Too Much To Do Does Not a Life Make,

I keep getting really annoyed that I haven't really been writing any blogs for a while, but I have so much to do that I haven't even played Sims 4 or SimCity for a month, and they're my destress things, so I'm sure you can imagine that I'm a little bit of a X Track 2 (I'm a Mess - for all those who didn't get the Ed Sheeran reference). 

So, what's been happening? Well, more doctor's trips because I've been having inconvenient stomach pains - not that any stomach pain is particularly convenient if you actually like doing your job and are no longer in high school wanting to miss PE - getting infuriated at the library in my university when people are requesting books that I'm using for my dissertation, getting a bit panicked by essays and deadlines, going to see Ed Sheeran in concert (twice :P) and watching the filming of Russell Howard's Good News last night. Why does life always seem to fit much more nicely into timeslots when you list it all out? I always feel so busy!!

What am I currently procrastinating from (I don't care if that's incorrect use of the word, you understand what it means)? Well, I have to choose between two really fun essays: One about HIV and contraception, the other about the ethical status of natural family planning. Considering this is one of the courses I am technically resitting - not that I failed, I just didn't do the course first time... - I would rather do the second option, as I attempted the first last time, and I don't think it went so well...

In other news, I've finally reached a decision concerning National Novel Writing Month this year, and I have decided I'm not doing it. I'm sick of the amount of Facebook spam I get about it and, quite frankly, the pressure to focus that much on my novel writing at the moment would not be a welcome thing - I actually can't think of anything worse. Last year was amazing - 3 10k days and I finished within 19 days, beating my personal record (previously 20days) - but I kicked my own ass so hard because NaNo was the centre of my world; this year it can't be, and I don't know any other way to behave with it, so rather than make a royal fluff up of my last year at uni, I would rather put NaNo onto the backburner for a bit and focus on the stuff that I really need to do.

It's been a bloody hard decision, and it's not like I'm walking away from it for good, but I guess that at some point I have to see that NaNo doesn't and can't own me, and I don't need it, I just want it. If I never go back to it, it has been extraordinary for me - not just for the writer that I want to be, but also the person that I am. I've met some amazing people because of it, and I hope to stay in touch with a lot of them for a very long time, but like I said, I have far too much else going on at the moment to be able to afford the time to it that I spend on it. 

Best of luck to all those competing this year.

Anyway, best get back to it. 

I Hate Trying to Think of Titles,

I find it really difficult to think of titles sometimes, which is why there are so many documents on my computer which are called Untitled with a number at the end, or why I stick to notebooks until I can title things. 

I'm going to just warn you that I'm typing this while attacking an adult slushy (Parrot Bay's Berry Dacquiri) so if this gets a little less sensical as it goes along, that is much to be expected... 

So, I mentioned that Ben and I had made a deal about my getting Yours, finished by the end of the year, and I was a little worried that I wouldn't get it done, but what might be glad to know is that it's roughly half done... And it was the difficult half. I find that when I like characters and something bad happens to them, as often does, I find those sections really difficult to deal with, and so I tend to avoid them. The obvious question that comes along there is 'why didn't you just write it differently?' but I have to explain something right now - I don't write things how I want them to happen, I write them how they play out in my head, and that doesn't always leave things how I want them.

I just want to clarify, I'm not trying to suggest I have no control over the things that happen, I can ultimately affect it all with my moods, the music I listen to etc, but if I try to change something because it's not quite what I want for the character, it never goes exceptionally well. I guess that what I have come to accept is that good things and bad things will come to good and bad people, everything is on a grey scale and it is how you learn to deal with things that is really important. 

In other news, I have written the introduction for my dissertation, been to the knitting and stitching show, carried on working at the hospital and decided what I'm giving my family for Christmas whilst being grinchy about the fact that stores are already stocking their Christmas collections. Granted I had no problem with this for the knitting and stitching show, but making gifts for people can take the whole year, so it's a bit more understandable. 

Basically, life is still busy, busy, busy, and now November is just about on the horizon and the question is being asked - to NaNo or not to NaNo? On the plus side, I abhor losing, so I will find the time to hit the target, but would my dissertation or my other courses suffer as a consequence? Most probably. Or I'd spend another month trying to learn how to live without sleeping. The thing is, pretty much regardless of everything on the list of why I shouldn't do it, the probability is that I will throw caution to the wind and do it anyway, because it's just become a part of who I am. 

Anyway, life's calling...

Waving, Not Drowning,

Today is a really weird sort of a day, partly because I don't really know exactly where it began. At half past four this morning I was still up with my housemate, my wonderful boyfriend and my housemate's friend, whilst they were drinking and my lungs basically forgot they were lungs.

The last couple of weeks have been a bit of a crazy mess of things where I've ended up in A&E twice, celebrated the year anniversary of my relationship, the absolute and finally death of the Craptop and also the assembling of The Computer Which Possibly Works. Now that he actually works - and looks sexy and is almost completely silent doing it... - his name is Prodigy, after the case that he's built in. There's also a deal been struck with regard to the birth of this little beauty, but more on that in a minute.

So, yes, A&E. What happened? 

