lehorin

I am not actually dead. Nor am I even ill. But I HAVE been really busy cleaning in preparation for my parent's return from New Zealand. I didn't want to have them return to the awful mess and the huge pile of ironing that is usually left when Alex is the only one taking care of the house. I have spoken to him about washing out the tins for recycling before leaving them upside down on the bench, because they only stink up the place when I pick them up to take them out to the recycling bin, and they also leave bad mould marks. But then I gave up and just resigned myself to cleaning up after him.

Also! It was my parent's birthdays this week. Yes both of them. My brother got them a Wii. We played for the first time as a family today and it was fun! But I could feel an undercurrent of tension as our competitive personalities came out. First we played sports resort bowling and we all laughed at mums Superman pose as took her turn, but it worked so well, that she beat all of us into the ground. Alex has had previous experience with the controls and so had a significant advantage over the rest of us Noobs. But this availed him not in the game of bowls! His action was more like a golf swing, ending up by his left ear, so his ball always veered to the side. Even knowing this he refused to try something different because "his way was best for him". Which may be the case but since his was also didn't work I think he needs to work on it a bit more. Then we played Super Mario Karts. After a really frustrating session where Alex explained the controls because he can't teach to save his life. And since I don't think they've played a console kind of game since Space Invaders and they DEFINITELY haven't played Super MArio Bros, a little more patience was required from my brother. But we got it in the end. Alex won all of the races of course, because he has played the game a lot with his friends, so he knows all the courses. He might as well have not played for all mum, dad and I were paying attention to his achievements. Mum was only just getting the hang of steering by the time we finished playing, but laughed hysterically for most of it, so I don't think she minded too much. Dad and I were almost as bad, often competing for 10th place between us. A higher ranking would have been nice, but highly unrealistic.


And I, as I am seriously running low on funds, did this massive clean (which costs me nothing but the cost of the train ticket) and a really nice photo of Brighton in a frame for a present.

Because I may not be living there much longer. I've been thinking about this a lot lately and I've discussed it with mum and we think that it would be best that, if I still haven't managed to get a job by Christmas, that I move back home. I would be sorry to leave Brighton, because I love it, but I have been losing a LOT of sleep trying to think how I'm going to get the money to pay for rent, food, electricity, council tax and bills.

The highest amount there is the rent which is £525. But I worked out the sum of my Job Seekers Allowance and my Housing Benefits only comes to £540, which does pay my rent but only leaves £15 a month for all the rest. £15 does not cover even one of these things, no matter how careful I am with the money.

So, we will see. It may be that I do get a job between now and Christmas, in which case; hurrah! I do not have to work out how I'm going to get all my stuff back here in my dad's car. It's not impossible. But it is hard to remain hopeful of the prospect after six months of repeatedly being turned down for work.

Doctor Who special! I texted Alex to see if he could record it for mum and dad who are still away. But he is terrible about returning texts, so I have no idea if he actually did. Typical!

( The Waters of Mars )

And in 45 minutes it's going to be the next season of Top Gear. All is right in my world.

After a year of being able to feel the wooden slats of my cheap Argos futon through the matress I finally caved and swapped it back for my broken camp bed. It might tip up alarmingly if you sit on the wrong end, but it won't ruin my back. Except for when I'm trying to put it up, obviously. After a few minutes of grunting trying to get the damn thing unfolded, I use a mixture of yoga and weights (ie. I put the futon frame on one end to weigh it down and then attempted to stretch out flat while, at the same time, remain standing) to get the thing with all four legs on the ground. Well, sort of. Alarming tipping is because one of the struts has become badly mis-shapen so one set actually hovers a couple of inches above the ground until I get in.

In fact, it was as I was looking at this badly deformed joint to see if there was anything I could do to fix it. I found a part that I hadn't noticed before and moved when I touched it. Hmm, I wonder what this does? I thought, as I poked at it. I just noticed that it was connected to a rod which was in turn that connected to the springs when FWUMP! The whole bed folded up again and I had to do the whole thing again. And it was this second time where I pulled a muscle or pinched a nerve in my lower back. Ow.

Tomorrow I will take a screwdriver to the futon frame, because I do not have enough room in the flat for another chair and it doesn't fold up small enough to just put away like the camp bed.

And on an unrelated note I had the same channel on for two hours and in that time four XBox 360 ads came on. Nothing spectacular you'd think until you know that they were all in the same five minute commercial break. Seriously, every other ad was for the XBox. And nothing before or after that. I was a little non-plussed.

I do not wish to talk about trying to travel through London on a Sunday. I am still exhausted. The only thing I will say is the southern railways are the only company that didn't ruin my journey and that I HATE replacement buses. Stupid travel sickness...

