you know what sucks?

being awake after 2 hours of crappy sleep with eyes that feel like the sockets are encrusted with sandpaper.

lori

Further to Operation Keep-Lori’s-Car-Out-Of-The-Pits - I have saved $1900 dollars which should be enough to cover the cost of most of the mechanical repairs/tyres without doing the gearbox refit which apparently might cost over $1000. FARK! reconditioned gear boxes cost almost as much as recon engines. Thank goodness I don’t need a new one of those just yet. I put the car in for surgery on Tuesday morning, might swap cars with dad. He’s the one going to be fixing it for me, i think.

I visited dad yesterday on the way home from my team meeting. He works in Welshpool which is about 10 - 15 minutes from my place. It was wet and rainy, so it seemed like a good time to say hello, and get a new headlight bulb for the right hand side since that has been blown for a few weeks (months) and I didn’t want to give the cops an easy target to pull over. Now I can go out a little more and socialise. Headlights make your social life that much more enjoyable when you can drive to places without worry if you get picked up by the cops.

I had a great IRC chat with a friend last night, its been ages since we have just talked about things, life, relationships, esteem, men, weight .. I ended that chat feeling quite positive. We don’t talk alot about IRC politics, its there I guess, but I appreciate her for being a friend, and don’t like talking alot about stuff to do with IRC - since she’s like my boss in an IRC sense, I don’t see her that way. I’m not friends with someone because of what they are, but who they are as a human being. Like me, she’s had some issues and found a few demons and been dealing with them.

Self awareness is key to a person’s development. I hope people realise this. When you become aware of yourself, and how your environment affects you, and how your behaviour affects others, you become alot more compassionate and empathic.

em�pa�thy ( P ) Pronunciation Key (mp-th)
n.
Identification with and understanding of another’s situation, feelings, and motives.
The attribution of one’s own feelings to an object.

Empathy is what makes us human. I think it is essential for personal growth.

Busy week working, and getting documents done.

I have been putting together the training manual for new staff over the last few weeks. The project has gone on alot longer than I intended because of outside factors, being given extra work to do for other peope in the company, research work, stepping in and doing support shifts for others.

I got a friend to help proof read the manual for me whilst I finished working on them. He’s really good at that stuff, not bad for a Swede! He’s good grammar policeman. Many a time we have argued over grammar rules when he’s emailing lists and he gets me to check his emails before sending off to others.

[looks at the emails stacking up in the inbox]

So I sent these documents to her on Wednesday after my 4 days off, which I really needed. Crap sleep tho, but still it was time off. She was totally blown away which made me feel heaps better. I tried to edit that document on thursday, but serious lacked the motivation. I’ve had headaches Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday and just couldn’t concentrate. Friday we had our team meeting. I was sitting there listening and staring at SirWankalot. (Customer Support Supervisor) - it’s obvious to me he talks to X alot.

I have resolved to talk to X. more often. I need to know more about what is going on and my natural tendency is heads down bums up and get the work done and worry about extra issues later after the work is done.

on a side issue: I got promoted in ASD (Services help) which was good in a way because I can be alot more helpful and effective on the network. Eases the burden on the other’s aswell. So few helpers - about 29 for a network averaging about 9 - 13 thousand users a week depending on how many are loading proxies to ddos services
And after eating breakfast, I have decided that God is an Australian, He invented vegemite on toast with a hot cup of coffee.

hmmm

Here’s a random thought..

With terrorism being so headlines and in at the moment, wouldn’t it be awful if the terrorists decided to bomb the Big Brother house? like during a live telecast or something?

Hope they have high security around these poor people..

I need to fix my car before it becomes a huge money drain.

That said, the things that need doing on it is quite large, and quite possibly very expensive. If I don’t get these things dealt with soon, I’ll be pulled up for bald tyres or something and given a yellow sticker and have to get my car fixed to go to the examiners. So I must face facts. Serious $$ must be donated to the cause

Keep-Lori’s-Car-Out-Of-The-Pits.

I need the following to be fixed:

Gaskets replaced (have oil leaks)
New well for the window washers
New cambelt
New brakepads
Recondition the gear box
General service on the car
New Muffler
New Seatbelt

So all that I need to get fixed, so I’ll go to dad’s work. I have about $1000 saved for this operation.

