Relentless
This week seems to be going on indefinitely. I’m sure there’s an end to it somewhere, but I’m not entirely sure where that might be. It probably doesn’t help that I’ve been head-down on development this week – making changes to perhaps the biggest code-base I ever worked on, and for a huge client. It’s the project I worked on a couple of years ago – the one with tens of thousands of lines of code. Working on it scares me. I have one more day scheduled on it – tomorrow – and need to get the changes into production. It’s going to be a “fun” (read:stressful) day.
Change of subject – I’ve written enough about nerdy rubbish recently.
I forgot to mention that we took Miss 14 to her school “options” evening last night. For those in different school systems, or elsewhere in the world, in the UK children learn a fixed curriulum of set subjects until they are 14 years old (year 9). Towards the end of year 9 they get to choose a number of the subjects they will study over the next two years towards their first formal examinations (GCSEs). They don’t get to choose ALL of their subjects – English Literature, English Language, Maths, Physical Education (as a non exam subject), and “Combined Science” are compulsory. They can however fill the rest of their timetable with subjects of their own choosing. Miss 14 seems interested in doing History, Citizenship, Physical Education (as an exam subject), and Food Tech – so we spent a couple of hours wandering around the school with her, talking to the various subject teachers. I felt sorry for them having to work incredibly late, and very probably having the same conversation a hundred times.
She desperately wants to join the police when she is older. She has always wanted to be in the police, right from when she was little. She watches “fly on the wall” documentaries on YouTube day in, day out, and never passes a police officer in the street without making conversation with them. When we had to call the police at home recently, I think she thought all of her christmases had come at once – asking the officer sitting on our couch 101 questions about police training college, the law, and what it’s really like. He was wonderful with her – taking her very seriously, and talking very earnestly and enthusiastically about her prospects.
Tonight was “Youth Club” – she was dropped off at 8pm, and I wandered up at 9:30pm to pick her up – wondering what a group of 14 to 17 year olds might get up to in the local youth centre. I discovered Miss 14 on the hard football pitch outside, playing as goalie among two teams of older boys. As I approached she made a fantastic save, and several of the boys cheered her name – giving her high fives. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her smile so much.
Oh – nearly forgot – I got all my hair cut off this morning. When I arrived at work, one of my co-workers exclaimed “JESUS! Are you joining the army?!”. I didn’t think it was THAT short – but it is pretty short. I’ve grown to hate having long hair. Once upon a time I had hair down to my shoulders, and learned that having almost no hair was preferrable to washing and drying it every damn morning.
While getting my hair cut, I almost caused the girl cutting it to wet herself laughing. The salon was quiet, so all the girls working there ended up standing around talking to me while drinking coffee – I think I was the first customer in the door. Somehow the subject turned to me being all-too-used to being surrounded by women, given that I live in a house with four women.
“I think living with four women got a lot easier when I realised that no matter what I do, or what I say, it will always be wrong in some way or another.”
Like I said – she nearly had an accident.
As I said – while the one girl was cutting my hair, her co-workers appeared one-by-one. The last to arrive was probably the most distracting of the lot. I hate to label people, but she had curves bursting out all over place, wore revealing clothes, had bleached hair, perfect makeup, and… well… she looked like a porn star. I don’t mean that in a horrible way – I just mean she looked like she couldn’t possibly be real. If I had met her as a teenager, I would have stumbled over words and made a fool of myself – of course as an adult you realise that she just spent an hour on her perfect appearance before leaving the house, and probably lives in the gym for several hours a week. Nobody gets to look like she did by accident.
She had noticed my bike chained up outside, and asked about it. I volunteered that if I didn’t cycle to work every day, my backside would quite probably form it’s own gravity. She nearly spilled her coffee.
I wish the rest of the day had been just as entertaining, but as mentioned earlier, it was filled with JavaScript, and endless phone calls while attempting to decypher requirements, expectations, and the location of the ark of the covenant.
Tomorrow is Friday. Tomorrow is Friday. Repeat after me – tomorrow is Friday.