Blogaroo

There is still some editing to be done, but I think I have the essay that is due in tomorrow under control. It isn’t exactly what I’d want it to be - which is a publishable quality masterpiece, of course - but it shouldn’t fail. Or at least it had better not fail, because if it does I will cry because it has been a complete pain to write. I have two more essays due in next week, one of which is mostly written and one of which hasn’t even been started yet (but should be relatively simple to do given that I’ve already done a presentation based on the paper it’s about). Then I am giving myself a few days break (and a great big nap) before starting on a corpus project.

Once that’s handed in I have almost a month to revise for my two exams in May. And then, assuming eveything goes okay, third year is over! Phew! I’m tired just writing that!

I’m finding university quite hard going at the moment, mostly because nothing has really grabbed me this semester. I don’t care about anything I’m learning - or attempting to learn, anyway! And before you ask - everyone always asks! - I don’t know what I’m doing once I finish. At long last I have a couple of ideas about directions I want to go in, but none of them really focus on my degree subject. Which is a good thing, because the only real jobs available for that are in academia, and I am SO not destined for that!

The first plan is to try to get some sort of summer job in a vaguely-related field (or just anywhere, really), just to have something to put on my CV to show “commitment”. And then I need to try to get through fourth year alive (dissertation, aargh!) before convincing someone to employ me. And if I were you I’d get to a betting shop and put a wager on, because the odds of that are low!

One of the things that drives me most crazy about my life is that my desk always looks like a hurricane hit it and then, just as it was starting to recover, a herd of elephants walked across it, throwing paper into the air as they passed. The idea of tidy, ordered, perfect rooms fills me with happiness, but in reality I can’t be trusted not to make a mess of anything. I get into clean elevators and by the time we get to the third floor the place is full of junk, with small children drowning in oceans of dust and paper.

It’s not that I don’t try to be tidy – I do, I really do – it’s just that I seem to have a biological need to make things messy. And it’s not that mess doesn’t bother me, because, if I’m honest, it stresses me out more than you I thought possible. It’s just that part of my brain doesn’t think about the things I could do right then and now to improve things.

Part of it, I am sure, is that I don’t live in the perfect clean palace that my head lives in. You know when they go back to the Grand Designs house just after they’re finished, and everything clean and white and stainless steel and slate and there’s no clutter and, despite the fact that there’s no evidence of it really living in the place, there’s a cat – a magic, moult-free cat – slinking around the place like it’s in a sofa advert? That’s the house my head lives in. And because I live in a cluttery flat, my head says what’s the point of trying? Who are you trying to impress? It’ll still look bad anyway.

But my desk is a constant problem. I’m a web designing student, I live at my desk. But between notes and bills and textbooks and to-do lists scribbled on everything I feel lost. I’m sure it affects the quality of what I do. But no matter how much I try to keep things under control, it controls me again within two days.

So here is my pledge of the week: tonight I am going to tidy my desk. And then I am going to tidy it up again every day. File things away every day. I want to be in control for once, and my desk seems like a good place to start. Well, until I’m showing Kevin McCloud round my brand new house, anyway.

Note: prepare for a backlog of “written offline” blog posts. I’ll backdate them to the correct day, don’t worry, they won’t attack you all at once. The internet has been flaky: Word, and free wireless for the price of a bottle of juice, are my friends!

Last night, following our mealtime Scrubs, we flicked through the channels. We always do this, and it’s almost always Top Gear on (Dave, do you want to consider showing something - anything - else?), but last night we ended up on Channel Five - who knew it was still alive, albeit in a rebranded Five style - and It Pays To Watch. Basic premise: change your bank, insurer and lunch and save some money. It’s a bit of a “no shit, Sherlock” situation, but one fact jumped out at me:

Times the price of one bottle of Coke by 250 - that’s how much your daily coke at work is really costing you. Admittedly, being a full-time student means I do way less days in uni than 250, but even a liberal estimate of 100 days (2 ten-week semesters, not including days spent slogging in the lab or library) means a quick, “oh, I’ll get a Coke Zero, that’ll wake me up” is costing me £85 a year.

