Oh... Fuck!

Well I did think that tomorrow I would have me an appointment at the Coliseum with the nice woman from the training company. As it turns out when I come to take a closer look at the card, I actually had an appointment on Tuesday. Crap. I had been entirely convinved that it was going to be tomorrow. Our previous two appointments had been on Thursdays and usually my jobcentre appointments fall on a Thursday and the thing I was remembering was her saying it would two weeks until our next meeting... ah, hell. I have that same neauseating sensation of panic bubbling inside me that I got when I came to discover that the deadline for university assignment was actually a few days earlier than had been printed in the booklet. That time my tutor was kind enough to let me off with the mistake, so hopefully my 'Employment Coach' will be similarly lenient. These are after all, compulsory meetings, and if I don't do all that I'm supposed to then I may get financial sanctions. Oh well, I've written an apologetic email and will be making apologetic phone calls tomorrow.

It's a mistake that anyone could make I suppose but in my position, where brain does not always operate in the most efficient manner nor react in the most constructive of ways, it's really not a good thing at all. *whimpers* I can't afford such slips. I can contrive to fashion enough pointless things to stress myself out already without adding to the pile. It had already been something of an arduous week. I'd been feeling somewhat fuzzy, though just as I thought I might be getting a virus or something, my head would clear again. My unsettled feelings led to me stressing rather over all the things I need to be doing. They started to pile up in my brain and threatened to fall down on top of me as things have at various bad times in the past. Such is what I strive to avoid happening again. Ironically though the one thing I thought I was sure about, the date of appointment, turned out to be the one thing on which I was wrong. I have a talent for missing the mark.

Well anyways, I'm trying not to hate myself too much at the moment though the sensations that are currently sloshing about within me are pretty unpleasant. Not much I can do now anyways. I shall just have to make that phonecall tomorrow and hope nothing too bad comes out of it. Life should really a very great deal easier than I make it. I mean it's not just this one mistake, it's all the other ways in which I seem to actively try to frustrate my own needs and desires. Ugh, well fuck it, nothing I can do about it now. I shall go see if I can find my way to some sleep so I find the strength in myself to make that phonecall tomorrow. I hate using the phone at the best of times. Heh, well, time to go scream myself to sleep I suppose. I do hope everyone is having a better time, and managing to actually enjoy themselves far much more than I have the personal skills to do. See you in the morning.

So yes, Mercury Saturday for a couple hours. Earlier in the night. As much as I miss dancing I am happy I am healthy now and don't like the idea of tempting fate.

BUT on Sunday I've decided that I'm A: a cheapskate and B: lazy so instead of three movies I just want to do one. There are two reasons for this, A: I'm pretty broke and three movies is about $30 even with a matinee in there and B: there are only two theaters playing all three movies that I want to see and I don't want to pay for parking downtown all day/fighting holiday shoppers for parking but I feel uncomfortable asking everyone to come up to Everett because it's a really long drive for a lot of you.

So I was thinking that we could do the 2:40 showing of Planet 51 (if you don't know why I am so obsessed with this movie you obviously haven't seen this enough times) at the Thornton Pace Theaters at Northgate Mall. We could meet for a quick lunch at 12:30 at the Red Robin at the mall since it's close, easy to find, not TOO terribly expensive and there is more or less something for everyone on the menu. (More or less)

So I understand if there are those of you who aren't interested or who can't make it but I'd like to see you all if you get a chance.

Look at John Peel's festive 50 from 1985
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/johnpeel/festive50s/1980s/1985/
Now, I've never liked the Wedding Present or The Fall, but aren't there a lot of good tracks in that list?
I've just been listening to the Rose of Avalanche (thank you wolfy_codex), who, for the uninitiated were a great band from Leeds who should have been more popular. I remember thinking at the time I first heard them, probably 1989, what a lot of great music there was around. I wonder if it's just because I was young then and hadn't heard it all before?

