Thanks, Steve.

Get on with the application! If you don't even do that, you have no chance, whereas as doing at least creates some opportunity.

All the jobs I applied for that I really wanted, I didn't get. I particularly wanted one researching carbon capture and storage technologies for one the larger electicity companies. I didn't even get an interview, or a dicky bird back from the application - but I would never have forgiven myself if I hadn't tried.

It always makes me feel slightly guilty though, when I meet people who desperately wanted the job I have. While I enjoy it, I don't love it, but then, I also think that helps me keep my priorities straight, and my work-life balance sensible! If I had total passion for it, I might never come home!!

So put in the application. The worst case is you hear nothing, which isn't exactly failure!

I've done it. All ready to go in the morning after I've checked it one last time.

Good luck, Floss! If it's truly the right job for you, you will get it. And if you don't, there is probably something better around the corner.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! Deadline in 3 hours, work pretty much ready to go.. the uni upload site was being funny but now the whole internet has gone down in halls!! stressssssssingggggggg slightly. looks like an insane dash to the library

Oh no! I hope you get it sorted, you're giving me flashbacks!!

First year, and sprinting for a lecturers office with my my maths coursework, and arriving to find he was just removing the folder on the door. The hand in method was to place your completed sheet in the folder taped to his door. Once he'd taken it inside, that was it. Fortunately he must have seen the devastated expression on my face, because he let me get away with it.

And then, in final year one of my friends had a last minute Word-updates-all-your-fields-and-references disaster when he pressed print. His whole report became a total mess. He was in tears trying to get it sorted in time for the deadline (we'd all pulled several all nighters on the trot by this point) an no-one knew what to do to bale him out. It used to be that there was some flexibility on deadlines when disaster loomed, but since they shifted towards a digital submission system, everything has become much stricter...

*shudders*

So glad I don't have to endure things like this any more!!

Finally got it in 20 minutes before the deadline! Had to use the internet dongle of the flatmate of my friend/coursemate! I love electronic submission because you get longer and don't have to leave the house to send it in, but when technical issues arise...

I HATE it when word does that! for one of my last pieces of work, I spend 4 hours (I kid you not!) just trying to get Excel graphs etc to format properly in my word document and then as soon as I pasted it into the coversheet document it went all funny again! I've never hated microsoft office so much as on that deadline day!

I learnt to use LaTeX to typeset my papers instead of word, and while it was painful learning to use it (since it's typesetting not what-you-see-is-what-you-get), it did minimise the possibility that the formatting would get messed up before submission. I suppose it's just a matter of when the pain occurs rather than eliminating it altogether

The problem with Microsoft is that even after all these years, the fact that Excel, Word, etc were separate products has never been fully resolved - there are still things that go wrong copying between products. I use a MS product called Visio for drawing technical diagrams. When I copy them into Word, it regularly changes the layout of interconnecting lines in the diagram.

My goodness you should see the rain here!!! It's coming down.... well.... VERY heavily!


It was the same yesterday - we'll be entertaining the dogs with their toys in the house again today

Just want to do absolutely nothing all day!

Feel so depressed today It seems like more or less every decision I've ever made going back to when i was about 14 has been a wrong one in some way or another. I do try not to get like this but today i'm so annoyed with myself.

Some days are just like that. The truth is that we can never really know what would have happened if we'd decided differently, and if we were able to go back we'd probably do the same again. I hope that tomorrow you'll look at your life from a different angle and feel pleased with yourself.

There are a couple of things that can set me off...I can just drown in the absolute burning agony of those regrets or mistakes.

I watched a TEDTalk about regret being, if not a good thing then at least not the bad thing we so often get told it is...if you have 15 mins or so it's worth a watch - it's not about letting go of these things but embracing them (and I suppose somehow learning to live with them). Ack, it's not as smiley-self-helpy as I'm making it sound
http://www.ted.com/talks/kathryn_schulz_do...ret_regret.html

One line from it: "The point isn't to live without any regrets, the point is to not hate ourselves for having them"
In the talk she puts up a slide of the categories people have the most regrets in...it was kind of comforting to know that at least in that respect, I'm pretty normal


Edit - I usually watch these on an iPad, but reading the comments on the webpage I linked is quite fascinating.

We went out in a break in the rain... the break in the rain ended before we got home = two folk and four dogs SOAKED to the skin

There have been moments today when it has been a tadge damp

Can I just say Jazz is evil, I really don't get it,

SOMEHOW, I managed to write the wrong lesson time down or forget to write down a change in time and missed a lesson. And even worse in some ways, she's being really nice about it and rescheduling it. Frantically going back over all the intervening pages of my notebook but no, I really didn't write it down. HOW could I do this!!! I hate messing people about even inadvertently

Aaaagh - picked up a promotional catalogue from near the door of John Lewis in Chester, and cut the fleshy part of my right thumb on the edge of the paper ! Wouldnt stop bleeding for ages, and now its very sore. No piano practice tonight.

