Hi all

Well one more day of doing two jobs then I go back to just doing my job. Problem is that I've got a ton of work to do and that's not counting the work that'll get dropped on me during the day, which is normally plenty.
Also I have the bollocking to look forward to for all the things that I didn't do or haven't done properly. I was bollocked last time for covering this job by my line manager. I covered this 4 blogs back so I won't repeat myself.
When I was asked to cover this job again I did say no but I still ended up doing it. It was nice of them to disguise an order as a request. The illusion of choice.

I've also been given a date for my op. I've torn the cartilage in two places in my right knee. I did the damage in August last year playing cricket. I've been told that the way my cartilage is formed in my knee I'm prone to tearing it. Great. I'll have the op on the 29th July and I've been told by various doctors/surgeons that the recovery time will be between 4-6 weeks. There are, quite surprisingly, a few people at work who have had a similar op on their knee and they've all told me it took the full 6 weeks to fully recover.
The only concern I have about the op is that I'm going to South Korea for a two week holiday (might be going to Japan for a few days while I'm over there) in October. The holiday is roughly 8-9 weeks after my op. I've been told that if my knee gets infected during or after the op I could add 1-3 weeks onto my recovery. So there is a possibility that I might be getting on an 18 hour long flight to South Korea with a doggy knee. Only problem is that, with my "luck", there's a bloody good chance it'll happen.

About my promotion at work as well. The meeting to decide what'll happen with the role I will be promoted to (which I'm not going to be at) will be held this Thursday. I've been told numerous things but recently the person who currently hold the position (but doesn't want it) has told me that he doesn't know what job grade it'll be if it's taken off him. The grade basically effects how much money you get paid. That opens up the possibility that the job will be advertised at my grade, in which case I won't apply for it when it's advertised.

Why?

Well it'll mean more work, more pressure, more responsibility but with exactly the same pay! I'm paid fuck all as it is, especially with the amount of work I do so they can whistle.

Also it doesn't sound like the job will be handed to me as initially implied. It'll be advertised and be left open for other people to apply for as well. Which means that even though a lot of people want me to take on the job (or so I’m told) there is a chance that somebody else might get it.

Either of these scenarios would be a very hard kick in the balls for me. It's the only route I have for promotion, advancement and therefore more responsibilities and money in my current job. So if I don't get the job it'll force me to look for another.

It may seem like I'm throwing all the toys out of the pram, spitting my dummy out, crying into my soup, throwing a wobbly or any other term/phrase to me having a case of sour grapes, but I'm pretty sick of this job as it is. Apart from the possible money increase I think this job will make it easier to get a job somewhere else.

Frankly I expect the worse to happen in both in both cases. My knee will get infected and I'll be boarding a plan with a dodgy knee. If I can fly at all. And the job will either be advertised at the same grade I'm on or somebody else will get it.

Maybe I'm expecting too much and should be happy with the shit I’m given.

The baby Blue-tit is looking like the smarter one at this point...

It's so hard to say goodbye
When I know it's for the last time
I know it's for the best

It won't be long till we get there
I know the hours move so slowly
I'll see you on the other side, so go and carry her
Please go and carry her

I hope you're comfortable
I hope you're both smiling

It won't be long till we get there
I know the hours move so slowly
I'll see you on the other side, so go and carry her
Please go and carry her

Hi all

Well while it was nice to get and see an old friend (i ended up bumping into another two and hearing from a third) it was overall a pretty boring night. I didn't really get that pissed mainly because i wasn't in the mood. I was very tired and haven’t been 100% all week. The last thing i need was to get plastered, especially as i had a bit of navigation to get home at the end of it all (i live out in the countryside). I didn’t get back home and in bed until 4:30am. The hangover wasn’t that bad so I was lucky on that front.

