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
'Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -- I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.' Robert Frost
Thursday, June 10, 2004
Tuesday, June 08, 2004
Monday, June 07, 2004
How am I feeling today? Guilty. Why? Because I feel as though I've let my readers down by blowing off the blogging for the past week. Reading Becky R's blog only made it worse. Ay (translation ay/yes..but) you must understand, access to Internet is limited by availability of the following resources: Time & money. Unfortunately I've had very little of the either recently. But here I am with a little time (still no money, but good ol' library access...Happy days!!) so am going to attempt to recollect events of past week in v. Condensed, AA version (note..jen &n Keri have been writing in PG version....so obviously if you want a bit more of the truth...you'll just have to visit All Shanadian)
Ok..so where did I leave off? Ah yes..the Weekend that Went All Wrong. Well, as it turns out..Sometimes the things you don't plan end up being the best . Take for instance our plan to do quiz night last Sunday at local bar on Rose St. called Breck's. Did we plan to amass a posse of Scottish males? I don't think so. Did we plan to get more Northern/Scottish Exposure in public house (read into that what you must) than any of us would wish upon ourselves? No way. Suffice to say, our quiz night never really happened and, with much incentive to leave Breck's and the v. sophisticated crew of lads that had started playing games with salt and butter knives at our table, we found ourselves back at good 'ol Filthy McNasty's.
And what did we find at Filthy McNasty's but men in kilts. Ay...if there was any chance I hadn't seen enough men in skirts during my life time..The score was certainly settled last Sunday. I danced with men in kilts, sang songs with men in kils...it was all just a bit too much for this Shanadian. Right, so Sunday evening turned out to be redeemer of the weekend...the 99p shots did help a lot..
My second weekend at Scottish Blood Transfusion..more interesting/exciting than the first..I'd graduated to using Excel and Peoplesoft!!! Woohoo!! In any case, had decided that if I was offered an extension I would turn it down, but luckliy enogh no extension was offered, so was looking forward to having this week off (note the apst tense there..see below for details). ANyways,am done with that bloody job now..onwards & upwards.
Tuesday eve,us gals decided to take in a picture (not from a store or an adoption type thing....a movie is what I am talking about). We went to see The Day After Tomorrow..and let me just say..if you are thinking about viewing this flick then that is when you should go see it..the day after tomorrow..because, theoretically that day will never arrive (because tomorrow will always becomes today for infinity right? ( Am I making any sense whatsoever?? Anyway, the short of it is that the movie is shite, despite the fact that I believe the basic premise (environmental awarenss) is v. important...
Thursday night was return to McNastys (really must send a pic from there..is our watering hole now I believe..again..see below for more details). I can't really recall how the evening went..so it may very well have been boring. Actually, I think it was quite so..we did some singing (if you could call it that) and some drinking. Note: Singing and drinknig go v. v. well together..one encourages the other and vice versa.
Friday = On a Need to Know Basis...all I will say is that I broke promise to never drink Aftershock again..
Saturday = Caledonian Beer Fstival. Paid 7 pounds to get into beer festival and were given souvenir glass and pint of beer in return..must say, felt a bit gipped until we (the 3 gals) won ourselves a bottle of vanilla/citrus flavoured whisky. And how did we do that? By having awesome smelling abilties and scoring highest on smelling of pure essences test. Was truly a team effort :) Too bad none of us is keen on whisky, but we did get our pic with Robbo, the entrepreneur, and that was treat enough in itself!
Saturday night was Finnegan's Wake (Irish Bar) for return of the Mockingbirds. OK, by end of night it was official..we are now groupies..having had our picture taken on stage with the band for the second time...one must be on alert when there are five Canadian girls in the house and a band with hot lead singer :)
Ooh..and last night Jen & I took in a History of Motown show which was straight from America. WAs fabulous, although could have done with less of main man (who was rather old ) grabbing himself like Michael Jackson . just wasn't right.
And, of course, to end off night we went to McNasty's, where I daresay I may actually be considered a regular now. Unanimously our fav pub in Edinburgh :)
Right,so here I am thinking I have the whole week off..when I get a call aroud lunch time from temp agency and I've been offered job that starts tomorrow..a six month contract. Is admin work at Scottish Equity Investment..apparently there are quite a few temps working there, so hopefully will be better social life than at Scottish Blood Transfusion where lunches were spent with supervisor and librarian discussing garden parties and Marie Curie Cancer events....Who knows? I may stay for the entirety of it, but I can quit whenever I want.
So..off I go to get my haircut. Yes..its only been three and a half weeks and already I have to shell money out on this damn style. And isnt it always the way that when you finally decide to do the deed you end up receiving all sorts of compliments on your hair? Ay....well, must be done.