Still, the Rose of Avalanche, alternative, danceable, very rocky and yes, goths liked them, is that bad? Why on earth Americans didn't take to them, or most of the UK, come to think of it, I can't understand.


Maybe they just needed to wear more eyeliner?

So Saturday I will be at the Mercury but I won't be there long. I will get there sometime before ten and probably leave shortly after 11. I CAN'T let myself get exhausted. I don't want to get sick again.

Sunday there will be movies. Starting with matinees. I want to see Planet 51, The Fantastic Mr. Fox, Men Who Stare at Goats and possibly something else though I'm not sure what yet. I don't know where yet because I can't find any movie times on line right now for some reason. I would like to try to avoid downtown but I'm not sure I can...

I will let everyone one know when I figure out the movie stuff...


ETA: The choice is between the Regal Cinema in Everett and the Regal Meridian 16 downtown. I can't find showtimes for them on the 29th though.

Lol I used to mod this craphole....

anyway thought you niggas might enjoy this



30 tracks from some of today's best purveyors of dreariness, from the dark dub of SALEM to the Siouxsieisms of Tamaryn. Kick up some coffins with the garage girls of Hollows, and then wail to some no-wavey post-punk from Bestial Mouths. All of the fun of goth with none of the social stigma!

Kid Sportswear - Fresh Goth Mess

Do you think Erin Boag fell out with the costume department? Is it me, or is this dress a bit of a disaster, I didn't like the dance either but, fringes on the sleeves? Purple with Ricky's red? Weird hole in the middle?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0058bww

The editor of The Spectator magazine, Fraser Nelson, is trying to spoil my Christmas! At least he was in one of the more surreal dreams I've had recently. There I was wandering about a bus station dressed in an interstingly gothic fashion, puzzling how my ears had suddenly become pierced, when I decided to go visit a shop to buy Christmas cards. The shop had a neat system where you could go onto a computer and design your own cards that they'd print out for you. I also discovered they sold wine, curiously in a similar fashion. However before my wine got, err, printed out, the editor of The Spectator got to it so instead of the nice glass bottle of wine I was hoping for it came out as a plastic two litre bottle of lemonade. That was supposed to be the present I was taking along to the imaginary Christmas dinner party I'd been invited to. Tsk. My subconscious is obviously trying to tell me something, never trust editors of right-wing political magazines, they will turn your wine into lemonade. Or something. Still, what can you expect from such an economic libertarian and I suppose it's an improvement on the pit of snakes.

Meanwhile, in what passes for the real world, I continue to do things whilst leaving other stuff undone. On this occasion the stuff done included to compiling of various musical selections to share with my good friend bethnoir who has recently been most kind in sending me some little presents. The stuff not done generally consisted of the usual; tidying the flat, writing more poetry and talking to real people. I remain, you might say, somewhat intrigued as to the factors that apparently must affect my motivation when it comes to particular tasks. Still, I have specific plans for further useful and productive activities for tomorrow which, if completed, may take me a few small steps closer towards becoming a real person. At least I would have managed to make slightly more active use of my weekend than I have the previous two, which would be a mildly pleasing thing.

I do still find myself wondering though whether or not that particular cake may be a lie. Is my anxiety and peculiar separation from the world around me too much a part of my personality to be really rewritten? A certain price perhaps of a relatively thoughtful and creative mind, similar to the necessary separation described by Virgina Woolf in a 'Room of One's Own'? Still, I am neither literary literary genius nor, like Woolf or Plath, a woman but its interesting to note the relatively high levels of instability (one more than the actors, loads more than the artists!) apparently inherent within the writing profession. Or is there anything really there to change and is this just how the world is generally experienced? I can't tell. Still, I would like to feel generally more connected and generally more me in the world. Hopefully someday I shall. I will keep trying anyways in my own haphazard way and see what happens. Now though, if you'll excuse I must be off to bed to see if my brain might have any more in the way of surreal storylines cooked up for me. Hopefully tomorrow I shall be able to quell the angst about Christmas presents, tidying, job hunting and the myriad other things my nerves rebel at to do good things. Either way though, I do look forward to seeing you around and sharing the Traüme. (It's sort of a pun you see as 'Traüme' is the German for 'dreams' and, oh nevermind...) Good night, x.

