Ooh, sparkles! Well, I haven't really seen that many pretty twinklings in the sky this bonfire night but it was a Thursday I suppose and doubtless there will be more come the weekend which is now very nearly here. Just one more day at the shop before I can allow myself to crumple into a little heap and ignore the world for a while. Yay! Heh, well I suppose it has been a reasonably busy week even with the town relatively empty after the festivities of the week before. I shall be glad for a little time out anyways, it should allow my brain a moment off from pointlessly expending energy worrying about unnecessary things and, just maybe, try and turn my perspective and attentions to more productive matters.

Anyways, my appointment today with the lady from 'Intraining' turned out ok if largely uninspiring. A fair amount of form-filling was involved with the prospect of a further exciting assessment to come. Do you question the actual usefulness of all this tedious paperwork? Strongly Agree/Agree/Neither Agree nor Disagree... err, well anywho. Hopefully somewhere along the line something good will come out of it. The woman I saw seemed nice enough and I got through it only losing the power of human speech on a couple of occasions. I don't know if she'll have noticed. The sensations of it veritably scream in me when it happens but as to how much of it shows on the surface I really don't know. In this case I had the peculiar sense of the word I was trying to say (or the thought of the word) being almost physically lodged sideways in brain, I could get a hold of it but couldn't it drag it down the pipes. Odd. Still, I don't know whether the way I experience the world is in any way special compared to the way everyone else does. Still, whilst I have no wish for a perfectly trouble free existence, I would just like the sense that I was connected to the world and acting from my own will and choices. Well we'll see, maybe yet they'll teach me new confidence skills and I shall be able to make myself just a little more expressively myself.

For now though, I have a day at the shop to get through. Hopefully that will go reasonably smoothly with no unwanted scary things. Then I might be able to sit down, let my brain process stuffs and try and get it set for the prospect of all this new learnings. Oh, one other interesting thing of note though is apparently I seem to have made some kind of impression at the Coliseum with my swishy web programming skills. I'm told the trustees have been talking about me anyways, though whether that is anything to get particularly excited about it is really rather difficult to tell. Anyways, it just shows I'm not paranoid, people really are talking about me behind my back! Heh. Well, who knows, it would be nice one day to actually find someone who might be willing to actually pay me to do stuff. It would very much be an important step forward in what is ultimately my more important goal, becoming secure in my own value, space and skin.

Well, anywho, I hopes that everyone has themselves a nice weekend in prospect, I look forward to seeing you there...

I recently read an article that 'the EU Court of Human Rights had ruled against the use of crucifixes in Italian classrooms'. Seems like a sensible ruling to me. I mean, I know schoolchildren can be a bit unruly at times but that does seem to be taking things a little too far! The cane was was one thing... err... *ahem*

Anyways, from that bit of nonsense and onto other equally sensible things! Today at the shop was reasonably busy after the exceptional quiet of yesterday. We have new Christmas giftware in though which is a little bit scary. Christmas already?! And gifts?! I've really no idea what to be getting people this Christmas. I'm afraid all my good ideas have been used up and whilst the things in the shop are perhaps not quite so hideously tasteless as previous year's supplies have been I doubt that a miniature snow globe or photo frame surrounded meerkats is really going to appeal to my target audience. Oh well, there's more than a month to go yet and my brains have other things to obsessively worrying about at the moment.

Among those things are tomorrow's appointment with, what I imagine will be, a very nice and friendly from the 'Intraining' company. These are the people who are going to be taking over efforts from the people at the jobcentre in helping me find gainful employments. Whether anything will come out of it, well, I can but wait and see. In the meantime though my brain seems to be eagerly taking this opportunity of meeting new people as the perfect excuse for a little extra pointless anxiety. These are strange sensations, particularly since I know perfectly well there's nothing to worry about, but they remain unpleasant. It really is nonsense on stilts though. I mean the interview itself will be in a room directly above the place where this morning I've been teaching (if in a little uncertain and haphazard manner) other people how to use computers. Why doesn't my exceptionally dense brain learn not to be so nervous about these things? Stupid personality.

Oh well, after my interview I will then have to scamper off for a thrillingly tedious appointment to sign on at the jobcentre. I still have to go through that bit despite my support being given over to the other company. One of the fun idea my brain seems to be trying to invent for me to be frightened about is that either my first appointment will be of a such a duration (it's at 10, I sign on at 11:50) that I'll be late at the jobcentre or some general confusion between the two will lead me to being, err, eaten by a passing hydra or something maybe? Heh, well it's about as much sense as my fears usually make but it doesn't seem to stop me feeling them. To be fair though the jobcentre has once already managed to cancel claim for no reason, which made for a fun couple of weeks.

Hm, anyways, the purpose of this little entry, besides making that terrible joke at the beginning which I'm secretly quite pleased with, was to try in some way to point out just what nonsense on stilts these nerves of mine are. I doubt it will change much but still hopefully I'll pile up enough evidence one of these days that maybe I shall learn just a little confidence. Just enough to get by and be myself. Just enough that the little bunny rabbit that be operating the controls might actually press the buttons to which I direct it.

After pawing ineffectually at the buttons on my alarm clock several times and wondering why it wasn't turning off, I eventually woke up this morning and was decidedly confused having thought that I already had. Hm, dreaming of waking up and getting out of bed to turn off the alarm seems rather an unfair trick of my subconscious play just before I do actually wake up. I spent several minutes glaring at the clock after I woke, demanding to know why it was still playing after I had turned it off. It wasn't it's fault though, poor thing. Really though, having to wake up is effort enough without my brain trying to foolme with such games. Methinks it was rather unwilling to be woken early and so intended to have me dream my way through the day whilst it got up to whatever misceivous activities the brain does whilst we're sleeping.

Ah well, despite that somewhat faltering start I did eventually reconnect myself with the real world (at least insofar as I ever do) and made my bleary way down to the Coliseum. Fortunately as it turned out I did actualy manage to rustle up some useful things for me to do there. I thinks I might have been a bit grumpy had I got myself up for the day only to find I could have reamined in my pretend world a little longer. As it was though I was able to do quite a bit of good works updating Whitby Network's website with details of several new forthcoming events. Do go scamper over and have a look at my efforts, it almost borders on the exciting! Anyways, it was pleasing to be able to do someproductive things, and as the litttle webstats thing seems to suggest people have been viewing my posts, hopefully worthwhile and useful to someone.

So that, and a brief chance encounter with a friend made for a nicely quiet and modestly, yet pleasingly, productive day. My brain even made up somewhat for its tricks of the early morning by actually managing sustain a conversation for a little while too! Heh. It was a little strange though, after the fantastic crowds of the weekend, to see Whitby go back to the quiet state of small seaside town in winter. I suppose that will be the last of the big crowds for the year and it will all start wind down towards Christmas. The weather seems to have picked up on tha, the weekend rains having finally ushered in the cold air after an unseasonable period of mildness. Thus far though I have managed to avoid the expense of turning the heating on and just made use of an extra jumper! Still, the cold doesn't really bother me as much as the heat can. Heh, I wouldn't mind if it could hold off on the wind a bit though, it's not really the weather for long hair. Ah well, I shall just have to be careful in my wanderings along the cliff tops!

