I bet you're all wondering how it went...

It was a bit different to what I expected.

Today's part of the selection process involved a written test, as opposed to a face to face interview.

30 minutes long. Four exercises: checking items for transcription errors, putting 20 books in alphabetical order by author, putting 20 eight digit numbers in order and putting 20 Dewey Decimal numbers in order.

Possible best score of 120.

Pass mark was... 110.

It made sense. The pre-selection interview was scurrilously easy, and I had been told that hordes of candidates had applied. There had to be some way to thin the herd, and this was to be it.

Needless to say, I was sweating bullets the whole way. I probably shouldn't have been, but I I knew that all I had to do was make four mistakes on each of the exercises it would have been 'Sorry Blood, maybe next year.'

As it was, I didn't know whether missing one thing in sequence meant that the whole thing was wrong from there-after, or if they just kept counting it.

I was worried because I am the kind of person that uses visual and spatial sense to solve problems when my verbal and numerical mind goes awol. If you've talked to me in real life, you've probably seen me do this.

In other words, if I had thought to bring a pair of scissors, I would have been able to shuffle the items into order in no time flat. Even better, if said items were attached to, say, books, it would have been no problem whatsover. Books have weight and substance, they aren't just abstract markings on a page that are easy to miss and get mixed up.

After the test was over, we had to spend about twenty odd minutes waiting on the results. The recruiter would come by every so often with six printed A4 sheets, reading out names and handing them to folk. The A4 sheets would inform us whether we passed or not. I tried to read, but found it hard to concentrate.

So, how did I do?

I... passed.

This round.

Next Tuesday I go in for the next round of the Selection Process. From what I gather it will involve a brief presentation, a written application, attaching a supporting statement and a face to face meeting with a library manager.

Thanks again to everyone who wished me luck or offered advice. Hopefully I haven't already used up my quota.

Over and out,

- J

If you remember...

...at the end of last post I was decidind whether to go out and see Gallows or stay home and watch Heroes. Gallows would have meant schlepping to Camden, haggling with a tout and possibly fighting hipsters in the crowd, but Gallows are a great band and they put on a great show.

Heroes is also a great show, possibly my favourite show lately. But BBC2, in a show of uncharacteristic intelligence, repeats it twice, on Thursdays and Sundays. Add to which, I would probably save myself £15 or more, and get to bed before midnight.

In the end, I did neither. I decided to lay down for a minute to meditate on these thoughts and nodded off, sleeping pretty much for 13 hours.

Anyways: doing a phone interview with a Brazillian metal band this afternoon. Should get back to prepping for that.

Over and out.

-J

Update: The phone interview went nicely, even though I was nervous as all hell; I hadn't really done a phone interview since Fiona Horne back in 1995! Add to which, with phones there is all that weirdness of numbers and international call rates and no eye contacted etc.

But like I said, it all went fine. Groovy, one less thing to stress about.

Other news: I have pretty much memorised the basic Dewey Decimal System, insofar as I can recite the hundreds in order: 000 to 100 Computer Science, Info and General Works
100 to 200 Philosophy and Psychology
200 to 300 Religion
300 to 400 Social Sciences
400 to 500 Language
500 to 600 Science
600 to 700 Technology
700 to 800 Arts and Recreation
800 to 900 Literature and Writing
900 to 999 History, War and Geography

Yep, I wrote that off the top of my head.

The problem is that as per currently I know it in order as a whole. If you were to say 'What do I find in 700 to 800' or 'Where would I find books on French' I might stumble (to be fair, I forgot that Language went in at 400 to 500 until I realised that I had one missing).

Still, I do have twenty odd hours to work on that : )

Again, over and out.

-J

Haircut

Went out and had three inches cut off my hair, in preparation for the interview.

It's now all the same length and falls just above my shoulders. Looks pretty good. Much less feral, in any case.

Other news: went to see HTRK last night, and was surprised to see a couple of other friends at the venue. They'd been talked into going along to see the headline band, called These New Puritans. And they were similarly blown away by HTRK, even though the mix in JoJo's was way too heavy on the 808 and the four-and-a-half foot high stage all but disconnected the band from the crowd.

I left not too long after the headliners finished because I was feeling faint. Put it down to dehydration and tiredness.

Currently debating whether to go out to see Gallows or stay home and watch Heroes.

Still memorising the Dewey Decimal System.

Hope Dad has a good flight home.

Over and out.

