I'm still alive, albeit with a monster headache. It actually wasn't so bad, I enjoyed most of it. At least until L freaked out because we met someone from one of her classes. She is totally paranoid about anyone finding out that she had mental health issues...

Personally, I don't really care about that. People have been saying that I'm crazy for years ;-) And it's probably true.

Now, I can either go and see if L has calmed down, or lie down for a while.

I think I really am coming down with something. I still have a sore throat and I generally feel like crap along with being very noise-sensitive. Been dead tired all day and didn't even work up the energy to watch anything but soccer on TV so far. I did manage to get one (rambling) reply done for the S104 group project, but that was about the extend of my productivity today :-/ I so need to get cracking tomorrow if I want to keep up my grades.

Lesson of the day : Never open the mail when you're already feeling low! Woke up with a very sore throat this morning and I just found I owe money on taxes. I need to push my disability claim, but I have about a million other things to do as well.

We're doing this group thing at uni and of course, it's not really working. I need to post a reply in the forum, except there is pretty much nothing to reply to. I made two posts on Thursday and I still need to make another one for the second task, plus the replies for that as well. I can't wait until we are done with the biology segment of the course. It is by far the most boring (and at least for me difficult) one yet. We're scheduled to be done with it in early July and there is an assignment and a quiz about it as well. I have the slight feeling I'm not going to do very well on those :-/

I think I'm getting a cold or something like that. I seriously don't have time to be sick.

Went to bed way to late last night. Now I'm tired and sore from running yesterday. After a couple of good days, L is pretty down again. We went to see her GP yesterday, he told her basically to stay home, take it easy and continue taking the medication Dr. G prescribed. I introduced her to EFT last weekend and while she was pretty skeptical at first, she asked me to do some more 'tapping' today. Well, if it helps, I'm all for it, although I mostly get mixed results with the technique. The sound card again didn't arrive in the mail, so I'm still not able to watch videos on my laptop. As for soccer, another one of my housemates was kind enough to move his TV down into the living room for the duration of the games. With that sorted, I have embarked on a number of kitchen projects today. I'm making crackers from flax and pumpkin seed. They don't look very appetizing now, but I hope that once I have dehydrated them, they will turn out edible. I just fear that I might have worn out my trusty blender because it got very hot and started to smell funny at some point when I was making the dough for the flax crackers. I'm now waiting for it to cool down so that I can make the pumpkin seed dough.

I'm now pretty determined to go ahead with my disability claim. My mother send my the forms and a guide booklet on how to fill them out, what records to submit, etc. I will need to talk to at least some of my doctors back home to get the documentation and records I need. The problem is that I have received such a vast number of different diagnoses that I have trouble telling which ones will be best suited for the claim and for which I have the best records backing my claim up. I will see Dr. G. next month before I head to Edinburgh, and plan on asking him what he thinks.

L isn't doing well, and I'm worried about her. She's very depressed and somewhat paranoid. I've been staying with her most of the time in the last couple of days, trying to distract her at least a little bit. Hence, the lack of fic (and schoolwork). I promise to catch up on the weekend, not that I have much choice where school is concerned. She is going to see Dr. G. on Monday and I promised I'd tag along. It will mean another morning of doing no work for school, but I'll figure something out. Guess I'll have to work a bit harder this weekend then :-/

Boredom drove me to the gym yesterday afternoon and this time it's not my knees, but my feet that really hurt. Maybe I should finally get some shoes that are actually suitable for sports. On the schedule for today:

• work on TMA 04 for the S104 course


• do my good deed for the day


• catch up with Numb3rs, Without a Trace and Waking the Dead


• pay the bills


• write (and finally edit) the next chapters for my two new stories (one for Doctor Who, the other for The Bill)


• sort out transportation for residential school in July

I'm sure there is more, but I can't think of anything right now :-)

So sorry for not being around and not commenting as much as I usually do :-/ The new med dosage has really been messing with me as far as side effects go and I haven't been up to much as a result aside from stuff I really had to do (and not even all of that sometimes)

I got 86% and 97% on my last two assignments, despite not having finished all the material before starting the assignments. Still I hope I'll catch up in time. I've registered for my required residential school course, starting July 5 in Edinburgh. I still have to sort out transportation issues, but a quick search indicates that it will be much less of a problem than I thought it would be.
Fanfiction writing is going surprisingly well. But I always seem to write more when I'm not doing overly well. Strange how that works.
Two new shows have snuck their way in - Murder City (which although no longer airing still took up the better part of two days last week) and Dexter (still on the fence about it despite giving it a second chance. It's not just that it's a tad too graphic, it just has failed to 'click' so far). There are several more shows on the list of things to check out in the near future, if I ever find the time that is)

I consider myself to be in fairly good shape. I work out on a regular basis and do quite a bit of yoga, yet I'm still totally exhausted from the run I went on with L this morning. Even my knees are sore and that never happens! I so don't feel like doing any work for uni, but I guess I'll have to since the deadline is next week and I haven't even finished my first draft. Besides, I decided that this year, I wouldn't hand stuff in so late...Speaking of late, I have fanfic and a movie review to write, but first I'm going to check out Murder City. Although I'm already getting frustrated with the camera work and I've only seen five minutes of it so far :-/

But today I'm feeling quite a bit better :-)

Dr. G. suggested some changes to my meds when I saw him last week, and while I wasn't too enthusiastic about messing around with things again, I must admit that it seems to be working. My head is much, much quieter, despite me being stressed out over an assignment for uni. It's been a while since I've studied the actual material and after a couple of days of doing hardly anything for uni (or anything else for that matter), I'm not finding it easy to get back into the subject. But with the deadline looming, I guess I have no choice but to get busy :-)

And on a random note: LaO was weird this week, but LaO SVU was much, much weirder. Did that make sense on any level?

