How is it possible to have a summer cold when there has been no summer?

I've been feeling a bit overwhelmed and rubbish for not being calmer about the fact my life is one great big unknown at the moment, but i've decided that its not me, us, the people caught up in adjusting to the unknown outcomes and unspoken expectations that are life, that's rubbish, it's life itself. Then I wonder if its right to be viewing life as something i'm battling against to get a chance to really live. And if that isn't a contradiction i don't know what is. It's not that I'm unhappy at the moment, more that something about the attitudes and expectations I have, or have acquired from living in this modern world, means I feel unable to just float along and see where life takes me. I feel like I should be doing something, always striving to get somewhere,acheive, reach goals, make goals to reach if none are provided. I've decided its because all i've ever known in life is stages and markers to reach - finshing high school, finishing college, finshing uni - then what? get a job in my degree. and that's what's proving so tricky right now. I've applied for about 20 jobs since i graduated (directly related to my degree, and more that were less related), had three interviews and am still waiting to hear from five jobs. I *need* to hear from them, but of course i'm too scared to get in touch with any of them to see what's happening.
I'm working two part time jobs from next week, but feel like i don't have any life, the life in all its fullness kind, of my own. i'm still at home, and staying away one night a week with work, and every other weekend to visit my (wonderful) boyfriend which is becoming a routine, but it's not ideal. Neither of my jobs are permanent, or give me enough money to move out.
argh, i'm just having a big moan, a huge whingey moan. things aren't too bad really, family, work, overdraft pretty much cleared, almost driving. focus on the positive is my mantra (and eat better, ive been relying on sugar fixes too much and it doesnt do my mood or general wellbeing any good)

this post is not interesting at all, but i hope its helped me feel a bit clearer about things. So my next post can be about all the interesting things i'm doing (working with small children, typing and filing, spending a lot of time on the buses- i can make it sound sun, honest :P )

Testing posting from my mobile

...or rather I haven't. Not saying things on here has become a speciality it seems and I'm not even sure what I feel like writing about now. Not my mammoth bus journies across manchester to my summer job, or the piles of possessions that are threatening to drive me crazy just by being in my bedroom, or anything much of anything really. Life atm isn't really anything much of anything, but I always seem to be busy and have things I'm supposed to have done already. I guess that is life, non-student life. I think I'm coping ok, even though I haven't had chance to actually think about anything further ahead than tomorrow's lunch since I came home. Hopefully that's going to chill out soon though, and then I can address the 'what to do with my life' question, which seems far too big and to have been given far more importance than it needs. Can't I just ge ton with living my life and see what happens that way?
anyway, i'm going to Riga tomorrow for a week with Kat (the not-my-sister one)and I'm looking forward to it, and to coming back home again at the end, which is a really cosy satisfying way to feel.

Is it possible to blame my current lack of essay writing on a psychological avoidance of finishing my degree because as soon as its finished I will have to take responsibility for decisions about my life again? For the last three days i've blamed a nasty bout of cold/flu/virus type thing that has filled my sinuses and chest up with gunk and made me feel nauseated pretty constantly. But now that's faded to a gunky nose and cough I no longer have that excuse. So i've been playing internet flash games, staring at the wall and thinking about what I'll pack for holiday. Because I am going on holiday on sunday, my first proper grownup one-half-of-a-couple holiday. There are three kinds of grownup holiday (that is, holiday's without your parents).

one) organised group holidays that are kind of adult supervised. Youth group trips, large group camping etc. I count this as hlaf-way grown up because I used to go on these holidays as a kid and teenager doing what an exasperated, hardworking youthworker (possibly unrecognised angel) told me to, but then started gathering a group of friends who also went along as teenagers to go on our own and it felt immensely grown up. But was still essentially a few tents in a field where your dad could still come rescue you if needs be.

the others will have to wait becuae I'm going to be good (honest) and go write my last ever uni essay.

Ugh, yesterday turned to be full of blah. I had a fuzzy achey head I just couldnt shift and felt generally under the weather all day. Which was funny cos yesterday was the nicest day weatherwise for ages. Looks like its going to be good today as well. I have an essay to write (books to read - which I finally managed to get from the library yesterday) and I've already done housework and been proactive (washing on, breakfast eaten, bed made, garden tended) so I'm feeling better about today. There may even be productivity. I'm not making any promises but if I can keep the headache that's threatening at bay I should be able to make progress.

I don't know what I'll write about once I've finished my degree, it's been pretty much the total content of this journal since the begining. An adventure in the great unknown awaits.

