~ ANNE! ~

Man, am I ever tired. This has been a very strange week, and I'm quite impressed I made it through. Of course I worked straight from 11 pm till 4 am Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday because of working two jobs. Thursday I got some proper sleep, but on Friday they asked at work if I'd mind working Saturday (today). I said yes, of course, wanting the money, but then decided to go out for a pint anyway since it was Friday night (and in celebration of surviving the week). You guessed it, I ended up staying out till 2:30 am and am exhausted again today. Will be going home shortly for a nap!

I stopped by the agency yesterday to drop off my timesheet. They asked if I could work again at the same place next week - apparently they requested me by name. I was flattered and said yes. Then I walked out of there and thought, "WHAT did I just agree to??" So I called back and left a message saying I couldn't work Wednesday. I'm doing the Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday night shifts at the hostel again and it would just be too much. Besides being tired all the time I'm starting to feel run down, and my skin's broken out more than it has since I was a teenager. Can't be a good sign.

Of course, that might be my diet. We get all-we-can-eat free food twice a day, and the breakfast food is of course a fry. (This confused me at first. At home a "fry" would be one French fry, which here is referred to as a "chip". Took me second at first when people would come in and say "Give me a fry" -they just want the whole {fried} works for breakfast). (It also confused me when they ordered a "round of toast", toast being square. It just means a piece, apparently). Anyway, so I've been eating far too much grease I'm sure, and definitely far too many scones. Today, in fact, we had bacon sandwiches (in England this would be called a "bacon butty", but not in Ireland) for lunch, and I couldn't refuse because Frances made them up specially for the rest of us. Mmmmm, three pieces of bacon on heavily buttered toast. No wonder the bad skin!

I had some lady who came into the cafeteria this week tell me a had a "wee bit of a Northern Irish accent". I have no idea where she got this, as many independent sources have confirmed that I still sound very Canadian! However, I do find I'm saying things like "Hand me my wee jumper", which would earn you a blank look in Canada. I think partly it's just that working with Irish girls all day, you start to pick up their speech patterns. It just makes communication more effective, plus people like you better if you sound like them. You start to pick up the cadence of their speech, the lilt that's very pronounced around here. I met a guy from BC who'd been living here for the last five years. It was hilarious, because he still pronounced things with a Canadian accent, but his speech patterns and cadences were pure Belfast.

Ooh, I saw Shrek 2 yesterday. Quite liked it, though not as much as the first one really. I love that movies are so cheap here compared to London, not that I have time to go see many. I am going to try and hit Harry Potter at some point, though.

I walked home with Magda the Polish girl from the kitchen yesterday. She told me she's working two jobs as well, but in her case it's because she has TWO POUNDS to her name. It's a good thing we get free food at work, because otherwise I don't know how she'd survive. She gets paid this week, though. She also doesn't have a washing machine, so after both her shifts she scrubs out her clothes... I offered the use of mine, not that I think she'll take me up on it. She seems really cool, though there's a large language barrier. She told me she got into med school, but can't afford to go so she'll do pharmacy instead till she has the cash. I was pretty impressed by her guts.