guitar porn

Ladyluck – Schecter

Another Schecter... bit ballsy but beautifully finished

And….the new Modern eagle from PRS.

drool…

Public figures

Poor Noelle McCarthy. She must be feeling pretty embarrassed right about now. I’m feeling sad for her; I quite like her columns, she’s young and down to earth and she’s had a pretty meteoric rise through the ranks of NZ media. Plus she’s rather hot. Not to sound all lame and gushy teenage girly, but it’s rare to have a female media figure to look up to and admire (reading the TV news doesn’t count, and am I the only one who doesn’t see the great appeal of Samantha Hayes??)

I can see how she might have mistakenly borrowed from articles she’d read; I have a terrible memory but for some reason I read phrases and sentences that stick with me forever and I go around muttering them to myself. It’s like they’re burned into my brain and I usually have no idea where I first got them from.

I find it amusing to obsserve how Fairfax are all over it. they’ve run about four stories so far. APN, well, hardly a peep out of them, not surprising really as she’s a columnist for the Herald (she really needs a new photo though, the one they print ages her about a decade).

I hope it all blows over, etc etc. Of course it might turn out she’s been plagiarising for months and has never had an original thought of her own, in which case i’ll be badly disappointed. Much the way I feel about Clint Rickards. Personally I think he’s a dirty nasty piece of work, but he’s got his second chance and all and who can deny him that? I’m sure he’d be a fantastic lawyer. Now may we never hear another word about him again. It was bad enough the other week hearing about how much the rape investigations cost us as a country.

Last days of spring!

In two days itll be officially summer, and maybe my spring fever will finalyl leave me .

I was stoked that I managed to wear my contacts almost the whole day – up till abotu 4 in fact, when my eyes started burning and itching like hell.

I woke up in the middle of the night to streaming, sticky eyes, and more bloody eczema spots. Why of why can’t I learn to stop scratching?  You feel the itch, deal to it, it gets worse, you scrtach some more, and teh next morning its a full blown, red, nasty inflamed spot. Or worse, a sore.

Anyway, my new glasses should be here next week, hurray! No more scratched old lenses and glasses that slide down my nose (hopefully). I’ll assume that my new ones will need tweaking as well so they sit nice and high up my face.

Reflections on the week

So the first week of living off my paycheck is here! I put off doing our banking until 8 on a friday night. It wasn’t too bad. We’ve cut everything back, and with no spending money for him, and much less gas and lunch money we should make it.

Came into work to find I’d made a really dumb mistake – said that an Issy Miyake perfume was available at department stores and SUPERMARKETS. Of all places! Someone asked which supermarkets and I had to correct it to read pharmacies. What a duh moment.

I also found out that the red light on my phone means I have a message. Who would have thought? And now it’s been there a week, or has it been two? I couldn’t retrieve it, seeing as I don’t have the password for that phone. I called teh IT helpdesk, who never got back to me, and bumped it off on the “telephony team” who logged it and haven’t done anything since. And so the message will remain unheard for another week. I hope it wasn’t for me (who would call me there?) and that it wasn’t important. I am gonna feel pretty stupid ringing whoever it is back, weeks later. What kind of excuse? “I’m new, didn’t realise?” “I’m only in on certain day?” and then IT took a week to sort out my password?

Sometimes I feel like I’m slacking off and automatically click into my indesign or photoshop at work when people come up behind me. But really most of the surfing I do is for work. I’m combing beauty/fashion/gossip/celeb sites for ideas and research.

But I’m really glad I don’t work in sales, like everyone else around me up there. I think I’d be crap at selling and frankly just hearing everyone else talk about hitting their sales targets gives me the chills. the pressure! 200k! Far out.

I’m going to have to bite the bullet sometime soonish and ask for a pay review. Everyone else who does what I do is on the collective and get a raise every year. But not me – no automatic rises or reviews. And being part time no wonder I fly under the radar, plus I tend to keep a low profile at work (that’s just me).

I’ve never asked for anything like that before. I got a 50c pay rise at Maxim cafe and was so stoked; it did wonders for my confidence. But that’s about it. It’s about time (a year and a half now( and given how things have been in that time, I’m so much worse off in real terms as costs have risen so rapidly. But I know that’s not good enough…gotta demonstrate how I’ve contributed to the company.

