The cast:

The lone piper:

So, this morning UK Police, Scotland Yard and MI-5 managed to foil an alleged terror plot to blow up half a dozen planes on the way from the UK to the States.

I have nothing really to say about the political implications, the international relations, etc. You can read about what's going on at

BBC News (United Kingdom)

CNN News (United States)

CBC News (Canada)

After reading all this, my biggest concern became this (and I'm sorry that my brain is so selfish and me-centred, but perhaps that's my way of dealing with this sort of thing):

If the new security measures continue through October 19, how the hell am I going to get my laptop home? I'm not about to trust it to a baggage handler at Heathrow, then some at Calgary, then one at Edmonton. No. Uh-uh. I've seen what they do to bags. No way. I may have to send it via DHL - I still have the box and padding from when I had to send it away for repairs.

Concern number two would be how I'm going to spend 8 hours on a flight without a book to read.

I'm such a bad person.

I Am Reading
Academically: Not a damn thing. Although I should really work on a paragraph of my dissertation. In fact, I think that's what I'll do now.
For Fun: Victorian London (Liza Picard).
Pile of Books on my Windowsill: Um... dunno... 6 or 7 (they're not all actually on my window sill at the moment)

So...

Like I said, my supervisor more or less liked my first draft of my dissertation. Yay! The problem is, however, that I don't know whether he hasn't pointed out all sorts of flaws because he just can't be bothered or whether it's because he actually thinks it's good. Or whether he thinks it's as good as my work is going to get. Either way, I don't have that much in the way of editing to do, so I've been sitting here with nothing to do most of the time.

I ordered a complete Seasons 1-7 DVD set of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but that still hasn't arrived (and if it hasn't by the end of the week, I'm cancelling the order - it's money that I could use on something else if the DVDs aren't going to be around - I've been waiting a month already because it was on back order... stupid Region coding... My laptop will only play me Region 1 DVDs so I can't just walk into HMV and buy something here. Frustrating!).

I've worked on some transcriptions for a genealogy project. In 1678, after St Paul's burned down, a whole bunch of parishes all over the UK got together and said, hey, let's have everyone contribute a few shillings to rebuilding St. Paul's.... and so there are lists of these donations, but they're all handwritten in 17th century handwriting - like this one:

So we've been transcribing them and uploading them onto the internet for other family history researchers to take a look at and use as a resource. But even that hasn't been taking up too much of my time, as I've only had a few parishes to tackle.

If you think you might have ancestors from Devon, UK, at the parish of Beaford from around 1678, their names might be on that list...

But, anyway...

I'm still volunteering a day a week at the Minster Library, so that consumes my Mondays, at least.

None of the clubs or anything are still running on campus, what with all of the undergrads gone home, so I have no more bells to play, and I can't even take an aerobics class without walking 45 minutes to get there, and that sort of defeats the purpose... I might as well just walk for 45 minutes. In that regard, I can't wait to get back to Edmonton.

I've been cross-stitching as well, but the problem is that I usually cross-stitch whilst watching TV or a movie or something... but I've not got a TV and I've watched all my DVDs, like, 5 times. I was told I should post some 'completed' shots... So here you go:

The first one is "Twilight Angel" by Dimensions Gold Collection. She's cute, she's fun, and she made me hate French knots even more than I already did.

The second one is an initial 'D' from the Book of Kells (now in Trinity College library in Dublin. Both are on aida, as I'm still getting over my fear of linens and the like. I have on the go a wedding present for my friend A who's getting married on September long weekend (it's so not going to be finished in time...) and one that a friend T sent me after she visited a few weekends ago as a thank-you gift. I'm going to owe her rather more bigtime soon enough, as she's going to be proofreading my dissertation for me and letting me come visit her in Cambridge later on this year. I'm looking forward to it!

I've also got a crochet sweater on the go, but I'm having a bitch of a time with the neckline, so i might give up for a bit (I've ripped it out three times already and don't really want to have to rip it out again).

So, yeah, if I'm not blogging very often it's 'cuz, as I mentioned a few posts ago... I've not got a lot to say. I'm taking boring to a whole new level these days.

You can almost hear the Celine Dion in the background, can't you...? The song they used for that god awful Air Canada commercial? Yeah, yeah, that one. *shudder*.

