Saturday, October 9, 2004

Chicken Soup?

I always wondered what it was about chicken soup in particular that was meant to cure illnesses. Perhaps it was just the fact that warm soup really warms your insides completely, or something. Anyway, I am ill. My throat is incredibly swollen and feels like it gets ripped to sheds whenever I breathe, which isn't particularly nice. And my ears/nose feel blocked up too. That's the worst thing about it, really: I hate not being able to breathe through my nose. The rest of my body's fine, it's all centered around my head. I could put up with a bad leg, but head-colds realy piss me off. The only saving grace about it is that it's made my voice wonderfully deep and mysterious ^__^ I like having that early morning gravely effect that adds so much depth to it. Granted, I'd raher not have a huge pain in my neck, but it's quite fun while it lasts, heh. Ailments I've never had to go to hospital for an actual illness before: it's always been for some other physical thing, like a broken leg/arm/toe/finger or a cyst elsewhere. This sounds stupid, but if I had to choose I'd rather break a bone than contract a serious illness, because illnesses can almost completely dehabilitate you and they aren't as easy to diagnose, treat and recover from necessarily. I'd have to say... I have a fear of illnesses. Serious ones, anyway. But even if it's something mild I always get feelings approaching those of 'What if it's fatal?'. For the types of illness I usually get it's silly to think things like that, but with all the media going on about these superviruses and the West Nile Virus, meningitis, you can't help but feel pressured into believing you have something serious. The worst thing I have had was when I was off school for three weeks in year five because of something nasty. There's been the odd case of vomity things, but nothing as prolonged. The longest time I've had to stay in a hospital was... two weeks, I think, when I first broke my leg. I stayed in St Richard's in Chichester while they settled me down, and then I had to go to a specialist hospital near London so that my bones could be repaired and put into a proper plaster cast for ten more weeks. The children's ward at St Richard's was much nicer than the one at Stanmore Orthapaedic. The walls were nicely coloured, it was all nice and bright and you had lovely patterned curtains to pull round you while the doctors were examining you or you had to use a bedpan (which is one of the most undignified things in the world, by the way). I even had people come and play with me from time to time ^_^ And if you were lucky, you could move into one of the computer game rooms and play on... somehting obscure- it must have been an Atari, because the only games I remember being able to play was either this 1942-esque shooter, a maths thing or something to do with a guy who could create little rainbows for you to walk on. From what I remember, it was fun. The choices of videos weren't amazing, but I don't suppose many hospitals have much to go by. They might have N64s now... Mirrors Stanmore was a lot older, as you could tell from the course tiled carpet and peeling paint. With its faded paintings of Winnie the Pooh on the windows it still had its charms, but overall it felt a lot more like the 1940s. The bed weren't in one long corridor- they were in blocks of six or so, and there'd be a few more lining the walls. Off to one side was the babies ward, and fairly often you'd hear one of them crying. Some of the things you saw were quite harrowing at times. Since the hospital dealt specifically with bone conditions, you saw a lot of really young scoliosis patients- kids with huge metal frames drilled into their heads in order to try and straighten their spines, and other people drilled into other huge contraptions in order to keep whatever limb was broken from moving around too much. I never went into the babies' ward, but at night you could hear them. Mum told me that some of them were attached to frames almost like being on the rack, with weights at one end to balance them out and try and slowly work the spine into a normal growing position. It sounds like something out of a horror movie, but as far as I'm aware it's one of the few things that can be done. Stanmore wasn't anywhere as good for games. Old crap toys and a SNES were all they had, I think. When I came back a few years later for a check-up they'd acquired a PlayStation, but I didn't stay long enough to be able to play on it. My most recent hospital trip was to St Richard's, about four years ago. I was in a different ward to the children, but somewhere nearby. Certainly had the same video choices as they did, heh. I was on my own in a room with three other beds. Must've been a quiet week or something. I had a view out of the window across some sort of forecourt, though, and it was quite nice to see into the streets of Chichester every so often. This was during my last week of GCSE's. I had developed a silas just below my spine which had burst and needed operating on. I don't mind going into hospital that much- I tend to associate it with fairly fun memories, despite the feelings of pain that would come with or after it. I guess I just like being anaesthetised, heh ^_^; It's quite a surreal feeling, though. Feeling ill at any time isn't exactly normal, but when you're on your own too... you can't move anywhere and all you have to do is either what you ask the nurses for or what you brought with you. I was intending to write some Beast Wars fanfics but just didn't bother in the end: the story was too complicated to try and work out, heh. I came out of that all right, despite having to have plasters applied and removed almost every night for four months afterwards. I guess it's been pretty eventful- thankfully I've not had any head injuries, unlik my sister, who's managed to have three, and scared me to death each and every time >.> They were only superficial, so she's okay. I don't man to suggest that I find going to hospital fun, but at least I know I should be healed (or on the way to being healed) when I come out. We're lucky in that we have a really decent hospital in the area, so if you do need to go anywhere, it's to somewhere nice. It makes things that much more bearable, heh. I don't think other people always see it like that, though. Oh, I could go on forever about people who sue the National Health Service for mistakes during operations, but I won't. I need to reserve my topics carefully, heh.

