That's me in the corner, that's me in the spotlight...

I don't think that I'm a Christian anymore.

With some help, I logic-ed my way through things, and I shrugged off Catholicism easily, and realised that, although I have some personal morals and beliefs that coincide with Christian ones, I don't really believe the essential Christian stuff... so, yeah. It's kinda weird. I don't have a problem with being around Christians, or being in the Chaplaincy, and I might start going to Christian Focus Sunday meals again, because I miss the company, but... my mind is totally open. I'm accepting that there's more to my beliefs than what's easiest to do family-wise.

Here's my thoughts about this new section of my spiritual journey...

I want to bring my kids up secular, which I've always kinda wanted to do anyway. Kids are so easily told lies - I tell my 13 year old brother lies which he still believes readily despite the fact he knows I lie. So, is it fair to tell kids lovely stories about heaven and stuff and imprint ideas in their minds before they're too young to say no?

I'm not going back to church. I always used to use it as a place to "recover" from a lapse in faith, which, when I think about it, is totally dumb. I always used to just absorb myself in the ceremony of it all, and sing as loudly as I could because I love singing, and detach myself from the meaning, which isn't the point at all. You're supposed to go to church to pray, and do the Catholic things, believe the Catholic things, agree with the viewpoints and be willing to explain and convince others so that they might "understand" the way you do...

But... I don't think gay people are inherently bad people. A lot of them are very considerate and patient and put up with a lot of crap from people who think they have the moral highground because of whatever thousand-year-old religious text they like to read. And, I don't think abortion's a good thing to do [it's gross and really traumatic] but it shouldn't be banned. I use contraception because I think it's okay to be intimate with someone before marriage and I can't really have kids right now, can I? Terrible idea. :p

I still love Christmas though. I don't like the commercialism, and I can't stand Santa. It's just... what kind of parents tell their children that a weird old guy is coming down the chimney with flying reindeer to give them Christmas presents if they're good, or coal if they're bad? Hell, I might prefer the coal. It's going to be worth a LOT very soon. I don't intend on telling my kids that Santa exists in a literal sense. As a concept, I guess he's okay... unless you are a child that has no other source of present hope except from "Santa"... hmm. Anyway, Christmas.

It's fun, right? You get to eat turkey and stuffing - although you can technically do that every day, you never really do it apart from Chrimble. And, I like playing the piano, and singing the alto parts to all the really old Christmas and Advent hymns, because the music is so beautiful. It's so thoughtful and reflective. Even if you don't believe, you have to love the harmonies.

And, you get to sing the stupid 70s Christmas hits that you still don't hate because you hear them so rarely.

But, Christmas is okay, I guess. It's nice to give people you care about presents. I liked giving D his presents. I like making him happy. :)

So to summarise... I like Christmas, but I don't really *get* it anymore. I'm undecided about Easter. I'll cross that hurdle when I get there, I suppose. I don't mind Christians, as long as they don't expect me to suddenly backtrack all this thinking I've been doing here after quoting a couple of Bible verses.

I guess that none of this is really new to me. I don't believe anything drastically different to what I did when I was 12 or so, getting my First Holy Communion done because Nana said so.

Well... as I said, I keep an open mind. If I rediscover Christianity later, so be it. If I stay here, that's fine. We'll see how it goes...

Until then, I'm just praying [ha!] that I don't get into a heavy religious argument with any non-forgiving atheists [like some of the guys in debating...] cos that's just too much right now.

It's a funny time for all of this, isn't it? Christmas is the second most important celebration of the creation of the Christian faith, after all...

*sigh*

I don't like this bit... the waiting bit.

Waiting to fall asleep isn't fun. I'm still working on East Coast time, so I'm not really that sleepy right now, although I gotta kick myself back into a pattern... Spose I'd better set the alarm for 9:30am. I'm yawning now, which is a good sign, and I'll leave the curtains half-open so that I might end up waking naturally which I like better than alarms.

Waiting to see D isn't fun either. It's rubbish waking up with nobody to kiss before you have to start your day, or having nobody to cuddle when you have a lousy day. I miss his hair and his eyes and his silliness. He's just so silly and he makes me giggle and I miss that. It'll be nice to have him around again...

Waiting for a suitcase... Mom's unpacking the suitcases from the cruise, and I require two small-ish suitcases for all my clothes, so I'm just waiting for her to choose one. [Take your time... it's not like I'm leaving in two days or anything...!]

At least I'm not dying tonight. The plan for tonight is to not experience any random pain, and not have to call the emergency doctor guys. The plan is sleep.

~~~

Before I sleep though... I think I'll start a new post about religion... it's kinda big.

If only it was always so easy...

I was feeling a bit low today, and after dinner, I read my How To Do Just About Everything book.

I started with How To Roast A Chicken, and learnt lots of things, such as how to not freak out on the first date, how to get divorced, how to tell your child about sex, and how to make your cat not eat your new baby.

Cats and babies... awww.

I saw a really cute kitten in Grenada. I secretly named her Diffy.

:) Meh. Work tomorrow?

Bizarro...

There are so many things that I want to SRS BSNS blog about, or at least just sit and think and try and work out what's going on. Instead of doing that, and upsetting myself repeatedly with each topic, I could just put it all into bullet points, risk upsetting myself once, and just getting on with it.

You never know. I might not even be sad, I might just feel relieved. Here it goes!

• Essay. Assignment. Maths inadequacy. The fact that EVERYONE ELSE IS TOTALLY FINE and they're counting words and I'm just trying to work out how the fuck Hensel's Lemma could possibly be the most useful p-adic lemma ever since it seems totally useless to me.
• I am talking to my ex about getting married. Well, he wants to get married, and he's talking to me about it, and it's weird to think that this time last year, we ate quiche and watched a movie and partially broke his bed.
• I think I'm having coffee with another ex. Just coffee. I want to be friends with him, and help him out, cos he's useless on his own, and I don't want to end up with us being 40 and he just feels as stuck as he was when he was 19.
• The Killers... are on loop. Why? Cos I did that.
• I forgot breakfast, and I'm well on the way to missing lunch. I'm just not hungry.
• The needles-in-gut pain has gone away. That is REALLY PLEASING because a week of that was the least fun thing ever.
• Thank god the cruise is over. It was nice, but I love having my own room again. My family were, and still are, driving me up the wall.
  
• Phone conversations suck. I want the real David back.
• I am Such An Idiot because of the key thing.
• I am blogging instead of fixing any of my problems.

I was reading emails and chat logs offline on the cruise when I couldn't get online and I remember reading that time D and I were first getting together, and it was just so fast and sudden and we'd known each other for a week or so and he asked me if I wanted to sleep with him, and I was like "no!" cos it had only been a week and we both kinda freaked out a bit, then laughed cos it was silly. He then sent me an email after, and I like to read that one a lot. It's not very long, and I doubt he even remembers sending it to me. But... it's just so him. I miss him so much. Friday will be nice.

I'm back onto ANTM again, Cycle 4. One of my favourites. Naima's great.

It's weird to think I'll never see my lesbian cruise friends again. Danielle, Michelle, Melanie - three awesome ladies that showed me that you can be a regular person with a regular life and just date women. You don't have to wear rainbows and be part of a gay group... you can just be you. I forget that a lot, and worry about it... and I shouldn't.

\ldots

Well... I guess I should start my day. Ciao.

*shiver* Cold bed is cold...

This time, last year, I was still under the wicked spell of A. It's bizarre, how someone could be such an effect on a part of your life for so long... Nearly three years, we were on and off, always more off than on. There'd be interludes, where I might have someone, but then, for some reason, the circle always came back to being in his room, lovingly bruised and staring at his Star Trek DVD collection while he caught his breath and told me I was fabulous.

No more. I don't remember the exact time the chain broke, but something did. Maybe I realised that I have a future, and, right now, he doesn't.

I always had to defend A so much, things he'd say or do, the way he'd disappear for months and then just pop back into my life. The unexplained MySpace changes, his constantly mysterious relationships with his female friends... so much. I never really became a jealous mad woman unless I was talking with, or thinking about, him.

Despite the fact that I still have pretty low self-esteem, I can see that I deserve more than what A is able to give me. He promised things would be better, and he'd try harder, but... I never saw a change. It was always so much disappointment, so much bitterness.

Everyone always told me he was no good for me, and yet I always kept coming back, because I knew he would take me, and I didn't think I could do any better.

I can. I know this now. Being with D has made me realise that I'm not a horrendous person. I do deserve happiness. I do deserve someone who doesn't promise things that can't be delivered. He is the best boyfriend I have ever had, and I still think to myself that I don't deserve someone as amazing and genuine and real and funny and silly and gorgeous as him. He is my favourite.

~~~

I was contemplating in the shower, singing as I always do, and it occured to me that I hadn't written a poem for months, for over a year. Victory's sequel never got finished. I just can't write right now. I only seem to write when I am depressed.

Some of my favourite poems I've written are still a little painful for me to read now, because I'm just transported to how I felt that day when I wrote it, and the emotion is still so fresh, even though it was so long ago. It reminds me of those Bad Days in school, the times where I'd write alone, or sketch badly in a notebook constantly shoved in a bag or pocket.

If I had to choose between being happy with D and writing poetry again, I'd pick D. Every single time.

One day, I might learn how to write powerfully without actually having to be in that painful place... but, that day is not today, sadly. So, I guess that I will just have to deal with that, and read my poems, be reminded of those days, and look at the girl I once was, and compare her to the woman I am now.

I've grown... and that's so cool. And, it sounds so clichéd and stuff, but... D's really helped. First Year was so tough, and this year's so stressful, and I've never been with someone for so long, and in such a stable way, and... it's all new and cool... It's just like having \begin {cuddleh time} and the corresponding \end doesn't exist... [yes, I stole this idea from you!]

I'm tired, because it's quite late... but... Yay. I am so blessed. This is amazing. You're amazing. I am so happy, although I am temporarily sad because D is not here... but this will be corrected soon, and happiness will be mine.

