Paddy's journal

Chicago arrived in the mail today (the film not the city) and I liked it. The music was good, the choreography was great and the story was enjoyable. Not so sure if Richard Gere was right for the part, but he was good when he wasn't dancing. There was something not right about him dancing.

I also noticed something about my body. I know that I am not fat or overweight. I don't like the look of my body, but I've seen way worse. However, I did notice when I weighed myself today, on a whim, that my weights gone up a fair bit and if I'm not careful I'll be back to what I used to be. So, while I would never want to be skinny, I do feel I need to start watching what I eat a little. Few more veggies and less take-away. Not that I have it often, but recently, because I've been working extra, I've been a little lazy with my cooking. I also need to exercise more, so I'll try to be more active.

Just to make it clear, I do recognise that I'm not fat. I'm not one of those girls who's all like "I'm so fat!" when they're really as thin as bamboo. I'm just getting a little out of shape and would like to stay on top of things.

Currently Reading: American Gods by Neil Gaiman.

I failed my driving test again...

...Bugger.

I broke my headphones at work today. The ones I bought on Sat.

The speaker was ripped off, so all I had left were wires. I was very annoyed. I've been through so many pairs of headphones since working at Romarsh.

But, at lunch I worked out a way to fix them. The wires were soldered onto the speaker and lucky me I happen to work in a factory which has soldering irons. So I soldered the wires back on and...IT WORKED. Perfectly in fact, you'd never know anything had happened. I'm pretty pleased with that.

I was able to continue listening to Les Miserables, which is not the best idea when I'm at work, seeing how it always makes me teary-eyed.

Currently Reading: American Gods by Neil Gaiman.

Mother and I went to London today for two reasons. The first was for me to get on the underground seeing as how I couldn't last time I went to London. It was tough, but I managed it. We only went as far as Oxford Circus which is only a few stops away. The other reason we went was to start Christmas shopping and despite being on one of the longer streets in London (or possible anywhere in England) I only managed to get one present. Although there were a million things I would have liked to buy for myself and didn't. All my money's just disappearing and I'm not sure where it's going! Mostly on car inssurance, therapy and driving lessons. Not to mention food and...Doctor Who.

As much as I do like London I really don't like how crowded it is, but then that's to be expected and even more so near christmas on a Saturday. The weather wasn't too bad either for the most part. Only rained as we were heading back to the underground. Which was better than in Calne. Rained when he left and when we got back.

Yesterday I had my last driving test for this year (one way or another) and overall it went rather well. Even though I have my test on Friday afternoons which means lots of idiots who are so desperate to get home they don't care who gets in their way, so you have to be on your toes. Great practice.

Currently Reading: American Gods by Neil Gaiman.

Firstly, my headphones have pretty much given up, so again I have to fork out more money on new ones, as well as a new pair with a mic for when I use Skype. Fortunately I found a pair on Amazon for £14 that's got a mic and small enough to take to work. So instead of buying two pairs I have all I need in one. Yay!

I also worked out today that I don't really want to be a teacher anymore. For starters, I don't have much interest in going to see plays and I'm not really any good at spelling or grammer. I much prefered the acting part of drama. I didn't enjoy studying plays, so I doubt I'll enjoying teaching others to study plays. And over all I just don't really want to do it, so I'm going to pursue my second career option: Librarian. I'm pretty sure I'd need to work in a library first and even though it's not easy getting a job in one at the moment, I'm going to be more observent and hopefully there'll be a job going one day soon.

And a couple of side notes:

* Waters Of Mars was pretty good. Not fantasitc, but enjoyable.

* I just bought Chicago on Amazon after listening to one song. It was cheap.

* I'm not doing well on Nano and have thought about giving up, but we'll see. I don't want to give up completely, but my word count is fairly low.

Currently Reading: American Gods by Neil Gaiman.

I want to get back into dancing. I've tried Line Dancing, Salsa and that groove FX I did last year and nothing has ever really stuck with me.

I've been looking up what's available in my area and there's a dance school in Chippenham. They do ballroom dancing there and I've thought about trying that before. I think I'd have to wait until after christmas to join seeing as they do it in terms, but it does sound like a fun thing to do. Plus you don't have to bring a partner, so might be a good place to meet guys.


Nano result: I'm up to 15'723 words. Not great, but not too bad either.

Currently Reading: American Gods by Neil Gaiman.

Today didn't go quite as I'd planned, but it was still a good day.

I was going to go to Bath to start my christmas shopping, but at the last minute I booked an appointment at W2W where instead of having my face sandpapered off I got to try out something a lot gentler, which I much prefer.