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Friday, October 8, 2004

Whoo >.>

Well, I failed my driving test. 14 minors (which, on their own would have been acceptable, if rather high) and one serious, which was enough for a failure. Although technically speaking I saw two other mistakes that owuld have gotten me an instant fail that he didn't pick up on. So as far as I was concerned, it was a pretty moderate failure. It was just frustrating though- we were going to do a turn in the road manoeuvre, which I excel at above all others, but some bastard parked his car opposite us so we had to do a reverse around a corner instead. And I hit the kerb while trying to do that >.> Had that not happened, the test would have been in a completely different direction. But never mind. I'm kind of glad I didn't pass with 14 minor mistakes, as it's quite high- I still feel there's more I could do to improve, so improve I shall. I just have to wait another two weeks until I can retake my test. Apart from that things are okay. Improvisation went really well; Voice would have gone okay if my throat didn't feel so horribly ripped up. I think it's part of this cold. I was at a party at a friend's house until about half past seven. In accordance with social behaviours I had one drink, which is probably why I feel more down than I did earlier. I would have stayed later but I just wanted to get home, really. Fridays being as they are they don't make for great socialisation days. I made an excuse and left. And now I'm here, heh. I think I'll get to bed early tonight. Or at least do something to relax me until I feel tired enough to sleep. Oh, but I am going paintballing on Saturday 23rd ^_^ That should be good fun, heh. I've never done it before and I've always wanted to give it a try. That's something to look forward to. Sleep well, you lovely lovely people.