Now though the week is off and running and I shall be at the shop tomorrow. Somehow I doubt takings will quite match up to the week gone by! Still, that's probably a good thing since I remain something of a tired puppy at the moment. At least the week has begun in a reasonably quiet and cooperative way. Hopefully the rest of it will run along ovaguely similar lines. Well we shall see if my subconscious has any more games it wishes to play with me. Either way I shall continue to hope for more good things and fewer bad things, along with a decent amount of obedience from my brain. I shall find out how close I get to that soon enough and hope, in the meantime, that the week be niceand kind to all my lovely friend peoples too!

Well my weekend has gone by in what might be described as a reasonably reasonable fashion. On Friday at the shop I was fortunate enough to have someone else take over my usual duties on the till for a change so I got to play at arranging the books which is always fun! It has been an exceptionally busy week at the shop really and not just because of Goth Weekend either. Whilst the sale of what gothy stock we had collected did help boost takings much of the sales seemed to come from other things, parents buying things for children over half-term and other sales of the various tasteless, umm, I mean delightful and very reasonably priced gifts we have on offer. Ironically of course, on the day when I didn't happen to be spending all my time on the shop floor I ended up having three different sets of visitors coming to see me. Strange how these things seem to work sometimes. Heh, still I don't suppose that my cosmic timing has ever really been the greatest!

Halloween itself ended up being fairly quiet really, which I was actually quite pleased about. I did venture out for a little while into town but it was so utterly full of people it was virtually impossible to walk anywhere! Besides the goths there seemed to be an equal number of people standing around taking pictures of the goths. There were plenty of families too visiting during the school holidays and quite a number in Halloween-based fancy dress (i.e. trying and generally failing to pass themselves off as goths, snobbishly elitist as it may sound, there's a clear difference between between being gothic and just dressing up). Anyways, whilst the outdoors was rather uncomfortably crowded I was still able to spend a little time gothwatching. The Victorian look seems to be proving quite popular, as were brightly coloured hair extensions. Heartening to still see a few big hairy blokes in dresses about too, it is a pleasing thing when this little town shows it's open-minded, welcoming side. It doesn't always of course, but it's nice to see when it does! Personally though, I can't really count the Captain Jack Sparrows, Gandalfs, Highlanders, Monks, Romans and so forth as gothic, although some of those costumes were still quite impressive. It was, I suppose also Halloween as well as Goth Weekend though. As to what the large group of Father Christmases were doing roaming the streets though I remain somewhat puzzled.

Another equally impressive sight, as the dusk began to settle over the town, was a quite enormous flock of starlings all gathering together to roost for the night. It was almost as if the birds had also decided to get together for their own Whitby Goth Bird Weekend. It was a very pretty sight and took my off watching the people for a while. It was also interesting keeping a watch on the various impulses my nerves were sending to my brain with all the excitements going on. The troubling and unpleasant sensations of anxiety that always come from being around people were peculiarly off-set by the pleasure of seeing so many varied and interesting people about. It's a strange thing indeed feeling too diametrically opposed sensations at the same time, but I suppose I ought to be used to it by now really. I've still remained feeling largely outside of all the frivoloties though all through the weekend. I watched and felt it all flowing round me, something like a rock in the middle of a fast flowing stream. Still, such disconnection has ever been my personally preferred defence mechansim against overwhelming sensations. Hopefully someday soon my brain will learn that such responses are unnecessary. Anyways, I spent me a quiet night in with my newspaper and books, hiding from any annoying children that might happen to come to the door.

Sunday began in a decidedly rainy and windswept fashion. Suddenly I was able to walk through quiet streets again, or at struggle my way through quiet, storm-lashed streets anyways. This was as I shambled to go see mother and step-father, later joined by big brother and his girlfriend for tea. So it has been a rather pleasant evening really, a good portion of which was spent with a cat sprawled across my lap. It was nice to see big brother though, if even for a short period of time. I suspect that it will be Christmas in Sheffield when we see each other next but that isn't really that far off now I suppose. Still, a good evening was had, once the rains had died down and the electricity had been turned back on! Heh. Now though a regular week shambles ominously into view with all the grim inevitability of a remorseless zombie army. Presently I'm not feeling particularly eager for the week ahead, now it seems that the weather has remembered that it's supposed to be getting into winter. I suppose it doesn't help either that the tiny amount of wine I've had today has given me a somewhat squished brain. I really don't drink at all most of the time so my reaction to alcohol can be strangely unpredictable. Oh well hopefully sleep will cure that. Anyways, since the boss is away it may well be that I find myself without anything to actually do at the Coliseum tomorrow. Hm, I'll still have to wake up though and I've never really been much enamoured with that particular part of the day.

Oh well, we shall see what marvels the week ahead may yet hold I suppose. Mayhap good things and significant changes are happening in me yet and I am just not quite aware of them? Either way, hopefully the future will bring more good things and fewer bad things. Yes, that seems like a fairly reasonable thing to wish for! In the meanwhile I hopes that everyone else be well and the world be treating you kindly. My brains be just about running out of energy for any more particularly coherent writings (even by my usual rambling standards!) so for now I shall bid you all good night. Sweet dreams.

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

I feel like I have been busy today. In the morning I took two classes of basic computer skills on my ownsome, since Maureen is away. The second class was rather easier to deal with than the first since only two showed up for that one as opposed to six for the first one! Still, I hadn't been expecting to be doing it all on my little ownsome. I knew Maureen had been ill with a virus on Monday, but she'd said she might be there today. As it was though it was just little me directing things. I just about managed to muddle through ok though and no one died so that be positive. There were definitely certain things where I got myself a little mixed up though and I'm a ways away from being fully confident yet. As my personality seems to be though I don't know if I'll ever feel entirely comfortable doing anything. Don't know how much any of my students might have learned today but hopefully yet someday my little brain will learn its lesson.

I don't know what they're going to be doing with the other classes this week though. Maureen is now aways on holiday but as far as I know the classes are still happening. My worry is that they're imagining I'm going to be there to oversee them. Well, I'm not. I could perhaps make Friday morning but not tomorrow. Still, I've told them and they didn't seem to worry, but I don't know who is going to be overseeing things with neither of us there. Whilst the courses are web-based (http://www.myguide.gov.uk if you had any wish to see for yourself) and come with their own instructions, I don't know how well people would do without someone on hand to help when they get stuck. Hm, well hopefully I wont get anyone poking me with sticks for not showing up, and they'll get on ok without me. Such are the deeply significant little traumas I can invent for me to worry about. Still, right now I'm a bit too sleepy and lack the energy for proper angst.

