20 Questions

Tomorrow is our engagement photo shoot! (insert girly squeal here) So in light of all the imminent loved-up-edness in Watch This Space land, I thought I'd do this 20 Questions meme that's been doing the rounds in the blogosphere. I have it on good authority that I did well. Enjoy!

1. He is sitting in front of the TV. What is on the screen?

Depending on the time of year, it's Irish Rugby. Otherwise some sort of documentary on the History Channel, or Discovery or one of those. Or Bear Grylls.

2. You’re out to eat; what kind of dressing does he get on his salad?

Salad? What is this "salad" you speak of?

3. What’s one food he doesn’t like?

Eggs. It's inexplicable.

4. You go out to eat and have a drink. What does he order?

Guinness. Or sometimes Corona (ugh).

5. Where did he go to high school?

Templemore.

6. What size shoe does he wear?

10? (edit - apparently it's a 9)

7. If he was to collect anything, what would it be?

Guitars. Oh wait... we've already got... I don't know... at least 3.

8. What is his favorite type of sandwich?

Breakfast rolls. Well, occasionally.

9. What would this person eat every day if he could?

I have it on good authority that he would eat nothing but profiteroles, given half a chance.

10. What is his favorite cereal?

We don't really do cereal for breakfast, so I don't really know. He did buy Cheerios the other day, so I'll go with that.

11. What would he never wear?

Pink. I know better than to even try.

12. What is his favorite sports team?

Ireland or Munster Rugby. Tough call.

13. Who did he vote for?

The good guys.

14. Who is his best friend?

Me? Aww....

15. What is something you do that he wishes you wouldn’t do?

Snore? Occasionally belch? I maintain that's a compliment to his cooking abilities...

16. What is his heritage?

Irish. That one I know I got right!

17. You bake him a cake for his birthday; what kind of cake?

I made him these cute little Mr Men cupcakes. They were awesome.

18. Did he play sports in high school?

Rugby. There is a recurring theme here.

19. What could he spend hours doing?

Playing guitar. And he does.

20. What is one unique talent he has?

Music. I have no idea how he does it, but the man's a genius.

Update!

Unfortunately my wee little blog seems to be getting neglected lately. It seems to be mostly due to the fact that I'm "working" again and so the days and weeks are flying by instead of progressing slowly and steadily. Honestly, I have no idea where June went and it's nearly July already! So I've decided to do a good things / piffling trifles recap of the last little while, before trying to post more regularly. Enjoy!

Good Things

1. My new "job" is great. The fact that I can tie my PR course project in to work is also great! I'm learning loads, mostly to do with software like Raiser's Edge, which is so ridiculously in demand at at the moment that I'll be fairly set when I finish the internship. That is, if I'm not able to wrangle a paid position out of the board! Fingers crossed.

2. As a kind of "thank you" for doing this internship I get to go to Ethiopia in November. Part of what I was working on this past week was finding out about local attractions in Addis Ababa and the surrounding area. Now I've been fairly diligent with this, and scoured the Lonely Planet, TripAdvisor and did a Flickr image search of all the places I found. Am now so excited at the prospect of going to Ethiopia I can hardly breathe. I love paid holidays to awesome places!

3. The organisation formerly known as my employers held a conference on Tuesday on the problem of sex trafficking and prostitution (delightful, I know!) at which the guest speaker, Victor Malarek, was someone I recommended! Clearly I still rock at that job even 8 months after I've left.

4. B and I have booked a consultation / engagement photo shoot with our first-choice wedding photographer this coming Tuesday. Again, am so excited I can barely breathe. I don't know what it is, but having an actual engagement shoot seems to move all this wedding stuff from the intangible to the realm of actual reality. As in, omigod we're actually doing this!

5. I am officially capable of waking up at 7.30am, commuting for 1 hour and 15 mins and NOT being sleepy OR grumpy (or any of the other dwarves, for that matter!)

6. B and the band are absolute rock legends, having supported Melophobia (fear of people named Mel? Fear of mellow people?) on the main stage at Whelans on Thursday night. They totally rocked a pretty crowded house and likely still have not come down off their post-performance high. And I am so incredibly proud of all of them it's ridiculous.

7. It's Pride Weekend! Rock the rainbows!

Piffling Trifles

1. Now that it's kind of warm and extremely humid, we've been leaving all the doors and windows of the apartment open wide. Result? We have random little flies in the living room. I hate flies. Get out of my house!!

2. I missed the Pride Parade due to a very important long distance phone call. Well worth it, though. I'll definitely catch the Pride Festival next year.

3. A whole day of sex trafficking and prostitution conferences is perhaps THE single most depressing way to spend a sunny Tuesday.