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Thursday, October 7, 2004

Who Is Solo Tremaine? Part 2

I had my potentially penultimate driving lesson today. The test's in about 17 hours and 41 minutes, heh. Not that I'm worried or anything >.> Seriously though, Instructor Lawrence (I say it like that to differentiate between him and The Other Lawrence, heh) said today I was driving more confidently than ever and that he was confident I should do okay. And I should, if I can keep my nerves about me, heh. I hope I'll be alright. Even if I get flustered I'm generally right, but you never know. It only takes a few seconds of concentration lapse and... whoo. I'm just going relax tonight. I hope, heh. Here's part two of my partial autobiography, heh. Learning to Walk Again When I finally got back to school, which mut have been about... three to four months after I broke my leg, my friends had all but forgotten me. They had a new friend, who they so eagerly said was 'just like me'. Although he was better. He could do things I couldn't, like run and jump and play rough games that everyone else wanted to do. He liked football, but I still wanted to play the games that I'd been playing before I left. Dejected, I left them and drifted between people until probably Year 6, when I thought I'd found the best friends in the world- Ben (who I’d been to nursery school with), and Noddy. We had such a great time together, heh. There'd be the odd day-to-day disagreement, but I didn't think that anything seriously wrong would happen... As the run-up to leaving primary school approached they started hating me. Everyone started hating me. I didn't know what I'd done wrong. Absolutely no-one would tell me why I was the one getting picked on, left out and being made fun of. I just was, and that was all they seemed to care about. Maybe that was where I got my over-apologetic tendencies and paranoia from. Either way, I hated it and started withdrawing into myself for forms of escapism and release. I'd wander around the school playing fields on my own imagining that something huge was going to land on the ground and I was the only one who could outrun it, or that I was some character from one of my favourite series that was just put in the wrong place, waiting to return to the correct reality. The problem was that I actually started to believe it whenever I was at school, and I continued believing that until Year 9, where I met who I'd call my first real friends of my High School era. I met John. I liked John- he was clever, intelligent, liked Drama and there was something about him, an air of confidence that made me just want to be friends with him. The problem was, pretty much everyone else except the snobbish intelligents from the other classes wanted to be friends with him too. It turned out that he'd be my window to the friends I still have today. Through him I joined Drama Club and met Dan- the same Dan I'd known from nursery school. Small world, eh? We became good friends again, and I even got special permission from the Head of Year to change forms to be with him in the last year. We did Drama and History together, and still get together almost every other week. Through Drama Club I also met David, another of my best friends today. I didn't like him at first, though. He was a writer, like me, he joined later and managed to get Dan's attention more quickly than I did. But David had confidence and a motivation to get things done, something I still lack today. He pushed himself into the limelight to get noticed, and he was. I almost quit because of him, actually. But in the end I decided that it was silly to try and rival him, because it'd only drive things apart. I'm glad I decided that. Although I say I had no real friends before that... there was one person. I met her when I sent out a pen-pal thing to N64 Magazine. It said something like '13-year-old boy looking for someone of similar age. Must like Starfox, music and Yoshi. Send to...' I didn't think anything would come of it, really. Until one day... I got a letter. I'd just come back from doing Archery and it was sitting on the chair, waiting for me. And I opened it up... it was unbelievable. We had so much in common it seemed unreal. It was great to meet someone like her. But I was still 13, and had a lot to learn about things like this. I just... cared too much, I guess. That's a bit false, actually. I tried too hard. This is probably where I get my fear of offending anyone, because I probably scared her away by trying to do too much for her. But at the time I'd never known anyone like her before. She understood me completely, and I her. But then again, writing her letters to the effect of "I like you so much you give me withdrawl symptoms" isn't too flattering. Ah, I wish I hadn't done that. But we live and learn. And I have better things to do. Ironically, that pen pal application I sent off opened the doorway to OB: I started writing again, and grew interested in Pokemon, then Digimon, and started writing my Digimon fanfic Worlds Collide. It was crap, but I wanted to show it to everyone anyway (I didn’t know it was crap then, but by my writing standards today I do). When whichever site it was that originally hosted it was closed down I started searching for another site to put it on, whereupon I stumbled upon theOtaku and GinnyLyn's Otakumons. I wanted one so badly I joined OB that same day, heh. I think everyone knows the rest of that bit of the story ^_~ Getting it Together So, having only just found my lovely niche in High School life, it was time to split up. I wanted to go to College with Dan and Nik so badly but Mum refused to let me go because it wasn't as good as the High School. I’m glad she persuaded me, though: the way the A-Level courses are set out in college you'd have such a tough time going through, and I wouldn’t have seen Dan any more than I would normally anyway. Not being in High School seemed odd; I'd never really said goodbye to the place because I spent the last week of term in hospital having an operation on my lower back. I'll go on about being in hospital on a later date though, because that's something that really deserves a post of its own, heh. The only real friend I had left in Sixth Form was David. I didn’t have a problem with David, but… he wasn't Dan. There was some kind of connection that didn't quite fit, almost. And now I know that there are things he tries to hide from me, even when I was always completely honest with him. Perhaps it was that. I don’t know. But despite that he was still my best friend there. He and Ean, of course. Over the progression of the years I became slowly more and more bored with the subjects I'd chosen. The sheer amount of free periods made for rather nice days, but I just wasn't taking anything in during the lessons. And when we had to apply for Universities, I was refused by all but two of the Universities I applied for, and even the ones I was accepted into only gave me conditional offers. But I didn't need them in the end. When the results came through I was elated to find I'd failed to gain entry to my University- it meant I could do the Drama course at Chichester College with Dan, and that was something I was looking forward to so much. Except... ...a month or two before the course was due to start, Dan broke the news to me that he wasn’t going to be there. I had mixed feelings about it: I'd not spent a full year with him since High School and I really wanted to have shared everything with him. But on the other hand I'd always be following in his shadow. It was even his suggestion to do the course in the first place. I don’t regret him telling me, though. I was able to develop myself as a person in my own right rather than simply an attachment to everyone else. And I'm sure this year's going to help even more, with so many prospects opening up for me. The Sum of My Parts. Some people say that it's your parentage that defines who you are. To some extent it's true: you can’t deny what is essentially in your blood and body, and the various traits that come with it. But there's so much more than that. Every experience, both good and bad, adds to who we are. And despite all of the bad memories and regrets that I still carry with me, I don't wish they hadn't happened. It still hurts when you think about how you felt when you made them, and current ones always play on your mind, but I always remain optimistic that it'll work out right. I have a drive that pushes me to keep things going happily. I can't stand unnecessary depression or anger. I'm constantly seeking peace. Not just my own, but that of everyone else. And I put it down to everything I've been through. Otherwise I'd probably only offer advice for convenience’s sake, but I have far too much compassion and too large a guilty conscience to let anything fly past that I know I could offer advice about, however redundant. Because that one thing could have made the difference. Had my friend not decided to phone at that moment I might not have broken my leg. Had Dan not come round to talk to me that day I might not have joined the acting course. It's scary to think that any one of these huge events might not have happened if one word hadn't been uttered, if a normal, seemingly harmless event did or didn't take place. It's not good to think about that constantly, though. Otherwise you're just analysing every single little action you make as if it'll completely revolutionise the world, and that's hardly ever the case. But coincidences do happen. I want to be remembered. Even if it's just in a really small way, it gives me such a buzz seeing something that I've done or been involved with getting a mention. That's not why I'm friends with people (if I was I'd constantly be advertising myself and showing off and I'm really not that kind of person), but everyone likes knowing that they're appreciated and aren't just another anonymous extra. Nobody wants to feel like they're playing a supporting role in their own life, heh. I used to feel a bit like that when things used to happen to everyone around me. In High School, where I was trying to get noticed by the first group of girls I really knew, I almost used to wish for problems so I would have an excuse to talk to people. It was selfish of me, but absolutely nobody wanted to know what I had to say, and it used to annoy me so much when I'd be denied the chance to suggest something that I know would actually be able to help them out. But they were silly girls and I was a silly boy. I've changed, I've matured. But I've not grown up yet. Not all the way. I still want to retain a sense of my youth which I hope to carry with me right up until old age, so that I won't forget who I am. It's almost a Peter Pan syndrome: One day you're Peter and the next you find you're Captain Hook. I was deathly afraid of growing up and having to leave everything I loved behind. But there's no reason why you should. I plan to take all of my memories with me, so that I can remember. And as long as you remember what you did, what have you lost? This is just getting rambly now ^_^; I hope it's been a good read, or at least something to help get you off to sleep, heh. Thank you, and goodnight.

