Beware of the fridge!
Inside its enticing walls
lie morning's regrets.

As the pathetic weight-loss haiku would suggest, it's the time of renewed New Year's resolutions. While I didn't fall off the bandwagon too badly, I didn't have the best Christmas and New Year when it came to making good food choices for myself. Ah well. I suppose the situation is better than it was this time last year. Alongside that line of thought, I came across a very nice Thomas Beckett quote the other day: Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.

However, with the understanding that that won't especially help me when I suffer some kind of health complication due to the spare tire, I am declaring 2009 to be the year when I reach my goal weight. I have about 35 lbs to go. Wish me well!

I've spent approximately 6 hourse over the past three days applying for jobs with large publishing houses and media agencies. And that is not including the time it took me to whip up a CV and write cover letters. I've managed to apply for 6 jobs total...

The problem is that all the larger companies have annoying software that you have to get through. They give it zippy names to try and distract you from just how annoying it is - like "Personal Career Manager." All of them make you upload a resume and then ask for the same information (usually work experience) on the following pages. Random House, which was especially obnoxious I might add, makes you do this *three* times. Each time I entered my duties, I felt their worth deteriorating, stopping to wonder "Am I just padding this out?" Not especially friendly to the entry-level candidate whose answer will always be a resounding "yes."

Even more irritating were the ones that wouldn't let you proceed until you had listed references and/or salary requirements. Maybe I'm just old-fashioned but I thought that those were conversations you were supposed to have after the people had at least met you! This new way seems to say "You're not worth the time it would take to meet you. Your referees aren't worth the time it would take to meet you. Be quiet and digest your resume into this 50-word-limit field so we won't have to take the time to read that either." Perhaps I wouldn't mind so much if I had a more concrete idea of whether I'll even get any call backs or if I'm just wasting my times by going up against the latest crop of NYU 'Communications' whippersnapper graduates.

Must try to stay positive.

My brother's getting married in a couple of weeks so we booked a lot of time off to come to the wedding in Lincoln and hang out a bit. God knows we both need some relaxation time.

Well, my Mum - who from now on will be known as Saint Sue of the Shire - decided that we could all use a little relaxation, so she's booked us 5 days in Portugal. I'm really excited! I've actually never been to Portugal and Jon's never been anywhere else in Europe. I mean, admitably it's a resort-style place which probably serves chips in every restaurant but it should still be good. Neither me nor my parents like that kind of 'Brits abroad' stuff so we'll be avoiding all that. God, I hope it isn't like some of the other places where I've been...where you wake up at 3am to the sound of vomit splattering on the pavement.

In other news, though it's not really new, work sucks. I hate my job. If I had any shred of dignity, I'd quit. But the economy's shit so I'm kind of stuck there. Oh well. Hopefully something else will come up.

Diet is going well. I lost 1.8lbs last week which puts me at a total of 32.8lbs down. This week has been mixed. I had a couple of 'bad' days where I indulged but I've been doing well otherwise. That's the thing with WW...when I think I'm doing shitty, I tend to lose anyway anmd when I think I'm doing great I only lose a little. I think it's screwing with my head. Ah well...I hope I reach my goal before I go to England. Only 2.2lbs to go!

And therein concludes my entry...

1. Wait in excessively long queue, behind large number of people in suits placing ridiculously large and overly-personalized orders.

2. Put hands behind back to prevent yourself from hitting the yuppie woman who wants to substitute everything with something else. ("Hmmm, I don't know if I want parmesan....do you have Romano? You do? Awesome? Is it low fat? No? Well, that's no good...why don't you have part-skim Romano? I guess I'll take something completely different.")

3. Be elbowed out of the way by prick in expensive-looking suit.

4. Go through galaxy of choices to ensure that you get exactly the right bread, meat, vegetable toppings, dressing, adjustable mortgage rate, and life insurance options etc, etc, etc.

5. Finally arrive at counter with sandwich. Refuse 'meal deal offer.'

6. Refuse soup and sandwich deal.

7. Refuse soda combination deal.

8. Inform cashier that you just want the sandwich. Really.

9. Take sandwich to desk. Get lockjaw trying to open your mouth wide enough to accommodate large roll stuffed with 3 lbs of sliced turkey.

10. Open sandwich. Remove 3/4s of turkey. Replace top. Discover that turkey was dressed in something and discarded meat has dripped creamy-looking substance down your dark coloured blouse.

11. Toss sandwich, put on new blouse and pine for Marks & Spencer ready-made, vaccuum sealed goodness.

I managed pique and chaine turns today - *and* I managed them in some quite difficult combinations. I really struggled with these yesterday but today they all actually looked like dancing so I'm justifiably proud of myself! It's funny how things just seem to click into place. My ankles and my "core" muscles are killing me though. I'm sure I'll hate myself when I have to get up and go to work tomorrow.

