School's Out...

... for ever.

I've been doing some thinking over the last few days, and I've decided to drop out of the Accounting course I've been doing.

Because I missed the first exam back in December 2006 (being away with Dad when he was in hospital), and deferred my graduation for a year, I would have had to finish the course in June... and with all that's happened in the last year or so, with being short-staffed at work, and Dad being ill & passing away, and everything else, I was just too far behind... and missing 2 weeks to move house has just been the final straw.

In all, in the next month I would have had to have done:

1 x exam (which I'm nowhere near ready for, so probably would fail - again).
3 x 5 hour simulations (other exams).
and lots of work on my portfolio of evidence and ticklists... as well as visits from one of the tutors to the office to see me doing things like operating a computer (dur... you turn it on here) and being aware of health & safety (don't stand in a basin of water and switch a light on... that kind of thing).

So, to those people who say I'm stupid... I guess you're right...

When I Fail, I Fail Big...

Just before I went to bed last night, I was finally able to check on the AAT website for the results of the exam I did last December... and there it was in black & white:

YOU ARE A FAILURE.

Failed both parts of the paper. I knew I had done, but it's still a kick in the teeth to see it there. So I've got to try again in June, along with the last Friday's simulation to do again... and another 2 simulations... and some portfolio evidence to produce... By June.

And I had to face them all at college today - the tutor, the course administrator, the other students... I just wanted to not show face there ever again - To just crawl off and lick my wounds somewhere, but I had to go. I'm still so tempted to say "Fuck it" and drop out, coz I'm sure I'm going to get to June and it won't be any better.

Down at the shop the rest of the day after college.

And that's about it, really.

Thick As Pig Shit...

That's me.

My simulation started today at 9:30am - and I was out of the room by 11:30am, having failed to complete even one of the eleven tasks... I started 2 or 3 of them, but I couldn't even concentrate on the questions - I just got in a total panic, and you had 2 books (one for questions, one for your answers), and it kept saying things like "Refer to pg x of your answer book, pgs yy - zz of your question book, and write your answer on pg a of your answer book" - and I couldn't even remember what bloody task I was supposed to be doing!

You were allowed to go to the toilet, so I went about 11am to see if I could take some deep breaths and calm myself down... but it just wasn't going to happen. So I flunked it and walked.

What is wrong with me? Why can't I get to grips with things? Why can't I just focus and concentrate? Is there any point in me going on with this course?

When I get the results of my December exam back next week, and when I've failed it (as I know I have), I'm giving serious thought to giving up on Level 3 (which I'm doing now) and re-enrolling in June to do Level 2.

What Am I Doing Here?

No, that's not me having some kind of theological crisis and worrying about the purpose of my life (I do that every day... lol) - That's me guessing that's what you lot are thinking when you're reading here that I'm buggering about on the net the night before I have a 5-hour exam that I clearly don't have a cat in Hell's chance of passing...

Right now you're probably thinking "Why the hell aren't you sitting with your head in a book, revising?" Or, "Why haven't you been revising all evening? And why are you here blogging instead of getting some much-needed sleep, so you can be all refreshed and super confident in the morning?"

It really hasn't helped that I was only supposed to be in the shop all day Monday, and then Tuesday morning... but instead I've done Monday, Tuesday (apart from an hour at dinnertime when I was at the office doing the wages), Wednesday afternoon (and I only avoided the morning coz I was at college), and today. My proper work is getting so far behind! And maybe if I'd have been at the office, I could have done a bit of revision... That's not possible at the shop with customers coming in every 5 or 10 minutes.

Never mind, though - I've got Saturday off! And I'm going to be drunk as a skunk!

If you see any posts here tomorrow, Saturday, and maybe even Sunday, they will more than likely have been back-dated, because I'll be either drunk or hungover...

Well, I suppose I'd better go and have a last read of my course book... or maybe I'll just have a game or two of Spider Solitaire first...

'k Off, Cough...

Aaargh... isn't it fucking typical? The night before I have to sit in a quiet room with 4 or 5 other students for 5 god-damn hours and concentrate on a simulation for my accounting course... and the night before I go out two nights in a row (coz I've got a much-needed day off on Saturday, and I finish my simulation tomorrow at 2pm, so that's like a half day) to get pissed and actually have a social life for the first time in something like a year... I get a fucking cough!

