I have a gravelly, husky voice that Phil Mitchell would be proud of, but far from feeling sorry for myself I am instead ensuring that everyone else feels sorry for me and have allowed Alex to clean the house today whilst I slack around reading in a woollen scarf, drinking hot Ribena and making pathetic coughing noises whenever Alex strays my way with the Hoover. He's a diamond of a boyfriend, he really is.
Anyway! I've been very quiet on the writing this week, as I have been mostly preoccupied with a) work, b) not eating carbohydrates, c) feeling poorly and d) the annual choir show, 'One Night Only!' (It was yesterday, you missed your chance, big Soz)
This Tuesday marked my one year anniversary in my role, and my lovely manager got me this shiny card, which I wholeheartedly agree with:
Although I did ruin my 'employee of the week' chances by being too ill to come to work on Thursday and then forgetting my work t-shirt when I returned on Friday. But the card doesn't lie!!
This week my team coordinated a programme of employability-related events and workshops for our students to 'make themselves stand out' in the employment market. We really put our all into it, everyone worked really hard and it should have been a fantastic chance for students to take charge of their skills and professional development. Unfortunately, the week coincided with what used to be (years ago) an 'inter-semester break', and a lot of lecturers seem to be under the impression that it is still an inter semester break, and that therefore neither they nor their students need to come to university. This has presented some problems for us.
For example, we organised three 'Opportunities Showcases', one on each campus, which were employability fair-style events where local recruiters and organisations came to speak to students about paid, voluntary or internship opportunities that our students can get involved with whilst at uni. Whilst we were in the process of booking the rooms, we had to have a meeting with one of the campus managers, who told us in all seriousness that one of the rooms we had booked only had capacity for 80 people at any one time, so did we have a plan in place to ensure that we could monitor and enforce this? Otherwise it would be a serious health and safety risk in case of fire.
I assured her that yes, yes we did have a plan in place. Afterwards, one of my team asked me, “do we have a plan? How are we going to make sure that we don't have more than 80 people in the room at any time? Will we have to count them in? Ask people to leave when it gets full?”
I just stared at her.
Someone call for back-up, this over-crowding situation is getting out of control!!
I actually don't think that there were more than 80 students on the entire campus that day. I didn't need the riot shields or tazer guns after all.
So, earlier I mentioned that I've been embarking on a carbohydrate-free approach to eating. I was feeling pretty good doing this (before I got ill and could only stomach plain white toast) and had enjoyed coming up with some creative, tasty dishes based around veg, meat and fat. It felt more fun than eating plant-based food because I'm not a very good cook, and you can't just eat a can of Lima beans or lentils without much intervention like you can with a burger or an egg. I made this tasty meatball dish with courgette tagliatelle, which really was yummy even though it looks like an alien has just exploded in my frying pan:
I also made 'oopsie bread', which is a sort of bread roll situation, but made out of eggs, cream cheese and titchy bit of cream of tartar. Looks like this:
They would make a good burger bun, or a mini pizza base or just some bread to go with soup. You can't quite make a sandwich out of it as it's quite fragile (I think you are meant to leave it to cool for a while to firm it up, but I was impatient and hungry) but I'll make them again. They taste like a slightly eggy choux pastry, and covered with whipped cream would probably be very agreeable too!
I'll get back to it next week when I feel better – when I'm tired and coldy, I find that I crave bland carbs and sugar, so I'm happy to give myself a few days off.
And finally, my choir show!! The main thing is, it's over now.
I'm not going to dwell on the HIDEOUS rehearsal where my fellow 'girl group' members and I completely cocked it all up an hour before the performance, and where I forgot all of the words and tune. I'm not going to keep re-hashing the panic that gripped me as my voice suddenly gave way to a croak during the show, just before our group song in the spotlight. I am casting from my memory the effort involved in forcing out the whole of Sheena Easton's 9 to 5 (Morning Train) without sounding like a frog, and without being able to breathe through my nose or hear anything other than my own (terrible) voice through my clogged up sinuses. And I am no longer feeling sad about the fact that I had to mime 70% of the songs for the rest of the concert, including all my favourites that I have been happily practicing all year. I am pretending to be happy about the fact that the whole shebang has been filmed for the public's viewing pleasure.
GODDAMNIT.
Ohmmmmm all is calm all is well and like I said, at least it's over now and I don't have to have the panic of performing hanging over me any more. I'm just nursing my hoarse voice now. Alex is quite enjoying me not being able to talk much. He is making up for the two of us by repeatedly commanding Siri to find 'drip tip' on the internet, which sounds ghastly but is apparently some sort of e-cigarette paraphernalia. Siri isn't helping though, and just keeps suggesting websites containing triptychs.
Safer, I feel, than websites containing drip tips.
Until next time my beautiful friends.
Cx
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