A, you lost out. I sometimes wonder what would have happened if he'd actually treated me better when he was crap. I don't think about it for too long, because D is incredibly amazing in lots and lots of ways, and I am keeping my cuddleh. In a blue box.

<3

Half-formed wishes and disjointed blogging...

[I frequently "spoonerise" words and phrases, so I often say "half-warmed fishes".]

I wish I had more confidence. I wish I was braver.

I have... so much I want to say. So much I want to be. I wanted to be queen of the world when I was younger. I've taken my ambitions down a notch - I just want a nice life now. But...

I'm scared! Am I good enough to reach for what I want?

The answer is: of course I'm good enough to try and reach for what I want! Whether I can actually achieve it is irrelevant. Everyone's entitled to try to reach for the stars.

~~~

Being away from David, and away from my own place, is getting to me a bit... I made my dad a shopping list of Proper Food to buy, because all we had was square white value bread, a variety of boxes in the freezer and cookies. Lots and lots of cookies.

We have some real chicken - chicken breasts, not those tiny chicken pieces from the freezer. I managed to find some frozen veggies, and I got Dad to buy some more, and some ham, and soup, and it's cool. I feel better now that I have some familiar foods around.

~~~

Argh! Essay, essay. I don't know anything about rings and ideals, and they are ESSENTIAL to my essay. Good grief.

I hope that I will be able to turn out a good piece of work. I'm not entirely sure what I'm supposed to be going for, but I'm scared to email the lecturer in case it's just... totally not right.

More fear, more fear.

~~~

To finish, a quote from Ratatouille, one of the best Pixar films I've seen:

I would've followed the recipe, I would've followed your advice. I would've followed your advice 'til the ends of the Earth because I love you...r advice.

So cute. <3

Kevin Bacon?

Sure, we're all connected to Kevin Bacon, apparently, in six steps or less. Meh. My ex, a self-confessed man-whore, has dated a woman who slept with Russell Brand, so I'm sure I'm pretty close with that.

What I find really weird is when I find myself forming two completely distinct social groups, and then realising there's a link between them...

Example the First: the aforementioned ex, and my current boyfriend.

I met the ex through a friend I met in a chatroom. It's an excellent story (sort of). I was 15 (ish), he was 22 (ish) but I think he shaved off a couple of years so I'd keep talking to him. Ha. We talked, we talked more, and we almost ended up together. But one fateful LiveJournal entry stopped that from happening... The ex thing happened - we all know that story - and I met David at university. Given his spartan approach to friendmaking (keep very few around you, but make them AWESOME) I didn't expect the manwhore to be connected to him at all.

Ex knows Jo, I have no idea how. They probably just met or slept together. Jo is the sister of Hagrid, Hagrid being O's significant figure, and O being a school friend, and regular friend, of David.

Freaked me out when Facebook alerted me to this!

My other examples are not quite so cool, but still a little bit weird.

School connecting with debating. Do not like. School wasn't horrendous - I wasn't bullied, or beaten - it was just... a bit crap. University's bringing out the best in me, and school brought out the worst. Regarding the people from school, I'm partly sad and partly not... I only talk to two people from school regularly. It's reaffirmed what I always thought about most of my schoolfriends; we we friends because of proximity, and lack of another clique to join. It wasn't really much due to who I am as a person, otherwise they would have kept me.

Anyway!

Debater, Claire. Lives in Rootes with Minch, a boy who was in my Latin class, ignored me most of the time and was slightly snarky with me the rest of the time. He took a gap year, travelled the world, came to the same uni as me to study Classics. I saw him the other day, and we just muttered hi and walked away. I wasn't ignored, I wasn't fully acknowledged. I was quite happy. :p

Debater, Ed. Has a (cute!) girlfriend, Jess, who is friends with Caroline, a girl I actually did quite like at school. Couple years younger than me, but fun to hang out with in the school hours when we just happened to be in the same area. Ed does live within 10 miles of me, so I guess it was to be expected. :)

Facebook told me all about these lovely connections I have with people. My ideal situation of having empty intersections between sets of friends (I don't count myself as being a person linking groups here) has been somewhat sledgehammered to bits and then put into cake, and nommed by David, who likes the nom.

Oh well. Given that I've not got very much left to hide anyway, I don't think it's a problem anymore.

Weirdness...

So, what's been happening? Lots, I guess.

D and I have been cuddleh-snuggleh, and that has been so awesome-cool. Sometimes, I just look at him, and go Zomg! cos he's well cute, innit.

Warwick Debating Society had their [infamous?] Term 1 internal competition. It was a truncated version of a regular IV [debating competition with other unis] except we had two rounds, no semi final, just a break to final. The style of debating we do is in pairs; freshers were allowed to pick another fresher to pair with, and everybody else who didn't or couldn't pick was put into the random pool.

I got paired up with Jonny, who's basically the best fresher and also THE TALLEST BOY IN THE WORLD. He's about 6'4. Our team was named "Little and Large" - lol. I realised we had a really good chance of breaking to the final, which was a bit nerve-making, because I am pretty scared of success.

The two rounds came and went. I was pretty unconfident about how I did, unsurprisingly. So, when they announced the top four teams, and Little and Large was announced third, I was shocked!

The final was... hilarous. We were debating the motion "This House Would Enforce Condom Usage In Pornography", and we were opposing it. I got to talk for 7 minutes about porn, and wanking. Hooray!

We didn't win. But, Jonny won Best Novice, which made me pleased, because even though he was the one that made himself the best, your partner can either improve you or drag you down, so I was pleased that we worked well together. I might even go to Leeds/York IV with him, and chillax and whatnot. :)

For some reason, I got really ill for a bit last night! Super weird. I had a headache, then I felt sick and weak, and bright lights hurt my eyes... I got round Tesco for some bits and then collapsed and fell asleep for a little while. After a couple hours of sleep, I felt much better. :)

Assignments are EVIL AND MUST DIE. Or, just... go away! Nargh.

Huzzah!

6 monthiversary! Yaaay!

I've managed to stay with someone for more than a few weeks.

I made cheesecake and did all the washing up cos I woke up super-early, and I felt like it. :D

I have to go now; supervision at 10, lecture at 11, lots of stuff to do before I relax and stuff :)

Oh mein Gott in Himmel...

I have recovered sufficiently to regain a semblance of work mode. This is what I have to do:

• Copy up 9 lectures' worth of material from Algebra I, Analysis III, Vector Analysis and Geometry.
  
• Do two assignments.
• Essential laundry
  
• Tidy my room, and make it habitable, since I'll be able to sleep with D again quite soon.

ARGH! Too much to do, and Sundays are too short and lazy for you to achieve anything...

Sigh. I'm so tempted to drink tea, but it's just a time-wasting measure. Tea later, Algebra I now. :D

Point of information, sir!

What's been going on this week? Let me tell you.

• I've had a cold.
• I've decorated my street with apple juice and waffles.
  
• I've slept in bed.
• I've read the Economist and felt really intellectual and stuff.
• I've missed debating, even though it's only been 5 days since I last saw most of them.
• I'm behind in everything, due to missing 4 days' worth of lectures, and I can't do a fair bit of homework because of it.
• Nothing makes sense anymore. Except your face.
• I miss cuddling with D, but I don't want him ill either :(
  

This morning was fuuuun. This is directly related to the apple juice and waffles. Let me tell you the story. :D

So, I was DETERMINED to go on. Come hell or high water, I was not missing any more, goddammit! So, I got dressed, coughing quite a lot, but otherwise good. I wrapped up real warm, cosy coat, nice scarf, and went outside.

I was having coughing fits along the street, when I get to the corner of my street and the main road when I coughed and vomited. Yay! My housemate had been saying I should stay at home the whole time we'd been walking down the street, and I was like "I'm fine - coughing fit - I'm fine". I couldn't really argue any more.

After a fairly humilitating walk home, involving a few required stops [apologies to neighbours' lawns], I come home to D, with flecks of waffle in my coat, scarf, and all over my hands. I was really not happy at all.

So, I stayed in again, and called my mummy, and NHS Direct. Both told me that I should go see a doctor if I get worse, but since it's Friday, I either had to try and get an appointment today [which is always impossible] or wait til Monday [by which point, I might be a shell of a husk of a man, reduced to coughing and reading the Economist, finding their liberal writing and colourful ads pleasing.

I am getting better... it'll just take a while. Hopefully, by Monday, I can leave the house without vomiting.

Follow the fold, and stray no more...

Yes, I'm blogging about Obama. More accurately, I'm talking about America [fuck yeah!]

It's quite scary how important the right US President is. Basically, he's as close as you can get to being ruler of the world without being it. Let me explain.

Global economy hinges on its strongest players. The US is one of them. Of course, we know this now that they screwed up with credit and Iceland's collapsed and Northern Rock is a shell of its former sexy self.

Global relations rely on, roughly speaking, people being nice to each other. So, when the US goes around "liberating" and then having to sit in countries because their "democratic" processes just cause rebels to go "lol, whut?" and bomb civilians, it's not really giving them many friends - not just for the countries they go into, but the Western states they'd hoped to have as allies who turned on them.

Economy and Iraq are two of the biggest issues for voters. So, not only do American voters need to be smart for themselves, they need to be smart for us.

~~~

I was quite surprised to find out how many people actually support McCain. To a certain, albeit small, extent, I can see how Obama's lack of experience can look like a poor choice compared to an experienced war veteran with a sexy running mate. [I am not the only one! I promise. A few of my friends would too.]

But... I like Obama. I don't know very much about his policies except what the Economist say about him, and that he wants out of Iraq.

I like him because having a black President will be amazing, and getting out of Iraq is good too. That, and he's cute.

I hope that the American voters pick better reasons than my shallow ones for voting for who they do. :D

10 things to 1.

Meme!