Scary.

Working on the premise that you need to spend money to panic solve problems, I haded over ten of my finest British pounds to various chemists yesterday in a bid to solve two niggling - and not so niggling - problems.

The first problem is Migraine. These are new for me, and while I have a prescription medication for these, it doesn’t appear to be helping. Seduced by the advertising, I went looking for 4head Quickstrips (£4.99 for 8, so 1p cheaper for the same quantity of the Boots own brand alternative). If these help, I will let you know - and attempt to have them nominated for a Knighthood. These headaches need all the help they can get.

The other problem, the nigglier one of the two, is a generally feeling of irritation in my ears. After my sister kindly gave me an ear infection almost 10 years ago, I’ve had constant ear problems, infections and itchiness/irritation. After seeing Audiclean, an ear cleansing wash, on the shelves in Superdrug, I bought it in the hope it will help. It is essentially just purified seawater (so I could just take a few dips in the North Sea and save myself a fiver), but if it helps things feel better, I will sing the praises of it high and low!

It’s hard for me to spend out on unproven items, but I figure that if they even start to help, they’re worth it.

Call me deluded, but I always considered opticians to be well trained individuals. After all, my eyes are quite precious to me, and I trust them to the optician. So finding out, through an eye problem that is not healing (if you’re there, Karma Gods, I give money to charity and everything) that they don’t really seem to know what they’re talking about and that two different opticians in the same place are giving me strangely conflicting advice is unnerving.

The next step, if things don’t improve (and I don’t see how Optician2’s advie can help when it directly contradicts both Optician1’s advice and my own instinct) is to see my doctor, and then possibly change opticians. The worry is that different companies charge a lot more for my contact lenses, but if this problem doesn’t clear up I won’t be wearing contact lenses again anyway!

And in the meantime: ow, my eyes!

How and when did you learn to swim?
I learnt to swim quite young, such is the fate of a child born to generations of pool attendants! A mixture of Dad teaching me and proper lessons, although I still have all the technique of a one-finned trout.

How and when did you learn to drive?
I finally passed my test when I was 22, after learning for about a year (bar interruptions because of Mum’s illness). I hated learning to drive, I hated that hour ever Sunday morning. It was painful, both physically and mentally, but ironically, once I passed my test I loved being in the car.

How and when did you learn to tie your shoelaces?
I honestly couldn’t tell you! All I know is that I was much younger than I am now!

How and when did you learn to cook?
Most of my cookery is random and self taught, or involves taking a recipe and modifying it to the extent that it becomes unrecognisable. I learnt out of necessity when I was on a very limited diet where I had to eat fresh meals every night. It’s still not something I love, but I don’t hate it (unless it’s at the end of a long day and all I want to do is phone for a pizza delivery).

How and when did you learn to type?
This in’t what you would call typing, really. I had typing lessons (on typewriters!) at school, and spent some time with Mavis Beacon, but I’m still faster when using my own personal typing style. Small hands make traditional typing slow!

Le Friday 5:

1. What’s a pretty good sign that your day at work or school is going to be rough?
I can generally tell before I leave the house - if I don’t like what I’m wearing or don’t feel good in myself then the rest of the day just won’t work.

2. What’s a pretty good sign that your day at work or school is going to be terrific?
If the sun shines, I’m happy, and that always helps.

3. What’s a pretty good sign that you should probably eat out?
When the only thing in the fridge is Quorn. As is currently the case. How did we manage to do a whole shop but the only food-like thing in the place is Quorn?!

4. What’s a pretty good sign that you’re going to spend more money than you should?
If I shop with A. He is way too good at encouraging me to buy things that I really shouldn’t…

5. What’s a pretty good sign that someone you’ve just met is going to be a pretty good friend?
If we can chat away without a problem from the get-go, we’ll be fine. If it’s at all stilted, or awkward, we’re doomed.

