The Happiest Christmas Tree

If that song is played tomorrow at Hawkin's Bazaar, I think I shall invest in a chainsaw.

Although, at the moment, my mood is fairly fabulous due to the glitter and aromatherapy effects of working all day at Lush :) So perhaps I will just continue with building the Homer Simpson 3-D jigsaw puzzle tomorrow. That is fun. Earlier in the week, I got to weave paper on a loom into the beginnings of a purse-ish type thing. Unfortunately, though, I had to leave to go to Lush and the other people couldn't get the purse to become a purse, so the attempt was discarded. So sad. These children's activities are terrifically more fun than hauling glow-in-the-dark juggling diabolos and 47 copies of How to Walk in High Heels up and down a very long flight of stairs. My thighs are getting some kind of work out, let me tell ya. I suppose this is good.

Today, part of my good mood is possibly due to the fact that I worked 10 hours and the store sold over 19,000GBP worth, bringing us to level 3 -- and this means that instead of 5.35 per hour, I made 10.35 per hour! Hoorah!

Must sleep now. Am ridonkulously tired. Lots of amusing things have happened this week, but my brain is not capable of remembering them. Oh, but I will write later about the Nigerian plagiarism that I am being paid to type up.... this is amusing :)

At work tomorrow at 9.00 a.m. Hope not to have to stand by the front door on thief watch under the freezing air blower -- this is pretty pointless as I am not personally a thief and therefore do not know exactly what to look for.

Shopgirl

Whilst I am ignorant of if this is appropriate link to Steve Martin's novella or the subsequent film or not, it seemed a good enough title for this entry. (It actually would have been better entitled yesterday, but I just couldn't be asked to do much after coming down from my bath-and-body-product induced high. This will come clear momentarily. Please standy by.)

Soooo, yesterday after tutoring two of my Korean students, I ventured forth into the insane mass of Christmas maniac-shoppers, who are the reason for my being gainfully employable at the moment -- so we love them :) Yesterday, the manageress of LUSH allowed me to do a trial shift of 2 hours, so as to see if I was more lively than a small bit of moss that might get stuck on your shoe sometimes if you hit a particularly slippy patch of sidewalk (aka, pavement). As it turns out, they did find me livelier than such a piece of flora and I was offered a job through Christmas and got to stay for 2 more hours and then for training -- which consisted of trying fabulous organic-ingrediented bath products and entering a frenzied state of fruity and floral smells. YUM!!!! Eamonn was more than a little alarmed by my excessively chipper state after work since he has never seen me in full-out bath product ecstasy mode -- rather like a kitty who has been rolling greedily in catnip. Partly this was due to all the free pressies that they gave us to try and make us enthusiastic and sell, sell, sell! I think this will work :)

Even though most of my devoted readers will not be able to come in and see this ridiculous version of Amrie for themselves, I would like to say that at first encounter, this company seems to treat its employees like people instead of slaves. If certain sales levels are reached, then the staff who worked for the day get an increase in hourly pay, and this can go as high as 10GBP an hour! (minimum wage is 5.50 -- which is what the pay is at my other job.) Additionally, all of the products are completely organic and have nifty little side-stories about the people who make them for the shops as well as, oh, say, the man in the Outer Hebrides who goes out in his little boat to harvest the seaweed for BB Seaweed; if the weather is too stormy and bad, then there is just no seaweed and therefore none of this product! Who knew?

On consideration, my appearance is actually rather mossish (even though personality judged not-so), though compared to the other employees. They are all very festive and funky and I feel very plain Jane and un-pierced. They are such great fun, though, and were all so very nice to help me get accustomed to everything. Working with good people is a positive thing!

Today, though, I started my other holly-day job at a less inspiring, although fun in it's own sort of way, store called Hawkin's Bazaar. This sells the most random and ridiculous things ('cheap tat' in Eamonn-speak, except that the prices are a little high for cheap tat.). My job does not smell as nice as at LUSH, but the people are very nice (met another American girl from Hannibal, Missouri who is going to join me, Katharine and Georgia for coffee and knitting tomorrow after work, and I am going to teach her to knit! Hoorah!) and I do get to re-stock things like Glow-in-the-dark rubber ducks, squirting novelty lighters, and miniature zen gardens. There is also a lot of straightening to do and this makes me very happy and feeds that OCD monkey.

