Serial F**k-Up Girl Strikes Again….and Again…and Again….

Yep. Well, I told everybody not to get too excited. And before somebody tells me it’s all to do with a positive outlook (and I axe-murder and disembowel them), I did go with a positive, nay scarily smiley face wearing a suit and heels.

Luckily, I was very early. Which was fortunate as it took me 30 minutes from the time I found the building on the map till the time I found where I was actually supposed to be within it. The letter didn’t give so much as a floor, let alone an office number, and there was nothing as revolutionary as a receptionist….To be faced by a smug middle-aged woman telling me that she supposed that the University was difficult if you didn’t know your way around it. She briefly interrupted her intimate conversation with the woman taking us down to interview to tell me this. She only stopped again to have another little knowledgeable chat with the 12-year old who was going in after me, who she also seemed to be on dinner-party terms with.

Then they gave me 20 minutes to prepare an ambiguously-worded and figured conference budget (‘using any software you like’) Great. on someone else’s PC, set up with Vista to boot. Oh, and in 20 minutes. No clue where to save, what they would like… never used Vista ho hum……it would take that long to set up the EQUATIONS in Excel…..paper and pen was actually quicker, in a Word table. Succinct, clear, and even with my duff mathematics, I did finish. Sweating, it’s true, but finished.

That however was the best bit…it went downhill from there on. I’m so glad I went and read everything I could about what they did, their research, their specialities….not. I didn’t get a chance to mention I knew anything. I even read the Times Higher Education Supplement for god’s sake. All their questions were angled towards people who already worked in Higher Education. Or the fact that I was really into Women’s Studies, and feminism in general, both French and English, I could have talked for hours about that….. They were more interested in whether I had used higher education accounting software though, or whether I could type. Well dammit, there might be a teensy weensy clue in the fact that I never actually appear to have been sacked for administrative incompetence, and that I was apparently clever enough to have been given an M.A. less that six months ago.

There are so few jobs around here. So few employers that aren’t ASDA, or Morrisons, or minimum wage-slavery. I am sick of being asked to dumb down my CV (one agency actually suggested I took out degree, MA and most of my work experience so as not to ‘scare’ empoyers). I get a chance like this…and again it’s no chance. It’s a little clique once again….needless to say, they didn’t ring back. Why aren’t I surprised?

Got a job interview got a job interview…..FOR A PROPER JOB!!!!!!

For a proper job that might treat me as someone with a little brain. I have a job interview at the University tomorrow afternoon. A proper, grown up, job interview for the kind of graduate job I have wanted since I graduated in about 1989. So I am bound to screw it up. A centre co-ordinator for a Centre for Gender and Womens Studies. It’s too good to be true. I might even like it…hell, they might even like me! Somewhere that actually treats my qualifications as an advantage and not a disadvantage……(do you think it’s all a big hoax????? is today April Fool’s Day???) I’m sleeping with my fingers, toes, and any other possible parts of my anatomy crossed……. I’ve only waited for twenty years for this and several thousand pointless applications for this to happen after all…there’s absolutely no chance that i’ll f**k it up………..

Had to share this with you…and break radio silence….

Just found this out, and had to share this with you because it was so strange……

Khlari, my netname is due to a strangely named Uni friend of mine called Antigone Panayi (yes, you guessed it, she was Greek), a painter of icons and fascinated by language. One day she wrote my name out in Greek script, and it comes out as Khlari….. which became my nickname, with variants upon it, and my nom-de-plume when I was writing and standing for student election at the same time. I’ve always liked the sound of it. Years later, with the arrival of the net, it seemed perfect, short, sweet, and unusual, I share it with two or three people worldwide, and I two of them are definitely men! (One’s a baseball player, and one’s in a band on MySpace…). There’s also a role-player of indeterminate sex, and it appears to be some kind of Punjabi or Indian verb……

I just came across something quite cool today. Apparently in Cambodian Khmer, Khlari means ‘Strong’. I like that meaning, accidental, but ultimately, rather cool!

And an M.A. to the wweirdo on the left with the ponky-knots with a garden on her head….

Yep. Official. I did it. I have passed my M.A. I am now officially a smart-arsed weirdo woman. Two years down the line, here I am, M.A,. in hand. Now what do I do with the damned thing????

I'm back, but there's not enough time in life to play on Facebook AND write my blog!!!

Yes, brought to book by Mr SpicyCauldron. Admission of guilt, I’ve been playing on Facebook and have not been a good little blogger. Slapped wrist to self. Back soon, promise…..