I honestly am trying to get back into blogging but what with my intensive driving lessons that I am currently doing and, well, just life in general it is proving a lot harder than you may think.

Anyhoo, I come out of my hectic life for 5 minutes to show support for the breast cancer awareness and fund raising that is going on.

If you didn’t know, this month a host of bloggers have gone Pink for October in order to raise awareness. The Boobie-thon is also well under way and has raised an enormous $8300 so far.

Also, right on topic (see what I did there?? ) is this weeks Topical Tuesday all about peoples breast cancer tales.

I am blessed that no one in my family has had cancer and only one of my friends has family that has had it, and thankfully fought it and won. I am very very lucky. I am however, very aware of it and make sure I check for those signed every so often.

So, if you can, please support your chosen breast cancer charity during this Pink October and remember, Think Pink!

I can’t believe that last time I posted on here was November. Christmas seems like so long ago let alone November.

I would love to be writing more on here but I just don’t have the time. It is now March. In less than two months my dissertation needs to be in, in less than 3 months I will be done with uni for a second time. My dissertation is steaming along, not as fast as I might like it to be but it is getting there. It is a marked improvement on my Derby dissertation though, just for a fact that I didn’t start writing that one until the week before it had to be in. I know… bloody students!

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I am all packed and waiting for my sister, who is currently stuck on the M6 to come and pick me up to take me home for the remainder of the summer holiday. On Thursday I finished my placement. I have enjoyed the time at the college but have to say I was quite happy to get to the end and I am looking forward to getting back to uni and starting my final year as a student.

I will miss all the guys at work, they have made the job very easy to get into and they were all fun to work with. After work on Thursday we went out for a couple drinks to celebrate us leaving. Needless to say the couple drinks lead to me getting in at 1am after consuming far more than a couple of drinks. It was a fantastic night out though, my best in a long time and it has made me start missing the guys already. A good thing about the college being quite close to uni is that I can come back and visit next year which I definitely will do.

So, my year in Widnes has been worth it. The placement has been great, I have learned a lot and I have definitely grown as a person more. My confidence, not only in my ability to do the job but also in myself has grown immensely. For that alone, this year was worth it, the additions I have to put on my CV is a bonus.

Someone just posted these on facebook, i have no recollection of what they were for, or who the two people in the middle are.

And I don’t know why they are in black and white… surely I’m not that old?

I have had a mild cold the last few days, just a sniffle and a sore throat but yesterday while at work I was starting to lose my voice.

I woke this morning to find that today I can barely speak. If I concentrate hard I can just about get a few words out at a squeak. It’s quite comical really. Because of this, I decided it would probably be best if I rang in sick today so I can rest my voice. Well I attempted to, I had no idea if my boss would be able to decipher my quiet whisper so I sent an email too. He replied saying they were having a good laugh at my phone message in the office. Charming.

By chance I happen to have tomorrow and Friday off to use up my last two days of holiday so I am now off work till Monday. Lovely.

Apart from my voice, I feel fine in myself. The other cold symptoms I had during the weekend have gone and my throat doesn’t overly hurt. So apart from not being able to talk I feel quite fine.

Only problem is, I don’t know what to do with myself now. After I rang/emailed I attempted to get back to sleep but I couldn’t so resorted to watching weekday morning TV which I have not seen since around this time last year and I see it hasn’t improved at all. I am even considering tidying my room… I must be bored!

I am however annoyed at the fact I needed to take a day of work for something so silly, so close to the end of my placement. I rarely get ill and even more rarely take sick days from work. I was hoping to get through my entire placement year without having to take a sick day.

This is probably going to be a long post and definitely will be whiny so avoid if you don’t like either.

You may remember that not long ago I made a post about how I was loving Facebook. I can’t be bothered going to find it, but it can’t be that far back considering the amount of posts I haven’t made lately.

The two girls that I lived with last year (and if you recall that far back, had a pretty up and down relationship with) are again living together and in the same flat we were all in. They have two new flatmates, both who I met briefly last year and are much more their ‘type’ (type being their age, skinny, pretty, likes R&B… the usual) of person than I ever was. They all moved back in last weekend and from the looks of the amount and content of photos that have been posted on their respective Facebook profiles they look like they are having a good time… And I seem to be a distant memory.
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I have a quiet few minutes at work so thought I would come and update you all on how I have got on this week. The move went well, apart from my laptop bag deciding to rip on me and my laptop landing on the ground with a thud – it seems to be working ok though, thankfully! I am going back home tonight after work and returning tomorrow with the rest of my stuff.