I've always had issues with my health, that much cannot be disputed, and I also have a somewhat reluctant relationship with food, however this was quite literally my stomach deciding it didn't want me to eat anything ever, and because I had, it was going to flare up to the extent that I thought I was dying. I know it sounds a bit dramatic, but my heart was doing funny things and I couldn't breathe, so I left work on one side of the hospital for a waiting room on the other to be given Gaviscon and strong painkillers. Two days later I was back to discuss the painkillers with the doctors since they had a bit of an adverse effect - I basically felt like my brain was passed out while my body was fully conscious, and the pain wasn't going away. 

It's all getting a bit better now, because I'm being careful about what I eat, when I eat and how much Gaviscon I have with me at the point - why does everything that settles your stomach tastes like it came out of the garbage? - and because a friend suggested some lovely tablets that are like Kalms for your stomach, and they appear to be helping on the whole.

Then, of course, there was the anniversary. The 4th of September marked a full year since I went on my first date with my lovely Ben, so we celebrated by going back to Jamie's in Kingston, eating some overly delicious food and getting me addicted to yet another bloody cocktail... In one way, this year seems to have raced by in so little time, but in another, because we've done so much, it feels like so much longer.

Now this has been a long time coming, but the Craptop is finally dead. It's hard drive is now in my new computer, after being fully formatted and all that sort of I-have-no-idea which means it can now Rest In Peace...s. Even though the build for this computer has been going on for a few weeks, I still find it really weird to have a fully working desktop again, but it was only finished today, so I need to give it some time. It's also going to take me a while to get used to Windows 8.1. This thing is seriously confusing my brain, but all I really care about is that it's up, it's running, it's beautiful and it makes practically no noise. I think there is actually more of a hum from the screen than the actual unit itself. 

Anyway, because Ben put in so much effort to get Prodigy up and running and ready this weekend, we struck a deal. The excuse of computer equipment can no longer be used with regard to the editing or formating of Yours,, which means that it will and has to be completely finished by the end of 2014... All I can say to that is, oooooooh shit...


As of now, there is crap all over my bed, it is late and I have work in the morning, so good night to all. 

End of A New Era,

I mnt to post this a few days ago, but with my computer deconstructed and in my living room and now the internet being off, I've kind of struggled with actually getting  online and doing it, but here goes...

I'm quite an anxious person, so changing anything in my life feels like a major trauma, especially when it's something that has become a part of me in quite a large way. When I was eighteen I got my first 'proper' job working at a shoe shop in the Trafford Centre. That was three and a half years ago, and I find it hard to believe. Wednesday of this week, I worked my last shift in my home branch here in London, and I wasn't really sure how to feel. 

As I've been mentioning, I have a new job, so it's not like I was leaving the job into some sort of unemployed abyss where I wasn't sure what I was going to do, neither was I jumping into a whole new job that I hadn't tentatively dipped my feet into, but for the last three and a half years, This shop has been a consistent thing in my life. It's been a really mixed bag, with amazing customers, lovely customers, darn right hilariously weird customers and other members of staff, but there were pretty big lows sometimes, too. Ones of my pet hates is rudeness, and I got a hell of a lot of that thrown in my direction from a multitude of people, but that has helped me to deal with people, at least on the outside, a little bit better.

The great thing about leaving is that I have my Wednesday evenings back - any time I can claw away from work or sleeping can only be a good thing, if only I could learn to stop myself procrastinating, but the sad part is all the amazing people I can no longer work with. I've met some amazing people over the last few years, and there are en I few that I plan to stay in touch with. 

As for this weekend, I have the fun of welcoming three new housemates to my lovely house and also a slightly early celebration of being in a relationship with the most boyfriend for a year, though I must admit, even after this amount of time together, it still makes me giggle like a child when I call him my partner, but in a massive way, he really is. Even when I turn into a bit of a snotty little mess, he's there to support me, and all my stupid whims and ideas. He also makes a damn good cup of tea, so what more could I want in a man? 

Anyway, onwards into a new era...

Between Shakespeare and Word Vomit,

After pretty much promising to fall off the radar a bit, I find myself needing wellies whilst knee deep in the constant brain battle that is each bit of life fighting for space within my schedule. As if normality isn't hectic enough, my life is currently in my living room, whilst the house has a bit of a face lift. The only saving grace is that I'm currently living with my lovely partner and an anorexic Shih-Tzu. I'm really not kidding about the last bit. 

Now, there are massive upsides to this, such as being made breakfast in bed (although according to the girl code I'm supposed to narrow my eyes suspiciously at this and ask what on Earth he's making up for?) and the fact that cooking for him is as natural as breathing, but there are a couple of downsides too, such as the dogs and my shared hatred of falling water, made more complicated by his need to urinate on every passing lamppost and sack of green waste. Oh, and he really likes putting his paws on my feet, and I really hate that. I don't know what it is, but animal paws on my feet makes me feel like I want to dry heave...

Now don't get me wrong, any sort of experience past a blank set of four white-washed walls is fantastic for creating something which is anywhere between Shakespeare and word vomit, but I'm not sure how interesting a novel, or even a short story, about the sadness in Bertie's (the Shih-Tzu) eyes as he stares up at my pancakes, would really be. Without some sort of Dickensian description, I'm not sure it would even make it to being a poem, though I do wonder what on Earth could be going through his head as he stares up the garden for hours no matter what the weather is doing. 

