short

Eep, ten days.

Anyway, I’m off college because I feel a little ill today. It’s nothing much, just feeling constantly cold, vauge and headachey, and hopefully it will pass quickly. I am a little annoyd though, but I think I’ll just go and play Katamari (on the widescreen HD TV downstairs, as opposed to my little ex-CCTV monitor) and eat chocolate and caramel digestives, which will hopefull disove it. What’s mainly annoyed me, apart from the fact that typing is actually tiring me out, is that one of my friends can’t go on the holiday we had planned. Usually this wouldn’t matter to me, but just because she hasn’t heard anything for a week and a half or so, she’s booked something else. I suppose it can’t really be helped, and I don’t blame her, and she was nice about it, but it’s still a bit of a kick. I may ask Matt if he’d like to go and bring someone, and hopefully he’ll be able to go.

“hey didnt think you were doing this anymore as i didnt hear anything for a
while, cus i sed i cudnt really afford it, and now i get reading tickets,
which are at the same time as the dates you just said.  im really really
really sorry….sorry sorry sorry!!!  i would say differnt date, but i think
its a bit late now.  I think we should go camping its the cheapest holiday
ever!! and ill drive us there…well somewhere!
sorry again”

Anyway, I can’t think of anything exciting that has happened in the last few days. I got a big paper bag of medicine from the pharmacy, which was quite amusing to walk round Tescos with, but apart from that, nothing spectacular.

Both worries and happy things.

 I hate having no money, and yet it’s my own fault that I don’t. I owe Matt about £7, I owe the library close to £20, I wasn’t able to get my mum a Mother’s Day gift, I’ll soon have to pay for a holiday, I’m supposed to be saving for university which will leave me thousands of pounds in debt, I can’t afford to see my friends or boyfriend, because the only times that they’re available, it’s in a situation where I’ll have to pay for travel or for whatever they’re doing that I’d tag along to. It’s just depressing, because I feel bad letting people down, and however selfish it sounds, I hate not being able to do what I want.

I know I’m making a fuss about nothing, and that I’m lucky to have all the things I do, but making a fuss is what I specialise in, along with pretending things are okay, bursting into tears and being allergic to things. I have tried to get a job, but no place even wants to take a CV or has any places. I’ve applied for one job place, but I haven’t heard anything and I doubt that I will.

I think this stuff about money is just getting mixed up with everything else that’s going badly in my mind. I’m really not enjoying college at the moment. The lessons drag on and I don’t feel as though I’m learning anything worthwhile, and I just dont’ feel inspired to do any work in the lessons. I’ll half-heartedly take notes or just sit staring into space, trying to distance myself from people in the room by sitting by myself so that my mind can wander. It’s not healthy for me to be doing this, and I’m sure that this lethargy and also the fact that I’m not sleeping too well is mainly due to my bad diet at the moment. I just pick at things throughout the day, and I can never be bothered to eat a whole meal anymore because I’ve been eating junk food or whatever during the day.  I think the last time I had a decent sleep was when I stayed round Michael’s just under a week ago.

University is worrying me as well. I’m still split between UCL, where I would be studying Ancient History and Egyptology, and Warwick, where I would be studying Classical Civilisation. Warwick has the nicer campus, and I wouldn’t have to share a room, or if I get my first choice of accomodation, a bathroom. I know that I wouldn’t be able to cope with sharing a room, and to be honest I doubt the other person would like it much either; I’m messy, but precise, and like to keep certain things organised. I hate other people moving things about or tidying up after me, because that’s how I lose things.

That should be enough complaining from me for one day. I am happy, despite all these little things. I know I usually concentrate on the bad, but there’s a lot of good in my life at the moment too. Some of my friends are amazing (yay to Matt and Michael and the recently returned Rachael and to Chris who I barely know <3), and I’m really happy that Rachael’s back from Florida. I missed that girl, however much I won’t say it to her. College isn’t the same without bitchiness and walks to Hornchurch and”Rachael hate”. <3

I also had an awesome Saturday. I went round Matt’s at about 23.30, with laptop, and we stayed up til about three with our laptops, talking and laughing and making a quiz about turn ons. We then talked a bit more when we actually got into bed, and eventually fell asleep. There were about a million alarms in the morning, all of which Matt slept through, so we were late to meet Ratty (/dave/conorschild), someone from dA that was also going to the devmeet. We got up there just about on time to the Tate Modern, after a lack of Skittles explosions. Once most people had arrived, the general vote was that we shouldn’t bother with the Tate and go straight onto the Met Bar.

