I'm not crazy, I just have another conciousness in my brain

I had a job interview on Friday and, despite it being quite a bizarre interview, I was offered the position. It's at a freelance training company with a very innovative approach to training which I could certainly sink my teeth into and would be quite exciting. However:

It's freelance, which means whilst I would have a verbal guarantee of hours, and the wages for freelance are high, it's not the same as a fulltime job with guaranteed wage packet.

I was orginally hoping I'd be able to sign on to do 10 days a year - which I currently devote annual leave days for - but they want 2-3 days a month or full time 10 days a month, so annual leave isn't an option.

So I have choices:

1) Attempt to negotiate with my current employers to be released for 3-4 days a month. This isn't really an option as I already end up working evenings and weekends to get the job done. And I would like some sort of a life

2) Resign from my current post and take up the new one, with a gamble that a) I'll like it and b) I'll actualy get sufficient work. This isn't really a possibility either, as I'm still a bit too much of a coward to be entirely freelance. I hate the idea of not having a regular wage, even though the freelancing wages would be higher.

3) Contact the new company and explain that whilst I can't take up the position now, I would be very interested in working for them in a year when I plan to start my PhD. It's exactly what I want then, but obviously there's no guarantee that it will be available.

Okay, it's clear I've made that choice already isn't it? Graeme's penguin is impressed by my ability to ramble on and on and then discover I knew the answer already.

In other news:

Geraint lightened up my week by appearing with sheep in a magazine and being funny and geraint-like on TV

Graeme has been fabulous

I see my first cricket of the season on Tuesday: About bloody time

The butterpecan latte recipe did not work. Attention Mysterious Canadian Commentator/International Man of Mystery: You have failed me again. We should have spotted the flaw in this plan, owing to the recipe clearly being based on the concept that pecans can be made by mixing hazlenuts and almonds.

So, the fish finally have names. It was a long process but we got there in the end. I have Sri Lankan fish. More precisely, Mahela, Kumar and Chamindafish.

( Big Life Decision rambling )

I have Spare Money. It was previously known as PhD Money, but I'm now calling it Spare Money. What should I do with my Spare Money?

1) Go and visit my friend Angie in Hong Kong, who I haven't seen for three years and I miss like crazy.

2) Spend it all driving around the country watching county cricket.

3) Pay off the last of my student loan so that I don't have £100 taken out of my pay cheque every month.

4) Spend it all on DVDs and chocolate. And, yes, I could easily spend it all on DVDs and chocolate.

5) Be sensible and save it; something bad is bound to happen soon and I'll need it.

I adore the TV series Coast because I like rocks and cuttlefish and you don't often see them in the same half hour.

However, I think my favourite bit has to be where the anthropologist explains the Jurassic Coastline with cake.

I have so much to say about the cricket, but it all just keeps coming out as a huge rant containing language of which my mother would be ashamed and eleven years' worth of repressed anger. Also, it makes me cry.

Other stuff:

1)Presents have arrived - so thank you to indian_skimmer, fringedweller and heatherbelles. indian_skimmer One of your presents might make you sob uncontrollably given current events, so you might want to ignore the note telling you which order to open them in.

2)( The Hogfather thing on Sky is disappointing )

3)The Iams Cat Biscuit advert makes me cry.

4)I can recommend alcohol, pyjamas and Highlander as a way to ease the crushing pain.

I had 37 pages of saved e-mails, all of which I know I'd saved for a reason. So, I've spent the last three weeks working my way through them in an attempt to cut it down to a more manageable level.

All but 26 of the e-mails were from indian_skimmer. It turns out some of them I did keep for a very good reason. Even if that reason was the frankly bizarre subject lines:

"I suppose it would depend on what you're doing to the donkeys"

"Bad lesbian prison dramas are my thing"

"Distressing goat query"

Also, I have learned that after e-mails have been returned seventeen times, the content bears no resemblance to the subject line.

I would like to take this opportunity to say the following things:

a) I really, really like yoghurt coated raisins.

b) Hoovering is, without a doubt, my least favourite household occupation

c) I'm now officially counting down the days till I get to start my PhD (402), providing someone on my friendslist comes through with the 30 grand.... I'm still waiting you know.

d) I'm really looking forward to seeing Snakes...On a Plane.

e) Matthew Hoggard is quite possibly my favourite person of all time. "Steve's always touching his side. He touches quite a few other things as well."

f) In precisely 24 hours time I will be watching County Geraint, or possibly be getting soaking wet and not seeing anything at all.

There are 4 days left until the final ever episode of the West Wing

There are 5 days left until I go on holiday with fringedweller and heatherbelles.

There are 13 days left until indian_skimmer and I will be seeing Live!Geraint and offering sweets to Matthew Hoggard.

There are 26 days left until I have to have my wisdom tooth out (£105! I've had to *save* to have my bloody tooth out).

There are 119 days left until the start of the Ashes.