This is the chesty cough I usually get just before Christmas... just a bit later this year. Every time I go from a warm place to a cold place, or a cold place to the warm, or try to talk to someone, or exert myself in any way, or laugh, or when I get up in the morning - I cough to the point where I'm almost sick and I can't breathe properly. But I will not go to the doctor, or he'll ask how I got on with the inhaler he gave me, and I'll have to confess that it didn't help at all because I couldn't get into a routine of when to use it - and I'll have to confess that I haven't had a happy pill in fuck knows how long because they didn't do me any good (at least, I didn't notice any difference even when I hadn't been taking them for 2 months).

So I've got a bottle of cough medicine, and we'll see how that goes.

As my mum said so often - "It's not the cough that carries you off, it's the coffin they carry you off in..."

Stand Out Of The Way!

There's a handcart with my life on coming through - destination, Hell!

For a start, the two major problems I mentioned at work are still a couple of weeks away from a resolution (maybe longer), and the boss is away this week.

Then there's the fact that my exam results are due in a couple of weeks, and in about a week & a half I've got a 5 hour simulation to sit for the unit I sat the exam in... and I still can't do it. And the simulation is worse than the exam, because you've got to show that you are competent in EVERYTHING we studied for that exam - and that forms the vocational, work-based part of the qualification. And in June I've still got to sit a simulation for the other unit (the one I miraculously passed the exam in last June). Then there's the unit we're doing now, which has no exam, but still has a vocational element to be done for my portfolio. I think if I'd known what this qualification was going to entail, and how difficult it was going to be, I'd never have started it.

Then there's the fact that I couldn't watch "Reaper" tonight because for the last 2 nights, and now tonight as well, I've had no picture on my TV - only sound. I don't know what's wrong with it (well, I do - it's a SHARP, and I've never had a good SHARP appliance yet... but it was cheap, and all we had in stock at work at the time, and our previous TV had died completely so we needed a new one like immediately), but when you turn it on first (or switch it from standby, since I don't ever turn it off completely anymore due to its little problem) the sound comes on fine, but the screen stays black... and then for the first few weeks, it would come on itself after anything from 10 minutes to 3 hours. And then I found that if I gave it a tap on the top, it made the picture come on... but the last 2 nights I have battered seven shades of shit out of it and nothing... nada... zip... diddley squat... bugger all - you get the picture (except, of course, a picture is just what you DON'T get). So I've got to wait until I get someone to take the TV I've got in my bedroom (which is kind of a spare) downstairs and connect it all up to the Sky dish and everything to see if it works, coz there's no way I can even think about buying a new TV at the moment, or for the foreseeable future.

And this damn computer's not running brilliantly tonight... It's a bit slow switching between applications and windows, and IE's crashed once already.

What next? I ask myself (but quietly, just in case fate or the gods are listening and decide to show me just what surprises they've got up their sleeves for me).

I think I'll go bugger off now and find a rock to hide under for a few months...

FAIL !!!!

Well, today was my exam... "SVQ/NVQ Gateway To Accounting Level 3 - Financial Records" or something like that, to give it its proper title.

It was horrible... really, really, really horrible, and I'm under no delusions at all that I've passed it. I ballsed up the Trial Balance and the Profit & Loss reports, didn't finish either, couldn't remember my credits from my debits, and carried all the wrong figures throughout because I'd not made the right adjustments, or forgotten to make the adjustments, or made the adjustments in the wrong direction... but, hey, at least I can re-sit it in June - when maybe things will be different at work, and I'll actually get some support and time off to study.

I felt sick and panicky all day, and in the exam I just wanted to cry... I couldn't concentrate on what was on the paper in front of me... my head was spinning with the sounds of traffic and roadworks outside, the tapping away on calculators inside... and I forgot even the basics.

Why am I so stupid?

And now I've got to go to work tomorrow and face the sarcastic remarks from idiot Flunky, and the boss (only half-jokingly) grumping about how he's had to pay £38 for me to fail.

Dear God, if You're going to bring about Armageddon and the end of the world any time in the near future... any chance You could do it before 9o'clock tomorrow morning, ta?

My Life Just Gets Better And Better...

Let's see... what's happening in the life of Ally right now?