10 things I could say to 10 different people:
- I am afraid that, when we have our first argument, we'll either lose everything, or gain more than I can handle.
- I don't love you anymore. I never did.
- Direct me, Jesus Skywalker!
- Whatcha gonna do with all that junk, all that junk inside that trunk? No, really!
- If I wasn't so spineless a few years ago, would we have been friends?
- I know it's difficult to accept that I am not you, and I never will be, but can't I just be good enough the way I am?
- Thank you for letting me walk all over you, and helping me realise later it wasn't okay.
- I feel like I let you down, because I felt you believed in me, but of course, I never let down anyone worse than I let myself down.
- Did you actually get back to that ridiculously keen kid with the free, Citi-funded, Bud in one hand, the self-printed business card in the other?
- You say a word like it's nothing. It's so terrifying when you say it around me, and I hope it doesn't show.

9 things about myself:
- My soul is shaped like a Klein bottle, or a Calabi-Yau manifold.
- You can't touch this. [Stop, hammertime!]
- I'm a /b/tard.
- I'm knitting a torus.
- I love reading my old diaries and seeing how I've grown and stayed exactly the same.
- My handwriting mutates on a daily/hourly basis.
- I am grateful that emo wasn't popular until I got out of it.
- I am Black Hat Guy's girlfriend, and Black Hat Guy himself.
- I wish I was taller, skinnier and less academically intelligent sometimes, and walk in the runways in Milan Fashion Week.

8 ways to win my heart:
- Look after me.
- Accept me.
- Let me know how you feel without words.
- Pocket dance with me.
- Appeal to my intellect.
- Understand my elephant cross kangaroo joke.
- Realise that quaterions, determinants, and larp rules are perfect post-coital talk topics.
- Be my corresponding delta.

7 things that cross my mind a lot:
- Poniiiiies!
- Dr Pepper is SO misunderstood.
- I need £20 more and 5 more hours per week.
- Was I ever as bad as the kids I peer tutor in Analysis?
- I'm never as cute in real life as I am in my good pictures.
- Being in TS's First Year class isn't intimidating now I'm a Second Year. The kids must be terrified.
- I can't buy crisps and a chocolate bar for less than 65p anymore.

6 Things I do before I fall asleep:
- Snuggle.
- Rotate by at least pi.
- Arrange myself in an awkward chevron shape.
- Kiss my sexeh delta. :)
- Panic about the work left to do.
- Smile.

5 People who mean a lot to me:
- The Four Beatles, and your mum.

4 things I am wearing right now:
- A dressing gown with pink and red hearts on.
- Sexeh glasses
- Combats
- A yellow top.

3 songs I listen to a lot:
- Bennie and the Jets by Elton John
- Grapevine Fires by Death Cab For Cutie
- Homecoming by Kanye West

2 things I want to do before I die:
- Have three children
- Love somebody more than I hate myself. :p

1 confession:
- I'm scared of letting myself get too close to people, because when I see a vunerability in someone else, my instinct is to hurt them before they can see my vunerabilities and hurt me worse.

[insert some title here...]

I'm probably going to look back on this post in a few hours, once I've slept off most of how I feel, and feel really embarrassed. I'll wonder why I wrote this, like I always do with posts I write in this state.

I don't care right now about that moment. I'm not living that moment right now. I'm in this one, and I guess I have to make the most of it.

~~~

I've been an Analysis peer tutor. I show up at a class, I help kids converge their sequences. Not exactly the best paid job ever, but it gives me something to do, and I love that look that mathematicians get when a concept just rolls into place and sets everything off.

To get paid, I need my passport in person.

Rather than mailing it to me, my family surprise me with a trip to come and see my house. At first, it was "Dad will pop it through your mailbox when he's roughly in the area"... then it was "We're all coming at 1:30. Make sure your room is tidy."

So, D and I clean the house - we hoover, we scrub, we do dishes, I tidy my room, and we remove all of his clothes, and make his [unused] bed, and take all my Pride paraphernalia and stuff it in a drawer somewhere.

They arrive. It's so hollow.

I show them the house. I show them D, who I know is quite worried/terrified. He doesn't show it at all. My parents ask if D would like to come with us to lunch, and we all set off.

We eat lunch. Mother moans a bit, and drinks a whole pint of Carlsberg. We share anecdotes, D does too, and I begin to relax.

We go to Wilkinson's. I buy things, including some stuff for my parents. Whatever. It's £3. I have to ignore this, because of Everything They've Ever Bought Me. To be honest, I'm ignoring this because I regularly waste more than that on vending machines in a week.

We come home, I give my brother some cheesecake, and my parents get coffee. My mug breaks while I pour hot water into it. It simply cracked, and coffee just pooled around it, then dripped into drawers and onto the floor.

Finally they leave.

Later on, I make a tasteh dinner for D and I, and go to see The Dark Knight, which is an AWESOMEcool film.

On the way home, we start to talk about my parents. I then start to tell D about how they were about Matt. I get emotional.

I stay emotional.

We finally get home, after sharing more of ourselves with each other. I leave him in the living room, doing whatever he's doing.

I cry.

I then start to get angry. What the fuck am I doing? I don't feel pain. Not really. I think it's pain. I think it hurts so much when I do what I can, and I live to make myself happy, and it doesn't work out for me, and on top of it, they would never approve. But... other people suffer worse things every single day, and they just COPE. They just learn to deal. They don't crumple and fall.

I start to channel my pseudo-pain, and I realised it needed somewhere to go. And, what better place than the plughole that we like to call the blagosphere?

~~~

I always get a headache after a good cry. I reckon it's super-dehydration. I basically live dehydrated, I realised this a few days ago.

I believe that BST has finished. Audrey's clock is an hour behind mine, and she changes her time automatically so I don't have to.

Summer's gone. Cold bitter winter advances.

I live in hope that it'll all turn out fine, and everything will be not OK, but bearable. And.... I think that I can do this. It'll just take a bit of work. And... keeping D around seems like the best idea ever... cos he's the best thing that's happened to me for a really long time.

[Except, maybe that time I... oh, no, he was involved in that too. :D]

Pout.

This morning, when I blogged, D had his mini alarm clock next to mine, and they ticked so that there was a half-second interval between each tick.

Now, my clock is alone, and I hear one tick for each second.

And... it makes me feel the tiniest bit sad, because D's not next to me. I know, it's silly to think that he's Far Away; he's not. I can go see him in 3 seconds if I want to...

But, I should work, and so should he. So, we are working alone until we've done enough work.

*sigh* I'm also listening to Kissing You by Des'ree, which makes me feel a little sad and romantic.

But... at least he is here. And I can hug him whenever I want to.
That is REALLY COOL.

I think I'll go do that now. :)

Hmm.

I used to know a girl, I'll call her C. We were never really Good Friends at school, in the sense that we would hang out outside of school hours regularly, but we shared intimacies, told each other things, played duets for school music competitions. [I had a small crush on her, but it faded.]

I have now realised that, despite us being Facebook "friends", I don't know anything about her anymore. I don't know anything more than the smiling pictures of her with alcohol in hand tell me. She went on holiday with some girls from uni, I think; I didn't know.

I called her once, over summer, to ask if she wanted to hang out. I was lonely, and would have quite liked to see her again. But, she was busy.

She never called me to ask what I was doing.

~~~

I felt really low yesterday. It was my 5th monthiversary and I felt like I should have been filled with the JOY OF JOY but... I really wasn't. It culminated in being in front of a blackboard with Matt, then just walking off to have Five Minutes Alone, calmed myself down, and came back. Luckily, I had Analysis III straight after this period of uber-fragility, so I was able to just immerse myself into it.

I'm currently looking at Fourier Analysis for my Second Year Essay. I need two topics, since I'm doing an essay for Mathscursions as well. *sigh* I am finding it difficult.