-J

'Ey Oop!

Hey All,

Yesterday morning I was woken at 0800 AM by an apolcalyptic storm sweeping through Leytonstone. A friend in Holloway commented that the same storm had swept through her vicinity twenty minutes earlier.

Since I was now awake, I spent the morning washing clothes, doing barbells and reading.

Dad was up for a seminar yesterday, so I caught up with him.

Tramping around London with him is always an education, not least because it means I will have to travel paths I may not have before, and see parts of London that I know in unfamiliar ways.

There's a Police Station that used to be a hospital, for instance.

After seeing him off at Victoria, a sudden closure of Victoria station meant that I had to take the bus back into central London. I find my phone in ever worse states (texting is turning into a nightmare, because the three button is getting tempermental, leading me to constantly be trying to avoid the letter d, e and f), so I spent some time checking the phone shops on Oxford St. One of the sales assistants suggested that the problem might be that the phone insides might need cleaning. He might be on to something... I just pulled the back off my phone and found a dust ball the size of an Australian 20 cent piece... okay, just cleaned all the dust out of the phone. The screen doesn't actually look semi-opaque now, and the three button seems to be working a little better (but not brilliantly so).

In any case, it is on my to-do list to get a new phone (just like it has been since November... 2004), so as soon as I can afford to, I'm going to.

After the phone shops I headed to Angel to catch a 2100 session of Superbad, since I figured that I might as well catch it a the cinemas. It was pretty good; a mixture of some pretty social realist writing rendered hyperreal by the cinematic medium mixed with some stuff that was just plain bizarre.

Heading home I saw members of Coheed and Cambria standing around on a corner. Not sure why they were there, their show isn't 'til Thursday.

Once I got home I was comatose.

Today: I had run out of food Sunday Night, except for the four cans of Tuna I keep for instances of outright starvation (and I can only eat that if I have spaghetti sauce to mix it with and bread to wrap it in). So today it was high time to do some shopping.

On the way I stopped in a local library and picked one of the staffer's brains about what would be good preparation for the Selection thing on Friday.

The first thing she told me was 'Know the Alphabet'.

She said that with a straight face. Jesus Christ, what is up with the education system in England?

Anyways, the rest of the advice was 'know what the Dewey Decimal System is and how it works', 'push that you are good at custome service', 'be confident, helpful and friendly but don't put on Airs and Graces' (I'm not even sure what Airs and Graces are' and it won't hurt to mention that you don't mind working with kids.

Other stuff that makes a good LA is Initiative. As in not waiting to be told that something needs to be done.

Neato. Sounds like I'm on track.

Anyways, tonight I am going to see a couple of bands in Soho, so I should sign off.

Over and out.

-J

Whoa!

Hey All,

The last three days have been pretty busy.

Friday:

- Tie off loose ends (rent, send cd somewhere, pack bag and toothbrush) and get ready to head to Bognor Regis
- Head to Oxford Circus and H&M, buy cheap drainpipes from clearance table (discounted because the wash is so five minutes ago)
- Tube to Victoria and snafus resulting from me trying to save £3 on a train ticket, compounded by unhelpful staff and rigid systems (as well as having accidenlty maxxed my card buying jeans and only having £20 cash)
- Buy one day travelcard just to get through the gate. Transcribe what I remember of a conversation with an unhelpful Turkish cashier. Trains starts moving. Rage ebbs out of me listening to Judas Priest on my iPod and looking out the window at cows.
-Arrive in Bognor. Hello to everyone, have dinner, start to nod off, watch IT Crowd and My Name is Earl, fall asleep.

Saturday:
- Wake up early. Buy papers.
- Spend morning and early afternoon reading papers. English customer service may suck, but the newspapers are great.
- Dad and I take the bus over to see Grandpa Bill.
- Late afternoon: Dad and I walk from Grandpa Bill's to the Bognor Regis Train Station. Find .22 shell casing on the train platform. Told by station staffer that it's from the Pest Control man shooting pidgeons.
- Read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance on the train.
- Get off at Clapham Junction to avoid possible snafus at Victoria. Take bus to Gloucester Road Station, take trube to Holborn and then to Leytonstone. Buy a 7 Day travelcard with some of the cash Dad palmed me.
- Shower and check messages.
- Use TFL to find the best route to event in Stoke Newington.
- Bus to station, tube to Bethnal Green, bus to Stoke Newington. Hooray for Travelcard. Talk to cute German girls on bus.
- Event is great, dance up a sweat.

