Something like that. I guess its mainly that I don't want other people to end up panicking/worrying as much as I am, in case it turns out okay anyway...

Dunno if that's daft or not!

I have an Excel spreadsheet that gets looked at by a program and turned in to XML files.
Only it doesn't like my spreadsheet.
I ask H, local expert. H takes a look, can't see what it might be, so refers me to A.
A says 'this will be caused by that, but if not, put in a helpdesk ticket and helpdesk will refer on to the software provider'. And takes several hours to do this so that it goes in to the next day.
Look in to it this morning, and 'this' is not being caused by 'that'. Submit helpdesk ticket.
Helpdesk go to software provider, who say, oh, you don't want us for that, you want your company expert, which is H.
Go back to H. H takes another look, we poke about and find a few odd things, fix those, still no joy.
H says it'll have to go to A.
Have reported it back to A, along with telling the helpdesk that it's with A and telling A it has an official helpdesk tracking number and is now 24 hours more urgent that it was yesterday...

Wonder if we'll get anywhere or if we will proceed in circles once more?

Typical of large multinationals such as yours !

Well I must have finally said the right thing to the right person, as the chap who wrote the conversion program is due to phone me in the next 15 mins. Let's hope he does phone me; and that he can fix it

Grrrh, my entire day seems to be cursed...
I've literally had at least one exam at school every day for the last two weeks, on top of taking grade six ballet and grade four tap exams with dancing, so unfortunately, had very little practice for anything musical lately! I had a violin lesson this afternoon, so I purposefully got up an hour and a half earlier so I could have a decent-ish practice session this morning. I did half an hour of piano, which was fine, and then it all went downhill from there. My violin was somehow completely out of tune (I have no idea how!), I couldn't for the life of me get any fingering right, any improvement in tone was completely out the window...grrh. I then went into for two science resit exams, where they gave me the wrong question papers! The exam was really hard too, done so badly methinks. Then had choir rehearsal at lunch, and could not get any sort of decent notes out! Had a fight with my French teacher too, I simply can't retain any sort of grammatical information she's teaching us, languages are not my strong point! Came home to do my lesson, which was a disaster...could not stay in tune, with myself or my teacher, and my shoulder rest would not stay clipped on! Now have to go do three essays due in for tomorrow!

I'm sorry for the rant/essay, and I know people have much bigger problems in life, but it was just a lot in one day

Grrr. Am afflicted with a selection of pupils who have lost the will to practise. Am beginning to lose the will to live myself here. Grrrr.

sympathies. My last week was a bit like that. This week was somewhat better - !

AHHHHHH

I've done so much practice the past few days it's ridiculous... If only I had the enthusiasm to do this much all the time...!

But you've had an exam about now haven't you? Hope it went well.

I'm obviously too soft with my pupils. Am thinking in ultimatum terms - practice or you're out!

W

Sorry, I can't really explain what this one is on the internet.

Oh, dear...

DC, Cyrilla, Stephie - **hugs** from me and Matthew xx

Aww...thanks...and thanks to noodle too...am OK...

Got a letter from Leeds uni this morning telling me I won't even get an audition for the course I want because I don't have grade 8 distinction (missed by 2 marks)
Then just checked track and I didn't get in to Royal Welsh
So that's now my top conservatoire and top uni choice out the window; I actually have no idea what I'll do next year now. It's unlikely I will have got in to Birmingham conservatoire, since my audition was worse than Welsh and I'm really not sure I want to go to the other unis I've applied to.
I could have a gap year I suppose and apply again, but it's really stressing me out not having any plans

That's very disappointing for you. Don't write off the other unis you've applied to until you've seen them though. Leeds isn't the only place for music, and presumably when you applied you thought the others would be OK. Sometimes in life we look back and are thankful that we didn't get what we thought we wanted, because what actually happens turns out to be just right for us.