But I am thinking of doing dancing some where the Saturday before my birthday (IE next Saturday), maybe, and movies the next day (Sunday.) Who is with me?

TONIGHT @ SANTIAGOS 8PM TIL LATE

ACTION DIRECTE
IMPRINT
DEATH BY ELECTRO GIANTS

TOMORROW @ SUBCULTURE 1.30PM -10.30PM

ATTRITION
XYKOGEN
FLESH EATING FOUNDATION
DIGICORE
THE LADDER
THE VOLATILE GENTLEMEN

2 day festie in Leeds

http://www.amalgamation.org.uk/

Another bunch of dreams in which I got to taste the inevitibility of my own mortality. This time my brain engaged its creative powers to imagine how it might feel to be vapourised in giant explosion. It kind of tingles. I was on some kind of exploding starship that had apparently been caught in a time loop of sorts so that I had the fun of experiencing the unpleasant sensation of being erased from existence numerous times. Each time though I retained the memory of the previous experience and was busy puzzling how I might persuade the ship not to self-destruct but I woke before I had time to discover how this plot stolen from some popular sci-fi series or other was concluded. It was also a rather wet and windy morning too (perhaps the weather has something to do with the nightmares, I did read somewhere once that disturbing dreams are more likely in cold environments) so again it was with even more reluctance than usual that I hauled myself out of my death bed, even despite my recent incinerations.

The day itself however proved generally a pretty quiet affair, perhaps on account of the weather. For my first class of the morning only two out of six people turned up and then for the second it was only one out of six! My class of one did prove reasonably enjoyable though, allowing me to concentrate on guiding them through the intricacies of email without needing to worry about what everyone else might be doing. It also allowed me to play with the new software that we've had installed on some of the computers, Windows 7 and the latest Microsoft Office. The former seemed to involve a lot of unnecessarily large and somewhat unattractive icons though other parts looked more swishy. I only really had a quick fiddle with it though. The new Microsoft Word did look interesting though with a number of new features which could possibly make writing up university essays somewhat more straigthforward. Or possibly just pointlessly more complicated. Still, it will be a while yet before I can afford such an upgrade myself so I doubt I shall be discovering how well all those new features work for a while. Still, I should be getting to play more with Windows 7 at the Coliseum as time goes on.

After my classes I also got to play a bit more with the website, now moved to a shiny new host, not that this makes any difference to the actual maintaining of the thing. Anyways I had a couple of interesting new events to add to the calendar including it seems an exhibition of Matisse in December. Or at least I would have done had the network not then decided to break down as it often does. Fortunately I'd already uploaded all the necessary images to site by then though so I was able to log in when I got home and use them to compile the new entries. I also had to go about reconnecting some of the links which had decided to disconnect themselves in the move to the new host. One of my older entries also seems to have entirely disappeared for some reason. Unfortunately however, the tedious javascript snowflakes managed to survive the transfer! Do feel free to go have a look at my efforts should you happen to be excruciatingly bored and marvel at the newness.

My afternoon at the shop also proved to be a pretty quiet affair. I did have some customers though and we managed somewhat higher takings than were apparently acheived on Monday still I was never particularly rushed. A good portion of my time was spent wandering about an empty shop in search of something to tidy up or rearrange. I've had rather more active times. Indeed it does seem somewhat indicative of my general state of being of late. I seem to be managing to be busy yet apparently not particularly achieving very much of note. Not that my dinky little website additions and other online communications are not worthwhile things, but I yet remain far from employed, my flat remains remorselessly untidy and I have yet to finish a poem amongst various other things I feel like I ought to be doing. Perhaps I expect too much of myself, perhaps I need to work on being more confident and active. Probably a combination of both though I don't know if mine is the clearest of perspectives on the matter. Still, I can but try to me and hope I supposes. Anyways tomorrow I have a deeply uninspiring appointment at the jobcentre which I must attend in order not to starve. Otherwise the day will be mine to try and make something of. Hopefully some good things will emerge, so long as I don't die in my sleep too many times before I get there! Sweet dreams.

