Fate: 157895342, Slinky: 0. Again.

The lack of updates is because I've been moping. Or sulking. I'm not sure which yet. Probably an unhealthy combination of both.

How is it that I never learn that if something is really good, chances are it's only there because Fate likes it when she waves it under my nose and my eyes cross with ecstasy and it makes her laugh when I fall flat on my face after she whisks it away?

It is back to worrying about my finances, it's back to mince instead of steak, and back to a strictly rationed budget where every extra dollar makes me break out in a cold sweat because it brigns me closer to a potential final leg of my degree trying to juggle my academic demands while eating only bread (baked beans are expensive) and trying to convince my car that it can run on fermented bread crusts.

I was told on Monday that the roster would be finalized by this week. I hadn't heard anything by Friday so I called the clinic's manager. And was told that they'd interviewed someone who had just moved from Melbourne, and they're taking her because she can take a full-time position.

Please note that up to that juncture, they'd given me the impression that they were perfectly happy to work around my classes and I had told them repeatedly that barring Thursdays and Sundays, I was happy to work as often as I could. I was repeatedly assured that they were very pleased with my performance thus far, and they never told me that they were interviewing candidates. So basically, after two days, I've been bumped off without so much as an apology or by your leave.

I promptly endured the half hour to the city to buy myself a pack of cigarettes. Yeah, I fell off the wagon.

It galls me that they didn't at least have the decency to call me and tell me when they decided to hire the nurse from Melbourne, and instead waited until I had naively called them to ask what the roster was like for this week to tell me airily that actually, there wasn't space for me on the roster. Their words exactly.

I know I spent a large part of a previous post complaining. But truth to tell, it was damn close to perfect, that job. I never felt the seven hours I worked there each shift because it was always something I enjoyed, it had unbelievable perks (see puppies below?), the location was fantastic, the people were great (I revise my opinion of at least one of them now though *shakes fist at branch manager*) and I could stop worrying about money ALL THE DAMNED TIME.

Back to worrying. My shoulders have seized up again.