~~~

Naked boy is in my bed. He looks really cute. :)

~~~

I just spent 90 mins cleaning the kitchen, hoovering the lounge and hallway, and hoovering the stairs and landing. I am EXHAUSTED. Shower and lecture time! :D

Blogging up north...

:D

I would write more, but I'm being rather anti-social by doing this.

I will blog later. I *promise*. Topics to mention:

- Wedding! Not mine...
- Second Year... O_o
- The Joy of Joy...?
- Ponies! And the Funclion, Partilion, and Integralion.
- D. Of course.
- FISHIES IN THE SEA. Or, on a plate. :)

Erm... yesh. I might also talk about how I fall asleep all the time, cos it's REALLY FUN and REALLY USEFUL, especially in the middle of lectures, goddammit.

Thrill me, chill me, fulfill me...

Please do. :)

So, it turns out that a shitty mood is Greatly Improve by singing "T-t-t-t-t-t-touch meee! I want to be dirrrrrty!"

And then listening to System of a Down screaming about how they've got pictures in their mind.

Following that, it's good to listen to the Kinks reminisce with their picture book.

Headbop, headbop, headbop. The Bandaid over all my problems.

However, this doesn't quite get my assignments done, or make me feel smarter, or make me happier for more than four minutes at a time.

*shrug*

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose...

So, I have ten minutes while D lies quietly, sleep-snuffling. [It's cute.]

Already, things are... Not Quite Right. I had all the best intentions. Do laundry once a week! Keep my desk clear! Wear socks! Eat fruit!

I could say I'm happier than I was last year... I dunno, I feel it's a lie saying that. And, I feel bad writing that, but I could just say It's All Good, and then people believe me, so when I end up Getting Worse, and everyone says, "But you were Fine a moment ago!" it's just not worth the hassle.

There was a combination of things: a well-timed comment that really hit me as being So True, telling the story of Matt, the growing stresses of university work, deadlines, blah, and the fact I was given a Big Job to do on Saturday, which will affect the Future of Debating for this year. If I fuck my job up, our society might/will have fresher-retention problems larger than normal.

So... I'm not really one who deals with stress well.

I should get better. Feeling sad, listening to my Playlist of songs that make me feel worse, or just as bad, isn't really an effective way of Dealing With Your Problems.

It's 9:30 am exactly; I must start My Routine.

More morning blog action.

Checking out Olli's blag, found a post commenting on a programme about an 8 year old anorexic.

When I read the post and reflected on it, it made me think about my own weight issues. I think that pretty much all women have had at least *some* issue with weight, or food - not necessarily life-crippling, but maybe a passing thought.

My mom started gymming it a lot in my Upper Sixth year, three/four times a week. She'd come home from work, exhausted, pack up a gym bag and walk straight out again, come back in a few hours time, super exhausted and shiny, and she would eat. Tofu and rice, or macaroni cheese, or some of the leftover Chinese take-out that we have on a Wednesday, or maybe a nutritious fried egg'n'chips. [For a vegetarian, she really doesn't eat many vegetables.]

She complains quite often that she's never losing any weight. First, she gyms. She might be gaining muscle. Second, is an all-carb diet the best way to do things...? [But, as she often says, what do I know? I'm just a university student, I don't know everything/anything.]

My father is... well, a clueless man, when it comes to dealing with sensitive teenage girls and body issues. I remember years of him calling me "Slim" as a joke, and setting up the decrepit rowing machine in corners of the house once in a while, encouranging me to use it. The last time he did that was about a year ago. He set it up in the garage, put a radio in there, and told me to do that for ten minutes a day and I'd start to look really good, cos I was a bit fat.

He is also quite weird when it comes to dealing with food. He loves to mention how I should eat a little healthier - "Why don't you try some salad?" - but he insists on filling the house with croissants, biscuits, muffins, Nutrigrain bars, Rocky bars, simple carbs, snacky crap. Mixed messages, anyone?

I'm not too good with food myself. I have a tendency to think bizarre things, like I don't deserve to eat, which is ridiculous, but I still think it. I also look at myself, and, of course, I do think I'm fat. And, I'm not too good at exercising... so, I eat less. And when I do, it feels like a Big Deal, cos I have to Watch what and how much I eat.

When I'm at school, or university, my timetable tends to let me place eating in a slot. I eat at x'o clock, where x takes 3 values a day, plus/minus an hour, so I can ignore the fact that it's Eating, ZOMG, it's just another thing to do in the day, and it's a normal human thing to do, and I can get on with it.

I can't do that on weekends, or in holidays. The lack of structure screws my sleep up, and my eating.

When I started my job at the warehouse over the summer, I didn't have a nice motorised truck to pull my cages around like I did towards the end. I had to push and pull heavy cages laden with all sorts all around the huge warehouse, then out to the marshalling bays, and repeat, for 8 hours a day. The drinks were the worst. Imagine a cage 2m high, filled with cans of lager, or 2 litre bottles of pop. Imagine me pulling that. It was really really tough.

I was also suffering from a lack of routine. My shift started at 2pm and ended at 10pm, and if I woke up at about 10-11am, I could easily waste this time, and end up leaving the house without eating at all, or having just some toast. There was a tea break in my shift; I liked to take it at 6pm. I ate a small Quiche Lorraine and drank water exclusively in that break for the first month.

Strenous work + hardly eating = Sarah losing just under a stone in 2-3 weeks.

Dad was pretty pleased. I'd never seen him smile so much. I'd come down the stairs to watch TV or have a cup of tea, and he'd say, "You look good. You're losing weight!" and nod, because he got me the job, and it's therefore his good work that made me look so *awesome* because I was so fat and horrible before.

Mother also commented that I looked better too, and so did a few other random people.

I felt like shit.

I was tired from my job, I was hurting from my job, I was stressed because I was crap at my job, and, to top it all off, it turns out that I was fat and ugly before I got the job, but a bit of unhealthy weight loss makes it *all better*.

After a while, I got trained on the truck, and started to make myself eat at least two good meals a day. Towards the end, it became three small meals and a bedtime snack. I started to put on a little weight gradually, and I felt happier, because my trousers weren't falling down anymore.

Dad still thought I looked brilliant though, because I was skinnier.

Now I'm back at uni, I live with D and I eat with him at dinner time mostly. Lunch is packed in my bag, and breakfast is part of the routine. It's harder to fall into bad patterns. And, I like to eat with D, which makes it easier to stick to.

~~~

I'm not entirely sure what point I was trying to make with this post. I guess it's just a happy little insight into my personal story.

Grumbly grumble.

I've been so grizzly lately. My mood has essentially been that of a teething infant. Plus, I've not been sleeping the way I normally do. I get tired so easily, and I always end up going to bed really early, waking up too early [read: 5:30 am] and then not being able to stay up to correct my sleeping. Blah.

So, I'm trying to use these hours productively. Blogging is productive, right...? Well, it won't get me any marks on this Geometry assignment... or Algebra... or Mathscursions [Matt and I renamed Mathematical Excursions to Mathscursions, cos it sounds really good.]

I want to whinge about how I'm cold, and I feel rubbish because nobody will be Up And About for another 4-5 hours. But, I really should work instead.

Maybe some part-baked bread will cheer me up. It's in the oven now.