My afternoon at the shop was a busy and active one indeed. There be lots of people about what with the combination of school half-terms and goth weekend. Plenty of customers to keep me busy whilst on top of that our beloved area manager putting the shop through the 'Autumn Challenge'. Essentially an assessment of the running of the shop where points were scored for things being done correctly. So I had to be on best behaviour and do all the pointless and tedious things that they seem to think is worthwhile, like asking everyone if they might like a raffle ticket and then asking them whether they might like to take a donation bag home with them along with their purchases. That's the kind of thing that would really put me off shopping somewhere (and the asking of such questions certainly sparks my nerves into exquisite discomfort) but still, we scored points for it. Points seem to be scored for the most pointless details and adhering strictly to how things are supposed to be done rather than what actually works for the shop. Surely making money for the charity is more important than the scoring of arbitrary points? Oh well, I survived and can now stop pretending that I think asking everyone to take a bag home with them is a good idea.

Anyways, in the end we managed enough points to make ourselves a silver shop! I've no real idea what that means or how far we were from being gold. Apparently we lost some points on the books being past rotation date but keeping the stock up to date requires the time and people to do it and having the stock in the first place. Besides, today we sold £100 in books and just over £700 overall. That is a busy day! Interestingly most of that didn't come from goth stuff either. Really, most of our goth stock isn't really that gothic, it's just black, and unfortunately anything that does seem vaguely pretty doesn't come in my size. Boo! Still, Goth Weekend has only barely begun now so I imagine on Friday I may well have myself an even busier afternoon. There were a few interestingly dressed folk about today, and a large, hairy bloke in a dress, but I've yet to see anything exceptionally extravagant. Plenty time to go though to look out for the most prettiful peoples.

My big brother will of course be arriving in amongst them all at some point or other. No specific plans for contact has of yet been made but no doubt I shall be seeing him at some point. Whether and how I shall be able to go out and play still remains undecided. I don't know if all my efforts of today will make any significant difference to my innate levels of confidence when it comes to the socialising thing. You'd think one day my brain might see the folly of its ways and stop inventing things to provoke unpleasantly fearful sensations and then deciding those invented sensations prove their unpleasantness. Well I don't know, I suppose I can but try and see how it goes. Hopefully good things will come, that's about all I can think of to type on the matter at the moment in my state of weariness. Hopefully good things will come and I'll be able to really feel that I may have properly earned my goth points!

Anyways, that was today, with much being active and facing of unpleasant sensations to varying degrees of success. The good news though is that tonight I should actually be able to get a reasonable amount of sleep for once! Speaking of which, methinks it be probably about time I scampered off there. Methinks, given the opportunity it now has, my brain shall take this chance to be unconscious for a fairly reasonable length of time. So, if you wants to see do come see me in my dreams. Still I do tend to be rather better at the dreaming than the living but I'm working on that. You would though always be more than welcome to visit! Night nights.

Well Get Online Day didn't turn out to be quite the Internet extravaganza I might have been anticipating. The woman I work with at the Coliseum was unwell with a virus and so went home early, not that anyone actually turned up anyways. So as it was all the exciting mugs and other pointless things we had to give out remained unclaimed. I didn't even get to wear the T-shirt I'd been promised. Oh well, the morning was not entirely wasted as I got to spend some time preparing a draft of the new website page for the Café and made a couple of rather small actual alterations to the site itself. (Can you spot the differences?!) At least I managed to do something vaguely useful anyways.

As it happened though, a few friends of mine happened to be in the Coliseum just as I was finishing so I spent a little time with them. They too though seemed to be infested with some kind of virus. It seems that almost everyone I know is coming down with something right now. As yet though I seem to have avoided infection myself, although I perhaps wouldn't mind so much coming down with a little something with a visit at the shop from our beloved area manager scheduled for Wednesday. Anywho, after chance encouter with friends I had then had chance encounter with parents which was shortly followed by chance encounter with acquaintance. These did raise my little spirits a fraction at least.

I still can't say I feel particularly eager at the prospect of this week however. Partly due to the visit of area manager which will involve having to at least pretend to be making an effort at selling Christmas hamper raffle tickets. Exactly why they seem to think making these pointless demands of their voluntary staff is something you'll have to ask to them. As it is we don't even have the poster, nor the hamper to go in the window, so why they imagine we should be selling 50 a week is anyone's guess. Ho-hum. It shouldn't particularly bother me really but unfortunately my little nerves like to play with such things and I've got plenty other stuffs for my nerves to irrationately fixate on this week for it be Halloween, and Whitby Goth Weekend with all the double-edged swordiness that usually brings.

Of course I ought to be all excited and looking forward to the prospect of Goth Weekend and a visit from big brother, and in a some corner of my brain I am. However another corner of my brain is running around with its hands in the air whilst babbling incoherently. It's all pointless and irrational and senseless I know, but that doesn't seem to stop the thoughts and feelings, it just makes me grumpy and frustrated with myself for having them. Surrounded by all these prettily dressed and nice and friendly people all I largely feel is a complete sense of illegitimacy in my place amongst them. I don't know exactly what ghastly thing my subconscious may be imagining could happen, but whatever it is it imagines it vividly! It feels unpleasant, and knowing its entirely pointless and unfounded, only serves to make me like myself even less for being so stupid. If I can spend three years behind the counter at the charity shop without disaster you'd think perhaps my brain would have learned by now that other humans need not be run away from. How is it I can do one, sometimes even like it (with occasional discomfort and maybe not always perfectly perfect but even so), but not the other? Ach! Learn stupid brain! Smrrs. Goth weekend may be just for a few days, but for living the rest of my life I needs those skills too! Well, we shall see what happens I suppose, maybe my subconscious will yet allow me out to play. Can but hope.

In the meanwhile though I be a bit of an ungraciously grumpy and, probably to some degree to due to a fair deal of my energies being unnecessarily spent on nerves, tired wolf. I have gots me a bit of a migraine too, although a curious one in that it seems to have taken up residence in a spot on the side of my head a little ways behind my left ear. Not a usual spot for my achings. Perhaps in all the confusion my brain has been tipped on its side inside my skull? It could do with some sort of reshaping. Oh well, I have done my complaining now (which is what blogs and Interwebs is for!), off to the shop tomorrow where I can get to see just what pretty goth stock we've managed to get in. Not quite so much this year I'm told (the textiles company in Scarborough that often helps gather stuffs haven't been quite so forthcoming) but maybe I'll be able to get my paws on something pretty to make me feel a bit better and less of a fraud. Time for sleeps now and hopefully a little less achy and a little more positive frame of mind in the morning. Sweet dreams.