Because I didn't have a lot of time before my appointment there was no point going to Bath, so instead I stayed in Chippenham and bought the Doctor Who mag. The weather was awful, rain and wind. I'm glad I wasn't out in it long.

In the afternoon I wrote just over 2'000 words, which was more than I thought I'd get done. I might do some more in a minute. I'm still behind though, so I have to get a far ammount done tomorrow to catch up.

I've just finished watching the new Star Trek movie which I preorder and arrived today, which surprised me seeing as I don't think it's official out until Monday. Not that I'm complaining, I'd forgotten how good it is.

Tomorrow, walking, shopping, writing and NEW DOCTOR WHO!

Currently Reading: American Gods by Neil Gaiman.

http://www.bigfinish.com/news/More-Lost-Stories-Found!

This has made me very happy. I'm so disappointed though that I have to wait until next December for it. At least they'll be plenty of audios for me to get next year. I can't wait for this one though, seeing as I know a little about The Prison in Space and it sounds very much like a comedy. I also know for a fact that The Two Ronnies did their version of the script. I just wish Doctor Who could have filmed it instead.

As for other news, there isn't any really. This weeks gone by rather quick, even though I've been doing over time. I figured I might as well seeing as I could and Christmas is sneaking up. I need to start shopping for it this weekend.

Wish my brother would come back from his holiday. I'm all lonely.

Currently Reading: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austin and Seth Grahame-Smith.

This weekend's been a mix. It was busy, but I didn't get as much done as I'd hoped.

On Saturday I went to Chippneham to buy a few things including a couple of bedsheets...and a Doctor Who Companion book I got in Smiths. I didn't want to spend much time in Chippenham and I didn't, but I was up later than I'd planned and I had to run some errands upon my return so almost half my afternoon was gone by the time I got home. I managed to get my room rearranged, but I didn't get as much writing done as I'd hoped.

As for Sunday, in the morning I helped my dad take my nan's old fridge down to the recycling place. Not an easy task seeing as we could only just fit the fridge in the back of my dad's car and to do it I had to have my seat as far forwards as possible. Was a little disconcerting.
After that dad went with me in my car to Chippenham for a drive and between the rain, the fact I haven't driven my car for a while and my dwindling confidence it wasn't a very fun drive.
Afterwards I went for dinner down the Landsdowne with my nan, mum and Tony. That was nice.
Got home and did very little writing again. This Nano thing isn't working out well. But there's still a few more weeks left.

Overall I fair productive weekend, but it could have been better.

Rules:
Reply to this meme by yelling "words!", and I will give you five words that remind me of you. Then post them in your journal and explain what they mean to you.

lolabobs gave me these words


Driving: I love driving, but the reason it's taken me so long to learn to drive is parially a money issue, but mostly because learning to drive was part of my therapy. I thought the best way to get use to travelling in cars was to learn to drive one. It worked so well. I much prefer driving to being a passenger (atm) and I love being in control. Funnily enough though, I didn't always want to drive. In fact it was only after my first lesson that I really developed a real liking for it.

Writing: I've been writing since I was about 13 or 14. I actually started out on a typewriter, writing Star Trek Voyager stories, before I even knew what fan fiction was. I would always have all these ideas for episode that I thought were great (but were really awful) and I thought writing them myself was better than just daydreaming. I moved on to writing Buffy stories after that and also upgraded to a word processor. I used to spend entire weekends writing almost no stop and I kinda miss those days. But writing used to be just something I did for fun and for my own amusment. It was only when I got into Uni and found other people who liked writing that I started working on my own novels. Even though I have such troubles completely stories and I'm way too critical about my own work I couldn't imagine not writing.

Sci-fi: My first memories of watching Sci-fi is renting out Star Trek: The Voyage Home every week when I was a kid. I used to watch Star Trek Next Gen before going to karate, but never got to see how any of them ended. And yet, I'm not a huge fan of sci-fi. Sure, I love Star Trek in all it's forms (not so much DS9), Firefly, Doctor Who, Red Dwarf and Babylon 5, but what has always attracted me to any TV show or movie is the characters. I do enjoy space battles and weird alien beings, but mostly I just like the way the characters interact with each other and their surroundings, the same way I like in other shows. But I will admit that the one thing I love about sci-fi more than any other type of genre is the fact that in some shows like Doctor Who and Star Trek, nothing seems impossible.

