Apathy

So the rest of this week has seen a somewhat deflated bean. Not for any particular reason, rather a collection of small ones. I seem to get like this every now and then, you may have noticed it in some of my other posts. I have been completely and utterly bored at work. I am doing the same thing day after day after day. When I first got promoted, I was really excited about being on a more technical team and all the spreadsheet playing I’d get to do. While it is true that I am working with spreadsheets every day, for the last month, and probably the next one coming as well I have actually been doing the same thing every single day. Argh! I get a slight respite when someone comes to my desk and asks for some help with something, but 9 times out of 10 they want something that I’ve already written up how to do in the instructions I was asked to write for them, which they could find by scrolling to the document and reading a single paragraph detailing very clearly how to do it. I made the template for the document they are trying to use, and I included a helpful instruction sheet on basic troubleshooting with what could go wrong. Do they read it? No. Even their boss, the person that asked me to make the template and include the instruction sheet, he doesn’t even read it! I get chirpy little emails from him asking if I could help so-and-so because the contents page just isn’t working, no matter what he tries (read: nothing)! Grr. Now my work is building up because I’m getting back the items I’ve sent for checking, but can’t complete them yet because I’m waiting on data I requested from another department back in March.

At home we have two types of workmen at the moment. There are gas men replacing the pipes and builders building a new set of flats. They’ve coned off loads of areas so there’s nowhere to park and every morning they are blocking me in so I’m late for work. Combine that with the bin men trying to squeeze through and I was about an hour late for work this morning. I had to squeeze myself through a tiny gap this morning, and missed hitting my neighbours car (parked next to the cones because he couldn’t find anywhere else) by 0.5 cm. Spatial awareness win. This has been going on for 2 weeks so far, and there aren’t even half way done yet.

We also had a visit from my aunt last night, who’s been told that the cause of her severe back pain is vertebral discs disintegrating. The only treatment options she was offered were pain killers and physio or spinal surgery to insert rods to immobilise the two vertebrae and keep them apart, but then she would lose all mobility in them and the problem would move to the two above. I’m sure I’ve heard of disc replacement surgery, so I’m a bit confused as to why that wasn’t an option. Suffice to say, she’s in a lot of pain, and it’ll only get worse. I’m doesn't help that mr has gone back home and I think it’ll be ages before I can see him again. He's brilliant at cheering me up.  Continuing the moan, since I'm on a roll I turned up in all my kit for an outing last night, only to find half my crew hadn’t shown up, and the other girl was busy taking out a single, and didn’t even offer to go in a double with me. Rude, and nice of the rest of them to let me know it was off. Our Sky plus box broke at the weekend, so the engineer came and took the box away and replaced it with a shiny new one. It turns out the problem was actually the dish, which they fixed the next day, but they won’t give us the box back, so I have lost the episodes of Lost and Heroes I was saving up to watch in my own time because Mum doesn’t watch them. I was only sticking with Lost because this was the last series! Grrrrr.

I shall put the ranting bean back in her box now and medicate her with knitting, biscuits, hot chocolate, maybe some shouty music and a sofa to curl up on.

My boredom has lead me to discovering a couple of new blogs which were good, but possibly doesn’t help lift the mood any, rather puts me deeper in it, because I want to be doing what they’re doing. I had an email from the accommodation people at Exeter uni and so have now applied for my accommodation. Applications aren’t dealt with on a first-come-first-serve basis, but those with an unconditional firm status before August are dealt with first, so that kick started me into trying to get my application to have that status. I was quite surprised to see that I could only apply for the Rowancroft halls, I was certain I’d seen somewhere you could live anywhere, but those were kept for medics primarily. My offer is conditional on CRB and OH checks. I’m not sure how to fulfil these any more than I already have, as I took the completed forms with me to my interview. I have arranged for a Hep B surface antigen test next week, I’ve signed the rest of the forms that came with my offer and I just need to print off 4/5 passport photos and send them off with the forms, blood test results and vaccination history which my Dr has already kindly printed off for me. Hopefully I’ll be able to send the whole lot off some time next week.

In other exciting news, I have found an amazing new app for my phone that I’m somewhat addicted to: Speed Anatomy, and what’s more, it’s free! It displays the name of a part and you have to tap it on the diagram of a dissected body before the time runs out, with bonus multiplier points for accuracy. There are different levels, so you start with easy stuff first like skin and heart but then it gets harder (well, I haven’t looked over those bits in my flashcards yet, so they’re hard to me). I can get to level 9 at the moment, which is about the different vertebra, and level 8 nearly caught me out because I couldn’t work out my left and right when identifying blood vessels. Level 6 proved tricky for a while; it’s about muscles. Why is the gastrocnemius in the leg? I keep thinking it’s abdominal. There are 28 levels in total so I’ve got a while to go. Have a good weekend, hope the weather clears up (maybe I have SAD?).