Yes, I know my birthday is coming up but I have something else in mind.

I was reading about 12th Night and Yuletide earlier and was thinking that a 12th Night Celebration would be sort of fun. It might be a fun way to wrap up the holidays after everyone else is done with them. It's not exactly a Christmas thing and we can focus on the dancing and revelry and wassail rather than the commercial thing that the holidays have become. And I might even finish burning a Yule log!

Twelfth Night is January 6th. If you're interested in this let me know. If enough people want to join in on this I'll rent the party room my complex has...

If you're interested in my struggles to get published check out my journal rejectedrefuse. Good times.

I have a new computer.

I do. And it's portable.

Waking from unpleasant nightmares about being trapped in a pit full of venomous snakes, (impressive though how the brain is capable of imagining a convincing sensation of pointy serpent fangs biting through the skin and the hot sting of lethal poison entering the veins, I mean how would it know?) I looked out the window to discover there was a considerable quantity of weather outside. The kind of morning that could lead anyone to debate the wisdom of getting up from a nice warm bed, had it not been so full of snakes. So with some degree of ambivalence I went through the morning rituals before stepping out into the wind and rains, humming as psychotically jaunty a tune as I could manage. Fortunately I managed to make it down to the Coliseum without drowning and the rains had managed to more or less wash away any disturbing echoes in my mind from my repeated deaths in my dreams.

Naturally of course when I got there I was told there was really very little for me to do today and I could possibly just go home if I wanted. Hm. Still, somehow or other I still managed to find myself enough tasks to keep me occupied until closing at five in the evening. The first of these tasks was the artistic challenge of putting up various posters about the computer room, extolling the virtues of being online and the courses that we give. This being a government funded project they all tended to be of a somewhat generic variety featuring the smiling faces of nondescript representatives of particular social groups detailing all the useful things they were able to do on the Internet. Secondly, Maureen and I trauled through the website which is supposed to help support UK Online Centres like ourselves and tried, without much success, to decipher the arcane riddles and obscure criteria that surrounded the funding grants we could apply for. It would be nice if we were able to update our ageing machines just a little, I might be able to do more interesting things with pictures on the website then and it would be nice if things didn't break so much.

Anyways, speaking of the website it seems I also managed to arrive somewhere in the middle of a small dispute about its future. It seems it had been planned, or had for some reason become necessary, to move the website to a new host. The person who currently sorts of the hosting, and had originally set up the website to begin with, had apparently offered to do this transfer for us. However the trustees seemed to have decided they had better, or rather cheaper, ideas and wanted to go with a different host. They also rather seemed to imagine that little me would be able to do all this. Probably I could work it out, but I've never actually gone about the process of arranging a webhost and FTPs and so on before, so it would take me a while and really didn't they want it all offline whilst I figured out how to work the thing or just let the nice man do it who knows about this sort of thing? I rather felt like though I'd come in halfway through the conversation with people talking about who had what and was funded by whom and such. I'm not even really sure why the webhosting has to be moved. Perhaps I should have paid more attention at earlier times when people were talking, Still, I only came as a volunteer to help teach the courses. I took on the website maintenance because I could (learning the interface on the fly) and no one else seemed to. If they expect me to do any more, well, they'd have to at least give me some time to work out how. Trying to explain what I do know about the intrcacies of website building to utterly non-technical people has its limitations too. In the end though, we managed to persuade them to go with the nice man. At least I think that's what was decided.