Saturday wasn’t a great day at all. In the morning we found a baby blue tit. It was all alone and couldn’t fly. We were all talking about what to do when the mother came back and fed it. After that we thought it was going to be ok. However, the baby chick didn’t seem in top health and it got to the stage were it just stood there. You could go right up to it and stroke and it wouldn’t even flinch. It was sad to see that it had given up on life and was just waiting to die. The mother did come back one more time but she must on known what was going on and left. I did try and hand feed it bread, insects and even a worm but it wouldn’t take anything. It did die and I buried it in the garden.

Not much else to say. Spent half of the day in bed and spent the other half doing…nothing! And now I have to look forward to another week of work.

I sometimes think that baby blue-tit had the right idea...

Hi all

Well, it's the end of the week and it's been both good and bad.

While I’m still going to be covering the other person’s job until next Thursday I’m getting more use to it. I still hate it but at least now I know what I’m doing and more importantly I can do it. It was a busy day today but it's been quieter than any other day this week. Plus I felt let pressure and less rushed for everything.

I'm going out in Nottingham with an old friend. Haven't been out in Nottingham since some time last year and I haven't seen him since last year either. Been friends with him for nearly 10 years and it'll be great to catch up with him.

There's also talk at work about me getting promoted. The IT manager can't handle the workload and wants me to take over. In order for me to take over his work I’ll have to go up the ladder, as somebody of my grade can't do it. A promotion will also mean a pay increase (which is always good!) and it'll mean I would have been promoted twice in about 16 months. Which will look good on my CV. I also think it'll be easier for me to get a job somewhere else if I’m of a higher grade and salary.

And it's the weekend! Two days off from work! WooHoo!!!

But of course, with me it's never all good.

I know that with the night out on Saturday I’ll be completely fucked on Sunday. So while it'll be nice to go out with my mate the weekend will fly by and I’ll get nothing useful done.

Also had to turn down a possible threesome with a couple I’ve been e mailing from a swinging website. Was suppose to be meeting up Saturday but with me going out I can't make it and they can't make it next weekend. I know that might not sound like a big deal but I haven't had a shag in ages and it's getting a bit depressing But I wasn't going to turn down a night out with one of my best mates just for a "possible" shag....can't believe I just said that!!!

And finally Catherine. Ahhhhhh!!! Can’t believe I’m giving myself so much shit over her. I like her, I really do but she ain’t interested. We’ve been talking for nearly 6 months now and I really like her. She’s turning out to be a good friend and somebody who not only understands me but really understand what I’m saying. I’m the same with her. We have much in common and we think the same way about a lot of things. Just so annoying that I always seem to like people who don’t feel the same about me. This isn’t the first time it has happened

Oh well. Guess I’m just going to have to go on.

Have a good weekend.

Mark

Hi all

Well it's Wednesday and past the "half-way" point of the week.

Unfortunately that still leaves two days left of work and when you wish it was Friday on the Monday morning you know the week won't end soon enough.

I don't really enjoy my job, it's find to find anything good to say about it. But what is making it worse this week is that I’m covering somebody else job and I’m really struggling with no help from anybody.

Not only do I have to cover their job but I also have to do my own. My "normal" job sees me IT provide support for roughly 500. Not only do I provide support for IT but for telephones printers and pretty much anything that plugs into the wall! I'm the only person on site who actually does this. I’m often out and about around the site and never sit still for very long
The job I’m covering is being personal secretary to the number 1 boss on-site. This means taking a lot of messages, booking a lot of meetings making a lot of coffee and running around after him making sure he knows what he doing and that he has what he needs to get it done properly. My arse is often plonked on a seat just outside his office.

The are very different and both are very heavy work wise.

While I don’t enjoy my job I can do my side of the work easily. I hardly have any problems and I enjoy moving about as I hate being desk-bound. The job that I’m covering is hard purely because I’m not 100% sure of what I’m doing. I did do a hand over last week for and afternoon but there was so much it was hard to take it in. Especially as a lot of it I hadn’t done before.

