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It's drawing to the end of my 3 week holiday. I have contributed little to my college studies over this period, besides some brief work for a client of mine who recently stood me up and was apparently ignorant of the whole debacle. Waking up at 8am is something I rarely do, and to have it be for nothing save a wander around the Mac Lab at my beloved Macclesfield College of Underscum and Lowlifes.

I'm feeling quite low at the moment, one of my best friends since my return to england 2 years ago appeared briefly over MSN to tell me he wanted to off himself. I'm not sure if he will go through with it or not, he has been down in the past and has a lot to lose in destroying himself. Besides that, it seems there's more and more intelligent people around who are doing great things with their lives through education and great jobs (especially my dear Angela, she's just brilliant). This just beats me down, looking at them and then back at what I'm doing with myself.

Certainly, my life isn't too horrid. I've had a fancy upbringing up to now, my parents would go to any length to see that I got a decent education at a school of high standards back in Australia, the would ensure I had everything I needed, but this generated a sort of helplessness i have come to loathe. I have a good mind for graphic design and a keen eye for the aesthetic, not to mention a certain eloquence I find lacks among my near countrymen. Bless the North West, so common, so crude. Or am I just switching from downtrodden to superioristic in a last ditch effort to plump my ego into a more fashionable shape?

Recently life has seen me travelling to and from canada quite regularly, (I say regularly, I mean it will be my second nine hour journey there in just 6 short months) I'm quite proud of myself, for achieveing something completely unaided by those mighty helpful parents of mine. I do have Angela and her family to thank graciously, as without them I would have nowhere to stay for the 2 months I will be spending in their expansive country. I really am grateful for everything they did for me last time, they invested plenty of money and time to see that my vacation was smooth and interesting, although next time I hear they plan to make it more interesting for me, with camping trips and whatnot. For some reason they got the impression I didn't do enough adventuring on my last vaccation. I tell you, 4 weeks in a completely foreign place surrounded by only vaguely familliar people is adventure enough for me!

I think I need to sleep, all this rambling wax on life and future destruction has worked my poor shrivelling brain out of energy.

So from me, your friendly neighborhood English-Man,

Adieu.

Where to start.

I woke up around 10, the thought fresh in my mind that my mother and boss had mentioned that we had no regular chef in the kitchen today, since both had decided to be stubborn and not work. One of the more useful kitchen assistants was asked to cover for them. As it turns out, she's not as useful as they thought. The normal chefs prepare the meal for the evening tea and leave at around 6:30. This cover chef had decided that she'd just leave it for me, since she was going home at 4:30. So i basically worked as hard as I could, both managing the cooking food and clearing away the cups, plates and cutlery that came down from the morning. On a happier note, I managed to slice a nice corner of my thumb clean off on the cheeze grater. I seem to come to harm every time I do that, I should just opt out of it in future.
Things seemed to go well, only none of the three agency care staff decided to check in and help me out at all. I was really off my feet, setting up all of the trays for the eighteen residents who were staying in their rooms due to the recent spread of sickness and dihorroea. One of the poor old ladies had to be changed at least 20 times in the 6 + 1/2 hours I worked. To add to her suffering 2 of the 3 staff were adamant that they wouldn't check the room monitors just in case she was calling again to be changed. Selfish ******** like them shouldn't even be employed as "care" staff if they're not willing to care for anyone.
Okay, back to my woes. After cooking enough sausage rolls and pies for 30 residents, setting up the trays and clearing the dishes, I took things up to the dining room where the buffet was being held.
I left the two neglectful carers to it and took the other one upstairs (I like to start at the top and work my way down to the bottom floor) to help handing out the food to the eighteen room-bound residents. This care person's job is currently on the ropes because she's constantly undermining her superiors by taking control on a shift. It's quite sad really, she's a hard worker, just needs to learn to go about things differently. We got through the rooms in quick succession, arriving on the middle floor about 15 minutes later.

Sorry if I'm ranting, I do need this off my chest.