Sorry for not being around for the last month, the angst of placement and finals was far too high. If I'd tried to write about it as well as survive it I think my brain would have exploded all over the computer screen and I'd have collapsed into a blubbering wreck (which I did every so often anyway). So now it is done, the remainder of my degree is an essay that I have very little enthusiasm for (but I never did have enthusiasm for essays, or exams, or assessments or the whole learning stuff thing anyway). I have nearly finished. It doesn't feel like such a big deal, I don't feel any different though I must be massively different than I was four years ago. It's not humanly possible to be the same through so much life.

I've been incredibly lazy the last few days. At first I told myself it was catching up on sleep from the weekend with bettyboop84 (which was wonderful, but didn't have sleep very high on the priority list). This morning though I had to admit to myself that it is simply pure laziness, and there is no excuse for still being in my pyjamas after 10am when I'm not ill (my current slightly sore throat doesn't count). Today I woke up at 5:48am, which is wrong. It would have been wrong even if I was still on placemnet and having to leave the house at 7:30am. So I went back to sleep, which actually took some effort, and then when it was properly time to get up I was all groggy and didn't. For two extra hours.

The plan today was (still is I guess) to sort out my washing (need clean clothes!), my bedroom (must tidy!), meet a friend for cofee and hunt doen a book at the library (wish me luck with that).

this is how exciting my life is. The whole finishing my degree thing doesn't make one jot of difference to the day to day hundrum nature of my life. I quite like it atm, but it feels liek limbo at the same time. I know that this part of my life is going to be finishing in just a few weeks and I'm not sure how I feel about that. But for now, on with the day (honest, I'm awake now).

My dissertation is done. It's in the shop being bound. I collect it at twelve and hand it in and then I'm one step closer to being finished. There are only three things left to do in my degree, before they (the ones who know what they're talking about, apparently) declare that I am a professional. It makes my brain start to melt if I try and think about it. For today I'm focussing on the fact that I have my life back, for two whole days my time is my own. There isn't the pressing need to be doing work, now, quicker, faster, more of it, it should be done already, there's something else that needs finishing. Well, there's less of a need.
So today I am making lunch. Sunday lunch. On monday. It makes as much sense as anything else in my life and it should be fun. Nat's back, kat's back, andy's coming over. there will be chicken. salad. ice cream (not all at once). Hopefully it will be a lovely afternoon.
And hopefully this entry means I'm back (again). I will try. I will also be working four days a week and studying more than regular full time. But that's for wednesday, today is my day.

I'm about to do a load more work; extract some meaning from the pile of journal articles on my desk, and I have a plan for this evening as a reward. I plan an evening of indulgence. A bubble bath whilst the heating's on, then making a late tea of homemade thai curry (hopefully it will taste like thai curry, even something close would be impressive for a first go). After that I imagine it will be about 9o'clock so I can put a video in for CSI in case I want to watch it another day and finish up some more work before bed (which shouldn't be late because I've had trouble dragging myself out of bed for the past couple of days and lie-ins where I go back to sleep give me *weird* dreams. Very disconcerting.)

Today has been strawberries, ginger-lemon tea, mist shining bright and breaking into sunshine, dancing to the radio and smiling at my feet wearing new shoes in the park. Apart from the lazy, fuzzy headed beginning it's a good day and hopefully my plan means it'll be a good evening too. I'm looking forward to it enough.

I like chocolate :)

The living room is cleaner than it has been for weeks (months even).

The junk cupboard is sorted out.

There are no mugs left cos of all the tea I've been drinking.

I have work I should be doing (of course).

I'm feeling much happier today. I could be due to the exercise I did yesterday (swimming), or maybe something to do with the entire bar of chocolate I ate last night. It was ok because I'd been swimming during the day, and didn't drown so I needed to celebrate. Honest.
Today I've done a little bit of work, and I will do more after tea (that is my aim at any rate). I've also been on a mission for free stuff. I spied a chair on freecycle that I wanted, my friend marc offered his driving services and off we went into the depths of suburban sheffield. After only getting mildly lost because a mini-roundabout was missing we made it down the valley and up and out the other side to end up just round the corner from where I was decorating with the church project last week (but by a very different route!). The adventure was immensely fun and it's cheered me up no-end, on top of feeling a bit better this morning anyway and going for lunch with my housemate Kat. So all in all today has been a good day so far, and it's about time I had one of those.

[my telling of it doesn't do the adventure justice, it was really really fun to drive with a friend to a place we didn't know without knowing the way. Like a treasure hunt, but funner.)

I've been feeling kind of 'blah' for a couple of days, maybe a little longer. It's not constant, but there doesn't seem to be a pattern to what causes it, or makes it lift. I'm so out of synch with myself that I'm not even sure if it's pmt or not. I'm going to decide it is, cos pmt usually only lasts about a week max (though it is followed by the complication of a period). It could even just be general blah becuase of the time of year, or the point my degrees up to, or pretty much anything really. Self analysis can only get you so far.