Uncle Mike - if you are really offering to send PB ..well by all means. AS if you weren't my favorite uncle anyways..but now its in stone!!! My address is as follows:
Shannon Courtney
29 Drummond Place
Edinburgh, Scotland
EH36PN
AS for you emailers whom i haven't replied to yet..I apologise and make promise to do it v. soon. Especially high on priority list is Sister Sahra...as we must start planning October holiday soon!!!
Ok..so where did I leave off? Ah yes..the Weekend that Went All Wrong. Well, as it turns out..Sometimes the things you don't plan end up being the best . Take for instance our plan to do quiz night last Sunday at local bar on Rose St. called Breck's. Did we plan to amass a posse of Scottish males? I don't think so. Did we plan to get more Northern/Scottish Exposure in public house (read into that what you must) than any of us would wish upon ourselves? No way. Suffice to say, our quiz night never really happened and, with much incentive to leave Breck's and the v. sophisticated crew of lads that had started playing games with salt and butter knives at our table, we found ourselves back at good 'ol Filthy McNasty's.
And what did we find at Filthy McNasty's but men in kilts. Ay...if there was any chance I hadn't seen enough men in skirts during my life time..The score was certainly settled last Sunday. I danced with men in kilts, sang songs with men in kils...it was all just a bit too much for this Shanadian. Right, so Sunday evening turned out to be redeemer of the weekend...the 99p shots did help a lot..
My second weekend at Scottish Blood Transfusion..more interesting/exciting than the first..I'd graduated to using Excel and Peoplesoft!!! Woohoo!! In any case, had decided that if I was offered an extension I would turn it down, but luckliy enogh no extension was offered, so was looking forward to having this week off (note the apst tense there..see below for details). ANyways,am done with that bloody job now..onwards & upwards.
Tuesday eve,us gals decided to take in a picture (not from a store or an adoption type thing....a movie is what I am talking about). We went to see The Day After Tomorrow..and let me just say..if you are thinking about viewing this flick then that is when you should go see it..the day after tomorrow..because, theoretically that day will never arrive (because tomorrow will always becomes today for infinity right? ( Am I making any sense whatsoever?? Anyway, the short of it is that the movie is shite, despite the fact that I believe the basic premise (environmental awarenss) is v. important...
Thursday night was return to McNastys (really must send a pic from there..is our watering hole now I believe..again..see below for more details). I can't really recall how the evening went..so it may very well have been boring. Actually, I think it was quite so..we did some singing (if you could call it that) and some drinking. Note: Singing and drinknig go v. v. well together..one encourages the other and vice versa.
Friday = On a Need to Know Basis...all I will say is that I broke promise to never drink Aftershock again..
Saturday = Caledonian Beer Fstival. Paid 7 pounds to get into beer festival and were given souvenir glass and pint of beer in return..must say, felt a bit gipped until we (the 3 gals) won ourselves a bottle of vanilla/citrus flavoured whisky. And how did we do that? By having awesome smelling abilties and scoring highest on smelling of pure essences test. Was truly a team effort :) Too bad none of us is keen on whisky, but we did get our pic with Robbo, the entrepreneur, and that was treat enough in itself!
Saturday night was Finnegan's Wake (Irish Bar) for return of the Mockingbirds. OK, by end of night it was official..we are now groupies..having had our picture taken on stage with the band for the second time...one must be on alert when there are five Canadian girls in the house and a band with hot lead singer :)
Ooh..and last night Jen & I took in a History of Motown show which was straight from America. WAs fabulous, although could have done with less of main man (who was rather old ) grabbing himself like Michael Jackson . just wasn't right.
And, of course, to end off night we went to McNasty's, where I daresay I may actually be considered a regular now. Unanimously our fav pub in Edinburgh :)
Right,so here I am thinking I have the whole week off..when I get a call aroud lunch time from temp agency and I've been offered job that starts tomorrow..a six month contract. Is admin work at Scottish Equity Investment..apparently there are quite a few temps working there, so hopefully will be better social life than at Scottish Blood Transfusion where lunches were spent with supervisor and librarian discussing garden parties and Marie Curie Cancer events....Who knows? I may stay for the entirety of it, but I can quit whenever I want.
So..off I go to get my haircut. Yes..its only been three and a half weeks and already I have to shell money out on this damn style. And isnt it always the way that when you finally decide to do the deed you end up receiving all sorts of compliments on your hair? Ay....well, must be done.
Uncle Mike - if you are really offering to send PB ..well by all means. AS if you weren't my favorite uncle anyways..but now its in stone!!! My address is as follows:
Shannon Courtney
29 Drummond Place
Edinburgh, Scotland
EH36PN
AS for you emailers whom i haven't replied to yet..I apologise and make promise to do it v. soon. Especially high on priority list is Sister Sahra...as we must start planning October holiday soon!!!
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