When we got there the other staff, who had just finished serving the meal to most of the residents in the lounge, came running to me with an accusational look on their faces (they'd decided that they would band together in their neglect)

"where's [the madame]'s meal? Jam on toast, she's supposed to have."

I just looked at them and thought, "oh god... they're seriously expecting me to have made something for her after all of the unaided stress I've been through." I looked from the full tray rack, to the bowl of soup I was pouring, then back to the larger of the two and waited for the cogs to turn.

"should I go down now then?"

"Please, we're a bit busy here. She likes strawberry jam and very pale toast" I responded, smiling to myself at her absolute idiocy.

More events like this occurred throughout the serving session, icecream, missing plates, tea trolleys and god knows what else that didn't involve me. All the while the carer I was working with to take trays to the rooms was moaning about them. I just wanted to get it all over with as soon as I could.
After a short while, I finally made it back to the kitchen armed with a load of waste and dishes for washing. I'd gathered them from the dining room, to make the care staff's job easier and to give me a head start on the load. As the night progressed, I just got more and more fed up of the arguments between the Neglectors and Bossy Boots. About an hour after serving was done, and i'd already made a start on preparing for the supper time drinks trolley, the Neglectors came downstairs (in the elevator of course, stairs are too much effort for their sort.) and told me that they'd been up and collected trays from two of the floors for me, all I'd need to do was finish the last floor. I thought I could get the last floor's load of trays in in under 10 minutes, so I left the milk heating on the stove and headed upstairs.
When i got to the second floor, I was greeted by the dissatisfying sight of four trays on the abandoned tray trolley. It didn't take much effort to realise that if there's 18 people in their rooms that evening, four trays isn't the total of the trays on two of the floors. I'd been had. I ran around like a headless chicken trying to get the trays in as quickly as I could, trying desperately to remember who exactly I'd taken dinner to. By this time the milk had thoroughly boiled over and coated the oven (which I'd have to clean or face death by the chef from tomorrow morning. I like to think I have a pretty good relationship with all of the staff at the home, but tonight their performance really dissppointed me. None of them were regular employed staff of the home, we've been having trouble finding suitable care employees since 3 had taken maternity leave in the same month. I can't really recall what happened after the tea trolley, but I was really ready to rip someone's face off when the younger of the Neglectors came into the kitchen, looked at the stove top coated in burnt on milk and said "oh, what happened to the milk, did it boil over?"
I'm really just glad it's over now, I just want to sleep though, and ange is getting annoyed at me for not talking to her while I've been writing this... sorry hun!

I'm probably going to go to bed soon, but I know I shouldn't, considering there's still a few bits of homework I need to get done for college tomorrow morning. I think I'll develop sickness and dihorroea tomorrow, I really need a break.

Hi guys, gals and faithful stalkers! I figured it was about time I dropped in and gave you all an update on how I'm coping this Christmas time.

Everything is going really well, ange and I are getting along like wild fire, so all our nerves are calmed down, we've been really busy. Been out almost every night DDRing, having coffee, lazer tag, more coffee, pitas and much much more!

Angela's been terrible tho, buying things for me all the time, even though she knows I can well pay for things myself. Oh well, nothing better than free stuff!

She will be so annoyed when she finds out what I've got her for her birthday and Xmas, they're so beautiful!

well that's about it from everyone's favourite englishman!

Love you all!
- Vorty

I CAN'T SLEEP!

and It's 3 hours before I planned to get up to get ready to go to the airport. What am I doing?!

... I'm drinking! Drink always helps me get sleepy... that and Gaia Fishing.

*bites nails*

Why the ******** can't I sleep? Am I too excited? I'll probably be more excited when I get there.. start spinning in circles looking around like in all those cheezy french movies.

*dies*

I might as well stay up now... I can sleep on the plane...

2 DAYS!

Yeah... it came fast.

