The NHS has a weird recruitment process. I applied for a load of jobs, literally 3 or 4 months ago as a support worker/care assistant in mental health. After having not heard anything after a month or so I presumed I'd not been successful or shortlisted or anything. However after having not so much as an interview thus far, randomly 3 interview request letters came through the post the other day. Odd. I'm dead chuffed like as I'm still unemployed, but it's odd how they do it. Surely if you advertise a vacancy it's because you need staff. No wonder the NHS is a bit on the lax side.

The first interview I got is the job ideally I really would like. It's working as a support worker in an acute mental health ward at Rotherham District General hospital. Looks a fab post and it sounds really varied an interesting. Plus I know one of the girls who works at the Northern General in the autism day centre, which happens to be opposite the schizophrenia ward and she says there is constantly a riot van outside. It should be varied if nothing else then! The second interview looks good aswell really. Again support work but this one is at a centre in Chapeltown dealing with adults with mental health issues - primarily Alzheimers and the related dementia disorders. Either way I'd be dead chuffed if I got one.

Again I've ended up working Xmas and New Years eve at the restaurant (joy) as the chef is ill so Ferdi is kitchen-bound. Oh happy days. We worked it out the other day that this will be my 7th Xmas and New Year there.... definately time for one of those jobs!

I should have something to do on a Saturday night, after having been to Uni EVERY DAY this week... but alas evidently not. Suffice it to say I'm sick of public transport/driving (I alternate to alleviate the boredom) and if I see anything psychology related this weekend I'll expire. Having said that, I've a grant proposal to write so that kiboshes that plan.

Other than that I've decided to move to Leicester given the amount of time I waste travelling - that and I want to get a job/attempt some semblance of a life/independence really. Scary as I'll be moving into a flat with 2 randomers (nice randomers I hope)and being a 'proper' postgrad applying for grants and suchlike. Posted my clinical application a few weeks ago, and have an MRC grant to send off. I hope I get onto clinical rather than the PhD but it's all experience. Besides, my proposal is pretty interesting so I wouldn't mind studying it for 3 years. We'll see. Sods law I'll get neither, but at least I've had a crack!

Other than that nothing interesting. Lack of job is annoying. How can I have experience, a degree and not find a job. Maybe my CV is crap - I'm no good at commonsense things like formatting CVs. Something will turn up though I'm sure.

In the mean time... it's overdraft central.

I have to be up in like 6 hours time but I'm wide awake so thought I'd post here. At the moment I'm not impressed at the lack of free time I've been having thanks to my MSc programme. Even though it's research (hence in your own time) there seems to be both a mass amount to do, together with writing a proposal for PhD funding, doctorate applications and also cracking on with the NHS ethics I need for my dissertation. All in all I don't have time to fart. Add in one family where I'm the wheels and land the shopping/errand running duties and you have a very busy Heather. I should start cutting out something essential like sleep. That or they should add like another day in the week/extra hours in the day or something. I'd be happy with either!

This weekend I'm off to Northampton to see Jade (:D yay) and on Friday it's my cousins little girl Luca's first birthday and my other cousins are over from NZ and up from London. Busy busy. I worked at Ranulphs tonight aswell as working a few evenings at Ferdi's so am well and truly knackered. Roll on end of term. Commuting to Leicester every time we have a group meeting/testing/lecture is getting to be a bit of a drag and also very very expensive. Ideally I want to rent a room somewhere as it'd work out cheaper but what with the family whatnot we'll see on that score. I'll see what Xmas brings and take it from there. Plus, there's the added factor that I really do need a job with more hours and more money. However, I have no time. Aaaargh!

In other news though I'm finally getting a desktop computer. Yes ONE OF THOSE. I've been using my shitty Fujitsu-Siemens laptop for the past 18 months or so and it's battered to death. It can't handle the amount of files and crap I have on SPSS and other stupid psychology programmes and has slowed to a crawl on the simplest of tasks. The new baby will have 500GB HDD and lots of other fangled toys of yayness... I am waiting in anticipation! I hope it will give me lots of inspiration - particularly when it comes to writing grant proposals. Slightly daunting asking the MRC/ESRC for a grant of like £1 million. Lol.

Anyway I think I've sufficiently tired my eyes from staring at the screen so am going to attempt sleep before the train of doom in the morning. Oh what fun.