If I were to sit down and think about exactly what I’m missing right now, it would be passion. Call it boredom of the daily drudgery, call it over-medication, call it tiredness, but it all boiles down to that one thing.

Losing interest in what you love is one of the clearest symptoms of depression, but it’s also one of the clearest symptoms of general frustration and boredom. I can’t find it in me to pick up a craft project anymore, they scare me; so big, unwieldy, and possibly endless. And where to find the time? Even on days when I’m productive and Get Things Done, I don’t even get part of my to-do list completed, so there’s no time to add more to it.

Things I used to love, weeks or even years ago: craft, reading, being outside, exploring, walking, singing, performing, writing, drawing/painting, sewing. Things I have lost my passion for: all of the above.

I forgot that I loved singing until I watched a programme last night about a school choir. The buzz before a performance, the feeling of being part of something, the fun of it all… I don’t know if I’d be too self-conscious now, given it has been thirteen years since I’ve sung in public, but I might look into joining one of the uni choirs next semester, if I can find one that doesn’t take itself too seriously and (perhaps most importantly) doesn’t require auditioning.

I tried to get back into exploring by dragging A to Cramond last Saturday, and that was really good - I think we both really enjoyed it, despite the severe frostbite! Perhaps I’ll look into planning more random trips, see just how far we can get on a bus.

I am trying to get my passion back. It may be a long road, but I’ve taken the first step.

Being awake at 4am has few things going for it. But I glossed over the four hours sleep part (four hours? Ouch.) and got on with the ever growing list of things to do.  It’s much easier to work when there are no distractions like regularly updated blogs and news websites, when A isn’t around to distract, when you get to have that smug glow of, “hey, all of these people aren’t even up and I’m doing work!”. I can only wonder how amazing a person I would be if they’d never invented the internet, although it would make working as a web designer somewhat difficult (but saved me two hours in Photoshop this morning).

One of the most frustrating aspects of what I do is that I’m reliant on technology, and I’m reliant on it working. While A has a little smidgen of control over the server, I’d be lost if something happened when he wasn’t around. I only realise that when working on another server altogether, a server that neither of us can control, one that currently won’t let me upload certain files but will allow others, one that is repeatedly asking for my password over and over again and will sometimes let me in and sometimes not.

Even the technology I do have some control over is annoying me right now - why has my laptop suddenly decided that I shouldn’t be allowed to shut it down, only log out or go onto standby? Why won’t my iPod let me listen to songs while charging via USB? Why can I never tell when my toast is ready without switching it off (and, inevitably, on again when my toast isn’t ready)?

Perhaps one day I will solve these problems, but I can’t do it right now - the internet is waking up, you know.

I am looking forward to spring. Snowdrops are out now, daffodils are starting to peek out from the ground, and temperatures have been above freezing - even at night.

I’m starting to think about seeds and plants for the summer seeing as we’ll probably be staying put this year (unless they’ve already remarketed the flat seeing as we haven’t returned the form yet!). Second-floor gardening in Scotland isn’t easy, but I’d like to get some herbs growing early so we can have them all summer, and I think probably more vegetable plants. Last year we grew three tomato plants and a pepper plant in the flat, and the pepper is still alive and well and bearing slightly freakishly-shaped fruits. I also need to find some way of stopping window boxes jumping to their deaths whenever a breeze picks up - we’ve lost so many window boxes through there suicidal tendencies now that I just don’t trust them anymore.

Flowers would be nice, too, but they’re honestly becoming of secondary importance. A plant needs to earn its keep around here to justify a place in our small flat, and if it’s a competition between one day eating the fruits of our labour, or just watching it bloom, then eating wins every time.

I’m thinking it’s going to be another sore year for my bank account as I buy up everything we need. You might want to invest in Homebase now…