There's a line on the front page of LJ which tells you how long ago your journal was updated, and given it's approaching a year, I decided I probably ought to post again. I'm not entirely sure what to say, though, so I thought I'd get around it with pictures. To kill two birds with one stone, I also get to show those of you who slag off Essex what you're missing :P
( Pictures behind the cut...Collapse )
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Every single book I've read lately, choosing them all at random from a list of about a hundred, involves characters deciding to abandon their lives to go and be someone different. If I were also a character in a book, I think I'd take that as a sign, and tomorrow I'd up sticks and leave in some kind of implausible way. (If I'm going to do it, I'm going to do it grandly. Does anyone have a hot air balloon I could borrow?)
Except none of these characters ever get very far, and I think the idea is that you can't just abandon yourself because you want to.
I'd just like something exciting or different to happen to me, to make up for nothing happening. I'm bored of getting my work done and being given more, of seeing doctors and having tests done, of the fact that things don't seem to change much here and the only things which do are irritating little problems. I'd like to go somewhere, or to have something interesting to look forward to. Anyone feel like coming with me?
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My friendslist appears to have a collective case of the January blues and I'm breaking my New Year's resolution already, all of two weeks into the new year.
So! Hopefully, this entry will kill two birds with one stone. All you have to do is reply to this with some sort of nice comment about me, and I'll reply with one for you. Given that I've just come up with this (it may well be a meme, but I've not seen it), you don't have to feel obliged to repost this or anything, but if you want to, maybe we can cheer some more people up.
(For the curious, my resolution, summed up, is to be more positive.)
And if anyone's not commented and wants to, even though I've started replying, this post's still open :)
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Two updates in three days? That almost counts as regular updates!
I'm writing this partly because of some things my last post made me think about, and partly because of a secret I saw on PostSecret this morning. Now, I don't have RLS, and I don't know what it feels like...but take out RLS and substitute in CFS, and there you have most people's reaction to me when I tell them what I have. I am fairly sure there are only six people offline, excluding doctors, who actually believe me. Six people! That means no family members, two people from school and one person from university. Everyone else I've told has either disregarded it, or has essentially accused me of lying. Some people actually take my being ill personally, as if it's an insult to them when I'm ill and have done something they haven't. It wasn't as if I was going around telling people about it when it wasn't relevant and they had no reason to care, either, it was in an attempt to explain why I couldn't do things - not didn't want to, physically couldn't. When I told my physiotherapist how my family didn't believe me, he asked why people would think I would lie about this; what did I have to gain from being unable to do things? I couldn't think of a single reason, and I still can't.
Hell, I don't even know how many of you reading this believe me.
People must know that just because someone looks fine doesn't mean they are - there are so many hundreds of illnesses with barely any visible symptoms. Most people know someone who's depressed, for example, or who has cancer, or who has any one of a myriad of conditions where it just isn't apparent to the casual observer how ill they are. These illnesses can even kill people and yet they don't show any obvious outward symptoms. But it seems that there are different levels of social acceptance of these illnesses - for example, more people refuse to believe in depression than would tell a cancer patient or someone with AIDS that they weren't ill.
I don't mean to always update about negative things...but I just couldn't bear to see everyone on PostSecret chiming in saying "I think RLS is bullshit, too!". It's so hurtful to see people dismiss things simply because they can't see them and don't know what they're like. Sometimes you really do have to believe someone when they're telling you what's wrong with them, despite how it may look. When a person's coping with a chronic illness anyway (the irony, of course, of invisible illnesses is that they usually last for much longer than things with swelling and boils and a fever), the last thing they need is to know that there's no-one around who will even believe them, let alone offer help.
Considering I generally dislike beige, leaving myself with a beige layout for five months or so was probably not the smartest idea, and so I got Will to commission me for a picture in return for finally being able to update the thing. As a result, I went about as far away from beige as you can get, as well as adding in a few features like code to lj-cut polls automagically. Obnxiously red octopus drawn in Painter 8, images sliced up in psp7, and only tested half-assedly so if there's any weirdness, let me know.
(Much love to E, too, who let me test this out on her lj before I had the paid time!)
The first week of uni's gone well - people are being really friendly and I've been keeping busy, which is always good. So far, the lectures aren't too daunting, either, though I can tell that cell biology is going to be a bit tricky. As in, I think I'm meant to know what they're talking about already and don't quite. Still, I'm sure I can bribe someone to teach me it if I get really stuck...
