College, Work, Attempt Study, Sleep..........Repeat.

This is basically whats been happening in my life in the past few weeks.

My first semester of college is drawing to a close, there are only two weeks left and its pretty crazy how quickly time has passed. It only seems like yesterday that i was starting college all over again.
I have been getting my act together slightly in the past few weeks in terms of my college work . I handed in a kick ass assignment for atmospheric physics last week and hopefully i will get near enough to full marks for it. This just shows that i can do these assignments if i put my mind to it and give it the required time. I have printed out nearly all my notes for all my lectures, there all in their respective binders and are each enclosed in a neat, clear polypocket. Now thats organisation! I have actually never done something like that before and its good to know that i have access to all this material anytime i please and that its not a case of looking through crumpled up sheets of paper which is basically what i had been doing for as far back as i can remember. My exams are coming up at the end of January so i have plenty of time to study and to achieve what i want from these exams. Im not out of the woods yet however. Lab reports are definetly the next thing on my agenda. We have one environmental chemistry lab once a week and for each lab we much write up a report for it, about 5 pages long usually. I have bits and pieces done of each one and they dont have to be handed up until the end of the semester (as far as i know), this is all we are getting graded on for the labs, which is pretty cool as last year we had to do a lab exam which actually involved testing of my knowledge of chemistry!! Nice to be able to dodge that bullet this year (so far anyway :P). Its pretty much a guaranteed 70% or over mark if i actually sit down and put efforts into these lab reports and to make sure that they are as flawless as possible. Hopefully I will do that and i will be on my way.

Im well into the swing of things in terms of my job. I must admit the first few days of working were pretty rough as there are so many things that you have to remember and you are constantly working under pressure due to the fact that it is only 2 weeks away from christmas. Im working in the womens section which is the busiest part of the store and im working at the tills. It is really tough work i must admit. At the beginning it was just terrible. Trying to remember all the different procedures for cash payments, payments my credit card/laser card, payments by all the different kinds of vouchers, the printing of gift receipts, returning items, exchanging items, refunding customers, it goes on and on and on.....was extremely difficult. Im in my third week now i think and its only now that im getting the hang of it. However i am glad that im working where i am, as it will give me very good retail exeperience as River Island is one of the biggest names in the retail and fashion business. Also i will be qualified to work behind tills and this will be a big advantage to me in terms of future employment.
I have had some issues with my job so far. Yesterday is a very good example. I nearly got fired! Basically i thought i was working from 1-5, unfortunately i got a phone call about 12pm from my manager wondering why i wasnt in work and that i was schedueled to be working from 9am to 1pm. I told her that i was on my way in for my 1-5 shift and that i was certain that this was the shift i was meant to be working. She said she will check it out properly when i get in. So i got in about quarter past 12, met with the manager and we checked the roster.....FUCK...it said 9-1......how the hell did i get that wrong? The roster had not been changed, it was entirely my fuck up. Now the funny thing is that this had already happened before. But thankfully they didnt think much of it due to the fact that i was new. Anyway this time i could sense some anger from my usually friendly and kind manager. Now she isnt the kind to get pissed off and i could tell from the way she was talking to me that she was trying her best not to crucify me. Anyway she told me that i could work that day from 1-5 (as i incorrectly thought. ) Which was really nice of her as it would of been so embarrasing for me not to work that day at all as all the other staff would probably know how i fucked up so bad and how much of an idiot i was. Anyway i went to get a coffee and smoke several cigarettes. My head was fucked up, i just couldnt believe how stupid i was and how i let that happen. Had very little confidence in myself at that stage. It definetly showed through my work that day.....I kept fucking up! Pressing wrong buttons everywhere! Argh! We were extremely busy that day as it was a saturday and its the run up to christmas. Eventually my shift was finished and i got the fuck out of there. I was just so angry after it, seriously had not been in a bad mood in such a long time (and the fact that i found out Newcastle through away a 2-0 lead against Stoke didnt help my mood). I went home, ate a pizza, watched some tv and hit the hay eventually.
I woke up this morning in a slightly better mood and went to work straight away, i had a shift from 12-4. It went pretty well, again we were extremely busy but i didnt fuck up and i walked out of that place with my head held high (also repeating to myself that i am working wednesday and friday 6-10 both days :P)

So that pretty much my work life at the moment. Trying to study in between going to college, working and sleeping is proving rather difficult as college and work both take alot out of me especially when i have to do both on the same day. However all of it giving me a better sense of accomplishment within myself and making me a prouder person because I am trying and im not sitting on my ass which is what i used to do alot before.

Writing this now is making me feel alot better about where I'm at. It is showing me what i have done and what more i can do and has to be done.

On another note my social life has taken a nose dive in recent weeks. Last time i was out was 3 weeks ago in Limerick which ended up being a pretty crap night anyway. Thankfully i went out on thursday night and it was my class party which i organised due to my duties and responsibilities as Class Rep. I had a great night and it was really fun talking to people in my class who i would usually not talk with due to the fact we all have our own groups withing our class. I also got horribly drunk! But it was good kind of drunk. I did feel like shit the next day but it was worth it as i had a great night and i think i deserved to have a good time.

I suppose i might aswel include an update on my love life in this post. There is none :D
Now and again it gets me down and im slightly worried as usually there isnt a problem in this department but i know myself not to get too concerned about it. I know myself that im not looking for any relationship at this stage in my life and i have more important things to be doing than getting involved in one of those things again. However i wouldnt mind the odd bit of woman here or there, keep me sane anyway :P

Thats all i can really think of right now thats going on in my life. There is also the possibility of doing a J1 next summer but i will discuss that in another post. Anyway id like to apoligise to anyone who reads this blog that i havent been posting as much as i used to but i am definetly going to try and address that issue in the future.

Till Next Time.

Sean.