I have a self-imposed ban on blogging about my brain stuff on here. However, this blog is still mine, so I’m going to blog about computer stuff instead

First up: Super Mondays. As always, March’s Super Monday was excellent, and made me want to go out and do stuff. In this case, it wasn’t sign up as an Amazon merchant (the first presentation was about the attempts of an online shop to get onto Amazon Marketplace), but to play with Arduino to make my own hardware toys, especially if it involves pretty lights and shiny.

The Tyneside LUG was on the first Saturday of the month as usual, and it was fun (even if I was struggling to stay awake). We went over the mailing list rules (naughty Danni is no longer going to top post), we watched a netboot from a usb stick, which was loads of fun (and crashtastic at times), and we played with my Thinking Putty. I enjoy going to these meetings, and it’s nice being part of a group who like the same things I do.

Another thing that I saw was KDE 4.2 running on one of the laptops. After playing with the colour settings to see if it could be turned purple (my biggest complaint when I last tried KDE 4 was my inability to turn it purple) and the success in doing so, I decided that it was time to try it again. After backing up everything on my computer (and testing in a virtual machine), I downloaded the Kubuntu 64 bit Jaunty beta, and installed. The first time it didn’t go so well (rebooted in the middle of a kernel config, and it wouldn’t start up) but the second time it went pretty smoothly and everything is now up and running.

I like it so far. It is pretty different to KDE 3, but most of the really necessary things work as they should. I love the new plasma widgets, and my second monitor has loads of them on (just because I can). I also love that each monitor can have it’s own separate picture slideshow from folders that I specify. It also works with folders recursively, which is very nice

I don’t like the new IRC client. Maybe time for me to move over to irssi permanently? I do need to learn how to use it, and it would make my life much easier when I want to chat on my phone. There are a couple of niggles with Kopete, mainly relearning how to do everything to get it how it was in KDE 3. Konqueror is okay, but I mostly use Firefox for web browsing now. I’ve set Konqueror as the file manager, as I still don’t like Dolphin (even though it has a nicer name). The new Amarok isn’t all that nice either, though it’s not terrible. Overall it’s usable, and a huge improvement over KDE 4.0 and 4.1 (Colin doesn’t like it). KDE 4.3 looks like it’s going to be even better.

Johan has been staying for nearly 2 weeks (he came for Super Mondays, then I kidnapped him and wouldn’t let him go back home, though he didn’t seem too upset), and he’s been helping me with various things, including finally installing the 2GB ram stick into Annika. She’s now officially better specced than Matilda, which isn’t great as Matilda is meant to be my gaming machine (though she still has better graphics, being a desktop with a graphics card instead of a laptop with onboard graphics). I’ve enjoyed having him around, but I guess he’ll have to go home at some point next week. Him being here has let me tidy the living room today, so that’s good.

Sorry for the title. I’m currently obsessing (in a Danni-way that means listening to it over and over and over again) with the song Still Alive by Jonathan Coulton (the theme tune for the game Portal). The (not) is due to there being chocolate cake in my kitchen.

It’s been yet another busy few days. Johan came and stayed from Saturday until this morning (he got a 9am train back to Hull) so this weekend has been good. Saturday he brought my main Christmas present (a Wii ) and we spent most of the evening setting it up. Or rather, he did, as the server this blog is on got hacked and I had to sort it all out. That took most of Saturday evening and part of Sunday.

Sunday was Johan’s birthday. He turned 20, and was complaining about no longer being a teenager and now being a 20-something (WillowC didn’t have any sympathy- she’s turning into a 30-something this week ). In the morning I went to see Sammie (she’d been missing me) and we played with blocks and animals and I read a book to her. Came back, and cooked dinner (the roast chicken I’d promised Johan) and we had very large slices of chocolate birthday cake (the remainders of which are in the kitchen now). We also played on the Wii a bit, and did internet-type stuff, and had a nice time in each other’s company.

Yesterday I had college as normal, so I went off there and left Johan at the flat. I’m not entirely sure what he did, but I had a forgetful day (I managed to forget to take my purse, even after a few false starts from forgetting other stuff beforehand). Lessons were okay, though I was finding things hard with noise and stuff. I also had my key worker time, and managed to sort out a few things that were bothering me. I even made it to Portfolio Building for the end

After college I went to meet Johan (who had brought my purse to meet me at the train station). Destination? Super Mondays, at the Beehive in Newcastle University. Because I’m completely crazy, I’d agreed to give a talk on using Linux at home (not Linux on a laptop, no matter what Ross thinks ). After going to McDonalds and going over the slides and roughly what I was going to say, we went and got lost on the way to the university.