I have too much to do! Gotta get to town to buy some wax and plastic binder sheets, a game for my big brother and a couple of cards *gonk* THen I've got to go to college to find out what was wrong with my work and finish the last folder before I go. ^^;;

See ange! My account hasn't been neglected since you let me fish for you! heart

Dropping in to let you all know,

It's now 10 days until I go to Canada all on my own! whee

I know, it's really daunting, very exciting but above all a long awaited proof of my responsibility. Mother refuses to believe I can do anything for myself. Oh well.

I'm officially Angela's new gaia fiancee. She talked me around tonight, I'm drunk, I'm tired and vulnerable. She chose the right time to talk me into asking her to fake marry me razz

<3

Just recently I've been noticing how little time I've got for anything, I have far too many commitments to keep up with. Like my job, which I'm in 4 days a week, college, which takes up 3 days. Not to mention the homework I have to come up with.

*sigh*

I'm missing out on very valuable time with my angela. What makes it worse is the time difference, I only get to see her for 5 hours... and most of that is taken up by homework anyway. What's a boy to do?

Oh crap... it's work time again. gonk

Yep, some interesting stuff going on over here.

Let's start at yesterday, 'cause I promised I would.
Got up at 9:30... Frances, my course tutor, was on the phone to my mum, telling her that they were about to leave for Manchester (a trip I had completely forgotten about). So I jumped up, grabbed the first pair of pants, and threw on a shirt, ran out of the door after grabbing my trusty Belle and Sebastian Travel Bag. Bolted down the road, getting very worn out, very quickly. I almost have the stamina of half a sloth :sweat.

okay... so I got to college, ran over the field, shitting myself because I couldn't see any coaches on the drive. Ran up to the college entrance and just caught Steve and the Yorkshire Bird.

Steve's a nice guy, a bit too into his Manga and Anime stuff, he's always drawing them and showing them to everyone for oppinions. His jokes are also kinda crap, but he's a good guy, and a loyal friend.

Yorkshire Bird, I think her name is Suzanne, is a nice enough chick, far older than the rest of the group (28 eek )... but she's a tad obnoxious, and (don't think I'm trying to be nasty here, I'm just being a realist razz ) I don't think she's really mentally capable of really "designing" something from start to finish. She told me the other day that she completed her last design course all on paper with no computer work at all. While that's commendable, and I've seen her hard work in thumbnails and stuff, drawn stuff is practically useless unless it's part of the design.

Anyway, back to the day. We headed off to the train station. Coaches couldn't be organised on such short notice, as all this trip was really doing was patching the gap while the new Apple Mac G5's were being brought in. Hopefully they'll be there tomorrow. If not, it seems we've got another trip ahead.

Train ride went quicker than I expected, although Manc'r isn't that far away from us really in the grand scheme of things. Still, we ended up in manchester at about 10, I think. We then headed straight out for the URBIS museum. Great place, really, some fantastic exhibits on display for the Urban Graffitti Exhibition. My favourites were by a feller from South America (Brazil I think... but don't hold me to that). His works were mainly composed of scribbled designs of various people and their dependency on the urban lifestyle (clinging to miniature high-rises, sitting on squat buildings, etc) I managed to get a few photos in before they told us we couldn't take any so I was happy with that. Maybe I'll post a few later...

Anyway, by the end of the day, I was dying for some food, so we nipped into the food court before busting off home on the return train for 5:00.

Had a great time, got a load of research for the Booklet design and poster projects we've been given, and a good deal of typographical/signwriting photos. I'm just about ready to get on with it... if I wasn't such a lazy arse.

Woah, damn, I'm rattling on... I should curtail this rambling shambles for tonight and maybe get on with some edits/annotated research.


Musical Theme for this post: THRASH METALL! gonk

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<center>"I'll be really upset if you're on all night again tonight."</center>

That was my mum, apparently I was on til 5am last night... which was a lie!I was up til 6!

Night folks! I'll do better next time I decide to post!
You may just get a fulfilling glimpse into the life of Vorty...

...if you're lucky!