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Wednesday, October 6, 2004

Who Is Solo Tremaine?

I originally wrote this in my Blog, which hasn’t been active since before I started this one. I’m modifying my original entry though, so those few of you who’ve read it before (I think I can think of three) won’t be entirely bored, heh. I’ve divided it into two posts. The whole thing is very very long indeed. Some of it you probably already know, but at least this way it’s in one place. I’m not expecting people to read all the way through it. Even half of it would be a push. But it’s something I want to get down. Who is Solo Tremaine? It all started on Tuesday 23rd July, 1985. Three days early, in a Chichester hospital, a small boy was born: Hugo Ralph Jackson. I don't remember much about anything from that point (I don’t even remember that point, frankly) until primary school, save for the odd second or so at Nursery School. That was a laugh. My friends there were Dan and Ben and I liked them a lot. One of my earliest memories I have (from Nursery School) was at Dan's third birthday party. His mum had been in a serious car crash and had broken her back- she’s still in a wheelchair today -meaning the party was being held at Dan's grandmother's house. I have only one memory of the garden. There was a climbing frame with a slide on it over to the right by some trees, much similar to the one we had up until a few years ago. I remember looking towards the door of the house and feeling rather sad. I don't know why. Before that we'd been to some kind of railway museum exhibition thing that looked very exciting, and I remember wanting to get inside the signal box with everyone else. But I wasn't allowed to, which annoyed me greatly >.> Then came pin the tail on the donkey. I was a bastard, and this is my secret. They didn't put the blindfold on well enough so I could actually see underneath it. With this flaw in their game security, I was able to stab the donkey’s arse in exactly the right place. I still hate myself for doing that. Not just because it was cheating, but because I think of all the other children who wanted to win the prize for getting it in the right place honourably and losing to me because I cheated. And I think I even knew it was wrong then, but I got the prize and that was all that mattered when I was actually doing it. There was this bully at the Nursery School as well. He was much taller than the other kids, and he was black. He pushed me over for some reason (probably just because). I seem to remember people taking things of mine and wanting to play with things just because I had them. And of course, I wanted things that other people had too, but I’d always wait until they’d finished using them before taking anything. Another vague memory I have is sitting in the barn building at the nursery and listening to some kid reciting the alphabet. I was jealous- I knew the alphabet too >.> He wasn't the only one. Just because he could speak faster and make it sound impressive... The next memory I have is at Primary School. It was the very second day, and I'd just pushed my friend off a log. He started to cry. I hadn't meant to make him cry. But I don’t even know why I did it- it was only meant as a bit of fun. I started crying myself, and I got the dinner lady to pick him up again because I was sorry. I would like to think that that was the last of my bastard days, but it wasn't quite. Later on that year I pulled away another friend's chair when he was going to sit down on it. I think he hit his head on a shelf behind him. Instantly I knew he must have hurt himself, but he didn't cry or anything. I was sorry. But he didn't cry. He didn't do anything. It just made me feel empty. I didn't do it to try and elicit a cry from him; I don't know why I did it. Probably because on TV when you see these things you expect them to be immensely funny, but they really aren't up close. I wanted something to happen just to let me know I'd done something. A laugh would have indicated it was funny, a cry that it wasn't. But there was nothing. He walked away and I chased him around the classroom for ages trying to apologise. I don’t think he let me… Maybe that's why I try and do things, to get some kind of reaction, or a nice mention somewhere. To know that something I've done has made a difference, good or bad. Then I can learn from what I’ve done and try and set things right again. Although now I can distinguish more between right and wrong I have a better idea of what to do. But it’s not always correct, as I’ve learnt from painful experience >.>. Back then, things were just more grey. You didn't know that you were doing anything good or bad until you got a response. Turning Point Sports Day, Mid-July 1993. My left hip started giving me problems while I was running, and it started hurting really badly. So, my mum took me to the doctor's surgery to get it looked at. He suggested that I have an X-ray done. Mum didn't tell me at first what was wrong, but suddenly I had to sit in a wheelchair. I was quite surprised when I came home to find a SNES waiting for me with a copy of Super Mario World. I played for ages that night- so long in fact that I was actually sick. It was a great game, heh. Although no sooner had I got that then it was my eighth birthday. That Friday morning I got up (carefully, to save my leg) and came downstairs. I got lots of presents: a camera from my dad’s parents in Newcastle, four Thunderbirds figures and a Dr Who video- Planet of the Spiders. I was so excited! I pretty much skipped breakfast and went up to watch the video in Dulcie's room. About halfway through the video the phone rang. It was one of my primary school friends, so I hurriedly left Dulcie's room to go downstairs and brag about all my lovely lovely presents. I got down the stairs all right, but to save putting weight onto my bad leg I decided to try and hop about on my right. It makes sense if you think about it. What my mum hadn't told me, at least I don't think she told me, was that my leg was in a very serious condition. There was a massive cyst stretching from one edge of the femur to the other, like a large hole covering the entire neck of the bone. The only bits attaching my leg to the rest of me were egg-shell thin, which was why mum wanted me in a wheelchair. While I was hopping to the dining-room I lost my balance. I hit the floor with what my mum's mother said was a 'sickening crunch'. I screamed, but I can't remember the pain. My sister sprinted downstairs and my grandmother Doris came to see what had happened. I couldn't move my leg, and it hurt to touch. I completely forgot about the phone call to my friend. Mum had gone shopping with my younger sister to get me a birthday cake. Dad was at work. My grandfather was too dilapidated to notice anything was wrong. My grandmother called the local doctor who came round straight away and told me that I’d broken my leg. I watched the rest of the video to try and take my mind off the pain. It worked intermittently, and I even remember being able to laugh at some of the funny bits. Then mum came home. I was so sorry that I was there, with my leg broken. Although we tried for an ambulance there weren't any available, so she drove me in our (then new) people carrier. All I could think of was how sorry I was for ruining everything: the holiday, mum's day, everything. She looked frightened. My mum hardly ever looked frightened, and it scared me to death. The junior doctor who looked at me almost fainted at the X-rays. It turned out that when I'd fallen over the bone had completely shattered. There was almost nothing left of the neck of the femur. After that things got hazy. Having more or less not had anything for breakfast I was very weak. Technically I wasn’t supposed to have been having anything anyway because I was due for an operation, but because I was in such a state they allowed me 20ml of water every 20 minutes. I was glad they let me have something, meagre as it was. The next thing I remember is waking up in a hospital bed with a large metal frame over my legs. It was dark, and I could see two people standing at the end of my bed- my parents. They told me that they had to leave. Naturally I was upset, but so tired that I fell asleep almost straight away. The next day was... well, I would say nice, but it really wasn't. I did get a pleasant surprise, though. My uncle and aunt came in to see me and had bought an inflatable dinosaur for me as a present. I loved it, heh. It was a pity that I couldn't get up and play with it immediately but it was great to see them anyway. I wanted them to stay for longer. I wanted to see someone I knew instead of having to watch Tarka the Otter (something I thought sounded better than it actually was) constantly. I couldn’t even roll onto my side or anything. I was completely stuck. Later that day my mum came in with the birthday cake she’d bought the day before, although she had to leave soon afterwards. It had a small marzipan dog on it, and I remember feeling very strange. It was for me- the whole ward was singing ‘Happy Birthday’, and it was for me. But I wasn’t at home. My mum wasn’t there. I almost felt like crying. A week or so later, just before I was moved to a different hospital, I remember talking to the consultant who was dealing with me. He had an American accent, and I remember asking him “Are you American?” “Yes.” he said, very elegantly. I very much appreciated what he'd done for me. “But you can't be American. You're not fat.” He and his associates found this incredibly funny ^_^;. I realise now that that was a very xenophobic and rude thing to say about Americans. But I was only eight, and I had just had the worst accident of my life. Later that day I was moved to a specialist hospital in Greater London, where I continued to go for another five years before becoming a permanent outpatient at a hospital in London and then finally being 'free' in October 2001. Why was that day so important? Lots of people break legs and things. I guess it was because I felt so bad about breaking my leg (it was my fault, really) and having been such a burden to everyone that I started to try and tolerate much more pain, so people wouldn't have to go out of their way to try and help me. I had to put up with an awful lot of pain, too, and this was the beginnings of making me the person I am today. There's a turning point in everyone's life. This was mine. Part 2 tomorrow.

