So, the time has come when I need to find a job again. Well, not need, technically, but definitely should before my brain and body completely atrophy. I was going to get in touch with the agency today, but I remembered I was going to give blood, and that's scary enough without being stressed by job-hunting, so I've left that till tomorrow. Then I get the delights of trying to persuade them to put me forward for a job at the same level as the one I had last time, rather than a level above. Agencies never want to do that. They assume everyone has high-flying career aspirations rather than just wanting a semi-senior number-cruncher position that pays enough to live on. I'm sure I can't be the only accountant who doesn't want to become a financial director some day (they're always posh and almost always completely useless, so I don't think I'd be qualified).
Anyway, giving blood was fun. I filled in a form detailing all the diseases I haven't got, all the disease-infected people I haven't had sex with and so on, got talked through the whole procedure at staggering length, had a needle stuck in my finger and a drop of blood dropped into a test tube of green stuff. It did what it's supposed to, so then I went into the other room to lie down and have a whole lot more precious blood drained out of me.
The nurse put one of those inflatable squeezy things around my upper arm, and poked around at my elbow for quite some time, looking for a vein. "Hmm," he said, "there's one there, but it's quite deep. John, have you got a second?"
Another nurse in a swankier uniform came over, did the same thing with the squeezy inflatable thingy, poked my elbow and said "Hmm, there's one there, but it's quite deep." Exact same inflection, too. They must teach them to say that in nurse school. It seems my veins aren't in the same place as other people's, but the more important nurse found one on the side that worked fine. So it was just a matter of sticking another sharp thing into me, connecting it up to a scary-looking tube (which I tried not to look at too closely), lying around until it had finished, lying around for another fifteen minutes to make sure I didn't collapse or anything, commiserating with original nurse, who's a Sheffield Wednesday fan, about the terrible performances of our respective teams this season, having a cup of orange squash and a couple of biscuits and going home. Safe in the knowledge that I've done a Good Deed for the day. I can just hear my dad saying "You'll get your reward in heaven, old boy." I don't know why he always said that, since he wasn't religious in the slightest, but he did.
Since I don't think I've been quite boastful enough yet tonight, can I just talk about my othello game against Imre on Saturday? I've been looking at it with WZebra, on its highest setting, and it reckons I played just about as close to a perfect game as I ever have. I was a couple of discs ahead all the way through and just kept that lead, playing the good move every time. A couple of mistakes in the endgame, but he didn't find the line to punish me for them. I'm seriously happy with this game.
Also today (for a day when I've done nothing, it's been busy, hasn't it?) I won a set of dominoes in a tombola in the shopping centre. Woo.
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