In the 10 minutes I have to wait, I will actually get a start on this Geometry. It looks like I can do most of it now, just a bit of research on Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky, and a little fiddling of plane intersections.

~~~

Eating the bread now. Om nom nom, it's really nice :)

The plan! I need one.

I will do some work for an hour or two, then take a nap. Then probably food shopping with D, and then working with him, and watching a movie.

Let's make it happen, cap'n!

In other news...

I feel really weird.

I don't want to be told I'm attractive, or pretty, or funny, or smart, because these all seem like lies. It just seems like... I'm being told this because this is "true" and it will make me feel better about myself, and I will be calm and cheery and happy and all the sudden I'll emerge from this childish cocoon I've been hiding myself in, realise my Potential As A Woman, and just go "Right. All is well. Let's do this!"

But...

Leave me alone.

I honestly just want everyone to leave me alone. Just... let me be. Stop telling me things.

Of course, there's that part of me that fears being alone more than anything else, and is afraid to embrace the austere beauty of hours spent perfectly alone. No music, no people. Maybe a book, and a breeze, and a bench. And a large expanse of green.

There's two sides of me fighting, and I'm caught in between. Normally, I have no idea what I want to do anyway, and just go with whatever, but... I'm just freaking myself out here. I'm probably making this whole thing into something bigger than it is.

Is it?
I don't know.

I just don't know. :/

Am I thinking too much, or am I in too deep?

On Monday, we had a talk with Roger Tribe, quite possibly the most enthusiastic man I've ever met. [It seems like an age has passed since Monday and this morning; maybe it's just the fact that I'm back to a comfortable lecture rut again.]

He made me think about my future, what I want to do, or achieve. Three years or four? Applied or pure? Slacker or success?

There was a slide he made, where he outlined a mere handful of the HUGE POSSIBILITIES that a Mathematics undergrad can have when s/he tosses the graduation hat thing up high. One was PhD. I know D, and a few of my other friends, really want to do that, and for a while, I did too. I'm not so sure now.

Another possibility was Poet. Some people laughed when Roger mentioned it, but I actually seriously considered it for a second or two. However, I decided it's not a great idea. I'm no Sylvia Plath, and I like poetry to be something I can just do when I like, not when the deadline's coming up. It would be amazing though, to be a Real Writer. To have a book out, that I made, that steadily sells, and gets studied by children in school, and gets discussed academically because people would take my work, would take ME, seriously. That would actually be quite cool.

Thinking about my degree got me thinking about other things. K, El Presidente of the debating society, became a good friend to me over the summer, and we have the banter-rhythm I so desired when I first joined the society and saw how everyone just fitted and I wasn't quite there yet.

We talked about What I Wanted To Achieve, and What I'm Doing. This was mostly about how debating works in my life, and what I want it to do for me, but... it makes me think of other things too. It's hard to work out what I want to say.

I guess... I'm just not ready to move past being 17 and doing what the f*ck I like, and stop being so crazy, work on my degree, think about my future. The future terrifies me. I don't want to become my parents so badly, and yet, I see them in me increasingly these days.

Writing this, I actually have my head in my hands while I think between sentences, as if I'm cradling my own thoughts. Weird.

I wish I could sleep differently. I wake up so early, then by 10pm I just get sleepy and by 11pm I'm gone.

I'm going to read a book on Number Theory now. Or knit. Or, do one for a while, then do the other. We'll see.

Trois mots que j'aime, et trois mots que je n'aime pas.

Je n'aime pas:

Snogging. Ick. Just... ick. A kiss is something *nice*. Snog rhymes with not-so-nice words like fog, bog, and Balrog. [A Balrog of Morgoth... what did he say?!]

Messy. People at school said it when they were going to have a "great night out". This means vomit, tears, stolen boyfriends, girlfriends crumpled in corners with alcohol-induced grief, and a very light purse at the end of the night.

Rejoice. It's the juh sound right in the middle. That, and there's this hymn I sang as a kid involving saying rejoice so many times that you forget what it means, and saying it seems weird.

J'aime:

Awkward. Because it is a little clumsy, all consonants and corners, and it's so nice to say.

Ponies. I'm not really sure why. It's my Word of the Moment, and I just like to say it randomly, as an ice-breaker, silence filler, etc etc. I also like pwnies, whatever they are. I imagine them to be some kind of mythological intertube creature, hiding on blank pages and pwning them before they load, for they are fearless beasts that know no master but the Firefox.

Astute. This word is like... a pillar, when I think about it. A clean, tall, marble pillar in the centre of some ancient city, where the learned would gather and discuss the issues of the day, and wonder how the Powers That Be could screw things up more. Someone told me once that I made an astute comment. I was very pleased.

Put the lights on the tree...

... and call your Grandma on the phone, if she's all alone.

I am rediscovering Sufjan Stevens' Christmas collections.

He recorded them over a period of a few years, making a CD each Christmas to send to family and friends as presents. After people told him they were AWESOME, he decided to make them all into one big box set, and send them out into the world.

I remember when I bought it; I'd never spent £15 on CDs before, so I was pretty hesitant. I'd only heard "Put The Lights On The Tree" and I did love it, so I decided to give it a go.

I am SO GLAD I did.

It's a mix of carols, with and/or without the words, and original compositions. He does the classics, "O Come All Ye Faithful", "Silent Night", et al, but he also includes some I'd not heard of before including "Lo! How A Rose E'er Blooming", which is German and beautiful.

One of my favourites was "That Was The Worst Christmas Ever!". I adore it. I could listen to it all year, and imagine that it's winter and chilled and the sky is piercingly blue and the single wisp of cloud that dares to float lies there, and looks down.

So pretty. :)

What's new, pussycat?

Quite a lot, and nothing at all.

I live in a house with my parents, and now I think I might have found a home, in Canley of all places! My best friend and lover sleeps upstairs. Sometimes I like to go upstairs while he sleeps, and touch his hair, his face, his arms, and remind myself of how lucky I am to have managed to keep this one.

Things are so mundane sometimes. Those times are usually in the mornings, just before D wakes up.

I do some laundry and watch the machine rock back and forth; I open the curtains to let in the light of day, and see the garden through net curtains; I listen to Elliott Smith and knit a few rows; I update my To-Do list on my whiteboard; I sing, I dance; I discover surprise cuts and scars on my fingers and arms; I lie cuddled up in dinosaur bedsheets alone, feeling the colours surround me but noticing that my feet are still quite cold.

Our other two housemates like to play music; I can hear the N. Irish one playing the Smiths, the bassline is so nice.

Last night, D and I watched Lord of the Rings: Return of the King. Extended edition. The whole of it, in one evening. Then, we made my bed and tidied my room. We snuggled in my dinosaur bed, and I drifted inexorably to sleep. He tucked me in and kissed me goodnight.

It's quite hard for me to describe how I felt right then. It was like when you drink a really good cup of hot chocolate, and it just warms you, from fingers to toes, and you can't help but forget everything that's not quite right, or things you wished for that never happened, because the moment you have right now is something pretty special.

Term starts on Monday. This last week has been good. It's been really good. I hope I don't get too busy. I'd hate for me to go a whole term without having the time to chill out, and relax.

TL;DR - I feel like this: Colon, Closing Bracket.

Another installment of family-related fail.

So, my mother has taken this girl, noticed her laissez-faire attitude when it comes to ironing and bedmaking, seen the boxers and the manshirts and found out she's chosen male housemates. She has come to this decision.

I either am a man, or want to be one.

She then said that "my Kelly" is the only girl she knows that dresses like I do. But she actually dresses *like a guy*. I just wear clothes... in a kinda girlish fashion, I'd say! I wear boxers in bed mostly, or just to wander around the house, so that Dad doesn't freak out and tell me to put clothes on. I wore men's tshirts cos I hated how I looked in fitted stuff because of the body image issues I've had since FOREVER. It's not fair to blame my parents entirely, but I think I'll blame the male half of Team Parental just a little. Sometimes, it is cool to play it androgynous - I do like guyshirts, and keeping things a little sharp - but with my Features, it makes it difficult. But, sometimes it's nice to just go out, not dress to kill, slob around, and let guys treat you as a non-threatening equal. I don't mind being "one of the guys" in a social sense - but not in a literal "Woo! We all have cocks... except Sarah, who really would quite like one."

I'm not a big fan of cock. [There are a few exceptions. Don't worry!]

I... where did this come from? I thought that I was really quite girly in my own way. I don't wear jewellery all the time, but I do sometimes. I love skirts, and feeling pretty. I've worn dresses voluntarily. I brush my hair. If she'd been paying ANY attention to me while I've been at home, she'll have noticed that I love my fitted jeans and the new red skirt I bought. Not really a stereotypical item of clothing for a "man" to wear: a cute, pleated, red skirt.

Why do I feel like I have to justify myself so much?

And does this mean that that my parents have actually realised that Kelly likes girls? I mean, my gaydar is totally malfunctioning - it only seems to work on guys. But, with her, I'm just like "ding ding ding!" BUT it could be because I know she's into me.

My mother wished I was more feminine. She said that she really would like me to be.

Why can't I just be me? Why can't that be good enough...?

He doesn't look a thing like Jesus!

But, more than you'll ever know.

Everyone has songs in relationships that remind them of your other half. In my case, there's usually several, but sometimes, just one where all of that emotion and pain and bliss and anger and fear just... collide, into a set of notes and chords and vocal chords.

With my first ex, Doormat Ex, the Main Song was Beautiful by Athlete. Pretty easy to avoid when I couldn't stand the thought of being his any more; it's an album track, so no radio time, and Athlete wasn't very big back then, so no danger of just being shocked with it while being out.

Decimating Ex, Ben, had Wonderwall. That was horrible. He took my heart, tried really hard to shatter it, and left me with a whole lot of sadness whenever I heard Oasis' most popular song [that's debateable, whether it's THE most popular, but it's right up there.] Oasis was off limits for MONTHS. We broke up on Chrimble '05, I think. It's approaching Chrimble '08, and I can now listen to it without crying. Three f*cking years it took. He has no idea.

Matt... was weird. He meant the most, but I don't think I had any songs that are painful or weird for me to listen to. There's Tyrant, by the Bravery, and Teardrop, the Massive Attack song. "Words of wisdom, from your tyrant's mouth". I remember being in the Study Centre, writing him emails on Gmail because Hotmail and Yahoo! were blocked, and we would chat, and I wouldn't study, and he worked shitty hours, and I played that song nonstop because it was just so cool. I'm playing it now. I don't feel sad. I grew so much with him, I couldn't possibly feel too sad thinking back.

And, then... there's Ash. Fail Ex. There's a lot of songs that remind me of times we had together.

There's kinda Kelly too. Sort of.

Ash and Kelly share a song. But, it's more Ash than Kelly. It's "When You Were Young" by the Killers. It's on Guitar Hero 3, and I've played it with both of them. I remember one time with Ash when we'd been... spending some time together... and we were both quite exhausted, and we played Guitar Hero. Well, I distracted him, and I failed Easy mode because he was distracting me.

"He doesn't look a thing like Jesus, but he talks like a gentleman - like you imagined when you were young..."

A few nights ago, that song made me immeasurably sad. F*ck knows why. Maybe it was just the realisation that I'm changing and letting go, and it's all very good and for the best, but still, I'm fond of the failpast. Nobody really likes change, everyone likes the status quo, because it's so comfortable. You make it your home, no matter how bad it is, and you accept it. But... not anymore, I guess.

Today, I played that song, felt really good and danced until I couldn't breathe. It was good to be able to associate his song with something positive again.

*crazy guitar solo*

Wasting time, going blind...

Actually, no. I'm wasting time, but not in a certain way that apparently makes you go blind and gives you hairy palms. Ha.

What have I been up to?

Weeeelll... I bought a bag. Not a girly one! A nice, practical man-bag that is ideal for lectures and debating. Large enough to fit everything I want, and not a stupid oversize women's bag that scrumples up paper.

My head hurts. It might be my glasses, or my hair, or both.

I haven't very much money at all, and I still have that niggling feeling that I've still not got some essentials. Today, I bought fitted bed sheets because I realised that the duvet sets I bought didn't include them. I also turned down the chance to have dinosaur bedsheets, which I now regret. I will buy some tomorrow with Mother, if I remember. Or, look in the Argos catalogue and treat myself to kiddie bedclothes. Yay! [I hope D doesn't mind too much...]

At least I have my HC1/5 off. So, hopefully, I might not have to spend so much money on medicine and sight tests. Woohoo!

Well, as of today, no more non-essential purchases. Essential does include societies, of course. I'd DIE without my loveable debating freaks. I've missed em in a weird way.

I guess I might start to pack clothes later, or tomorrow. I might do books and check kitchen supplies now. Clothes are totally dependent on storage space. I have to wait for D to be scout [not scalped. He's SO CUTE.] and... yesh. All will be well.

Blag blag, blag sheep, have you any wool?

[disjointed_post]

Yes, sir; an entire bag full of it.

I was tidying my room, and decided to make my mother's pink sports bag my knitting bag. [She doesn't use it anyway - if she did, she'd have asked for it back 4 months ago.] So, along with a few stray needles, I have more than 10 balls of wool; some small, some large, etc etc.

I threw away at least 10 that I knew I would never use. Heartbreaking, but necessary.

In other news, the dinner was fine! Didn't talk to her. Instead, played with the mind of my ex. We talked after about how he had no chance with me, ever. Full stop. And, he was a bit put out, but I told him the truth, so I did good. :p

I went to the hairdressers today. Meh. :)

I went shopping! Bought lots! There was a 20% discount in Peacocks for students, which pleased me greatly. And, I'm going to get my guitar strings changed for the first time in 25 years; it was my mom's guitar, she just abandoned it at her parents' place when she got married.

I got attacked by a fold out laundry basket. I wish that was a lie.

I beat my brother at chess, but it took far too long because he stole my rook when I was too focused on my queen, and I had to wait for ages to promote a pawn and avoid his plucky little rook. It was going to be my victory halfway through, but I was just really slow in actually getting on with it. I'm going to have to work on that.

I'm ending this post here; due to several things, I just feel quite low right now.

[/disjointed_post]

Bitterness. [warning! Emo post is a tad emo]

Jimmy Eat World did a song called Sweetness. A group of girls covered it for House music competition before I'd heard the original. Once I heard how they'd butchered a fairly decent slab of... pop rock/punk/emo-kid-fodder, I laughed.

The lead of this group of girls did a cover of Mr Brightside on piano; I found it on her Myspazz music page. She murdered it. I nearly cried.

I'm thinking of covering Jimmy Mack, but instead of some guy chatting her up while Jimmy's gone, it'll be a girl. It's almost so Katy Perry, except I'm genuinely gay. So there!

~~~

Facing people who I used to crush on is weird. I'm going to a birthday meal for a girl who I *really liked* when I was 16 ish. She'll probably have her boyfriend with her. It's going to be weird. I'm pretty sure I don't feel that way about her any more. I'm still a little nervous. I'm still spending a little too long deciding what to wear, or whether to add a tiny bit of jewellery, in the hope that she'll tell me I look good, or whatever.

Being 16 was quite awful.

I can't go to the party of another old flame. As much as I have put the Us thing behind us, I think it'll be too weird. And... it's not like I want us to get back together, or I want things to be different. I think I'm going to feel this way forever.