~*~ Addendum ~*~

Hm, well it seems that with a typically unerring sense of irony my helpful ISP has decided to break down moments before I was about to press the button to submit this entry. *growls* Well, it's too late for games now. I shall have to scamper off to bed and see about posting this grumpy ramble sometime in the morning. Hopefully the morning will see the world in a bit more cooperative mood...

So I stumble wearily to the end of another week. Whilst I have been a reasonably busy creature these past few days I suppose I can't say I really feel much in the way of positive progress has come out of it. Maybe that's just the tiredness and a disobedient laptop though. Anywho, whilst the rains of Wednesday may have largely kept away the customers from the shop, the sunshine brought me a rather more active day today. In between that there has also been my continuing exploits tutoring and updating Network's website along with a largely fruitless visit to the job centre though at least the man I talked to was of the relatively friendly variety. Despite all these activities I can't really feel like I can take much concrete out of any of them and the week has also provided me with ample examples of my timidity to wave in the face of my self-esteem too. Ho-hum. Ah well, I am doing things at least and hopefully stuff will come of things eventually.

I'm rather a tired puppy now anyways, hence the lack of any grasp of specifics in my typings and general lack of eagerness. I feel I ought to write something though as it has been a few days. There have been various things that I've meant to write about these past few days but various factors, tiredness, brain, laptop, have all tended to intervene this week. I suppose like the recent increase in the quantity of my remembered dreams, that may be largely due to the variability of my sleeping patterns at the moment. The days when I do stuff at the Coliseum haven't turned out to be of a particularly fixed pattern so some days I'm up early whilst others I need not be, varying from week to week. My brain prefers a bit more of a consistent routine it would seem.

Still, I'm pretty sure that living shouldn't be quite so much effort as I yet currently find it. I still wastes a good deal of energy looking out for monsters, cursing for myself for not doing more stuff and waiting by the door until the sounds of voices in the hallway have gone away. Oh well, hopefully I shall get the hang of being me one day and guide my subconscious towards better methods of descision making. Then I can get on with proper activities like mourning the losses of my past and writing poems for three of four people to read! Hee. In the meanwhile I'm not entirely sure what I shall be getting up to this weekend. Perhaps I shall go visit my kitty, friendly fluffiness and purry pettings might be a good thing. Sleep is required now though methinks so I shall leave my gibbering ramble for now and see if I can't recuperate my energies and brainpowers a little. Hopes everyone else does have themselves an enjoyable weekend. Nights.

Woke up this morning feeling grumpy, and for some reason, with the song that features somewhat similar lyrics running about my head. Great, that's all I need to start the day, being ironically mocked by own subconscious. I'd already spent most of the night arguing with my parents who were watching some tiresome thing on TV when there was something else I wanted to be watching. It's my dream television, I should get to the choose the program! Hmpf. Anyways, it was a rather cold and dreary morning and it was with little eagerness that I got myself ready for the day. Mornings have never been my best time of the day but my body seemed particularly unwilling for this one.

Still eventually I managed to drag myself down to the Coliseum and, despite the best efforts of the wireless network that decided it wasn't going to play for a while, I actually got some small, but usefully productive things done. Apparently the overlady hadn't got back to us yet about the prospective new headline banner for the website so I spent a few hours putting together a rather more interesting looking one, which is now up on the website, at least until someone complains about it! I thought it looked quite pretty (and something of an acheivement for MS Paint!) although now I'm not sure if it might look just a little incongruous with the rest of the site. Do have a look though if you has a moment, I'd be interested in a second opinion.

Besides my little efforts in graphic design I also added, at the trustee's request, a little links section on local environmental projects. I hadn't known either of the groups before, but at least they had website. Whitby Community College seems to have done loads of climate change things with both the 10:10 Climate Change campaign, the Co-Op and others yet for some reason there wasn't a word about it on their website and their seemed little purpose linking to odd newspaper articles. Anywho, Network's website now has little more bits of shiny newness for you to go look at should you have a wish to. Hopefully it all looks reasonable.

Anyways, a little bit of creative activity did leave me feeling somewhat more perky for the rest of the day. Later though I did have myself a bit more troubling news though. Any plans that were being hatched for the family to go down to see Dad next week have been cancelled as apparently he woke up today feeling rather unwell, light-headed, seeing double and such. So what with everything that's gone on, he was taken back into to hospital. Fortunately though after various testings it seems the were unable to find any serious new cardiac problems. They think he just got some kind of virus or something, so not too great a concern, but still a little troubling even so. Heh, hopefully soon I'll be able to talk to big sister on the phone without it being about my Dad's health! Still, nothing too serious, but still a little concern.

The remainder of my dad wasn't particularly productive, though at least I can pretend I was wasting time with educational things like University Challenge! Tomorrow though I has me a day at the shop and hopefully will be able to persuade my spirits to be a little more lively than they have been of late. I managed to write me a whole four lines of poetry at the weekend, edging towards finishing a new poem (if a fairly narcisstically mournful one). Still, that was about the only thing I did at the weekend and it's getting on for nearly a year since I've finished any new writings. The thought is depressing, which is counter-productive in itself, heh. Still I try to remain hopeful that I can turn that around. If not a new poem soon then at least with the doing of creatively productive or warmly compassionate things. Still, sleep must come before that then, but I get to choose the channel this time!

At last I have the reached the weekend and may, hopefully, now allow my brain a little rest. After its efforts at the exam the past couple of days have gone by in a peculiar mixture of exhausted euphoria. They have been a relatively busy two days themselves as well. The first involved of morning of teaching and then an afternoon visit to see the kitty whilst its humans were away. Ozymandias at least did seem quite pleased to see me and it was also a pleasant thing to spend a while with furry, black kitty purring away upon my chest. It did make breathing a little more of an effort though!

Today I spent another morning teaching along with a little bit of web design. Our mysterious benefactors, that is the charity's trustees (or one of them at least) have provided a little list of what they want done with the website. Some of those tasks be more easily acheived than others, particularly since I'm having to use wordpress than an actual website designing tool, but today I was engaged in trying to design a new headline banner for the site. The font used in the current one is too 'quirky' apparently and she would like something 'more professional looking (i.e. plain and boring). Anyways, after lessons were over, I harnessed my meagre graphic design skills to create a few possible prototypes which will be sent off for assessment. Not that I could really make anything that pretty anyways since the only graphic design tool at my disposal was MS Paint. Still, fine enough to create something uninspiring, personally I think something a little more warmly colourful and welcoming would be preferable but then it's not my website.

Anyways, I then spent my afternoon at the shop selling a fair number of coats and jackets to foolish visitors who imagined Whitby would still be warm midway through October! Actually it's not been too bad recently, wet and misty but relatively mild. Today though there was a bit of chill wind coming in off the North Sea. Still, big coats tend to be somewhat pricier than your average clothing item so the shop took a reasonable amount without me being too busy a lot of the time. It did have its hectic moments, particularly when tired wolfy paws (not the most dextrous at the best of times) were attempting to wrap awkwardly shaped oranments. Still the day is done now and I am pleased to be able to have me a little time in which to rest and recuperate. Well, so long as the world behaves itself anyways, but hopefully I'll be able to have myself a relatively quiet little time.