Work has been good. The HR department made a bubu (or is it bobo? I dunno) though. We were not actually meant to start until the 6th August so when we turned up on Wednesday as it said to in our letters the IT department were a bit surprised to see us. Because of this there wasn’t anything planned for us this week. So instead we have spent most of the week helping out one of the tech guys installing, ghosting and networking PC’s. I have done all this before but only at home, its quite different doing it on such a huge scale so that has been interesting to learn.

All the people that work here are really friendly which is always good and the other 3 students on the same placement are cool too, we are all getting along great. The staff are really laid back and are already letting us use our own initiative and have even turned a blind eye to us getting around the colleges block on MSN, myspace, etc saying that this is exactly what they expect students on placement to try and do and don’t mind as long as we don’t get caught.

Well, thats all for now… back to it!

Well, tomorrow I return to Liverpool (well, Widnes to be precise) to move into my new house and start my placement on Wednesday.

I am not likely going to be around for a while. My landlord is currently sorting out sky and broadband but I have no idea how long that will take and what with moving in, starting the job and generally settling in I think I am going to be a busy bee for a while.

However, I am coming back home next weekend to get the rest of my stuff and my sister is driving me and it back up so hopefully I will be able to fill you in then, if there is anything interesting to tell you that is.

The house is lovely, I think I said in a previous post about it. I have a lovely room which will be even nicer once I add my touches to it. And I have a nice big double bed! I haven’t had a double bed since the first house I lived in, in Derby (2001′ish) so this will be a nice change.

I am quite excited to be starting the placement, though I am also nervous but that’s to be expected. I get nervous when starting a new job in a supermarket so if anything I should be more nervous at the prospect of the (hopefully) new challenges that this placement will throw at me.

I finally have an actual fully signed for and paid for place to live when I move back to Liverpool (well, just outside) for my placement! Yey! It’s about time too seen as start my placement on Wednesday.

I went up to Liverpool today with my sister to look at a house in Widnes, it’s lovely (the house that is, I reserve judgement on Widnes itself but it can’t be worse than Corby). The house is brand new and done to quite a high standard. Everything is light wood and cream… lovely – it may not be to everyone’s tastes but me likes! The contracts are signed, deposit and first months rent have been handed over and I am moving in on Monday!

It is a house share, there is one other room to let apart from the owner/landlords but he works away so will only be there for a few days a month. At the moment though the other room is still not let so I will have a week or two to settle in before I have to adjust to a new house mate.

So, things are looking up, I was starting to worry that I wasn’t going to find anything but I have. If this one fell through I was going to have to move into temporary halls, but at £95 a week this was at a last resort.

I expect visitors! *looks stern*

My plans for the summer were to stay in Liverpool until my placement starts rather than going home. These however have now changed.

When I started working at TJ Hughes I was only given an 8 hour contract as I am a student but they assured me that there would be a lot of overtime given to me and if I wanted I could work full time which is what I wanted. However, the last few weeks, like this week in fact I have only been given one extra four hour shift. This means I am only earning around £65 a week.

The tenancy agreement that is all paid up for where I am living now runs out at the weekend, I can stay longer but this will mean having to pay £75 per week. There is not much point in me staying here and having to hand over anything I am earning to pay for rent and not having any money left over. So, I am going home until the beginging of August and my sister is coming to get me on Sunday.

I am actually quite excited to be going home, if only for a few weeks. I have quite liked living virtually by myself for the past 6′ish weeks but being in Liverpool while everyone else is at home is getting a bit depressing now. All of my friends have gone home and the halls I am in are getting quieter by the day. I don’t want to mope around here for the next few weeks so I think going home will do me good.

There are quite a few things that I need to sort out at home anyway. I havn’t been in Corby since easter and to be honest that seems like time ago not just a few months. And it will be good to see the family of course.

So, I will be about less, especially between now and Sunday as I have to sort out everything. There is alot of packing that needs to be done and everything needs cleaning so I get my full deposit back. Not to mention I have to go and tell TJ Hughes that I am leaving and unable to give any notice. Its not something that I enjoy doing but I won’t need them for a reference so I guess I shouldn’t worry too much.