Anyway, this was where the trip really took off. Conorschild, Matt and I bought sticky labels at a corner shop so that we would actually know who people were, and they were eventually stuck all over most of the people there. Much alcohol was drank, and most people got a least a bit tipsy. I did talk to a few people, although I wish I hadn’t been so shy, alhough everyone that was there seemed nice. I didn’t start talking to people I didn’t know properly until just before I left, when I had more alcohol in me. Tom came along and slightly sullied the afternoon by us having another semi-argument, and him getting annoyed at me as usual. Matt and I managed to avoid being thrown out for being underage by going for a wander, and I realised that double JD and cokes are pretty addictive. Anyway, we eventually left at about seven, because I was going round to George’s house, and we didn’t have ID and they wanted to politely chuck us out because of that.

Being as conorschild, Matt and I were all pretty much under the influence, the train journey home was funny. We managed to somehow lose the Central line at Oxford Circus, and even sent one of us to ask the man in the box for directions. As you can tell, we got home safely so that I could write rambling and incoherent blogs. I collected all my things from Matt’s and then set off to George’s house, and to meet Michael. I got to see a drunken Jade while I was round his house, a girl I don’t really like because she’s loud and obnoxious and wears her trousers half way down her arse. More devmeets, less drunken scene kids, I think. :D

Sunday was pretty rubbish, because as usual I got no work done, as usual, just like I haven’t tonight.

Anyway, I went pretty much off topic with this, I’m sorry for boring my reader(s).

Exciting times…

at the allergy clinic.

My appointment wasn’t on Wednesday, but today, as it turns out. My mum picked me up from college at 14h, and we set off to Gidea Park Station. We went to Stratford on One, and then to Tower Hill on the Jubilee, spending a little time failing at finding Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospital but discovering two Starbucks’. When we arrived, we wandered through the remarkably clean and well designed corridors (I have to say that I like the design of the joining parts, especially) until we found the correct departement, only to be told that something had gone wrong with the system and they’d “lost” all record of me having an appointment. This was the start of a prolonged wait.

Eventually, after waiting an hour or so, I was called through to see a doctor. He had a thick unrecognisible accent, and a polite observing student. After a brief interrogation about my symptoms, my general health, my living conditions, and anything else that could be causing allergic reactions, I was taken down the corridor by the student, who ran in front so that he could open doors with me, and shook my hand for the second time as he left me in a waiting area.

Where, unsurprisingly, I waited. Watching people disappear into two small rooms and then reappear with symbols and letters and ominous looking red marks on their arms was almost like being in some strange novel. It was slightly surreal to be sitting there surrounded by people with various degrees of red weals on their arms, all in the same position- legs uncrossed, arms laid on them with the insides pointing up, and staring at the marks although they were going to explode). The waiting area gradually emptied until I was the only person there.

Eventually, after another hour and a half’s wait, I was called in to one of the little rooms by a nurse, who proceeded to carry out the allergy test. Various allergens that may have been causing me problems were dropped onto my skin, and the skin was then pricked with a sharp piece of metal. After that, I was sent outside to wait and see the reaction.

They began like this:

And within five minutes, big reactions had started to occur.

Shown ^ are the two most extreme reactions I had, to silver birch (SB) and grass pollen (GP). To the right of the photo is the control- Saline solution (SC)- and what a non-allergy should look like. Anyway, these things itched like anything, and were actually starting to become painful by the time a nurse called me back into the office. She measured the marks and drew around them with biro, writing down the results, before sending me back out to the waiting room. Again, the polite student fetched me to the doctor’s office, where he told me that although I had slight reactions to most things (unsurprisingly), I had four main allergies.

The largest two were silver birch and grass pollen, which had by that time melded together into one large mottled red rash, which still partially remains. Then, he declared that I was allergic to dust mites, which was probably the cause of my symptoms. I knew I had a slight allergy, but I didn’t think it was to such a large extent. The third one, was that I was allergic to cats (and other small furry creatures), which was a bit of a kick for me, as I genuinely like animals. Merlin, my cat, is no longer allowed to sleep in my room, unfortunately, but I’ve become desensitized to him, so that problem is enerally solved. It means I’ll probably not be able to have a pet cat when I have my own house though, which is a disappointment, since I doubt any humans would be mad enough to want to live with me.