My course annoys me at the moment. I think £3300 for a course is extortion considering I'm in uni (bear in mind this is a full time course) for the sum total of 8 hours per week - one of which is an external seminar and two of which are to be dropped in the second semester. Today I was even more pissed off than usual, as they decided to use our 2hr lecture slot to teach us how to search for journals on the library databases. You'd understand this lecture being held in the first year of uni - but by year 4 it gets lamer and lamer. It's not even like the system is unique to Leicester uni. Psychology databases are the same everywhere because that's the point of them. Anyway so today this obscenely over enthusiastic library guppy walks in announcing he is here to show PhD students the best way to maximise their research strategies. He was promptly met by a sea of blank looks as we are all MSc students that quite blatantly couldnt give a rats arsehole about what search terms to type in. He then topped this off by saying "Who in this room is a social science student?". Again, vacant expressions as all bar two of us study psychology (not his area) and the remaining two study media (again not his area). Well done Leicester.

The afternoon then continued with us being spoken to on a level with which you would reason with your average cucumber, so I distracted myself with facebook, msn and looking up some bits and bats for my group project. Ironically he then told me off for doing work. I carried on anyway because I thought I may aswell use the two hours for what it was intended - namely passing my course.

It's amazing how inept universities can be sometimes. They have a lot of people with a lot of knowledge there, but very little common sense. Maybe all the knowledge pushes out all the common sense.... who knows. Suffice it to say I was very annoyed and so spent the rest of the evening watching wire in the blood and eating pizza hut with Chalky. Wire in the bloody was probably the most psychology-related thing I have done all day, which goes to show what a waste of day it was. Sigh.

So I've just got back from Scotland a few hours ago and thought I'd update about my travels North of the border. It's my dads 50th on the 7th and so not really knowing what to do in terms of celebrations, we decided ('we' being myself, Louise, mum, auntie and uncle) to take a trip up to Scotland to where my dad was brought up, round St. Andrews area. After an arduous 8 hour (multiple) train ride up there as I was down in Leicester beforehand for uni, myself and Louise eventually arrived at the house we were staying at at 12:30am. The house was gorgeous (will post pics up soon), with fantastic views of the sea all around. You had to go upstairs to the kitchen and living area, with downstairs containing a lovely kingsize room - again with sea views, a win room, a bathroom and utility room; ground floor with the kitchen and living room together with a second utility room with all of the appliances in and finally upstairs had two more bedrooms and another bathroom. All in all it was fantastic accommodation to spend a few days relaxing in.

It was Lou's birthday on the 31st and so my mum and auntie had booked us in at a restaurant on the harbour front, which luckily for me specialised in seafood. Dad and I were completely in our element as there was so much to choose from - I think I ended up with scallops for main course and mussels to start, but we all ended up having a dib in at each others dishes as they were so nice. Unlucky for the birthday girl who hates fish. She did however have a nice looking chicken dish, although I still think it's blasphemy not to have fish when you're sat quite literally ten yards from the harbour!

On the Saturday myself, Louise, my mum and auntie decided to leave the boys to their own devices for the day as we all fancied a trip to Edinburgh. I think it has to be *possibly* my favourite city due to having such an eclectic mix of old and new - I love the fact that you can see Edinburgh castle from most parts of the city and that they still fire the cannon at 1pm each day. So Saturday was spent in and out of various shops in the centre, followed by lunch at a lovely place called Tiles and a nice glass of wine before getting the train back to Leuchars station. We were all pretty knackered when by the time we got in and so decided to veg out and watch Xfactor.

Sunday was a chilled out day - myself and Lou had a nice lie-in whilst my mum and Mo did their morning power walk into town to get the newspaper and various other things we (didn't) need. After looking round Anstruther (the next village to where we were staying), we visited Elie (bigger village with a lovely beach), Crail (a tiny fishing port with the most gorgeous 15th Century tea room and traditional smoking house) and finally Pittenweem (love that name) before heading to the local for a drink. The pub was amazing - we walked into it mid Sunday quiz which would have put us out of favour for sure, but it was bustling with locals and the ceilings were really low as it was a traditional 16th Century building. My dad introduced me to the wonders of Morgan's Spiced Rum with ginger ale - although how he got drinking that I have no clue. That evening my auntie made stovies for a 'stovie night' as myself and Lou had never had them. Basically they're onions and potatoes cooked into a sort of burnt oniony and potatoey stodge that is strangely satisfying.

Today myself and Lou got the 5hr train from Leuchars to Sheffield, which was thoroughly unexciting. The bloke on the buffet shop thing was possibly the rudest human being I've ever encountered. He was literally shouting at people for not having the correct change, and I had to laugh when someone reminded him that it was an actual shop not a vending machine and that he did have some semblance of a float. One woman waited 45mins for him to sort out her change from a £10 note which was utterly ridiculous.

Anyway, so that's my boring list-y post from Scotland. In short though it was beautiful and I'd definately visit the East coast and Fife circle again. St.Andrews is breathtaking and it's amazing to be on a golf course looking out to sea. Anyway, a boring read for everyone!

Well life has just been its usual monotonous self. Get up, fill the day with what is required and then go to bed really. One or two bits and bobs that may qualify as mildly interesting but otherwise nothing noteworthy - hence the lack of post.