Arriving there, I went into the room to start setting up, and once that was sorted, I abandoned Johan to the crowd while I went to prepare/calm down in the toilets, before arriving back to try and talk to him and Brianetta (which didn’t go too well because of noise levels making it hard to hear them). Luckily it was soon time to start the presentations, and I sat down to listen to James Rutherford talk about the history of Flash and why it’s now becoming ready for a coder to use (it’s always been an artist’s tool, and coders apparently didn’t like that it wasn’t easy to code).

I went next, and my talk was called “I got into it for the penguins- using Linux at home”. I talked for a few minutes about why I use Linux, useful software, why you should use it to replace Windows, and also gave some examples of some open source software for Windows. I also answered some questions at the end, and I managed to answer them. It was actually quite fun, once I got up there, and I didn’t freeze or forget what to say (I did realise I’d forgotten the links slide, but that’s because it was a forgetful day and I’d made the slide show in college that day ). The slide show I used (with the links slide) is viewable here.

After I’d finished my presentation, there was a little advert from the university about a scheme for businesses involving using University money to sponsor stuff (as the VAT change has worked in the university’s favour or something- there was money to be spent, anyhow).

After this, it was Paul Callaghan’s turn, and his presentation was about Haskell. He was trying to convince us that it wasn’t scary , and had lots of examples of how simple it was meant to be. Unfortunately, this was way too high level programming for me (I’ve yet to really start with a simple language like Python) and in my eyes it looked like pure gobbledegook. It was interesting despite this (with a few awful-but-good jokes) and I was glad to have been there for it.

The last presentation was probably my favourite of the night. Craig Rothwell gave a presentation about Pandora, which is basically a computer/games console that will fit in your pocket. He took us right through the history and development of Pandora, and when he described what it could do, and that it ran Linux and was as open source as they could practically make it, I wanted it. I want it even more since I found out they’re trying to price it at around the £200 mark (it may be more because they’re doing everything in US dollars and the pound has fallen against the dollar recently). Unfortunately he wasn’t able to bring a demo unit (the courier let him down) but the video he showed, and the capabilities of this thing, are just completely amazing. Did I mention I want?

There was a little mention of the Newcastle Twestival (Twitter Festival) that’s going to be held in February. I probably won’t be going, as I’m not a big Twitter user anymore (I still have an account, but I’m more a Plurker now) and I’m doing too many big social thingies already. After it finished, we spent a few minutes talking to Brianetta (and stealing biscuits) then went home.

This morning I dropped Johan off at the train station on the way to college, and got there on time. This morning’s lesson was planning for the Interface website (I’m doing the coding, and I want to learn CSS by next Tuesday for the template… hopefully doable). Lunchtime I talked to Laura for a bit, then tried to sort out my gas bill with my key worker. When British Gas said they’d already started the process for taking the £360 (incorrect) bill by direct debit, I felt really sick. They couldn’t cancel it at that end, and because of security stuff, NatWest won’t let my key worker talk on the phone to them for me unless I fill in this long form first. This meant I needed to go to a branch today (there was no way I was going to be able to manage a phone call at the time). By this time it was the end of lunch, and we’d decided I was going to leave early to go sort it out.

Managing anxiety was doing progressive muscle relaxation (which I’ve tried in the past and I can’t do because it causes too much pain) and that was interesting to watch. Relationships and Sexuality was just seeing how much people knew about sex, with amusing leaflets. Though I don’t know too much about sex (I don’t think that’s possible at my age ) I do know quite a bit, so the only question I was unsure of (but got right anyway) was the question on the average age that people globally start having sex. It was an interesting lesson.

In Practical Life Skills, it was noticed that I’d not yet left to go to the bank, and I was to be kicked out at 3.45pm to make sure I had plenty of time to get there. The lesson was planning a trip for Valentine’s Day weekend somewhere in the UK, with a budget of £350 for 2 people. It had to be for 2 nights, and in 10 minutes I’d sorted a trip to Edinburgh for £124ish. I could have got it cheaper if I’d had more time, but that wasn’t bad for then.

I got kicked out on time, and went to the bank (it’s literally 10 minutes away from the college- I got there for 3.55pm). When I saw the lady, I managed to cancel the British Gas direct debit (to be reinstated when it’s all sorted), order a new card (mine is rather damaged), get the third party mandate forms (so if I need to, someone else can talk about my account) and also downgrade back to the normal account, as I was wasting money on the Advantage Gold that I can’t use (I’d upgraded for a reason, but it was no longer valid).