I'm just glad he's not in my "frequent IRL contact" friendship group.

~~~

I just want Monday to come quickly. I fear that I'm slipping back into being the girl I was last summer. I hated that girl.

I want my life back! :p

[EDIT: I just softened it a little. I'm not a crazy mad stalker girl. Just crazy mad.]

Sigh.

There's a few words that people at school used so much that I wanted to faux-Columbine them. But, I didn't. Instead, I blogged about them, got suspended, and they ignored me. Success. However, the words lingered on.

One was "banter".

I was just thinking about this while talking to one of the guys I talk to. This is not a guy who is one of my Friends. The guys who are my Friends are the ones I can't imagine sexually, even if I've been with them before, and I just trust them to give me advice, and I don't mind them seeing me crumple.

There are quite a few guys I talk to who are mates, buddies, acquaintances, people I'll talk to, ask how their day is, debate something, talk about women and beer, whatever. Old flames, guys who I dated and it ended "mutually", "it's for the best". Guys who are probably still attracted to me, but I am not interested in them more than good chat. Banter, to use the word.

So, I'm talking to one of these guys. I'm talking about how women are so pretty and yet so freakin' complicated, and I ask if guys get jealous if their girl is checking out someone else, a guy or a girl. And he says: Well, I do, but that's me, isn't it?

I'm talking about women again. How a pretty girl captures my attention and it takes a little while to shake it off - he says he manages to not let girls like that get to him. [Pack of lies, of course.]

I start to say something else.

He's going "Yeah, but..." and I'm like "but whut?" and we do this for a minute.

Then he blurts out that he wants me. And he gets jealous when I'm talking about women and D. After my silence, he announces he's logging off in a way that clearly indicates it's because of what he's said.

So, behind my Audrey's screen, I'm thinking. Well, how can I be friends with a guy who keeps wanting to keep crossing that line? The line is RIGHT THERE. "Past the line" territory includes telling me you want me, or anything you might tell a girl you're interested in, hoping she's interested too.

I am a bit of a flirt, and I love to play around a bit. But, I never let it get too serious on my end. They know I'm playing. So, why can't they just play too, and leave the serious at the door? I've got someone else. The boys had their chances, when I was single and bitter and alone. They let it fall away, they left me, or couldn't handle me.

Now I'm happy and taken, all the sudden, they just come back, they've changed, they're getting it together.

I would say "Sorry, I'm taken," but I'm not sorry at all. Not in the slightest. :)

Meh.

Well, with my cousin on Facebook, I guess it was a matter of time until she noticed I had a guy in my picture, and that I'm In A Relationship with said guy.

Maybe I shouldn't freak out so much about keeping things away from my family. It's not illegal to date, after all.

She seemed happy enough with him.

I have a feeling my dad might know, deep down, that the Boy In A Suit that's visited all the way from Up North might not just be his daughter's friend.

We'll see, we'll see.

Part baked bread!

WIN!

Sunday, Sunday, so good to me... Sort of.

Last day at work! It's the start of the dreaded Christmas Pick though. I have mentioned it being hard work earlier, but... let me elaborate.

[I don't really have much else to do until the shopping is brought home. I found a pretty little blue dot on my toast last night, and had to chuck a half-loaf into the bin - and there's no NutriGrain bars left. Sucks to be me!]

The Christmas Pick is basically the regular picking [alcohol, soft drinks, food, toiletries, cleaning products] and then... you have the stuff they only sell at Chrimble time. We're talking huge boxes of chocolates and advent calendars for now, I think, but it'll get crazier at the time gets closer.

I'm glad today is my last day.

Lucy [my iPod] was acting really weird last week, skipping tracks and refusing to play. After learning how to reset her, she seems to be okay, although I haven't really tested her properly.

8 days. 8 days. The more I think about it, the longer it seems.

Zomg, on Hollyoaks, one guy might have given HIV to his brother via the tramp they both slept with, lol.

I feel funny, I'm going to go and attempt food.

Mother's eating and cooking philosophy... sort of.

I took a nap today at 4:30pm. I was SHATTERED. My scout'n'buy play with Tom, added with the cheesecake, really wiped me out. That, and I slept for 6.5 hours last night.

So, I wake up at about 6pm, and I smell that eggy chips were made while I slept. I don't mind - I have beef to cook for my dinner a little later. I casually mention this to mom, who says "We cooked a lot time ago" pointedly, as if taking a nap is a crime. Which, it clearly is.

Mom asks me why I am waiting to cook; why don't I cook now, or why didn't I cook earlier? I told her I wasn't hungry earlier. She then implied that my wanting to cook and eat straight afterwards was odd - she used the example of Sunday dinner to show how you cook and then you just do whatever you like before eating. I pointed out that with a large quantity of different foodstuffs, like you would have in a Sunday meal, it makes sense to give yourself time in between the cooking and the consumption, in case something happens, or you mistime. It's not exactly going to be a problem with pasta and bolognese.

She just shrugs me off, which irritates the debater in me. Don't back away from the debate, challenge me!

Then, I ask her why she thinks it's so weird to want to eat food freshly cooked.

She says, "It's not weird exactly, it's just the students' way of doing it."

Whut? O_o

Facebook win! I kid you not.

So, after ODing on Elliott Smith, I found myself crying. I just realised I was. Then, I realised I felt really sad.

I F5 Facebook, out of habit. Three people have mentioned how they hate New Facebook.

I admit, I wasn't a fan at first. However, after giving it a chance, and disabling my "Hate The Change" default settings, I realised there were a few features I quite liked.

My sadness turned to irritation. Some invisible smart person whispered in my ear what to do.

This is what I did. I edited my status:

"Sarah wants everyone to shut up about new Facebook and get worked up about international politics, the impenetrable glass ceiling, or something that MATTERS."

I got comments from people who liked it! My supersmart debating friend, Jim from York, said it was the wisest status he's ever seen. Now, he knows A LOT OF SMART PEOPLE, so I feel so chuffed right now.

Sad has been cancelled out. I am so close to being happy, it's as if I was happy. Except, I'm just a tad numb instead. However, numb > sad. So, I'm cool with that.

ARGH >_<

So, I found myself humming/singing fragments of some songs I just discovered in my head. That's the way I write songs, and poems. I just think and then I find a piece of something worth using, nestled in my mind. It's weird for me, because I never feel like my poems are mine, because they feel like they were put in my head by someone else, even though, on reflection, it's clearly my pain in there. I even wrote a poem about how I feel about my own word a while back. [Together with two others, I won the school poetry competition with it, hellz yeah!]

I didn't have any manuscript paper to note down a melody, or chords, and I was quite busy working [or looking like I was working, so that Manager Man wouldn't swoop down on me] so I couldn't even write lyrics down. But, lyrics tend to stay; melodies don't, on the whole.

I get back home. I remember a few of the words, but not which song they belong to, none of the melodies.

Creativity fail.

It's a little bit irritating for me because it's the first time I've felt inspired by D enough to find myself with a fragment of something I can use. He makes me too happy to write, cos I find that I've written my best material in that beautiful little intersection of "feeling pretty down", "on the verge of tears" and "I can't do any of this any more, I just can't". And, I just don't go there much anymore, because I think of D, and I just bounce right back up to "almost happy", which is a damn sight better than what I felt for most of last year.

I think I'll persevere with it. I might be in The Zone. My wrists are pretty weak right now, I can hardly hold up Elvis for long, but I might be able to pen some lyrics and get a few chords out before I have wrist fail again.

Or, I could rest a bit. Damn ibuprofen fail. It's supposed to STOP THE PAIN. Dammit. Only one day of work left. Start of the Christmas pick. Which means more work, harder work, and increased wrist fail, no doubt. Only one day left. I'll tough it out; no choice.

This juxtaposition of fail and win is kinda sucky.

My gosh.

My last post was very long. I'm really sorry.

I just get quite heated about things, and I have to express my opinion.

I often find myself questioning whether I really am a debater, after all, I'm so meek and timid sometimes, and I find myself shying away rather than biting the proverbial bullet and going for it, but when I find myself writing like I did tonight about something I feel somewhat passionate about, I feel like maybe I'm more of a debater than I think.

I'm quite tired from blagging. I shall sign off the intertubes and return tomorrow with VIGOUR AND PIZZAZZ.

Football, soccer, soccer, football. Money.

I'm not a football fan. Mom and Brother support Liverpool to a certain extent, but the family sport is cricket, definitely. When the West Indies are playing, every television, except mine and the guest room's, is showing the game, full volume. I am indifferent to sport, mostly. I do have a fondness for diving, gymnastics, ice skating and latin/ballroom dance competitions, and will seek them out on the TV if I know they're on. Cricket, football, rugby, the rest of the sporting world... Indifferent. I can watch them absent-mindedly while knitting or reading.

I am a fan of passion though. I can get caught up in a match. I don't know which team is which, or the vital stats of the goalie, but when a potential equalising shot hits the crossbar, and half the stadium feels their hearts breaking a little, I can feel that. I can understand that.

English football has irritated me. It's about money. I'm going to address two branches of irritation: The Setanta Thing, and the whole Money In Sport thing.

First issue: pay-per-view football games with the English team. I am not against pay-per-view sport; I think it's good that you can clear the general sports television for stuff the majority of viewers want to see, and for the ones who want to see two relatively obscure nations battle it out on a sports pitch of some sort, it's available. But, England is not "relatively obscure" for those living in England. Football is not just "some sport". It's the national sport. It's the national team playing the national sport. It's one of those times where people can put differences aside and feel the heartbreak and the rushes of joy together. And, for some very rich people to decide that making a few more million is more important than giving people a chance to support their team irritates me. What is even more irritating is that the BBC thought it was worth shelling out £250m to broadcast Formula 1, but couldn't find the [relatively] measly million Setanta was looking for.