Post event:

- Invited back to an after-party. Fall asleep on the couch (have been up since 0830, remember)
- wake up and gab with after-party folk.
- to promote the event, the organisers had made a short film, using dummy bullets as props. Somebody has one of the dummy bullets at the after party. Discussion breaks out as to the calibre. Somebody thinks it's a .22. I say that it looks more like a 9mm round, and pull the .22 casing from the train platform out of my pocket to compare. Much amusement, leading me to explain why I had a casing in my pocket.
- bail just after 1100 AM
- bus to Hackney Central, walk down high road, bus to Liverpool St.
- Look at Markets. Tube to Leytonstone. Like I said, hooray for Travelcard.
- Walk out of leytonstone Station to find the streets blocked off and market stalls, information stands and street musicians wandering around. get pamphlets, buy peaches.

- Home. Check messages. Pass out.
- Now: about to pass out again.

But I have a busy week ahead. I've got reviews to write, maybe shows to see and before Friday I need to prep all I can for the Selection thing at the Library.

Over and out.

-J

Update:

Hey all,

Big news: as you remember, the other day I did a pre-screening for a library assistant position over the phone. Getting to that point was hard enough, because everytime I called the process was either 'on hold' because of technical difficulties, the screener was on lunch, or the office staff were convinced that I had to ring another office, who told me to ring another agency, who had never ever heard of the position I was looking for (and neither had their database).

Anyways, in the last hour of the last day to apply, I got through and did the screening, which I passed. But I was told that because there had been so many applicants, there wasn't any room so me to get to the next stage in the immediate future. But they would keep me on file incase another round was scheduled, which from what I could infer, might have taken place in... next February.

Yep. I thought that would be the end of it.

But today I received a letter in the mail from the office in question, inviting me to the next stage of the selection process next Friday.

Neato. I'll be a library assistant yet.

So, seven days to find out as much as I can about what a library assistant does, what will impress them at the selection day, what prep I should do, what I should wear, as well as shave, get hair cut, shoes shined etc.

More news as it comes.

Other news: The Turisas show was hella fun. The crowd made it feel a little more like a soccer match than a traditional metal show (in a good way), and friends introduced me to various other people worth knowing. Putting faces to names and the like.

Yesterday I did some skipping for the first time in I don't know when, and took care of rent matters up in Stratford (ferrying cash from one account to the other etc).

And then I headed to a signing at Forbidden Planet by Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie, followed by post drinking at a nearby pub.

A note about the back streets of Soho: it feels very much like I imagined London to feel like; dense and dirty and labyrinthine. And it has nice pubs. Like the Lanes in Brighton, writ large.

Most interesting.

In any case: this afternoon I'm heading down to Bognor to visit family, but I'm taking my notepad with me because I have reviews to write.

Over and out.

-J

News:

There's currently a plumber in the bathroom, fixing the sealing on the shower.

Also today: I did a pre-screening over the phone for a library assistant position. I passed with flying colours, but now I have to wait for them to open up another round of training.

Tonight I'm covering a show by a Finnish Folk/Metal band called Turisas. Word is that they put on an absolutely brilliant live show.

Should be good.

Over and out.

-J

Whoo Hoo!

Hooray.

I just sent off another review, and about two or three hours ago I sent off another album review.

Along with the feature that I finished writing on Saturday Night, that puts me pretty much up to date with my writing commitments to the magazine (with the option of sending off more stuff on the offchance that the ed will dig it).

After finishing the feature on Saturday I felt that I deserved to celebrate, so I jumped headed out to Angel. I had missed the last tube, so it took me twice as long to get there (two buses, circuitous route), but it meant that I had time to re-listen to the album I had to write the review for.

The club was sparsely populated, but that meant more room for dancefloor shenanigans. Lots of noisy stuff when I arrived, and lots of uptempo stuff upstairs towards the end, which I always enjoy.

When morning arrived I was a little dismayed that because of scheduling conflicts I wasn't going to get to have breakfast with my youngest brother as planned, but it happens. I got to catch up with him last Sunday, and I'll see him again next time he comes to England.

Anyways, now that I have finished the writing for today, I have to pull off a few quick tasks (send a cd to someone etc) and I'll be heading out to catch up with Dad.

Over and out.

-J

Hmm

This has been an interesting week, in various interesting ways. I really should have blogged more of it, but actually writing about the situations seemed to be down on the priority list.

