Confessions of a disguntled ex jeweller..

"Good morning sir. Can I help you look for anything at all?"

"Yes, the one in the window."

"Not a problem, would you mind pointing it out for me?"

"It's the one in the window."

"The what one sir? Is it a necklace..?"

"No! It's a ring."

"Ok, do you know what type it is? Would you mind pointing it out?"

"It's the one at £1750"

"Ok, but we have a lot of rings at that price. Is it yellow or white gold?"

"Yellow."

"I don't mean to be rude sir, but it would be easier if we could just go outside and point it out."

"Oh for goodness sake. THAT ONE!"

"Ah! Well for starters, that's a pair of earrings and secondly, they are £3500. Would you like me to help you look for a ring instead?"

"Oh I can't be bothered with this!"

*stalks off*

"Have a nice day to you too sir!!"



Tosser...

New Flatmates!

So I have new flatmates. I don’t think words can describe how happy I am to have new flatmates.

The last 4 months have been particularly painful due to various personality and cultural clashes, and the atmosphere in the flat has been awful. Coming home at night and disappearing straight into my room was not the kind of experience I had been hoping for when I joined the internship programme. We took numerous steps to try and resolve this, but nothing was working.

But now! Wooha!! The offending flatmate has left and we have some new blood! Our new R.A V is a friend of ours and was happily welcomed to casa Ilinga and J. The following week, the new intern intake arrived and we got 2 more guys to live with us. The flat is now happily full and the change in atmosphere is amazing. There were actually people coming to visit us on Sunday night for dinner, and they hung around afterwards too. This is a phenomenon unknown to this flat!

I spent last night slouching on the sofa watching Top Gear on BBC America, with one of the new guys. Have so missed Top Gear. But it was so nice just to be sitting with like-minded people and not feel uncomfortable.

Plus I shuffled into the kitchen for some breakfast on Monday morning and found on of them washing up the dishes. I could have hugged him.

Love it!

Overheard:

Girl 1 (on phone): “ I am going to beat yo ass! You always fuck up! I wanted you here! To spend time with me! This happened last weekend too! I wanted you here and you fucked up! The other day I wanted you to spend time with me and you fucked up. And now you are doing it again! What are you? A fuck up?”

Girl 2: *Snigger*, “I like that”.

Girl 1: “Hello? Hello?”

Crunch time..

There are times in your life when you are coasting along, thinking everything is hunky dory, when in reality, there are the great big swirling rapids of shit creek raging on beneath you and the first you are aware of it is when someone unexpected dunks you in headfirst. I think I am still struggling to catch my breath, let alone think about sinking or swimming.

I thought I was doing pretty well at work. Not brilliantly, that’s for sure, but decently for 5 months in anyway. Apparently not so. I have been giving them cause for concern. I have been acting unprofessionally; I have been making consistent mistakes. Now a lot of what I have been told came completely out of the blue for me. Especially regarding the unprofessional issue. I have been told the time it refers to. The Summer Intern was in the company and we were having a laugh together, nothing outrageous, just some subtle fun. But apparently it’s not how it’s done in the American workplace.

I have to say, this is one thing that I don’t like about this cultural exchange. The difference in the mannerisms and attitudes at work is highly diverse. To be seen as anything other than conscientious and understated in the workplace is almost a death knell for your career. I understand that things will be carried out differently in all countries, but I feel the emphasis on ‘extreme’ professionalism is going a bit too far.

No doubt that this observation suggests that I am far from ready to participate in the corporate world. I moved from an extremely open, communicative organisation to one where it almost seems taboo to connect at times. For all the ‘reach out’ and ‘touch base’ that is recommended, people don’t seem to be doing a lot of it. I can sit in my cubicle for an entire day, and no one will utter a word. I feel like I am harassing my supervisor if I go up to her desk to check in on some work.