I’m not sure how to prove my achievements. It’s not a sales role. I’m about as junior as you can get. I’m only part time (even now I’m splitting my time between two departments), am not in a position to improve their systems or improve efficiency. Now our CMS has been streamlined things are definitely easier which isn’t actually that great considering my workload has levelled off…

But I have shown commitment. Fashion week (07 and 08), elections (worked a couple of different weekends), and the infamous Mood of the Nation feature (I came in an extra morning, built up a 80 odd photo gallery, was about to finish it up and leave for class when teh entire thing crashed and disappeared. I tell you I was thisclose to crying – think the boss wasn’t too far off either! Anyway I skipped class and stayed the whole day to redo it.)

Well, that’s something to worry about NEXT year. Still got Christmas and New Year’s to get through. And now I’ve been marked down for a couple of days leave, gotta do something fun with that time!

I am so so thankful for learning Photoshop basics in vis-comm this year. God, I hated almost every minute of that paper, barely remember anything and struggled along; i never got the hang of the masks and spot healing things, but at least i can cut stuff out well and play around with text! It’s definitely saved my ass at work.

Slightly off topic, starting to feel like the site is just a vehicle for advertising. Trying not to feature too many products that have been sent in from PR companies, and do more original stories (although this is where the second guessing comes i n- does anyone else want to read this stuff, or is it just me? They should never have let me loose on the site alone! And yeah, with more companies wanting online coverage and in the newsletter, and realising just how much in the actual mag is sponsored/paid for, is pretty eye opening.

I’m so over facebook stealing every blog entry of mine and turning it into a Note, so i’m removing my url from my profile.

I’m at eemusings.wordpress.com

Urgh….another shitty day. Didn’t really expect to be unlucky enough to be in a major recession at this age, at least i’ve still got a stable job and haven’t graduated or i’d be job hunting pretty fruitlessly! and i don’t have a massive mortgage or CC debt.

…but still. doesn’t make things any easier. the boy wants to quit and find a job at, say video ezy. which is such a bad idea. a) there are a million other people out there also fighting for jobs. his chances are slim to none. b) in that case, i don’t think he’d even be eligible for the dole, it’s only if you’re actually laid off  and don’t leave on your own accord (must confirm that).leaving us even worse off. even a job in name if nto actuality, is better than nothing.

what ti do? stick it out till the new year? (especially in view to the materialising apprenticeship). that’s over a month away. and there’s never a guarantee really is there? christmas now is also meant to be busy, doing shutdowns for the companies, but again no guarantee. after applying for a bunch of temp jobs and the like he’s all “i don’t want to do this, there’s no point, by the time i do get one of them work will be back to normal (or seminormal.” well, theoretically. but murphy’s law and all that, the exact opposite could happen too. Keep looking for temp jobs and if work is back to normal by then, just back out? Leave and just take any sort of job to keep something coming in for awhile (well, TRY to find any sort of job)?

In the meantime at least he’s managed to make further progess in the apprenticeship department, getting in touch with skills4work, done their tests and passed with flying colours and going in for the next interview tomorrow. Of course that’s another can of worms. They may not be able to work with the current employer. In which case that amounts to some serious time wasted for us and maybe a bit of bad blood should he leave to do it with someone else next year. Then of course the whole training wage thing of $10 an hour, or about $320 net a week. which is fine if you have a near new car that never has probs and is paid for, and no debt and an emergency cushion, otherwise… but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. and surely there’d be some sort of assistance for someone actually making less than minimum wage.

In the meantime, he can’t even get payslips from work to show his zero income for two weeks to show Work and Income – apparently no timesheet, no payslip. (How can you have a timesheet if you’re not working?). I suppose they might accept bank statements showing the absence of pay, but then again, probably not. As they say, you technically still have a job, but if you can show you’re in hardship for three weeks, alls well and good.

I feel shitty coming home and being all stressed about money. i expect him to try and be cheerful, but rally that’s not fair; if the situation was reversed i would be super worried and angry and frustrated too.

Ranting

Marginally more composed now.