Anyways, at the moment the website seems to have been disappeared from the web so it seems some kind of change is afoot. It's probably a good thing its disappeared for now as, speaking of visual snow as I was in my last entry, Maureen thought it might be a great idea, whilst I was adding a new event to the calendar, (an evening with a clairvoyant, surely people should just know it was on?!) that I add some delightful Christmas affects to the website such as falling snow and so forth. Ah yes, those fantastically irritating little animations that add nothing but tedious clutter and a kitschness to an otherwise clean and straightforward website. Joy. Perhaps fortunately my skills are relatively limited so I was only able to add a very basic little bit of javascript that caused little white dots to tumble down the front page. I will entirely disown any further such additions to the website whenever it should come back online!

Eventually anyways I was able to trundle back home, fortunately the rains had stopped by then though the wind remains fairly windy even now. I spent my evening sitting, trying not to think about snakes or websites and later, watching television with some stupid glasses which provided a vague, sort of illusion of lending a small amount of extra depth to the pictures! Now I recall why the early 3D technology never really caught on in the big way that some people hoped. It was rubbish. Oh well, it was enough for a certain small amusement I suppose. I'm somewhat looking forward to seeing Udo Kier in 'Flesh For Frankenstein 3D' tomorrow! They be showing 'Friday The 13th Part II in 3D' later in the week too. Tee-hee! Now though I fear the aching in my head is trying to stage a comeback, and I'm annoyingly out of drugs, so it be time for me to slither off to bed methinks. Hopefully I shall have no more serpents in my dreams tonight and my day ahead at the shop will be nice and tranquil and migraine free. Can't say I feel too eagerly hopeful at present but we'll see. In the meanwhile, I hopes the world is being kind to everyone else. Goodnights.

Amalgamation Festival 2009 - Latest News - 15.11.2009

Amalgamation is to take place in Leeds on Friday 20th and Saturday 21st November, and features eleven great industrial punk acts.

Line-Up Changes:
There have been further changes to the line-up for this years event - the Mekano Set have had to withdraw from the event, so their slot on Saturday will be taken by local act The Volatile Gentlemen. Skinflick have also had to withdraw, and we are currently in talks to try and secure a top class replacement. Watch this space!

Venue Change:
The venue for the Saturday at Amalgamation has changed to The Subculture, Merrion Street, Leeds. Doors open at 1.30pm and the event will end at 10.30pm.

The itinery for the 2009 Amalgamation Festival is as follows:
Friday 20th November - Santiagos, 1-3 Grand Arcade, Leeds
Action Directe, Imprint, Death by Electro Giants
DJs: GothVodka (Bad Moon Rising/Friday Flock) & Kev36663 (The Charnel House/Floorshow)
Doors: 8pm
Entrance by weekend ticket or £3 on the door

Saturday 21st November - The Subculture, Merrion Street, Leeds (NOTE CHANGE OF VENUE)
Attrition, Xykogen, Systemyk, Flesh Eating Foundation , Digicore, The Ladder, The Volatile Gentlemen + 1 more t.b.c
DJ: AntiAndy
Doors: 1.30pm
Entrance by weekend ticket or £15 on the door

Due to Saturday being an alldayer, it is £15 on the door for the Saturday, so getting an advance ticket effectively gets you into Friday for free. If for some reason you only want to attend Friday night's revellries, it will be £3 on the door with prepaid weekend tickets having priority. Our advice for anyone who hasn't yet purchased a weekend tickets yet is to snap them up for £15 each here!

More information can be found at http://www.amalgamation.org.uk

Finally the gales seem to have subsided and a damage survey is possible. Considering that, on Friday night, it sounded as if the wind was trying to either tear the roof off or remove the walls, it is cheering to discover that only the fences and wooden play house need repairs and these are mainly of the nailing bits back together kind. I like to be reminded of the power of the weather, but since some vital roof tiles blew off at our old house, I feel less secure than I did when the rain drives and the wind makes the trees creak beyond my tightly shut windows.
( Read more... )