Now though I yet find myself wondering as to whether my completing of the exam will provide any greater lessons for my brain. With the combination of accomplishment and euphoria, my spirit has been willing but the flesh has been weak. Still, this is an improvement on the usual state of affair where my spirit is unwillingly anxious and I can't really say much about the flesh! I vaguely hope that in coming weeks I may be able to do a few more useful thing, though equally I don't want to be getting myself too excited either. Oh well, I shall see I suppose and there is little brain juice at the moment for pondering the subject. For now methinks it is time to scamper off for some hopefully rejuvenating sleeps and whatever curious visions may await me in dreams. Last time I was watching a revamped new series of Call My Bluff on TV that had been disappointingly dumbed down featuring amusing video interludes and, for some reason, Snoop Dogg as one of the guests. Oh well, still better than the current incarnation of Buzzcocks anyways!

Now though it be time for sleep and dream once more before I throw my laptop at something through its stupid slowness. Heh, and since I've started doing the IT work at network there's been a fair bit of difficult with the breaking down of the wireless network and slowness of computers too! Good thing I'm not the worrying paranoid type or I might start thinking it was something to do with my presence just causing things to break down. Oh. Heh. Still, do feel free to come join me in dreams should you have a wish, I wouldn't mind the company or even snuggly hugs (and in dreams is about the only place I can really get those for the moment). Goodnight.

Well it feels like I've come to the end of a very long day, my body and my brain seem both quite used up, but the good news is the exam be done! Of course I shall have to wait a month or so before I finds out just exactly how well I did but my vague sense of it is that things went ok at least even if not quite everything went to plan. Still I was quite surprised waking up this morning to find my body and my brain in quite good spirits. Surprised that I had actually managed to fall asleep in the first place let alone that that sleep would actually be refreshing. It's more than many of my previous nights had been and a fortunate start to the day. I was still a nervous puppy as I scampered off to get the bus but certainly not so much as I had been.

Anyways, despite the roadworks the bus turned out to be entirely on time getting in to Scarborough so I had a bit more time wandering around than I anticipated, though it gave me a bit of time to read and clarify a few last details before I made my way to the venue. It was a little odd being back at a school again but I hadn't much brain space to really muse on such things. I was pleased to discover that there were about seven people there, taking various different papers, but at least my scary vision of sitting alone in a giant hall was realised. One scary thing though that was realised at the beginning was that I couldn't find my passport which I was bringing along for ID purposes. Fortunately I had other things with signatures on and a special form I could fill in but it was a bit unnerving and didn't make for the best of starts. Naturally when I got back home I discovered my passport had of course been in my bag all along having hidden itself away up inside one of the books I'd been carrying! Heh.

Still, after that little trauma I then got into the exam itself, the three hours largely passing by in a blur of scribbling. I can't now seem to remember very much of what I wrote at all, but I got all the questions done and got down all I could think of in the time so hopefully that be a good sign. The first question I did on plays went ok I think, the question was along the lines of discussing how two plays depict issues of social power or something along those lines. I believe I got in a good bit of detail on that, though I fear I may have confused the names of a couple of the characters in The Rover at one point, still I think the rest of the stuff was good. I got some good points in about Caryl Churchill's Top Girls too, and contrasted the plays to each other in the end for a conclusion. Almost an actual structured essay! Heh.

I had a little crisis, and wasted a little time, trying to choose which of the questions on poetry I ought to tackle but when I did I think it went ok. My job was discuss the statement that the differences between poets of the Romantic period were equally as strong as their similarities. I was a little vague and general on certain points I think but I think I referred to a good few poets and poems and, answered the question set, which be important too. Still, I did my best to define the the general themes of Romantic poetry and outlined some differences between 'Wordsworthian Romanticism' ('Tintern Abbey', 'Simon Lee', 'The Prelude') with 'Shelleyan Romanticism' ('Ode the West Wind', 'Mont Blanc', 'England in 1819', 'To Wordsworth') with a bit of Keats ('On the Eve of St. Agnes'), Byron ('Don Juan') thrown in along with Joanna Baillie ('A Horse and his Rider') and Anna Laetitia Barbauld ('On the Expected General Rising of the French Nation in 1792') to briefly touch on poetry by women in the Romantic period. Perhaps I wrote rather more about subject than I did specifically about form but still a fair bit of stuffs there at least.

My attempt at the third question, on works of prose, was perhaps a bit more erratic. The questions available didn't quite suit me as well, in the end I chose one asking about depictions of the limitations placed on women's self-expression in two prose works. I hadn't quite so much time left at the end so I was a bit hasty and vague. I think I ended up largely reproducing what I had written for one of my assignments during the course, comparing Alice Walker's 'The Color Purple' and Charlotte Perkins Gilman's short story 'The Yellow Wallpaper', only in a lot more vague and generalised way than my assignment had. Any real detail of what I wrote for any of my answers though is lost to me as I was furiously scribbling right up until the last minute and had no time at the end to go back and check if what I'd written made very much sense or not! It was only at the very end that I noticed I'd done the poetry question before the prose question despite the prose questions being set out before in the paper before the ones on poetry! Still, I did one question from each section as instructed so I'm sure that wont matter.

Still, hopefully I got down enough things but nothing I can really do about it now other than wait and see what the marks say. Hopefully my handwriting wont prove too illegible to whatever poor soul is given the task of going over my scribble. I sense that the neatness may diminish rather as my writing progresses and I have to speed up to get everything in! I finished with a somewhat misshapen, ink-stained hand, aching limbs and an exhausted brain. Still also there was some faint elation there for having got the thing done. I can has a bit of a rest of now? Well, no not really since tomorrow I have a day tutoring IT classes then I have to go visit the caravan to feed the kitty! Why did I agree to these things? Heh. Oh well I can sleep through the weekend now at least! In the meantime I hopes that everyone else is good and well and I thanks you for your supportive thoughts. My thoughts of your thoughts were a great aid.

Me, anxious? Why no, all those strange squeakings you can hear are merely, err, a family of hamsters that have dropped by to, umm, borrow some carrots? Heh, well the doom has finally come to Sarnath and my exam for A210 Approaching Literature is this coming afternoon. Hopefully my little brain will have absorbed enough of the course to get me through whilst hopefully, furthermore, I shall be able to drag it out my brain in reasonably coherent fashion for my answers. Well I suppose I shall find out when I finally sit down in the hall and turn over the paper to see what questions have actually been set. Until then there is little more I can do other than go over the odd poem and vainly try to ease the flow of adrenalin in my veins to calm the nervous energy that currently suffuses my body. Hopefully though once I do finally sit down with pen in hand these symptoms will fade and I'll be able to get on with things. For now though a restful nights sleep is looking decidedly unlikely.