I met my mum in Leeds for the afternoon on tuesday, and it was lovely to see her. We went for lunch (in that she took me and paid for me) and then pottered round a few shops for a while, had a drink and then headed home. I got really homesick though when I left her to get on her train. I don't often get incredibly homesick anymore, although I was very bad with it for the first year or so I moved away.

I have plans for the weekend, studious future shaping type plans. I would much rather they were glamorous, going out and partying with many excellent friends type plans, but they're not. I have many journal papers to read (my aim is two a day, so it doesn't over whelm me), a job application to complete (quite scary; the real world is rushing to meet me), my room to clean and closertomyself's return to prepare for. Yup, hopefully I'll be getting my missing housemate back this weekend! (and if all goes really well we'll even go and see Daniel Craig being James Bond together). Having girlfriends about is something that's been missing from my life the last few months. I've met up with bettyboop84 quite a few times but its just not good enough after living together for two years. So it's time to plan another visit (I was so incredibly tempted to just get on a train out of Leeds on tuesday and forget about getting back to uni), and make lots of tea in honour of the housemate's return.

And now on with the 'to do ' list. I've just got to keep moving on with the things on it, if I don't *feel* motivated I'll pretend!

I made it out of the house. I'm considering this the achievement of the day :P I've beenint eh library for quite a while now, and I have done work, not just played on the internet. I've printed soem papers and started to remember hte stuff I was working on for my dissertation lit review. So I'm feeling a little bit better about that, I just need ot keep working on it so I can make adetailed plan of the lit review. I'm going up to andy's for tea I think because he has food and I don't. A simple enough decision and I'm rubbish at working at home so hopefully I'll continue being prodcutive. We were going to go and see hot fuzz tomorrow night but after working out how much it'd cost to go to the big cinema on a regualr night compared to the small cute independent one on a student night we've put it off until next week. So now I have to make sure I see ER on E4 tomorrow night in case recording it on monday doesnt work. Just like it didnt work this week because something went wrong with the tuning. I'm trying not to be annoyed that the thing that went wrong was probably someone plugging in the computer game console or moving the areial in some way, even though it means I've missed an episode of hte only TV show I really make the effort to watch every week atm. Time contraints, work load and poor channel 5 reception make it tricky to justify watching three hours of CSI a week :(
So I'm taking my printing and going home for an evening full of journal reading, attempting to stuff information into my head. But I have hot fuzz to look forward to next week and a slightly proud-of-myself feeling from being in the library. I like the library, it makes me feel like aproper student when I spend lots of time here. I've also discovered that although I@m terrible at workign alone when there is any kind of potential distraction (so i need to have ppl around, or a study-buddy)I also need to focus completely on my work. A bit of a catch 22, but the library helps me solve it. There are people around, but not in a distracting hang out with you kind of way.
anyway, tea time now. (two posts in one day, hopefully a good sign for my return to LJ)

I'm cold, getting dressed would help make that stop but apathy is winning atm. I stayed in bed cos I was tired, but now my head's all fuzzy and I feel blah. I have to be up and out of the house really soon, kind of now ish. However, I'm quite happy staring at the wall and thinking of nothing.
I'm writing on here as part of an attempt to get back into updating, because I feel quite bad about how much I've been neglecting it. Journalling here used ot help me reflect on my days and how things were in my life generlaly. I've been starting to feel that life is running away from me, I'm not quite sure what's going on atm and I think having a bit more of a grip ont hings would help. So here I am again, honest. Constantly having about five things to do at once isn't helping. Always having the feeling that I should be doing something more productive than whatever it is I'm currently engaged in is getting quite stressful, and it's not going to stop anytime soon.
So I'm going out now, to take library books back, do some work there, help Kat with her dissertation, meet my dissertation tutor and hopefully fit some lunch in there somewhere. I think I need a new, prioritised, to do list as well.

I’m going for dinner tonight with my boyfriend and his parents, a happy event and a marker of one of the very good things in my life right now (as well as how much I’ve grown in independence and being a ‘grown up’, the potential for a great future I currently have, my great friends etc) but a song just came up on my playlist that was recorded by a worship group I used to be in, quite a long time ago now. I suppose I’m in a very different place, both in my faith and in my life now, and that’s not a bad thing, it’s just the way life works. Hearing this song brought back wonderful memories of the group, all of us being together, singing and worship whilst the sun streamed in through the window. We used to eat together before practice, all of us coming from college and work and spending time together. We don’t all live in the same town anymore, we’re still friends but we don’t see each other as often. When we do its just like we’ve never been apart. There can’t be too many friendships like that, not in one lifetime and there were six in one room for a while. Remembering how good that time in my life was, how full of friendship, fun and being understood it was, brought a smile to my face, and a little tear to my eye because although things are good now its in a different way and its in my nature to always long for great things to never end, and then to miss them when they do.

