Horace's Biting the Bullet Diary

beanielou

Good news on the interview.

Horace

I will be having a mock interview next week to prepare me for the interview. I have also rung up about reasonable adjustments and have discovered that the typing test is an audio tape which is 10 minutes long.

I met the mobility guy at college today and he is going to arrange training with a long cane so that I can go out at night without fear of tripping over something, falling down something or walking into something as my night vision is virtually zero. I am too young to stay indoors at night and when I get this job I am going to have to walk around on dark nights in the winter because I cant very well ask to leave at 2pm to get home before it gets dark. I won't need the cane in the day time.

I had my college review too - the word is excellent all round:j

beanielou

Good news on all being good.

Horace

In preparation for my interview next week, I went to the hairdressers today. Thankfully I went to my local college and was amazed to be charged £22 this was for my roots to be done with a comb through as well as a cut and finish:j when I next go I have to say that I am due a free treatment so that they can book for a longer period. I have been using the college salon since it opened. Had to smile today too because my stylist was going on about how healthy my hair is and how it was in wonderful condition - she wanted to know my secret, I said that it was drinking plenty of water, eating veg and chocolate and using Ald* almond milk shampoo (gone are the days when I would spend £14 on a bottle of shampoo).

My mock interview went well and I have asked for another on Monday so that I am totally up to speed. Am dreading the weather forecast too because we are expecting light snow on Tuesday so I shall wear boots and change into heels at the hospital.

Off to my parents on Sunday as I need to collect the carpet length (this is an offcut of my hall carpet that I found in a cupboard upstairs), mum took this carpet length away with her and has cleaned it with her carpet cleaner - it will protect my carpet from the snow when I walk into the house (it is bound along the edges so it wont fray).

Not much else to report really.

Horace

I went to the interview - they made no reasonable adjustment for me despite my asking when I applied for the job. I did not get the interview because I did not know the NHS policies inside out - oh well, I did what research I could but they asked questions that were not related to the job at all. I have applied for to a different health authority as I am obviously destined for better things.

Quite pleased today because at last we have found an electrician to come and fit my living/dining rooms lights plus a new light in the loo. I have been waiting for months for them to be done and mum was getting rather frazzled with her usual electrician because he has been stuck on a job for months so hasn't been able to do it. The lights have been done - the living/dining room ones have 5 branches and all are fitted with long life low energy bulbs and I had to buy a low energy long life bulb for the bathroom light as it needed to have a fatter bottom. The old lights have been given to my neighbour who coveted them.

Went to mum's this morning to collect the money to pay the electrician and she looked rather sniffy, apparently I had a mark on my anorak and I was wearing a ski hat and I was told that I looked simple:mad: I did say to her that she was rather rude so she wittered on about what people would think - to be honest I don't care what people think, they should not judge. She gave me a nice piece of silver tinsel for my white Christmas tree along with 3 lovely red poinsettia clips from the pound shop. I came home via the garden centre as I wanted to see Santa's grotto with his live reindeer. I bought some baubles for my tree and a long jumper for me to wear over leggings.

Horace

Today is my birthday. I had some lovely cards including a gorgeous handmade one from my mum and dad (she makes fab cards). I received Hilary Devey's auto biography from one of my chums and another friend gave me a lovely rose covered diary to carry in my handbag and with the diary was a keyring which has now been attached to the key in my back door.

I nipped to the shops this morning as I had to pay in some money to the Friends bank account and whilst I was at it asked the bank some questions that our treasurer seemed incapable of asking (for someone who likes to know everything to the nth degree he is hopeless when it comes to asking the bank anything useful regarding our account). I got some stamps for Christmas so that I can send all my cards second class, nipped into a charity shop and got a bauble for the tree for 10p and then I espied 2 brand new kilner jars for £1.50 each so I snaffled them up too. Went across to the haberdashers and got a length of gingham ribbon. Spoke to her cousin who runs her cake business from the same shop and she was miffed that I had not mentioned it was my birthday until today otherwise she would have baked me a cake as a present, instead she gave me some gluten free raspberry and vanilla cupcake mix so I had to bake my own cakes. BTW I am not gluten free but I have friends who are.

Mum phoned this afternoon to say that my aunt was going to hers on 10 December and would I sort my cards out and take them to mum's so that they can be delivered that way - that saves a whole raft of postage not only to my aunt but also my cousins and one of my cousin's daughters who lives in her own place. There will be a card swapping session going on.

Today, I have been spending time researching grant funding, playing on the internet, looking for a job and napping on the sofa. I also took a look at my maths homework.:rotfl:

beanielou

Belated happy birthday Horace

Horace

Thanks for my birthday wishes Beanielou.

I have been quite busy as I did nowt on Friday, Saturday was washing day and on Sunday I was invited over to my parents for lunch. We discussed my birthday present and I had a choice of a new coat, a babyliss thing to put volume in my hair or some snuggly boots for winter for standing around at bus stops - I chose the boots. Mum is naughty she doesn't tell me that she falls over and apparently she fell over the rake last week as it had slipped from where she had propped it up and didn't notice it.