This is not to say that I dislike my co-workers, far from it, I actually get on very well with them. My manager intimidates me due to my lack of experience, she is a very nice woman who treats us well, it’s just that I have to conquer the small quake of fear I get when I am called into her office. Another nugget of information I was offered was that the workplace was not the environment to make friends with your co-workers. They were just that. Don’t get chummy, don’t let your guard down, remember that they could be the key to your success. Now, while I admit that part of that may be true, I don’t like the fact that you have to keep the people you work with for 8 hours a day at arms length. But this again may be the Brit in me coming out. I just don’t understand it. I feel awkward if I try to act formally to someone that I know fairly well, it almost feels like you are being rude! So it seems that this is an issue that I will have to work carefully on.
The last thing I wanted was to be labelled ‘unprofessional’ when I have been praised in other employment for being efficient, proactive and ambitious. Gahhh!

Since receiving this bombshell, I have been attempting to raise my game. Now that I am the last remaining intern, all the duties fall to me, which I love. I now have more control over what happens, and I have all the information, rather than having to ask what parts haven’t been completed. In the last week I have been feeling slightly more confident and have been taking projects into my own hands, rather than waiting for them to come and find me. This means I don’t get caught on the hop anymore. I’ve also managed to limit my BBC News intake to 20 minutes a day!

The most upsetting thing about all these points is that it didn’t come from any of my managers. So I can’t even imagine the thoughts directed at my performance that they must be mulling over. And my 6-month review is coming up in 3 weeks.

I’ll get my coat shall I?

Sod's law

Explain to me why it is that when you really want to call someone, there seems to be a thousand things blocking your path?? I really have this overwhelming ‘want my mommy’ feeling and I have no way of contacting her that doesn’t cost me or her a fortune. I would have called her from work, but I wanted to talk about work stuff and I didn’t want other people overhearing me, and now that I am home and am trying Skype, my internet access decides to deny me. Argh!! Sniff…


**follow up** They just called me on my cell. Half an hours griping and it only cost me $4!! Woop!

Home or Away... it's still Ikea

Globalization within companies just makes things creepy. I went to Ikea today. And I might as well have never left Glasgow. It was identical in almost every way. Even down to the bickering children at the checkout, although instead of "Micheala! Chantarelle!! Gonna put that doon or i'm gonna skelp the pair of youze and your no gettin a Maccy D's!!" it was "Brad! Amy! Get your butt over here!" although both delivered with walrus-like volume.

I decided to do the little visit to the never ending labyrinth not realising that 'little' visit meant 'heinously long squelchy and almost almost crippling' schlep. Garrr. It all started off so well.. oh wait... not it didn't.

Woke up at 10.46 and remembered I was supposed to meet my domesticated-outing partner at 11. Good start. Various false starts later, I met J, a fellow scot at Wall Street and we dawdled down to Peir 11 to board the free water taxi provided to take you to the store in Brooklyn. Boarded, after a little mishap on the gangplank where I managed to walk with a significant wobble, and prompt the guy to ask if I was drunk. NO! The ground is moving!! bah..

Soon enough the Big Blue warehouse loomed into view. I felt like I could have walked around with my eyes shut, it was so identical to my local store. After a hearty wander, an equally hearty lunch stop looking out of the window at the grey and murky skyline and the rain beginning to toss down, (ah I'm really home!!!) we completed our purchases and ventured back out into the now torrential storm that was beginning. And so began the adventure.

Leaving the flooded parking lot was one thing, joining the queue for the water taxi against the umbrella-eating gale was slightly worse, but boarding the boat was another challenge all together for me apparently. Going up the gangplank was fine, fighting the sideways rain, balancing my body sized Ikea bag and trying to shelter J under my umbrella at the same time as walking down the slope towards the doorway. That is the last thing I remember before my feet went from under me and I graciously slammed onto the deck. The pain from the knee that had just bent backwards wiped out any embarrassment I felt that the deckhand was hauling me up by my arms while J scrambled for my umbrella.