B+ for journo. Can’t actually remember what my other two marks were; i’m thinking an A and A-. So hopefully an A- average overall. Pretty annoyed with myself for making a couple of stupid mistakes, and for having had my moment of clarity AFTER the exam in regards to one story, but oh well. I’m on tenterhooks now but we’ll just have to wait and see.

Onto more pressing matters.

Second full week of nonemployment for the boy. this disgusting cutback of hours is worse than being laid off.
at least with redundancy good ol Key’s package would kick in (although it hasn’t been actually organised yet, as such) and unemployment would be available.

God, sometimes i feel about twenty years older. with every new development i feel further and further removed from everyone i know, who mostly don’t REALLY know what it’s like to be dealing with all this and definitely not to this extent. of course most of these are joint problems and not really mine, but that’s what relationships are about, aren’t they?

as it is we have to try and get an appointment with work and income, along with the presumably thousands of others struggling and wanting the exact same thing. then trying to show that an average income of 2-300 a week doesn’t cut it especially with two straight weeks of no work. it’s bad for the wallet and it’s bad for the soul. i can’t singlehandedly support the two of us. our assets are separate and should be counted as such. however the fact that i have any money in the bank probably precludes the boy from qualifying for emergency help.

if nothing else, this experience has totally cemented my belief that we need to work to fele valued and have motivation. sitting on your ass all day simplpy stagnates you. i don’t know if i totally support making single parents go back to work, but i certainly believe in working for the plain old dole

Freakout time

Exam results. Leaking, dying fridge. Rent increase. New clutch for car. Lawn mower man. Water bill soon which wil be massive as the bloody LL hasn’t fixed the leak, so will have to find money for it – flatmates won’t be none too pleased either. Christmas. Apprenticeships/jobs/god knows what for next year. Too much to deal with!

Wigging out, lost appetite, cold sweat. Trying to be calm.

A man clearly designed the new U Kotex tampons.

Let me say how glad I am that these were a free sample and that I didn’t waste my money on these things.

They come complete in bright candy coloured wrappers – why?

There are arrows, presumably to indicate where to tear – but there is actually no weakness in the lining for you to rip from. The top and bottom are so tightly wrapped it took me fifteen minutes of alternately gnawing at the plastic and gouging at it with my nails to get the end undone.

I finally got the bottom open, and pulled…and pulled…the top end of the wrapper flew off, leaving the  middle part still firmly enclosed in that hideous orange plastic – leaving it completely useless. NO amount of effort could get that off. Well, scissors perhaps, but you know what, you can open stayfree and libra tampons without requiring the aid of a pair of scissors or swiss army knife, so why shouldn’t I expect the same from kotex?

I’m sorry, but if people can’t even unwrap your tampons, how on earth are they going to USE them? I sure as hell won’t be going anywhere near them in the future. I’ll be buying my trusted libra.

What a day

What a day…at least it went by fast. Paid the power bill, deposited money, got a new eftpos card, booked an appointment and looked at sunglasses and tights. It was just one of those days where everything just kept coming, and I didn’t even think about lunch until 1pm. I’m enjoying work less and less, and secondguessing myself at every turn. Having doubts about my story ideas and struggling with the writing.

I always thought that the minimum wage was just that – a minimum wage – But apparently there is such a thing as a minimum TRAINING wage. Not the new entrants wage, although I think they may be the same rates. The training wage is for those in recognised study doing over 60 credits a year; namely, apprentice wages. It amounts to about $320 aftex tax. Would it be worth it to almost halve your pay for three or so years to get qualified? That’s a big ouch, and not a decision to make lightly.

I’m anticipating exam results tomorrow, with a small butterfly or two in my stomach. After tomorrow I’ll have a better idea of what lies in store for me next year. If i don’t get it I would seriously consider just working fulltime. (Although I did say that before really getting into the swing of working at the magazines, so may have to retract that.) Probably the biggest reason to stop me wouldn’t be the whole giving up before getting the degree with just one year to go (can you tell i’m a bit burnt out?) but the fact that I’ve got the scholarship so why not make the most of it? i’d feel guilty having used two years of it and not completing my degree, when someone could have made real use of it.