After that I need to get New tyres and a new spare, because the spare doesn’t fit the car. look at about $600.00 for new tyres plus spare unless there is a special on somewhere. Then I have to get the front driver’s seat fixed - worn upholstery - probably about $500.00 for both passenger and driver’s seat. Finally the RUST problem tht has started to bubble up in a couple of places. I don’t know how much that would cost yet. Once all these things are fixed the car will be a happy car once more and I don’t need to worry too much about it. God cars are expensive. This car isn’t a bomb, its only 11 years old, a Toyota Seca. Just needs a bit more attention at the moment.

I’d love to be able to get a new one, but I am enjoying owning something that I don’t need to pay off anymore. Going into debt for another 24K (total amount i paid back on the loan) is not my idea of fun.

Sigh. More mail. Must work harder - thank goodness for slow days.

Who watches Big Brother?

I do, and I guess I am ashamed to admit that I do, but buggerit, its downright interesting with the mind games that get played on the game. I watched the Season 1 Big brother when it came on, because I knew one of the participants - Sarah Marie, a nice chick who did the Bum dance on national TV and wore bunny ears everywhere. Season two I watched because I started to get interested in the psychology of the game, the mind games the participants were using against eachother, and against Big Brother when they were rebelling, which resulted in the entire household going up for eviction, and two being evicted. There was some interesting bullying behaviour happening which I found absolutely fascinating.

So, season 3 comes around and this time big brother’s made some changes to the rules so people don’t know what to expect. This instantly put everyone on the back foot, much to their chagrin. The games have begun.

So what’s so different? The whole group dynamic thing. Two houses being made meant that 14 people were in the house, and it was obvious that not all could stay, it is afterall a 12 week show. with 3 down, 3 weeks gone, 11 people left and 9 weeks left of the game, another person at least has to be removed sometime soon. So that’s the mathematics done. Human behaviour is next. The most interesting house for me has been the square house. The guys forming a clique which isolated the only straight female (Belinda) in there after Irena was voted out. Since the Bi/Lesbian chick Claire was considered one of the guys, and she also seemed not to get on with Belinda.

Belinda has had a tough time with regards to her sister going to prison for doing something very bad. I think she felt she could handle it. Like most older sisters do, and I am one. You tend to bottle up alot so that you can be strong for the family when disasters happen which can really hurt a family. Parents tend to depend on the older child for support when the younger one goes and does something stupid. I also understand that Belinda probably has felt betrayed by her sister. She should have been able to help her, her sister should have not done what she did, and its hard for Belinda to comprehend the enormity of the situation. Family love is very strong, but it sure does fuck up one’s mind when something does go wrong.

The lack of compassion and understanding displayed by the housemates when they found out what happened after Belinda got drunk and made a fool of herself is astonishing. What decent person can listen to what happened, and see how she behaved and not seen that this was a girl who was feeling pressure and cracked a little. The housemates were angry with BB for letting her in, but I guess, why wouldn’t he? She’s still a human being.

Carlo being voted out was the best thing for BB. Despite the fact he might have a girlfriend who thinks the world of him, he was rude, crude, nasty and acted very much like a misogynist. Had I been in the BB house I would have been having a few things to say about him, to him. Fancy washing yourself in the kitchen sink. Ugh.

Anyway.. I don’t wish to turn this into a social commentary about BB for the next three months, but I might be blabbling in here a little more about it before the end.

::addendum::
I found a typo. Typo’s bug me. At least there are less of them now. When I went to log into blogger.com to edit the blog, They presented me with a slightly new page with a notice they were moving bloggers over to a new format/server. I tried to log in several times with no success. Apparently I had forgotten my password. So in disgust I closed the page, dealt with a customer on liveperson, then re-opened a page to blogger to find myself signed in, and the page looked a little different than 5 minutes before.. [plays twilightzone music]

I also have a migraine, or the startings of one. I haven’t had one in quite some time. I would like to remark that a better diet, more water and less coffee, as well as less stress have made me feel heaps better in general. I would assume this healthy turn in lifestyle is one main reason the migraines and other headaches I used to get alot before coffee was eliminated from my life, have otherwise now gone.