I managed to get through a relatively busy day at the shop in a kind of strange, semi-lucid haze. I had somewhat hoped that the work would have given my brain some time off, and it did a little, but everything was rather dreamlike, etched with the heightened senses of my nerves. Still, I'm not sure really which state is the more disagreeable, whether it be the somewhat intense symptoms that I'm currently feeling or the lower levels of alert on which I usually operate. These at least have some sense of physicality to them besides the general unease much of time tends to be characterised by. Either way though, I doubt this is to be an experience which is going to be teaching my autonomic nervous system the error of its ways but if it could still see its way just to turning things down a notch or two I would be rather greatful!

Oh well, my conscious brain will just have to do the best it can and hope that my subconscious cooperates. Time now I think to scamper off and, if not to sleep, then at least to try some breathing exercises to rein myself in a bit and ease the various symptoms presently assailing me, both unpleasant and peculiar. They are at least not quite so overwhelming presently as I have been at certain points in the week so hopefully I shall manage. I'll do what I can anyways. Wish me luck and confidence and I'll see you on the other side!

It was something of a surprise, though a reassuring one, to actually get a phonecall from my Dad yesterday. He sounded much like Dad, which be a good sign, although somewhat hard to tell exactly. Still he's out of hospital and apparently has no long term damage so that be reassuring. He also talked about possibly choosing to retire sooner than when he gets to retirement age next year, which sounds like a good idea to me and seems to suggest that this stroke not so long after the heart attack has had some affect. I'd far rather be seeing him enjoying his gardening than the thought of going through anything like this again! Anyways, there was also a though of the family (that is me, brother and sister) going down to visit later in the months so I imagine things may be discussed then. For now though at besides some small affects on his speech (so small as to be entirely unnoticeable in our conversation) he sounds well and upbeat and Dad-ish, so that be good.

He did talk a bit about having difficulties in finding words and how strange it was. Apparently, as part of the tests, they asked him to list the months of the year in reverse and he went through December, November and yet as much as he knew there was an October between November and December he couldn't get it come. I was somewhat struck myself by the apparently similarity to that and things I sometimes experience, in my anxiety, trying to talk to people and suddenly finding the words not there. I don't know if the phenomena are in any particular way really related, but still I can understand that sort of unsettling strangeness quite well. Anyways, this weekend he'll be having a few more tests at the hospital to see how much of the warfarin he's absorbing, but he sounds well at least so hopefully will be able to go on with living for some time yet.

Anyways, in the meanwhile today I've been making some efforts at revision in preparation for my exam next week. Things have been going ok, when I've not been thinking about Dad I've been veering between mild anxiety at the challenge and, err, abject terror! Heh, but hopefully I can do ok. It's somewhat that reading through the materials that the bells being rung in my mind seem to be of a relatively familiar tone. Still I suppose I'll only really know how much of it has been absorbed when I finally sits down at the desk and actually see what the questions that have been set are. I would rather have liked the time to be a little more immersed in my studies than I generally found I was able to be over the year but hopefully enough of it will have been taken in. Time will tell I suppose.

I do also wonder whether, however I may do, my brain itself might take any lessons from it. I love reading and writing and other things yet I still require a push not to runaway from them (and even just for pleasure, not just in terms of the effort of study). As much as I have said it over and over before it remains the issue so I'll say it again. I should like my brain to learn that it can actually enjoy the things it enjoys and that this has its own rewards. Well anyways, I'm all a bit too sleepy now to be delving too deeply into the intricancies of my own tangled brain. Broadly speaking though, I would just rather appreciate it if the words would be there and remain so.

Still, now methinks it's time I was off to confront my dreams, intent on looking them straight in the eye and demanding they stop beating around the bush with lions in the house, picnics with Stephen Fry and so on and actually tell me what they really mean for once. Well it might work. Worth a try anyways. In the meanwhile I hopes everyone be enjoying a pleasant weekend. Night night.

The bad news being that my dad is back in hospital again after having had a stroke. A real one this time rather than the imaginary one of a couple of months ago. Fortunately at least it seems to have been a mild one, so I have been told, and he's awake and talking and stuff. The talking though seems to be a bit of the problem as its apparently affected his speech so he'll be having some speech therapy. Still he should apparently be able to leave hospital at the weekend so, worrying as it all is, it could have been at lot worse. Hopefully he will recover from this latest health problem and all will be well. It seems the doctors were also quite surprised to discover he hadn't been put on warfarin after the heart attack, which would usually happen so he's having a change of medication too. Still, other than speech problems there doesn't seem to have been any lasting damage and so hopefully he'll be back on his feet and doing things soon, and with new medication to hopefully make any further incidents less likely in the future.

It certainly wasn't news I'd been expecting to hear. Dad had seemed quite well when we'd last talked and I'd hoped these things had been put behind us, at least for a little while longer. Still, not much I can really do about it so I shall await further news and try to get on with things without worrying too much. Worrying does tend be what I'm good at though in an odd way it's better in that at least it's something worth worrying about than all the pointless things that usually invoke my fears. Heh, and I found it provoked me into the action of vacuuming and clearing the flat a little for want of something to do as opposed to my other anxieties more paralysing affects. Still, such musings be for another time, for now I shall wait for further news on Dad but it sounds as if this was a fairly mild stroke, a warning perhaps, and he should be ok again soon.

The news about Dad came in the afternoon, after my appointment at the jobcentre where I got learn something of the private contractors, or in my case subcontractors, who will be taking me on. As it turns out, methinks it be the same company who set up my time at the library. I think I'll be seeing a different person than I did then though but I'm told she's very nice and hopefully that will bring good things. They'll be contacting me themselves at some point to arrange meetings and things. So whilst I wait on that, and any news on my father, I shall try to get on with what I would normally have been doing. That is, tutoring at the Coliseum in the morning, then shop in the afternoon. Then I have a final weekend of revision before next week's exam. Hopefully my concentration will hold and I'll be able to do all these things ok, as hopefully the news on my Dad will be good too. Time will tell I suppose.

For now though, time for bed, for sleep and dream, and the hope that the gifts of fate shall be rather nicer than those of the past few days. In the meanwhile I hopes everyone else is doing well. Really I would be entirely hopeless were it not for all the kindness of my friends. The biggest and fluffiest of hugs to you all. *reaches with paws* Goodnight.

First of all I must say a big, fluffy thank you to my very dear friend bethnoir for sending me a most delightful assortment of sweets and musics to cheer me up after my birthday plans went awry. It really was a most unexpected and lovely surprise that did warm my little heart greatly and make me feel all squishy and cared for. So thank you very much indeed for that, it do be most appreciated. The gummy pizzas be particularly inspired and not something I'd even imagined might have existed before! I shall find time to have a good play with the musics and carefully avoid mentioning any of the dubious jokes that I did think about writing involving the large lollipop. I am above such things. Hee, still it was indeed a lovely gesture and I do be a very touched wolf because of it. Thank you!