Since I came home, I’ve been talking to Johan (I miss him), helping Michael set up a Facebook account, trying to catch up with emails and plurks (and failing on plurks), played for a bit on the Wii, and worked on this blog post, which is just about done

I have a rotten cold. It’s been developing for over a week now, but it has reached the point where I can no longer ignore it. I am more shaky than normal, my head feels weird and even my own typing (though admitted quite loud anyway) sounds like a load of explosions. My throat and chest are very sore, every time I cough it feels like they’re on fire, and every bone and muscle in my body aches. So yes, a rotten cold.

While having a bath earlier (to try and make me feel a little better- it works for the aches) I was thinking (in between falling asleep) of how I’m still not great on working out when I’m ill, and also when I’m too ill for college. I can’t always tell that the sensation I’m experiencing is pain. Of course, telling when I’m ill is complicated by feeling not great all the time- it’s more a case of if it’s a different feeling or if it’s worse than normal. I’m trying to make a list of when I should stay off college, so that it will be easier for me to know when to stay off and when to go in.

Physical Stuff
Vomiting
Diarrhoea
Being unable to walk
Severe migraine
Severe pain (gallstone strength)

Mental Stuff
Panicking at the thought of going outside
Really bad paranoia
Not feeling real

Are there any I’ve missed (mainly from the physical list)? I am trying (for example, if I feel like I do now physically then I’m not going into college tomorrow- goes under being unable to walk (that far)) but it’s really hard.

Because of the feeling not great today, I didn’t get any of the things I wanted to do done. (That sentence doesn’t look right to me- never mind.) I did get the tree up and helped Vicky a bit with decorating it. Now all the rest of the decorations are on the living room floor but I haven’t got the energy to pick them up and put them somewhere more appropriate. Hopefully tomorrow I’ll feel better so I can get it done.

Also today I’ve tidied up the files on Matilda. I was wondering why my email program kept crashing, then discovered this:
danni@Matilda:~$ df -h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda2 17G 3.5G 13G 22% /
varrun 1014M 288K 1014M 1% /var/run
varlock 1014M 0 1014M 0% /var/lock
udev 1014M 100K 1014M 1% /dev
devshm 1014M 24K 1014M 1% /dev/shm
lrm 1014M 39M 975M 4% /lib/modules/2.6.24-22-generic/volatile
/dev/sda4 19G 18G 64K 99% /home
/dev/sda1 40G 29G 11G 73% /windows
/dev/sdb1 299G 274G 25G 92% /stuff
/dev/sdc1 699G 632G 68G 91% /MythTV

As observant people will be able to see, my /home partition was out of space. I did an awful lot of cleaning, and it now looks like this:
danni@Matilda:~$ df -h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda2 17G 4.8G 12G 30% /
varrun 1014M 308K 1014M 1% /var/run
varlock 1014M 0 1014M 0% /var/lock
udev 1014M 100K 1014M 1% /dev
devshm 1014M 24K 1014M 1% /dev/shm
lrm 1014M 39M 975M 4% /lib/modules/2.6.24-22-generic/volatile
/dev/sda4 19G 8.5G 9.4G 48% /home
/dev/sda1 40G 29G 11G 74% /windows
/dev/sdb1 299G 232G 67G 78% /stuff
/dev/sdc1 699G 250G 449G 36% /MythTV

Though I’ve obviously cleaned up generally (I moved some Windows-only things onto the Windows partition, as I rarely use it) the biggest difference is in my MythTV partition. I basically reinstalled MythTV (was fun getting the database to work again, but I managed it) and went through deleting everything I wasn’t going to watch again. When I had an aerial and a TV licence I watched (and recorded) a lot of rubbish

Another good thing about the clean up is I now know where all my photos are, especially all my photos of Sammie. Before they were sprawled all over several hard drives, and I had many duplicates. When I get the chance I need to backup all the important files and then I’ll be done with that computer for a bit.

(Most of this was written on Sunday. I have decided to finish it off and post it, as it’s a good reference when I wonder why I’m so tired all the time. Also, PP can be really funny sometimes, even if she doesn’t read the top of my blog posts.)

