Personal Blogs

I've seen a lot of people posting messages on facebook today saying they are ashamed to be British.  The fact that everyone I know feels this way makes me proud to be British.  No change will occur if everyone who is against this vile behaviour hangs their heads in shame. 

Last night it became apparent that messages via twitter and facebook have increased the number of potential people getting involved.  On the upside, there are a number of web pages springing up to negate such negativity. 

http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Stop-these-National-Riots-bring-in-the-army/219191044799188

http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Supporting-the-Met-Police-against-the-London-rioters/152937041453243

The second one currently has 374, 566 people in support of it.  That's quite a number in so short a space of time.

I whole heartedly concur that these riots are shameful and horrific.  I am loathe to put on the news and hear of any more destruction.  In fact it has reminded me of the War of the Worlds.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QAf5aE-YMw

I'd like to know where all the parents of these looting children are.  I'd also like to see each and every one of them interviewed, and asked what they believed they were protesting about.  I believe that the majority would not even know.  Historically, riots and public disorder emerged because large numbers of people felt hugely passionate about something.  Because there was something so wrong in the lives of enough people, that they felt they had nothing to lose.  Not because they wanted a widescreen TV for nothing. 

Last night I was of the opinion that if I was told my taxes were to be raised in order to build a new prison just to house these thieving delinquents, then I would not have any qualms about it.  Today I wouldn't mind personally housing a couple in the loft.  I hope that these people won't go unpunished, but of course, most of them will.

I sent in the assignment a few hours after my last post, not caring that it was incomplete and a less than half hearted attempt.  It was very strange not to care; totally alien in fact.  I'm still having an internal debate as to whether I am pleased with this more relaxed approach, or whether in a few months I will be horribly disappointed in myself.  I remain firmly undecided.

Yesterday I was more than pleased to see the homeless guy I last spotted in Bristol, back here, seemingly having crawled back onto the rim of reality.  I like to think it's possible that though I considered there to be no recognition when I smiled before, that there was something on a deeper, or subconscious level.  He recognised me this time anyway, and we exchanged a happy thumbs up.  I will have to tell him that I don't smoke anymore.  Perhaps we can move onto sharing sandwiches or something.

Since the Wedding I have had lots of e-mail contact from various family members.  It is so exciting.  For a start they keep writing really lovely things about me.  I've never had so many compliments from near strangers, and it's putting a definite spring in my step.  But on a less shallow level, I really feel as though I am rediscovering myself.  I'm starting to feel part of something bigger.  Emotionally, it's highs and lows, and I am finding my reactions to everyday events entirely unpredictable.  I have an overwhelming sense of regret at having missed out on ten years of this feeling of belonging, and for what appears to be no good reason.  There is a lot of turbulence in my head.  The usual highs and lows that I experience have increased ten-fold, and I find that I go from bounding around the house singing stupid songs in daft accents, to collapsing in a heap and not moving for an hour.  Really short bursts of nervous energy that make me behave like a complete moron, followed by no energy at all.  I'm like some kind of weird battery-operated human that keeps having to be recharged on the kitchen floor.

As far as studying goes, I have started again.  I am still uninspired, but October seems a little closer now that August has arrived.  Also, it is the summer holidays, and my fear of all things related to the summer holidays make it preferable to stay indoors, which is conducive to knuckling down.  Though my continued lack of sleep is quite possibly counteracting any progress that would normally be made.  The drilling and banging continues, though the jackhammer and generator are gone.  So it's an improvement, but I still have a lot of anger for the noise makers, and have to avoid eye contact when I pass them.  I would hate to forget myself and headbutt one of them.

The cat has eaten one of the buttons off my keyboard.  I think it used to say 'insert', but I'm not entirely sure.  I don't think I ever used it anyway.  The top right corner of the keyboard is as mysterious to me as functions of the 12 F buttons.  

Anyway, time to go, randomness is creeping in... 

I nearly set my dancing penguin on fire with an incense stick.  I'm glad I didn't.  He serves to remind me of a romantic time when Al would go off to the supermarket for bread, and return with an all-singing all-dancing cuddly penguin.  Long has it just been boring old bread, with not a penguin in sight.  Still, the penguin sits infront of the fireplace, or where ever the cats have most recently flung him to, and every few months, I flick the 'on' switch, and we have a little waddle.  Not today though.  I will however try to avoid leaving burning sticks under his belly.

