On Illness...

I did not make that, but it's entirely accurate to my personal circumstances, except I'm not even half that positive a person and currently hate the universe [as though I ever stopped] on the basis that I HAVE THE FIRST FUCKING FITNESS TEST OF MY ENTIRE THREE DECADE LIFE ON FRIDAY FOR MY FIRST JOB IN FIVE YEARS FOR CRYING OUT BLOODY LOUD.

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Woke up. Prayed for death. Watched 24. Stumbled to the hypermarket nearby. Bought Beechams All-In-One. Drank a third of the bottle. Bought a fuckton of fruit, two pizzas, several large cans of caffeine, and some breakfast cereal, all of which have in common one factor; I can unpeel/unwrap/pop/pour into bowl and devour in one easy movement. Felt better as the meds hit my blood and the caffeine started to soak into my glands.

Bravado aside, cus I currently feel proud of myself for climbing out of my cave and getting to the hypermarket for meds when lesser mortals would've just laid in bed and whimpered, I really, really need a doctor to check my fucking lungs out. For months now if I wheeze on purpose it sounds wet and makes me cough and that can't be right. I think I gave myself flu by taking large quantities of Guaifenesin which reportedly causes, in large quantities, whatever is in your lungs and bronchi to go upwards into the back of your throat and sinuses which is where all my mucus is currently residing.

My current plan is to simply buy some more All in One on Thursday and drank half the bottle Friday morning to disable whatever is effecting me long enough to do the fitness exam. They might find that I'm ill, but a] can't disqualify me on temporary flu and b] it'll allow me to move long enough to pass the running test.

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I just have to make this point again and again:

I can't find a job in years.

I decide to apply for the police as they only care that someone can pass their tests and get their certification, rather than dismissing individuals based on their CV [the military was an option to but I've got a root objection to taking orders for lesser minds, which means pretty much everyone, including officers of higher rank; my personal judgement supercedes any other in most circumstances if I know what the situation is about, so I don't take orders easily].

OK, so I'm taking instruction from a bloody pillock on police protocols [laws, the justice system, police powers, etc.] and the material is disorganized and verbose garbage, but once I reorganize it, it's fine.

I pass the in-person interview Day 1 despite being massively tired, hungry, and inexperienced with customer service by simply being an intelligent and sensible human being.

And now, in the same fucking week, I have both a fitness test, an exam, flu, a long term and persistent respiratory condition which makes it hard to work-out, plus hanging over my head, a benefits tribunal and eviction, with unsympathetic assholes in every position of authority who's views about my personal situation consist of 'It sucks to be you, trolololol'.

I don't think the point can be raised too many times; why the fucking hell is the universe so fucking hard on me?

I mean, it's not just giving me a beat down, it's not just ignoring me, I don't just have social issues to deal with.

It's that if I don't try to accomplish anything, then it's pretty bad because I have nothing, no life, and no possibility to things getting better. I just exist and survive.

But when I try, it's never just a case of a challenging course, or tests to be completed, oh no, for me, for little ole me, I have to have some extra edge to the event in question which makes it a few times harder than it would be for anyone else.

I get intelligence, and a family who hate intellectuals.

I get to go to university, and a course run by people who don't understand the subject.

I get a deep and passionate interest in games development, and live in a country where there's hardly any industry, whilst those in the industry are a bunch of clowns.

So, after I abandon my family, find a new source of education, and try to take an interest in a new career, I then have to deal with a counterproductive factor at each stage; lack of mental focus during mental testing, illness during fitness testing, idiotic tutor during essential education, and so on.

Sometimes I really do wonder if this, life, is some sort of highly realistic game of The Sims, and my personal player is the type of bastard who waits until his Sim goes swimming and then removes the ladder to the pool, then sits there cackling to himself before posting the video on celestial YouTube.

I don't know.

What choice do I have?

It's this, apathy and stasis, or death.

Fighting the gods, mortal death or eventual death, those are the only real options.

I just wish there was a reward somewhere.

Good, good, now you've worked hard, done a good job, proved your mettle, here's a bag of wonga, go have fun on your Alienware PC in your own apartment with your kitters named Deathwing, GG.

That's what everyone else seems to get, even if they've got the intellect of a pet rock. Instead I get this shhhit plus people asking me why I'm so fucking angry all the time.

I mean, why do you think?

---

Fuck it, whatever.

I wasn't going to post today but the meds revived me enough to at least do some bitching so I can probably do some more college work now.

Tuesday-Thursday I've got to revise Victims and Witnesses for my exam on Saturday. This means by the end of today I want the Day 2 forms filled out and out the way.

Do those forms and then Week 4 of the college course online mats today then, revise three days, fitness interview, exam, and then online quizzes and week 5 next week, along with checking in with the job center.