So how did I get this wonderful job? Well, I’m normally the first port of call when it comes to covering other people’s jobs. Because my line manager hasn’t got a clue as to what my job involves (she isn’t very IT literate) she assumes that my work isn’t very important and has proceeded to give more and more work, including auditing! I also often find that she has volunteered me to do other people’s work when they’re off before even talking to me. I’m “trained” to cover 3 other jobs.

The worse thing is that nobody covers my work when I’m off or covering other peoples work. Which is very, very annoying. My work suffers when I’m covering cause I have to put theirs first and I often get flack when due to my work not being 100%. Also when I take any time off I find that when I come back all of it is sitting there waiting for me. If I take a week off, I have a weeks worth of work waiting for me and I then have to work my ass off getting it done.

I don’t feel valued, I don’t feel appreciated and I feel like I’m a dumping ground for shit jobs. I never hear when I’ve done anything good, I only hear when I’ve fucked up. And no matter how much I try to explain what happened it’s 100% my fault and nobody else’s.

The funny thing is the last time I covered this job I did “such a shit job” I got a massive bollocking from my line manager. I felt like I didn’t deserve it and was both fucked off and upset. When I tried to argue back I just even more shit, she wouldn’t except anything I said and it was 100% my fault. She was in the "I’m right you’re wrong" mood. I thought line managers where suppose to support you? But I guess I’m wrong.

So at the moment I feel useless, poorly valued, over-worked, under-paid piece of shit. Not a nice feeling to take home with you everyday after work

Hi all

Well, here I am again. While it's been some time since I was last in this situation it feels all too familiar. It hurts a little at the moment but I know it's going to get worse. It's something that I can't leave or that I can't walk away from.

I'm annoyed that I keep doing this to myself, that I keep on allowing this to happen but simultaneously there's nothing I can do about it.

I meet Catherine while I was attending a two-day training course for work. It's hard to describe how she looked. No matter how hard I think about it the words don't appear right, they fail to describe her beauty. To add to that she is a really kind and nice person. I did chat to her and we did get on. 5 months later, while we haven't seen each other since the training course we are still e-mailing each other everyday while at work and we do chat on MSN once in while. She has become a good friend and somebody I can easily talk to, she has said likewise.

The more I talked to her the more I liked her. She did have a boyfriend for a few months but she's now single. She has had some interest shown in her from people where she works and she always seems to ask me for advice.


The situation I find myself in is that I really like Catherine but I don't think she feels the same way about me as I do about her. On top of that she is asking me for advice about some of the guys who are interested in her.

I've been here twice before and neither of them worked out well. I've had two good friends who I’ve really liked coming and asking me for advice about guys who either like them or they like.

The first time I didn’t say anything I just carried on and tried to be a good friend. I was there for her and hoped that one day she would let me know, somehow, that she liked me. But in the end she ended up going out with someone else and we went out separate ways. I really regretted not telling her how I felt and promised myself I wouldn’t make the same mistake in the future.
The second time again I didn’t say anything to her to start off with. We were friends all the way threw college and I ended up going to uni while she stayed behind. I did eventually tell how I felt but the timing wasn’t great as she had a boyfriend. We didn’t talk to each other for a year after that and while we are on talking terms we don’t talk to each other like we use to.

So I could tell her how I feel but in doing so I will put her in a difficult position and I risk losing someone who has become a good friend. I don’t really want to do that. But if I say nothing I’ll have to sit back and watch her hook up with somebody else. It will hurt as it did do before.

I have two options and in the past I’ve tried both and neither of them have worked out the way I wanted.

I feel like I’m stuck, backed into a corner with hardly any options that will see me walk away without getting hurt, let alone getting what I wanted.

I hate it that I fall for people that I can’t have and that in the end I’m the left hurt and alone.

