I am a woman on a mission today. To boldly go, where this Shanadian believes she has already been before (but has become doubtful due to recent email from 'ahem@ certain person who thinks Fabulously Jen is the accomplished missionary). Right.so..my mission - to be witty. Now the problem with such a mission, is that one can not easily create wit on demand, thus in attempting to be witty, one often comes across as witLESS. Nevermind..will go against the odds and be 'Fabulously' Witty.

Where to begin? Ah yes, last blog entry was v. v. short due to me being at work and it being the first day. I've just finished my third day of work (incidentally we arrive din Edinburgh just four weeks ago) and must say I believe post at Scottish Equitable will be mind-numbing, but pleasantly so.

I am essentially doing data entry, which involves entering names, addresses and calculating a few numbers (Finance 331 has come in handy..I actually know what a Bond is and what a Gain is...gaining is something I do very well..but will get to that later). What have I learned so far? Well, my knowledge of place names has increased by at least 100% (of course, 100% of nothing is still ..er...um 0 I think..but let me get the calculator to be sure).

My favorite addresses are the ones in Wales...they make absolutely no sense and when you try to pronounce them it simply sounds like you've stuffed a banana in your mouth and then decided to spout out some random words. Honestly..words that have no vowels..or more then three consonants in a row freak me out..they really do..my brain rejects them. How can they be words????

Another interesting occurrence (apologies..am grasping at straws here to make my job as interesting as possible..is more difficult than trying to stay away from the pubs every night:) Right..so there are a lot of place names over here that end with Shire (like from LOTR) ..Ayrshire, Lancashire..yaddda, yadda, yadda..and here I am typing at a manic speed....well..on more than one occasion have replaced 'R' in shire with letter to the right of the 'R' ..have caught all atrocities so far, but whew...must stay on eh ball..don't want to be sending out any shite!

OH..another perk to the job..free coffee (ew), tea (Nah) or hot chocolate (jackpot) every day!!! Plus lots of sweeties/candy going around (hey we are team of 15 girls what do you expect??) In case that isn't enough, they have great restaurant, cafe and...PICK & MIX ..only 50p per 100g. This is better than Sweet Factory (not better than Bulk Barn..but can anything compare...the B is in a league of its own). Given the easy access to food/candy I must say the presence of on-site gym is reassuring..will join a soon as I can (i.e. when I actually get a bank account set up here!!)

OK..for some reason I keep forgetting to mention a few adjustments that have caused me slight trouble here in Edinburgh. The first being that it doesn't get dark until around 11 at night, and the sun rises in the wee hours of the morn..Essentially I would say no more 6 hours of semi-darkness a day. This is all grand, save for when one is trying to get tp sleep..there is just something wrong about going to bed before the sun falls. Hence the reason I've been super tired this week (may also have something to do with late, late nights of the weekend...but will ignore that possibility and Blame it on the SUN ...rather than the Rain ..there hasn't been much of that here at all)

Of even greater concern is lack of stop signs..Honestly I have seen as few Stop Signs as I have Scottish people since arriving....Street corners in Edinburgh are apparently meant for speeding around and pedestrians are like pylons on an obstacle course..try to avoid them, but can't be helped if you knock down one or two ..no way are you slowing down in your SmartCar...no sireee..

Ok..well must now head to LIDL..great German grocery store where everything is cheap, thus all edibles are of questionable goodness..ah well..what's life without a bit of risk (this from me..who refused to eat red meat in Ireland!)??

Hope mission was accomplished..will continue in near future