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!

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.

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!

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…

I’m in the market for a new haircut, but apparently the internet is not in the market for guiding me towards that haircut. I have thick-ish (it’s not really that thick, but there is a lot of it) dark brown hair which is currently just past shoulder-length. I am not very good at styling hair, although on a good day I will point the hairdryer at it for a few minutes. I’d like to avoid fringes if humanly possible, because the point that they stick to my head is just a step too far for me.

Layers? A bob (A is very keen on that, which may be because it’s the only hairstyle he knows the name of)? And is it at all possible to get a haircut in this City for less than £20?! Time will tell. Possible haircut updates to come!

Having spent the last half hour eating cereal like cereal was going out of fashion (and let me ask - has cereal ever been in fashion?) I’m now realising that I am the queen of all emotional eating. Sad? Tired? Just generally fed up? Oh yes, hand me the wheat, the dairy, and the cocoa beans. Sure, I know that when I’m finished I won’t be particularly pleased with myself, and - yes - might even dislike myself. And, whoa, there we go again. Don’t like myself? Have a bowl of Cookie Crisp!

So perhaps it’s time to sort all of this, to throw out the self-loathing, and with it the sugar. Whether or not it’s practical should really be irrelevant - what to I want more? Health or hatred? Happiness or, mmm, Cookie Crisp…