Say, did any of you guys ever do molecular biology? :)
Livejournal's front page asks: If you could be another person for a day, who would it be and why? If I could be another person for a day, I would, but I'm not picky as to whom I'd be; it'd be interesting enough to be someone else. Don't you agree? I mean, I always wanted to know what other people are thinking, and how it feels to be someone else, and whether the same things matter to another person as they do to me. But I wouldn't want to choose someone else to be.
Since I last updated:
- I got re-diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, and next Wednesday I'll be seeing a specialist for that. Hopefully that's it, and I can keep the diagnosis this time and actually begin treating it.
- I said goodbye to my friend Sam, who's going to Israel for a year; we had a fancy meal at a casino (I'm the one at the front left, black dress), then stayed at her house talking until half three in the morning, which...
-...made going to London with NC people the next day interesting. Monday and Tuesday I'd been in Loughborough with Ben, Emma, Daisy, Iris and Benny, then Tuesday night I went straight to the casino from the train. The journey into London went completely wrong - I went to a station where I couldn't buy a ticket, so I walked back to the route to the next Underground station, only to find they'd demolished the subway exit I needed and you couldn't cross the road because it was all fenced off (incidentally, how on earth do you demolish a hole in the ground? I only knew what was happening because of the helpful "this is being demolished" signs). Everyone else was great, once I finally met up with them - but next time we meet, I hope I'm not so zombie-like. A lot of the day consisted of me sitting down however briefly we stopped anywhere, and I don't really remember much of it. RD and V were lovely - I do know that they really tried to make an effort with me and ask me things about myself when I probably seemed fairly rude in barely talking to them. So I especially hope I meet them again when I can actually hold a conversation.
- the next day (I swear not everything in the last few months happened in the same week), I got up early again to go to school and collect my A-level results (oh, yeah - since I last updated, I sat my eleven exams). I got As in my subjects (English Lang/Lit, History, Chem, Maths and Further Maths) and a Distinction in English AEA, which means that I officially have a qualification in writing bitchy letters about boyfriends. That exam consisted of one essay on unseen texts, and one task in which you had to rewrite any of the texts into a different format and write an essay on what you'd done, and I rewrote this poem to complain to a friend how the shepherd just didn't understand me and my priorities, and how on earth did he think he'd be able to afford shoes with gold buckles on his salary?
- As a result, in September I will be going to the University of Bath to study Pharmacy. Yay! I have chosen to ignore how happily I gave up biology and how bad I am at organic chem for now, and am simply happy to be going.
Also, as this is an archive of sorts, I'm going to include this image here, as much for myself as for anyone else to look at.
Now watch as I don't update again for several months, most likely.
So this week marks two and a half years since I got ill. Two months ago I got diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Today, I dragged myself to the doctor to ask him to find out where my ME referral had got to, and to mention in passing these little red lumps which have appeared on the front of my legs and are making standing and walking difficult. Did the former, did the latter.
Now, tomorrow I have an "urgent" chest x-ray, and apparently I do not have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.
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Well, it's seventeen months today since my last update, and I'm not quite sure what's been stopping me writing all this time. I'm basically updating because a certain someone said I should often enough and I didn't have a good reason not to. I suppose I was waiting for something big to happen, maybe even something momentous, but I'm not sure what I was waiting for, and at any rate it didn't materialise. So here I am, and with nothing to say :) Some things don't change.
I want to say something witty and incisive so people will remember why they bothered friending me in the first place, aside from the reason that I friended them first- but I'm not good at that sort of thing, and frankly am sort of amazed I didn't get defriended more considering, you know, there was nothing here to see. And to summarise seventeen months in a single entry is not something I exactly feel like trying- for one thing, I barely remember most of them. Sorry! I haven't actually been away at all- ironically, this last year and a bit I've probably been more active on LJ than before...just not here. I've posted comments and icons and tutorials and things, and I managed to get my code for adding userpics to the Recent view of Tranquility II added to the actual LJ style in January, too, which I was happy about. Suppose the biggest thing, far bigger than a couple of
if statements, would be that I finally have an explanation for all the health problems I was already writing about just under two and a half years ago: I'm being referred to a chronic fatigue syndrome specialist. I still can't help thinking that he's going to turn around and say "well, actually...no.", after all the discarded diagnoses of the last twenty-three months, but I have my GP and the endocrinologist behind me so I don't know why I'm worrying. Probably I'm just good at worrying.I have also been coerced into posting the ten things meme. I feel a little as though I'm being ordered around...is that perhaps possible?
