New jobs are hard.
Who knew?
Today was day eight of my new job and it is proving to be as drastic and difficult an adjustment as I thought, nay feared it would be. To go from an organisation with ten people in the office to an organisation with hundreds in one particular wing alone is a massive change.
Everyone is extremely busy, everyone knows everyone and then there is me... Feeling like a kid on work experience. But that's to be expected, and each day things get slightly easier. I have more to do, more people recognise (/accept?) me and I feel less like the heavier, spottier, 17 year old version of me that endured five miserable days on work experience at the local paper in 2006.
That's not to say I'm rushed off my feet - yet, at least. I'm naturally a quick learner and equally fast worker so I've picked up the bits and bobs that have been sent my way perhaps ahead of time. So I'm offering my help to the team and making lots of teas and coffees (PLEASE BE MY FRIEND). My working day (well, the drive at least) now starts at 7.30am as opposed to 8.30am two weeks ago and a few traffic rages apart, it's been alright. Starting at 8.30am means I can leave at 4.30pm which is glorious - home in time for Pointless.
I'm not going to pretend I am anything other than a long way out of my comfort zone but everyone has to go through this at some stage in their career/life so no complaints from BQ. It's a means to an end, and in five months and two weeks time I will be in a much better position than if I hadn't taken this opportunity.
In other news, I need a new passport. New passports are extortionate. So I'm summing up the courage to part with £72.50 and get that sorted.
Seen as England have remembered how to play cricket, I'm much more excited about travelling thousands of miles to watch them!
I'm also beginning to collect various things for the trip, including a lovely new England Test shirt to wear at Newlands. Fortunately I can't put the name and number curse on it like countless ill-advised LFC related decisions... Messrs Balotelli, Aquilani, Kewell et al. Soz.
All of a sudden, it's only 60 (sixty!) days until I drag myself round the hills of Gateshead and South Shields. Which means it's only 74 Days until Robin Hood Sunday.
So, because I have a degree of sense, I'm picking things up. I ran a steady nine miles last Friday and plan to log a long run every week now until the GNR really. Thankfully, I appear to have retained that good, long distance fitness which means my biggest barrier, as ever, is the impending boredom that running for over an hour creates. Pace wise I'm solid, usually around 7.40min/mile once I get going.
I have decided to run for Balls to Cancer and I'm hoping to raise as much as possible for them. A charity for all forms of male cancer, I thought it would be a great cause to run for. Whilst of course it is not a competition, the male cancer charities seem to get less air time and engagement than the female ones - the wonderful Race for Life and breast cancer initiatives, etc. - so I thought what better cause to choose.
As ever, anything you can spare is genuinely amazing and helps so much during the training and the 11+ mile misery. And I'm doing it TWICE! That's mental.
As a slight aside, I've now racked up a mighty 414 miles this year which means the 600 mile target is going to be smashed by about October!
After the wonderful 'Station Eleven' I began my first ever Stephen King novel and Book #14, '11.22.63' - a story centred on the JFK assassination and what you could do to change the events of that day... If you had the chance.
It turns out, the main character of the story does have the chance through a magical time travelling portal that takes the traveller to 1958 with the ability to live as long as they want in the 'old' world and return to the present day and only lose two minutes. But for every different action and decision in 1958, a butterfly effect follows. The book is long but it is an absolutely stunning piece of literature - one that you actually miss reading when it's finished. Can the president be saved? Can Vietnam be avoided? But what happens to the present day if such pivotal elements of the 20th Century didn't take place? Stunning writing.
Next up on the conveyor belt was Book #15, The Red Dragon by Thomas Harris, the first in the Hannibal Lecter series. I'm a big fan of Hannibal on Sky Living and it was inspired by this book so it was an obvious choice. It was good, much darker than I anticipated (which says a lot) and has whet the appetite to read Silence of the Lambs at some point.
And that's that. Things are going well on the whole. I'd love to press a fast forward button and arrive in six weeks time down the line actually knowing how do to my job and being settled, but alas, such a life hack isn't available just yet.