I don’t have enough time or energy. Monday to Friday I don’t have time or energy to do anything other than go to college . Saturday I (try to) catch up with sleep, as I’m normally very sleep deprived because of going to college (I don’t sleep straight through the night, and what sleep I do get is very disturbed, for whatever reason). Also, every fortnight I see Sammie (I love seeing her, but it does wear me out), and every month I go to the Tyneside LUG (which is fun, but I find all socialisation draining). On Saturday both of those happened on the same day. I use Saturday for relaxing and fun, if I don’t have anything else planned (which recently has been very rare).

Sunday, therefore, is the only day of the week I can get anything done. Normally this is just a load of washing and tidying the living room, but because Vicky was ill (and not here) this week it also involved cleaning the kitchen as well. The living room needed a lot more dusting than normal because of the building work in the shop below the flat next door (I’ve never needed to dust paper before) so it took a long time and a lot of energy. I was also behind in my washing, so had to do three loads, and hanging the wet clothes onto the clothes horse is also very time and energy consuming. I was also intending to clean the bathroom then, but I just didn’t have the energy left to do it.

The energy problem is a big one. I find travelling and socialising very stressful and energy sapping, and I do both at least 5 times a week. Add to that being in a constant state of anxiety and the sleep problems, and it’s no surprise I’m tired all the time. On top of these, I’m actually meant to be trying to learn stuff in college. In the normal lessons it’s not so much of a problem (though some are very difficult- trying to face a phobia when you’re tired, cranky, snappy, anxious and trying to hide all that is not my idea of a good time), but maths really is. I can’t remember how to do most of the stuff, and the first exam is in January. I’m very behind on homework (I don’t have to worry too much about hand in dates, but I have 4 lots at the moment and no time to do any of it) and I don’t remember how to answer any of the questions. My brain feels all sluggish and blocked.

Anyway, here’s what normally happens in a week:

Monday:
6.00am: Get out of bed. Feed Giles, spend the next hour waking up enough to be able to get ready. (I’d love to be able to use this time for constructive things, but I’m too clumsy and tired to even think of how to do stuff. I’ve tried sleeping an extra hour, but that causes problems with getting ready for college).
7.00am: Start getting ready. Put clothes on (if I try this in the first hour I get them all muddled up and put them on in the wrong order), spend 15 minutes fighting to get hair tidy, check I have everything I need in backpack, check for purse, phone, purple pen, stones, glasses, bus pass.
8.00am: Leave to get the bus. Spend some time fighting with key in door.
8.06am: Normally I get this bus. It’s due to get into Newcastle at 8:33am, but this never happens- it’s normally between 8.45am and 8.55am. Walk to Central Station Metro.
9.00am: Get the Metro. If the bus has been particularly slow, I get the 9.12am Metro (I like to leave enough time for the backup, as I panic at the thought of being late, and need the backup plan).
9.26am: Get off at Chichester Station. Walk to college (unless hip is really bad, then get the bus to the top of the hill then walk the rest of the way to college).
9.40am: Arrive at college. Try to remember to be pleasant to everyone, even though I’m exhausted, want to hide and am wishing that I wasn’t there.
10.15am: First lesson- Interpersonal Skills. Not normally too bad, though sometimes it’s frustrating that there’s so much messing around and distractions everywhere.
11.00am: Break. Time to buy lunch from the canteen, to avoid the crowds at lunch time.
11.15am: Interpersonal Skills again.
12.00pm: Lunch. As it’s a Monday I count the points, which gives me an excuse to ignore people who want to talk to me. Eat lunch while doing this.
1.00pm: Personal Progress. I’m meant to be working on using the telephone. This is one of my biggest fears (and a hard to explain one) so if I’m not feeling great I really don’t want to do it. Also, we normally get our treat time (from the points- I may explain it in the future) at some point in this lesson.
1.45pm: Break again.
2.00pm: Personal Progress again.
2.45pm: Break. Half the students go home now, so there’s normally somewhere I can go that’s a bit quieter as by now my head is buzzing and I just want to hide and sleep.
3.00pm: Portfolio Work. This is normally making sure all my sheets are in the right folders and that any paperwork I’ve forgotten to fill in is done. Also, at 3.00pm I get my key worker time with Louise. Recently this has normally lasted more than the 15 minutes it’s meant to, but that’s because we’re normally discussing things other than just college stuff.
4.00pm: Home time. Get coat out of locker, walk to Chichester Metro Station (unless hip is bad, then walk to the bus stop and get the bus down the hill).
4.21pm: Get on the Metro. No falling asleep- mp3 player is on and I normally try to read something to stop myself sleeping. If I doze, I pinch myself so I don’t fall asleep completely.
4.55pm: Get off Metro around now (sometimes it’s earlier, sometimes later). Walk to the bus stop outside Central Station.
5.06pm: This is the bus I normally get, though it depends how late the earlier bus is (sometimes I catch that). Same no-sleepy things apply here, but I also add watching the clock on the bus, as that can keep me amused until I get home.
5.40pm: This is roughly what time I’m meant to get home. Sometimes it’s a bit earlier, sometimes it’s later. Depends on traffic and what bus I managed to catch and things. Normally I dump my bag, change my glasses, and check emails and Plurks now.
6.00pm: If I’m extremely tired, this is bedtime. Otherwise I try and get something to eat, and stay on my computer doing online things for a bit.
9.00pm: The latest I should go to bed to make sure I get enough sleep. Sometimes this doesn’t happen, though.