Meanwhile in other news, stuff goes on. This week has been survivable thus far. I enjoyed the rain yesterday and I do at least finally seem to have managed to put paid to the migraine that has been coming and going these five days. No icky achings at the moment at least and hopefully it will stay that way for a while. I has me an exciting appointment at the jobcentre tomorrow and on Friday I shall be doing my thing at Coliseum in the morning and then at the shop in the afternoon. This weekend should the hopefully be free for some solid revising before my exam next week. Heh, after that my brain can collapse in on itself once again but I would like it at least to be functioning without pain or nausea until that point. Of course I still wouldn't complain if my brain decided it might have a go at being a little more active and inspirational but for now being in reasonable condition for my exam is as much as I dare to wish for.

Anyways, still a bit of a sleepy wolf right now so I shall leave off the typings and scamper away to see what worlds my dreams might take me to. Feel free to come see there should you have a wish. Since I seem to be rather better at dreaming than I do at reality I may as well try and make the most of it. We could have a nice picnic or something perhaps? Well anyways, I do hope that your reality is treating you kindly. And thanks again to bethnoir and all my other friends for their kindnesses. I should be entirely lost without those methinks. Night, night!

Unfortunately my birthday didn't really go as I had been hoping. Playing pool in the pub just before the meal we had a phone call to tell us the cellars of the restaurant we had booked had been flooded out by the high tide and thus it wouldn't be opening that night. Smrrs. Why this high tide caused the flooding I don't know, it wasn't particularly higher than any other high tide we get. Perhaps since I was planning to have the seafood tentacle pizza, the ocean had risen up in revenge? Well I don't know but either way, we had to find somewhere else to go. As it was that place was the chinese, although the table was hidden away around a corner and I didn't really like the food too much. Then after going back to the pub for one more, parents went off to the Club for their Saturday dancing thing. Not really something for me, and I didn't much feel like staying out anywhere else so I grumpily shambled back to the carvan to play with my kitty.

So not really the most enjoyable night I've ever had to be honest. Smrrs. I was a little hungover the next day, which seems to have developed into a bit of a migraine that I've been fending off with drugs over the last couple of days but it's a stoical thing and keeps returning. Smrrs. Still, I suppose it wasn't all bad. I had some little enjoyable moments, mostly those spent by myself with my kitty. The various nice birthday messages and cards I got did cheer me quite a bit. I also managed another peculiar dream last night too so maybe the profoundly meaningful event is still yet to happen!? Err, well I've had more fun birthdays but I suppose there's no use grumbling about it, at least no more than I have already. There's always next year.

Still I can't say I'm really looking forward to this coming week with any great amount of anticipation now. Tomorrow I has me a morning at the Coliseum and then I've gots me an afternoon at the shop. Hopefully by then the tiredness will have gone and the headache finally flapped off into the aether. I has me fun job centre appointments to look forward this week to involving starting a brand new shiny scheme for the unemployed which involves me being shuffled off onto a private contractor to do, well no knows quite what yet. I'm both guinea pig for the new schene and mole for the jobcentre to report back on what the private contractors who take responsibility for me are actually like. I suppose I might be a little more interested in what new possibilities this might bring were I not rather tired, achy and grumpy. Oh well, maybe I will be able to get to on things that will make me less so? The new brain I wished for on Amazon for my birthday hasn't seemed to arrive so maybe yet good things will come. Or else there's always Christmas.

Well anywho, the weekend didn't really go as I was hoping. Hopefully then I'll have saved up some decent karma for this coming week but I can't say I'm particularly looking forward. Ah well, time for sleeps now and I shall see if I can feel any more perky come the morning. Me hopes that everyone else had a pleasant weekend, and thankees for my card and birthday messages. Those did make me smile at least.

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Well today didn't go particularly according to plan, and there had actually been a plan of sorts for a change. I had arranged today to be free to go see a friend but instead I contrived to be a lump of squishiness and sleeping for unconscionable amount of time. I would have thought I'd had enough of sleeps recently. Meh. My friend though it seems didn't have a particularly good day either having apparently lost her car keys somewhere about time. I did venture outside myself eventually but was unable to spot them. Hopefully she'll find them, methinks she deserves a little kindness from that most capricious mistress, fortune. Hopefully too, I shall have the fortune of my brain functioning at at least a reasonable degree of efficiency so I can enjoy the frivoloties of the weekend too. I can only hope that all this sleeping and dreaming is leading up to something rather than just the adjustments of my brain to my relatively new schedule.

Still I did assuage my guilt a little by managing to do small amount of tidying about the flat and taking the bins out and stuff so at least I did do something mildly productive. Tomorrow I have a fairly full day though, doing teaching stuff at the Coliseum in the morning then an afternoon at the shop. I've been told there may well be cake and treats though so hopefully it should be a fun day. It does seem a bit strange to suddenly realise that it's October already though. As much as it may be cliché to speak of how quickly time can apparently pass, the end of this year does seem to have crept up with some degree of stealth. I have an exam and things to do yet though before I can sit back and ponder greatly. For now methinks my birthday wish shall be, much as it has been for previous birthdays, a brain that functions with just a little more consistency, confidence and determination. Hm, I wonder what my chances this time?

Speaking of the march of time however it is later than I would wish it to be so I must keep this entry briefer than I would have wished it to be. So now I shall go see if my brain has anymore playful visions for me to dream about. It's mildly disheartening in my quest for life that, whilst I'm dreaming them at least, I seem to be more active and things make better sense in those dreams than I can manage whilst waking. Oh well, hopefully I'm learning and will be able to translate it all into something more of the life and the me that I would like to have. Well soon enough I shall see what my twenty-eighth year will have in store for me. For now, I hopes that mistress fortune is at least being reasonably kind to everyone. Good night and, err, sweet dreams.

So I was walking along the street to my Dad's house in Sheffield when I came upon a lion and a bear both curled up together. I paused for a while to take in this unusual spectacle until the two large predators took notice of my presence and decided they might introduce themselves. Carefully I back away from the stalking animals but somehow the lion managed to get round me and it got into the house before I was able to close the door. Once inside it promptly decided to lie down in the hallway at the bottom of the stairs. Anxious that I should get the lion out of the house before my Dad returned home I eventually managed to coax it back outside with a tin of cat food. I did notice though as the lion ate the gelationous lumps of meat I'd strewn on the pavement that the can was particularly old and appeared to have some rather large and unpleasant looking worms living in it. I woke hoping that I hadn't given my lion worms, but then I do believe lions are one the big cats that can eat older meat. Not entirely sure how true that might be though.