Well, my next mission is going to be getting all the parts for a new computer, currently named The Computer Which Potentially Works, as opposed to the Shit Box and the Craptop. Oh, apparently that's cheeky and 'Of course it'll f*ing work; I'm building it!' I hope  he realises I have documented proof of that statement...

Lemon Drizzle Cake,

I've been living in the house on my own for a good couple of months now, but every sound that I haven't made still leaves me practically shitting myself when I'm being totally honest. It's one of the reasons that I love weekends so much, because I'm not quite so jumpy with Ben here. He also made me lemon drizzle cake. It was divine... 

Anyway, I feel like my days are so insanely full with work, the house, convincing myself to go to the gym (yeah, that happens) and just life in general really, it doesn't matter how well I plan things, time just skips merrily out of the window, and if I don't get to sleep before too long, dragging my ass out of bed in the morning will be something of a chore. I'm a simple being - cheese sandwiches and eight hours of sleep is all I need. Oh, and a BIG cup of tea. That's just life though, isn't it? I'm really wishing that the crap top could just get it's shit together and work, just for my bus journeys, because nothing irritates me more than wasting time on bus.

I'm probably going to be falling on and off the writing radar for at least the next couple of weeks, purely because of the amount of time my job takes up, but editing another novel is still on my mind, daily, and I will hopefully get around to it in the near future. Hopefully. Maybe. Someday.

As previously mentioned, I need sleep.

Life's Inconveniences,

The last few months have taught me that life can be, at it's best, terrifically inconvenient. It's inconvenient that floppy disk drives have gone so far out of fashion, because I would just love to be able to type away on my Fontwriter and then be able to click save instead of manically printing everything, or losing it. It's inconvenient that the keyboard I have down here does nothing short of sucking, and it's pretty majorly inconvenient that the makers of Fifty Shades of Grey didn't cast Benedict Cumberbatch, because I would have paid to see that movie. To be perfectly honest, I'm still not sure how I feel about them making a movie about that, because the book was awful enough, but at least it got people reading. Speaking of which,...

I need to have a little bit of a vent here, and it's not aimed at one person in particular, because a few people have done this.

Throughout a lot of my friends and family, there has always been support for my writing, and my career aspirations, even before I self-published any of my work - that was just a wake up call about how serious I could be with it. Now that support has been fantastic, because people have bought the book or downloaded it as a Kindle file, etc and I really appreciate it, even when those downloads happened during the free promotions which I set up through KDP. So here's the thing, I don't care if people are downloading the files through Amazon when it's free, I wouldn't put them on there if I did, but when I get, 'Oh, can you just email it to me?' I get a little bit pissed off. I know people are still talking about the financial struggle, and I know that I haven't put it on the free promotion for a while, but here's the thing:

If I just email it to you, it means nothing. One of the reasons I use the free promotion is to get my writing out there because I get reports on how well it fares. With things like emails, that doesn't happen. So whilst I appreciate you reading my work, please don't ask me to email the files to you. Either pay the £1.53 that the download costs or hound me to stick one of the promotions on. I would genuinely prefer that.

By the way, if you have a spare couple of minutes, I would appreciate it if you wrote a review! 

To Life,

So, as I mentioned in my last blog, I recently started a new job and it's ... I don't know what it is really. It's the sort of job that I really enjoy, because it's a process which is fantastic, because it gives me time to zone out when I have 'bad days' and that's a truly beautiful thing, then again, when hiccups happen in that process - which they do, all the time - I find myself getting frustrated and then distracted, because my brain doesn't seem to realise that there are problems which there is simply no point in fixing. The amount of aggravation involved makes it just not worth it.

One of the other problems with it is that my natural sleeping pattern doesn't have me waking up at 6am, and although that can easily be counteracted with an alarm, it's not so easy to force yourself to go to sleep. Unfortunately, there is no real way of making your brain go into stand by mode, which means I can have the best intentions of going to bed at 10pm but that doesn't mean it happens. Trust me, it rarely ever does.

Don't get me wrong, I've worked those kind of hours before, but I'm starting to understand why my mother is always so stressed out. Suddenly I'm trying to deal with a lot of cooking, and cleaning and other arrangements for things like house mates, and at some point I should probably get around to learning to drive, but where that's supposed to fit in, I really don't know. Up until about 1am today I hadn't been behind the wheel of a car in 3 years, which is crazy. 

And then there's writing... At the moment, I'm sat at a computer for the whole day, typing, but not for a novel or anything - for a job that actually pays, and by the time I come home, almost the last thing I want to do is get back behind a computer. I think it's only beaten by the washing up. If that were the only thing that seems to have gone puff out of my life recently, it wouldn't be so bad, but I don't read, I don't knit, let's face it, I never actually did the ironing for that to go out of the window. All I want is cuddles and sleep, maybe a little bit of a how was your day conversation. Is that too Disney and sickening?