I hobbled into the boat and slumped in a seat while the pain took over. When the boat docked back on Manhattan, J and I had to disembark into a typhoon. Due to my intense concentration in walking along the gangplank, it meant I was more exposed to the elements. My entire right side was drenched in seconds. Once J and I reached the bridge, I could wring out my top. We struggled on towards Wall Street and attempted to walk back to the PATH station. That didn't go so well. 10 minutes and 2 major soakings as we crossed an avenue later, we hailed a cab. At least he stopped for us. So we gave him a nice tip.

We stood on the PATH platform and wrung out our clothes to the amusement of fellow passengers. We stumbled home looking like drowned rats so I could ice my knee and elicit sympathy from my roommate.

On the plus side I have a nice new wok for only $7....

Where were you when you met your first public transport pervert?

Yeah. It happened. I feel violated. All though, I suppose, thankfully not physically.

On Friday I was making my way uptown to the Met for a tour that constitutes part of my coursework. I stepped off the subway into the 3rd circle of hell that is the 53rd and Lexington stop, dodged my way around the milling commuters, leaking, rotting ceilings and the incomprehensible directions to the 1st circle of hell that was the 6 line. Oh. my. gawd. The heat almost knocked me out before the crowded passengers did. Immediately I felt the makeup that I had just touched up before I left work start to shift across my face and down my neck. ICK!!

I managed to squeeze onto the nearest car and ended up crushed up against the door with people crammed in all around me. The guy in front of me seemed apologetic when he bumped into me and I gave him the benefit of the doubt since he wasn't close enough to a railing to be holding on. But after the 2nd stop and the fact that he turned round to face me and continued to bounce off me even when the train wasn't wasn't lurching was enough to convince me that he was a PERVERT!!!

Hence the next time the train stopped I bolted from the carriage and changed to the next one. And revelled in the fact that I actually had no one in my face for the rest of the journey.

I suppose I should feel lucky that I managed to go almost 5 months before I encountered the ickiness that is the subway weirdo's but I think it's safe to say I would be happy to go another 5 before I met another.

urgh.... I'm away for another shower....

Play it again DJ...

It's amazing how one little song can transport you miles or years away.

I'm standing on the subway platform, trying to erase the day's fogginess with my iPod, when suddenly a BoyZone song fills my ears. The saccharine sweet lyrics of 'Ben' trickle through the headphones and cloud my memory with images.

Now as someone who freely admits to being one of their biggest fans ever back in the day, I am still embarrassed to admit that I occasionally add them onto my playlist. I graduated directly from BoyZone to Green Day, and pretended to immediately wipe out my past musical leanings. I am aware that everyone has an incriminating back catalog that they don't own up to, but recently with Take That becoming acceptable again, and BoyZone failing to, I like to sweep my fondness for them under the rug. At least I can say that I was never a Steps fan! (5, 6, 7, 8!!!)

But hearing this song completely transports me back to 1998, when I went to my first ever concert (that wasn't the Singing Kettle) where I screamed my little pre-pubescent lungs out at the 5 Irish lads on stage, before realising they were actually the warm up band. None other than the current kings of ballads, Westlife! (Yes, it was that long ago)I'm quite happy to say that I never transferred my allegiance!!

It was so long ago, that the first two BZ albums I owned were on cassette, which was mercifully the first sign that I was moving on from my Jason Donovan phase (lets not go there), and then onto the heady joy of getting the final album on a newfangled CD. I ebayed for the 1st and 2nd albums on CD, and now am only on the hunt for the first one. The great thing about iPod's is that you can add the cringe worthy songs to your playlists and bop away in secrecy without having a big CD case to showcase your nerd-dom to all and sundry. Back when I had my car I would sneak on the disc and warble along to my heart's content all along the motorways. Sadly I imagine I would attract a wee bit of attention on the subway if I attempted that!