If you are seriously considering a gap year, start thinking now about what you could do which would still give you space and time to improve your playing. Lots of people don't get into conservatoire first time, and if Leeds are looking for a grade 8 distinction, in another year you might have one.

I'm exhausted and freaked out. My housemate set our house alight at 4:30 this morning. He came home drunk, lit a candle, and fell asleep with his quilt over it. He's been having a terrible time lately, so I have to make allowances for him, but I can't help but be angry and upset. When the alarm went off, he didn't even wake up, I was running around the house searching for fire in all the rooms, assuming no one else was in, I was on the verge of going back upstairs and trying to figure out why the alarm was malfunctioning when I smelled the smoke from his room.

He's burned up a quilt and half his books, but we managed to put the fire out ourselves, so I guess I shouldn't be so stressed... But it's so dangerous. If I hadn't been in to wake him up, he would've died... If for some reason the alarm hadn't woken me, we both would've. Scary.

That's a scary storey.

When I was at boarding school the fire alarm went off at all hours at least once a week. We learnt that they were always false alarms caused by toast being burnt in the kitchen etc... The fire service were probably very very fed up with us by the time I left after being there 3 years.

Candles are actually quite dangerous and I think they're something like the second most likely starter of house fires after cigarettes. Lovely though they are, you really do have to be very careful with them. If you must light them make sure there's nothing around they could set light to and that they're placed on a heat resistant surface, don't leave them unattended and don't light them when you're drunk.

I think it's common sense that candles do not go along with extreme drunkenness... And to have passed out to the point where he couldn't hear the fire alarm, he must have been very drunk. I don't understand why he needed a candle just then anyway!
I'm so annoyed about it... I don't want to be put in danger because of someone else's carelessness, as harsh as I know that sounds.

I want to play the flute or piano

But mum has banned me from them until I've finished my homework

Perhaps he had read this....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Komrij's_patentwekker

I've seen such candles for sale..

This shows how important it is to have a working smoke alarm - you really might have died without one. Thank goodness there was a happy ending to your story, though I bet the landlord will not be too pleased when he sees the smoke and fire damage!

It's no good getting annoyed with your housemate; I'm sure when he's sober he wouldn't dream of doing anything so dangerous, but whatever he says now, next time he gets drunk he won't be responsible for his actions. You might try persuading him not to keep candles at all; I imagine he's now appalled by what he did, so might see that as sensible.

Arrived at school yesterday morning to find the gate lock jammed. Impossible to open it. Had three hours of lessons in the morning and a tea party and presentation of certificates arranged for 16 pupils and their families in the afternoon. Panic.

Rang a colleague who very kindly sent her husband to help. While he was manfully applying brute force to the gate my mobile rang. "Can you come home? We have an enormous flood and although I've turned the water off it won't stop and it's coming through the ceiling!"

We did eventually get the plumbing fixed and we did have the tea party but it really was one of those days!

Sympathies.

We're having the windows replaced. We don't often have work done on the house, so it's a fairly unusual thing, and requires all my attention to get curtains down, move stuff and keep alert for the men. On Wednesday, I had a phone call from my mother that her fridge/freezer had broken down - by some miracle I was supposed to organise a new one. So it hasn't been a good week, but not as bad as your day.

Thank you Susie. And my sympathies to you as well. There are some days when I really do believe in the "conspiracy of inanimate objects"!!

Sympathy to Lucky and Aquarelle - I do know what you mean about inanimate objects! Panic indeed.

Lucky - you don't need us to tell you how appropriate your forums-name is at the moment! you might very well not have survived this if you hadn't a) had a working alarm, and b) been aware enough to go searching. Very thankful you are ok. There was an article in the news over the weekend about a house where the alarm wasn't working, and candles fell on to a pile of dry washing in the kitchen ... the family survived only because their four cats woke them in the small hours.

