02/26/2006: "We Won! :hehe:"

My goodness what a week this has been and to end it on a Scotland v England win for the Scottish rugby team is just soooooooooooooooo fantastic, not to mention unexpected. When I finally crawled into bed in the wee small hours this morning, it did feel like I'd managed to squeeze quite a lot into the week.

Monday was the only night I managed to stay in, so a combination of the new job workload beginning to increase daily and me being out every night since Tuesday I have to admit to feeling a little frazzled right now. Getting used to working five days instead of four might have been easier if my social life followed it's normal quiet existance. However, there seems to have been an unexpected rush on social events this week.

Tuesday night I was at a great Buddy Millar and Hayes Carll concert and catching up with friends from my old work. The concert was foot tapping and hip wigglingly great and I didn't stand still for any of it. Buddy was fantastic but I really like Hayes Carll's music and hearing him live was a treat. The venue was a little underground cavern type vault which worked really well accoustically but not great on visibilty for little people like me. It was probably a mistake to go back to the pub (wasn't drinking as had the car) afterwards as tiredness was setting in but it was great to catch up with everyone. I really miss them all. Unfortunately, picked up a parking ticket - I really don't know how and will be contesting it! - so it made for an expensive evening.

Wednesday and Thursday were art nights and I also had a meeting with my mentor on Wednesday which meant a lot of dashing from work/home/college and I have to say I finished that meeting feeling really low and depressed about my art. I'm just not getting enough time to do research and keeping up with my sketch books (quite a few marks are based on these). My mentor kept on going on about watching out I wasn't spreading myself too thin across all the things I'm trying to squeeze into my life and I know she's right.

I'm permanently tired but know that I have to keep things going. I keep telling myself that it's just because the job is new I've been giving it more time the last four weeks but hand-in is in three weeks time and I can feel the panic beginning. It was as if she was trying to force me to make a decision about what I want to do art/work and it just felt awful. I don't want to make that decision.

I'd choose art everytime but like 99% of the population I can't just give up work. I'm having such mental battles in my head all the time at the moment and I just hope I can keep things on an even keel for the next few weeks. Things will calm down, but it is going to be my art which will suffer in the short term and that does make me unhappy. Compromising grades seems so unfair. My work will be judged alongside other students who do nothing but the part-time course and have all/every day to work on sketch books. I just can't compete with that and I have to really think about what's important to me. On Wednesday I sat through a training course at work and was desperate to take my phone out to take a picture of the pattern shining through the glass of water on my desk because it was giving me ideas for jewellery. So I suppose my mind is on my art work but the frustration of not being able to actually do it more is hard. Luckily we stopped for a coffee break and I did get the shot satisfied

On Friday I was working at two different locations on opposite sides of town so there was a fair amount of driving around in (frustrating) city traffic to do and then a night out with the new work colleagues. We went for a really nice Italian meal (where the waiter attempted to spoon feed me my ice-cream!) and then onto the Jam House which only opened in Edinburgh in November. It was a really nice venue, Jules wasn't there but there was live music from a band called the Bradleys and a bit of space for those who felt like a dance to do so. These young lads know how to cheer up an old lady and their last song was dedicated to my colleagues and me. So between that and the ice-cream incident I wasn't feeling quite as old as I usually do! Again, had the car so didn't have anything to drink - I hope the new colleagues didn't think I was being a party-pooper but I still had a really good night and did stay out for a while.

We had friends staying last night and as I didn't have a ticket for the match, was able to do a bit of the pre-match driving to get everyone to where they were going before and for the match. I then watched it alone at home. It really was a great match and I was on the edge of my seat most of the time. A friend, had arranged a girly dvd/pizza night so had to leave the house before the end of the match but the taxi driver was listening to it on his radio, so I asked if he'd mind turning it up. I got to R's house in time to see the end and gloat (she's English). SED was at the match with SO but even SYD was sending me text messages at the end when we'd won. I think everyone got caught up in the excitement this time around. We watched "Brief Encounter" which I've never seen in it's entirety before, (nearly needed a tissue but the "BBC English" circa 1940's accents took a bit of the passion out of it for me), still it was enjoyable. And then we watched Wallace and Gromit's Curse of the were-rabbit which I have seen but really liked. Then I toddled off to meet up with the rugby partyers. It ended up being a late night. sleepy

Today, I'm trying to resist thinking about work but I have a pile of papers to read for a meeting tomorrow and I'm beginning to think that there is an awful lot of more work about to come my way. Can't say I'm overly happy about it but perhaps it's too soon to be moaning about the job just yet. And it was payday on Friday which does kind of all make it worth while. At least it pays for all the new cd's I've just bought big grin

So now I have a few hours in which I could do some jewellery but to be honest I think closing my eyes and sleeping for an hour sounds more likely. Perhaps I can read the papers later ......ZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz