Still Chewing That Frog

Yes, yes, I've been away 'forever'. I've been dying to blog but never finding the right moment. I've been away from the Kabbalah Centre but never truly away from the Kabbalah Centre. Kabbalah has never left me. Sometimes I wish it would.

Sometimes I wish that I didn't know that Cause = Effect, that every action has an equal reaction. Sometimes I wish that in the moment where I am struck down with fear at work, that I don't feel as though an invisible being is scribbling my response in a notebook and shaking his head. Tut, tut, failed once again. Sometimes I wish that I could walk past beggars on the street and not feel truly guilty when I don't put my hand in my purse and find them some change.

As you can see, I am still working on being a little bit easier on myself. All the same, sometimes I have my head in the clouds so much that it begs belief.

I saw a blind person on the platform of the tube the other day and I watched them in wonder. "How amazing they are" I thought. "How admirable that they can find their way around without being able to see. I would never be able to cope in the way that they do, and Beezrat Hashem, I hope I never have to prove that statement"

Whilst I am watching in silent respect, a woman approaches the blind man from the other side and says "Excuse me, would you like some help getting on the train?"

The blind man turns towards her and says "Thank you so much, that's so kind of you to offer help"

And I am left standing there feeling like a right selfish muppet. I just didn't think to ask.

Last night brought a short-lived redemption when I was asked by a woman in a car the direction to Muswell Hill. I gave her directions, remotely proud that I was able to assist. Until she pulled away from the lights and I realised that going straight on instead of turning right would have been a much quicker and more direct route. *sigh*

Anyhow, my latest challenge is my tax return. No, not my tax return for 2010-2011, but the one for the year before.

Being self employed whilst having no real fixed address and no real business to speak of was a bit of a mistake, so it seems. Add crippling depression to that list and you have a recipe for disaster. But somehow I thought that if I stuck my head firmly in the sand, that the tax office would somehow overlook me and I would slide under the radar.

Hmm. How wrong can I be? They caught up with me.

There is something about tax returns and everything financial that makes me a) feel totally sick and b) act completely irresponsibly. With my lack of financial prowess, Long Live P.A.Y.E., I say.

But I couldn't put it off any longer, so I took the day off work to sort out my tax return once and for all, having received the form for the last year and having printed off the one for the year before.

I am going to get this done early in the day, so that it is out of the way, I said to myself, after which I am going to feel a wonderful sense of liberation and relief!!

Yeah, right.

I woke up late and started procrastinating. I had a lazy breakfast. I watched a little bit of TV (because it was a day booked as Holiday, after all). And then I started to go through my email, and came across an article on Procrastination. Touché, Light I said. I read the email. s-l-o-w-l-y... (not that I am in the habit of dragging anything out, of course).

The email contained a link to this rather fabulous little video:

Eat That Frog! Movie: "There's an old saying that says... "If the first thing you do when you wake up in the morning is eat a live frog, then nothing worse can happen for the rest of the day!" Do what needs to be done, when it needs to be done, whether you want to or not."

Even though it was nearly 2pm, I decided that better late than never, and I started eating that frog. Gingerly. I started nibbling its toes by digging out my paperwork, and gave its rump a good lick calculating all of my income and the dates for the past two years.

And it is nearly 7pm and I have only just completed the self-assessment portion of my first tax return. What a nightmare. This frog tastes like shit. I am reading the handy notes as I go through:

20% writing down allowance

Where you have spent more than £50,000 in a year on equipment, or (on or after 6 April 2009) you have purchased a car with CO2 emissions of 160g/km or less, add all the expenditure together to make a ‘main pool’ of costs. Deduct:

• any Annual Investment Allowance (AIA) up to £50,000 (excluding any cars) that you are including in box 22

• any equipment that qualifies for 10% or 100% allowances

• any items which go into a separate pool.

Add the value of any main pool from the previous year, less the value of any disposals you have made during the year.

You can then claim a writing down allowance (WDA) of 20% of the remaining pool value. For example, if you have spent £70,000 on equipment and have claimed £50,000 of this as AIA, the balance of £20,000 qualifies for a 20% annual allowance of £4,000, which should be included in box 24. The amount remaining in the main pool after the 20% allowance has been deducted should be carried forward to the following year.

Excuse me, but WTF?? Is it possible to get these notes in English? If this is Tax Return 101, then give me The Dummies' Guide instead.

Anyhow, I'm not going to bed until it's done and until I have completed my second bugbear task of changing all of my addresses. It's going to be a late night.

I imagine I shall feel ever so slightly sick from eating too much frog in one day, but who knows, perhaps the after-taste will be worth it.

Procrastination, continued...

Okay, okay, so nobody's perfect. But I'm doing my best. Well, maybe I'm not quite doing my best, but I'm planning to later on. I promise.

I've found a job that I am really interested in applying for. I have just about all of the skills in some areas, and more than the skills in others. It's for a really good charitable organisation. I am fired up. I can see myself in this role.

And here is my downfall. I can so much see myself in this role that the thought of not getting an interview is giving me the shakes. So I really need to get the application right. And as the application doesn't have to be in until next week, I am spending more time than would be required by any normal person. (Then again, who said I was 'normal'...)