( Fitting that my first entry back should contain a meme, like the good little sheep I am.Collapse )
I hope I have appeased the people who've been encouraging me to update all this time, and shall leave this entry here. Oh, and I seem to have acquired a fair few Friends-Of I don't recognise; tell me who you are, I don't bite :P
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Yeah, it's been thirteen weeks. Oops?
Well, it was my birthday today, which makes me seventeen- a prime number and the sum of the first four primes. I feel strangely old. We went out for sushi, which was great, but it was slightly spoiled by my dad getting involved in some roadrage on the way back. Still not entirely sure what happened, but he practically sat on the horn for five minutes (after, uh, locking all the doors). I think he'd cut someone up.
One present I got was a book called Great Lies To Tell Small Kids- things like "This square has an extra fifth side which you will only see if you stare at it for a very very long time." Wish I had little people to try it out on...I also got the usual bath stuff and chocolates and so on, as well as a bigger memory card so I can use my phone as an MP3 player (no matter what anyone tells you, you can't realistically have an MP3 player with only 30MB of space).
Ginger never replied to my last poem- I wonder if that means what I hope it means. Probably not.
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Got my GCSE results today, which were as follows:
French- a*
German- a*
History- a*
IT- a*
English (+ English Lit)- a* a*
RE (half course)- a*
Double Science- a* a*
Textiles (half course)- a
(plus Maths from November)
Ironically, I spent the most time on that Textiles project out of any subject I did...I don't regret doing Textiles over Food, though, because without it I wouldn't have learnt to knit. I'm pretty pleased with my results in general and managed to wriggle my way out of talking to a journalist (I just know I'd spew some cliche about revising and having people's support...I revised as little as possible and was feeling kind of unsupported and crappy because of course my GCSEs were coinciding with that blood test and all the health stuff). I hate journalists, which is why I decided I couldn't be one. I did, however, have to go in a number of cheesy photos. I got forced into photos before I'd even seen my results!
Speaking of health stuff, I was referred to a rheumatologist as I said, and last week I went for an appointment. I've been prescribed amitriptyline (will take a while to work, it says) and apparently have double-jointed elbows. Who knew?
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I woke up this morning, peeled back my pyjama sleeve...and the pretty red marks have gone. Siiigh. I was having fun scaring people with those- it's amazing how far people will jump back if you say "oh, it's infectious, I think". On the plus side, on closer inspection I've a pale green bruise, about three inches long and matching the colour of a skirt I'd like to buy. Yesterday, it was a mottled pinkish-yellow...actually, it matched my journal colours. Even my bruises are perfectly colour-coordinated, dahling! On a more negative note (no pun intended), my blood test results came back, and apparently I have nothing. Nada. All those stripes for nothing! Now I haven't a clue what to do about treatment.
I've been given a reading list for English Lit next year- any of you guys like to take a look and persuade me to read some/dissuade me from reading any? List can be downloaded here. They're all 20th century novels- the classics list begins with Hardy, so I'm not even touching those for a while (and our first unit's on modern novels, anyway, rather than outdated books written by overrated authors). Can you tell I hate Hardy yet? (and if you still can't, here's an old summary of Tess of the D'Urbervilles I wrote.)
Uly wondered on her journal if people would openly insult someone on their journal if they asked them to...I feel like testing that. If you want to insult me, call me names, whatever, feel free to do so, and I'll even let you do it anonymously if you want. Call it a social experiment.
Finally, some bases...examples:
( sushi, live fish and minish cap basesCollapse )
Eventually I'm going to update and it won't be a mixup of many different subjects. Maybe.
I had a blood test Monday, and it hurt (and put my left arm out of commission, which anyone who talked to me that night on MSN will attest to- I was typing like a drunk). Therfore, I wasn't all that surprised when it still hurt today, but I consulted my friend Amanda who has blood tests regularly, and she said that wasn't normal. I couldn't get my entire blazer and jumper and shirt off my arm at school to see what was wrong, so I left it until tonight. Then it took me until 9pm to work up the courage to rip the plaster off (oow!) and when I got it off...not good. I had three red stripes, almost like a barcode (actually, come to think of it, it looks like a little church with a clocktower), and a white square with three pricks in it.
( two small pictures of the markings, cut for the squeamishCollapse )
So! I called NHS Direct, and in their infinite wisdom, they put me on hold. Hideous, unidentifiable music, punctuated every so often by someone telling me just how popular NHS Direct is. Kept sitting and waiting, and then I got a woman who wanted all my details. Then, I told her what was wrong, and she said "oh, I'll pass you to a nurse."