No more dancing til Tuesday. *sigh*

I was a complete slacker and pigged out last weekend, so the results on the scale weren't exactly brilliant on Wednesday...I gained for the 2nd week in a row and was up a total of 1.4lbs. Ugh. I felt like a big, fat blob...actually, I'd been feeling like that the whole time I was pigging out and so hopefully it put an end to that kind of behaviour. Nothing like being disgusted by yourself to get you back on track! Hurrah!

This week has been much better - which is amazing since WW reduced the amount of daily points I get to eat this week. I guess weekends are my weak point - I tend to think "time to treat myself!" and go loony. I'm working on breaking that habit and so far so good...I'm halfway through already! Jon and I did have korma earlier but it was one from a jar and I measured all the portions...

Hopefully I'll be spurred on this week by all the ballet. I'm doing a "weekend workshop" with my teacher, which he designed for beginners. It was from 10-4 today, about 3.5 hours of which were spent dancing. Even more to come tomorrow! My joints are a bit sore so I hope they recover in time for tomorrow. I'd like to come out of this weekend being able to do a pirouette without falling at the end and making a complete tit out of myself...it's not a very realistic goal but stranger things have occurred.

I really want some rollerblades. I wonder where I could use them.

...you travel home wearing nothing but a leotard, some pink ballet tights and a shawl tied around your waist (because someone stole your clothes while you were in dance class) and no one stares.

Feeling very somber today. Four women who worked for my NGO were attacked and killed by the Taliban in Afghanistan this morning. A fifth is seriously ill in hospital. I didn’t know any of the women personally but there is a very reflective mood here in my office today. I can’t imagine what their families are feeling. The whole incident is really disgusting. I mean, the women were unarmed. They were there to work with children on education topics. And in return they were murdered – literally riddled with bullets – by a bunch of fucking cowards who are too selfish to care about anything.

There are few things I can think of that are more despicable than targeting aid workers – people who put themselves in grave danger to help people. The international community would agree too. It happens very occasionally but it always makes the news when it does. When you consider that, in this case, the women were in a clearly marked NGO vehicle so it was clear they weren’t military, it just makes the whole thing worse. And it won’t just effect their families…it’ll effect the people who have been relying on our programs. We operate one of the largest aid programs in the country (been there for 20 years) but, needless to say, operations have been suspended until further notice. What a horrible place the world can be sometimes.

Keeping those brave ladies in my thoughts, as well as the innocent Afghans who this will effect.

...because literally days after I bitched about not getting any writing assignments I had two pleasant surprises this week with the writing thing. The first was one of my mini articles is getting printed in one of my industry's newsletters. Granted, it's only a crappy newsletter but it will be my very first clip. Hooray! I saw my name in print for the very first time...it was kind of neat.

The second was kind of sprung on me this afternoon. We're re-designing some parts of our website and they needed a whole bunch of program blurbs writing for a series of pages that is going to be launched next month. Again, it wasn't exactly high art but it did get me out of my accounting-voucher-lowest-rung-on-the-ladder rut. And the bosses seemed to like what I came up with so hopefully more will come of it. Who knows...In the meantime, I guess I should start putting together a portfolio.

Been watching some of the Olympics this evening. It's very different trying to watch on NBC...soooo many adverts! And every now and then there are these dumb features thingeys were they send this ridiculous American reporter to look at all things Chinese. Tonight's subject was chop sticks. I'm being totally serious. It was awfully patronising. "Like, oh my gawd, they, like, eat with these stick thingies" *reporter tries to pick up a marble with a pair, fails miserably and looks increasingly retarded* "Like, awesome!" Ugh, it was painful. I miss the BBC! Say what you will about the declining quality of Eastenders plots, at least there aren't any adverts!

I'm trying to be more positive these days but I seem like I'm up against so much. It's 6 month review time at work and I was pulled in for mine on Monday. All in all, I received a lot of positive comments. My bosses love the work I'm doing with the donors and they couldn't praise my writing enough...when I asked to perhaps do some courses to help me improve, they said it wouldn't really be worth it since "I'm already very talented."

But - praise aside - no promotions this year. Probably not one next year either, since the phrase my boss used was "hopefully, we can talk about that next year." But they told that to my co-worker who's about to start her 3rd year doing the same.old.shit.day.in.day.out so I don't trust them. Oh, and if I'm such a fucking talented writer, why aren't I getting more writing assignments? I spend most of my day chasing up stupid crap...*sigh*

Sorry for the rant guys...I'm just not sure where I'm going with all this. Feeling a bit lost right now. I thinkl my best friend had the right idea...piss off to India for 9 months, live in a hut on the beach and do nothing but yoga. He probably feels better about himself than me with my fancy degree which earned me the right to fill out accounting vouchers and run errands for my boss. Ah well, I guess at least I should be grateful I have a job...plenty of people don't in this horrible economy.

In more positive news, I'm up to 31.2 lbs in weight watchers. The ballet and the exercise are certainly helping! I'm about half way which is both encouraging and vaguely depressing...all that work only to get half way! And I'm sure the next 30 lbs will be much harder than the first *sigh*. But still...30 lbs is no small achievement so I'll take it!