It does not sound harsh to say you don't want to be put in danger because of someone's carelessness - it's more than carelessness - it's irresponsible. You can't stop him going out and getting drunk if he wants to, but you can perhaps persuade him not to have candles in his room. If they aren't there he can't light one when he isn't sober. As BM said.

Oh goodness, Lucy. I had no idea or else I'd have mentioned it when we were texting today. I hope you're all ok. Xx

Thanks everyone... If my housemate wasn't struggling so much at the moment we'd have had words I think. As it was he's just so very unhappy that I hadn't the heart to say more then "well that was scary, thank God no one's hurt". My other housemates came home today, and I told them what had happened... We're all of the opinion that housemate #1 really needs a bit of a helping hand. We're going to keep an eye out for him a bit, and hopefully nothing like it will happen again. I feel less stressed and angry now I've had a day or two to recover from the fright.

Pupil's mother has just rung to say that the child has broken her elbow - two weeks before her exam! It has taken so long (and so much work) to get her to this stage and she was set to do quite well...

W

Well my plans for getting my laptop fixed have seemed to have gone array; so for now I have to use my dads or mums .... my mums being very slow :/



Oh the joys of losing all of your university essays and not having a clue on what to do again ....

That doesn't sound good.

I'd recommend getting a pen drive (USB stick or key) and back up all your work between the USB, your laptop and the uni network. That way if something goes wrong with one you should have a least one copy somewhere else (and maybe even two dependent on what goes wrong). Pen drives are quite cheap now - you should be able to get a decent amount of space for under £10.

Urff. I'm getting over a bad cold, and have a performance in class on Thursday.

We went over the piece in last night's lesson, and I was wheezing badly after just once through. I hope it's all better by the performance

Thanks Flossie, my mums getting me one for christmas ... it's £100 but worth it!

I'm just going have to bite the bullet and start again I think!

£100?? That must be an external HDD, not a pen drive?

She gave it to me tonight instead ... Black stick lol :S

At that price I'm hoping it was one of the McAfee secure ones with the thumbprint scanner!

Me too! I got mine for about ?3 at Wilkinsons... It worked perfectly, til I put it through the wash with my jeans. Heslop, if yours is miles nicer, I'd definitely recommend that you watch out for things like that... I didn't really mind when I broke mine.

Eurgh, I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed today. There's a problem with the electricity at my house, so the lights will work, but nothing else... Everything in the freezer has been defrosting all night, and I can't be there to try and sort it out as I have stuff at uni all day. I know I'm online now, but I'm in kind of a gap between two things. Due to this, I won't be able to practise for the audition I have tonight, I need to learnt he solo part of Shackles for it... I learn music really slowly - I know it sounds self-indulgent but I do, so even though it's really informal and stuff, and I was told to audition because they think I can do it, I have a feeling I'll embarrass myself horribly.

As well as that, I'm feeling really ill, and I have ridiculous amounts of work to do. I was at the doctors this morning and got moderately bad news (I'm no iller than I knew I was yesterday, but the treatment I'm on isn't working. It's no more than an inconvenience to have to keep changing but I'll feel rundown for a bit).
I have a seminar this afternoon, that I don't feel prepared for, even though I've been in the library every single day, for hours all term, and I haven't got any feedback from my tutor about my most recent essay idea, so I don't know if I should start researching or not.
ARGH

*hugs to Lucy* Xxx


(Post amended - PM if you *really* want to know why my entire house was awake from 3am... and why there was an ambulance here twice in one day. )

Lucky and Celeste XX

Ditto.. there must be something in the water up there that causes all this chaos!

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear...

Sounds bad! Are you OK?

Hope you are ok, C ?

Handbag and laptop stolen from the kitchen tonight phone, cards, the bl**dy lot.

Wow, someone had a nerve! It must be really scary thinking that someone would come into your home like that.

So sorry to hear this; it's such a nuisance having to cancel all the cards so near Christmas, just when you need to be shopping. I hope your insurance is up to date.