Well, Wednesday this week (5th) is my second exam for my accounting course... and have I got time off to study for it? Have I f*ck as like! The exam's on Wednesday afternoon, and I mentioned having at least Wednesday morning off - and the boss' reaction? "Well, if you were going to study, then maybe... but if you just wanted to doss around until your exam, then no..." I've been taking my past papers and text books to work with me every day, but every time I have some spare time that I could be studying, he finds little jobs for me to do so that I can't study.

Then next Thursday, Friday and Saturday I'm left ENTIRELY on my own up at the office, because the boss has decided now is the time for him to go away and do training courses (that aren't strictly to do with the business, but I can't go into too much detail about that), and Flunky is away the Thursday and Friday (which the boss knew about when he booked his courses). So, 8am starts, no lunchbreaks, no getting away from the place, and 3 days of saying to customers "Sorry... I don't know if that's here... I don't know what size of cable you need to wire that... I don't know if that's legal or not... I don't know if he's even ordered that..." and so on...

And then last Thursday our shopgirl went for a job interview... which she got a phone call to say later on Thursday morning that she'd got (god knows how... boss and I read the job description and, well... you work out what I'm trying to say). Now she's leaving - her last day is the 15th December - yep, just at our bloody busiest time... And, again, without saying too much, if this had happened a month or 6 weeks later, it wouldn't have been a problem... well, not for us, anyway... So, guess who's probably going to have to man the shop for the last week before Christmas? Despite the boss telling me this morning in the middle of a heated discussion that I could have Saturdays off no problem at all, and they'd get cover - yeah, right(!)

Sometimes I think a nervous breakdown is long overdue...

Reasons...

… to be cheerful – 131 – The number of £’s I won on the lottery on Saturday night… 4 numbers for the first time ever, and a pick 2, match 2 on the Hotpicks.

… to be guilty – 110 – the number of £’s I added to my winnings to buy myself a new phone. It’s a Samsung U600, and it’s fantastic! 3.2 mega-pixel camera, quad band, FM radio, ultra-thin, 2 touch-sensitive soft keys, black, TV output… and more… and I love it!

… to be less guilty – 90 – the number of £’s it was going to cost me to get that stupid, crappy LG Chocolate phone repaired (for the second time in the space of a year) and sent back to me. First time was a warranty job, but they told me it was outside warranty this time. At least my new phone has a full year’s guarantee with it. Now I can fax them and tell them to stick it sideways.

… to be less guilty (again) – 2 – the approx age in years of the Samsung D500 I’m using at the moment, and which is probably overdue to snuff it, even though it’s working fine at the moment.

… to be hacked off – 8 and a half – the time (8:30am) I had to be at work yesterday because boss had to go out, and Flunky was stuck across the Firth coz the boats weren’t running. He got back at half 11 or so in the morning.

… to be less hacked off – 4 and a half – the time (4:30pm) that the boss let me clear off early for being in early.

… to be hacked off again – 1 – the ear I must have got water in washing my hair yesterday morning, and which I’m now deaf in.

… to be afraid, very afraid – 1 – weeks to my exam!

… to be bored – 1 – I’m at work.

… to be hungry – 2 – the sandwiches in my bag that I’ve not had peace to nosh yet. And they’re Red Leicester cheese, which I’ve re-kindled my love affair with, after being unfaithful with a flexible Italian (Mozzarella) for a while.

So, What's New Since Monday?

Erm, not a lot really...

I woke up yesterday feeling really sicky, and after not much sleep on Monday night, but had to go to work (Tuesday's wages day, and I don't trust the boss not to balls it up... and he'd probably end up paying everyone else too much, and me too little!). So, I persisted, but didn't really eat anything all day, because I didn't trust it not to all make a reappearance. Come tea-time I decided I would make myself an omelette, and that did stay down, but I still felt "not right".

(Incidentally, can anyone tell me how you make an omelette without burning its arse? Because I ALWAYS end up with a black bottom!)

I should have been doing homework for college today, but instead I just filled a hot water bottle and crashed out... there was no way I could concentrate on credits and debits and journals and crap like that.

Felt okay when I woke up this morning - ready to face a morning at college... not! We've only got a couple of weeks before the exam, which is on December 5th, so we started looking at past papers today - Urrrgh... I know I said last exam "There's no way I'll pass this", and I did pass, but this one is going to be 100 times worse! But at least we're all having problems this time, so I might not be the only one to fail.

