[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.