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Tuesday, October 5, 2004

Uncertainty Kills

Well, things seem to be clearing up, although... bleh, I'm still beating myself up about a few things. Technically I shouldn't be, because I woke up ill enough this morning. there's a vicious cold going round and it seems to have landed on me. And my neck has never been in more pain. I can't look right at all, heh. Should make my driving lesson fun >.> Yeah, my instructor's okay. He had an off day yesterday. Would have been nice if he'd told me, though. What's With the Title? Well, two things: The entire class is still in debate about which play to put on for the kids. We've got it down to three: Old King Cole, and The Wind in the Willows. I'm for The Incredible Vanishing myself, heh. It looks really cool ^_^ Although a lot of people want to do Peter Pan for some reason. I'm quite opposed to that, not because I don't like it (although I'm not exactly that fond of it), but because it's been done so many times already that people know what to expect, and in the poor facilities of the Riverside Theatre there's no way we could make the flying look magical or realistic enough. So that's one thing. Another is just me panicking over something I probably shouldn't worry about anyway. But I want to know, if only for my sake. It's kind of selfish of me to ask, but sometimes all you need is a bit of confirmation to know everything's okay. Even if I was to be torn off the strip I'd rather know than keep tearing my hair out worrying if I've done anything. For the moment, I eat. Then I drive. Joy >.> I could really do with a holiday or something. Things have been really charged over these last few weeks, and a rest would be very welcome indeed. Any suggestions?

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Monday, October 4, 2004

What's a Jofer?

I wrote another two parts of Hope's Temptation today. There will be at least one more, but I won't write it yet. To everyone who says it sounds like it's based on personal experience: yes, quite a few bits are. My thoughts and my experiences are spread throughout the piece, although I'm not at liberty to say what and who has influenced them. It's a sort of personification of all the arguments my head throws up when taking about love and relationships. It's not meant to be intimating one thing or the other or even give out any specific subliminal messages: it's a journey. Even if you don't like it, any thoughts are appreciated, heh. My driving instructor never turned up for my lesson today, which is rather worrying. I know I definitely had one booked for tomorrow, but he never said anything about cancelling today's. I wondered if perhaps I'd taken it down wrong, but he even wrote it on the little appointment card thing he wrote for me. Maybe something came up. I left a message on his answering machine: hopefully he'll get back to me. if anything serious has happened I don't know where I stand with regards to my test on Friday. We're supposed to use the same car we've learnt in, but if it's been involved in something, then... Eh, I don't know. I guess I'll find out tomorrow. Learned Helplessness My suspicions that something wasn't right were confirmed today, and I can only be disappointed with myself for not taking up the responsibility that I should have done. But now I don't know what to do. Trying to get myself more involved could make everything worse, but I hate living in ignorance knowing that something I'm doing is hurting someone else. All I can do is apologise for causing people so much trouble and hope that I can help set things right again, even if it's by just saying nothing at all.

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Sunday, October 3, 2004

Teh More Pics.

