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!