Anyway, we finally left the hospital after three hours, my arm still itching and throbbing. I dragged my mum into Starbucks and made her buy me a medium green tea and skinny blueberry muffin to take away, before we joined the rush-hours crowd. On the tube I juggled with a Starbucks bag, a cup of tea, my own bag, and various newspapers until we reached Gidea Park and the car at about 19h.

Spending most of my day in an allergy clinic isn’t something I’d want to do again, however interesting the experience was. I’m glad that I know what’s been setting my allergies off, although I knew about the grass pollen and to a lesser extent the dust mites. And I hope my photo grossed you out. :D

Breathe in for Luck.

The lethal combination of Internet Explorer and college reacts badly with wordpress, I’ve decided. Not that I should even be blogging in college, but oh well. It’s close to the end of the day and I’m sure that nobody expects me to have anything better to do, especially since I’m only really killing time until I can meet people and go home.

Today’s been a pretty stupid day, is the general conclusion that I’ve reached. I enjoyed lunchtime, but I can safely say that was the high point of my day. First thing in the morning, I had a free, where I slept in and then spent time talking to people online, so I thought I was going to be late. Shockingly, I got to the college gates just on time, but this is where my problems began. We have a system where one can open a single turnstile by using a magnetic-strip ID card to enter and exit the premises. As you can imagine, this gets really busy, so they usually open larger gates at busy times. When I got to the gates this morning, there was a queue going both ways, and both security guards were simply sitting in their little hut, drinking coffee or the blood of students without ID cards (no, wait, that’d be vice-principal Maria McKay). I wait there for a few minutes before they actually think to open the gates, and find that I’m late to French.

I arrive at the classroom to a lecture on lateness and non attendence, nod dilligently and say yes and sorry in all the right places, before going to my seat. I did get given my French results though- a B, which I was pleased with, as it was more than I expected- but that was the high point of that lesson, break and the next two. In English, my second lesson of the day, the college went one more step towards the surreal with the fact that someone has apparently stolen all of the scart leads in the college. Not the DVD players, not the TVs, not the teacher’s laptops. Scart-fucking-leads. Why someone would need fifty or so leads, I have no idea. I must admit I admire the sheer surreal audacity of it, but it seems more than a little pointless. What are they doing with this amount of leads? And if it’s a student, I’m sure that they’ll be kicking themselves when they have to read something rather than watch a video.

Part of me would like to think that it’s someone who has the same substitute English teacher as me and is sick of watching DVDs every single lesson. A single crusader for books and against TVs and DVDs and computers… and the next thing to go will be the laptop chargers, and then it’ll be the network cables for the computers, and so on, until one day the front gates have no card readers and the electronic gates won’t open, and we’re all locked in or out of college. If only. More likely, it’s some weird thug that just wants to fuck with people’s lives.

Classical Civilisation is one of the things that really got me down today. I’ve managed to lose The Orestia, and the sheets to go with it. Maybe scart-lead-man (I imagine the person as a man, for some reason) has got them, but it’s far more likely that I’ve just left it somewhere. The lesson went okay, until Roger asked to see me at the end of it. He starts talking about how it’s not good enough for me to have lost the book, and how I’m disorganised, and how I never have anything that I need. None of this is a surprise, but he then went onto how all I ever do in lessons is just sit there and look vague. I spend my lessons writing notes on what he’s saying, and what I’m thinking about the thing we’re studying; far more detailed than the prompts on his sheets are, or what anyone else is. Admittedly, I don’t contribute towards the “discussions”. I don’t know why- lack of confidence maybe?

Anyway, he’s making me take in my “classics folder” on Monday, apparently complete with all my notes, and my books. I know I probably need the help, but I am working on my coursework, and I am trying in lessons. Apparently, I’m not though, apparently I’m just coasting through things with no real thought or effort. Maybe I am, and it’s just become normal to me, so I don’t realise it. Anyway, if I don’t find the book, I have to pay him £8.99 for a ‘new’ copy. I might check out amazon and see if I can get one for cheaper if I can’t find it, because I really don’t need any more expenses at the moment, especially as I owe the library £20 for a book I’ve lost, which I had another discussion about before going outside to lunch.