Yeps, I have ones from Day 4 here, heh. There aren't very many pictures after this- during Day 5 we didn't really do anything except go up to London (and Mimmi didn't come back with me >.>), but we took a few final pictures anyway, heh. And my favourite will go up tomorrow, I hope. Stop that ticket! This was on the train to Portsmouth- I tried to get my camera out without Mimmi noticing but I wasn't very good at being subtle, heh. But in protest at the ticket 'accedintally jumping in the way', I took another picture of her. Mimmi! And there isn't much more that can be said about this one, heh. Portsmouth Harbour. This is what you see when you turn around on the way to the Historic Dockyard. It's not the most beautiful of places by any standards, but it'll hopefully look a bit nicer when the Spinnaker Tower's finished (so called because it was designed by a bloke called Spinnaker, I think). It was supposed have been done for the Millennium, but it's not looking to be finished until 2006/7, which is a shame. It's taken up more money than they expected, too. Still, it'll be quite nice when it's done ^_^ I think I can see it from my house if I look carefully enough. It's certainly very prominent. Victory! We went straight to this ship first, as we'd been booked onto a tour of the ship that started not too long after we got there. We weren't allowed to take photos inside, which was a shame. I'm sure they're available somewhere though >.> Teh Sleepy Swans. Mimmi noticed these, hee. They're very cool ^_^ Although her two pics look great when seen together. The world's first iron-clad battleship... and it didn't even fire a shot ^_^; A lovely piece of work and much roomier than the Victory. We didn't get an audio tour of this ship though, which I half-think we should have done because I suddenly wondered what a lot of some bits were, but we had fun anyway ^_^ Run Away! She didn't get out of the photo in time, heh ^_~ The Propellor Well. Below this bit is where the ship's 25-tonne propellor resides. I liked the design of the metal rings on the floor, although I'm not entirely sure what they were there for. It would have taken about 600 crew members to raise the prop. 600! Unbelieveable... And the ship's cannons had a range of one mile. I'm sure later battleships have a much more impressive range, but this is still pretty wholesome. Then we went to Frankie and Banny's to eat, heh. And I embarrassed Mimmi by constantly creating play-scenes with her bottle of mineral water: shoving a napkin in its neck, giving it a French accent and making it interact with other glass items on the table ^_^; It was fun, heh. But in the meantime, these guys burst in, all demanding to use a mirror. can you believe it? All of them at once. Really. *coughs* okay, it was from the Frankie and Benny's Christmas advert thingy, but we thought it was cool. After some stone-kicking antics we waited at Waitrose for a short while, waiting for Mum to pick us up. It was quite cold out, actually I kept worrying that Mimmi was going to freeze, but thankfully she seemed alright. Whe we got back we watched Big Fish, heh. Just before we were about to sit down and start, my sister came in asking if she could get her school stuff. I asked if there was anything else people would need to get (as I really don't like being disturbed during a movie), and Mum said that she might need something from the mantlepiece, but it could wait till later. "It's alright, we haven't started yet." Then Mum looked. She didn't look at me, but it was one of those comedic suspicious looks that oozed innuendo. "Mum!" My sister exclaimed. I retreated into the sitting-room, and spied Mimmi giggling away on the seat opposite me. Ah, the innocence of it all ^_~ Big Fish was simply amazing. I loved it to pieces. If you've not seen it yet, do so NOW. Right now. We stayed up really late that night. Which in retrospect might not have been a great idea considering we had such an early start and busy day to go through on Wednesday ^_^;. But it was worth it, heh. After all, we had to make the most of the time we had left. You can catch up on sleep any time, but things like this don't happen very often. That's it for the Tuesday. The final lot will be tommorrow ^_^ By Grabthar's Hammer... Most of today I've spent sleeping, eating and replying to RPGs. Oh, and I watched the RahXephon movie, heh. It was good- it gave a better perspective and explanation to some of the hidden questions of the series, but I think I prefer the series ending myself. It was all very good, but since they don't necessarily directly correte to one another it's quite difficult to relate bits and pieces of it to each other. Worth seeing, though ^_^ Mishima's cute when she's happy. The new Simpsons episodes aren't as good as the previous ones. They're not as funny and the stories are rather obscure, sometimes only amounting tovariations of things that have already happened. Erm... I can't think of anything else to say, heh. It's been pretty quiet, on the whole. I am getting a haircut tomorrow, though. I'm looking forward to being able to style my hair properly again. And this Friday is the day of my (first) driving test. I have driving lessons on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday, as well as an hour before the actual test on Friday. Egh, scary stuff... I hope I'll be alright. I should be, but nerves can overcome rational behaviour. Whatever happens happens, and it's not the end of the world either way. That goes for most other things, too.