So, I got on the train, made it up to Durham, then the train stopped. I was worried. A train in front of us had broken down and was waiting for a tow. I was a little concerned. I gave myself a shitload of time to get from Waverly to the consulate (ie: about an hour for a walk that only takes 15-20 mins), but was nonetheless concerned. The last bloody thing I needed after all the fucking hassle to set this damn thing up was to have my train be late and me miss or have to reschedule the bloody thing. Luckily the delay was minimal, and I made it to the consulate with a ton of time to spare.

I was stuck in a small room (although they fed my sparkling mineral water!) that was unbelievably FREEZING! I curled up in the chair and I'm sure the people that walked by wondered who the hell I was and what I was doing huddled in a little ball in their office room. Esp. since I decided to be all classy and stuff and was wearing nice officy-business-y clothes in spite of the fact that the peeps in Canada definitely couldn't see me (you never know, could have been a video conference... it's happened before...). Then, they were late. Not too long, but late nonetheless. The phone call came about 10 after 3. It was fairly straightforward, the set of questions, although when they asked about a tough decision I'd worked through and how I did it, I foolishly decided to use the example of coming to England for my masters. I nearly started bawling in the middle of the interview, as I'm homesick to begin with, and describing the trouble I had leaving everyone behind to come over to this random country where I knew no one, etc... Oops. And this was right after I'd had to tell them how capable I was of being a cold bitch (yup, seriously... "sometimes the things we do are hard, heart-wrenching, but we have to do them anyway. Can you give us an example of a time when you've had to do something that was extremely hard, even though you might not have wanted to...?"

I'd prepared kick-ass answers for 'what is your greatest strength' and 'what is your greatest weakness', and they didn't ask. Argh!

But anyway. It was over by 4 p.m., including my questions about the selection process (which has changed since I last worked for the department), so I wandered around a bit, had dinner, and am now on the train back home to York. Yay WiFi! Yay GNER!

I Am Reading
Academically: My dissertation
For Fun: Suite Francaise/Plain Truth (by Jodi Picoult - I didn't bring Suite with me on the train so bought Plain Truth at Waterstones.
Pile of Books on my Windowsill: Unchanged

Went to see The Breakup in the cinema this evening. It was bad.

But, it got me out of my room and doing something other than thinking about the bloody fucking goddamn piece of shit interview tomorrow that suddenly has me unbelievably fucking nervous.

Now that I really think about it, this is only the third job I've really had to make an effort to get.

Dairy Queen - didn't even have to interview. Boss just asked her other staff what they thought of me (small town!) and I got the job.

Government - my parents both worked in the department in question. The interviewers knew me, and the interview was a formality. After the first summer I didn't need to interview again for the next two.

Alto section lead - My voice teacher knew I needed cash and offered me the position.

Admin Assistant pt. 1 - lived with my boss. Not in THAT sense. She lived down the hall from me in Residence.

Floor Coordinator - knew the people hiring me from the admin asst. job.

Visitor Services - this one I actually had to interview for with strangers.

Park Host - Boss-to-be was one of my VS coworkers. We could barely keep straight faces during the 'interview'.

Academic Guidance - strangers.

Admin Asst. pt. 2 - knew the people hiring me from my floor coordinator and admin asst. pt. 1 days. They'd practically begged me to apply when they heard I was interested.

Historical Interpreter - went through an interview as a mere formality - it was the same people who'd hired me two summers earlier as Visitor Services.

Volunteer Coordination Assistant - was asked to take the position by HI bosses, who knew I was looking for extra hours/cash for this whole going to school in England thing.

So, anyway, I really need to stop feeling sick to my stomach, suck it up, realize I'm completely competent and can do this job with the proper training (I almost did it summer #3 in government), know that if I don't get the job it isn't the end of the world and I can always be a barista at Second Cup, praying that the other job I applied for comes through for me (competition doesn't close until December 31, though, so I likely won't hear before then).

You may get another frantic "oh dear god I'm going to cry" post from me tomorrow as I'm taking the laptop to hopefully do some work on the dissertation on the train, and GNER has apparently equipped a bunch of its trains with WiFi.

Otherwise, wish me luck. And now I think I need to find some gravol or something similar, because I'm REALLY feeling nervous...

I Am Reading
You expect me to read when I'm this nervous? You're fucking kidding me, right? Fine, fine...
Academically: My dissertation - "Something snazzy here: Religion, authority and the public execution in Tudor England"
For Fun: Suite Française encore. Je pense que quand je retourne au Canada je vais essayer de trouver un version français... c'est très bon, ce que j'ai deja lu...
Pile of Books on my Windowsill: 6. Again with the skimming for pertinent information rather than the actual reading.