At this very moment I have finished transcribing an interview from my tape recorder, and I'm now attempting to carve it down into a 650 word feature. The interview features some choice soundbites, the interviewees themselves were charming and I have a rough idea what I'm trying to say and what material I can use to say it. I've just got to sew it together so it looks more like a ballgown and less like Frankenstein's Monster.

This week there was supposed to be a plumber coming around to look at the bathroom leak, but he stood me up Tuesday and Wednesday and has not been heard of since. My landlady is not pleased.

Also on the local front, various sketchy characters have started wandering down from the demolished estate further up the road towards Stratford. I'm thinking I should get the local constabulary on the speed-dial in case they start haunting the corners too close to home on a regular basis.

Thursday and Friday morning were actually pretty misty, but nothing like the thick pea soup that blanketed London and grounded planes for a week this time last year. Outside today it is bright but cool.

Sunday afternoon I had found myself some drainpipe jeans going very cheaply at H&M, so I snapped up two pairs. I've been meaning to buy more jeans for a while, but I couldn't find anything good enough to justify the price until Sunday. I like these jeans. For some reason they fit better than my Cheap Monday jeans, which ironicly weren't as cheap.

Enough procrastination. Back to the feature.

Over and out.

-J

Pretty good weekend

Pretty good weekend.

Didn't do much Saturday, just chilled and stayed home. Had to meet Gus and Dad in the morning, so I didn't go out partying (plus between Friday and Saturday I had a stomach that had gone all South Park on me (think the episode where concerned parents besiege Comedy Central), so I figured between everything, I should probably stay home until that all settled (I bought some immodium at Tesco early Saturday night just in case).

Anyways, as predicted in the morning I felt much better. And despite me managing to be fifteen minutes late, hanging with Gus and Dad in the West End was a lot of fun, and we had lunch at a pasta place somewhere in or around Covent Garden before heading back to Gus' Hotel (supposedly in Picadilly, actually closer to Mayfair, but my grasp of London Geography is always pretty shakey).

After leaving Gus and Dad I doubled back to check some shops (and shop windows) before stopping at Leicester Square to catch the 1830 of Knocked Up, which actually turned out to be really good).

I eventually got home to find a message from a magazine editor in my inbox. More writing to do this week then.

All good.

Over and out.

-J

Hey O

Hey all,

This has been a weird week. The Tube Strike on Tuesday sure did bring the suck.

I wound up walking up to Stratford after realising that waiting for a 257 that wasn't rammed to the rafters was a fools errand. Strangely enough, I outpaced the bus for two thirds of the journey. While I understand why unions exist, it perpetually aggravates me when some unions go out on strike purely to say 'Hey Look, everybody! We can go out on strike and there isn't a damn thing you can do about it!'

Last night I went out the High on Fire show in Camden, not quite sure if I was making the right decision. It did turn out to be the right decision, since the show was amazing and I saw some friends I haven't seen in months.

Neato.

On sunday I'm brunching with Dad and Gus (who by some strange wrinkle of the universe are going to be in London at the same time).

Other news: my blue denim jacket was starting to smell a bit musty, so I decided that it might be time to throw it in the wash. If it shrinks I will be most displeased.

Not much else to report.

Over and out.

-J

Hey All,

Went out clubbing for the first time in a couple of weenks last night.

By dint of London Underground not having Oyster Card machines that were accepting notes at either Stratford or Angel, I managed to travel from Point A to Point B without having to pay for it (as an experiment I'm seeing if I save money by favouring pre-paid over a weekly travelcard. Verdict so far: I do if I cut down the number of unnecessary journeys).

Anyways, Tube Snafus in my favour coupled with a Free For Members night meant that I spent less than I usually do when I go out.

Which is doubly good because yesterday was the first of the month. That's right: council tax again! My flatmates have given me their share of the cash, so first thing tomorrow I will head down to the Post Office and pay that in.

Other things on the Monday list include writing an application for a position in a comics/collectables store and boning up on classical music (at least enough that I might be able to bluff a shop looking for staff in the classical department). A games tore in Stratford is hiring again, so I think I'll hit them as well; I don't play games so much anymore, but I still ove reading about them as cultural artifacts (I'm trying to avoid using the word 'Texts' because I always found that term, used in that way, dryer than a mouth full of flour).

Anyways, enough from me.

Over and out.

-J