New car and new job

Sorry for the disappearance again. I did give a brief explanation on Twitter, but I doubt everyone who reads this follows it on Twitter! (you totally should - @ThePositiveFear)

Basically, within the space of a few days, everything has suddenly come together. After my visit to the nice lady at the job centre, but still no thanks to the job centre, I had an interview at the village pub that turned me down about a month ago. All of a sudden, I was offered a trial shift on Saturday night, probably its busiest time apart from occasions like Mother’s Day or Christmas parties and such.

I’d like to say I was scared about trying to learn a new job and impress the boss at the same time, but I honestly have something much more nerve wracking going on.

I got my new car on Friday and it wasn’t insured for me to drive until Saturday, so the first place I drove it alone was to work. There are two problems. One is that I can’t reverse out of spaces or into them to save my life. The second is that whenever I stop for junctions, traffic lights or roundabouts, I stall, sometimes in dangerous places. I stalled four times on the way to work before I even left my street. Four. I know it’s because I’m not used to the car, but seriously?

So by the time I got to work, I was just relieved to have got there alive. Everyone is really friendly, we were pretty busy and I spent most of my time either trying to help without getting in the way, learning how the tills work, taking orders and clearing plates and learning to pull pints. I wasn’t actually meant to know until today whether I had got the job, but at the end of the shift, my new manager told me she would be happy to have me, and gave me my shifts for this week.

Of course, with every set of problems solved, a new set arises. I pass my driving test, now I feel like I’m starting all over again in a car that I am admittedly starting to stall less in, but am slightly terrified of parking or stopping in. I mean, my dad took me down the motorway last night as I’ll have to drive out of town to placement tomorrow (a whole new set of issues) and I was actually fine. It literally is stopping and starting in busy places.

With the job, I moaned consistently about not having a job, and now I have one, I’m busy and have to rely on mad organisation skills that are a little rusty since starting University and only having to be there for about six hours a week. How on earth did I cope at school and college when I was there for six hours a day? At Sixth Form I was there five or six hours a day yet still had time for a boyfriend, my friends, hobbies, a weekend job and I was relying on public transport. I’m sure I can handle this, I just need to get used to it again!

This is why I’ve been busy in a nutshell. And all of it is quite frankly a little bit scary. However, I’m currently sat with butterflies the size of seagulls as I dare myself to drive to the jobcentre to sign off, after my grand total of 5 days on the dole, and to pick my mam up from work while I’m in town. Then I have to drive for an hours training and paperwork at my new job.

Right now, I’m going to have to keep this short. I’ve been procrastinating with the blog, mainly because any chance I’ve had to write it, something sociable has come up, or I find that I’d rather lay in bed and watch Scrubs then FaceTime Marc. I need to throw together an activity for placement tomorrow, and I need to do it now as I’d quite like to use tonight for meeting up with two old friends, giving the A19 another attempt with my dad supervising, and then writing all about my vaguely terrifying day!

Also, I’ve had a massive jump in page views. Thanks to all you regular readers and newbies, thanks to you too and welcome to my world of crazy.