I spent the day in Bristol yesterday, child minding.  Well, adult minding, but still.  It was good.  Hot.  Too hot.  We tried to feed the swans but were attacked by a gang of seagulls, acting together to strip the enemy of bread, and myself of my dignity.  We fled the scene, with me holding my hat to my head with one hand, and my other flailing out behind me gripping a half full bag of bread, whilst attempting to maintain the essential bond between wrist and hand.  I think it gave me a minor sprain.  The man I was caring for thought it to be the best thing since, well, sliced bread.  Pun not intended, but acknowledged.  As we made our way up towards a favoured market, I spotted an old man crumpled up in a doorway in a pile of empties.  A really strange feeling.  He used to sit in this town, always just on the edge of losing himself to drink, but never actually slipping off the edge.  He was interesting and friendly, and beardy.  I used to give him smokes most days on my way to work.  When I gave up smoking for a few months, as I was always prone to doing, I used to buy cigarettes just to give to him, as I somehow felt he would think I was lying if I said I had given up, after so many years.  Inevitably I would then smoke the rest of the pack at work, and so the cycle would be broken anyway.  About two years ago, he just wasn't there anymore.  Not there to smile to on the early mornings; not there to discuss, and usually share, in my latest foodstuff obsession, and not there to jokingly pretend to trip me over, when he had disappeared so far into a bush that I hadn't noticed him.  I sadly had to assume that he had passed away.  But without question that was him, passed out in an empty shop doorway in Bristol.  I walked past him three, four, five times and he didn't move.  Finally, after many hours, he woke, caught my eye, and I smiled at him.  Not a glimmer of recognition.  Not a glimmer of friendliness.  He turned away, swigged from a bottle and went back to sleep.  Left me with a funny hollow feeling.

Today I made minor scratches into the surface of my soon-to-be assignment inroads.  I will be launching a full attack in the very near future.  There is a minor difficulty in attaining full momentum in that I am awaiting a tutor response as to where to send it, and have been for ages.  The difficulty is, Friday is not a real deadline.  It is a self imposed one due to the fact that from Friday onwards I am back into birthday celebrations all the way through to the deadline, and will not have a moment to study.  I'm told due to the nature of the assignment - diagram utopia - it is better to post than to use the eTMA system.  I am loathe to put in the effort to finish by Friday, and then have nowhere to post it to.  The fact that I won't have any time to complete it if I don't is not featuring in my irritating anti-study head.  I need an address.

I told my mother the other day that part of the reason that I felt I had lost my study motivation was because all my friends are graduating.  And even they are graduating between five and ten years post typical age.  Yesterday a friend had her graduation, a few days previous another friend did, and a few weeks previous, another friend. The final study buddy has graduated technically but the ceremony is not until September.  My mother is now trying to be my study buddy and it's not really working out.  Because she isn't studying.  I don't know how to get this across to her, that the reason my friends are no longer my study buddies, is that they are no longer studying.  It seems fairly obvious to me, but I know when I try to explain obvious things to people, they often take offence.  So I'm just sort of going along with it for now.  Incidentally, study buddy does not mean studying together, for me anyway.  It means someone to phone for a drink when it all gets too much.  It means someone to text random obscenities to when calculations repetitively don't work.  It means someone to send sweets to in the post.  And most importantly, it means someone to celebrate with each and every time any one of us achieves anything; from a single assignment, to an exam, to a full blown graduation.  It does not mean phoning me up during the day to discuss the ins and outs of what I'm doing.  Actually I might just have to phone her back and explain.  Maybe she'll bring me some wine.  That's what I'll do. 

Today I made my first lot of sushi.  I was given everything I needed for my birthday.  I bought some prawns a few days ago for precisely this purpose and then didn't bother.  Today is their use by date, so I went for it.  Deadlines apply to sushi in much the same way as my assignments it seems.  I'm quite proud of this achievement!  Recently I've been finding food preparation quite a relaxing pastime.  Our muddy lettuces used to be an irritant, but now I find that rinsing each leaf individually numbs the mind, and mine is one that needs numbing from time to time.  It provides me with mental quiet, for a few minutes.  Sushi making had the same effect.