Ugerchucker: I have no idea why I like this word so much. I heard it on an episode of The Muppets Tonight Show and somehow it stuck in my mind. I tend to use it as a username because I can guarentee it hasn't been taken. One fond memory I have regarding this word is when I was on a protest march in London back in my first year in Uni and me and my friend Mel (Leigh) chanted it while we walked.

Cosplay:  I've always liked fancy dress parties, but at those people tend to be less creative. Like going as school girls or wearing wings or devil horns. But at conventions the costumes people make are amazing and you can tell so much time and effort has gone into them. And when you're in cosplay it's almost like being a celebraty. When I was at Expo in May me and my friends could barely go five minutes without someone snapping our picture, it was great.

Now to work on Nano.

Currently Reading: Pride and Prejudice and Zombie by Jane Austin and Seth Grahame-Smith.

I went back to work today. I had a better night, even if I did have a little trouble sleeping, but I got far more sleep than I had the previous two. It's weird actually, I went the whole two days feeling like crap, but not suffering from a bunged up nose and typically, I go back to work today feeling more or less fine, but with a bunged up nose. I spent most of the day blowing my nose. Was annoying.

And if that wasn't annoying enough I've left my glasses at work, so reading things on my computer isn't easy. I have a spare pair, but the frames are all bent. Because of this and the fact I'm going into work early tomorrow I've decided not to get any writting done tonight, but hopefully make up for it this weekend where I plan to spend a good amount of it working on my Nano piece.

Currently Reading: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austin and Seth Grahame-Smith

I was off work again today. I had another awful night where I got barely any sleep. It's weird, I've slept badly the past two nights and yet I haven't been feeling tired today. Although I did fall asleep this afternoon for an hour.

I never know what to do on sick days. That may sound weird, but I very rarely have them and I did feel better by the afternoon. I'm not 100% now, but I think I'll be well enough to go into work tomorrow.

As for today, I spent the morning watching The Doctor Who episode The Invasion and then I spent the afternoon working on Nano and napping. I'm actually doing pretty well on Nano, I've got to 5000 words. I should probably be further along than that, but I have a fairly free weekend, so I'll lock myself away and work on it. 
 
Currently Reading: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austin and Seth Grahame-Smith.

Seeing as I have no holiday left this this year I figured the only way I'd get a day off work is if I phoned in sick. I did that today and why? Because I'm sick. I should never had said yesterday that I rarely get ill. It's true, but then last night I had the beginnings of a sore throat when I was coming home from work and it got worse. I could barely sleep last night, I felt so bad.

This is not a good time to be ill seeing as I have Nanowrimo to do, but I'm feeling a little better now so I might get something written this afternoon.

Leave me a comment. Make it a quote.
• I'll respond by asking you five questions so I can satisfy my curiosity.
• Update your journal with the answers to the questions.
• Include this explanation in the post and offer to ask other people questions.

I got asked these questions by lolabobs


1. Why do you like Jamie so much in Doctor Who?

Well, first off he looks great in a kilt and he's just got the most adorable smile. But as for the character, I'm rather a fan of well written fish-out-of-water characters. He has the comical moments of not understand every day things, but they're not a constant thing that gets annoying. He adapts well.  And his relationship with The Doctor is so natural and fun to watch.

2. How long have you been collecting soft toys/cuddlies?

Oh man, I've always loved soft toys, but I never really consciously started collecting them until I was in my early teens.

3. Favourite 3 books (and why?)

1) The whole hitchhiker's trilogy, because they're both funny and bizarre. My dad used to read me an extract from Resturant at the end of the universe and I just loved it. It's mostly the first book I like the most, that's the one I love seeing different adaptations of.

2) Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman simply because I loved the type of world he created underneth London, it was so much more darker than any other secret worlds I'd read about and I liked not only the main character but the supporting ones also.

3) Death Counts, which is a Star Trek novel, but I don't care, I love it. I've read it various times I love the fact it focuses a fair bit on the other main characters, rather than Kirk and Spock. It has a complicated plot, but enjoyable once it's understood and it has some cool scenes involving Russian roulette played with shuttle crafts.

4. What are you scared of and why?

Various things, including heights and spiders, although I'm better with spiders, but I'm also afraid of being sick as anyone who's been reading my journal for the past three years will know. This one I'm still not sure about.

5. What would your ideal job be and why?

Oh boy, ideal would either be  an author because I love writing and I love other people reading my stories or drama teacher, because even though I love acting I had so much fun in my drama classes and the teachers I had were the main reason,

Was going to type this up yesterday, but my internet wasn't working for some reason.