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Saturday, October 2, 2004

I feel like being healthy today.

Although the bolognese hasn't really gone down yet, I still feel like eating some fruit or at least having some pure apple juice. *gets some* Mmm, lovely ^_^ Now my Photobucket account is working nicely, I think I'll start a picture of the day/week thingummy a la teh Juu, cause that would be fun. For now, I have the pictures of Mimmi's visit. I'll put them up a few at a time so as to prolong the experience, heh ^_^ Day 3 part 1. These photos are from the bowling alley and Chichester itself, where we did some shopping ^_^. Well, Mimmi did shopping. I've done shopping in Chi already and I can never remember what it is I need. I did get a sandwich, though. There were a couple that I took when she wasn't looking, but they were sneaksy and so not allowed ^_^; Piccy 1: Mimmi having just taken a photo of... something. I can't remember what. Oh, probably the Butter Market building, but it's too big to really capture from street level with a normal camera. Piccy 2: Mimmi, having just bowled her turn. It was probably an impressive move but I was concentrating more on taking her picture before she objected to it, heh ^_^. She really doesn't need to object though, as she's very pretty. Piccy 3: The first pic of Mimmi that was officially approved, heh. I took this one a few minutes after the first. She was beating me all the way through this game ^_^; Piccy 4: The Lost Bin! There's a bin in the Bishop's Palace Gardens that looks like it was just ripped from a street and dumped inside the scenery, almost like the Statue of Liberty in Planet of the Apes. I thought it was cool, anyway >.> Piccy 5: Shoe! Mimmi has cool shoes, heh. I have quite a few more left to come yet, so I'll try and space them out as best I can. I'm afraid I don't have any of me because I was the one taking them, but Mimmi should. Eh, there are slightly more stylish ones than the one of me in the chair, though ^_^; Go see her site for teh detailses. On Day 3 I took Mimmi to our chocolate shop, Montezuma's. It's a lovely lovely place that sells lovely lovely chocolate (well, I hope Mimmi's mum thought so, heh), and I also took her around many of the other places I usually go to. It's not a very impressive town, but it works for what it is. There's certainly no shortage of places to eat- you'd think people in Chichester would be obese with all the eateries lining the streets. It threatened to rain all day but remained nicely clear even when we sat outside for a few hours waiting for the film to start. At one point about thirty to forty people with cameras appeared in the gardens, all trooping through. I've never seen so many people with cameras! normally whenever I see that many it's at Arundel Castle at an event and they all want individual pictures. but these weren't Chinese/German/old tourists, so we were left to our own devices. Which was spying on George... George! George was a gardener working at clipping... something (we couldn't quite see what, but we presumed it was probably a hedge) opposite from our bench. He was working incredibly dilligently and didn't say a word. Or if he did, ther were too quiet for us to hear. I made a joke about his tool- I think he became suspicious of us laughing, heh. He kept his composure and trimmed the entire thing though, and all the while we kept trying to take pictures of him. Every so often he'd look up and see a camera pointing towards him, so we quickly had to turn away and make it look like we were focusing on something else ^_^; It got incredibly farcical, especially as Mimmi's camera kept blurring up the pictures. George's Wheelbarrow of Goodies! Tools, sweets or instruments of conspiracy and secrecy intent on destruction of the Government? You decide! Meanwhile, we took pictures of each other taking pictures to prove to you that we were, in fact, taking pictures. Here's my half of the exchange ^_~ Return of The GeorgeWhen he was getting this close it was hard for us to hide our sneaky intentions, so we left. Hellboy comes to mind again (seeing as we saw it that day): it lacked... something. The characters were cool and the dialogue was pretty nice in places, but a lot of it really needed some tuning. Like the ending: it didn't actually feel like a climax at all. I half-expected there to be something else afterwards, but otherwise it just felt like the middle of the movie. Not that I particularly wantedthere to be more, mind, but it didn't involve me that much. My favourite character was Abe, and even he was given nothing to do by the end of the film. Peh. Enjoy the pictures ^_^