Yesterday, I'm shocked to say, I actually conducted my experiment for S3.  Now I just have to write it up, read all the text books, and find out the answers to the other half of the assignment.  Clearly this means I can take another day off.  Not so of course, but try telling this to my subconscious.

Nothing else to say today.

 

 

Here's one that's really worth documenting!!

It all started on Friday afternoon, as any good weekend should.  We jumped on a train to Didcot, laden with backpacks, tent and various other items, including at that point, a suit bag.  Around six o'clock we were sitting on a train to Cholsey, when I leapt up and said 'where's the suit bag??'  Of course, panic ensued.  We jumped off the train and went to get help.  We were asked which carriage we were in.  We didn't know.  Al guessed.  To add to my stress they will apparently only search one carriage.  I will bear that in mind in future if I have more than one bag!  Our Wedding gear arrived safely in London Paddington around 7pm.  They would not bring it back.  So I went to the pub opposite Didcot Parkway to calmly (!) wait while Al caught a train to London, collected our things, and caught a train back.  2 hours equalled a bottle of wine.  Al got back at half past nine.  We forwent the Cholsey train and got a taxi from Didcot to the venue.  A vineyard.  With a cab driver who got us to programme his satnav for him and then took us to an elderly retirement home.  Eventually, sometime after ten, we arrived, in the dark, and put up our tent, somehow.  We then crossed back over a very fragile (and labelled as such) bridge, to the other side of the lake, where there were various marquee style tents with a few remaining family members, and a never ending supply of wine, stella and magners.  By the end of the evening I was apparently found carefully balancing my way across an imaginary bridge whilst believing that Al was walking through the lake.  And then when we reached the real bridge, I am told I very nearly fell off it.  In the morning we discovered, much to Al's elation, that I was in fact balancing on a large area of swan pooh covered grass, alongside a very large log.  The following morning, in the pouring rain, we waited for our lift to the service.  In wellies.  The nice Wedding shoes made an appearance for the service, and then wellies were resumed.  We had no breakfast.  We were returned to the Wedding festival site for the speeches, where lunch was running late, but champagne had been added to the never ending supply of alcohol.  After lunch, Pimm's was added.  Around about Pimm's o'clock, whenever that was, an icecream van pulled up, and for a good hour there was free access to real 99's.  Amazing.  By Saturday night it was not only me who struggled to get over the bridge.  I now have contact with five family members who I have not seen for a good ten years.  It feels really good.  I wish my mother could have come.  She would have been welcomed and would have discovered that she is not the black sheep she believes herself to be. 

The place was stunning.  I saw a kingfisher on an early morning stroll whilst in search of water.  There were two swans with two cygnets nesting alongside the lake.  When we arrived, they were quite near to the lake.  As the days went by they gradually extended their territory, and by Sunday they had clearly had enough, and had taken over nearly the entire grass area, making it quite difficult to pass them.  Particularly as if you walked anywhere close to them they would stand up and start to spread their wings.  Each time we passed them Al told me that they could break our arms.  He likes to repetitively divulge information like that.

