izmeina | A silly Izzie squiggle

Izzie is not as green as she used to be!

Well. It is way past midnight but Iz is addicted to her nocturnal Cyberian visits. Especially when I have got an extra 2 hours to play with.
Been grumbly and grumpy for most of the last few days for no apparent reason. It started when Iz turns up Wednesday evening at this very place for a promised 'rendez-vous' with the Queen of Cats. And the stupid server was down and of course there was no way I could let her know that. Iz hates for anyone to think that she is a flaky fruitcake who does not keep her word. Most peeved I was indeed. They did come back online about 30 minutes later. Silly to get so upset and totally irrational too. Funny how the littlest things can be ssso annoying.
Especially as things in Goblin Land are so good at the moment. No nasty auditing assignments and two really fascinating subjects. Such a dreadful pity that such an interesting subject as Strategic Games is being taught by some muggle version of Professor Binns who is doing his damnest to make it seem even more tedious, tiresome and boring than financial accounting. Iz is so lucky to have been introduced to this stuff by the delightful and utterly adorable Douglas Hofstadter who has introduced Iz to just about everything that interests her with the odd exception of the Potter boy and the One Ring. I wonder if he will ever have something to say about him one day. Iz would be the first to want to know.

This Professor Binns is sssso bad that even the seminars about Taxation are more interesting and enjoyable! Shame Shame. But then again we have a really really good tutor for that subject. Aside from the fact that I have been doing my own tax returns here for nearly 10 years. Then there is the minor matter of a personal vendetta that I have against the vultures in the tax office after they went and lost my papers and stuff way back in 1995 and I then had to send in my own personal copies of employer payment certificates to the silly twits. I had enclosed a letter with the original statement saying that the lump sum I had received from an ex employer in September was for wages and holidays due four months previously and therefore really should be taxed as income for that financial year (when I was on really low wages and therefore a marginal rate of 14%.)
Not only did I have to suffer the inconvenience of losing my job because they went into liquidation, I then had to wait four months for a lump sum which they cheated on anyway and face the final indignity of getting the thing taxed at a marginal rate of 29% instead of the 14% it would have been when I should have got it. (I had found a much better job in the mean time. Two in fact) They took ages and ages to process my return and when I rang to find out what the hell was the hold up, they said there was complications because of that letter and they were looking into it. Next time they had lost the whole damn thing and when I finally got the long awaited tax refund it was for an utterly piddly pittance and they took no account at all of the delay.

Ever since then Iz has harbored a seething resentment of petty faceless bureacrats and resents every single cent the little buggers snatch from me. There is not a single solitary deduction that I was entitled to that I have not claimed since then and it sure annoys me like hell that because my house elf job is totally unrelated to Goblin Business that I cannot claim a single sickle for education related expenses. (Such an incentive for self improvement that is) No books, no stationery, student union fees, travel expenses. Nothing. But then again if Iz was more ambitious... Should have found something by now.
SSso when Iz gets to meet the Delightful Dolores Umbridge, all those wonderful memories of pathetic petty clerks on power trips just all came back.
Iz just has a soft spot for David and Goliath stories - especially when they feature such creatures as Enron or Microsoft.. Izzie's latest favorites being Andrew Wilkie and Dr David Kelly. But the Dr Kelly story had such an awful sad end. Was it really worth the price?, even if it does prove to be the downfall of Tony Blair. The sooner the better thinks Izzie.

Oh I did say two interesting subjects. The second one is Accounting Technologies. All our assignments have to be submitted electronically and among other things we have to post 2 websites each week on the subject discussion boards- one related to the week's topic and the other on whatever interests us. Last week Iz added the Klingon version of Google and SpamGourmet-both provided courtesy of the Cat.
This is the unit where they want us to make a website which is why Izzie is using LJ to try out all sorts of fun things and experiments with html for absolute beginners.

(some time later...just been playing around with colour customization and found myself the most gorgeous shades of Green. But Silly Iz is not quite sure what title page colours, weak and strong accents refer to. Should have left well alone. I ended up with journal entry titles in white with beige squares plonked on top. Simply hideous -even worse than the infamous yellow text on a white background. So it is back to boring old black and white till I got those bits worked out.)