I did dream a few other things last night methinks but those were the only images that seem to have particularly stuck. I hadn't even eaten any crisps this time! Still it had been a while since I'd dreamed anything interesting so I suppose it's been due. If only it were so easy to make of reality a similarly sensible narrative! Anyways, my day started slightly awkwardly as it seems the people at Network had again sort of managed to forget I was coming in today. Heh, I could have had extra sleeps, if such a thing had been at all required. Still, when I finally did get in to play I had fun time adding new events and things to the website. Everyone seemed decidedly impressed with my masterful web programming skills! Not that it really required any more skill than the creation of this journal but I'll take the appreciation where I can get it. You never know, one day I may even get paid for doing something.

Later in the day, whilst whiling away some time playing some random aged first-person shooter game I'd snaffled from the charity shop, I was struck by the curiosities of the security systems that often seem to be employed in the large, impregnable fortresses of the genre. Ok, so you have got big, heavy doors with an impassible forcefield outside. That's good. Oh, and I see you've also put strong bars across the hidden underground cave entrance that connects up with the sewage system, very sensible. Ah now though, I see you've gone with the fearsomely large guard beast whose destruction mysteriously causes the bars to open for no clear reason, option. No, that's fine, very pretty and everything, it's just that you seem to have gone to a lot of effort and expense to create this security system don't you think keeping all the barriers locked might be a wiser option? Oh, and you might want to do something about moving the power source of those impressive sentry guns to someplace it's less likely to get damaged. Just a suggestion. Oh well, such thoughts amused me for a little while anyways!

Anywho a day at the shop awaits tomorrow, under the guidance of the assitant manager from Scarborough, then I have my classes to teach on Wednesday morning (assuming they remember I'm coming) followed by an afternoon of the usual shop regime. Busy stuffs, but hopefully I shall find me some time for a little more revision and then maybe even a few more creative distractions. Not that I'm counting on any such things coming to pass of course but it's nice to end my itinerary on a vaguely hopefuly note! For now though I suppose it's off to bed for me once more to see if I might find myself any further perfectly sensible things to experience. It would be nice of course to imagine that all these images might herald some sparkly new event or direction for the latest year in my life. Well I still hope to get there, but for now I shall take what curiosities I can. Still, if you'll excuse me I have to go see a unicorn about renewing the insurance on my airship. Goodnight.

I woke in a strange house. I'd gone there to get away from something. The clock said that it was 8:15 in the morning although it was still dark outside. Exploring the place I came across a couple in one bedroom engaged in some illicit affair. The house was a hideaway for such things as these. I chose to avoid the people and went to gather up my things before stepping out into the dawn to make my way back to wherever I had come from. Then I actually woke in the flat where I really live. It took a little time for reality to percolate fully into brain though when it finally did I was also a bit grumpy to discover that even despite my earlier excessive sleepings I seemed to have slept well into the day again. Smrrs. I can't exactly say it was entirely down to eating an excess of crisps, but they had been on sale, and they required eating. Either way it's seemed something a disjointed little weekend but that's not really a particularly unique experience.

Still I would rather have been able to spend my time a little more productively. It hasn't even really left me feeling particularly refreshed for the forthcoming week. Just rather disconnected and a little confused. I would prefer a narrative with somewhat greater continuity really. Having dreams that feel more real and seem to make more objective sense (at least whilst they are being dreampt anyways) isn't really so helpful for my quest to get something of a tighter grip upon the reins of my life. Oh well, maybe amongst all this my subsoncsious has been doing some useful orgnaisation and filing to put things into greater order. I'll find out shortly I suppose.

Anyways as far as reality goes, tomorrow I shall have the fun of showing the people at Network how to go about updating their website. On Tuesday I think the shop is being overseen for another time by the assistant manager from Scarborough though like the week before that's unlikely to make much difference to my day, pottering about on the shop floor. I imagine it may be another fairly busy week though. The weekend has been fairly bright and shiny and there still seems to be a reasonable number of people about in town so I imagine I'll have plenty of people to serve. Even now though I still seem to be an unnecessarily tired creature. Heh, my brain better be preparing itself for something good! Oh well, if all else fails I do at least have the recently made tradition of many tentacled Cthulhu pizza to look forward to at the weekend. Worth hanging on for a little while yet at least. Hm.

Well I must have been rather more tired on Friday afternoon than I thought! Still it is rather disconcerting to close your eyes at around 8pm and suddenly find it's 3am and everything has gone rather dark and quiet. After a short while of confused wandering there seemed little more I could do but take myself to bed and even then I still managed to sleep well into the morning. Ah well, I don't supposed really missed much though, and it had been a busy little week so hopefully that be excuse enough.

Thursday I had had an exciting jobcentre appointment in the morning but that was followed by a rather more enjoyable meander about town with an old friend. Yes, a real friend and everything. I know, it's dangerously near me having an actual social life, it might even happen again at some point. Fear not though, I'm still a reasonably safe distance from a real life just yet so no great cause for alarm. Hee. Still, very nice catching up with an old friend and stuffs and hopefully I may yet get out to play a little more sometime in the near future.

Friday morning, as these things are always very well organised, I had me another exciting appointment at the jobcentre and then a fun afternoon sorting out things for my CRB check for my voluntary IT tutoring thing. Not entirely sure what is considered to be the at risk group, the over 50s or those without computer skills in general. Anyways, it gave me a fun form to fill in and also necessitated a trip to the library to print myself out a recent utility bill. Not really a problem I'd actually envisaged when I opted for the simpler and more straightforward paperless billing. Not really sure why they needed that, and my passport and my birth certificate though. They seemed to want both driving licence and marriage certificate too if I'd had either of those. Surely just one would have done rather than every bit of official identification you have?

Oh well, besides that I've spent my time in that other exciting form of paperwork, exam revision. The reading of books for study is a rather different practice than reading for pleasure, but the re-reading of books is something else again. Going over bits I wasn't really taken by before hasn't exactly opened up new worlds of interest and excitement to me. Perhaps though I'd be enjoying it more if it weren't the thought of having to do an exam at the end of it. I'm sure you'll tell me I have nothing to worry about on that score, but then when I have ever let anything like that stop me!? Oh well, I suppose I can but do my best and see if I can get me anything near the puzzlingly high marks I achieved for my assignments.

Still, the good news is that tonight I can sleep for an extended period once more without any recriminations. Monday I shall have a go at trying to show the people at Network the exciting things that they might be able to do with their website. It's fun being a voluntary IT tutor, website maintainer and shop assisstant. Hopefully some point soon I'll be able to iron out the creases in may brain to actually get paid money for doing one or other of these things! For the moment though I remain a professional volunteer at taxpayers expense. Well I suppose there are worse things. I may yet even end up liking myself my one day! Still, in the meantime that sleeps be calling. Hopes everyone else be enjoying a pleasant weekend. Sweet dreams.