Also the ads for travel updates to your mobile on the Tube seem a little ridiculous. I mean, the ads themselves are fine, but... I don't get signal down there. I don't think anyone does. How are we supposed to recieve these updates? How are we supposed to send off for them in the first place? I don't know. These are the things you think of when you've been travelling for three hours and have no idea how to get to your destination. At all.

I made the mistake last night of checking my bank account right before I went to bed. I saw that I probably wouldn't have quite enough to pay my rent next month and I consequently couldn't get to sleep until 3AM.

I've pretty much got it sorted now, but this really kind of sucks.

I have returned to Brighton! And it is a triumphant return! Because I have borrowed mum's hot water bottle that she left behind and the can of flea spray for my big blanket. Last year my plan was to snuggle under the blanket to keep me warm without resorting to the Money-Eating Heater, but I was foiled by the fleas that were hibernating in the wool. But this year I am fighting back! Hopefully the spray I did this evening did the trick, but I suppose I will find out soon enough. For I snuggled with the blanket AND the hot water bottle and it was LOVELY!

In not so great news, dad texted me this evening to say that Indie's foot has become infected and swollen up to double it's original size. But he is a very good boy and never uses his claws or struggles about going to the vets. EVEN NOW he is charming the vets with his good looks and soulful eyes. It's a form of mind control, I swear.

Just posting the State of Things.

Am back in Sudbury to do my mum's tax return. She starts the flight to NZ this Saturday and needs to get 2008-9 in by then. But she also to write and send off a report by then too, which is why I have been drafted.

Made the mistake of continuing reading my book after the train had started moving out of Brighton yesterday. Not only did I feel horribly travel sick all the way to Liverpool Street station, but when I reached Marks Tey, and realized that I'd missed the connecting train, I had already finished the book and had nothing to read.

Too the oldest cat Benny to the vets. He had a burst abscess on his ear, and his nose was bleeding. I did notice last night that his nose was bit runny and that he kept licking it. I thought the bloody nose was the same effect as when a human gets a cold and they keep blowing their nose until it's all dry and sore. Only with the sand-papery cat-tongue the skin had just come off. And I was sort of right. The vet thinks he has the equivalent of a nasty kitty cold. He may have been more susceptible from his swollen ear, but really that was more of a separate thing. We have to keep watching the other cats, and bring them in if they get runny noses and/or open sores.

I fully intend to stay up and watch James May toy thing that's on tonight. I think tonight is the plasticine flowers. I should check the BBC schedule and find out.

ETA: I AM WRONG! Jame's May's Toy Stories doesn't start until next Tuesday. Good thing I checked, or I would have been very disappointed. I was thinking about something else and got confused. That being said, I am going to bed instead. Night!

Nothing much is going on in my life, but I feel the need to tell you about it anyway. This is because I am a loser who wants to fill up you flist with meaningless posts.

Problem insomnia is a problem. I made an effort to try and get to sleep before 1AM last night, but was still awake at 2.30AM. Pretty tired now, though, so I'm going to have a Goodnight Scone and then I'm going to give it another go.

(I made scones yersterday. They are yum.)

My attention span has shrunk to miniscule proportions. I imagine this is what it's like having ADD. I'm reading fanfiction and a minute later my brain goes "Bored Now. Let's go to YouTube." Another couple of minutes and then "Nope! Let's Internet Stalk some people."* This has been going on for days! It's a miracle I've managed to concentrate long enough to fill out any application forms, let alone make up my JSA quota. Still we do what we must.


* I would like to point out that I didn't just pick out random people to stalk, they are actually Internet Famous and make a series of YouTube videos that I really like. I'd also like to say, even though they don't know me, don't read this and never will: "I'M REALLY SORRY!"

Hopefully I will be able to go all of tomorrow without stalking anyone at all.

I find myself craving oatmeal with golden syrup at three in the afternoon. Hm. How curious.

On an unrelated note, no more discworld fanfic and Anne McCaffrey novels before bed time. I think I actually gave myself a panic attack* because one of the Dragonriders had lost his Watch badge and was getting hell for it. My head is a very strange place to be, these days.


*And it was a real panic too. I woke up at 1AM with the certainty that I was suffocating.

I'm trying to put off turning on the heating for as long as possible. The weather is just bordering on the edge of being to cold for this, but as long as the heating stays off, the longer I can go without having to spend £20 a week on electricity.

Bloody electric heaters.

I wanted to get the copy of my dissertation that the university was going to give back to me. So I went into the university this morning to pick it up. It was really bizarre to walk into that building again knowing that was the last time I'd go back. Wasn't quite sure what I thought.