My dad had a scan today. I hate them really not for what they are but what they imply. Each scan is followed by an agonising wait, where you're then told my some consultant or other that they 'don't know' where the primary site it and that they 'might try' this course of action. Not that it's their fault... christ I don't envy them. Making those decisions is not something I'd wish on anyone. So yeah it was scan today and clinic on the 4th. 3 days before my dads 50th birthday, which is nice. It'd be even a bit less horrific if I had some kind of support, but I'm guessing I don't deserve that - more than likely I don't. I just don't feel ready to embrace the prospect of nursing homes and death quite so soon. Then again perhaps everything on my part has been a complete overreaction. I don't mean to seem callous when I say I'd like to see someone do it better... because I really do need a few pointers.

People react differently to shock. As an entity shock impacts whenever it hits you. Mine was later I think. I can't excuse my behaviour because I don't see as I should. When you hurt that deeply it matters very little as to how much you hurt those around you (not that it makes it right). My mistake was always trying to keep things normal and being a cut above - knowing that now is of little solace because I see how wrong I was. If I'dve asked for help then maybe I would have got it instead of pushing it away. I think the person I'm speaking to knows what I mean, but if reacting the way I have makes me a bad person then for that I'm wholly guilty. What hurts me more than anything, and the thing that keeps me up at night is the fact I can't fix this. I'm not ashamed to say I got it wrong with people, because at the end of the day what kind of person would I be if I got it right?

Urgghhh public transport is such a bad idea. Not only is it wholly unreliable and late when you need to be on time, but you also have to pay for the privilege. I never used to understand why people complained about trains so much in the past, but having frequented them a lot more lately I am beginning to empathise. If I have to pay forty fucking pounds for a return to Leicester at peak time, the least Midland Mainline could do is make sure the damn thing turns up on time.

Tonight I had to get a 7pm train back from Leicester to Sheffield as the previous one mysteriously didn't appear. Maybe it took a detour via Platform 9 3/4... so yes I got in from uni at a staggering quarter past eight. Not that that is SOOO late as such, just a long time to be out of the house with random research methods being shoved in my ears all day. Fun fun. Particularly as there are least 2 people out of the whole ten doing my course that are most definately sub-normals.

Also, when I finally did get in there was nothing worth watching on TV. Sad times. At least I got to pick my new NUS up from the uni today, although I'm slightly pissed off that it's not the international one anymore - you have to pay an extra £6 to get a separate one to use abroad... national union of students are capitalist bastards.

Today was a better day. Not in one sense but in another. Although my dad is struggling to eat at the moment and things aren't so good in that way, it's nice for all four of us to be at home. Even little things like me doing the food shopping, louise cooking and us both helping my mum decorate and clear old stuff out makes me feel like we're part of a family again. When we're all off doing our own thing and pretending things aren't happening it gets difficult after a bit, but in a weird way today made me realise that underneath this black cloud we can still all get on, have a laugh and just generally live. I think it's things like this I'll miss, just the sitting infront of the telly and the family banter. Lord knows, there are tough enough times ahead.

Tomorrow I'm at uni and cacking it about my advanced statistics lecture. Who knows how I've come this far with my limited mathematical skills. Tomorrow they will find out that I have the statistical ability of a retarded goldfish. Fun.

This week has been weird. I got my head in a bit of a spin about a lot of things - mainly the stress of starting this course combined with lots of things changing with my dad and the whole home situation. In the usual Heather fashion rather than talk about things, I keep them all inside until I physically feel that they are choking me, and then I spiral into self destruct. Ironically, recognising the fact that I do this only makes it worse. If I didn't recognise or understand why it was happening, then possibly I'd have a shred of an excuse. However that's not the case, instead I just feel worse for knowing this and not being able to do anything about it. I think I lie to myself that I'm ok for such a long time, that there's a point when I can't do it any more and something else takes over. Afterwards I feel fine, but it gets harder and harder to pick up the remaining pieces every time.

This evening I went over to Doncaster to see my cousin and his wife, and baby Luca. My auntie and uncle also came for tea, so it was a bit of a gathering. We were there a good 5 hours and had a lot of laughs - it was nice to chill out with everyone for a bit. It's a bit weird though as in recent months me and my sister have forgotten what normal family life is like.

Recently I've been wanting another tattoo. I've toyed with the idea for a good year or so now, but I think I've settled on what it is I'd like. I have this thing about dandelions, and like the idea of having one with the seeds kind of blown across my body. Sort of like this:




I'd have it in black and grey though, as I'm not really mad keen on coloured tattoos. I think it has some personal relevance for me anyway and my experiences in life.

Anyway, uni work to do tomorrow.... joy.