52.8 ME, Me, Mouse Ears

Being an honest to goodness adult can be tricky at times. I don't feel any more responsible then I did 15 years ago. (though most would testify I was a much more mature 16 year old child than I am as a 31 year old adult.) All that said, I have grown up responsibilities now. I have a wife and very soon we will have a home to ourselves.

Helen and I both hope to live in Brighton some time in the future and we are both constantly looking for opportunities to make that hope a reality. I was gutted last November when two weeks before my VISA was approved a job came up in Brighton that would have been ideal both for my previous experience and location, location, location. The closing date for said job was three days before my VISA was approved.

The job is roughly summarised as an adult moderator for a youth populated online game community hosted by a well known house of mouse. My duties will include but not be limited to helping parents of members in the community as well as policing the community so that it remains a safe place for the members to make friends in all corners of the world, and the freedom to play several different online games. I think.

The job has recently been listed again, and I jumped at the opportunity to throw my hat in the ring. Obviously the circumstances are slightly different. I now actually have a job for one, and scheduling interviews around my very long and anti-social work hours is no small task.

As of yesterday I have made it through three levels. (A call back after emailing my CV {Resume} and cover letter, A phone interview, and a questionnaire.) the final stage of the interview process is a 3-4 hour assessment interview in Brighton which has me stressing more than I would like to admit. I am not worried that I will do poorly I'm worried that I am so excited that I might actually get this job that I will be devastated if I don't.

I am very lucky in that I do very well in interviews, I'm likeable and have a quality that makes people want be part of the fun that is knowing me. (I'm not being conceited I have worked long and hard at being good at this, or at least giving off this vibe.) I'm also really good at using humour to deflect my nervousness. (A skill that I have been honing since I started noticing girls liked boys that could make them laugh.)

This interview is really important to me, not least of all because If I get the job Helen and I will be moving into our own place! I will let you all know how the assessment day goes in my next post, hopefully by then I will know one way or another if I will be working for the online division of the house of mouse.

Random Fact:

2,500 lefthanders die each year trying to operate a right handed device.

52.7 Broad searches

I have absolutely no Idea what I should write about this week. So in an attempt at spontaneity and a hope for inspiration I googled the word images. which is just about as broad a search term as googling "stuff". There were something close to 3 billion images in my search and most of the ones I glanced at involved space and then I saw the image at your left.

It's educational, bitches! Deal with it.

Random Fact:

In English pubs, ale is ordered by pints and quarts. So in old England, when customers got unruly, the bartender would yell at them mind their own pints and quarts and settle down. It's where we get the phrase "mind your P's and Q's"

52.6 Ghost....Writer

Ghosts, as in beings who were at one time alive. Do you believe?

If you do are there ghost rules or restrictions?

I am reading Her Fearful Symmetry written by Audrey Niffenegger the same author that wrote the fantastic Time Traveller's Wife (which was made into the film starring Rachel McAdams and Eric Bana) Niffenegger has an interesting writing style that consists of a well woven narrative with no discernible antagonist. The only antagonist in Time Traveller's Wife was the genetic condition that allowed/forced the character to travel in time.

Her Fearful Symmetry is a ghost story, the story is about estranged twin sisters that have spent 20 years more than 3000 miles apart, one of the sisters has twins daughters as well and on their 21st birthday they learn that they have inherited their recently deceased Aunts central London flat as well as a large endowment. When they first arrive, everything seems to be new and exciting and ordinary until their dead aunt leaves them a message in the dust on a piece of furniture:

Greetings Valentina and Julia

I am here

Love, Elspeth

It is this message that has inspired this weeks post, We have all known people who have died either by natural or unnatural causes. Depending on what you believe the generally accepted idea is that when you die, you find yourself elsewhere, be it Heaven or Hell or for those of us that aren't restrained by religion just gone. My question is what if we chose not to go, dead, inevitably to be forgotten, but still here?

I love the idea of being a ghost (though I am less enthusiastic about being trapped forever in a single apartment/flat as is Elspeth) The idea that my story (as life would no longer be accurate.) could possibly continue in a new way is very interesting and even exciting to me. Would you want to know if I was still around, possibly haunting you or a place you associate with me?

I am torn on this idea, I love the idea of knowing that my story doesn't end simply because my bodies sell by date has expired. My hesitation stems from whether or not I would want to burden others with that knowledge. Could my wife (and inevitable offspring) live their lives to the fullest extent with the knowledge that I could be there watching without the ability to interact.
Is that fair to them? Is it fair to me? What do you think?

Random Fact: Area 51 is 575 square miles in size, and located in the middle of the Nevada Test & Training Range (NTTR), which covers 4,687 square miles.

52.5 Brought to you by the Letter L

Another post written intermittently while answering calls at my desk at work which looks eerily similar to this image, but isn't.  Todays post is apparently brought to you by the letter L. 

It doesn't happen very often but once in a while, I Learn something new about myself. Allow me to give a few examples, when I was a soldier I learned just how many miles I could run in a day and I frequently learned that given the correct motivation, (e.g. someone I feared more than muscle pain) I could run even further.

I also learned that I am ridiculously Lucky. Many people that have shared similar experiences to my own (helicopter crashes, bullet wounds, insurgents bombing airfields less then 10 feet from my sleeping bag) have faired far worse than me and have the scars to prove it if they are still lucky enough to be standing. I have also been lucky in love as the several previous posts about my ever blushing bride can tell you.

Today I learned I am quick to judge a complete stranger by their appearance alone. It isn't that I am unaware that I do this, I have always formed my opinions on my first impressions mostly due to the fact that I tend to be dead on the money. When I was in the Army I knew with in the first few hours whether or not a new soldier in the unit was going to be anything more than an annoyance or a problem waiting to happen (eg, attitude or behaviour issues) , something that most of my fellow soldiers took weeks and sometimes months to catch on to, usually to their dismay.

It occurred to me today holding a door open for a guy that I can only describe as a bit flamboyant,(in his full denim jeans and denim shirt, and his lavender midriff showing undershirt) and my inner thought process chuckled (at the time I had been thinking about a character in the book I'm reading dealing with OCD) I am under the general impression that I am a decent, well mannered person, I hold doors open for people, I say please and thank you, and I am often heard to say sir and ma'am to just about everyone I speak with, so why is it do you suppose, that I am amused when my assumptions about a complete stranger are confirmed seconds after I form them. (In this case Mr flamboyant gave an effeminate giggle and sashayed into the office.)

So my question for you today is what have you learned about yourself, that you may have been aware of but didn't actually know?

Random Fact: Harrison Ford presented Edward Zwick (the director of Love and other drugs) The 1998 Oscar award for best picture for Shakespeare in love.