Today was also the last day of seminar teaching at Cardiff Uni (so I decided it would also be a good time to get my staff ID made... don't ask. Maybe it will let me get discounts of some sort. My picture additionally has the added bonus of making me look like a sufferer of microencephaly. Or maybe a Hobbit.) and was also the day of my observation by the professor. Steffi thinks that her observation went so badly that she expected them to say, 'Please put your pen and papers away, leave the classroom now and we will need to have a refund of everything we have paid you so far.' I think she is judging herself too harshly, but she admits she did think of escaping at one point and running away. Poor Steffi.

So, here I am with my Master's, working as a shopgirl... and LOVING it! Now I am tired (you can tell by the diminished use of colours in my text) and must shower, eat two more Cadbury's chocolate digestive biscuits and work on the sock that is not cooperating with me. It caused me to lose my cheer last evening, when it bewitched me and made me knit it in the wrong direction after turning the heel. Evil creation. But I have put it in it's place today, since my 9.30 pupil did not show up online.

Good flyyyyy!

Llandaff Carol Service (2)

Wow!

So, it is has a family feel when you do a holiday function a second year running :) Tonight was the Llandaff Carol Service, coordinated by Llandaff Rotary and held at Llandaff Cathedral. This event is always followed by mulled wine and mince pies, which is fantastic! (I am so relieved it is mince pie season again, and so can pork out legitimately. It just doesn't seem like a reasonable thing to buy a box of mince pies in, say, September. Esp. since this might mean not that the pies are early but are instead left-overs -- the severe price reduction also contributes to this snobbery on my part.) It was really lovely to see some of my Rotary friends from almost all of the Cardiff clubs and they claim to be pleased that I am still around. I may even have a speaking engagement soon to an Interact club :) Unfortunately, no one there works with immigration and/or Work Permits UK. hmmmm.

So, I toddled off into a windy, rainy, blustery night (which does make my face feel a bit raw at the moment), caught my bus, successfully bought my ticket, , actually changed busses by myself (well, actually, missed the 122 bus I was supposed to take since it apparently was tired and couldn't make it out of Central Station. So I stood at the stop attempting to look like I was reading the bus schedule and understanding it instead of thinking, 'Do WHAT?') and then was fortunate enough to catch another bus (the 136, I believe. Or was it the 62A?) with one of the few nice bus drivers in Cardiff, who did not bite my head off when I guessed about where I ought to be getting off and asked if mine was the next stop, The Black Lion. Indeedy, it was!

Llandaff village is quite small and has narrow streets with little sparkley shops (which were closed) and several cosy restaurants. There are also four pubs -- hee hee. But they are lovely Ye Olde Worlde Pubbes, so that is grand :) Roald Dahl attended the Cathedral School and Charlotte Church (not a great favorite of the Welsh people I have discussed this with) attended Howell's. Charlotte Church lives in Llandaff.

As was there a little early, attempted to take some pictures of the glorious clouds and the outside of the church with the lights shining through the windows. My hands just would not hold still, even when I propped the camera against something. Then, Graham and Jane came around the corner and caught me and started ribbing me for the bloody camera :) So was torn away from looking like a loitering oddball.

My neighbor upstairs really needs to do something about that sneeze. He goes, 'Raaaaa...-SHOOOO!' and it is almost like we know each other and he is in fact in my room. Fortunately he is not, as his cologne stinks up the front hall well enough.

Despite being hurried along by Graham at the end, got a really excellent shot (although still shaky) of the front of the cathedral in the dark. However, since my cable seems to be flitting about the room hiding from me and is not in its Proper Place in The Electronic Section of the Top Right-hand Drawer, I do not appear to be able to share this with my readers (who have sent me emails of inquiry whether something bad happened between me and Elvis). Yet. All will suffer my pictures eventually.

Ooh! Now the neighbor seems to have dropped his anvil on the floor....

I saw Elvis.

He was reading the South Wales Echo.

Attire: grey trousers, lace-up rough shoes, and a blue jacket.
Hair: Black dye.
Location: a bench on Queen Street, just outside the Boots.

This should be investigated further.