So I haven't actually completed any of the fields on the application form. Not yet. But when I do, man, it's going to be impressive - they won't be able to turn me down, surely? But I promise you that everything I have done during the day is working towards creating a blinding application and preparing me for interview.

First of all, I printed out the application form, job description and equal opportunities form, at which point I noticed that the black ink on my printer was Extremely Low. I already ordered the ink when it was 'low' and the packet was waiting to be collected at the local Royal Mail collections office, one train stop away. So before they decided to return it to sender, I thought I ought not procrastinate any more and go and pick it up.

And as the collection office was one train stop away, I pondered the chances of being caught not paying for my fare. I mean, it's one stop, right? On a national rail line, during the middle of the day... So I didn't pay my fare. I wonder if this could count on my CV as an example of Risk Taking? (or whether it would be considered pure theft?)

Anyhow, the train arrived and, lost in my thoughts, I casually boarded in the third carriage. The doors beeped and closed, at which point I surfaced from my dream state for five seconds, looked to the right, and saw halfway down the carriage three men wearing yellow jackets with writing on which read "RAIL ENFORCEMENT OFFICER". Oh. Bugger.

Luckily for me, all three of them were already 'enforcing penalties' on some other risk taker. I'm not sure why it took all three of them, but I'm glad that it did. Muttering a profuse number of prayers in my head, I tried to look as casual as possible whilst willing the next station to appear, considering that shifting from one leg to another with my finger on the 'Door Open' button and muttering 'Come o-o-o-o-on, come o-o-o-o-on' would attract more than a small amount of suspicion. And there were three of them. I'm not sure if it was relief or the thrill of getting away scot free, but I leapt off the train giggling like a schoolgirl.

After wandering halfway round the streets of Bruce Grove (walking past a pub called The Titanic, would you believe) I eventually asked for directions to the parcel office and discovered that it was located just behind the station itself. Next time I will look at Google Maps the right way up. Thankfully a good sense of direction is not required as part of my job role, with the exception of actually getting to the interview.

There were no enforcement officers on the way home, and no, I didn't pay. Evidence that I am proficient in Probability.

When I got home I had the bright idea of contacting a friend to see if I could use his online training account to brush up on some of the technology required for the role. More theft. I shall be punished. I also emailed another friend to ask if she would pull some Help Desk data so that I can see what type of calls I may have to handle. And then I started working through the online training itself.

Everything I've done today (except for the blatant stealing) is all a good foundation for future job roles. Kind of. In any event, it's still one step further than yesterday.

Who knows what tomorrow will bring.

The Fine Art of Procrastination

I am pulling my CV together. Honest. I am closer than I have ever been. In fact, I have created one CV and am now in the process of creating a second one for the type of role that I actually want.

I am way too modest for CV creation to come naturally to me. No, seriously, I am the most modest person going. Out of all of the modest people out there, I am the best. (Hmmm... wonder if I could make that in to a bullet point in my Personal Profile?)

The pain of creating this amazing CV (which will only have to be chopped and changed and buggered about with anyway, so I am not sure exactly why I am giving myself such a hernia over this) has grown so huge that it is remarkable how many other "important" things I am finding to do with my time.

Even on the best day, I am a mental butterfly, lightly landing on a task for, oh, about five minutes before being distracted by the next brightly coloured or shiny thing. My boredom threshold even for the things I love to do is very low. I feel pity for my past boyfriends, who had to deal with 'oh, you're still horny? I am ready for a nice cup of tea' only five minutes after removing our clothes. Or maybe I exaggerate. Perhaps it was ten minutes.

With the absence of a boyfriend, sex is off the list as a distraction, and I find myself taking the art of procrastination to its most mundane level.

• Get up, make cup of coffee.
• Make another cup of coffee.
• Morning meditation.
• Third cup of coffee.
• Get dressed.
• Read email - pick out the emails to respond to later, after creating CV.
• Open CV document.
• Decide to respond to emails now, rather than later. I mean, who knows how long this is going to take?
• Remember to put washing on. Return to laptop.
• Remember to take chicken out of the freezer. Return to laptop.
• Check email again. Oh look, I can respond to this one really quickly. Oh, and this one has a really interesting article.
• Look at CV. Hear stomach rumble. Eat banana and make a cup of tea.
• Decide to quickly check blogs whilst finishing cup of tea.
• Empty washing machine and take time to remove as many creases as possible when placing clothes on dryer.
• Remember that I want to order some books on Amazon, have a very quick search.
• Follow links from recommended titles and end up taking 2 full lessons on how to speak Hebrew. Feel proud that I stopped at 2 lessons, when 4 were free.
• Return to CV, write a couple of lines. Get stuck.
• Check email, just in case. Find another couple of interesting articles.
• Decide to have a break from the computer, back is getting stiff and hand turning in to claw.
• Make another cup of tea. Have brainwave on how to deal with CV format. Promise to instantly return after cup of tea and put changes in place after lunch.
• And after checking email..
• And after checking for updated blogs...

*sigh*

This too, will pass. Just one more check of email...