It's tomorrow already and today has not been productive. I finished the reading I didn't manage yesterday, slept, read a non-uni book, watched save the last dance and that's about it. One day's worth of work in two days isn't really enough atm. What's worse is that after a wonderful year of having someone to moan about the state of work and skive it with over cups of tea, the closest person to me here in sheffield now is not a procrastinator (he's lovely and the work ethic impresses me a lot, but it's just not helpful for my guilt complex). So I feel I shoudl be doing work all the time. With this in mind as soon as save the last dance finished I played computer games for an hour and now I'm wondering whether cramming another journal's worth of reading in before bed will make me feel better. Go me.

In happier news I'm going home next week for my dad's birthday. We're all going to go out for a meal and it should be wonderful. And I'm taking Andy away for a couple of days for his birthday (which was last week). Trips I probably shoudln't be doing with all the work I've got on (practical exam on the 22nd, 8000 word essay due the 5th Feb and a dissertation I'm supposed to have a third of drafted by now, and prep reading for next semester that I'm ignoring). The thing is that I never know what to buy for men, and I love sharing experiences with people I care about so dinner/going away seems a good solution to both birthdays, and it will be a good break from the blue-funk that exam/project time puts me in.

so now I'm going to do some work to salvage the day, sleep (hopefully well) and start tomorrow afresh.

g'night all

This morning I woke up about seven, and actually thought about getting out of bed and being productive in some way. Then I heard the wind, and felt the cold and realised just how ired I was (again, always atm.)So I got up about half nine and tried to learn to juggle. It's proving very annoying. It's time I started being productive though, back to the library. It's exam/big project time here at Uni and I've managed to fall into a nice pattern since I got back of being down at the library about half ten, coming home for lunch then actually managing to go back and do more work. Then I do again after tea. I don't know if I'll manage it today though, I really am feeling so tired my eyes are pretty much closed all the time.

I'm going to go and pretend to be motivated until I really am.

new year, still here etc etc

a few of us were chatting about the highs and lows of the last year (as if traditional, if a little late) and it reminded me of a wonderful evening out we had all the way back in may. Me and my people all went to see the wonderful Jason Mraz play an awesome gig in town and it was amazing. One of those nights that was so much fun, so enjoyable and filling you with the warm fuzziness of great friendship, great fun and great music that now its stored in my memory with extra joy, a clear warm summer night full of stars (even though we were inside) and I swear Jason smiled right at me and bettyboop84 *right.at.us*

so then I was struck (again, for the zillioneth time) by the fact that I don't live with bettyboop84 anymore and its not going to be quite right until I do again. Sheffield felt really like home for the whole time we were living together and I'm longing for the summer when we can hopefully set up house again (1950's house at that. it could not be any betterer.)

so there's a high and a low (but will be high again) and now I feel I've done my societal duty and been new-yeary enough. I don't do resolutions (a resolution I made years ago) but if I did I'd hope I'd be able to write a bit more often and keep in touch better with people.

Hope you've all had a good festive season etc and the year's going well for you so far.

and I don't have a door. I live in the attic,and have only stairs. So I've been able to hear everything in the house all day, including my housemate coming to visit at 4am seeking advice. The neighbours' smoke alarm had woken her and was still going off.It continued for over half an hour, whilst we tried to peer in windows, wake themby banging on doors and decidewhetheror not we would be justified in ringing the fire brigade. Horrifying visions of people we'd never met burning in their beds or silently being poisoned by carbonmonoxide whilst we were interviewed by incredulous local news reporters about our failure to act spurred us on and Kat rang 999. We rang 999! it was the first time I'd ever been involved in a real emergency call and it was quite exciting. Apart from the bit where our street was too small for them to get the fire engine up,and the neighbours woke up, turned off their alarm (no fire) and tried to hide. And of course the fact it was 4o'clock in the morning and I'm currently full of flu-type virus :(

my head aches, my sinuses are full, my joints ache, sniffle sniffle, waves of dizziness, coughing up aliens etc etc etc. The joys.

I was supposed to be on placement today, recording my video evidence for my end of semester exam. Obviously I haven't been, and now i'm slightly worried about getting it all done as the exam is next tuesday.I *have* to be well enough to go on friday or the potential for death grows. I continue to try and be productive though. Redrafting/writing the rest of an essay, looking for lit evidence for my exam,stuff like that.

But for now I think it's time for another nap zzz!