I'm not entirely sure where most of today went. I spent much of in something of a squishy, migrainey daze and the evening seemed to arrive with undue haste. In such a state though I suppose that is preferable to letting the time drag and I do remember certain events occurring. At some point I was able to acquire myself a newspaper, although I've yet to read any of it, and on another I was rather unpleasantly sick. Still, it's been a long time (indeed I can't precisely remember how long) since I've actually done that and I did start to feel vaguely better afterwards although that might have been something to do with the tasty painkillers. The one other thing I can particularly remember doing today though is I was actually finally able to pay my rent. For once my landlady and I happened to be in the same place at the same time and I could scribble out a cheque for the past 18 weeks! Heh, and despite any suggestions about acquiring bank account details I don't particularly imagine I'll be paying any rent again for the rest of this year at least.

Apart from those little moments though I've not really got much idea where the day went. I imagine whatever I did it involved a lot of being slumped upon the sofa, marvelling at the visual snow and trying to avoid looking at anything too bright. Still even if I had been in much of a mood to watch TV today it didn't seem to be in much of a mood to show anything. I assume this was down to the stormy weather in the south (which turned out to be somewhat disappointingly lacking up here). For most of the day BBC 1 wasn't showing anything but a black screen which did lead to me fear I might miss the opportunity of seeing the new Dr. Who tomorrow! It seems to be back now though so hopefully my brain too will be alive enough to watch the scary space things. Still, I suppose there's always iPlayer if all else fails. Next week too of course we have the, err, excitement of Channel 4's 3D Week. Not sure if it will be the most multi-dimensional of experiences. My experiments with watching the trailers haven't produced any particularly dazzling affects. Why Channel 4 are only giving away glasses at Sainsburys, the nearest branch being a squillion miles away, is question in point. Still, I shall see if the glasses I do have will work at all, not that I'm really that interested in seeing the queen in three dimensions, although Derren Brown might be a bit more fun.

Hm, I wonder if my experiments in the third dimension might have any baring on the development of my migraine, but I imagine it's largely just down to general tiredness. It's been a few weeks since I was last struck with one anyways so I suppose it was about time I had another. Where would be after all if we failed to keep up with tradition!? Can't have a brain that actually works properly, such a thing just wouldn't be British! Well, at least it's settled down a bit and I'm not feeling quite so fuzzy and squished now. Hopefully I shall be able to wake tomorrow all bright and shiny and, umm, twinkly. Well as long as I'm alive enough to watch Dr. Who anyways, what else really matters other than that after all?! Well anywho, I hopes everyone be having themselves a pleasant weekend, I'm off to collapse in my basket again. Poke me with a stick when it starts. :)

It feels like I have finally reached the end of what has been a particularly strenous week. Or maybe that is just the affects of today. Either way I'm still glad that I can now fall over and not have to get up again for a while. At least today I just about got everything done that I had been wanting to do at the shop. The fiction section is now fully up to date after I rotated all the stock, that is taking off all the books that have been on there too long (i.e. all of them) and replacing them with new books. I'd got halfway through on Tuesday and was able to finish it off today. Admittedly since stocks are limited this meant returning much of the stock I'd taken off on Tuesday back to the shelves with new dates. Still I did make sure I put all the shiny, newer stuff on first. In an ideal world of course the books would be kept up to date constantly and, keeping on top of things, rotation would be nearly so arduous a task but then it's difficult to get the stock, or the staff. Anyways next week I shall see if I can have a go at the romance novels (which live in separate section to other fiction) and see what I can do with non-fiction. That's if I don't have to be on the till anyways. Still, for now my little books may not be in anything close to alphabetical order but they are at least all nicely up to date.

