This weekend's things to do list...

1. Get an appointment at the opticians. This is top priority, since it involves leaving the house.

2. Email Boots and tell them that an expression of regret at them ballsing up isn't enough and I want the missing piece from that fucking jigsaw. (No, seriously. A magnetic globe jigsaw, and the middle of Africa's missing.)

3. Write around various high schools for work experience.

4. Sort out all that goddamn paperwork littering my room. Bin as much as possible, sort out the rest.

5. Tidy room in general.

6. Test the weapons stats I've written for Smog & Mirrors. I finished the generic armoury last night, and did the Brigantian and Goethian military arsenals last week. Now I need to see if the weapons (particularly the hand-to-hand ones) are at the right lethality level. A few dry-runs against human targets, with and without armour, should do it.

Hmmm

You know how at the LURPS hustings I said that it was highly unlikely that I was going to get into St. Martin's this time around?

Well, I got a letter from St. Martin's this afternoon, asking me to come for an interview on the 27th of April.

Wow. Both my short-term and long-term plans have been altered by this.

Short Term:

I'm going to have to do two weeks observation in a secondary school classroom. I'm going to write around to Lancaster schools, as well as my old school, Darwen Moorland High School.

This will mean cancelling two weeks worth of work sometime in April. So there's a financial blow there as well. I'll have to try and schedule it for the fortnight when I'm working least.

And arrange something with the job centre, for the day when I have to sign on.

Also in the short term, the Writers' Guild production (in which I'm acting in a play and performing a monologue) is roughly a week after the interview, and I know which of the two events I'm going to be rehearsing for the most...

I can handle the play, easily. I only have about three lines in it. The monologue, though, I was having a rehearsal with Dean this afternoon when I realised how difficult it'd be to polish up both this and the interview. I think it's pretty likely that the monologue will have to be read out on the night (albeit theatrically). I certainly won't drop it entirely, because it's a good piece and deserves to be performed.


Long Term (assuming I pass the interview and get onto the course):

Mish raised the issue of me doing a PGCE when I stood for election last year, and Doug re-raised the issue this year. I'm still confident that I can both study for a PGCE and fulfil my mandated promises as LURPS Tabletop Rep, but I think some people will be less confident in that.

I won the election by a good margin, and I think I owe it to the society to do my best in the role. The position also means too much for me to give it up just in case the PGCE detracts from my ability to do the job.

If I get onto the course, I might not have the time to GM, or maybe even to game at all, but I'm not going to let the society down. I'll jump if it harms the society, but I'm staying in my seat until then.