Second issue: the way that money has taken over the football game as a whole. Take a look at transfer window time. Players are being swapped around, MILLIONS are being transferred. I know, it's all numbers and figures, and selling a footballer for a few million doesn't seem like a big deal, but think of what you can do with a million pounds. You can do a hell of a lot in Africa, I know that. Feed and educate so many. Change lives. And, in the UK, you can buy a good sized house, and live a pretty good life for a while, just with the amount that one footballer is worth. Then, of course, the wages. Absolutely ridiculous. It cripples clubs further down the league tables, and you end up with footballers with far more money than sense, who decide to parade their wealth and lack of taste with the media machines. A high weekly wage for a footballer is what a family might have to live off for a year. That is wrong, no matter how you look at it. No way is a footballer worth that much. If someone can convince me, I would be willing to reconsider. I'd love to see you try.

Since we're on the subject, when did the Very Wealthy family from Abu Dhabi care about English football, Manchester City, or football as a sport? They don't - they see buying a club as a financial investment. They pump their money in, they get good player, they win stuff, the club's worth more, they sell. Everyone is happy [and the girls and boys get new Ferraris and/or ponies]. Is it a good thing to remove the sporting element further from the game, and introduce even more of this "buy your way to the top of the table, take your profits, kthnx" attitude?

Both of these points lead me on to a small point about English sport in general. The grassroots game is dying. Playing fields are sold off in schools; they play on the internet, not outside. It's not safe outside anyway, says Modern Paranoid Mother. And, if the current trend of "highest bidder wins" continues with sport, it's not going to make it accessible for people to see sport. And with clubs constantly raising the prices of tickets, it's not likely they'll see the game live if they can't afford PPV.

Hopefully, the 2012 Olympics will boost sport everywhere. Hopefully, people higher up will realise something is wrong here. I don't even like sport! I die walking too fast. But... I think that my kids deserve the chance to be able to look at sport, and see sport, and not have to wade through the bull and the red tape and lies and media hype shrouding everything.

I wish I could see things improving, but I can't.

What's in the bag, daddyo?

The bag situation was sorted painlessly. My brother told my parents, and they were just like "That's totally fine. The bag sucked, because zips don't normally break that way." Sorted.

Ooh, today was so nice. Lunch and the Holy Grail with D :) It was so nice to be off work too, and awesome to see him again. I made him a little present as well: a picture frame I decorated with 2^3 gems, and I put a picture of the two of us together, from the weekend where I visited and we went to Knaresborough and its Castle, and it was drizzly, but it was so awesome anyway. I also Crayola'd a little note for him, and covered the box in random paper. I was a little worried he wouldn't like it, but I don't think he hated it. His text seemed rather positive :)

I've not got much more to say about today; a lot of it has just been put into a letter. And it was just so cool to see D. I didn't want to leave him at the train station, I really didn't.

*mushy mushy mushy* Bleh. I sound so girlfriendy and smitten. What happened to the sharp, bitter, lonely, angsty girl who got depressed and wrote poetry about stuff? Ah, I guess she found a man. :p

Shower, bed, bag! What's the connection?

All broken over the course of the past two weeks. I shall tell the tales. You might not care, but you're reading my blog. Clearly you do a little bit. :D

My bed broke one night after coming home from work. I atit in the corner of the bed I always sit in, and it made the most awful snap/creak sound, and I felt myself sinking by inches. Not the best feeling. I told my Mom/Dad, and I had to sleep on the wrong side of the bed *twitch* for a day or two. I came home from work one night, and it was fixed. Yay!

The shower's been in various states of fail for months. First, the water was never more than lukewarm because when Dad fixed it last time, he did something with the temperature knob. Then, the pressure failed. It was like showering under a drizzle. Then, one day, it just didn't want to wake up. So, after a random guy came into my room and sorted out some pipes in my wardrobe, we got a new shiny shower! Yaay!

The third tale of break and fail is not as resolved, and is a little less upbeat. My brother, having spent a week back at school, broke the zips on his sports bag. Both zips. The bag is basically just flappin' open, bar the carry straps. I happened to notice this, and I have made an ultimatum. Either he tells Mom/Dad by 8pm tonight - or I do. It seems like we both know how our parents work, it's just he's still in denial about it. He'd rather hide the bag than admit to breaking it, but I did tell him there's a possibility of refund/exchange. So... it could be fine. And, I think that they'd be more mad just finding out than being told. Although, being shouted at still sucks.

Sigh. Only two more weeks left here. And, four more working days! Hellz yeah.

Sadness, sort of.

I was supposed to try to sleep an hour ago.

I really miss D a lot. I have a double bed at home, and I always sleep on the right hand side. I'll turn on my side, and see the expanse of empty cold bed by my side, and realise that someone, 150 miles away, could be filling the gap, and keeping my feet warm in bed. I have cold feet.

But, it's not really the footwarming I'm after. It's not a particularly cold night.

I just want a cuddle. Working on Sundays is tough. I do exactly the same job I do in the week, but the warehouse screams "It's Sunday! Go back home!" at me, silently, and I just feel like every hour drags on so much more.

And, my arms/wrists/hands ache nearly all the time, which is just annoying. Turns out that it makes writing, baking, knitting, typing and everything else I do just that bit more difficult.

I think that having a bed cuddle might make it a little easier to deal with, is all.

Not that it really matters. I can't have one.

Tuesday. <3

America's Next Top Model: bring it on, bitches!

Cycle 11 aired its first two episodes together on Wednesday night over the pond, and due to the magic of Youtube, I was able to watch them on Thursday morning, before I went to work.

Cycle 10 sucked, to be blunt. There were a couple girls I liked, but there seemed to be much more footage of "bitcheh bitcheh bitcheh" than usual; maybe time just dragged a lot more! I think that the girls just had less talent, really. A lot of them just *wanted* to be a model, and hadn't really learnt anything about it beforehand. There was one girl, Anya. Stunning, but as empty as an egg cup. I mean, we're talking about stereotypical model-blonde dumb. She was just so... it was incredible how dumb she sounded sometimes. And, she shares my birthday! She was born on the same day in the same year as I was. She's a nascent model; I'm a nascent mathematician [and wannabe model. Ha!] It's really weird to think about where other people born on my birthday have managed to reach with the time we've had.

[Aside: I just spend a little while looking at a blog of hot Russian girls who are famous somehow: models, actresses, etc. If I had a collar, I'd be so hot under it!]

So, what do I think of Cycle 11 so far?

I'm already starting to have a couple favourites. I love this cute French girl, Marjorie. She's just... so nervous and quiet and cute on screen. Sadly, they're not qualities that will make A Top Model, as Tyra would say.

Isis is probably the most talked about girl in the house. Isis is a transwoman, pre-op, who was discovered after being a homeless person / set prop last cycle in a photoshoot. Man, she was fiiiieeeerce! The judges thought There's Something About Isis, but didn't know until Tyra said. She takes a great picture, and seems to be less vacuous than some of the other girls. Of course, some girls don't care about Isis' presence in the all-female competition, others do.

Best quote from the show so far: "It's not a closeminded view, it's just traditional." [It's worth blogging about on its own later, methinks.]

The overall theme of the episode was.... hilarious. It was like cheap Star Trek, 6os and 70s visions of the future, complete with silver rooms, panels with lots and lots of buttons and awful CGI effects. And TyraBot.

*sigh*

I'm hoping that it doesn't stay this naff. My addiction to Top Model ensures that I will be a loyal viewer till the very end. So, if it's interesting to watch, it'll be more fun.

On the plus side, hot girls! Yay. I can always just turn down the sound and watch.

{Family interactions} intersection {Pleasant experiences} is not the empty set.

I'm wandering around at about 1am, thinking about eating toast and drinking some OJ, when mom calls, asks me what I'm doing, she reminds me to turn off the bathroom light when I come up again. She comes downstairs to make herself some green tea.

She tells me about the egg-free mayo she's trying out, and how she wants to be vegan.

I ask her what she's planning to do this weekend, and we implicitly agree to go clothes shopping.

She takes some Hobnobs, and I mention that I'm planning on baking cookies. We start to talk about desserts, she tells me about the apple crumble cake they served at work, and how she was thinking of baking scones.

I tell her which days I'm planning on working, and that I'm taking Sunday and Tuesday off. She tells me she didn't think I'd make it through the job at all, and fully expected me to quit. I suggest she makes chocolate brioche pudding [which is essentially bread and butter pudding, made with brioche instead of bread, and melted chocolate and butter instead of raisins in the middle]. She agrees it is definitely a cause for some celebration.

We sit at the breakfast table while she's waiting for her green tea to brew. We pull out a couple cookery books and thumb through them, talking about ideas of what to bake. She tells me about her failed attempt at an egg-free coconut cake, and how when she was younger she made a coconut variation on rock cake, and she might try that again.

We start to talk about my moving into the house for university. I mention that I might move in installments - move in with minimal things on Monday, and come back for whatever else I can over the weekend. She thinks it's a very good idea.

I tell her I'm thinking of buying things from Ikea, like clothes storage. She immediately says no, grabs the Argos catalogue and flicks to the furniture page, pointing out a couple things that look like they might be useful.

Her tea has brewed and is cooling. She takes it upstairs, and I say goodnight.