Okay. "How long will that take?"
"Three hours."
"So, that would make it..."
"Half-past twelve."
No thanks. So we said our goodbyes, and my arm's no better.
I have learned two things from this experience!
1. I can bend my head down. (She asked me if I could, and there was a pause when I attempted to test that without dropping the phone)
2. If you want service, strange, unidentifiable things in your elbow are no good.
On an entirely unrelated note, how do you get creases out of a silk dress?
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Wow, I'm updating!
Nothing much is happening right now...let's see. I've a blood test Monday to figure out what's wrong with me, which ought to be fun. Hopefully the result won't be too serious.
Remember a few months back, I mentioned my science teacher for whom an a* isn't good enough? (To cut a longish story short for those who didn't read that entry, I'd got an a* (the highest GCSE grade) in our mock exams, but he came over to me and told me that I wasn't doing well enough and obviously wasn't trying hard.) Well, he pointed out today that it was our very last lesson together, so I figured I'd attempt to take the bull by the horns and point it out to him if it came up. So the lesson went by- he asked "will you miss me?", ack- and by the end of it I figured I'd lost my chance. But what he actually did was to go stand by the doorway and say goodbye to us all as we went out. So he said goodbye to me, and I said "um, goodbye" offhandedly. He stopped me and asked what that was about, and I basically told him what he'd done to my confidence.
So he said "well, why didn't you tell me earlier?", which prompted me to reply with something glib, and then he said goodbye again. Not one word of apology- not that I exactly expected it, but it would have been something. The whole time while we were talking, I had Amanda in the doorway and Emma, Ted, Katrina and India behind me, stopping me from running off and bursting into tears or something similarly stupid. They were wonderful, heh- they would say "awww" or make disapproving noises at exactly the right times. I think I would have freaked out if I'd been left with him alone, attempting to explain- he's 6'7, and even when he's attempting to look understanding (hah!) and all, that still doesn't change the fact he's staring down at me from a good foot and a half up.
I am so glad I never have to see him again.
My french and german orals went fine- I made the traditional stupid mistakes in each, but nothing major. In the french when she asked "were there many people with you?" I said "sure, there were ten or thirty". In German, I accidentally said I was still in England and had lost my ticket when I was meant to be in Germany. My teacher then said "oh, I'll come pick you up from there" which was kind, if a tad ambitious.
Today's one of those days where I remember how much I love NC. It's great how many creative ways people can come up with to defend their right to throw in the occasional "shit" and so on in their posts. I find it frankly amazing how the original poster thought that I should go and censor everyone on the forum- um, I'm 16, and I am no-one's parent (ack, can you imagine how bad I'd be as a parent?). Do your own parenting of sites. To insist a site be shut down and reported to TNT (who already know about the site) for a few choice "fuck"s is just laughable, and people are having great fun laughing at the person.
Quotes:
"Would you let your kids see someone posting the "fudge" word or any other sort?"
"P.S. Ziggy, next time you say "shut the fudge up", have some death sex to freddy"
"Fuckitty fuck fuck FUCK" (in huge red font)
"You've been a complete hypocrite, and a chatspeaker, saying "kthnxbye" twice in your message (making you sound like you really should not be allowed to speak to anyone, EVER)."
"Copulate, copulate, copulate, copulate... Oh, does that not have the same effect? I'm sorry."
""the f-word, Father - the bad f-word, worse than 'feck', you know the one I mean!" - Mrs. Doyle"
"In conclusion, LEAVE MY PINATA ALONE YOU SHUCKING BITCHES!!"
Pinkish-themed this time, based off a song a friend sent me. I think it's cross-browser compatible by now, but you never know. And ooh! It automatically lj-cuts memes on my friends page :D
Also, snarky icons- subjects range from grammar to idiocy to browser choice.
Teasers:
( there was an old lady who swallowed a fly...Collapse )
And if anyone's got any more recipes, they're still very welcome.
I may not be updating, but I'm still hovering round my flist so I wanted to update my layout seeing as we're well into April by now. This is possibly the laziest layout I've ever done, coding-wise, and in spite of that, the colours and header are nice enough. I haven't checked it for cross-browser compatibility, mainly because I'm scared of what I'll find.
Another thing- I'm bored of eating the same processed meals every day and need to learn to cook something new. What is/are your favourite food/foods? Bonus points if you've a recipe for it, but just saying "chicken in black bean sauce with rice" or somesuch will do me.