I remember thinking, when I was young and naive(er) that life could only get easier as you grew up, because you had more freedom, and no parents watching over you. I wish I could go back in time and laugh in the face of that. Even still, I love my job, I love my house, I love the fact that this time next year, I will (fingers crossed, touching wood and avoiding ladders) graduate, and be able to think about a whole new chapter. 

So cheers to life; every complicated bit of it. 

Where's Home?,

I know it's been a long time since I posted a blog and for that I really do have to apologise. Last week, I was over happy and completely distracted by the beauty of the scenery in Greece and almost dying every time we were on the road. I wish I was kidding, but the route between our resort and the airport (and everything else) is littered with blind bends, but the Greeks don't seem to know that means you shouldn't be overtaking on the wrong side of the road. The over happy was added to when Ben arrived. I was so happy and so settled there that I cried getting on the plane and when the plane took off and when the plane flew back for a last look at the town and then turned back towards home. I cried more when Greece got through to the final 16 in the World Cup for the first time in the history of ever though. I was so proud, but it hurt a little inside that I wasn't in Greece to celebrate. I'm just settling down to watch their next game with all spare digits and limbs firmly crossed. I'm getting quite irritated though by all the wrong pronunciations of the Greek names!

Whilst I was out there, my awesome writing equipment collection was expanded by my acquisition of a glass blown quill. My parents and Ben foresaw it sitting at the bottom of drawer in my desk and that I would never use it, but I have been using it so far. It's amazing. It does mean that there are bottles of Quink across my coffee table at the moment though. 

Since I've been back, I've managed to complete a night shift (only the second of my life, and I'm still no fonder of them), join a temp agency, have a completely controlled, yet still unsuccessful trip to Oxford Street and have been given a full time temp job working in a field I'm actually both experienced and interested in! It's wonderful. Well, it will be until I have to get up at 6am again tomorrow. At least yesterday, and the rather soggy trip to Wimbledon, gave me a reminder of what that is like.

So after a fortnight where the biggest events were to do with overly large insects or tortoises or the lack of spinach pies in our favourite eatery, this week has been a pretty big culture shock. 

I have a lot to do at half time. Hopefully this will be a good match. 

Out of the Umberella,

So, as I said in the previous blog, you don't brag about your holiday until it is something to brag about weather wise, so yeah, until yesterday, every day would start brilliant, and then the clouds would start rolling over the paper looking mountains and bring with them a hell of a lot of rain and despair. This is not what we come to Greece for! Thank the Gods, it seems to be all cleared up now. But here is the question, what the hell do you do on a beachy holiday when the weather takes a turn like that? Around here there are a few answers. 

The first full day here, we went down to a lovely little village further up the coast called Kardamilli. There's not mass amounts there, but it's a nice little change of scenery with another square that glorifies the men of the Mani and their part in the libation of Greece from Turkish rule. (As a point of interest, there is also a statue in Kalamata celebrating the women of the Mani, who held the shores of the man, whilst the men took back the mountains). In the end, the best thing to do was to sit on the balcony and watch the world go by, but you can only do that for so long. 

So the next day came, and we decided that, whilst we had the weather, we would walk along the coastal road to Agos Nikalios - a pretty little fishing village about fifteen minutes drive up the coast where there is a taverna that serves cheese pies and spinach pies, and is called Gregg's. They also have some kick ass sangria. We were just about to head back and the weather decided to turn as well, so back to Gregg's we went for tea and biscuits whilst we waited for the worst of it to clear. On the way back, Mum and I saw a tortoise, which made me far, far too excited. 

The rest of the days have been a beautiful amalgamation of sun, sand and sea, with an excessive amount of food for an evening meal. Most have been delightful, only one has been utterly disappointing and even that was more to do with the service because their baked feta was TO DIE FOR. 

By the looks of things, we're about to have a fashion show on the beach, commentated by Takis the parrot. Kalimera. 

From a Little Corner in Paradise,

I think the general rule is that you don't post a blog about your lovely holiday spot until the weather is something to brag about, so ner ner na ner ner, it's been 30* here today, and it made me feel a bit dizzy....

Going back to one place in Greece isn't something my family and I tend to do, but we all agreed that Stoupa was worth it, so here we are, and I can't say that we have been disappointed. Last year we tried to cram an awful lot into one week, so there were a couple of things we unfortunately missed out on, and we're trying to hit them this year in the two weeks we have, as well as repeating some of our favourite things from last year. 

Rather than rely on the tour operators this year, we decided that we were going to hire a car, because the Kalamata one way system really isn't that difficult to navigate, but that wasn't going to be the first problem. Kalamata and Stoupa are both shielded by a pretty vast mountain range that make the weather somewhat unpredictable and also a little bit volatile at times. The Gatwick flight (my flight) was left circling the run way for half an hour as there were two thunder storms over Kalamata airport and there was a German plane that air traffic control wanted to get down and clear of the runway before we made our 'final descent' - otherwise known as that terrifying moment where everyone who doesn't like flying is convinced that they are about to die. 

Last year, I couldn't stop laughing because the customs office wasn't even manned, but this year topped even that, because my mother was waiting for my baggage at the carousel even before I made it through passport control. She later told me that there was a sign that no one was to pass through the sliding doors into the arrivals lounge, but no one was paying attention, so why would she? 