~~~

I would be rather ^_^, but sadly I am just far too tired to do this. I had a very exhausting set of MSN conversations involving Fail Ex, the friend of Fail Ex whose clothes I still have, and a set of brutal honesties that hopefully have pushed Fail Ex into the right direction. If not, I'll probably punch him. And I wouldn't be the only one...

10 brain cells or fewer?

The Plain English Campaign have been working very hard lately. Finally, after years of a glaring error in our supermarkets, Tesco have bowed to the will of the Campaign... and changed their checkout signs saying "Ten Items Or Less" to "Up To Ten Items".

[Let's ignore the fact that this introduces the ambiguity of whether ten items are permitted, or if you're allowed nine or fewer. Sometimes, I try to bring eleven items to those queues if I can. They never notice until it it's too late. Mwahaha!]

English fail is widespread it seems. One of D's favourite places to go on the interweb is the English Fail Blog, a place where you can either say "LOL, ESL/EFL speakers got it wrong", or "LOL, native English speakers fail at basic grammar, sentence structure, and apostrophe placement." Really, we should be looking at native English speakers, people who grew up learning English in school as a first language and wondering where it went wrong with a sense of ZOMG, O_o and sadness, not LOL.

I think what you notice the most going around town is the complete lack of awareness of the correct location of apostrophes. Even the Apprentice candidates couldn't work out where the apostrophe in "National Singles' Day" should go. [Mind you, they managed to make a spaghetti bolognese that tasted bad. That is pretty impressive.] The local Italian restaurant [which is never anything but empty or closed] serves the following: pasta's, risotto's, pizza's, and lasagne's. According to Wikipedia, Tesco is guilty of more SPAG fail, with such classics as "mens magazines", "girls toys", "kids books" and "womens shoes". Note the lack of apostrophe.

Whut!?

I just... it's such an easy rule. Apostrophes get involved when you're possessing something. Or abbreviating. But, mostly possession.

Then there's text speak. Of course, I love to use LOL and woot! and ZOMG as much as the next intertube dweller, but I don't use u or ur or 2day or anything that's just an unnecessary abbreviation. Yes, it saves you half a second. It also makes you look illiterate.

The Plain English campaign have said: "Well, gosh. Isn't English tricky? People can't spell. Maybe we should make it easier for them, and just... let poor spelling slide in exams, you know?"

I don't understand. I can't really speak for the generations before, but I don't think it was as much of a problem as it is today. Schooling was different back then. More learning by rote than "let's explore the world of learning, Jimmy". But, it got results, right? Admittedly, some kids fell through the system. Those labelled as dyslexic, etc today would have been labelled stupid, lazy, whatever. There's some good things that happen with education today... but, it can't be that good if university students come out not being able to use apostrophes consistently.

*shakes fist angrily*

~~~

Am I being an intellectual snob here, by writing this? I went to a good school, was in the top sets, with good teachers, and the right mindset. All of these are so important to getting the most out of education. I can't work out if it's reasonable to feel this way about English, or if I should just accept that some people just can't do as well with language as others, to the point of basic English fail.

And, I apologise for my own SPAG errors. I may be a writer/poet type, but above all, I do maths, okay? We're not supposed to be any good at English!

Shallowness, and health.

I was watching Maury again; no babydaddy drama this time, it was about Opposite Couples. There were a few short-tall couples, young-old ones [we're talking, college-geriatric here]...

There were a few men who were dating morbidly obese women, and they were both just talking about how sexy their women were, and how Big IS Beautiful.

When you get that big, it's unhealthy. I don't think it's always beautiful.

I am shallow, I admit that. I've dated people and just wished they were a *little bit* cuter, or taller. I've never actually really thought that I was dating someone that was too heavy. I kinda like a little cuddliness when it comes to potential partners. Too skinny, and it's just like hugging bones.

But... still, healthy is beautiful. I know, it must be difficult to be obese, and being told by society that they are second-class citizen that caused their own problems. I wouldn't look down on someone because they're overweight. But... to see a morbidly obese woman in lingerie on national [US] television, letting everyone know... It's not sexy, or beautiful to me. To be fair, ANYONE doing that on Maury, hot or not, isn't going to rate highly in my books.

I'll just stick to watching the babydaddy episodes. Nothing better than a bunch of people being a million percent sure that X or Y is the father, and then realising that it's neither.

Some Q&As from the 11+, but not as we know it?

So, I was checking out Olli's blag, and checking out his links. Got here. I was amused, and I thought I would try to answer some of the questions.

Write five suitable questions to which you think the following would be good answers: -

1) Because I was in a hurry.
2) He is called Robert.
3) It was exactly two o'clock.
4) Yes, we do.
5) Last November.

Now. Suitable. Funny word that. Does it mean suitable in terms of grammar, or suitable in terms of content?

For example, for Number Four; "Do you and your brother like cake?" is good, acceptable, and probably a normal response. Would the examiners have liked: "Do you and your immediate family wish to recreate a battle scene from Lord of the Rings in a town hall?" I know I would have. The town-centre lightsabre battle has been done. Let's get some epic size into this!

Of course, you can just be smutty. For two: "What is the name of the man who carries your left boob for you?" I have personally considered hiring two boob-carriers. I wouldn't have one called Robert though. Bob on my boob? Naw. Get me a Carlos and a Juan - Juan on the left, of course.

One: "Why did you give my mother five orgasms, then leave the house without your shirt on?" I think that's just bizarre. Unless we're talking Rory Gilmore's mother, in which case, it's something I could see myself doing.

Sometimes I worry about myself. Then, I stop worrying because I've stuck a crayon up my nose.

ZOMG

I have just found a link to this here blag on SOMEONE ELSE'S BLAG.

You know what this means, right? Yes. It means that Jeremy Paxman will see into my mind and realise he wants to sleep with me. Actually, it doesn't. It means that someone actually reads my blog and isn't ashamed of it. Wool! Go me.

So, what's been going on? Work was... interesting. Here I am at 2:15pm, lounging on the bed, waiting for Teh Gov't to get back to me on a question I have about their HC1 form [why so many forms? and boxes and questions?] It's a fairly important phone call. I've just been informed by Specsavers that it's time for them to take my money and tell my how blind I am, take more money and fix my vision with glass. If the NHS can see how poor I am, then they might take pity and give me a few shiny pennies to help me afford some bread and milk :)

So, yes. Here I am, waiting for this call. Then, my agency calls. "Erm, you know the managers cancelled all the agency workers for the week? They just called me and asked where all their agency workers were. Come into work now, kthnxbai."

Thankfully, the call arrived in between the super-speedy shower and the hurried eating. So, all my questions were answered and I got into work at 3pm.

Well, the upshot of this is that I earnt £30 today. The downside: I have knitted a centimetre of hat over three days. :( And, I missed out on a game of online chess with D. He's currently kicking my ass. Not literally. His legs are quite long, but not 100 miles long.

Oh man. My sight test is in 7 hours time. I like to sleep for 8, or I get cranky, irritable and whatnot.

I hope I get that cute optician I got last time. Or the other cute one. Eye candy at Specsavers, lulz.

Warning to readers!

Erm... I might/will moan about stuff.

And, if I talk to you often enough, you'll have heard it already.

Usually about my family, or how thick/ugly/crap I am, or something.

Sorreh kids :(

Calmness is calm

So, what do I do now? I'm not working tomorrow.

I should really do some maths. Lingebra seems to be on the cards, a browse through Mean Value Theorem and Rolle's Theorem... mmm, remainder terms of Taylor series... :)

Well, I might knit. And work. First, Top Model! :D

Dear Father,

Just for the record:

I LOVE it when you don't listen to the end of my sentences.

I really like it when you just go off and garden, or go to the garage, or whatever, without actually listening to what I'm saying.

[/sarcasm]

I walk away when Mother talks because she'll repeat about how crap I've been in that moment so many times I can pretty much predict what she's saying, so I hardly need to stay. [Am I being hypocritical?]

But, when I'm trying to ask you something, or let you know something, please give me the chance to make us the kind of family that listen to each other, not just talk at each other and share a few walls and a roof. If you have a problem with something, LET ME KNOW. Silence is a yes, for me. Objections need to be voiced and explained, not implied.

You're just... clueless, aren't you? I always hoped you weren't. But... you don't make it easy.

[Note: This is what happens when you combine unwanted romantic attention, Elliott Smith, mild unemployment, lack of privacy, intellectual inferiority, and being away from all my friends.]

Current knitting status [writing it out is scary!]

Unfinished Projects:

• Matching beanie hat and skinny scarf, for myself. Thick yarn, big needles. So far, the hat's done. The scarf is growing quickly, and I plan to have that done before the end of next week.
• Matching beanie hat and skinny scarf, for Mother. This will be time consuming: thin yarn, tiny needles, and colour changes. She wants red, gold and green, so it's tough to put a timeline on this one. Probably Christmas, given that uni means I have less knitting time.
• Scarf for my brother: Not particularly thin yarn, but with the colour changes, still means it'll take a while. I've been "working" on this scarf for years. It's more accurate to say it was on hiatus. Now I'm back into knitting, I can really start again on it.

Planned projects with supplies on hand:

• Red hat for Daddy. He's been using a hat I wore when I was four as his gardening hat for the past 15 years. I think it's time he got a new one, don't you?
• Black hat for the brother. He just wanted a black hat.

Planned projects, no supplies yet:

• Jayne Hats. This is a "sometime in the future, no idea when, let's see how it goes." Those earflaps look tricky!

And... of course, I have about twenty other balls of yarn of varying sizes, colours, styles.

*sigh*

Maybe I should find a Knitters Anonymous in my area. They can help me through this tough period in my life.


EDIT: The first item in the list is complete! I rejoiced. I rejoiced a lot more than a girl should after knitting. Now, onto the second...

Work sucks. Not working sucks more.

So, I work with an agency. They've been giving me work in a "distribution centre" [read: warehouse] for the past month and a bit. So far, it's been pretty regular: Monday-Friday, 2pm til 10pm, I come home exhausted, I get paid.

Sometimes they send me home early. That's annoying. But, it's okay, because I never lose more than a tenner a day.

Recently, they've said "We don't need you, kthnxbai" which is REALLY HELPFUL, considering my current financial state. Each day I lose is a maximum of £40 lost [yeah, I'm on minimum wage, but moneys are moneys].

So far, I can afford a roof and food. I can't yet afford books, or drinks, or travel [for debating], or... well, anything else that makes life a bit more fun.

That's a little lie, actually. Erm... there might be someone that makes my life much more fun for free.

Yes. It's him.
It's Barack Obama. <3

The obligatory first post.

*sigh* This is the part about blagging that I dislike. The First Post. It's never any good. It's never very informative, or interesting, or fun to write, for that matter.

But, it has to be done. Otherwise I'll never get onto the things I want to write about.

So, I guess I should say a few words. Hell, I've already said some! Let me say a few more.

1. I knit. I will talk about knitting.
2. I like maths, and numbers. I'm doing a degree.
3. I'm not as much of a nerd as I appear, sadly.

I guess you'll find out the rest as I go.