For all my intelligence I'm amazingly stupid at times.
Sensible would've been to, on Tuesday, do college work after tidying up my room and getting some exercise.
Stupid is what I went with, which was to play Hearthstone for two days almost straight, noticing how the skin just under my ribcage is tightening up against what little muscle I have there because I haven't been eating. Not, not eating right. Just, not eating at all.
My budding anorexia is surprising though seeing as I have one of those metabolisms where I could eat a cracker or two and live for like a week. 6.1ft, built like a jungle ape [including body hair], and yet I could live on airborne plankton, if such a thing were floating through the ether.
I just forced myself to consume two platefuls of beef curry, but didn't really want it. It's not that I haven't been hungry, it's just I haven't eaten because I've been playing bloody Hearthstone.
Idiot.
Currently been awake since 11am yesterday. It's not 7am the following morning, I'm seeing blotches of color on my vision, missing keys, and still behind on my college coursework.
Plus my landlady said something about the property owner [I'm subletting from my flatmates] coming by today to check that the place is ready for viewing or is in one peace or something, and she needs to see everything, including my room, and I haven't cleaned in over a week.
So stupid. I need to do my college work and I need to get sleep at night like a normal person. Why don't I do what I'm meant to. Why does a little voice in my head keep saying 'One more' and 'Last one' every time I go to shut Hearthstone down? Stupid...
Anyway, after my shitty Tuesday I did finally get some good news.
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Somehow, and even I can't believe I managed it, I passed my in-person aptitude interview with the Met Police Service where they graded my intellect, communication, and observational skills.
I did it on 4 hours of sleep, no food since 6pm the night previously, and more or less dehydrated, plus wearing street casual [blue jeans and a tee] instead of business casual like everyone else. Why was I not prepared to take an important interview I can only take every six months? Because if you weren't paying attention above, I'm an idiot. Oy vey.
Somehow I still passed their tests, which either goes to show I'm just that dam good, or their standards for judging the aptitude of police offers is really not that high. Worryingly so really given that they're hiring budding law enforcement personnel who are future peace officers, detectives, and wielders of firearms.
Need to start prepping for the Day 2 now. This is much easier as it's only medical and fitness testing and a boat load of paperwork to fill out in the next two weeks.
Granted, in the way of my life, my lungs are currently painted with vile tasting mucus from a bout of bronchitis I had two months ago, gained by running the frigid night air in early spring, which is really worrying me. No illness I've ever had lasted more than two weeks. It doesn't hurt or anything, it's just an occasional wheezy cough with bad tasting mucus I can't quite clear out of my throat and into the sink.
The issue with this lingering side-effect is that in two weeks I need to take a bleep test, which is basically running. If I can't breath heavily without coughing my lungs up then there's no way I can run now and get ready or on the day.
At the moment I'm taking mucus cough meds made by Sudafed, after trying Beachems and some other brand. This one seems to be working. I was coughing hard last night but I'm two doses in and seem to be OK. Maybe this one has a different drug in it which works focuses on the lungs instead of the sinuses and it's clearing it. Hope so cus I really don't want to fail the Day 2 since winning the Day 1 by a hair.
If it's not sorted by Monday I'll find a doctors and see if they can give me something industrial strength or the precisely correct drug to clear it and then hit the track. I mean, the bleep test isn't long, I don't need to run for two hours like I normally do, and it'll be indoors in a hall at the recruitment offices in central London, but I need to do SOME running before hand.
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In other news, SEGA turned me down for a games testing position I was interviewed for last week.
Their reasoning was that the candidate pool they were screening had a lot of good people in it and I just didn't make the cut.
Well, fair enough, games industry position, lots of people want in, it's understandable that...wait...let's just evaluate this for a second...
I go to the Met Police service, those fine ladies and gents who patrol London, who are responsible for keeping the peace and catching criminals, take their communication, observation, and intellect test and pass it, GG.
Once I finish my training I'll earn 1.5-2x minimum wage, with excellent job security and promotion prospects plus a benefits package and access to career training programs.
Then I go to a computer games developer, SEGA. This company badly damaged one of the best games franchises of the Megadrive/Super Nintendo era of computer games from a rival for premier gaming icon to an internet joke. I take an easier test than the one I did for the police [in more or less the same physiological condition btw cus I'm just that stupid], and fail it.
If I had passed I could've looked forward to a zero hours minimum wage contract, with no job security, no chance for real career progression, no benefits, and if I wanted more training I'd have to pay for it myself.
Hm. Dodged a bullet there maybe?
I planned on doing it whilst at college for the next few months to make some extra money, and my vocation is that of games developer so if that had worked out I might just dropped my application to the police all together for real entry level experience at doing something related to what I love; games.
I'm fit to be a policeman, an officer of the law who needs to cooperate with people and protect them from crime, but not fit to be a games tester, a bug hunter who just needs to be able to play games which I've been doing since I was five.
This is the world we live in apparently.
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My 24+ Advanced Learning Loan, which I applied for and have now received to pay for my Certificate in Basic Policing course, went through yesterday.
Only took a speedy three months, the course had already started, the college had asked me to cough up or they'd boot me, and I had to lodge a complaint with customer services in writing before they'd finalize it. Wasn't bloody annoying or anything.
What was the hold up?
Apparently when I sent in my application form I hadn't ticked two boxes regarding prior loans. I didn't tick them because I didn't know if I was in arrears on my prior 3 years plus maintenance loans that I received to attend the University of Portsmouth for the Computer Games Technology course [don't even ask about that, bloody morons]. I assumed that they would email or phone me, I could ask them to check it out [they have it on record anyway], and that'd be that, job done.
In a sane world, yes, it would've been that easy.
It doesn't go through and my college blocks my access card which is scanned in at their gates for access to the campus. Phoned them up and they said what information they were missing, after I confirmed who I was via a security check and told them what the answer to the information was, but they had better check their systems to make sure.
They did and confirmed I was right, but asked me to send a letter which I had signed to confirm it anyway. I agreed on the basis that it was nonsense but nonsense that would take all of ten minuets in the library and post office. Same information - not in arrears, check your systems - and no reply.
They get the letter but then sit on it for nearly a month. Eventually I get annoyed and file a complaint with their internal complaints department who look into it. They phone me up [waking me up twice in the process and costing me about 4 hours of sleep total by the way] and tell me to send them another letter, but this time to make it the form from their website with the correct boxes ticked.
I say 'OK, just to be clear, I've phoned you, confirmed my identity, told you the answer, then send you a printed and signed letter with the correct information, and you've checked your systems twice now and confirmed it, but to finalize my loan you need me to print off a form you've already received to tick two boxes?'.
I felt sorry for the women on the line who started quite literally to splutter at me as she tried to justify the reason I should do as she asked.
After I got up and ate me wheeties my college then emailed me and told me it's gone through, they've received the money and that my place on the course is secure, at last.
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Can't work in the games industry for minimum wage, but I can work in law enforcement for a pension.
Can't get an adult learning loan because I need to feed information into the human machine with the right hole punched as they don't hire people who can color outside of the lines.
That, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, is bureaucracy at it's very
finest; retarded actions done because it's protocol with a complete
absence of good judgement, common sense, and intelligent thought.
But that's OK though, because if I don't go do my college work I'll never pass the CKP course, and be able to take the training which will lead to employment, and then be able to pay the loan back once I'm earning, so it'll work out alright in the end heh...heh...oooh...
Bai.
