Confound it all!

Had a rather fun day yesterday shambling round the zoo dressed as a plague spirit, but I shall write a post about that in a few days when Ive uploaded the pic.

Today, unfortunatly, I want to rant. For years, I have studied Psychology and dreamt of a career profiling. Recently, I have been in touch with a few well-known and respected intellectual types who state their specialism is Offender Profiling and asked them for career advice, or at least some good literature to point me in the right direction. I shall quote the first line of the reply email I recieved of one of them...

"Profiling isn't really a career, and often doesn't pay!....My new book provides useful information on profiling".

Now please, answer this question for me. If it is not a career, which everyone keeps telling me it isn't, and if it doesn't pay...how on earth do they make a living out of it? It is kind of disheartening to listen to all these profilers, people who I aspire to work alongside one day, tell me it is not a career.

Firstly, I knew it wasn't a career in the UK anyway. The advice I asked for was how did they get involved in it. They all started their careers doing one thing, but at some point, alongside the rest of their work, they started profiling. What is disheartening to me is that no-one seems to want to talk about it. It's as if they're saying to me, "Well I've managed to do it, but I don't want you coming along and stealing my work and limelight so I'm just gonna tell you it's not a career and maybe you'll be put off."

Well I won't be. It's making me more determined. I shall make it my life's work to make Offender Profiling a career here in the UK, just as it is in the US. One small change though. In the US profilers work with the FBI and have to train to become an agent first. We don't have an FBI but not everyone is going to want to train as a policeofficer to become a profiler...i certainly don't! It baffles me why the UK doesn't seem to want to take full advantage of the help profiling can provide. The one thing we SHOULD follow America in doing...and we don't...and there's no explanation why.

Secondly, It's not a career but they're quick to promote their books on the subject. Maybe that's how they make their money...writing about it instead of trying to do it. Well it provides false hope as people are led to believe they can go out and train for this as a career. And, like me, get told that they can't. It's so frustrating.

Ok, That's my rant over with today. My next post will be a bit more interesting...i promise you :-)

Cocktails, Coursework and All You Can Eat

Well, I've had a busy few days! Tuesday was the other half's 25th birthday. We all teased him about being a quarter of a century. No doubt he'll get his own back on me in a few years time. To celebrate, we popped down to the local Weatherspoons after he finished work for a few drinks. Since I was driving I only had the one to toast him, and he ended up having a pitcher of blue lagoon cocktail all to himself.

He seems partial to these cocktails, but he's more of a larger drinker and doesn't handle spirits all to well. And he paid the extra for the double shots of vdoka! When we got back he curled up on the sofa, hands between his knees and closed his eyes. Me and his mate (drunk on a mix of amaretto and stolen blue lagoon from the pitcher) were starving but had to wait for him to feel better before we could order take-out. He couldn't decide what to have that wouldnt make him sick so settled for putting a DVD on...why do things seem logical when you're under the influence?!?!

I went to bed early as I had an early start, but found him at 6am fast alseep on the sofa cuddling a cushion, Iron Man 2 going unwatched on the telly. I hated to disturb him but knew he'd complain about a crick in his neck all day if he stayed there, though it is funny to wake drunk people up.

The next day was the eventful one. After taking his hungover mate to work at 10am, we had to drive to Willenhall to pick up a part for his broken scooter, drop that back to the person fixing the bike, and finally go food shopping. Time I was doing coursework he decided to actually finish watching Iron Man 2, and promptly fell asleep 20minutes into it. I won't go into details about the film for those of you who haven't seen it, but I shall say after a good build up with some good action, that last fight is over way to quickly and is a disappointing abrupt end. I did rather enjoy Mickey Rouke's part, and admired his thick Russian accent. I still believe he looks better when he's bulked up, like he did for Expendables. The extra muscle suits him more.

After the film, we had to run back down to the mate who's fixing his bike as we forgot to give him the spark plug! Took the dog this time and had a cup of tea while she played with his dog, which is her sister so playing gets quite rough. Wednesday evening, after Sleeping Beauty had woken up after his second nap and I had manically sat typing up my coursework, we went for a meal with his family to a Asian all you can eat restaurant. He loves his Indian, I love my chinese.

