I'm home, finally. The trip back was fairly uneventful even though I got very little sleep on the bus. Apparently it's a law of nature that there always have to be little children on the bus.

I got a few hours sleep just now, but I think I'm going to go back to bed after I've eaten something. My cold is still plaguing me, so I'm planning to take it easy this weekend seeing that I have to be back at work on Monday. Better not think of that, it makes my head ache even worse. I have so much work to catch up on for my courses that I can't really take out time to be sick.

But a weekend in bed still sounds nice...Plus I brought back a few interesting books. What can I say, I love academic bookstores ;-)

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 have a sore throat, a headache and an earache and I'm supposed to go to a spa today. Of course, this was L's idea and she is actually inviting me, so it would be impolite not to go, even though spending a day at a spa is very much near the bottom of the list of things to do on a free day. What on Earth am I supposed to do there?! Not to mention that I'm only almost caught up on my studies. Plus, I have fic to write as I ditched almost an entire chapter of Avenging Angel yesterday and now have to rewrite most of it :-/

But what is really awesome is the raw vegan chocolate cake I bought yesterday. It is probably the best cake I ever had. I can hardly believe that it is both raw and vegan! I seriously need to try their raw vegan chocolate bars next time. If they are only half as good I'll be so happy. The last two raw chocolate bars I tried (sometime last year) were beyond awful. I was worried about what I was going to eat at the residential school in Edinburgh, but I found at that there will be a vegan meal choice available as well, I just need to tell them in advance.

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.

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 :-/

• finished my taxes


• my new juicer arrived, I'm very happy with it and made a delicious red juice (apple + beetroot + melon + peach) for breakfast this morning


• watched Identity last night, it was very weird (movie review should be coming up later today)


• did some grocery shopping


• went running with L, my knees are still sore


• found out there is a local shop selling vegan ice-cream (made from rice milk apparently), and it's actually very delicious

Doesn't look like much on the face of it, but I'm very happy that I finished with the taxes (for my work in Germany). They can be submitted on-line, but I want to check them over again, just in case I missed something. They are also to blame for the relative lack of fanfic the last two days, they took up much more time than I expected. There may be a BBQ later today, if the weather holds. So far, it's just plain hot ;-)

I woke up with a monster headache and L just started playing the piano. I think I mentioned before that I have three piano playing house mates. It can very annoying sometimes. *sigh* But I love them, for the most part anyways. Just a little bit less when I have a headache ;-)

Yesterday was a complete waste of space. I didn't feel very well and didn't get much done at all, but the transportation issues is all sorted out and I'm more or less pleased with it. I'm going to flying into London a day early and take the bus over night to Edinburgh. The same on the trip back. The programme finishes after lunch and I'm going to have to kill some time to wait for the night bus which will take me back to London from where I'm going to fly back home the next morning. So pretty much two nights and one day for transportation alone. It's going to be fun, or not. Not as much fun as last year though I hope where I did the entire journey by bus on the return trip, making it a 20+ hour bus ride. I'm not going to do that again!

I'm going to take something for my headache now and see if I can't get some uni work done.

In order to make an otherwise completely lazy day at least one some way productive, I decided to sort out my transportation to Edinburgh. But despite what my initial quick search revealed, it is harder than I thought if I don't want to spend an inordinate amount of money or spend a night at an airport or bus station. After finding no direct flights, I think the easiest would be the fly into London a day early and take the bus over night. Not looking forward to that, but it's probably the option with the best cost / time ratio.

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?

• I'm officially behind on my studies


• Work was a killer this week


• Did I mention I'm just not good with kids?


• I'm so very much behind on TV


• Pay for first quarter of 2008 still hasn't arrived


• yay - I'm sleeping again


• Tried to watch Dexter after having heard a lot of positive comments, but somehow didn't get much further than the first ten minutes


• it's never a good idea to go and lie down during to commercial break


• finally found printer paper that I can actually afford


• orkos delivery for this week is nowhere to be seen so far, but my books arrived in record time


• I have written a ton of fanfiction, but I can't seem to be bother to edit any of it

I'm sure there is more. I wish I could just relax and catch up on TV this weekend, but I really need to catch up on uni work.

Somehow, despite add meds and caffeine, I haven't managed to really wake up yet today. Since it really wasn't a late night last night - all I did was go to group and to bed pretty much soon after returning. I was somewhat rudely woken by L (the one with the report) just before 7 a.m. this morning because she needed me to print out an essay. When I asked her why she hadn't done that the previous night at some of the public printers, she admitted that she couldn't figure it out (I installed OpenOffice on her new laptop and she apparently didn't know which format to save it under). I asked her why she didn't ask me about it yesterday afternoon or yesterday evening, but she was right in that I was asleep during the former and out for the latter. Apparently I'm harder to get hold of than I thought :-) I have been very tired the last few days. At first, with my meds all in a mess, I couldn't sleep at all, now I can't seem to stay awake for more than a few hours at a stretch.

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.

The work-week ended on a fairly satisfying note yesterday. I've finished and submitted the assignment that's due early next month already, I've been to the gym, paid phone and grocery bills and started to do some spring cleaning. I could have done worse, all in all. As for my plans for the break week, I'm not going anywhere and will probably spend the week holed up in my place in front of the laptop, catching up and TV and fic writing, hopefully with a couple of trips to the gym thrown in.

On an unrelated note, I'm very pleased to noticed that my effort to improve my French language skills are starting to pay off. Last night I got out the very first French-only DVD I've ever bought (Les Rivières Pourpres) and watched it for the first time in years - and I understood pretty much everything! I think it's time to get some French novels, preferably from the library, since I can't really afford to buy any books right now. They should have at least some of the classics. Otherwise, I've re-discovered the foreign language sections on ff.net. I knew they existed since I've posted some fic there ages ago, but I'd never thought of them as a source for reading material for vocabulary building. If it weren't for the net!speak that would work out very well ;-)

Bro crashed his car this morning on the motorway- he's fine, but the car is probably totaled - a tire burst (does that just happen?!) and he hit the guard rail at the side of the road. We don't really have the money for a new car right now and he needs one to get to work. My father can't work at the moment because of an injury last fall and my pay doesn't even cover my tuition fees. At least Bro's got a scholarship. I had no idea how to pay for my summer courses before, but now I don't know if I can take any at all this summer :-/

So, not a good day, but the good (and important) thing is that Bro's all right.