12 weeks gone - almost half way

It occured to me this week that I was more or less half way through my Leicester Life Adventure. Instead of a recap or even a plan for the remainder of my time here, I thought I'd just record a typical week for me here. What will happen to this blog at the end of my time in Leicester? I expect it will close or maybe transform into a different life story?

Monday
Left London later than usual at 7:15am, I'm now based at the HQ which is on the outskirts of Leicester and not such a trek into the city centre as the other office. I pulled into the office at 8:50am - not bad, the drive was less than 2 hours. I was supposed to be training today but last week the 'business' decided they did not want so many of their staff out at training at the same time so the courses have been cut back for 4 weeks by about 80% and I only have a 3 hour evening course to train on Wednesday. So instead, I spent loads of time on the internet, generally surfing and updating my blog. At lunchtime, I went out to the shops with my colleague, 'HR', the 21yr old (she sticks to me wherever I go now). She's getting married and wanted to pick up some whisky from Asda. She's only known the guy for 2 weeks before they decided to get married a month ago. Maybe that's the Indian style. She really wants me to attend and has given me a beautiful hot pink and gold embroidered sari to wear at the engagement in March. Me in a Sari! Should be interesting. I'm not showing my fat tummy that's for sure. Left work at 5:40pm after an end of day meeting for 'meeting sake' considering most of us trainers did 'jack all' all day. The HQ is only 15mins from home so it was nice to get back home before 6pm. Had a jacket potato and beef mince sauce for dinner, chatted with my house mate, watched a bit of telly, updated my blog and browsed online for a bit then retired at 7:45pm.

Monday's are usually hard for me because I wake very early (5am), drive 90 miles, do a day's work before getting home so I tend to be ready for bed by 8pm. However I got on the phone with my friend Kemi and ended up chatting for over 2 hours. Then Tunji called. I prayed and read my bible a bit. I finally got to sleep about 11pm.

Tuesday
Due to the cut back in courses, I had nothing specific to do today. I'm training for 3 hours tomorrow eveing, so at some point I'd have to get my act together and go over my materials. Strangely, I've been on the verge of tears for most of yesterday and now today. Almost like I feel I need a good cry to get stuff out of my system... only I'm not sure what the 'stuff' is. After lunch I settled down to do some work when I noticed bride-to-be HR and another colleague CG discussing the 'cry baby' from a few weeks ago, AR. They were saying how terrible AR's training was, what negative comments were coming from her delegates and how useless she was in a nutshell. AR and HR are supposed to be best buddies and had no problem ganging up together against me when I first started. I was disgusted and asked both CG and HR how they expected their 'feedback' to help her if they were going to be discussing her behind her back. In short, what was the essence of their conversation and what exactly what it supposed to achieve? They have both been in training with AR and are best placed to offer legitimate feedback so she can improve on her flaws... but what do they do? Snip and Snipe...backbiting with abandon. I imagine that is the last time they will backbite anyone in my presence.

Got home nice and early, had a Spaghetti with King Prawn and Spinach frozen meal for dinner. It was nice but I could have done with another pack to be honest. Watched the repeat of American Idol with my housemate/landlady Louise which was hilarious. We are slowly building up a friendship which is nice. Slow is good. I'm not in any rush. She's invited me to come along with her, her Mum and sister to watch the latest Judi Dench/Cate Blanchett film. How nice... I'm planning to be up late tonight because I don't need to be in work till 1pm for my evening training class. I'm obsessed with downloading music for my phone media player (Nokia N73) as well as discovering the fascinating world of other bloggers and spent a good few hours doing that. A few long phone conversations with Tunji, my sister and friends and I finally dragged myself off to bed by 2:15am.

Wednesday
I woke just after 9am and was about to jump out of bed in a panic when I remembered I was not due into work until 1pm today... ahhhh! It reminded me of my good old days as a stay-at-home Mum. Kitan was my alarm clock, he'll come into my room about 8am, we'll have a cuddle in my bed for 30 mins or so, maybe read a book, play a game then make our way downstairs about 9:30am for breakfast. Oh well. I popped my eyemask back over my eyes and settled in for another snooze. I woke up again about 10:30am to find my period had started. Drats! That's why I was feeling so weepy and touchy about the gossipping yesterday. I had to get up, take a shower and after faffing around a bit, having breakfast, I got into work by 1pm. Everywhere was white with snow.