Tuesday:
6.00am-10.15am: Same as Monday, normally.
10.15am: Applied Communication. Normally an okay lesson, though sometimes if I’m in an iffy mood it can be hard, normally because of the communication aspect.
11.00am: Break with run to the canteen to get food.
11.15am: Applied Communication again.
12.00pm: Lunch. Depending on how I feel I either talk to people, play on Annika or read a book. Sometimes if one of the staff is going on an errand somewhere I tag along to escape the classroom without feeling panicky.
1.00pm: Managing Anxiety. This (to me) is probably the hardest lesson on my timetable. My anxiety is pretty bad (panic attacks are normally at least daily) and I have other brain weirdness things that mean that normal coping methods and stuff don’t help, but can also make it worse. Normally I finish this lesson feeling very anxious, if not completely panicky.
1.45pm: Break. I either talk to Louise or don’t want to talk to anyone.
2.00pm: Relationships and Sexuality. This is one of the easier lessons for me, which isn’t too surprising considering I’m able to make friends (it’s not as hard as when I was little, thanks to the internet), have had 1 very serious long term relationship, am a mother, and nearly got married. I’ve also got a lovely wonderful boyfriend now, and had 2 others before the long serious one, so I’m definitely not inexperienced. I chose this over ASD Awareness though as I am finding it rather interesting.
2.45pm: Break.
3.00pm: Practical Life Skills. Sometimes this is very boring (I know how to mop a floor, not that I need to in a house where every room is carpeted), sometimes this is useful (wrapping Christmas presents). I’ve yet to actually learn anything new, but that may have something to do with having left home at 16 and being mostly independent on and off since I was 13.
4.00pm-6.00pm/9.00pm: Same as Monday.

Wednesday:
6.00am-10.15am: Same as Monday and Tuesday.
10.15am: Independent Living. Until this week, this was very very boring, mostly because I’m already independent and was rather bored about learning about the basics of food, shopping and shopping lists. This week, though, we learnt about what to do in an emergency, which though I already knew about it, at least gave me an excuse to look things up online and think of interesting ways things in the flat could go wrong.
11.00am: Break with going to get food. Every student except Michael and I goes off to Hebburn, if they hadn’t already.
11.15am: Maths. Normally this would be stressful, but after talking to my maths teacher (more on that at the bottom of this post) shouldn’t be so much after today. We normally get a short break at some point in the lesson, but when varies depending on what we’re doing.
1.00pm: Lunch, to be eaten as fast as possible, because…
1.15pm: Taxi to Hebburn campus. Once this was even on time Michael, the staff member who was working with Michael in maths, and I get this. Sometimes I don’t go though, and stay at Interface to do maths homework or go home to get some rest/do housework. Otherwise:
1.30pm: Arrive at Hebburn, go to Cookery. Finish the rest of lunch, and cook something.
4.00pm: Home time. Get the bus with Dean from outside the college.
4.20pm: Normally at Heworth Metro Station now, so get the metro that arrives around now. This is normally the one before the one I get other days.
4.45pm: Get off at Central, get the bus.
5.30pm: Get home. Same routine as other days from this point.

Thursday:
6.00am-10.15am: Same as Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.
10.15am: Employability. This has been boring up to now, but may be better now that we’ve split into two groups.
11.00am: Break with getting food.
11.15am: Employability again.
12.00pm: Lunch. Either chat, read, play on Annika or do something else.
1.00pm: Employability. This time it’s actually interesting, as I’m working on a project of my own choosing. I love research.
1.45pm: Break (which at least once I’ve not taken, as I’ve been too interested in what I’m doing).
2.00pm: Employability again, still doing interesting stuffage.
2.45pm: Break. Mark S normally comes in now, sometimes we catch up and talk about World of Warcraft, or his stories, or Second Life.
3.00pm: Peer Support. This is normally an interesting lesson.
4.00pm: Home time. Same routine as Monday and Tuesday, but normally go as far as Heworth on the Metro with Mark S. Also the latest I should be going to bed is 8.00pm.