So before too long we were off out of the airport car park and towards Kalamata proper, with my dad and I attempting to remember the way around the one way system ( I have made the round trip more times than my parents, because of the trips I went on last year) but we somehow made a wrong turning through the system, however all was not lost. The general gist of it is to get all the way to the other side of the city and all the way to the sea front, turning up the road that goes into the mountains by the big posh hotel that looks kind of out of place in Greece. When you get onto that road it's pretty much a straight (hahaha, no, like Greek straight) road all the way to Stoupa. As in no junctions. Thankfully we have it about sussed because we're doing another airport run on Sunday to get Ben. 

With the delay and the drive, we didn't arrive 'in resort' as the Thomas Cook people say until about half past three in the afternoon, and with all the stuff like checking into the apartment, unpacking and sourcing water that is actually drinkable, it very soon got to hungry o'clock and we needed to choose which of the tavernas would be the first to stand the test of time, and memory. 

Our apartment is just up the road from two of our old favourites 'Yesterday and Today' and 'Pefko' and no one was really in the mood for a walk (and I was in the mood for my free 'half kilo of wine' as a lifetime member at Pefko so off we went to there. The feeling of 'it's good to be home' doesn't even cover it. Some people think that they were born in the wrong era, I was just born in the wrong country. Everything for the wine to the olives and the stuffed potatoes was utterly divine. I fell into bed more than happy that night. 

I wishi. Could say that the weather for the first two days was as glorious as today, but it wasn't, though my mother and I still managed to get a couple of sun burns to prove the contrary, but more on that later. It's getting close to midnight here and I don't want to be wasting sun light tomorrow morning. 

 

Oh, Well That's Just Flattering,

This might not get done all in one go, because my arms are killing me. I attempted to prune the bushes in my garden (no pun or innuendo; the actual plants in the space outside of my house) and I lack the muscles to be able to do it properly, so it makes me a little bit shaky afterwards. 

I've had a couple of little proud moments this week, including being able to post a present that I made for a friend, so it will reach her in a few days, but the best one has been getting a text from my lovely partner telling me that the guy he was sat next to on the train into work was reading my book on his Kindle. 

My natural inclination was to ask for a description of this person, and after establishing that he wasn't someone I knew, it was actually rather exciting. It's out there, and I forget about it most of the time, but it's nice to know that there are people who actually pay it attention. 

So with exams over, and no lectures until roughly October, I have knitting projects that I'm really excited about, and also a couple of things with writing and editing and maybe even some more self-publishing. It would be lovely, but we'll have to see what happens.

Anyway, my crazy nervousness has led me to have already packed for my TWO WEEKS IN GREECE! and now also have a tiny trot up to Manchester planned for the start of next week. Basically, I'm able to be a bit busy busy for the next few days. Now all I need to sort out is a new screen for my computer.

Panic Stations,

Have you ever noticed that everything seems to always happen at once?

At the moment, I feel like my head is falling off a little bit, because I know that I need to get more revision done for my three exams this week, I need to clean the house before a viewing tomorrow and there is an engineer here to FINALLY attempt to fix our internet. I'm also heading back to Manchester for the weekend on Saturday morning, and on the 8th of June, I'm flying out to Greece for two weeks. 

Now, that doesn't seem like overly much, but up until Saturday, I thought that everything with the house - well, not the internet - was sorted, however after two of my new housemates-to-be dropped out, I'm back on the search for someone to live with. Oh yay. 

I think that I get stressed when I look at a list of things to do and they're all pretty close together, or I feel like they are all pretty immediate, and there are a lot of things that I would rather do instead, and in all honesty, that happens all to often. Right now, all I want to do is carry on writing something I've been working on for a few weeks, but like I said, I have three exams this week, so I can't really. 

Right now, I just can't wait for this week to be over! 

Howdy Partner,

As a writer, I have a real thing about language, and I love over thinking the language which people choose to use when they are describing different things. The one that I will always remember is this gentleman talking about his dog, who was a little over-excited and rather friendly. Rather than telling the people he was sharing the bus journey with that his dog was fond of recieving attention, he announced that the dog liked to be 'appreciated', which I thought was a terribly odd choice of a word for a dog, but I guess that it told me more about the owner than the pooch who was pulling him around.

Sometimes, I think people are very deliberate in which words they choose, whether it's to attempt to hide something or display it with a certain flamboyance, or even just because they prefer the feel of one word on their tongue, or it's connitations in their mind.

I do it as much as anyone else. More often than not, if I meet someone new, I tell them I'm studying Philosophy, because people have an idea of what that is, so you can get into a good discussion with them, whereas if I tell them that I study Philosophy, Religion and Ethics at Heythrop College, most of the conversation is me explaining what that is and where the college is which gets pretty darn boring actually. There's only so much you can jazz up Christology for those who have no interest in religion.

My favourite one though has got to be 'my partner' because it's just so beautifully ambiguous. Really, there is nothing better. One of the reasons I love it is because of the gender ambiguity, which I find lovely, the other reason I love it is because it feels more serious.