I was training today so I was all suited up and focused on getting all I needed ready. The last thing I needed was a 2pm meeting about how we needed to improve our communication as a team. The one hour meeting was still going on at 4pm! I had training at 6pm and still had lots to do. I make an excuse to go to the loo and never returned to the meeting. 15 mins to 6pm, I realised I had not yet been given the manuals the delegates were supposed to use. I went to one of the managers, Karen, and asked her for the manuals. She asked me when I needed them for to which I replied "Now". She said "Oh, I told Fran (the senior manager guy) that the manuals for course 5 and 6 would not be delivered". I asked why and she said "Because we thought the course was next week". I was furious! It's all well and good for him to have a two and a half hour meeting about communication but how hard was it for Fran to check the schedule (that he designed) see who was training and COMMUNICATE to me that there was a problem with the delegate materials? They made the schedule. Why would they then think the course was next week? I have never seen a Training Programme organised in such a shoddy and incompetence manner. There are more managers than are neccessary, they don't do any actual real work and no one takes responsibility for everything. I made my views very clear to her and to my manager - "This is just not ON". "If I was half way to London instead of being here for training and gave you the excuse of I thought the course was next week, how would they like that?" Anyway, I calmed down and went into my class to train.

HR, my little puppy, had offered to be in the class with me incase I needed anything. Before we started, I said to her "Let's pray" - she was surprised, but I said "You're marrying a Christian aren't you, you need to learn how to pray", so we prayed. The training started and went really well, the evaluation forms received gave excellent feedback and I was very pleased. As we were packing up, I said to HR "You see, prayer works".

I got home about 9:30pm, watched the last 30mins on 'Five Days' with my sister (she was on the phone), ate dinner - sausages with mash, steamed veg and gravy - chatted with friends, Tunji and my other sister on the phone, went online for a bit and went to bed about midnight.

Thursday
I was supporting HR in her training session tonight so I was not due in till 1pm again today. I woke up with a splitting headache. I thought I was going to die. I could not move in bed and lay there until I felt able to get up. It was almost 10:30am. I knew I needed to pray. My prayer life was deteriorating from bad to worse and I was allowing anything and everything distract me from spending time in prayer. I struggled out of bed and tried to pray but could not. I could not form the words, my head was banging so much. I got my phone and went online to the MFM website. They have a list of prayer points and I selected the prayer "For Spiritual Growth". It was like being drenched in cool refreshing water. I still was not feeling 100% but felt well enough to get ready for work and drive in. When I got in, everyone was asking if I had calmed down from the day before. Obviously someone had exagerrated the whole incident and it looked like I had had a raging fit. "Ofcourse I'm calm" I replied sweetly. I was still feeling very ill and spent the day quietly. My manager came to me and asked how last night's training had gone. I said "Very well!" He said the feedback he had got was that it had not gone well and the delegates felt they had not interacted enough. I said "Really?" Luckily, I was holding the evaluation forms from the night before and gave them to him. One of the delegates had specifically written "It was really good with lots of time given for interaction". My so-called helper, HR, had gone and given him a bad report of the night before. I went to her and asked her, when she had a minute, to give me the same feedback she had given the manager. She went all flustered saying "He just asked me how it went and if we went on the system and I said No we did not go on the system and when he asked me why I said because there was not enough time" - I said to her "the reason we did not go on the system was because they did not have the right log ons to access the system not because there was not enough time". I was too tired and too ill to care really. I leave them all in God's hands. I struggled to stay the rest of the evening, I sat in with HR during her training as agreed but had very little input. Thank God tomorrow is Friday.

Friday
I woke up feeling even worse than yesterday. I had a pounding headache, my mouth was bitter and my ankles, knees and legs in general were aching. I called Tunji for some TLC but had to rudely cut him midway through his 'sweet nothings' when I saw a call from my Mum in Nigeria trying to get through. I know he will stress me about that later. Anyway, considering I'm being paid daily for the days I do work, I'd have to be pretty close to death to be physically in Leicester and call in sick. If I was already in London, yes, no problem calling in sick but not when I'm in Leicester. Plus, I still had to find the strength to drive back home that afternoon. I took my shower following my usual Friday shower routine - Luxurious Shea Butter body scrub vigourously all over my body then Clinique face scrub on my face and neck. This routine leaves me with silky soft smooth skin ready for my weekend at home. I was on my period but I followed my routine anyway. I had breakfast then headed for work getting in at 8:45am. Due to the hiccups with the training schedule and despite being paid for the whole week, I've only had to do 3 hours actual work. At this rate, David Beckham and I will be on the same hourly rate! Oh well! I'm not complaining. I wasn't feeling very well anyway but slowly getting better, so I took things easy, went over my training for next week - only 3 hours scheduled again! Surfed the internet, had a long lunch, larked around with my 'little girls' - HR and AR. Then at 3pm I asked my manager if I could leave, he said yes and off I went. Like last week, I stayed on the motorway throughout instead of getting off at Junction 12 and going through the back roads. Again it paid off and I drove into my drive an hour and a half later at 4:30pm! As I got out of the car, I could hear my baby crying from inside the house. Home Sweet Home.