Glanced briefly at the feedback sheet on the dissertation. It showed "hard work but muddled thinking!" Decided not to depress myself and through it out. It's not like I didn't know that I'm easily distracted, anyway.

I would have posted that I had returned to Brighton and was getting ready for a packed day of doing laundry and going to the library, but when I turned on my computer in the morning, I found that the whole thing had died again and I was going to have to fix it before I did anything.

This woke me up properly I can tell you.

Last time my computer crashed dad repaired it with a copy of Windows XP installer that he had lying around. And knowing that that was the third time my computer had stopped working he sent the CD back with me. Which is a very good thing believe me.

Unfortunately he had also made me a folder with all the drivers and installers I'd need to get everything up and running and I swear hand on heart that I had copied that over to my external HD, but apparently I hadn't. Also annoying was the fact that I had made a word document of the links to all my web bookmarks for just an occasion like this yesterday, but hadn't copied that either.

I have now spent most of the day resetting all my computer and copying the installers to two separate external drives (with a quick break in the middle to do my laundry and go to the library). Now I go to download all the music I previously had but also forgot to copy.

I should really make it a habit to copy files once a week, even if I've only made one document that week.

Yesterday I cleaned. And then I cleaned some more. It took the whole day, but now mum can see the floor in her office. All her papers are filed or in the box to be shredded, all her OT catalogues are put away and all the activities and toys that she uses on assessments are put back in the apropriate box, which I have now labeled. Even her stationary has been sorted into categories.

I now worship at the Church of the Sandwich Bag. All packs of cards go in one, so they won't spill over the rest of her stuff. Now the only thing left to sort on that room is the desk, but that's going to have to be done at a time when she doesn't have so many reports to write. It's pretty much all current stuff and I'd need to keep asking her what she wants done with it.

After all this I came back to my computer, but the Internet connection was throwing a hissy fit, so I filled my evening with Anne McCaffrey and The Now Show podcasts. And when I went to sleep that night I dreamed of Hugh Dennis fighting a dragon with a flare gun. Only then the dragon turned into a T-rex and Hugh turned into Squall from FFVIII, so I really don't know.

I have downloaded a game called Gemini Lost. It was advertised as a puzzle game. And I do like puzzles, but lack the finances to by the new Professor Layton. SO I get it and I find that there are puzzles. But mostly we have a Sims style game. Or possibly Civilisation style, I'm not sure. You start off with six characters and you have to build/learn/farm your way into surviving in a strange world all the while trying to find astrological signs and rebuild a teleporter to get all your little people home.

I have so far resisted getting something like the Sims in case I really get addicted. All undone by some false advertising.

I'm back off to Suffolk again. Mother has been calling piteously for help with all the filing and shredding and stuff.

So I need to get packed and put more electricity on my meter. I should get on with doing that.

Yeah.

I'm boooored! *whines*

So I dug around in my meme tag and found this!


Follow these easy steps!
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The first article title on the page is the name of your band.

2. http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
The last four words of the very last quote is the title of your album.

3. http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days/
The third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

4.Use your graphics program of choice to throw them together, and post the result as a comment in this post. Also, pass it along in your own journal because it's more amusing that way.



Now that is a lucky coincidence of picture and title match. The last one I did was something about beach mice and last words and a random picture of a cardinal. Which I made into an icon look!

Made with Paint because MS Office Picture Manager is a bit of a bitch really.

I am back from London. Blood Brothers was pretty good. Not so good that I would have automatically GIVEN it a standing ovation, but so many others did that in the end I had to stand up just to see the stage.

I was under the impression that ovations were only given if something was really, truly outstanding. What gives, people?

We also had a really nice meal at an Italian restaurant. The best bit for me was when my parents and my meals were delivered but my brother's was still being cooked. The waitress called the orders, as they do, to make sure that everyone gets the right food. And after she'd served all the plates she turned to my brother and said "and for you... nothing!"

Also the pudding. It was called nova magna and was a chocolate souffle with melted chocolate in the middle. OMG, so much yum!

Well, now I'm tired and my feet hurt from walking around in smart/casual boots all day, so I'm going to bed and I'll catch up with SCD tomorrow.

( It is Strictly Come Dancing season again! )

I'm not going to be able to watch tomorrows show live because we're all going to London to see Blood Brothers for my brothers 21st birthday treat. So it'll be iplayer for me, but at least I'll be able to skip Brucie's segues.

Doctor says:

1. It probably is anxiety.
2. It doesn't sound like anything to worry about.
3. Come back if it gets worse.

Hopefully now mum will stop calling me everyday and interrogating me. It's nice to be fussed over sometimes, but this was just terrifying.

Also, Mystery Case Files: Madame Fate is CREEPING ME OUT!