Sunday morning we packed up the tent, pickled and exhausted.  Anxiety set in.  I coped so well with the Wedding, and even the temporary loss of a favourite jacket in the suit bag, and then when it was all over, I started to jitter.  I guess it was being over-tired too.  I spent the entire journey home having a mild but lengthy panic attack, which I tried to ignore by engrossing myself in a puzzle book.  Arriving home, my birthday celebrations started.  Sunday night I went out for a meal with my old work buddies.  I thought that I was too tired to go, but once we started talking I had a second wind.  They gave me sacks of presents, which I took home.  Monday morning I woke early and sat downstairs and opened presents.  My work friends gave me flip-flops (following Al's recycling bin blooper), all the necessary tools for making sushi, including bamboo mats and rice, many sweets and beautiful cards, with messages that made me feel very loved.  I also got a giant badge, but I didn't wear it.  Al woke up.  He gave me flip-flops (there is a theme emerging there!) and a cool bangle.  I'm a bangle addict.  When I was a teenager I had them all the way up my arm.  Now I try to be restrained, but there're always a few.  Right now I have two glo-bangles and my festival wristband from the Wedding.  I can't bring myself to take them off just yet.  Also my silver ones that my mother made me, the one from Al, one from a friend, one that I made, and one with lots of miniature licorice allsorts on it that I got from Beautiful Days.  On the other wrist is one chunky one, all by itself.  I asked for a flying lesson when I was drunk.  Once sober we established that one flying lesson won't do me much good.  So he is taking me zorbing in August instead.  Then my mother arrived.  She gave me a necklace, a book, some coasters, a keyring and a pretty bent glass square.  Then she took us for lunch to my favourite pub... the Weighbridge, where I had my favourite meal... a 2 in 1 pie.  Then of course, it was time to head to the pub where I met my friends and had copious amounts to drink.  I was given a cool necklace with a little welly hanging off it and a scarf.  I was given some earrings too but I can't find them.  I don't have pierced ears anyway, but still, it seems a little rude if I have lost them already, so I hope I haven't.  This morning, I have woken up feeling completely and utterly exhausted.  But even though I can hardly keep my eyes open, I can't sleep.  I was up at seven.  I'm still in a state of mild anxiety.  Much as I've had a lot of fun, it's also all been very stressful.  I think I hid it for the past four days, and now it's all leaking out of me.  Today should be nice and chilled though.  Tomorrow I will panic because I have still done no studying.  In fact, I'm slightly panicked about it today.  I'm not entirely sure that there is enough time to catch up.  I have until next Friday to read two text books, do an indeterminable number of multimedia activities, conduct what sounds like a lengthy experiment, and write an assignment.  On Friday belated birthday celebrations with one of my very best friends begin.  The study doesn't bear thinking about.  I need more sleep.  I dropped a sleeping tablet down under the floorboards on Sunday.  I was mortified.  They are invaluable to me. 

Anyway, I think that's me all updated.  It looks pretty rambly to me, but it can't be helped, not when I am this tired!

3 days.  3 long days.  I don't understand what they can possibly be doing.  I have images of a strange wonderland with hundreds of shelves, all at jaunty angles, with items of oddness and interest screwed slightly above the shelf.  Nothing actually resting on anything else, just hundreds of individual results of this incessant drilling.  If I get invited in, and I find bare walls anywhere in the house, I will be most perturbed.  That used to be a favourite word of mine, and I used to think of it as Peter bed.  My surrogate father was called Peter and when him and my mother were annoying me of an evening, I would frown ('the look of the perturbed') and imagine that they could hear me ordering them to bed, telepathically.  I was somewhere between five and seven years old, so I can probably be excused the misapprehension.  My other favourite word at that age was circumnavigate, which I came across in something similar to, if not actually, 'around the world in 80 days'.  I ensured the word found its way into every piece of school work, even if it was just to explain that I had to walk around the car to get to the passenger seat.  The drilling has stopped.  I'm still on edge though.  It will start again, just as I settle into study.  I'm very tired now.  Struggling against night insomnia and day drilling.  My mind is screaming out for peace.  I may be due a visit to Dartmoor. 

I just had to look up perturb in the dictionary as it's been underlined in red.  It is a word, and it is spelt right, so I don't know what that's about.  It means to make anxious.  I've inadvertently used it correctly, but in fact I thought it meant confused.  It appears not to be a word with -ed or -ing on the end.  Strange, because I've heard it used in that way many times.

Today I must make a start on the S3 course.  The drilling was quite a good excuse yesterday, as it was impossible to concentrate, and even when it was quiet, I was anxious, waiting for it to start again.  It's still a good excuse today, but if I use it, I will be one step closer to not getting the assignment in at all.  I haven't even finished the work for the assignment I handed in some two months ago.  I must be three or four text books behind.  Not a particularly warming thought.

I keep thinking about my flip-flops.  I know I should stop thinking about them, but it was very unexpected to have them disappear from my world like that, and my brain is finding it difficult to accept.

It's started again.  I'm feeling very irrational about it.  My friend's wife wrote a song about her next door neighbour and his power tools driving her crazy.  I feel a bit like her I think.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J94a_DZ66qE

It's stopped again.  I think I'm going to stick my headphones on and blast some appropriate tunes.  Or at least ones that I feel I can apply to this drill-happy incompetent.  I say incompetent, because he is of the cautious type, going rrrr,rrrr,rrr,rrrr,r,r,r,r,r,rrrrr instead of RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR. 

