Not only am I now earning money and working full-time (albeit on a temporary basis), but I’m also making some serious cash. For two days of training I’ve just earned about £100. Minus tax, of course. I guess it’s only once you start losing so much cash to the government that it really pisses you off whenever you see it being wasted.

It’s all been a bit of a laugh, despite the boring work that all involves a custom-designed database system to handle Vodafone’s customer information. Lots of staring at grey boxes on computer screens. But the training has been fairly straightforward, and I’m just thankful that the company of the other trainees has been interesting enough to keep me awake!

In fact, it turns out two other Whitgiftians are also working in the same batch, Rayhan and Greg. But even stranger than that was to discover that the spiky-haired guy in my training pool was Toby, an old friend of mine from primary school who I hadn’t seen for about seven years! So I’ve had an interesting bunch to keep me entertained and to hang out with over lunch breaks (which today ended up being a pint at The George…just because) and so forth. So it’s all good. Boring, yes, but I’m earning enough that whenever it gets too dull I can just close my eyes and think of all the wonderful goodies I’ll be spending it on…

Yesterday’s pre-Hallowe’en party was low-key but enjoyable, especially getting to see certain friends after a long while. Unfortunately, at Alexia’s request, Chris’ dance-mats made an appearance (so the danger has spread beyond his own house it seems…they’re portable!) and were completely destructive to any spooky atmosphere that Sophie’s glowing carved pumpkin may have lent the room. My “costume” which consisted of a suit & fangs was received with the right sense of humour when I extravagantly introduced myself as a “bloodsucking lawyer”. Yes, it was poor. But so poor that you had to laugh.

Sleepy Hollow was the film of the evening, played through Chris’ PS2 (after the worrying discovery that Sophie couldn’t play DVDs in that room). It received varying levels of approval, good from those actually watched the film, and bad from those who chatted the entire way through. Funny that…

TRIVIA: did you know that “Benjy’s” tends to hire all the Russians in Croydon?