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Friday, October 1, 2004

Eee, Urgh and Bleh.

Thanks to all who replied to the Appeal ^_^ He/she shall be named soon, hehe. I'm just waiting for Mimmi's final word on the pictures, so hopefully the first lot will be up tomorrow. I haven't any from the first day (yet; although somehow I doubt that the sending of the pictures to my e-mail address worked >.>) or Sunday (seeing as we were inside watching RahXephon all day it didn't make for fantastic photo opportunities, heh), so I'll have to start from Monday, when we went into Chichester ^_^ And Mimmi can post all the pictures she wants of me. I'm not shy, heh. If I was I'd be writing in his MyO, Da-Dum... *coughs* I hate computers. I tried reinstalling YVD on my computer so I could battle Krissy (a.k.a Digital Monster), but something about it caused a serious error with my Norton Internet Security. I couldn't update, adjust or open anything, and uninstalling it just wouldn't work either. So I spent ages running around in circles trying to find out what to do before eventually uninstalling everything and starting again. Although Dad insisted we had NIS 2003, we didn't. We have NAV 2004. Good as it is, it doesn't leave me very secure. So Dad's off to buy a proper CD version of the 2005 software after dropping me off for re-enactment training. I'd completely forgotten about it, heh. I'm hoping Derren will be able to give me an introduction to a few martial arts, as I might be needing them for this course I want to apply for. For those I didn't go hyperactive about it to last night, it's a three-year Degree course in Stage Combat, Stunts and Specialist Performance Skills. I really really want to do it. Not least because the school's only ten Underground stations away from Liverpool Street *coughs* It might seem like a long way off, but I need ot get the forms filled in by the end of the month else I won't stand a chance of getting in. They only take 16 people a year, and even though I'm well-qualified for entry already I expect it'll still take a fair amount of self-inflating to get myself in. Lots of work ahead... But if I can get in, I doubt I'll be doing a better course for myself, heh. EDIT: Whoo! How could I forget? Alan redid my Yugo avatar for me. It now looks teh cools and not as messy ^_____^ Thanks Alan! EDIT 2: Except, I gave him the wrong sizes for MyO's avatars >.> They're 125 x 125, not 150 x 150. I are stoopid. EDIT 3: IT WORKEH! ALANNNEN ARE TEH COOLIEIES!!1!!

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Thursday, September 30, 2004

'Name My Wasp' Appeal/Competition

I have a wasp. Observeh teh wasp! But he/she has no name (nor even a gender at this point) yet. Until I know which photos are Mimmi-approved, I'm appealing to you to donate/suggest a name- male or female -to my wasp so that it can be happy and communicate more effectively with Rufus the Giant Cuddly Bat. I'll choose the best one once this has been up for a bit. Your help is much appreciated, hehe. Thank you, and keep watching for more pics soon ^_~ Note to Heaven's Cloud: Thank you for offering to host the pics for me: I actually found out that I'd registered for Photobucket already but had completely forgotten my information. So that should do me for the most part.

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