Can't say that I felt much better after the night, but I've decide to take the morning off. After making that decision, I went back to bed and since getting up again, I already feel a lot better :-) I wish I could stay in all day, but I have to fetch my 'scripts, go to the pharmacy and then pick up some food as well. Will see about how much I feel up to this afternoon when I get back.

( My dear meds )

It all seems impossibly much at the moment, but I'm sure that after getting some sleep and getting back on all my meds, I'll feel better again.

I'm being entirely self-centered once again by not caring. It's like that with a lot of things - I don't have the energy and/or mental space to be opinionated. I'm busy taking it one day at a time ;-) Especially, and I know everyone is going to disagree with me on this one, when it comes to such (comparatively) small issues.

Feeling better than a few days ago, although I'm still a bit off-center. I doubt I did very well on the assignment that was due today (already found one mistake after submitting it), but all I need is a pass for this course, the grade itself doesn't count towards my degree. Now all I need to do is finish my S342 assignment and make it through the rest of the week. Then, finally, break week. I already have a long, long list of things I want/need to get done during that time, but I'm trying to get at least some of those things done this week so it won't seem like such a big pile :-/

Somehow, things aren't right anymore. Since Wednesday to be precise. I have no idea what happened, aside from me getting very stressed out, but that's not that unusual. But since then, everything is somehow wrong. I can't sleep, I can't think and nothing seems remotely interesting or worth doing. I think that's called being depressed, but I have been depressed and at least for me that's felt very different. So I have no idea what my mind is up to now.

I'm actually amazed that I got anything at all done the last few days.

And yeah, rl has been a bit of a disappointment too last week. The trip I'd organized as a present for my sister's birthday (she wanted to go to a festival with her best friend) fell through because she doesn't get along with her best friend at the moment. I put quite a bit of time and money into that present. I'm confused about my assignment for this week and I can't seem to get a straight answer from anyone. Does help that it is the weekend :-/

After a day wasted in waiting rooms, on the bus and waiting in line at the pharmacy yesterday, I have some catching up to do before the weekend (which will entail revising stuff from the week and watching TV). I did get my assignment for S342 finished and submitted, I'm not happy with it - the calculations were easy enough, but I had the biggest trouble writing a summary of my findings in 200 words. Not enough words by far to mention everything that, in my opinion, needed to be said to answer the question. Will see how that goes. No idea how quick the marking goes. Some of my tutor in the previous years managed in less than a week while others didn't manage to return things before the next assignment (and in one case, not before the final exam a good six months later!)

Also, been to the gym again today. I've been going quite often since the semester started, mainly in the hopes it would help me sleep. Not sure it's working tough.

( Updates from my not-so-crazy-anymore mind. )

Might catch up on TV tonight, finish watching Ronin or do some writing.

What gave you the idea you would actually stand a chance of passing a final year any physical chemistry course given your spectacular track record with this subject!?

Seriously,

your (freaked-out) brain

It's not helping that the combination of strattera and ritalin is driving me absolutely crazy.

At least that course doesn't start for another two weeks, but the prep. reading is already enough to scare me.

It takes way too much energy to get back into this whole studying bit. But I probably think that every year ;-)

I'm way beyond tired. The semester just started this week and I'm already totally exhausted.

I just got my meds from the pharmacy. I could hardly believe how expensive they were. I paid just over €1000 or about $1450. Ouch. I do get the money back from the insurance, but I still have to pay up front. I did some quick maths and figured out that a day's dose of Abilify is over €10!

I better hurry up with my disability claim if I don't want to get thrown out of my parents' insurance. They already sent me the forms last year, without me even asking for them. It figures, with the claims I regularily submit ;-) But there is so much to fill out and so many records to submit. I still need to get my records from my time in Oxford somehow and I can't even recall the name of the doctor I went to in Oxford. Most of those years is pretty hazy, thanks to meds that totally weren't right for me. Oh well, at least I'm a lot better these days.

In other news, I did get some sleepm last night and am feeling much better than yesterday. Right now, I'm scouting around for a place to take French classes next semester as I'm still planning on taking the TCF exams sometime this year. I've decided to give up on the English classes. It really wasn't worth the effort and money, even though I had a really nice teacher and did learn some words (which I'll probably never need).

my apologies for being a bad lj friend

(  It just hasn't been my week so far (whining) )

My shipment from Tropical Foods arrived today and I can't say that I'm entirely happy. The mangoes are delicious - very sweet and the pineapple and papaya look and smell good too, but what am I supposed to do with 3 lbs of guavas? I'm not even sure how they are eaten! Same goes for the pomello. Juice it, maybe? And, what really ticked me off that instead of the avacodos I ordered, they simple sent me more mixed fruit. Without asking me about it. So far, Orkos seems like the better choice of the two. Better selection, better customer service, and lower shipping costs.

I also found a nice gadget that solves a computer problem of mine. Leland IV's predecessor died a mysterious and sudden death that didn't allow me to safe any data on it. Now I found a device that lets you connect a laptop hd to an usb port. I only hope that the old hd is still intact. There are quite a lot of writings and bookmarks that I would like to transfer.