So. If there is something I have learned in life, it's that whining on my blog solves bureaucratic red-tape issues within a few days. Remember the passport issues? I blog about it and a few days later things work out. I blog about the job interview shit, and a few days later it works itself out.... If only my love life worked that way...

I received a phone call from the Honorary Consulate up in Edinburgh today, and they were more than happy to accommodate me. This means that my job interview is on Friday at 3 p.m. British time (8 a.m. Edmonton time). In Edinburgh. I just booked my train tickets. Luckily there were a few Saver Return tickets left, and so I'm not totally broke now (45 quid return! yay! That'd be about 90 bucks Canadian, in case anyone's interested).

They've now had the gall to tell me, though, that I might miss this selection round and have to wait until the next one since I won't be coming back to Canada until mid-October.

And they WON'T pay my travel costs. Stupid government. Or my cell phone bill. Bastards. But whatever. The pay's decent and the benefits are nice. And the job itself ain't half bad.

So I'm heading up on Friday morning and coming back on Friday night. After my interview I may try and find the B&B where I'm staying next weekend when I head up for the Tattoo...

So, wish me luck, folks!

So I got an email from the lovely folks at the government department for which I applied to work. Finally! Considering my interview was supposed to be LAST week, and this week is almost over... It basically said "Hi, Kate, we'd like to call you - is there an embassy or something nearby where you can go? We want the interview to be next week"

To which I replied, "Sure, there's Canadian High Commissions in London, Edinburgh and Birmingham, and it's about equally easy for me to get to any of those. But if you want, you can just call my mobile." And I gave them my phone number.

"That's great, Kate, but we need someone to confirm your identity, so can you make arrangments with the High Commission and get back to us with the number we'll need to call you at?"

So I called the High Commissions down in London. After much on-hold-ing and being passed back and forth (I was initially sent to the department for which the job interview will be, then to consular offices, who decided that since I didn't cause an international incident, they didn't want to deal with me, then back to the department in question), it was decided that London didn't want to have to start IDing random interview candidates and so they basically emailed the folks in Canada and politely told them to F off. I'm still waiting to hear Canada's reaction to this one.

This seems to be particularly problematic.

Edinburgh and Birmingham are just Honorary Consulates, so I'm not sure what facilities they have, and if LONDON isn't willing to accommodate me...

But that's just the start: what if I'd just given the folks back in Canada my land line number (which, ironically, is less reliable than my mobile in terms of connection quality when dealing with transatlantic calls) and gotten a friend to be the 'consular official'? Seriously, ANYONE could have taken the interview for me, and the lovely folks in Canada would have no way of knowing. Surely they should have arranged with one of the offices in London in advance and told ME where to be and when, and that I would need to take ID. I'm not their HR girl. Maybe if I was being paid by the government for any of my expenses in this matter, I'd feel differently, but right now I shudder at what a last-minute train ticket down to London or up to Edinburgh is going to cost me, knowing that there will be no reimbursement... not to mention the credit I've used up on my mobile making all these calls...

I'm now stuck, since my contact in Canada is out of the office until Monday. How great is that - 'let us know where to call you, but I'm not going to get your email until Monday anyway'. So that leaves me all weekend to agonize over this.

I don't know whether to start studying for this interview or not, since I have no idea when or where it would be. And I don't need my brain to be full of that for any longer than a couple of days - otherwise I need to be thinking about death and blood and burning.

Not to mention that the appeals process for competitions has changed, so if I don't get the job I can't even whine about what a shitty process the competition was, how badly organized, and how many loopholes there were.

My mother (who happens to work for the department in question) has offered to intervene and ask London again for me. I asked her not to, though, as I don't want to be seen whining to my mother (I will gladly whine to her in private, but I don't need her meddling in this). That would look really great, wouldn't it? The responsible, mature, self-starter's MOTHER had to arrange her job interview.

Oh, and my supervisor mostly liked my draft of my dissertation, so at least that's one thing to worry less about.


I Am Reading
Academically: Nothing. Nada. Zilch. And it's great! (Although I'll have to start editing soon...)
For Fun: Suite Française (Irène Nemirovsky) - I copped out, I'm reading the English translation.
Pile of Books on my Windowsill: 8 - Mostly unread, but skimmed for pertinent information.