Miserable, miserable, miserable.

Little under a month since my last update. Guess it's better than the last one. I would say that things have been busy over the last month, though that's hardly the truth. I have had a few projects and such going on, but they've hardly gotten the time and input worthy of the term "keeping me busy".

Didn't get the Oxford job - eventually they got back to me to say that they'd gone for someone more local, though not before it was too late to go anywhere with a couple of jobs who wanted to know the outcome of the interview before moving forward. Absolutely nothing turning up in the pipelines, and to add insult to injury the one thing that one online recruitment agency sent me - describing it as an ideal match - was an account executive role. Me. Ideal for an account executive role. God knows how my profile suggested that was a good idea, but there are a few damn good reason why at my old job I was the one person out of the entire team who never, ever went to visit clients, which is all that I would be doing in an account executive role. I'd have laughed if it wasn't so tragic and demoralising that it implies that's the only job on the market that I come close to being offered.

On a somewhat related matter, I'm also feeling pissed off that a site that I thought I was part of the small team that ran it have gone ahead with getting the site properly designed and coded... and for all due purposes the rest of the team have kept me out of it. No involvement with any of the work or organisation. Only contribution has been via the same channels as those offered to pretty much any other sod. Exempt from credit once it was completed, despite being one of the two people who was providing help via said public channel (and the other was given credit). Can't help but feel screwed royally on that one. I guess what makes me feel particularly bitter is that this seems to be a common trend in regards to what web skills I have got and have worked hard to develop over the three years I spent in the office having finally found some sort of marketable career skill after so long.

THEM: "Okay, we've got some work to be done on this website. I want you to work on the design, you to work on the coding, you to work on the planning..."
ME: "Anything I can do?"
THEM: "Fuck off Ashley, we're doing fine without you."

Hate to dust off a stereotypical piece of cynicsm, but the old analogy of "there's always someone doing the job better, so don't bother trying" springs to mind. Story of my life.

So here I am, still unemployed in a career path that barely exists anymore and I feel unwanted in, pretty much idling time until fate feels the urge to toss me a bone tied to the back of a car and see how long it is before I give up chasing after it for as it speeds off down the road of life.


I guess I should get onto some good news, because it isn't as if there hasn't been any at all over the last few weeks.

Passed my driving theory test last week. Wait a sec, correction. ABSOLUTELY ACED THE MULTIPLE CHOICE PART OF THE THEORY TEST. 50 out of 50. Hazard Perception wasn't too great a score, but at least I spotted all of the hazards (so scoring at least 1 on each hazard) and got enough to pass. Couldn't help but hear my instructor say "wow, 50 out of 50" under his breath after I'd told him on my next lesson. I suppose it's a good sign, as given spending plenty of time practicing and fine tuning everything, I've been told that I should be ready for the practical test well before the end of the year (which I know isn't too far off, but still). Shame one forum I went to didn't give a word of congratulations, but instead resulted in bickers over the fact that I'm in my late 20's and still not driving whilst everyone else seems to have been doing so since high school. I'm wondering if there's some sort of "always be a dick to Culley and never give him credit for any small success" switch that's gotten jammed somewhere.

After many long years without use, and prior to that a couple of years of frustrated use, I've fixed my Dreamcast and got it going. It was one of those that had the problem of resetting frequently on startup or at the most frustrating points in games, but a couple of weeks ago I opened it up and got it sorted (not even doing the fix as fully instructed), and it's been able to hum along for hours without one reset. So after having been feeling urges now and again to play them for months (if not years), I've been able to run through Blue Stinger, Shenmue, and recently got onto Shenmue 2.

Aside from that, I've been feeling a lack of motivation for many other things, even though I know I've got a number of projects that should keep me busy. I've got some half finished pictures in the work (oh yeah, should probably point out that I posted a couple of new pictures a couple of weeks ago) as well as idea for new pictures, but don't feel up to drawing them... still got my story to write, but feeling a lack of inspiration... seems like far too much of the time I don't feel like doing anything more than oogle unpostable pictures of Grace. And I know that's a major sign of general depression and boredom.

I have tried to get time filled a bit more productively by pushing myself to read more (something I've had difficulty motivating myself to do since pre-school, when I'd read the newspapers that covered the tables we were supposed to do arts & crafts on) - I borrowed a theory test book from my local library for the test, and felt that I should be making a bigger effort to borrow and read books from there more often. I'm currently working my way through Tony Hawks's* "One Hit Wonderland", though once that's finished tere are a few books I've never got round to reading that I'll be looking out for... it's a long shot, but hopefully it might finally get me doing some serious reading. Either that or as soon as I get started I'm finally offered a job and thus lose the reading time.

(* In case you're confused, that's the British comedian Tony HawkS, not the American skateboarder Tony Hawk.)


If you've read through the whole of this grumbling blog entry, then thank you. But I think I'd better leave it at that and give that bugger the sun a chance to swagger in and brighten the atmosphere.