My current situation is living in student housing, studying a few hours a week at university, working part time and wondering where on Earth all the time goes, but in the same way, the girlfriend/boyfriend label can sometimes feel a little bit, well, little. In the same way, partner always makes me think of Woody from Toy Story, or like partners in crime or something, because in my head, I'm in Neverland.

I'm Free! -ish,

It's that time of year again when everyone is finishing their school year and getting all exited and there are those lovely...exams...and end of year courseworks...and ridiculously blue air where people haven't been able to keep their language under control. Yeah, I know what it's like, believe me.

Just a couple of hours before the deadline, I finally finished my last coursework piece of this year, and it felt amazing. The last couple of weeks have been dictated by this deadline, and though I still have exams to prepare for, somehow they aren't quite as scary, well, until the day before.

In just over two weeks time I will be free, my second year will be done and out of my hands, and I will be packing for my holiday to Greece. Oh yeah, I'm spending two weeks out there with sun, sea,...and dissertation reading? Maybe. I'll see how dead on my feet I am first. I want to actually kick myself into using all the time I have to write a pretty decent dissertation, but I also want to have time just to recharge a little, so we'll see. I also need to catch up on writing, but there will be no chance of me taking the laptop as it is proceeding with it's going...going...routine. Thankfully, I have a PC pretty much ready to go when this thing finally gives up, but I am impressed that it's managed the last five years.

Anyway, I'm off to play a couple a few rounds of 2048 before settling down for the night.

Things I Should Have Done,

I'm not going to really post this blog everywhere, because I'm not sure how many people I really want to see it, but I just need to write it, for me.


Recently, my computer essentially decided it was going to Hulk Smash itself in order to leave it as even more of a craptop than it already was, the result of which was I lost some data that can't now be recovered, and no, I don't have a backup, and yes, I should know better.


As if all that wasn't bad enough, I get constant reminders that I ought to be in third year right now, believe me, I know, but it's been enough of a struggle to get through this year, so please, could everyone just back off?


The 23rd of May is going to be an achievement for me, because I'll have finally finished the second year of uni. It will be behind me, and I can look ahead to next year: graduated, applying for jobs and graduate schemes, and dissertation deadlines and all that stuff, but for now, I'm dealing with EOY essays and exams, so just let me be. Honestly, I can't deal with any more of this bullshit.

Oh Dear,

Sometimes, I start reading things for essays - particularly opinions or articles posted on the internet, and the only thing I can think is, oh dear, just oooooh dear. This essay is proving to be worse than most.

I'm writing about 'hate speech' and whether or not it would be a threat to our freedom of speech to restrict it. It seems like it ought to be simple to answer - surely anything which dictates what we can or cannot say is a restriction on our freedom of speech, but then again, that is dependent upon a few other factors. 

Freedom of speech doesn't actually define speech as flapping skin, bone and muscle to form intelligent (or unintelligent) noises which other people can understand (or try to), neither does it simply refer to this and the written (or typed, in this day and age) word. When you read 'freedom of speech', your brain should instead insert a phrase such as 'freedom of expression in any auditory, visual or physical form that is not more harming to others than the restrictions would be to the person who wishes to express in such a format', but that's a bit of a handful to write or type at once, and textbooks are large enough as it is. 

Now, why do we define the 'speech' part of freedom of speech in this way? Probably because we like to protest pretty loudly, and actions apparently 'speak' louder than words. If one person who disapproved of the war in Irak and Arghanistan spoke up, we wouldn't hear it, if ten spoke up, we still wouldn't hear it, but if hundreds marched along the streets of London, we would begin to hear it. The loudest shout from this was of course the burning of poppies, which caused public outrage

BUT...

restrictions on freedom of expression etc. must be neutral, so we can't say that burning poppies is not okay, we'd have to say that burning all symbols is not okay, but then we would need to define symbols. There's also the problem that it could be seen as restricting protests against the government, even though most would see the action as a disrespect to the military. 

Freedom of speech is one of the those tricky ones, because I would love to say that Nick Eriksen wasn't allowed to say that any kind of rape is much like chocolate cake, but if that was a law, he'd possibly be holding political office as well as his controversial views. We could also be talking in the language of 1984 saying this band is double plus good, whereas war is double plus ungood. 

Whilst it's true that the Westboro Baptist Church upset grieving families at funerals across America, as well as other activists of an opposing view, the fact is that their idiocy sparks a debate that can only be a good thing. Of course we know it is nothing more than assertions of someone who is completely ignorant and deluded to say that soldiers deaths are caused by America's lax attitude to homosexuality, but then again, we only know that because the debate is there and the thought is there. That line of thinking has changed people's views, whether we want to admit it or not. 

Still, watching the Louis Theroux documentaries about the Westboro Baptist Church, My Hometown Fanatics by Stacey Dooley and reading both The Londonist and Daily Mail's take on the Eriksen blog, I can't help but thinking it would be at least double good if people couldn't say all these horrible things to each other, because in the end, we just trade insult for insult and inadvertently teach children that it's an okay situation to be a part of. 

Forwards and Backwards,

For those of you who have never had to deal with me in the flesh, you may not realise that there is one thing I really don't do very well at, and not, it's not staying healthy for more than a few hours at a time.