Anyway, yesterday I went to Bristol to take part in a zombie walk with Sel and Luke. Even though I'd known about this for a few weeks it wasn't until littrally Friday night that it was decided that we'd go. Because of this our costumes weren't the best, we actually kept coming up with better ideas, but under the circumstances we did pretty good. Especially Luke and his meat cleaver beenie. Sel and I both made holes in rather...revealling places, but thankfully there were people their that flashed more.

Overall it was awesome. We spent a lot of the time walking like zombies walk in movies and even clawing at buses as they went by. The best was when everyone clawed at the van giving out from drinks. Was like a moshpit.

The walk ended at a little clearing where a zombie band was playing. Didn't play much, but we caught the ghost busters theme. After that we headed into town. There wasn't much Halloween style things going on in town, so we got food and headed back to Luke's.

Here are some photos I took.

http://tinypic.com/useralbum.php?ua=GziwmrlImHvwtkPLXfS8mA%3D%3D


As for today I've started Nanowrimo and so far I'm doing pretty good. Almost up to 1'500 words.

Currently Reading: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austin and Seth Grahame-Smith (Rather appropriate.)

Ever have a morning where you're happy for no logical reason?

It was nice, although a little weird for me. Usually I start my day feeling a little cranky and then feel happier, but today I managed to stay happy for most of the day.

After this weekend I figured I'd be miserables all week, but maybe deep down I'm telling myself that all that'll do is make me depressed and it's better to smile than frown. If you don't laugh, you cry and I'm done crying so it's time to laugh.

Currently Reading: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austin and Seth Grahame-Smith.

I started off today feeling generally cranky, but I'm back on my old department now which means I can listen to my ipod again. Oh, how I've missed listening to music/Doctor Who audios while I work. Cheered me up and made the day fly by.

Two other bits of news:

A guy at work wants to set me up with his friend. I've never been set up before and I'm a little unsure about it, but he's a nice guy so I'm hoping his friend is. He's from the Czech republic, but I'm told he speaks good English.
It's been three and a half years since I had a boyfriend and over a year and a half since I had any male attention. I could sure do with some. I'm not getting my hopes up or anything, but we'll see.

Also my therapist sent me an e-mail back. I have an appointment to see her next monday. Hopefully this won't become a weekly thing again.

Currently Reading: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austin and Seth Grahame-Smith

Might as well post this now.

I headed off to London today, hoping that I'd get to Expo this time...and I got as far as Reading. That's half an hour away from London. I paniked again. So I came home. And have spent most of the day either sleep or miserable.

I've contemplated trying again tomorrow, but I can't emotionally or financially afford to risk failing again. I've wasted £90 already on pointless train fares.

When I failed to go to Ayecon I told myself I was going to go back and see my therapist and I didn't. But this time I think I need to. I've sent her an e-mail, but I know she's away until the 29th so I'll have to wait til next month now. I can't allow things to go on like this. I really wanted to go to Expo, but I allowed myself to get too worked up over the journey and staying over night.

I think I need to take some pressure off myself and work my way back up. My mum said she'll come with me one weekend to London just to work on getting on the underground seeing as for some reason that was the thing that caused the most anxiety.

One way or the other I have to do something or else I'll never get to Scotland next year.

Currently Reading: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austin and Seth Grahame-Smith.


 

This is gonna sound insane, but true.

I left this evening to go to London all ready for the expo tomorrow. I managed to get to London more or less alright and then at Paddington I had a panic attack. I just couldn't bring myself to go any further. I was shaking and in tears and Luke was very supportive. In the end I decided to come home.

That's right, I spent near three hours on the train today just getting to London and back for no purpose.

Grrr, I really can not believe I did that.

I'm trying again tomorrow. I've told myself I will get there tomorrow, even if I have to take all day.

Thankfully, it's running all weekend.

...Well, I failed

The thing that annoys me the most is I actually thought I did well. Seriously, I got back to the test centre thinking I'd done everything just fine. And yet I managed to get 3 serious faults. One had something to do with crossing a solid line on the road. The other apparently involved going ever so slightly back on a hill start. Which even my instructor was confused at. I didn't even loose control of the car at all. The other had something to do with meeting in the road on the way back to the test centre which I thought I'd handled well, but obviously not.

Seriously I feel like giving up. This driving test thing feels like a damn puzzle that just when I think I've got it sorted out it changes on me. Maybe that's what driving is like, I don't know.

At least this time I didn't cry...until I got home, where I screamed my head off.

I just don't get it.

And please I don't want anyone saying they know someone who passed more times or to imply that I'm not having enough practice before the test.

I failed. End of story. I'm not even thinking of next time.

Currently Reading: Partner's in Crime by Agatha Christie.