I am so tired, I can't even form complex sentences.

I can't stand these early shifts. Today, tomorrow and Friday I am on 8am to 4.30. The concept of getting to work by 8am is fine, but putting it into practice is much harder. Basically I have to catch a train between 6-6.30am, and with the trains cancelled and running late as they have been the past few weeks, that in itself is no mean feat.

But next week I have swapped a few shifts and arranged my schedule so that I have virtually all late shifts, which is good because mum's going to be gone the whole week so it would have been hard for me to get myself down to the train station at 6 in the morning. I could do it, but I don't enjoy having to wake up early and walk down to the station while it's still dark outside and I'm still half asleep.

Anyway hurry up pay day so I can go out and drown my sorrows and stress, hehe. Nah, not this week, I have to get an early night Friday. I'm heading out to the Blue Mountains on Saturday to visit Jenolan caves and hang out with Guppy and I want to get an early start because it sounds like he has a fun day planned.

I don't know whether to be annoyed or pleased. When I mentioned my website, and in particular my journal, to Gupps he seemed keen to check it out, so I bothered to fix up the format and edit the archives a bit - not to change anything, just to tighten up the writing, like tidying up your house before a guest arrives, I guess - and then I sent him the link with trepidation, wondering how he'd react to some of the things I've said over the last few months, wondering if he would freak or think I was too weird or angsty or whatever. Then I decided I didn't care, and that i would be cool with him reading the journal. But he sent me an email this afternoon saying that he "respected my privacy" and therefore wouldn't be reading the journal after all, apart from the two recent entries which he had already read.

Bah... He probably just wanted to read the bits about himself, like any typical male... and they say females are the curious ones! But if the shoe was on the other foot, I wouldn't be able to help myself; my philosophy is "curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought him back". So I guess the real question is - is he a man of his word? Or will he peek? Hehe.

• Eating/Drinking: bbq chicken, yum :)
• Wearing: sequin denim skirt, white shirt, pink cardigan, white knee socks with pink stars.
• Feeling: tired and giddy

Tuesday 17/02/04 8:59pm

Yesterday was very full-on for me. I was afraid it would turn out badly, because of some weird stuff that happened earlier on, but everything went surprisingly smoothly.

As I was waiting to catch the train to the city, a crow flew onto the tracks in front of me and started... well, "crowing" plaintively. I've never seen a crow up close before, although I can't help but hear their annoying shrieks in the distance, and this freaked me right the hell out. I felt singled out. It was looking right at me, like it knew too much. The logical side of me hates to admit it, but I'm really quite superstitious. I'm always seeing signs and omens in everything.

And when I was walking to work (which is right next to the Channel 10 building) I inadvertently walked onto the set of a television commercial, and was asked to step to one side because they were getting ready to do a take. The girl who approached me was wearing a bright orange vest and I could hear the whole thing through her walkie talkie, it was pretty cool.

"Okay... and... action! Okay drive towards us... okay now slow down... okay now stop... and that's a wrap!"

But despite the surreal start, the rest of my day was boring in comparison. I handled my first day in the call centre well, considering I'd made the decision not to have anyone sitting with me like a lot of the new people did. And today was even easier. I'm getting the hang of things faster than I thought I would, and it's actually easy to deal with the customers. Not everyone is angry or bent on making my working day a living hell, some people are quite nice and just want to do a simple transaction on their accounts and are really polite about it.

We have promotions and competitions within the call centre, and one at the moment is to see who can sell the most of a particular product. It would be fun to try for the prize, which is a voucher for Flight Centre. I've been thinking of going away for the weekend after we get our whole month's pay in March. So the voucher might come in handy if I go somewhere locally. I'd love to check out Melbourne for the weekend, but I wouldn't mind going back to Canbera either. Maybe I should get a Frequent Fliers account, try to save up some points.

Wanna hear something ironic? The guy who didn't call? He called today - 1 1/2 weeks after the date. To be honest I did like him at the time, and I thought we got along okay, but I didn't feel like we really clicked. I think I was just obsessing over it so much because it was an easier (and more familiar) thing to stress over than starting a new job - plus I hate to feel "dissed". But I'm totally happy with the way things are going with Guppy, which I won't discuss here in detail except to say that it's escalated nicely from a friendship into something a bit more (how much more remains to be seen), but I will say that it is so nice to find someone I can really be myself around. I mentioned something earlier about "playing the game", well with Gupps I don't feel like I have to. I am who I am and he takes me at face value, or seems to at least. I guess he is a little weird himself so that always helps! :P

Anyway I am tired and I have some stuff to do still, I want to try to get an early night so I won't write anymore tonight.

• Eating/Drinking: pink lemonade... hmmm... do we have any chocolate?
• Wearing: 3/4 sleeve green/beige shirt, brownish-orange "snakeskin" pants, rainbow toe sox - and yes I did go to work dressed like that (ah the joys of working in a call centre, think about that the next time you talk to a CSR.)
• Feeling: contemplatively happy
• Listening to: wish I could find my Meteora CD