Laura and the training day

Today I was required to attend a training day for work entitled,'How to motivate and engage young people to realise their full potential'.Before I could do this however, I needed to motivate myself and this proved difficult when I awoke this fine morn and realised some sort of winged insect had bitten my face in the night. As soon as I saw the flaming red angry carbuncle burgeoning out of my left cheek epidermis, I wanted to kill myself.This feeling was enhanced when Alan laughed uproariously at my bulging boil and jokingly asked if I would like him to lick it. I replied that I did not require this service and reminded him that he proffers this remedy to every medical complaint I suffer from. I do think that at 37, he should have a bigger bag of tricks up his sleeve to deal with my health calamities.So I arrived at the training tired and drained from the struggle to cover the bite with concealer.It was one of those training sessions where all the chairs are in a horseshoe shape and there is nowhere to hide. It was also one of those sessions where they have 'fun' team building and ice breaker activities and so within an hour I had done juggling and been told to hold hands with colleagues while we all got ourselves into a knot and then got out of it again. The latter excercise was most vexing as I am simply too old and curmudgeonly to be weaving in and out of people's bodies and pretending the best way to untangle ourselves is not to cheat.We watched a presentation that was designed to encourage youngsters to stay in education. It was frightfully dull and when the facilitator asked for honest feedback, I presented him with a genuis idea.I suggested that instead of having lists and lists of statements blasted into their brains, the kids should be shown a video based on the hit blockbuster film, 'Sliding Doors'. One youth could be filmed making a series of bad choices in life and we are invited to watch as these lead to an inevetably disagreeable conclusion. The same youngster is then shown making a different series of more positive choices ,which lead to happiness and self actualisation.I could hardly believe it when my idea was universally panned by critics. 'Where would the budget come from for such a film?' I was asked. 'It would cost too much to make'. 'You could film it in Kirkby', I retorted. It would not cost too much to make at all and I sat sulking for a good half hour after my winning idea got the thumbs down. In fact, even now as I write this I can feel a fresh burst of demoralisation course through my veins. Although this may be because as Jan says, my ego is spun from the finest filagree of spiders webs and fairy wings. Still, I did not bother to generate any more ideas in my brain factory for the rest of the session.I was gagging for the buffet lunch when it finally arrived, although I got a shock when I bit into what looked like a sausage roll and weird red stuff seeped out of the middle. No-one seemed to be able to identify the matter within, so I discarded it in disgust.I was sickened to discover that there were no cakes or sweetmeats on offer for afters. Myself Ruth and Hayley solved the problem by thinking 'outside the box' and went to the shop to purchase essential chocolate supplies.After I had consumed my red bounty I felt more mentally stable and then Ronnie gave me a sweet he had procured in a toilet in London.We did some quite fun activities in the afternoon and watched some video clips from various films. We had to share our proudest achievements in the group and I held court with my tales of wowing the world of stand up comedy. Although my second proudest achievement is not scratching the head off my bite.We had to write down a time when we were 'on top of the world'. I wrote down 'when I discovered GHD ceramic iron technology'. I was most disappointed that I was not asked to read this out.At four of the clock the session ended and I made my way into town and homeward. Mel has just pushed a baby out of her front bottom so I went shopping for a gift first.