4. Potential Canadian wedding venues are crap at getting back to me about my enquiries. Don't tell me to email you for further information if you're not intending to write back!

5. Note to potential Irish venue: please please please, learn the difference between "its" and "it's"... oh, and "your" and "you're". I might just be that much of a grammar freak that the mistakes in your "newly updated" wedding brochure could be a dealbreaker.

So, as you can see things are definitely on the up. The piffling trifles I can live with, and the good things definitely outweigh them anyway, so I'm delighted.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to chase tiny flies around the living room with a rolled up newspaper...

Why me?

So despite a pretty awesome day overall, this evening I had an unfortunate reminder of why I sometimes hate this city.

I got robbed. Again. And I'm getting pretty sick of it, to be honest.

It's not that I'm careless with my personal possessions. Hardly. There is a part of me that is entirely made up of my mother's DNA and means that if anyone even so much as LOOKS at my bag I immediately picture them as a potential purse-snatcher. Overreaction? Perhaps.

And I know it's not Dublin's fault that I got robbed. I mean people get robbed every day in cities all over the world. It just so happens that the only 2 times in my life that I've had my bag stolen have BOTH happened here. Within a few blocks of each other, actually. And so my occasionally rose-tinted view of my adopted hometown is... a bit skewed... to the point that I'm once again forced to view each and every member of the general public as a potential purse-snatcher.

The compassionate Buddhist in me is gonna have to take a backseat for a few days.

It's just... it's such a violation of my personal space! I mean okay, I have always been lucky and gotten my purse back, which is more than most victims can say. This time the helpful manager and security people at McDonald's (yes... I got robbed at McDonald's... please spare me your ridicule for the moment) checked the CCTV footage immediately and noticed the girl in question go into the women's bathroom, where they found my bag, intact but missing €50. I know it could have been worse. Much worse! I was envisioning frantic calls to cancel all my various cards, having to pay to get IDs reissued, new student cards, etc... all with money that I don't have.

Apparently purse-snatchers do not take your employment and/or financial status into account when choosing you as a victim. Maybe I look too well-off.

Note to self - work on the "I'm unemployed, can't go on welfare and have no money" look.

Alive and kicking

Alright... so I had a small hiatus for the past week(ish), but I promise it was only because I really had nothing of interest to report, and didn't want to bore you all with the mundane details of my (still) unemployed life.

But!

Things have been happening, and I'm now actually out-of-my-mind busy! What what what? I know... everything seems to happen all at the same time. It doesn't rain but it pours, as I mentioned on Twitter a while ago. At least this time it is pouring good things. So here goes:

1. Gainfully employed - er... volunteering
Success #1... I have a sort of job! As of last week I am officially back in the world of employment, working an average of 3 days per week as a volunteer PR and racer support person, attempting to organise a 10km charity run in Ethiopia in November. Job perk? I get to go to Ethiopia in November! So stoked...

2. Jobhunting
Fail. Just absolute, unequivocal fail. And at the risk of placing blame unfairly on others, it's entirely not my fault! Case in point? The recruitment agency I signed up with in March rang me with "the perfect job for you". So I went out for an initial interview with the HR manager and we got on like a house on fire. In fact she noticed I was engaged, mentioned that she was getting married in 5 weeks, and we spent most of the interview talking about wedding planning. Hah! So I figured I was in good standing for that job. What I did not count on was the GM, who apparently ignored the "this girl is seriously awesome" recommendation of the HR manager, took one look at my CV/resume and flat out refused to meet me. Back to the drawing board, then.

3. PR Course
Is going well. Have decided I am a PR genius in the making. Have also noticed a serious lack of modesty now that I've been at the jobhunt for this long. I'm awesome! Hire me!!

4. Rambling all over the place, and getting ill in the process
At the weekend B and I headed down to Wexford again, to attend his niece's confirmation. Now, my knowledge of the Catholic Church is based mostly on The Da Vinci Code, so I'm always left feeling a bit awkward in a room full of hundreds of people all doing and saying (and singing) the same thing as they've been doing all their lives. But hey, it's all a learning experience. I even got sprinkled with some of the holy water from the Bishop! I'm sure the Church would be scandalised to hear that... hah.

On the Saturday night I also developed a serious, severe asthma attack. At first I chalked it up to hayfever combined with the family's profusely shedding dog, but when it didn't clear up on our return to Dublin, I started to panic. I panic anyway about breathing related problems, but this time I hauled myself over to my GP, who gave me prescriptions for my inhalers (which I'd foolishly let run out months ago) plus the added bonus of a week's worth of steroid tablets. I am a walking pharmacy.

And that's about it for me, ladies and gents! Now that I'm in a bit more of a routine I'll try to update more frequently.... really.