After college, I had to go to the shop to help out over lunch time and a bit longer as they were doing the window display for Christmas (bah, humbug). Left there at quarter to 3, when I finally got for my lunch, then up to the office for quarter to 4 - hardly worth it for an hour and a quarter, but there was no way the boss would just let me go home...

Right, I've had my dinner up here at the computer (pork chop that you could have used as a flagstone in a path - somehow I always overcook the damn things - and some mangy toot :^D), and I've still got my pudding to enjoy (Mint Aero cheesecake) coz I wanted to finish all my blogging before I ate it, so I'm going to go and get some hot milk (because it's ruddy cold... I'm typing with fingerless gloves on and swaddled in a blanket) and scoff my pud!

Head And Foot...

That's what's hurt today... My head, coz it was my first day back at college, settling down to do the other unit of my SVQ (like NVQs, but Scottish) Accounting, Level 3 qualification... this time dealing with Financial Accounts (P&L, Balance Sheet, etc), rather than Costing Accounts, which the exam I just passed was dealing with. It's a pain, because the way the terms work out, and when the exams are, means that the exam for this unit is on 5th December (NOT long away), and then those sitting the Costing Accounts exam have from January to June to revise for it!

So, because we've got so much to pack in learning-wise, we went through the first FIVE chapters of the book in just about 2 hours today!

There is one positive (which would be an asset if my life were a business, so would be on the DEBIT side of my accounts... lol), there is a very good-looking piece of male eye-candy in the class to gaze at if I get bored! (I'm saying no more than that!).

And foot ache came about because I stuck on a pair of boots today that I've not worn in ages... and I discovered why as I was walking down from college... as the balls of my feet started to burn and get sore, and my toes got squashed up, and by the time I got to the shop, I really was in agony! But I had to go on the rest of the day, on my feet in the shop (boss said I had to stay down there and serve so that shopgirl could get a huge order that had arrived sorted and priced without getting disturbed).

So those boots will very swiftly get The Boot... straight into the bin, and I'll go back to my trusty Crocs (even if they are getting smooth on the bottoms so that if you wear them in the rain, there is the tendency to go aqua-planing every so often!).

Paid a visit with my brother to see my Auntie in the Residential Home this evening... I've not seen her for a few months now, with one thing and another, but she's looking pretty good... certainly much better than when she and Dad were in the hospital together, and things looked very bleak for her for a while.

Well, I think that's just about all, so I'll bugger off...

Schoolbag Packed, Uniform Ironed...

Shoes (and apple for the teacher) polished, for it's back to college tomorrow morning... and joining a new lot of students, of which I'm the oldest (well, so it seemed at the enrollment last week)... Not really looking forward to it...

Still, it gets me away from Boss and Flunky for a morning, so it's not all bad!

Work was okay today... not quite as quiet as it's been for the last few weeks, coz the boss is actually finding half-decent jobs for me to do, seeing as my stuff's up to date.

Hey, on the subject of quiet - is it just me, or is everyone on SausageNet (I appreciate there might not be many people who can answer that one... I don't know how many Sausages frequent my blog frequently!), Blogger, MySpace and Facebook suddenly gone very quiet the last couple of days? Come on, people! You're letting the side down!

Oh, and a plea.... Lou, can you spare a thought for us poor people who are trying to sneak a look at your blog at work, and show more than the latest post, please? It's very hard to read all the posts when the boss is out of the room when you have to keep clicking "Older Post"! :-D

Well, it's later than this post suggests, so I'm going to bugger off and get some kip before college tomorrow! 'Night...!

ps. No sickness last night, but my stomach's still felt "strange" all day... kind of feeling hunger pangs even when I'm not hungry sort of style...

Back 2 Skool

One final thing I nearly forgot to tell you - I had an extra half hour lie in this morning, because I didn't have to be at work at 9am... I had to be at Orkney College at 9:30am for enrollment, because my accounting course begins again (for me, anyway) next week... all because I was away last November / December time and missed the exam for the first unit.

Judging by the students that were there today, I'm going to be the oldest in the class this time... which is very depressing. Last year most were around my age, or older.

I don't think I'm looking forward to it...