Michelle Taylor

Today I walked to lectures through a blizzard. It was, however, a very short-lived blizzard; just enough to damp-ify my new fluffy hat. The hat seems to have survived quite well, though. Insert rant here about how many hats I lose and how they're quite expensive.

I also managed to drag myself into town in the slightly warmer part of the day just after lunch, and bought myself nice pate and nice bread and nice fruit (cherries and 'tropical fruit' and figs; the tropical fruit was very nice and I wish I'd paid more attention to what it actually *was*). I like food, which is something of a shame because I am still rather oversized for a Chessypig. I think I might invest in some new size 14 jeans and admit I'm just going to be roundy again. The fat might insulate me against the cold, after all, because it is Very Freezing.

Currently I'm still kind of suffering from depression; I meant to do stuff this afternoon and spodded and ate fruit instead. At least I am now snacking on fruit rather than chocolate, which seems like an improvement. Church last night mostly made me cry because I was in a 'woe, I shall never be happy again and there are lots of happy people here' kind of mood, but eventually I calmed down. Now I'm reasonably content, just prone to hermitting, which is why I'm here writing long LJ posts rather than out at Ark. (Well, that and the freezing cold, which meant that it was easier to run to Hall than to walk.)

I started working on an Ars Magica character generator, but got snarled up in the vast quantity of data entry required. Also, I swear this chair is going to kill me if I sit in my room and code too much.

The dreaded Group Project has begun; so far we have a Real Manager (Part II General, did some management courses, doesn't know the difference between Java and Javascript or that someone has to install and maintain things which are on the web instead of them magically appearing), two mathmos, two coders and a web monkey, oh and me, who has managed to get herself volunteered for 'Documenter' and 'Programming Manager', which apparently means I get to maintain the Vast UML Diagram of Doom and try and munge together the code that the others write. Why is it that I can never just let people be incompetent? In case you're interested, we're doing the Lottery Server project, which is actually a web interface for university societies to run raffles.
( TT on Saturday. It good. )
Now, if only I could actually be as interested in my Ars Magica characters...

Today's productivity was cancelled on account of finding Greg Egan's homepage (Googlable, if you insist on destroying your own productivity), which included several short stories I had not yet read. I did manage to drag myself into town and fill out forms at the dentist, though, and buy more nice bread which I don't really need but I wanted. Oh, and a hat. In a slight departure from 'black and fluffy', this one is 'dyed randomly in black, brown and white, and even fluffier'. I have no idea how it will hold up to rain and snow, but it was fuzzy and I wanted it. (And figs. I have figs.)

Unfortunately I was ambushed in Hall by some very nice chocolate pudding (I refuse to call it 'mousse' because that would imply that some air had polluted its stygian depths), which probably means I shall continue not to fit my jeans for quite a while yet. Especially as I can't think of an excuse to go walking somewhere tomorrow, although I am considering just wandering off somewhere for an hour or so after I wake up because otherwise I shall just sit and spod for the time involved.

I have completed two cv/cover letter pairs, although not sent them off yet; MentorNet is finally proving vaguely useful in getting them polished up. Unfortunately I don't seem to be able to start on any more, mostly because ARM's multidunious job offers written by different people in different confusing styles have been rather offputting. Data Connection and Softwire have fairly straightforward application forms instead of expecting me to come up with stuff, though, so I'll probably see about them tomorrow (which is actually to schedule, although I was meant to have all the CV ones done by now).

Life keeps conspiring to make me want to write, and/or run role-playing games. Please dissuade me from the latter; not only do I not have any time, I don't have enough stress tokens. I intend to do the former during lunch breaks after lectures at the lab, during term, as I seem to be much better at writing stuff on my Psion than on a real computer.

Ack. Term starts again soon. Occasionally I feel that I ought to, you know, look at this textbook I planned to study over Christmas, but it's all a bit daunting and late now...

(In case you couldn't tell, I am actually quite happy at the moment, due to sunsets and trees.)

My head is made of lead. Also I forgot to pick up my prescriptions whilst in town. I am terrified that I shall never see my poor little car again, because they were meant to be looking at it for an hour starting from 9:30am and then ringing me, and they haven't. I checked the phone number several times but I can't help but worry that I transposed a digit or something; but I don't want to be pushy (and I don't want to have to walk back across town and collect it right now because I feel very dead).

