Work Load

I know I've not delivered on my promise of photos of my Max C winnings. I just want to show you what blogging is contending with at the moment.

That is TWO WEEKS work. I'm sure I produced less paper than that in a year of university. To add to the moan fest it's not easy work either. Progress test on Friday felt like a bit of a disaster, will find out to tomorrow.

Anyway the new and improved plan is to try and wear my new clothes to college this week and get photos of them then. Expect super layering though. Our old building is really cold!

Work Wardrobe

With the new job and all I am going to be requiring a whole load more work clothes *secretly delights in the excuse to go shopping*. The question is whether I am brave/capable enough to make any of these clothes myself? It's all well and good wearing the dress you made with the wonky hem where the interfacing shows at the arm holes down the pub or at family gatherings. It's not perfect but it's wearable. The professional workplace however requires an all together more finished garment. I reckon that I can create a shift dress or two if I lengthen the hem of my current pattern a little and make sure to do everything properly. I'll probably need to line them too as I'm always having issues with my home made clothes catching on my tights and riding up. Need to stock up on 'work coloured' fabrics; navys, blacks and greys. *secretly delights in the excuse to go fabric shopping*

Soo Much to Post...

Can't believe I forgot to post these. Pictures from my last day at Center Parcs (ever, hopefully!)

The snow in the car park the night before and the reason I was 2 hours late on my last day.

The 'Global Cake' I baked for everyone. Was very good if I do say so myself! Though not an acturate portrayal of the globe, it's a little imperialist.

My parting gift, Cheeky Ray, complete with passport. I had to promise to take him with me and picture him in exotic places. The girls (and David) also kindly contributed to my fundraising efforts.

I promised to post this charity shop find AGES go, but I was being lazy and I haven't really figured out how to wear it yet. I'm not sure about this combo with jeans and shirt. It did make an interesting silhouette though and I wanted to wear it before I went away. Mainly just so I could post it.

Close up of the jacket done up. As you can see it is a bit of a squeeze. I picked it up for just £4.50. I loved the sleeves. Only thing I have done to it is take out the shoulder pads which were falling out anyway. We reckon it was designed as an 80's evening jacket to go with a ballgown or cocktail dress. Was made in England by a company called Nightingales (an Irony one or two of my special readers might understand).

My sewing efforts for today and the last for a while. The old curtains one day skirt. Makes a lovely knee lenght conservative skirt when worn on the waist...

But with a little strategic folding and the help of a studded belt I think can be funked up a bit. Don't know why I'm looking kinda tanned in these pictures. I'm as pale as ever.

And finally perhaps the best postcard ever. Thank you A x

Thats me done for today. Going to watch the new Gossip Girl finally!

Last Day

It was my last day at Center Parcs today. I wasn't in the call centre long but it felt strange and sad to leave. Will miss all the girls.
I'm kinda getting bored of blogging hence the shameful lack of updates but in the few weeks of unemployment I have ahead of me I may just pick it up again.

http://www.justgiving.com/catherinefisher

Christmas Party

A picture of my outfit...

I picked up this dress over the summer in the oasis sale (£100 down to £30!) though I had no idea what I was going to wear it for at the time. The dress had a small rip in the fabric by the zip, but I patched it up and now it hardly notices. p.s. I am not a giant, we just have a small tree this year and I am wearing huge heels!

... and the joke from my cracker

Q: Why did the jelly baby go to school

A: Because it wanted to be a smartie

It was lovely to see all the girls dressed up. Congrats to those girls who managed to coax their partners into suits! Everyone enjoyed the 'this is your life' themed slide show of the life of the pre-bookings department, I was glad they had used one of the better pictures of me from facebook and that I haven't been there long enough for them to have learnt any dirty secrets to spill. Tanya and Sharon put loads of effort into it, Kerry was right when she said they are the best manager and assitant manager ever. Its a great team to work in and I wish them all the best for July when the future of the pre-bookings department should become known, afterall I need somewhere to send my postcard after March!

Ummm Doughnuts...

Day 7 of 7 straight days work is complete! Lie in tomorrow, woo! Today business was slow so keep up the old energy levels I drank coffee and ate a very large, very yummy doughnut from the on site supermarket.

Sorry for consuming half of it before I thought to take a picture.

p.s. I have realised that the only real use for camera phones is to take off the cuff pictures like this when you haven't thought to have your real camera with you.

Training Day

Finished at 2:30, Love It! Went home and watched Wall-E. Very heartwarming, only Disney Pixar could make a rusty old robot look cute.

p.s. I was told on Saturday night by what was presumably a rather intoxicated man that I look Russian. Not sure if I see it by self and as far as know my family does nothing more than span Britain. One grandparent from Scotland, one from Cornwall, one from Essex and one from London.