I’m sure I’ve written about the library book saga before, so, I found out that I have to keep paying fines on the book until I officially declare it lost. I thought that I’d arranged to meet Michael there, but as I was about ten minutes late, I’m not sure whether he got the text, or just decided to go. I photocopied a page I needed from a book and left, in a bad mood, demoralised with college and with university and with studying generally. Spending time with friends at lunchtime cheered me up, and although form period, my last lesson, was both pointless and boring, the college day ended with me beginning this blog in the library.

I have an allergy test tomorrow, so wish me luck with that. Hopefully I’ll know what’s making me need to take strong prescription anti-histamines all year round, because I’m sure it’s not a healthy thing to be doing.

Contraception, anyone?

 I never did get round to finishing that last entry. I’m a bad blogger, I really am. Maybe I’ll do it later, as I’m in college.

 Anyway, I just wanted to write shortly about an interesting article I just read; http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/tgr/03/3/gr030303.html.  In French, for my oral topic, I’m speaking for giving contraception in schools, and this is a pretty good summary of what’s already being done along those lines, with some interesting comparisons to America. What really struck me out of it was the fact that America’s method of reducing the availability of abortions, and encouraging abstinence, as opposed to France’s open attitude and recognition that teens are going to have sexual relationships but encouraging safe sex, America is the place which has the most teenage pregnancies of the two. As said in the article, “The United States is in a category with Belarus, Bulgaria, Romania and the Russian Federation, countries having among the highest teen pregnancy rates in the world. “… these are also poor countries, compared to the US being one of the most welathy and influential countries in the world.

It seems ridiculous to me, that with teenage pregnancy rates of 83.6/ 1,000 (as quoted fromthe article), the majority of America continues to insist that encouraging the use of contraception doesn’t work as well as encouraging total abstinence from sex. Quite obviously, this doesn’t work. So, most of America is religious and believes in no sex before marriage, but from the statistics, that’s obviously not true.  Lots of American teenagers that I’ve talked to have what I’d call an unhealthy attitude to sex; they’re either having sex with almost anyone, or practically puritanical, condemning anyone that has. It doesn’t seem good to me to have two such polar extremes, and I think this is encouraged by the fact that America has a high age of consent, and a strange attitude towards distributing contraceptives and towards abortion.

unfinished// college & dayouts.

Just over a week since my last post. I apologise; for once I’ve actually been genuinley busy. Some kind of desire to work has overtaken me and in the past week I’ve spent a lot of my free time within college- free lessons, and lunctimes mainly- in the library, finishing my history coursework and starting my classics. I’ve yet to recieve the grade for my history coursework, but I’m hoping that it’ll be good. Actually, I’m more hoping that my history teacher isn’t influenced by her dislike of me. I spent a fair few hours in Romford Library today with Michael studying, which was good.

Oh, in other news, I got the result from my English exam earlier this year yesterday; an A. Athough the scores aren’t 100% fixed yet, I got 85/90. I’m really happy with this; it’s better than I thought I’d do, especially since I wasn’t too confident about one of the texts. Yay to things going well. I hope my streak of motivation continues at least until I’ve finished writing my Classics, English and French courswork… and with that thought, I feel less motivated already.

I’m trying to think of other things that have occured in the past seven or eight days, but I’m stuck. This is why I should blog about things as I remember them, or at the end of the day. Perhaps, simply, I should just blog more often than I do. Apart from coursework, I’ve been spending time with Matt and Michael, which of course I enjoy to a massive degree. On Wednesday, Matt and I went on a trek up to London.

The journey

We began our epic journey at Upminster Bridge station, where Matt was unexpected early and kept ringing me during history when the class was silent so I was unable to answer. After dashing down the stairs, and out of the college, we met and purchased some provisions for the journey before proceeding to the Tube Station.

The District line was uneventful and slow, as usual, and we changed for the Central line at Mile End. We got onto the train and sat down, Matt still holding the rubbish and remains of our snacks, tied into a (soft!) plastic bag. He was squeezing this, when the inevitable happened; part of it burst and Skittles shot out. Matt half-shouted “Hurh!” and tried to catch them, why I jumped sideways in shock, the both of us collapsing into laughter straight away, and probably making the other passengers think we were some incredibly weird tourists.

