1 WEEK

Woot! Woot! Wee celebration. 1 week and counting.

At the 1 week mark, how am I feeling?

Well I'm glad you asked! As I said in the previous post, I really crapped my foot up there on Tuesday. If anything that pain is even worse now. So I've been in bed all day, meaning no joggy/walk exercise this evening. Naughtiness. I know, I know, I know...

Still, the most important thing is my commitment to stop drinking alcohol or take any substances stronger than tea/coffee for an entire year and I'm sticking to that with no problems at all so far.

So yes, I felt guilty for doing bugger all today, limping around the house at those few times I've climbed out of bed. I need to organise my time better and I mean something more effective than writing "to do" lists for errands: I need a rigorous daily/weekly routine and it needs to take into account my slightly random work rota.

Talking about my work situation, here are some points that have come to mind recently:

1. As I am a 'floater' I get work whenever I'm needed. This means I get asked to do shifts with, at most, about a week's advance notice. Generally I get asked to do shifts one or two days before. Sometimes I get asked to go into work on the same day. I'm OK with this really, but not knowing my rota week by week (or even day by day) is causing problems for organising a lot of other areas in my life. My job also doesn't guarantee the number of hours of work I get per week. My monthly pay can fluctuate fairly significantly throughout the year.

A situation that was fine while I was a student at Queen's (until June this year) as I was also recieving quarterly student benefits, which certainly helped things.

2. However, now my pay is pretty crap. I'm not struggling, but I am constantly asking myself: At 30 years old, how long do I plan to be on minimum wage? The rest of my working life?

3. If I am going to consider some sort of more profitable career and it isn't going to be with my music skills, then what will it be? Am I going to consider getting educated or qualified in another vocation?

Stuff to give some thought to in the coming weeks.