Go away music versus live and let live music.  Hmm.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7oQ7WJhLHBk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WALZeAmilWY

 

I am a few hours into a massive anxiety attack.  I sometimes wonder whether if I didn't have these continual periods of adrenalin-fuelled heart-pounding stress-outs, I might be a little fatter.  I must burn so much energy - if nothing else from pacing round in circles!  Our house is quite small too, so it's easy to get a little dizzy.  That can be nice of course, but not on a hangover, and for those situations I opt for the stairs.  Anyway, Al lost his keys last night.  I don't know how anyone copes with things like this.  Al tells me that people don't lie in wait for people to drop their keys, follow them home, note their address, wait for them to go out again, and then burgle them.  He tells me this, but all I'm thinking is where in this little house can I make all my things disappear into invisible hiding places.  And the truth is that I can't, hence the stress.   I remain convinced that someone is waiting at the end of the street; waiting for me to go out.  So I'm not going out.  In a perfect world this would be a circumstance conducive to study, but the world is not a perfect one, and I am singly focused on the lost keys.  Incapable of thinking of anything else.  There must be something I can do to make this a more efficient experience?  Attaching a duster to my feet maybe and polishing the floorboards.  Ha, that would be a first!  I've tried to distract myself.  I have washed a muddy lettuce leaf by leaf.  I've had a go on the punch bag.  I've done some skipping counting - quite a lot of that actually! This is the second stressful thing to happen in two days.  A few days ago, Al went off to the recycling centre, and I'd put an old pair of shoes in a carrier bag and asked him to take them to the shoe bin.  Yesterday I noticed that the bag was still there.  That horrible sinking feeling hit me, as I asked what exactly he took to the recycling bin.  The sod only threw out my new flip-flops.  Still, that's one less thing for the burglars I guess!

Well.  4.45am I crawled into bed.  Kent is a long, long drive from here!  I spent much of the festival on my own.  It was nice to sit in my own space, with a beer, and not be answerable to anyone.  With my phone switched off it was even better.  My mother was good company for the first day and evening, not so great on Saturday and horrendous on Sunday.  Though there were still good bits.  She's a bit too controlling for a long stretch at a festival.  Making rules that don't exist, like the time of day that you can eat and drink, sleep or even talk.  I saw some great bands though, and I was pleased to find I had no problem watching them on my own.  So I will definitely be doing a few solo festivals over the next few months.  Highlights?  For me, watching the Eagles.  Iggy Pop I was expecting to enjoy, but I was blown away by the Eagles.  The Bluetones and Imelda May were also excellent.  I had the perfect number of people approach me for random chats, who stayed for the perfect amount of time.  I'm not a Prince fan, but it was pretty cool to see the crowd going so crazy, and the female singers were incredible.  Very strict security which I found a bit out of keeping with the normal festival vibe.  Had to show a wristband every time you went to the campsite or the main stage.  And although they allowed cans at the campsite, they would not allow anything to be brought through.  A tactic to ensure that everyone pays for their beer.  Also on entry to the main stage there were continual bag checks.  I hate bag checks.  They really stress me out!  Once, on the way in, I understand, but I must have been searched over fifty times over the weekend, which I consider unreasonable, and it did take away from the relaxation aspect, for me.  So a mixed bag really; I'm glad that I went for the bands, and that I met some cool people, but I think it's best left as an isolated, but overall good experience.

I'm not going to finish the game design course until October.  I'm just going to do the EMA.  I'll sort out all the actual making of the game stuff when I have time to enjoy it, which I think I would, if I didn't have these other courses hanging over me like a weighted blanket.  So I've printed off as many of the resources as my printer could handle before it coughed, spluttered and informed me it was low on fluids.  If only it ran on water like me.  I guess ink for the printer is synonymous to wine for me.  We both cost money if we are to function effectively.

I've pushed so many things to October I wonder if I'll have time for it all.  No I don't, I already know that I won't.  After my S3 exams I have 3 months, into which I have shoved years and years of unaccomplished tasks, most of them huge and impossible, half of them things I should know that I will never actually do, some of them important things that I have to do, and some of them just things that I really want to do.  All that will get done in reality are the really important things.  I guess I mentally store all the other things because otherwise the view would be too depressing to bother looking at.

Tomorrow I have to do my game design EMA.  Thursday I have to do my web design EMA.  Friday I'm out of here; backpack of wine, wellies, hats and multicoloured layers - it's time to kick back from all this virtual nonsense and lie in a field with bass thumping up through my fibres until all my stress is pumped into the atmosphere, and far away from me.  Rock on.