I did have plans to dress up a bit and do something with my hair, but I forgot I had to walk the dog and so ran out of time. Throughly enjoyed the meal, came home feeling stuffed fit to bursting!

There wasn't a lot to chose from in the chinese section, primarily sweet and sour...which I adore!!! Though a bit more variety would have been nice.

At the end of the meal the waiters came over and gave us girlies all a rose each (which we were delighted to discover was real!!) and helped us with our coats.

The future sis-in-law models her rose. We embarressed her by pointing out that was her first rose given to her by a man. Bless her. This reminds me..2 days later and I still haven't remembered to fetch mine out of the car! It's been so cold recently it's probably ok. I hope...

I would like to have been able to say next that Thursday was a bit more of a relaxing day...but I'd be wrong. A quick shopping trip, walking the dog and a lovely day of doing coursework :-( which I shall be off to finish momentarily.

All in all it was a good couple of days. Off to work tomorrow and then Sunday for more univeristy work. Oh I can't wait for the holidays and I'm hoping just for one day where I can sit back and put my feet up for a while without housework or coursework niggling at the back of my mind.

So, ta-ta for now. Have a good weekend to you all!

Day One

Hi Everyone,

Since this my first post I suppose I'd best start with a bit of an introduction. My name's Sarah, and I'm a 22 year old, second year Psychology and Criminal Behaviour student.

A lot of people seem a bit confused or scared when you say the words "Psychology and Criminal Behaviour" and one of the most annoying things is when you tell someone you study Psychology and they tell you to read their mind. First of all, thats called telepathy! Secondly, Psychology studies our behaviour, and how our environment and others can have an affect. We study the mind to, that's obviously very important, but also very boring at times.

The field of Psychology I enjoy the most has to be Personality and Criminal Behaviour. My dream is to be an offender profiler, working with the police and creating a profile of offenders based on clues at the crime scene. Unfortunatly it's only really a career in the US, the police force over here in the UK doesn't really take it as seriously as the FBI :-( I'd also love to work with people with severe personality disorders, such as schizophrenics or obsessive compulsives. How badly wrong our brains can go fascinates me, especially the impact it can have on behaviour.

On a lighter note, I also adore animals and volunteer when I can at my local zoo. I've learnt alot from being there and get to take part in all sorts of exciting events. Recently I helped out with a "Horror Halloween" event where I got to jump out at people, covered in fake blood, and generally scare the living daylights out of them. At the minute we (me and my fiance...oh yeah...I'm engaged lol!) own a staffordshire bull terrier cross (with english bull terrier) named Carla, a bearded dragon (Spike) and two guinea pigs (Patch and Streak). I find it a nice break to come home from studying people all day to animals who give you unconditional love and attention, no matter your flaws (as long as you treat it right of course!).

Music wise, I'm into my classic rock and metal, such as Def Leppard, Whitesnake, ZZ Top, Disturbed, Avenged Sevenfold. Metallica, Korn, Rob Zombie, Wednesday 13, Murderdolls, Slipknot, Black Sabbath, Queen, Meatloaf etc... We try and get to Download Festival as often as we can, it's where we met and we consider it our anniversay, plus you get such a wide variety of people and music, gorgeous (but expensive) food and a cool market. It's not often we get to gigs now-a-days because of money and work, but we try and go to one a year at least!

Well, that's a general bit about me. Now this week's been one of those weeks. To start with, I woke up the other morning and tried to put my trousers on before my underwear. It may be a look Superman considers fashionable but I don't think it's really me. At that point I knew it was time to get back to bed really and try again, but Carla was whining to go out so I just had to sort myself out and get on with the day.
It didn't go to bad until the next day when I spent ages cooking a roast chicken dinner, just to burn the yorkshire puddings at the end! Not to mention all the things I've bumped into, tripped over and dropped.

On the good side I managed to finish one lot of coursework and get that submitted yesterday. I should really be doing the second piece now but sod it, I'll do it later. I burnt my brownies to the pan earlier and now I'm sulking as I was looking forward to them. Nothing worse than burnt chocolate! Carla's stretched out across my lap fast asleep. She's cute until she dreams then her eyes roll back, she twitches and just looks evil! Though it is funny when she barks and wakes herself up.

Well, thats enough babbling for now. I shall post more soon no doubt, but after I've finished that coursework!
Bye
x

Me and Carla at Halloween Party