Mum did a really daft thing on Sunday - she decided to cut the rest of the joint up after it had cooled only she didn't use a fork to hold the meat and the knife slipped and sliced all down her index finger - cue one mum holding her finger under the tap before heading to the sofa to sit down before lying on the floor trying not to faint. Dad came to the rescue with fetching the tin of bandages etc - eventually he found some sticky things to close the wound but he had the shakes and nearly knotted them so I had to apply them. Mum refused to allow me to take her to the local hospital for stitches nor was I allowed to call the neighbour around because she is a nurse - my own first aid went right out the window:( I ended up coming home with the joint plus a tv dinner that mum had made (I had that for dinner tonight).

I had a mock maths exam on Monday and for the bit without a calculator I got 78% and with a calculator I got 90% which is pretty good for me because I loathe maths. Today I was doing two papers to prepare me for my powerpoint level 2 and mail merge exams next Tuesday, talk about do stupid things...rolly eyes.

I had a chat with my client caseworker today as I felt I had to say something. I asked her when my finish date was and she said 19 December and I said that I still had to study for my publisher exams as I need this to get my clait certificate and so far I hadn't done any. I also mentioned the fact that I hadn't got the promised work placement as the employment adviser wasn't that interested - we have now identified places where I would like to work so the adviser is going to have his work cut out on Thursday to get me a placement. I also mentioned the application process for the college and the fact that the recruitment people they use never shortlist anyone from A2W or anyone with a disability plus their systems are incompatible with assistive technology. This got fed back to the college. I was asked why I hadn't mentioned this during my reviews but I said that I was never given the opportunity to ask questions as I was talked at.

Had to smile because we were talking about her Lancashire accent and I asked where she was from - she said Ormskirk so I said that I used to spend all my holidays there and once spent a year there going to school at Greetby Hill Primary - the same school she attended, we also went to the same church and learnt to swim at the same college.

Tomorrow I have an eye hospital appointment - no idea what they will say but I think my eye sight is getting worse. On Thursday I have to go to the main site for my long cane training. You might think this strange but I have no night vision and can trip over a leaf and do myself a mischief - I cannot very well say to an employer that I have to finish at 2pm in the winter to get home before it gets dark hence the decision to do some long cane training so that I can wander outside at night without fear of falling or walking into something.

Horace

The long cane training went quite well until I put the blindfold on and then it was really scary especially going up and down stairs.

I put my Christmas tree up today with two lots of lights on it - my old coloured ones and a set of clear ones that mum gave me. The tree looks rather snazzy with the silver tinsel from Aldi and some ornaments from the pound shop - you wouldn't know they were so cheap. I wrote my cards yesterday too.

I have been a bit naughty tonight because I haven't taken my eye drops because I want to drive to my parents tomorrow - the new boots have arrived and I want to drop off half a dozen free range eggs (I was given a dozen by a chum today from his hens).

Was supposed to do some maths homework - I have looked at it but that is as far as it has gone.

Best head off to bed I guess.

Horace

I know I haven't posted much but I have been trying to give my eyes a rest. I have been busy this week with mock exams and exams and the whole of Monday was spent doing maths:eek:

I had to go into college yesterday (my day off) and I did two OCR exams at Level 2 - one was mail merge which did frighten me a bit because I couldn't for the life of me remember how to do labels and spread them across the page so I sat there for a good 10 minutes until I gave myself a talking to and once I stopped thinking I remembered how to do it. I completed that exam with no errors at all. The second exam was Powerpoint - this was more tricky because I had to remember to put the wrong date on everything (college had made an error in that the cut off date was my birthday), with all the faff at the end I had to sort out the dates and then I wasn't allowed extra time for checking as I was part way through the checking process when the dates had to be re-done. The upshot of it all was that I had one small error but I should still get a distinction - that is not the point as I wanted the exam to be error free.

Today was maths at Level 1 - a City & Guilds course. I had to be in college for 9.30am but had the most dreadful night's sleep resulting in my oversleeping until 8.20am:eek: I had to drag some clothes on, clean my teeth, brush my hair, splash water on my face, only had time to take one eye drop before rushing out of the house to catch the bus. I rang college to say that I would be late and I was in a right old state - my tutor was very kind to me and said that I could go and make myself a drink (I hadn't even had chance to have breakfast) and she gave me one of her rice cakes so that I could at least have some food before I started the exam. The exam was online so it wasn't as though I had to do a paper one. The exam comes in two parts so I opted to the no calculator part first and somehow managed to get 90%, I had another break and then tackled the with calculator exam which has less questions but I know for certain that I boobed on one question yet I managed to get 83.3%. The pass rate was 70% so I really am quite pleased.

My tutor asked me how I got on with the second exam so I tried to put on a poker face and told her that I had failed but she caught a glimpse of the print-out showing the 83.3% and she was over the moon. She thought that last week that I didn't stand a cat in hell's chance of passing and it was the same on Monday. On Tuesday, I did another practice and my tutor commented on how I could do the really complicated things yet the simpler things seemed to baffle me and I got the wrong answer. I used a thick black felt tip pen and some bright orange paper to do all my workings out on - plus I used my fingers too.:rotfl:

I am due to finish college next week - I am quite cross because I have no work placement and now it is down to me to find one because my employment adviser at college is lazy and doesn't like approaching businesses other than the ones the college use regularly. Next week I plan to hit most of the businesses if not all in the area close to my college buildings - we have a huge variety of places where I could do a placement.

Best go to bed now and rest my eyes - my glaucoma is back and I am not liking it at all.