The week after [the very start of next month] I have to move out. And at some point in the next 10 days, well 3 days really, I need to cancel my benefits tribunal hearing, which I still haven't done as I've not taken the three hour jaunt to take care of it.

...hold up:

MONDAY: Day 2 Forms / Week 4 and Quizzes
TUESDAY-THURSDAY: Week 5 Exam Revision

WEDNESDAY: ERRANDS

- Cancel Housing Benefits Tribunal by Wednesday
- See Job Adviser for Sign On Appointment
- Arrange acom

FRIDAY: Day 2
SATERDAY: Week 5 Exam

WEDNESDAY: Job Centre Plus Check In

WEEK STARTING 30TH: Move things into storage and into acom

THRUOUT: Apply Week Daily

That's the stuff. My todo list for the next couple of weeks.

I just hope I'm well enough to go wandering on Wednesday and fit enough for the test on Friday, plus I can remember wtf the answers are to the exam on Saturday.

At this point, I can but give it a go.

Going to go add some pictures to http://codexars.blogspot.co.uk/, eat some more fruit, play a lil Hearthstone maybe whilst so doing, and then fill out Day 2 forms whilst not-watching Game of Thrones, which is fucking awesome. 

Adieu.

On Summer...

There're plenty of redeeming points about summer and they wear very little but have great tits and legs and are slightly wet in the heat. :>

*sigh* I really want to find some pretty young thing I actually can stand to be around for longer than a few minuets and vice versa and fuck like a bunny... [now that's honest]

Among the bad points are the fact that I'm one big wet tired hot pile of ICK.

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TODAY: Woke up after not enough sleep.

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Went to job center to check in with them whereupon they told me to make sure I was filling out my activity reports on their website [which no one checks] because, even though I can prove I've been doing interviews during this time before I start paid police training, my benefits and only means of support can be cancelled if I don't.

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Left there and got all my Day 2 forms printed off.

Nearest Library's printer was, as if it could be any other way, offline, so I had to go through the burning desert of midday to the other library in this bough.

The print outs cost me about 4 quid, then went back to the job centre to get them to sign it to say I've been signing on for the entire time period they plan on checking. However, due to the data protection act that isn't any good as he can't tell them dick about me.

Also because of new security protocols [I'm really stating to hate that word] unless you have a document signed by your adviser there's no getting through security or getting them to ask your adviser, who may be on the other side of a room, if it's OK for you to see them.

They can't make a 30 second internal phone call to a man who very clearly has already signed your papers before and knows precisely who you are and ask them if they care to see you and/or arrange an appointment with you. That is just all kinds of genius logical reasoned procedure right there. Especially if the adviser fucks up and gives you the wrong time or you need to inform them that you can't do the time they gave you and you can't get to a phone.

Even better is when they haven't given you a new time to see them, like my adviser hasn't, in two weeks...I don't know what's going to happen tomorrow when I go to get a new appointment but given that they kept me waiting for a 10 second signature today for 30 minuets because my appointment card is their new god apparently, I can imagine speaking to their complaints department around 11 tomorrow...

...Fucking assholes, why does everything need to be so damn difficult...and what the hell happened to common sense?

---

ANYWAY: I need to phone a number [I don't have access to a phone without putting way more credit than I need on my mobile to make one single solitary phone call as I never use the thing to phone anyone anyway] and request a letter which states I've been unemployed and signing with them for benefits for more than the last three years [although I'll get this in 48 hours tops so I can order it Monday for next Friday no problem].

This I'm hoping will suffice for 3 years professional reference for my police application, though it isn't specified if it is because apparently no one ever considered that the long term unemployed would ever apply for Police Constable.

But that's indicative of my experience with the police recruitment service thus far; think so much but then stop and forget to finish off the more obvious but extraneous bits.

---

Then went to the bank and paid 1.5 weeks rent.

I know I said I was ripping them off for deposit money on a new place but a] my new acom is instant, no-deposit and cheap, and b] I'm not moving in for a month yet so as my landlady made a thing about me running off and not paying what I owe [caution without proof, I think, but she's not as silly as I thought she was, which was surprising], I decided to keep paying for now to keep her quite.

Makes life easier for me given my college work backlog, exam, and my Day 2 next week, not having to worry about moving out until the 3-10th of next month, at any rate.

---

Went running again last night, and done 2 short runs to what I call checkpoint 1 of 3 of a 2 hour run of 3 checkpoints run from 0 to 3 and then back 3 through 0. Took the last of my meds yesterday morning.

More or less OK. I just start coughing when I breath heavily, although it took longer on my second run before I nearly couldn't breath again so hopefully it'll hold out longer again tonight and eventually fade out entirely.

---

Tomorrow I'm back out again to the job center for a new appointment, then onto former housing benefits office to cancel tribunal and arrange repayment of housing benefits I was entitled to but am being forced to repay because of protocol stupidity once again.