So that was pretty much how I spent my hours at the shop today. Now I finds myself to be something of a squishy brained creature, listening to winds rattling the windows. The rain seems to have stopped for now, though it's apparently forecast to be somewhat stormy this weekend. Nevermind, it's not as though I shall going off anywhere. Still I wouldn't mind being able to do certain productive things this weekend, tidying and such, but after my efforts of this week I suppose I wouldn't mind too much if I spent a good proportion of my time curled up in my basket. Whilst I'm rather too wearied to be mustering any great sense of feeling either way on the matter I did do things this week. Hm, I also don't seem to have much of the will to muster any degree of eurdition on the subject as I might of hoped when I started typing this entry either! Oh well, I suppose I shall just have to scamper off and can see if I can persuade my little head not to ache any further and allow me to find my way to sleeps. At least now it seems livejournal has a new feature in that the time for the journal entry updates itself whilst you type. So now I don't have to go through the extra task of altering the time from when I began to write to when I finished. That saves me a good few seconds! Anyways, hopes everyone has a fun weekend. Night nights.

Well I think that all went reasonably well in the end. I had a class of 5 to teach on my own today, 6 were scheduled but one of them didn't turn up. I was mildly dismayed not to find any helpful notes in the students folders as I told there might be put there but I was able to find something for them all to do with the time. Not sure precisely if anyone learned anything but everyone seemed reasonably happy when they left and no one died, so that be good! The system did have a go at being awkward from time to time. I've found that in the little quizzes that come at the end of each module, on the questions where there is more than one right answer to select, it sometimes decides for itself that they haven't chosen all the right ones, even when they quite patently have! Other difficulties tend just to revolve around things being frustratingly slow or just freezing. It's somewhat funny trying to advise people to be patient with things when it would be just about at that time with my little laptop here at home when I'd be inventing colourful new phrases to growl at the machine. Still, in the main things went ok and I might even have been vaguely helpful to my students on one or even two occasions!

One person to whom I proved rather less helpful to though was a man who came in later to use the services of the internet cafe. That really wasn't my fault. Apparently he'd been asking for a while whether we might download Photoshop, or at least the trial version, for his use on one of the computers. So the one note I did get today was to ask me whether I would download and install the thing for when he came in the afternoon. This ended up taking a little longer than expected as for some reason the computer took a while to let me log on with administrator password. So, just an hour later than planned I eventually managed to get the thing downloaded and installed. Only then did we discover that it ran excruciatingly slowly and I found out, much to my surprise, that the computers that they use at the Coliseum only have 480MB of RAM. That's even less than my laptop has and less than half of what would be required to run Photoshop. Heh, I don't think the man was too happy when he left, still not much that I could really do about it. Still I was surprised to discover the computers down there are just a little less powerful than my own slowly disintegrating 5 year old laptop. Still they are just a humble charity, and generally the computers are only used for basic internet purposes. It does though perhaps explain why things do have the tendency to freeze up whilst teaching the courses.

Oh well, you can't please everybody all of the time and I still think I did relatively well with my teaching today. Somewhat ironically though when it came to my appointment with the nice lady from Intraining she was having a few technical problems of her own so the exciting assessment as I was going to do will have to wait until my next appointment. It meant at least I could scamper home a little earlier than I had anticipated and catch up on some rests. Generally though I am relieved to have got through the day although I should perhaps prefer it if I could find myself feeling more pleased than merely relieved. Hopefully one of these days I'll be able to feel properly good about something I've done rather than merely thankful I didn't destroy anything. Now of course I hope I can drag myself through one last afternoon at the shop before the weekend, rather than looking forward to the opportunity to do useful things at the shop before the weekend. Strange how whilst I know it would be more helpful to have a more positive perspective my brain yet resolutely refuses to feel it. Smrrs.

So, I'm a positive/negative, warily pleased and nervously hopeful sort of beast at the moment. Perplexing as it may be I suppose it's a not a sense that I'm entirely unsed to. One thing at least that did cause me to smile in an unalloyed fashion was the lovely gift of musics and letter that I got from my dear friend bethnoir today, so I must thank her muchly for that. Now though, besides being a wolf of mixed feelings I also be rather tired so I'm off to go curl up in my basket. Hopes everyone else is well and looking forward to a pleasant weekend. Goodnight, and I looks forward to seeing you again with the next exciting bulletin! Heh.