Friday:
5.00am: Early start today. This hour is for waking up, and normally having a bath as well.
6.00am: Getting ready. I have to make sure I have my maths books with me.
7.00am: Heading to the bus stop.
7.06am: Normally get this bus, as if traffic is bad getting the later one makes me late. However, it does often get in rather early, so that I get the 7.48am Metro.
7.48am or 8.00am: Depending on what time the bus gets into Newcastle, I get one of these Metros. If it’s really late (as it has been once), I get the 8.12am Metro. Once I got the bus after the one I normally get and had to get the 8.24am Metro, which got me to college just after 9.00am and was late. This did not help my anxiety at all.
8.20am to 8.40am: Arrive at college around this time, depending on lots of factors, not least what Metro I ended up getting.
9.00am: Maths. 3 hour lesson, but with a 15 minute break at some point (often 10.30am) when if I’m not too stressed I go get my lunch.
12.00pm: Lunch. If I didn’t get it during my break from maths, I have to get it now. Otherwise, it’s my projector day so we watch Firefly
1.00pm: I either go home now, or I stay for ICT or Enrichment. ICT is normally rather basic stuff, but I’m not too fussed as maths is so difficult. Enrichment can be anything from playing board games to going to the beach for ice cream or ice skating (as it was this week). We get the normal breaks at 1.45pm and 2.45pm if it’s ICT or some enrichment stuff.
3.00pm: Tutorial. Normally an okay end to the week. Recently it’s been planning the Christmas Party.
4.00pm: Home time again, travelling with Mark S. I don’t have to go to bed too early today, unless I’m seeing Sammie the next day.

Saturday:
If it’s a seeing Sammie week, get up at 8am to be able to travel to hers for around 11am. If it’s a LUG day get up at 9am to be able to travel there for 12pm. Otherwise, I can get up whenever I like (or whenever Giles wakes me up for food). Today is play day, if I’m not otherwise busy. If I’m good, I put a load of washing in today (but it often is left until Sunday if it’s done that week at all). I also rest today.

Sunday: Housework day, and homework day (if I’m able to do it). No set getting up time, but Giles normally wakes me up. I also try and rest, and just do silly things on the computer (like go into Second Life, or watch Buffy or something).

So there you go. My timetable for most weeks. Obviously with Christmas around the corner it’s going to change a little at the moment, but I think it shows why I’m so tired all the time (when you combine it with the whole sleeping problem thing).

Today is Friday (I started this post on Sunday) and I have an update on the maths situation. I spoke to my maths teacher today about maybe quitting, partially because I can’t do the homework, partially because I can’t remember anything, and partially because my brain weirdness is getting worse. He doesn’t want me to leave the course (as it’s only been a term) and I’m not to worry about the homework, the past papers or the exam in January. If I fail it, I can retake it (most likely when my brain is working better). He’s also given me permission to go in later on a Friday (as 5am is a really sucky getting up time) and might be changing the times a little from next term to help me. Have I mentioned before that he’s lovely and awesome? He’s also a great maths teacher, when I can remember what he’s said

Also today I went ice skating for Enrichment. Though my hip is now in agony, it was worth it. I only managed a couple of circuits around the rink, but it was fun. We went into a museum afterwards and had a look around there, which was cool.

Overall, I like going to college. I do find it stressful and hate it sometimes, but it is good and I’ve made some friends, especially Michael, Sophie, Laura and Mark S. I also feel safe in Interface, which is good as there’s not many places that I feel safe in (though I need to find somewhere else in the college that’s both quiet and safe for when it gets too noisy- the library doesn’t feel safe as there’s normally too many people). It can be hard when my brain is hating me and I’m struggling to keep calm, but hopefully I will be able to sort that so that it’s not so terrifying in a morning. The travelling is still a big problem, as I still get panicky on public transport (though it’s not so bad if I sit on the front seat of some of the buses, as no-one can sit next to me then). I was hoping it would get better with time but it hasn’t- I’ve just gotten better at hiding it when I get to college.

One little note: I managed to get all my washing, including towels and bedding, done. This weekend I don’t need to do any