Imprisonned, inside this mind
Hiding behind the empty smiles
So simple (the anguish)
As it mocks me
Crawling back into the dark

Running, always running, into the distance
Stop me before I bleed, again
The echos of my voice
Follow me down
The shadows I cast
Follow me down

Deeper i'm falling
Into the arms of sorrow
Blindly decending
Into the arms of sorrow

There must be serenity

The echos of my voice
Follow me down
The shadows I cast
Follow me down

Deeper i'm falling
Into the arms of sorrow
Blindly decending
Into the arms of sorrow

The demons of my own design
This horror must not remain

Deeper i'm falling
Into the arms of sorrow
Blindly decending
Into the arms of sorrow

There must be serenity

There must be deliverance

Deeper i'm falling

Blindly decending

Deeper i'm falling

Case 1: Time is a straight line

So time is a straight line. That would mean that future events would be set in stone. Everything that you and everybody else were going to do would already have been decided for you. So for example if you set to die in a car crash at 30 you would die in a car crash at 30 and there is nothing you or anybody else can do to change that.

For me this would eliminate choice. What you would do each day would have already been planned out for you. While you think you are making a choice by staying in bed an hour longer wouldn’t be your choice. I would have been pre-determined for you.

Would there be a point in living? While things would be laid out for you, you certainly wouldn’t know what was going to happen. But if you are meant to fail or die at a certain point, you WILL fail or die!

In regards to time travel again that would be pre-determined. As time continues along the line if you were meant to appear then you would appear. But again you wouldn’t be able to change anything, as time is a straight line. Of course if you were in the future and you traveled back in time then you were meant to travel back in time. And your past the past you know wouldn’t change, as you know it because if you were to change time then time wouldn’t be a straight line.


Case 2: Time branches off with every decision you make

This is the theory that whichever choice you make the other choice (or choices) are played out. So if you were the given the choice of eating and apple or a banana whichever choice you made the other choice would be played out in parallel. Of course you would only experience one of these choices but there would be another one of you experiencing the other choice and that other you would exactly the same as you up until the point that the choice was made.

This does raise one question. What is "choice"? Think about it. Every second we make a choice and that choice is normally made from numerous options. So is every choice played out? That would result in trillions upon trillions of time lines, which the choices being very slight. Then within them time lines they would continue to split, then those could continue to split.

There are numerous references to time lines in literature and films. In those that deal with this sort of time line they say only "major choices" result in the other choice being played out. This is of course to simplify things. But what if only major events result in the other choice being played out? While this would result in fewer time lines the first and most obvious question is what is classed as a "major choice"? One choice for one person might be more important than the same choice for another person. What is classed as a major choice varies from person to person and while some will agree there are some that won’t.

Carrying on with the major choice time line thinking will we would have a choice as such would the time line in-between the choices be pre-determined? Is it like a railway set-up at a station or a major highway? You would have to make a choice as to what track or road you want to travel on but you are then confined to that piece of track or road until the next choice comes along.

Even if this was the case you would still have the freedom of choice because you have made choices to get you to that certain point.

Before I finish with this line of thinking (if It can be called that!) I think it would be very interesting if it was possible to travel between these time lines and see the results of some of the choices I have made during my life.


3. Time is a circle.

While this may not be the case for you this is the newest idea I’ve heard in regards to time. So I could get the idea behind this very wrong but hey, I’m not forcing you to read this!

The first question I asked when I heard this was "where is the start?" There is not start or beginning on a circle. However there is a point when you go all the way around the circle you do arrive at where you began and therefore cover what you’ve already done.

SO if time was a circle and lets say the Big Bang was the "start" then once you’ve gone all the way around the circle then you start back a new big bang and a new start. This would be based on the theory that the universe (and time) began with the big bang which has and still is pushing everything outward and at some point this will stop and everything will be pulled back into the "centre" and result in the Big Crunch. Which will then result in another big bang and another start.

But this raises a question.