More than anything, I really don't deal with change. But a lot of things change. 

There are a lot of things changing in my life right now, but I'll only mention a few. The biggest one is probably my housemates changing.

If you're not careful, and you're not particularly good at keeping up with people (guilty) then your flatmates can become very much the make up of your social circle, or at least the inner ring of it. Let's face it, if you're sharing a house, you're going to be spending either a lot of time together or a lot of time locked up in your room. 

I will admit as quickly as any of us that there have been ups and downs, but the saying 'better the devil you know' exists for a reason. I've conducted a couple of viewings around the property, and it feels a little bit like I've walked in to a bar, kissed the first available (and willing) stranger, then asked them to marry me, and I don't really know how to do anything other than that.

Another big change is to my timetable. All of a sudden there's a 30 credit module which I have no lectures and no exam for. That's kind of a scary thought. Whilst I have no intention of leaving my dissertation until the week before it is due, it is still scary that there is no weekly structure for such a large part of my degree.

Something which terrifies me is that - as I have been saying for a few months - the Craptop is on its way out. It's terminally ill, and clinging on to dear life. What's dearer? The laptop that I think I want instead. And what's so wrong with that? 

Well, other than the price tag, there are other drawbacks. The biggest drawback simply has to be that I have limited experience with buying laptops. The first and last laptop which I have ever purchased/had purchased for me was the aforementioned Craptop, and it never really made it up the hill for it all to go downhill from there. I would love to be able to put enough trust in a sales assistant to walk in and say 'I want a fast, reliable, but reasonably lightweight laptop with X amount of memory and Z programs already installed. Go,' but I work in retail and I know that not everyone has the attitude that I do towards it.

And lastly, I'm going to be on the verge of finishing university in about 13/14 months. That is just terrifying, and the people I started with - well, the vast majority of them are graduating this year. 

I know not all change is bad, but all change is slightly nerve racking. No one has a crystal ball, but I guess you just have to put your feet together and jump. 

Wired for Sound,

Over the last few months, my GP has been investigating just why my heart hasn't appeared to be working very well over the last year or two, and so far conclusions have been..., I'm going to go with mixed. 

The first test they decided was necessary was a blood test, which would have been fine, but I really. hate. needles. Thankfully the nurse was lovely and I managed to get through it, only to find out that my iron level was significantly lower than what it ought to be. My doctor had a small eureka moment, and decided that was to blame for my palpitations, but sent me for an ECG just in case. 

After a whole month or so long episode of my GP and the hospital losing my report in translation several times over, a copy finally arrived that said cardiology wanted to do some more testing. Oh, and since I'd finished the iron supplement tablets I had been on, could I please have another blood test?

I was all 'it'll be fine' until just before they were about to stick me with the needle, at which point I turned into nothing more than chicken manure *exchange for the ever popular, yet vulgar insult you all know and love* and was convince I couldn't do it. Little voice in my head goes - do what? You sit there and hold your arm out. What precisely do you have to do?, but I, of course, didn't listen and proceeded to say Sod it to Keep Calm and Carry On, and went straight for panic station at the ready. I'm sure the show was hilarious. 

So that lead me to another ECG - which I find really weird if I'm entirely honest. I guess I just don't understand people when they say 'and relax' and expect that those words are going to bring you to a relaxed state. Also, I'm a naturally nervous person. I'm not sure if I've ever encountered this thing you call 'relax' and if I have, I can't identify it - but this time I got another test thrown in for free, and got to have an ultrasound scan of my heart, too. It's a boy, hence it's lazy and sometimes a little slow. (I jest, I joke...) 

And with all that coming up clean, the last resort is to stick me to a monitor for 48 hours and see if anything crops up.

We woke up at seven this morning to get to the hospital for nine, and it took less than five minutes for them to attach the monitor, give me the paper work and a few instructions - thankfully they also gave me spare connector pads, because my skin has already had a reaction to one of them! I'm still really glad that Ben came with me though, because I was not feeling awesome this morning. If you think they are lying when they say that asthmatics ought to stay in doors, you are wrong - believe me.

The monitor thing is like lugging around a 90s Nokia brick, but for some reason, if I have it in my pocket, I think I have my phone (subsequently leaving the phone in another room) and then I wonder why it's not gone off for a while. Suffice it to say, my acquaintance with the bloody thing has got off to a rocky start, at best, and I've got to find some way to get to sleep with it on. I have a feeling this is going to be a fun night. 

What's Actually the Point?,

So, hate speech. It sucks, doesn't it? But then again, we have certain rights to freedom of speech and freedom of expression. I don't want anyone to get the wrong end of the stick if this doesn't come out clearly - I'm not against freedom of expression or speech in any way. 

BUT

I'm currently researching for an End of Year Assignment that I'm writing about 'hate speech' and 'freedom of speech' and one of my search results was Amnesty International. I've never been overly clear how I feel about them before, but this article is swaying me more towards dislike than anything else.