Oh, and since I haven't bored you with the yearbook stuff in a long time- we got it back, and it looks really bad, yay! They can't spell, can't resize images down without pixellating them, and apparently cannot even copy and paste text. Sparkling credentials for a graphic design company, huh?
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Well, I ought to update sometime.
I've been going to self defense classes recently. Beyond the basic kicks, elbow aiming and punches, we've learnt the following things in three hours' worth of classes:
- to break someone's grip when in a wrist lock, then to gouge their eyes and scratch their face (for the DNA evidence, you see)
- to stamp on a guy's instep, yank their balls and drive your head into their nose, all at the same time
- to stamp, yank the balls and drive your head into their nose, all at the same time, then to turn round, knee their groin and do the eye gouging and DNA collecting
- to block a punch with one arm, then with the other to spear their eye and collect DNA again
- that a metal biro is an effective weapon
It's really rather scary, but it comforts me slightly to know that the odds would be stacked so far against us in a self defence situation that we'd probably do hardly any damage to the person even if we did all that perfectly. Soon, we move on to weapon improvisation and fighting from the ground.
I got my report Wednesday- I'm doing better than I thought, but I can't help wondering if certain subjects are being overly optimistic. Separately, the subjects are doable, but put the expected grades of the whole lot together...I have to say I'm not too confident on that. I haven't shown my parents it yet, but I'm not entirely sure why.
Yep, I'm going nowhere with this post, so here's a random link for you- Couple sells Jesus-scented candles (well, it makes a change from vanilla, I suppose).
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I'm not so sure about the pink, personally, but I wasn't in the mood to colourise stuff yesterday. I'll add pinkish link hovers (or change link colour?) soon and will mess with the link bar right at the bottom- that's a throwback to Opal #3 which doesn't quite work. I'll replace it with the top navigation bar.
If I haven't done your icon yet (or you haven't posted yet but want one), poke me and I'll probably do it quicker. I think I've got about four left to do. I had fun doing that meme- it's so cool to see people wandering around with my icons!- though I certainly don't envy Enri doing it in obsessiveicons :P
Resolutions for the week:
- Do sewing twice over
- Learn to increase (I can decrease, but not increase)
- Research yarns for the long-overdue penguin
- Stop attempting to self-diagnose myself...it's rather depressing. Which is incredibly ironic.
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Gosh, I never, ever do memes. I guess I have to update again sometime, though.
1. Anyone, friend or not, comment here and I'll pick one of your LJ interests. Using the interest, I'll make you an LJ icon.
2. You don't get to choose which interest I pick.
Once it's done, I'll post it as a reply to you.
Other things of note:
PG Tips creates a gold and diamond teabag for their 75th birthday.
A discussion on Rosie and Jim.
Garlic as a cure for yeast infections. (friends-locked)
Covert knitting. (friends-locked)
The sweater curse.
Oh, and ditto to what everyone else has said about the Frienditto thing...and ye gods, I get so bored without NC.
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Bunnies in Grey, to match the journal theme. My favourites are probably working/productive and, um, horny *grin* It's a bunny theme, what can I say? It's worksafe, at least. Least favourite would probably be happy, for the simple fact it doesn't actually look happy. Note to self: make them bigger next time.
The sponsors are messing me around, so I'm beginning to get really frustrated with them. I've been to The Loft about four times now in search of the elusive Tracy, and Vanilla three times in search of the elusive and scatterbrained Sue, and each time I go to The Loft, the person on the desk looks more and more gay- he started out with a really stereotypical voice, then he had gelled up the bit of hair in the front of his head into a curl, and finally he'd dyed it pink. And every time I go, he calls me "darling". I think they may be getting a little sick of me. And the person from Grateful Heads hasn't sent us any money yet because I think she still thinks I'm going to steal her money (why are you advertising with us if you don't trust us, and with the most expensive option, at that?)
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See, I hate February. It's dull, it's grey, and it's got nothing interesting going for it out of the whole month. Therefore, I've done myself a matching grey layout...yay for wallowing.
One thing you'll notice is you can actually switch back to my previous layout, the one with the mug of hot chocolate, so if you're less inclined to wallowing, you can browse my journal in a brighter colourscheme. Another thing you'll notice is the mice moodtheme's gone, as it really doesn't match. If any of you would like to use it (heh) I offered it up for download on a mood icon comm, and you can have the link if you want.
One problem I've noticed with the new layout is the header and table don't line up exactly- they're out by about 2px. Anyone got any idea why?
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