There's a John Lewis in Chester now? That must be quite new....or maybe not, it must be 5 years or so since I went shopping in Chester..

Yes its not in the centre - its out at the Retail Park down Sealand Road, and has been open about 6 months.

Piano lesson booked last week for 4:30pm tomorrow. Lunchtime on Monday got asked to work tomorrow afternoon - lesson rearranged for tomorrow morning. Late this afternoon a phone call came in from my colleague, she won't be in as she's not well. Got asked to do a full day shift to cover her.

I know it was only the beginning of this week that I was begging the manager for extra hours, and I'm glad I've got them, but now I don't get a lesson till Tuesday - boooo!

I bet your piano teacher is thrilled with you! Let's hope you make the Tuesday lesson or you may be needing another teacher!

Large puddles on the floor - almost everywhere. Couldn't find the explanation until we remembered that two days ago the vet prescribed diuretic pills for our large dog. He didn't think to warn us. We can't leave her outside as it is raining most of the time at the moment. Looks as if we have to grin and bear it until the next visit to the vet - when he will have to find another solution!

I've really no idea whether this ought to go here or the random thoughts thread. Apparently some nutter who didn't get a lorry driving license is holding some people hostage in an office in London near where I work, and throwing stuff (computers, furniture, etc) out of the window. ???!?!?!?!

Goodness. Hope you are well clear!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-17869815

Thanks - I am entirely safe but why in heck is not getting an HGV license the trigger for taking people hostage?? Well, not that there's ever any good reason to take people hostage.

Well - indeed.

Someone who's had 639 job rejections and this was the final hope, and he's flipped?

Someone who didn't get what s/he wanted and is throwing toys out of the pram?

Who knows! I certainly hope it ends without casualties.

New flat screen tv is broken. Not sure we can afford a replacement - oh well, we will be tv-less!

Thankfully she's a good friend outside of lessons and teaching isn't her main job so she can be flexible like that and doesn't usually mind if I cancel/rearrange last minute! If anything I actually saved her a detour as she'd offered to pick me up this morning on the way back from another commitment!

My partner drove the lawn tractor over a tree stump yesterday. It stuck and we couldn't budge it. The man came to look at it just now - it's pelting down with rain - and he says he will come and take it away on Monday but he thinks it is wrecked.

Sounds expensive !

Broken my Triumph .... and the weather is so bad that I can't get out to fix it!

Computer woes...a while back my computer started shutting itself off spontaneously, and sometimes not very long after it started. A look inside confirmed that one of the two fans at the back wasn't going round.
A hoover (despite it not being all that dusty) seemed to fix it.
Six weeks later I needed to do it again.
And then four weeks after that.
And then two weeks after that.
And now two weeks after that again...I've hoovered it, not that there was anything resembling visible dust. Plug it back in, still not happy. I've got a little wooden skewer, so I've switched the PC on, then I go round the back of it and poke the skewer through the grill to make sure the recalcitrant fan is spinning.

Which clearly it is now, as I'm here typing to you, but any moment it could make it's funny noise and stop spinning and the computer shuts down.

It's quite annoying. Fortunately I have a friend who's husband is a computer-building chap, so hopefully he will have some ideas (any ideas from here welcome too!)

Oh, and the oven appears to have died too - thermostat on an aged gas oven. Husband is all for getting a new one but trying to find an online seller who can deliver, install, and take away the old one in a reasonable time.
Fortunately he has a non-randomly switching off computer to do this on!

Do you have a poltergeist in your house?

Hope you get everything fixed soon.

Ours did that. We eventually had the fan replaced (didn't cost much) and that solved the problem. If you have someone who can do it for you, that's even better

Sigh.

Very Big Sigh.

Hug.

Very Big Hug.

Not a cloud in the sky today in Derbyshire .... if only it'd been like this yesterday I may have found out what's up with my little GT6.

Only a minor aaaaarrrrrggggghhhh but I'm waiting for a very important phonecall and feeling really sick with anticipation. The longer I wait the worse it is getting.

and when the call finally came at 17:01 it was to say that they couldn't give a decision today and would phone again later in the week.

Series of minor arghs - first my friend who had asked me round to lunch cancelled as she's not feeling great right now, then tonight's pupil had to cancel as she's had a bad reaction to a bite and two fingers have swollen up - then when I first left my flat today I discovered someone's written lots of offensive words and images on the stairwell so all my pupils will see it when they come for lessons!

Still waiting

I hate Hazard Perception. hate hate hate!

(failed by 3 marks... grr. :/ )

I've been told that the design of the test is not good and that it's more a test of being able to play the computer game than it is of Hazard perception.

That's not very reassuring. My son has had vast experience of playing a huge number of assorted computer games, has a degree in something-fairly-related, and has failed his Hazard Perception twice.

Commiserations, SaxLad. Better luck next time!

From what I was told if you are too good at it you fail by spotting hazards too early..... though they may have improved it?

Hope you hear soon CJB, and that it's good news when it comes.