So the headline says 'JAILED FOR WAVING A FLAG' which would make me expect that the man the article is focused upon was involved in a protest where he rather innocently carried a flag, was a part of a parade including a flag, or that he just really likes Fun with Flags with Sheldon Cooper, and decided he wanted to wave one of his own. Obviously, in any of those situations, being arrested and jailed is bordering on the ridiculous. 

Another big but though...

The article then explains that he was, in fact, leading a peaceful protest, then goes on to use a lot of emotive language about his trial and current sentence. Granted, some people aren't going to see the problems here, but here they are: 

Large masses of people (e.g. protests) don't always stay peaceful and can actually be pretty intimidating and cause a lot of other disruption, even if they do stay peaceful, 

In a lot of countries, the right to protest is protected - not damaged - by laws which require permission to stage marches etc, in order to allow for procedures to be put in place to ensure public safety,

It seems as though Amnesty are just trying to throw all these emotive situations at the reader in order to have them sign the petition. If the issue is freedom of speech, make it freedom of speech, not every other thing you can find in the case to take issue with, 

And my favorite one, just because America and Western Europe have decided something is an 'unalienable right' does't mean it is afforded to everyone even within their own borders, so how the heck are we supposed to start stamping our feet because the rest of the world doesn't live up to our standards? 

It's one of the things which really annoyed me about Michelle Obama's visit in China. In a country where we know there are restrictions on information and the internet etc, it's a pretty hostile move to go in and say - not quite in these words, but I'm sure you'll forgive me - 'you ought to be more like what the West thinks everyone should be'. 

Granted, I'm looking at it from a very privileged position; I know that. I admit that I'm a very lucky, white, middle class - ish - woman who is lucky enough to be in education, to have a forum where I can post my views and not worry that I'll get arrested for them, and that I'm from one of these countries which seem to prize free flow of information, but this is one of those things that really bugs me with human rights:

We do not own the world. Britain, America, in fact, no country, has the right to steamroller over another countries views. Granted, there are certain customs we ought to protect people from, such as FGM and young women being married as soon as they have their first period, but the difference is, they're not laws that have been discussed by elected officials, or the accepted leader of a country. To me, there is a difference. 

Rant over. 

Does It Feel Like a Tuesday?,

My very simple answer to that one is no, it does not feel like a Tuesday. 

My university timetable this year means I have a three day weekend (Saturday to Monday) and so the start of my week (Tuesday) is where I get 'that Monday feeling' aka the first day of the new week where pajamas are banned as a wardrobe option and you have abandon your duvet and hope it will take you back later. Normally, it doesn't really bother me so much, but today, it's driving me nutty. 

Part of that is due to the fact that my Tuesdays are normally a reasonably easy day. Come in, sit through two hours of lecture and then go home, but today I have a meeting at lunch and am working this evening. And I spent the weekend in Budapest. Yeah, that makes 'that Monday feeling' even more sucky than a hangover.

For those of you who didn't already know this, I turned 21 just under a week ago, and after puzzling for a long time as to what I did actually want for my birthday, my parents and I agreed that a little weekend city break was the perfect option, and Budapest held some kind of appeal even though I had less than no idea what was there other than the River Danube. Even so, the trip was booked, we were packed and ready to f*off to another country for a few days - the only obstacles being getting up at 3am and driving to Stansted. Ugh. 

What I found amazing - other than the pilot not knowing that in order to land, we must first take off... - was that when we landed, the sun was bright and the temperature was creeping it's way up to 22◦ and then it stayed there for most of the day. I was as pink as one of the Care Bears that evening. 

It was a weekend of a lot of walking - a lot of the interesting architecture and the shopping district is all down by the river, which we were staying about 2miles from - but the chimney cake and the views definitely made up for it, and even the Terror Museum was well worth a look, even though there wasn't much of it actually translated into English (and where it was, the mistakes were kind of distracting!) 

Something that was more interesting (as in, well, that's odd) than interesting (as in, ooooh, that's catching my interest) was the set up of our room. I haven't quite figured out why the bathroom had a window that looked out into the bedroom, but perhaps I don't want to know the reason. Don't get me wrong it's frosted up to normal human shoulder height (so up to the level of my nose) and there is a blind over it, but the design flaw to that is that the pully for the blind is on the OUTSIDE! It's rather peculiar, but as long as you are sharing with someone you trust or don't mind seeing you in the shower, it's not too odd I guess.

I can't decide if the best part was that I got to spend so much time with Ben (sorry, I know that's cheesy :P) or the fact that he ordered breakfast in bed for us on our last morning there. Drinking Hungarian fizzy wine and having dippy eggs and pancakes was a pretty special way to start our last day out there, and shopping was obviously the best way to end it. 

Something to keep in mind is, if you go to the same shops we have over here, the pricing is going to be the same, but it doesn't require going off of the beaten track in order to find something local and a lot cheaper. I was really surprised by the relatively low cost of food, and even cheaper cost of alcohol, though I wouldn't have been quite so surprised if there were the same amount of stag parties on the plane out there as the plane coming home. The fact that you can get a shot of Jaeger, or Unicum for as little as 290Ft (about 80p) in bars on the main street makes it pretty attractive for such events. 

If you want to take a look at some of the photos, you'll have to check out my Instagram or Facebook. :)