Plus going to the doctors to arrange an appointment to get my lungs checked out. Fairly sure it's strep and mild pneumonia, and I'm disposing of it internally, but let's get a professional opinion and maybe some free-health care antibios anyway.

As my acom issues are on hold until next month, it's just college work and exam revision until Day 2 Friday and Exam Saturday, with a side order of Tribunal Cancellation/Doctors Thursday, and Day 2 forms and phone calls Monday.

YUP.

Now for some Hearthstone and 24 [that's a TV series I'm rewatching from series 1-8 because S09 is on at the moment and I've not seen E01 yet but have seen 1-8 previously] until I feel better, then egg salad for dinner.

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NOTE: Do have a look at the other pages I've been adding to the top of my journal and the rest of the Librum, especially the Epic Folio.

I was going with just humor there, but I changed it to epic images because I couldn't find a lot of funny but I do have a lot of epic in my personal image folder and DeviantART subs so it made more practical sense to expand the content and differentiate myself from US Humor.

I'll add more to those when I have a moment.

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Have a nice day. :)

On Events...

Mornink.

Just woke up from half a nights sleep, which might also might be called a nap I suppose. More or less going to be back to normal now. Sleep tonight, at night, and wake up early for college and I should be OK from now on.

---

The writing of this blog is helping me tons for some reason. Getting my head straightened out so I don't feel so apathetic. Passing my Day 1 helps too. If I had failed that I probably wouldn't give a shit right now, especially with this bloody tribunal with the council coming up.

However, if I get hired as a policeman then they pay during training and I can start putting a dent in my debt backlog. Thirty less a week to cover paying back housing benefit isn't too bad really seeing as I'll be earning twice or more than what I receive on benefits, with pay rises to follow, whilst doing something I expect I'll enjoy. The Day 1 was a lot more fun than I expected, especially the roleplaying whereby we interviewed people about behavioral issues.

Anyway, going to go cancel the tribunal and just arrange them to dock my job seekers allowance pro tem and pay it all off when I'm hired with the police.

I mean, yes, I was entitled to it, and used it for the intended purpose, but a] I don't have time to run around collecting evidence and formulating a speech and blah blah blah, and b] if it goes badly wrong for some unknown reason they can cause even more damage with fines and records and all sorts of nonsense.

Better to invest my time in trying to get hired as a copper, take this dent to my ongoing finances now, and then cherish being employed later on.

I want to post on it in the future [On Goverments...] but for now I'm putting it in abeyance.

---

Doing my college work today. Probably won't get through all of it, but I should be able to get the spade work done and be caught up by the middle of next week, no problem.

---

Taken all but one dose of the mucus cough meds I bought and I can still taste something when I cough so it's doctor time on Monday I think cus this isn't just a cold or something.

The pharmacist in Sainsburys said that if you taste nasty when you cough then it's probably an infection.

Doesn't hurt, like in my throat, and I've never coughed up bloody or even odd colored mucus, so it can't be that bad, but it is bloody persistent as hell and I need it gone in the next two weeks.

---

Before next Wednesday I need to start organizing the forms I need to hand in during the Day 2.

Nothing too serious really. The nasty stuff was prior to the Day 1 with the aptitude, intelligence and personality testing. Day 2 is all about medical and employment details plus posting preference.

Posting preference sounds awesome to me because I've lived in three areas of London since I've been here and like each of them quite a bit. I know the areas like. Obviously I'll try to move around and check out different boroughs of London for experience and so forth because if I'm gonna be a copper then I'll try to be the best one I can be. But I know these areas so it's good I can start out here.

I need to see to the forms before Wednesday because as I've been unemployed so long I need to get a reference from the job center for the Day 2, and I check in with them on next Wednesday so I can get what I need from them then.

Around all this, before 20/06/14, I need to do some serious exercise for the medical testing too. Already mentioned it previously but I haven't been running due to the bronchitis and this lingering cough, the medical includes a fitness test so.

---

After that I just need to find somewhere new to live by the 23rd of June.

Start hunting down a new place on the 16th, a week before hand, because most properties available for people on housing benefits are privately rented and available soonest and taken quickly. Look for a place on the 16th and I could be moving in on the 17th style of thing.

Shouldn't be too hard if I can place a large deposit down, though I'm going to be careful to find somewhere I like. Can't be having housing issues and arguments with the flatmates whilst trying to finish off my college course and get into police training.

---

Finding new accommodation is a ways off though. At the moment I'm thinking in the short term.

• College Work Catchup
• Cancel the Tribunal
• Find a Doctor
• Take care of Day 2 Forms
• Get some Exercise

Then find somewhere new to live.

GG.

PS: I swear I'm going to visually upgrade my blog at some point and make another for computer games and fantasy lore and books and art and things. Just, as should be plain by now, busy as a fuck.

On Bureaucracy...

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.

---

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.

---

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.

---

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.

---


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.