christmas.  My dreams of having the Bitch, Please one for myself have been put on hold, but such is life.

I was just about to write about our plans to visit Slovakia over Christmas, and I realize now that I've totally neglected to say anything at all about Prague, which was wonderful and will get a whole blog post shortly.

Also, somewhere in the confusion of November and December, our flatmate, whose Internet we used and paid toward, left and the Internet was disconnected (we'd recently given him £30 to it - not impressed)

My Slovak is not improving as quickly as I'd hoped.  Need to get working on that.

I think that's all for now.  I'll post about Prague soon, and try to keep a little bit more updatey in the meantime.

Canadian Thanksgiving in the UK

Thanksgiving has never been a huge deal for me.  I really like it, but it's never quite held the same emotional ties as, say, Christmas or Halloween.  At least it hadn't, until this year.

This is the first year I've been outside of Canada for Thanksgiving, and I'm finding it (in part because the shops have already started putting out Xmas merchandise) pretty tough.  I've recently re-broken the record for the most time spent away from my family (It has now been 8 months since I last saw any of my friends or relatives) and rather than me getting used to my homesickness, my homesickness is getting worse.  It's little things, like the fact that the stores here don't sell egg nog, or that despite going to two different grocery stores, the closest thing we'll have to cranberry sauce tonight is "Cranberry juice drink"  No one sells Brownburry Farce, or even tubs of breadcrumbs.  I did find a whole turkey, but it was one of the pre-spiced kind, so we're having chicken instead.

And yes, I know there's more to Thanksgiving than the food, but that's just it.  The food is wrong and the family and friends we're supposed to be sharing this wrong food with are thousands of miles away.

I guess I'm just feeling sorry for myself... I know I'm one of the luckiest people alive and I know I should feel nothing but grateful for all the wonder I have in my life.  I'm just... I don't even know.  Homesick.

Sorry to be such a downer on the one day we're all supposed to pull our heads out of our asses and appreciate what we have. I'll try to post a little later, when I'm in a better mood.

NaNoWriMo makes me cry.

From NanNoWriMo's NaNo in a Nutshell:

Who: You! We can't do this unless we have some other people trying it as well. Let's write laughably awful yet lengthy prose together.
Why: The reasons are endless! To actively participate in one of our era's most enchanting art forms! To write without having to obsess over quality. To be able to make obscure references to passages from our novels at parties. To be able to mock real novelists who dawdle on and on, taking far longer than 30 days to produce their work.

Ugh.

Finest Pain. Ow.

I'm coming up with post titles by reading random things again. It actually says FINEST PAIN AU CHOCOLAT... and has, as these things often do(n't?) nothing to do with anything.

So...

The London Riots
were stupid. They seem to be over now and there is, of course, a lot of talk about what caused them. They started after Mark Duggan, a 29-year-old father of three, was shot dead by police in Tottenham. I'm not sure if this was a botched arrest or what, but what followed was a candle-light vigil two days later. The participants of that vigil marched toward the Tottenham police station. And after that, the explanation is that it "turned violent" or that "violence erupted".

The vigil makes sense. Yes, by all means, if you think a powerful group of people, especially your own government, has done something wrong, protest. By all means, be imposing, get in their way, show them how many people think what they've done is wrong, are willing to fight for justice - but how the hell does setting people's homes/cars/businesses on fire achieve anything?

And, of course, now there are people blaming the government cuts and unemployment and the rising cost-of-living and poor parenting and anything they can think of other than the little bastards that seized the opportunity to get free shit and light stuff on fire. Yeah. The government is oppressing me and treating me unfairly. Society has turned its back on me. I'm going to go steal some trainers and mug an old lady.

Waitressing
sucks, but it's getting better. I feel like I never know where I'm supposed to be. I keep getting told different things by different people and if I ask a question, a lot of the time, whoever I asked gives me a dirty look then just does what I'm supposed to be doing. Actually, a lot of the time, I literally don't know where I'm supposed to be because I now have three restaurants to work in and all my rota says is when I'm working, not where.

I really like the chefs and the kitchen porter guys. I remember a kind of rivalry between the wait staff and the kitchen staff at the last kitchen I worked in, and I'm pretty sure it had something to do with the wait staff treating us like trash. I try not to do that, to make sure I say please and thank you, regardless of how busy I am, and not to make a huge mess with the dirty dishes.

All whining aside, I'm starting to get the hang of it, I think. Today was pretty ok.

Bad Parenting
annoys me. I have a table of regulars with this kid. The youngest he could possibly be is 8 and that's an over-sized, over-developed (physically) 8. My guess would be that he's 10-11, although, physically, he could be 12-13. But let's, just to give him the benefit of the doubt, say he's 8. I've served his family three times now. He has eaten only pork (I mean only) on all three occasions. One time, he got paid to finish his "meal". He's rude and needs to be the centre of attention - but he's 8, so I guess we can make allowances - except, I've seen him punch his grandmother in the back twice (as in on two occasions, two punches per time), once because he ignored being asked for his order and she pointed out that this was rude and once, I think, just for fun - although he asked for money after this, so maybe for money? And his mother sat there and said nothing, pretended not to see. His grandfather sat there and said nothing. His older brother shot me an apologetic look, as if to say, Yeah, I know, but what can you do. I can't even imagine what would have happened if I had behaved this way - and I won't say at his age. I mean, at all. Ever. Well, yes I can. If I had been two and hit my grandmother, I would be sent to my room. If no room was available, to the car (for years, I didn't realize that my parents actually were stood near by, watching said car) and I would have stayed there until I was ready to apologise. Violence begets violence, I guess, because now I really want to punch this kid in his face.

Someone
is having a BBQ. I so want it.

NaNoWriMo 2011

So I've started working on the outline and character sketches for NaNoWriMo 2011. It is going to be one incredibly effed up story, but hopefully a little amazing as well.

I've also been trying to update devereaux court a lot this month because I think it needs to be updated at least three times a week if we ever want it to get serious readership.

I think that's about it. There's work stuff in there, somewhere, but it's a nice day and I want to go to the beach and not think about jobs and boring crap like that.

The end, for now.

♥

So I had an interview this morning and I have work tonight. I was hoping my interview would end before mi novio had to be at work, but it didn't; we missed each other by minutes. When I got home, there was a note on my computer, asking me to run an errand. At first, I was all whiney (internally whiney), thinking It's hot, I don't wanna go back out. Why do I have to-- and then I noticed the little smiley face on the bottom of the note and a much more sensible internal voice pointed out that I'm pretty much the luckiest person alive and I should go out in the sunshine and enjoy my damn errand - which is exactly what I did.