I do dread the thought of someone flipping through my playlists or sharing an earphone with me, only to find that after the rocking Kasabian track is the teeny-bopper voice of Stephen Gately (who incidentally broke my young heart!), that I feel would completely shatter any level of street cred I may have amassed. Which reminds me... I'd better go remove that Dolly Parton.....

Uggo...

I know everyone has those fat days. But I seem to be having a fat millennial...

OK so that might be a slight exaggeration, but I can't seem to get a handle on my weight. Of course I know exactly what the problem is.

Me.

If I could just stop eating. If I could just force myself to do more exercise and stop being such a lazy arsed git, then maybe, just maybe I could lose a couple of pounds. I know that once I am at the weight that I want, then I will be determined to stabilise it, and will work at it. Problem being, is that I want a quick fix. I want to be skinny, NOW! I don't want to have to wait a few months to shed the excess blubber, I want it to happen instantaneously and for the sylph like self that I know (hope) is hiding under there to emerge. But oh yeah... this is the real world isn't it? Damn..

Thing is, I used to be skinny, or for an all too brief period I was anyway. I was the picturesque chubby child, rosy cheeks, Shirley Temple hair do and perma smile. Or if you want a more accurate description, a shrunken Michelin man with electro-shock hair and smiling cos I was blissfully ignorant about it. Alas that carried right on through most of my childhood. Chunky child becomes chunky teenager. Then one day it changed. I developed a digestive condition (slight, but through a phobia of vomiting, overblown) and started to scale back on my diet. I barely ate at all, and if I did, it was mainly crap. Lo and behold, the weight started to melt off. I ended up at 7st 4lbs. I was ecstatic that I had finally done it, and it was unintentional! I was now a UK size 8, and loved my skinny self. However, I failed to see how I really looked.

I am a well built lassie, sad but true. My mum says that I have my Great Granny G's build, which she then went on to describe, 'like a barrel', (gee thanks Mum). Broad shoulders and pronounced rib cage (thanks Dad), all of which do not sit well with a stick like lower body. I looked like a coat hanger. My cheekbones were sticking through my skin and my wrists could have been snapped like a twig. Oblivious to all this, I carried on the diet, desperate to keep this figure, which I had finally been 'blessed' with. Looking back on pictures now, I cringe a little. I look terribly scrawny and ill in most of them. A Christmas Dance photo makes me look horrific (and yes the hair had a lot to do with it), and even though I had fitted into my size 8 New Look dress with ease, I now wish I looked a little healthier.

I gradually began to put the weight back on. After all I was only 16 during this time, so it was unlikely that I would continue to be able to maintain it without proper exercise. Especially since I was now entering 6th year and Gym class was no longer mandatory, but free periods and the multiple trips to the 'vendies' for Yorkie bars were. The addition of a boyfriend into my life at that time probably didn't help either. I was introduced to Chinese take-aways, large bags of kettle chips with creamy dips and lazy Sundays spent watching movies and snarfling junk food. Since he was a skinny guy in his own right, with a seemingly continous inability to put on weight, even when eating a whole bar of Lindt a day, he stayed the same size, while I began to balloon. It started to become noticeable when I discovered that I no longer looked cute while wearing his clothes. They fitted me, or in the case of his jeans, wouldn't do up.

I would like to say here, that he was a size 28in waist, and I actually was built with hips, so I try not to feel to bad about that, but aren't Gf's supposed to look adorable in their guy's over-sized shirt? Hah. Not this one. To his credit, he never mentioned it, but he never cut down on the snacks either. After 5 years the temptation to snack along side him hadn't diminished.

By the time it ended, I was a size 14. I had lost weight in time for a summer holiday to Florida, running 2 miles every 2nd day, and was feeling fabulous for the first time in a while. Sadly, the gorgeous food soon put paid to that. By the end of the relationship I felt pudgy and extremely unattractive. However the resulting stress from the breakup caused me to lose half a stone in a month, and I ended up hovering around 10st for a while. The joy of actually finding my waist for the first time in months was amazing!!