Our first stop of the day was the British Museum. We managed to navigate ourselves there, via my mind’s helpful descriptions of a Pancake House (where my parents went on dates), Nationwide bank (admittedly a later addition to the directions), tall building and the brain seat. I’m sure if you’ve walked this route, you’ll recognise these signs- it’s probably the quickest way to the museum. Once inside the museum, we wandered for a while, looking in all the gift shops, and Matt took a few photos. Then, after a quick browse through the Egyptian departement, we returned to the shops. Purchases were made of Japanese mugs with no handles, cat necklaces (which I am now wearing, Matt), badges that the staff wore, and other things.

Next stop was in possibly my favourite Starbucks, and where I’ll probably end up spending a lot of time/ money (depending on if they employ me)  if I go to UCL. I think the man at the till was new; he managed to mess up our order by charging us for two muffins instead of one. Maybe he resented the partner discount?

… ugh. This is to be continued tomorrow, because photobucket hates Matt’s massive files, and I’m really tired. I have the ultimate boring day tomorrow- coursework, coursework, and… coursework. I’ve been invited to a party in the evening, but I’m not sure if I’ll go, as I barely know the person whose birthday it is, and that’s always awkward, especially if I don’t have a +1 to accompany me.

Oh well. Speak to you tomorrow, kids- remember to check back here for more text and some photographs.

Happy news

Charlotte… wins.

University/College	University College London (University of London) (U80)
Course	Ancient History and Egyptology (VQ14)
	Campus	-
	Entry Point	1
	Entry Month	September
	Entry Year	2007
	Preference	-
	At Home	N
	Further Details
	Deferred	N
	Decision	Conditional
	Conditions	This offer is subject to you obtaining See also a letter sent by the institution GCE A level Grade A – History and Grades AB in any 2 of French Classical Civilisation English Literature

On sorting things out.

As my frequent reader(s) will know, I’ve been stressing out a lot about college lately. The past few days, I’ve been concentrating on sorting this out. Thank you, firstly, to anyone who has listened to me, been a shoulder to cry on, and/or provided me with the support to get things done, rather than just giving up. You know who you are, and now you know how grateful I am. I couldn’t have done it without you all. <3

I’d been missing basically all my history and classics lessons for about two weeks, simply to avoid having to give in the coursework that I hadn’t done. Worse than that, I’d lied and said I had. My reason for this? Simply, that I kept hoping that by the next lesson I would have done it, so I missed that lesson… and then when I hadn’t done it, of course I missed the next, and so forth. It all came to a head on Tuesday afternoon, where Roger, my classics teacher, ‘phoned up my mum to talk to her about my lack of coursework and my non attendence. I wasn’t aware of this, and when I rang my mum asking if we needed anything from Sainsbury’s, she told me this, and that she needed to talk to me. I was with Michael, and when we got the bus home, I snapped at him because he was talking sense. I’ve gone on about it enough, but I feel bad about it. To some degree, I’ve been thinking more of myself lately, but that’s changing.

Anyway, I walked slowly back in the rain the long way, thinking about it all, and how everyone I’ve talked to is right; it’s my fault, because I didn’t ask for help earlier. Anyway, I got home, and waited around til my mum got back from wherever she’d been. I was afraid she’d get really angry, and she was a bit, but as she said, it was because she was worried. We had a long talk and got a lot of things sorted out. I’m going to do two hours of work per night, and attend all of my lessons. I’ve also promised her that I’ll go to her for help when I need it, rather than wait until everything escalates like it has.

I saw Roger the next day and had a talk to him as well. I’m going to hand in what I’ve done of my draft essay on Tuesday, and get on track from there. I’m actually doing my history coursework, and although I’ve been forcedto ask for a shot extension, I’m going to get as much done as possible tonight. I really do want to pass college, I’ve decided, even if it does bore me, even if it does seem pointless sometimes. I just hope that I can change the lazy, proud, habits that I’ve got into. I’m determined to try, and I guess that’s all I can do.

Anyway. I want coursework to be over over over.

(to leave me free to play katamari and to cook and to see my friends and to sleep and to blog and to create)

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