Gym Time

Went to the gym today for the first time since leaving uni. My fittness hadn't got as bad as I'd feared it could have, but wasn't as good as I'd hoped either. At my peak I used to be able to jog along for up to 20 minutes. Today I only just managed 5. Nevertheless it's still better than when I first started uni and could barely manage the length of one song, about 3 minutes. Hopefully won't take me long to get back on track, just got to make the effort to keep going, which is likely to be hard in these winter months.

:)

Whoop! Heard back from GX, going to training in January as I applied for a new program called Regional Xchange.

Global Xchange: Regional Xchange

Introduction
As part of the expansion of Global Xchange’s activities, a ‘regional xchange’ GX at the British Council commissioned a report (carried out by a former programme supervisor) to look at how different multi-lateral versions of Global Xchange might work.

As a result of this report, and through the British Council's Intercultural Dialogue Africa agenda, it was felt that the East and West Africa region would be a good place to pilot this new approach to Global Xchange.

Within the UK, the management of the Regional Xchange programme is being integrated across the British Council and VSO, with staff from both Global Xchange teams working on it.

For this first pilot exchange, Regional Xchange will involve the UK and six East and West African countries, with 4 volunteers from each country.

The team would then spend 3 months in the UK and 3 months in one of the African countries. Two programme supervisors - 1 British and 1 from the African host country would oversee the team.

Communities
After discussions between GX staff from VSO UK and the British Council UK, it was agreed that in order to get the most out of this opportunity, four of the African countries would have had no prior experience of Global Xchange, whereas the host country would already have functioning and effective Country Management Team (British Council, VSO and implementing partner) with experience of running regular Global Xchange programmes successfully.

As a result, it has been suggested that the first exchange takes place between the Hounslow in the UK and Lafia in Nigeria. Both these communities have prior experience of Global Xchange bilateral programmes.

Volunteers
This exchange will have 24 volunteering participants, as opposed to 18 on the bilateral exchanges. Four volunteers will come from each of the following countries:

Nigeria - Senegal - Sudan -Tanzania - Uganda - UK

Themes and focus of work
As with all Global Xchanges, the overall focus will be on active global citizenship, but there will be much more emphasis on intercultural dialogue and youth participation than in some other exchanges.

In terms of the actual volunteering, it is likely that the volunteers will be grouped in clusters of 6, based at 4 organisations, where they will develop 9 week projects after additional training on community needs analysis. This will build on an approach successfully tried on bilateral exchanges with Pakistan in the past.

In the UK, more of their activities will be focused on development awareness, to tie in more closely both with the British Council’s intercultural dialogue agenda, and VSO UK’s public engagement strategy.

I would really like to take part in this. I think I'm well suited to taking part in a pilot program, I'm prepared to try and fix problems when I see them and I like to get things done, demonstrated by my hoards of calls to GX over the last few days, I was terrified of doing it, but I did it anyway. This was always meant to be a challenge for me and I think it will probably be one of the hardest things I've ver done, but I'm sure it will be worth it. Bring it on.

(Just hope work aren't too annoyed with me now)

Revamp

This blog has had a makeover. It was all starting to look a bit pink and shiny for my liking, and I am not in a pink and shiny mood. I've spent all day trying to get hold of someone at Global Xchange, as I need to know whether I'm on the March 2009 program and therefore have to attend the training in December, which just happens to clash with training at work which I've already been threatened with losing my job over if I can't attend but has since been sorted so that I can go to some training at head office if I can’t make the sessions on park. The GX training is next week and I should have heard something my now. I’d like to know what I’m going to be doing for like the next 6 months and I need to let work know what I’m doing asap. I’ve gone into worry over drive and am now imagining that the whole GX team are conspiring against me because they have decided I’m annoying or that they are all sick with some horrible virus or they’ve had to shut the program because of the credit crunch and other stuff like that. If I haven’t made it onto the March exchange I hope I will have the courage just to jump on the first flight out of here. I’m just so sick of my life at the moment, sick of living at home, sick of my crappy job and sick of never seeing my friends. I know I shouldn’t complain. I’m lucky to have a job at this time, but everyday feels so worthless. I could be doing so much more. I need to DO something with my life!

MySpace Archive - Work, Work, Work

Thats all I seem to be doing at the moment. Writing notes, starting essays, being an RSN, going to the gym in case I decide to be a police officer, researching jobs in case I don't. I can't fit everything in not unless I give up sleeping which is not a particularly attractive option to me. I have other concerns to but I simply haven't got the time or energy to get invovled. I shall let them run their course it's probably better than way anyway. Well that was rather cryptic.

Mind you saying all that I seem to have found time to go on the internet... funny that.