I've had two days of unplanned and unexpected events.  I'm coping with it remarkably well.  I'm not a fan of having things thrust upon me in this way, but as it is all nice things being flung, I'm trying to take it in my stride.  As of yesterday I am off to a festival on Friday.  I would normally allow myself at least a month to get my head around being away from home for that length of time.  I'm feeling quite stressed about it, but also looking forward to it.  Though of course it does put some added pressure on me in terms of my (imaginary) study schedule.  There are a lot of bands playing that I have never seen live, which makes a change.  Because I usually stick to the same festivals, the same bands seem to return time and time again, with only the headlining acts differing.  Even those acts seem to repeat on a three or four year cycle.  Iggy and the Stooges are playing - wow!  The Bluetones are also there, and Imelda May.  I haven't seen any of those live before.  I watched Iggy Pop playing at the Isle of Wight festival last night (on the TV) and he was fantastic.  My mother is having some sort of festival withdrawal at the moment and so is having pretend ones at home.  She came yesterday to pop in to say hi and inspire me to get on with my study.  She brought with her a hat stand, a chocolate bar, some Pimm's and some wild strawberries as gifts.  After the Pimm's she asked to have a look at this festival online.  My mother doesn't have TV or internet.  So we looked it up, and she asked if I'd like to go.  Now, usually I give an immediate 'no' to any suggestion that I wasn't expecting, but one of my new things is trying to think before I do it.  I miss out on some really fun stuff because all I think about is how stressful it might be, or that I don't want to do something with a certain person.  So on a whim I said yes.  When I said yes, I didn't realise it was on Friday.  That's very, very soon.  I needed a drink then.  I suggested going out for a sausage sandwich (yes, I am officially obsessed with them).  I washed that down with a few glasses of wine.  Then we came home, and I invited her to stay the night.  So we went back out.  Then from midnight 'til about 3am we had one of her 'at home' festivals.  It basically involves watching Glastonbury on the TV and eating nachos, and drinking, a lot.  At some point I went on facebook and 'liked' a bunch of people's status' that I wouldn't normally think worthy of one of my rarely handed out thumbs up.  And clearly, sometime after that, went to bed.  Slept amazingly, well assuming it can be called sleeping; I think possibly I was a little less conscious than I usually am when I'm asleep.  I slept straight through 'til 11am.  That almost never happens to me.  Oddly I woke this morning feeling more tired than usual.  There again, I have been awake for several days, give or take the odd few hours kip.  I made everyone breakfasts and tidied up all the drunken mess, and at 2 o'clock realised that it was Saturday, and that I had missed my S3 tutorial.  Gutted.  There are only 3 tutorials for the whole course.  So I was very cross with myself.  In fact, my study efforts have once again been shameful.  Yesterday in fairness I did do quite a bit before my mother arrived, but today has so far been a total write-off, and of course missing the tutorial is a real annoyance.  This afternoon my mother bought me another sausage sandwich to say thanks, and just now my sausage sandwich friend text me to ask if I was going out tonight.  Much as I love them, I don't think I'll manage two in one day.  Incidentally my mother brought me a hat stand because it was something I had asked for, not because she was being entirely random.

I wasn't going to go out tonight, but I think I will now.  I text him back to say no, and he replied saying he has today and tomorrow off.  That's unusual for the care home he works in, so tonight is a rare opportunity for him to fully relax.  So I think I'll text back and say I've changed my mind.  I'm sure I can't do any more harm to my body than I did last night.  It was a lot of fun.  It's important to have fun. 

I love being at home on my own.  I can do whatever I like without getting quizzical looks.  Apart from the ones I get from the cats.  I sometimes wonder if they were people in a past life and still have people minds, but stuck in a cats body because they did something bad.  As soon as that thought enters my head I have to shut them out of the room, if they're staring at me and I'm doing something daft.  How stupid to get embarrassed infront of a cat.  But there it is.  Today I have a plate of asparagus and a jar of mustard.  It's an adult version of the sherbert dip. 

My mother gave me a card to say congratulations for passing the various courses.  It says on the front 'Hangovers are the wrath of grapes'.  Quite funny in itself, but then inside she's written '...except in your case where they give you perfect OU results'.  Inaccurate in the use of the word perfect, but funny that my normally prudent mother has accepted me writing important assignments under the influence of alcohol.  How times change.