I haven't felt properly alive since the weekend; I'm not sure whether I actually have some kind of illness or whether it is just the crushing weight of stress. At the weekend I ran a Nobilis game which I think should be the last RPG I ever run because they're not worth the stress; I lost points for running away and going to sleep for a couple of hours in the middle of Sunday. Then on Monday because I had lost my Psion I spent an hour in a doctors' waiting room (I'd got the time of my appointment wrong). Yesterday I attempted to take my car to the nice Cambridge Vehicle Services people and failed because I had an address which was seven years out of date for them (yet still the top hit on Google).

Hence today I had to get up really early to get my car to them, and the freezing cold wind almost killed me on the way back (I also forgot to get a hat; I need a hat so I don't get such awful headaches from the wind, and I left my hat in a church in Lincolnshire). I have also lost another glove and possibly another two on top of that, leaving me with one mismatched pair with a hole in the side of one.

I am not very good at life and suspect I am going to fail it. I hope I have some kind of illness which will go away, because currently I am good for nothing.

Went to toothycat's New Year party in the end; the party I had attempted to organise fell to bits because I underestimated the amount of handholding I needed to do. It was actually rather good that this happened, all told, because the toothycat party was most entertaining and allowed me to meet lots of people I really ought to know by now. There were games and stories of chemistry class redecorations and celebrating the new year too early because the radio station we were listening to got it wrong. Unfortunately I was still kind of ill and died a bit around 2am, so Sun Kitten kindly drove us home.

Haven't done much since then because Nicholas wanted to play Bloodlines so I got my computer games fix by hovering at him, and we went to see House Of Flying Daggers (which was very cool and dream-like and OMG SO SAD, none of which I feel are particularly spoilers). So much for my List Of Things To Do.

I feel like I ought to post some kind of review of the year thing because most of the year seems impossibly distant from me right now, and the year ahead looks likely to sink into an endless struggle with The Laze if I don't get in gear. Not sure, though.

Christmas happened.

I went to Lincolnshire for most of Christmas. There, I played computer games and ate too much. Nicholas' family were lovely as usual. The people who they had round on Christmas Day offended me for reasons probably more to do with me than them. (The main speaker, the father, was involved in a legal firm which didn't take legal aid cases and seemed to pride themselves on this, and was generally unconsciously misogynistic throughout his conversation; the eldest son was a car salesman with *salesman's eyes*. They reminded me why normal people scare and sicken me quite so much.)

I have instructed tienelle not to let me play computer games, possibly ever again. Computer games are bad for me. At the very least I can write surreal short stories instead. Or read books.

After Lincolnshire I went home to see my parents, which was almost but not quite an unmitigated disaster. We did manage a couple of walks where I remembered why I quite like my parents really, but I'd put on a bit of weight over Christmas and had ample oppertunities to remind myself why I can't live with them any more. It did not help that both me and my mother had PMT. We went to the 'Eyes, Lies and Illusions' exhibition on the South Bank which was vastly uninspiring, and watched 'The Returner', which was a lousy piece of Japanese gun-fu. We also watched Troy, which was technically good but not quite stunning enough to get through my general PMT-induced antipathy to life.

(The main problem that I have with my parents at the moment is that my mother cannot accept that I can't be her perfect daughter even though the steps to become such are trivial to her and hence I must only not be taking them out of laziness and probably spite and insufficient love for her. Hence I spend the time I am with them pretending to be somebody I'm not, which is rather stressful but the only way, I have been informed, that I can stay on speaking terms with my parents at all; if I don't conform to this particular set of 'perfectly reasonable' expectations I can not be part of the same society as them, apparently, and hence can never meet them.)

Now I am sitting around in Oblivion wondering if the last two members of our rather sadly failed party are going to arrive. I am a bit hurt about this, really; I don't understand what further communication was needed besides my post, except perhaps a clarification of times, and don't see where any such was requested which I haven't replied to.

I probably should do something about the vast and cavernous gap between my last proper diary entry and the events covered herein, but I am not sure I have the energy. I might write nonsense or do memes instead. I feel like sitting and typing, but I don't have the energy for research. (I have a Rondak's Portal game that desperately needs some love, and an idea for an Ars Magica campaign which I Must Not Run - although I might consider doing it online somehow (I already submitted it as a Portal game, but doubt I'll have much interest there unless some people from here are willing to use that method, which I'm comfortable with and seems to work quite well but you might not be).