I have run out of the little pills that make me feel better, because I haven’t had a migraine for so long. So I’ve been drinking lots of water and taking paracetamol. When this shift for support is done, I am going to go to bed for a while and sleep this off before it turns into an ugly migraine.

I found someone’s web log, MissJenJen who seems to come from Perth and now lives in Melbourne, she also attended a top 8 pvt school like I did, and despised most of her class mates, like I did. Heh. *waves hello* and *hugs*

22 minutes and I can go… ZzZz - 6AM starts for work really bite.

I am so not in the mood to work today.

I had a run in with O about liveperson which is something we use to get people to ask for help if they are on the website. The dude who is in charge of it keeps hassling me about it. Apparently out of everyone, I use it the least. Not that surprising since I do support 4 support shifts a fortnight and usually when the server crashes. Apparently tho, he wants me to leave support emails for a couple of hours at a time so I can do live person if its busy, like Carmen would like that.. SO - OK. Liveperson has never been that busy for me to do that.

O says:
and I dont ask you to handle 6 chats on once and 80 chats a shift like I did, the amount of chats is really low, and will be lower soon
lolly says:
i think you should give me time to get used liveperson. its not something that i can just pick up and use like a pro like yourself obviously (hello! He can do all that. Great. Lets see him deal with 20 angry players in helproom at the same time after a game crashes and they feel like they have lost money)
O says:
I know that you don’t like LP, or like it less than others and it’s less natural for you to do it (understatement of the year.. I hate it), but this is something we got to be doing,
O says:
well, no worries, but in order to practice you need to leave it on online, you done your training long ago and still did not have lots of chats as appose to others who finished training after you (So.. what is he trying to say?)
O says:
so I don’t think I am really putting a presure on you, just asking you to use it, and ready to hear anything u got to say (somehow this comment makes me feel like I am a virgin and he’s wanting some ass and maybe a bit more…)
lolly says:
thats not exactly my fault there,, i only work 4 support shifts per fortnight, and most of those have involved servers crashing and games freezing (Just read a couple of posts down for my horror shift)
O says:
I am not saying it’s anybodies fault, Lori, I have no interest in faults, just to make it clearer when should LP be on away mode, thats all (Right)
lolly says:
yeap no problems (Time to end the conversation. I was beginning to feel a little like crying, maybe its hormones?)

So I suck at something. I knew one day there was going to be a chink in my armour. I don’t like pressuring people to play, I am there to help when they break things, not SELLSELLSELL.

Meanwhile, I am searching through 20 games for 1 user who might have won a game. *joy*

The Matrix Reloaded was Awesome.. and a tip for movie fans, don’t walk out whilst the credits are rolling. At the end of the credits is the Trailer for the last Matrix Movie, Revolutions. It’s very impressive and I can’t wait for November.

Enough from me, I have more cards to shuffle.

I wasnt exactly having the best sleep today. fitful at best and uncomfortable, it was a relief being woken up by the hone, or so I thought. We’ve had to carry financially a member of my partner’s family for 18 months because he quit his job, and that’s how long it took him to find a new one. Then he found a job which paid heaps of money for doing low braindrain work and he wants to quit and come back to where I work.

I object to this, and I told my manager that because of the financial obligations he has towards his family. Currently he’s dreaming if he think he would get contract work. Work is so tight on the ground for anyone in IT that its difficult to even find a contract which is viable let alone quit so that he can become a contractor. At best he can be paid 300 a week where i work as a casual, he’d e taking a massive pay cut.

In the end tho, its not fair if I use C to keep this guy from working with someone that makes him want to quit on the spot. I talked to my partner and he said we’ll manage, and then said, “why do you think we aren’t dealing with his boss anymore?” Good question I thought, considering the amount of money that is involved, i know that my partner walking away from a job because of the man who runs the business, means he’s pretty bad. It’s not fair on the family member, his mother, us, or even C - because ultimately, it’s his life, he’s a grown up and he has to face the consequences of his decisions. So i sms’d C and said for her to give him the job, he’s the best person for it, and sms’d back saying thanks.

Now I sit here and think about the financial sides of the decisions being made and want to cry. We’ve worked so hard to get where we are now after only three months, and now - it looks like we’ll slide right back in that hole again. That’s life i guess.