Read some interesting stuff on gooseberries.  They are hard to grow organically because of sawfly attacks.  Apparently, on the farm that grows our gooseberries, for the first three years the bushes were stripped bare by sawfly.  No gooseberries.  But now it is 8 years later, and they say that a mystery predator keeps the larvae in check.  That's cool.  I love to hear of nature sorting itself out, especially when we don't know how it's done it.

I'm obviously in the mood for endless waffle today so I think I ought to stop writing this.  I'll send some poor unsuspecting friend an almighty e-mail instead.  The length of some of my e-mails is another example of the ridiculous things I do without being particularly aware that I'm doing it, until it's too late.  And by then I don't want to delete any of it, because I've put so much time into it.  Much how I feel about this blog entry. 

Too many results all at once.  Results make me feel that I've finished.  They do not make me feel that I still have vast amounts to do.  Still S3 TMA02 result in today, and all is fine with it.

I sorted the web page problem today after some advice from the forum, but am still waiting on a response for my game design stumble.  I don't get the game course at all.  Every achievement is a fluke.  I don't understand the language, the instructions, any of it.  This is the first course I have ever taken where I have no way of helping myself.  I am entirely dependent on the responses of the course team.  I'm not keen on feeling so out of control with my studies.  It figures that it was the course that I signed up for when drunk.  Sober Rosie would have picked out a science course for sure. 

Today I got a text from a mate who's been in New Zealand for a month or so.  Very exciting!  I had completely forgotten he was coming back - time has flown by.  It's due to being under constant study pressure; I seem to miss out experiencing time in the normal way.  I miss going to New Zealand.  Generally speaking I have happy memories of my times there.  I hope he went to some places that I remember.

Number one of the film countdown was 'Up in the air'.  I have neither seen it nor heard of it.  So that's disappointing.  Number two was 'The Road'.  I think that would be my number one, as it's pretty much the only film I saw that was actually released in 2010.  My list would probably be a mere 3,2,1.  Not worthy of a facebook countdown.

I had another attempt at drinking coffee today.  Fell at the first hurdle.  The smell.  Yuk.  I really want to like it.  It would save me endlessly having to reply to people who ask me out for coffee with 'no, coffee is repulsive, I'll meet you for tea, hot chocolate, or beer, but not coffee'.  Apparently 'do you want to meet for coffee' is just an expression, but I am never prepared to take the risk.  If I go to someone's house and they offer me a coffee, and I say yes, I can be pretty sure that they're not going to bring me hot chocolate.  I don't see why there should be a difference.  My longer term friends tend to ask me if I fancy a drink now.  That's a far more open ended and sensible way of phrasing it.

I have organised what I can of the last 8 months of my 'Rosie's open degree reward folder'.  At first it was born because I didn't want to do a degree, and I felt that every piece of work deserved a reward, because I was doing it to please family members rather than myself.  After a few years, I decided that the degree was something that I had chosen to do myself, as they had wanted me to go to a bricks and mortar university, so I was still doing my own thing.  I decided to keep the folder going, and the rewards, and now it's quite a little trip down memory lane.  My very first reward, in 2005, for completing the first assignment for S103 was seeing Killing Joke in Bristol on one night, and New Model Army in Exeter the following night.  Next was Elbow and Ian Brown.  For assignment four I went to see the Levellers... on my own!  That must have been one of the bravest things I ever did.  My friend bailed out on me, but I still went.  The next year it was New Model Army, Seth Lakeman, Ashton Court, Beautiful Days (Killing Joke, The Proclaimers, Levellers, Buzzcocks, Hayseed Dixie...), Tool, some unknowns and some films.  2007 was Academy in the UK (a highlight for sure), Lewes Folk Rock Festival, Beautiful Days, Shrewsbury Folk Festival, Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten , Perfect Alibi (that was bizarre, a Pink Floyd tribute band with my then manager), New Model Army and so on.  I'm onto my second folder for my 2010-2012 courses.  There are so many things that I would forget if I hadn't bothered to do it.  When I first started it my friends thought it was quite a typical dull Rosie obsession.  I think if they saw it now, in its 7th year, they'd be a little jealous.  In fact, in recent years, a few people have actually been excited when I've told them that their event has made it into the rewards folder.  Unfortunately, having been unusually disorganised and hap-hazard in my filing during the past year, I am missing a lot of ticket stubs.  I'm hoping they'll turn up, as the folder now looks disappointingly bare.  It looks as though midway through 2010 I turned 87 and became housebound.  Or at least stopped having a life outside of study.  I can't even find my ticket stubs from Celtic Connections, which is most upsetting.  Still, as they don't appear to be lying around the house anywhere, I can assume that I have stored them somewhere that is at least safe.  I hope. 