But here I am. I thought I had gotten as heavy as I was going to get before I came to the States, although that was underestimating the power of my greed in the land of plentiful portions. Most of the clothes I brought out with me are now feeling a wee bit on the tight side, and I don't feel attractive in anything. I look in the mirror and see the gelatinous slab of pasty flesh that is masquerading as my face and want to rip it off. I prod at the pudgy belly that is slowly competing with my chest for the 'most prominent body part' award. I pinch the wobbly thighs that never seem to lose their curves. I curse the heat that has caused my ankles and calves to look indistinguishable. I look in the mirror and think "This is your fault. You could have stopped this. You can still stop this. Get off your lazy ass and do something about it!!" I don't even want to look stick thin anymore. I'm over that. I would quite happily be curvy, as long as I wasn't bloated. Lose the wobble on my upper arms, trim down the podge on my belly, firm up my thighs, lose the excess chins, generally cut a slice off of most of me.

I have joined a gym. I attend in sporadic bursts of energy, before deciding that I am too exhausted to go after work, or on a Sunday morning, and lie on the sofa instead, nibbling on tortillas. I have attempted to cook healthily, but the lure of the cookie still calls to me at 3.30 at my desk.

Excuses, excuses. I didn't go to the gym this morning because it was such a sunny day. I went and laid out by the front instead. And then cursed myself at how unattractive and lumpy I was in my shorts and halter top compared to the lean bronzed bikinied girls feet away from me.

So who's fault is that now then, eh??

Be careful what you wish for...

It’s amazing how fickle the human id can be. Are we inherently greedy? Always wanting what we can’t have? Arms outstretched, fingers grazing the shiny specter of ‘what we can’t have’. And then for some of us, the lottery jackpot of life is won. The sparkly tempting jewel that has hung enticingly in front of you, encompassing all that is different to your hum-drum everyday life, slides neatly into your sticky paws.

All is wonderful, you gloat, you enjoy, you look back on the life that was once yours and you wonder how you ever managed. Then suddenly, it loses the sheen. The inner child whines out that it doesn’t want the new and sparkly anymore. It wants the worn familiarity of old. Logic attempts to overrule, arguing that the inner child should be grateful for this exciting opportunity and if it doesn’t shut up it’s gonnae get a skelp. But like any disobedient child, the inner wean keeps whinging.

Ok, so maybe you have now grasped the idea that I may be a tad homesick. Or a lot. And yes, I should stop whining. For how long have I said that I want to come to the states to live? Oh…how about since ever? Yeah. Which is why I feel like I am being an ungratelful little kid, but saying that I now want to go home. Not leave NY completely, just go home for a visit.

I seem to have an overwhelming urge to get into my wee car and pootle about the back roads to Kilmacolm or Bridge of Weir, trying to see if I am brave enough to take the corners at more than 10mph. I want to be able to drive down to the Esplanade and buy myself an ice cream from the wee shop. Braehead for some reason is calling out to me. Considering I have spent almost 5 years of the last 6 of my working life in there, you would think that I would be quite glad to get oot of there! But the id doesn’t seem to comprehend that. Stupid inner child.

As well as the cravings for the random places, like the Tesco superstore in Port Glasgow (why?) or even Asda in Linwood…(I am sensing a theme with the shops here – buying things is my vice, and food is always a bonus… I think a therapist would have a field day with me), but it is mainly the people I am craving. Me mum, dad, gran & grandpa, family who I used to see on a semi regular basis. But not having seen any of them for 4 months is quite hard. Ok so I have had my Wee Brother out for a visit, and that was brilliant, and Souxie and MacV came out too, which merely made me feel like I had transplanted Glasgow into NY and causing me no end of grief when they departed, eased the longing for a short while, but it's now back at full power.

I think I just want to go home for a few days, just to re-charge my Scottish self and re-connect with everything at home. Reassure myself that I have not changed that much, but at the same time changed enough. Does that make any sense?