When you reach full circle is the universe created a "new" universe with a new timeline or is it just repeating the time line of the previous universe? After all it is when you reach full circle you are coving over what you’ve already done.

But try and draw a circle and once you’ve done that while keeping the pen/pencil down go around 5 more times. All it takes is the slightest of alterations and while you’ve got a circle you haven’t really go over the circle you drew before.

And another time, as time is a straight line with no "branches" then it’s similar to case 1 in that you have no "real" choice as everything is pre-determined.

**************************************************************

While there are more theories about time, One I can’t think of any at the moment and two because they don’t immediately spring to mind that means I haven’t thought about them long enough to come up with and suggestions as to how they work. I might write more when I have the time and can be bothered to do so.

I do hope you’ve enjoyed reading this and I would welcome any comments.

Of course if you plan to write: "That was the biggest pile of bollocks and shit I’ve read and I want 10 minutes of my life back" then don’t bother because I already know it’s a mixture of bollocks and shit and you shouldn’t have wasted your time in reading it then should you!?!

But then there could be another one of you who chose not to read it...

Turn my mic up louder,
I got to say somethin.
Lightweights steppin' aside,
when we comin.
Feel it in your chest,
the syllables get pumpin.
People on the street,
they panic and start running.
Words on loose leaf,
sheet complete coming.
I jump on my mind,
I summon the rhyme of dumping.
Feeling the blind,
I promise to let the sun in.
Sick of the dark ways,
we march to the drumming.
Jump when they tell us
they want to see jumping.
Fuck that, I want to
see some fist pumping.
Risk something.
Take back what's yours
Say something that you know
they might attack you for
cause I'm sick of being treated
like I have before.
Like it;s stupid standing for
what I'm standing for.
Like this war is really just
a different brand of war.
Like it doesn't cater to the rich
and an abandoned the poor.
Like they understand you
in the back of the jet,
When you can't put gas in your tank.
These fuckers are laughing their way
to the bank and cashing their cheque
asking you to have compassion and to have some respect.

For a leader so nervous
in an obvious way
Stuttering and mumbling
for nightly news to replay
and the rest of the world
watching at the end of the day
in the living room laughing
like what did he say?

Amen, Amen, Amen, Amen, Amen

In my living room watching,
But I am not laughing.
'Cause when it gets tense,
I know what might happen.
The world is cold,
The bold men take action.
Have to react,
To getting blown into fractions.

10 years old is something to see,
Another kid my age dragged under a jeep,
Taken and bound and found later under a tree,
I wonder if he thought the next one could be me.
Do you see?
The soldiers that are out today.
That brush the dust with bulletproof vests away.
It's ironic.
At times like this you pray,
But a bomb blew the mosque up yesterday.
There's bombs in the buses, bikes, roads,
inside your markets,your shops, your clothes,
My dad, he's got a lot of fear I know
but enough pride inside not to let that show.
My brother had a book he would hold with pride
A little red cover with a broken spine.
In the back he hand wrote a quote inside,
when the rich wage war, it's the poor who die.

Meanwhile, the leader just talks away
Stuttering and mumbling
for nightly news to replay
and the rest of the world
watching at the end of the day
both scared and angry
like what did he say?

Amen, Amen, Amen, Amen, Amen.

With Hands Held High
into a sky so blue
the ocean opens up
to swallow you.

With Hands Held High
into a sky so blue
the ocean opens up
to swallow you.

A young man sits at his PC. The only thing lighting the room is the glow of the monitor and odd spot of red light coming from "stand-by" switches.

He types. What he types will never be read. What he types will never make a difference to anything. What he types will be useless. He knows this but yet he continues. Simply because he has nothing better to do. Sad. A young man in his room typing in the dark, typing something that will never be read and serves no real purpose.

In a way, his actions define him. He is alone in the dark with very little light in his life. What he does is not often seen by anybody. What he does will never make a difference to anything. His life is useless but still he continues to live.

Why?