Perhaps I've now had a reply about my game.  I'm not keen on the idea of going forward before I've fixed the problem, but maybe I'll have to.  Herrumph.

I've been thinking on and off about people over the past few weeks, and there are so many bits I just don't understand.  I have kept my recent diagnosis from everyone other than in 'what if' scenarios, because their reaction is an irritant to me.  People don't listen.  I know I am guilty of that myself, particularly if you bore me, but I won't lie.  I don't recall ever having told someone who is outright boring that I find them fascinating.  I do my best to be polite.  I guess that involves a bit of role play.  The reason that I am happy to have some negative words put to me is that I can improve.  I don't want to be dragged down, or excused bad behaviour.  I want to be the best that I can be.  I want to be as un-obvious as I can be.  I want to just be.  And if a psych prof gives me information that helps me to understand my odd behaviour, and put it straight, then what can be wrong with that?  The people closest to me don't want it.  Well half of them don't.  I don't want to be given special treatment by any stretch, but I see this as an opportunity for my friends to openly tell me when my actions or words are not the norm.  And I want that.  I've spent my whole life learning the rules of social interaction; I don't want to stop learning now.  Sometimes it seems to me that people are jealous of society-generated-disabilities.  I don't get it.  I've never been jealous of someone because they're worse off than me and need more care.  I've cared for them.  I've worked in care for 10 years.  I might be jealous of someone who had a double decker when I was really hungry.  I'd never be jealous of someone in hospital who had twenty people really loving them and doing everything in their power to help them live.  As I say, people are very strange.

I hate it when things that should work don't work, and the only possible reason for that to be the case, is that I'm doing it wrong.  I have followed the instructions for one section of the T course over and over again, and every time I go online to check the site, it says page not found.  So annoying - the page is right there!  If I go to the page itself, and open it, there it is, working and most definitely existing.  Go to the link that goes to the page, and it can't be found again.  So I've given up and passed the problem to the forum.  I will no doubt be in a very bad mood when I discover the cause of the problem, having wasted the best part of the day not achieving anything, determined that I should be able to sort it out on my own.  I only really have today and tomorrow available to finish this course, the following 10 days intended for the other T course, and the following month for S3.  What a waste of time today has been. 

Plus I forgot to give myself a father's day present.  Him never having been a part of my memorable life, not managing to stick it out past 6 weeks, I feel that significant amounts of the advice I needed through life I gave to myself through trial and error.  Of course my mother offered her support, but she already has her own day.  Normally today I would give myself a nice fatherly gift - a bottle of brandy and a pair of decent socks.  Perhaps a top hat, or a tie.  It varies depending on my mood.  But this year I forgot.  Or couldn't be bothered.  Who knows.

No reply to my query yet.  I'm thinking I'm going to have to give up for the day and try again tomorrow.  I never achieve anything useful when I'm angry with the computer.  Which I am.

Our fruitbox this week gave us the first of the gooseberries.  Very exciting.  I love gooseberries.  I particularly love the fact that I don't have to share them, as since the maggot in the cherry incident, Al is fearful of fruit without skin.  Ideal!  Saves me having to hide them! The vegbox brought the first of the broad beans.  Significantly less exciting for me, though very exciting for Al.  You win some you lose some, I guess.

I went out last night with an old work friend that I don't think I can have seen for over a year.  One of those people who does really annoying things like always being two hours late, but is instantly forgiven on arrival.  She is impossible to hate in person.  Only from afar can I feel negative emotion towards her.  We had a really good night though.  Too much wine, I think.  Perhaps that's why I can't get it together for this web nonsense.  It's not me being an idiot; it's a hangover.  I'll go with that I think.  Makes me feel a little less like destroying the laptop.  As it is, I think I'm just going to turn it off, have some soup and watch the first of the next series of Dexter.  Now that really is exciting.  Dexter, not the soup.  Right, I'm gone.