girlofprey

It is Christmas soon. I'm not at all prepared for Christmas. It's December on FRIDAY. However, I have somewhat prepared, because I've taken a week off early in December. I'm hoping that is the time I can use to actually get prepared. I also have an extra holiday day to use up before January, but I have no idea when to take that. I'm thinking either extend the week off, or have a longer Christmas break. I'm leaning towards extending the week, as soon as possible, because I could really do with some time off work right now.

I keep seeing bits of Coronation Street while I'm downstairs with my parents, and the only bit of it I care about is Anna getting Phelan, finally, and I can't believe that they keep giving him magical powers to hurt her, it's disgusting.

Presents wrapped. Christmas eve buffet dinner had. So now I'm just waiting for dad to sidle in and ask me to wrap what he bought for mum for him, and we're done.

Merry Christmas, everyone.

I set out today to clear my bedroom and desk a little bit, in preparation for building and setting up the new computer. And then mostly I stared at the desk, and wasn't sure what to do about any of it. Unfortunately, since I don't clean my bedroom very often, there's a thick layer of dust that has to be dealt with before I do pretty much anything. Plus with all the boxes around from computer parts and Christmas stuff, it became a logistical nightmare. But eventually I did managed to dust some stuff, put it in boxes, and take it to a charity shop, along with a bunch of other things I've been meaning to take for a while.

Plus, the nice thing about buying and shifting so much stuff lately means things are actually quite well set up for continuing to move stuff around. I have a bunch of empty boxes from various Amazon deliveries, and my parents moved a sofa out of our spare bedroom to give to my sister for her new house, so there's a huge empty space in there where non-empty boxes can be stored for a bit. Plus I have more computer parts in my wardrobe than I thought would ever fit. I'm not excited to see the state of the shoes they're on top of when I finally move them out, but c'est la vie.

To be honest though, I'm not sure when I'm going to build this thing. If I spend all day preparing the bedroom, I still won't really have time to do it today - all the guides are very specific about building it very far away from any dust, so the desk probably needs a very thorough clean before I get started. Then I'm working all week because we don't really get many Christmas holidays. And then it's Christmas. I suppose we get the two bank holidays next week - but one of them's Boxing Day, which is traditionally a chill day where we all recover from having the kids down the day before. Plus mum wants to do some Christmass-y stuff in my room if she can, so a lot of my shifting things around is on hold till she does. Plus I have Christmas decorations of my own I might want to put up. So sigh. I keep thinking about all the PC games I can now play if I have a decent computer, and my brain's like "we can play them today, Rachael!". And it's like no. No we can't. We could, conceivably, but realistically, we won't.

I still need to take my old laptop somewhere. I'm a little bit concerned about data on the hard drive, but no-one really warns you about that, and I'd only be taking it to Curry's or somewhere respectable. Things are so busy at the moment. But it does mean things are moving, which is nice.

I had a dream about the apocalypse last night. Well, first I had a dream about a storm that literally ripped apart most of my home town. Then I had a dream about a proper, everything destroyed, deer and lions in my garden apocalypse, and told my dad (in the dream) "I had a dream about this last night". I think it's from reading the comments in too many posts about the state of American politics at the moment. Although the actual posts are becoming no better - yesterday on ontd_political there was a post by someone saying there was no 100% conclusive proof that Russia was involved in swaying the election, so we shouldn't act like they might have until there was 100% conclusive proof, and the CIA were always lying, and I didn't understand it at all. Until I got to a paragraph about how "anyone who had opposed the smooth, self-entitled rise to power of Hillary Clinton is now accused of being in line with the Ruskies", and I understood what it was actually about.

By the way, can't really explain how furious them calling Hillary Clinton's bid 'self-entitled', when American politics is dominated by men and she has literally been hounded by the Republican press for years, actually makes me. People still say awful things about Hillary Clinton, and I worry sometimes that I'm eventually going to get Truth Delusioned into believing them. But for now I still take inspiration from her.

Anyway. I did end up getting a little stressed out by the overtime last week, although some of that was just about buying so many parts for my computer, and feeling like I had to rush into buying my mum's present so I could hide it within those packages. It totally worked though, because she ended up taking the delivery including her gift, and had no idea about it. As for the PC - I'm in a funny sort of waiting game right now. When I went to buy the PSU I'd been recommended it was out of stock, and Amazon were like "buy it now, we'll send it when it's back in stock". So I did. And now it's been back in stock for more than a few days, and I haven't received any sort of email saying they're sending it to me. Meanwhile, they're promising anyone who orders one now that they can have it the next day, if they choose express delivery! Hmm, Amazon. I'll probably send them an email if this continues. The PSU being the power supply for the computer, it is a pretty important part. And I can't really check if any of the other parts I've bought are faulty or super or whatever till I build the entire thing. But apart from that I've got everything else I need. Apart from an OEM version of Windows I've been recommended by my games shop guy, and - since most of those I've seen are on disc, and nowhere does it suggest the computer I'm currently building has a CD-ROM, a plug-in CD-ROM. I have no idea when I'm going to build it, though. Certainly not before the PSU comes.

Other than that though, yesterday was pretty productive. I took some stuff to the charity shop, finally, and picked up some wrapping paper and a card for my YN's birthday tomorrow, and even managed to pick up my MN and sister's presents. I also got an idea for what to buy my dad this week, and I can pick up my ON's present in Leeds when I'm there for work, which only leaves my YN's Christmas present, and I'm told he loves Paw Patrol. And I'm looking forward to going back to my regular hours next week, and I have the Last Guardian and Trico's amazing, and generally everything's going quite swimmingly at the moment. I am bleeding again though. Which is kind of annoying.

Anyway. Speaking of female artists I used to love and then forgot about, do you remember when we learned to Hit Em Up Style?



I don't really love this music video like I do the last one, but I do love the song.

Christmas whale.

It doesn't feel very Christmas-y though. I don't know if it's the mild weather or the fact I'm working, so that takes up most of my time, but it's true. Or maybe it's that people are still reeling in shock from all the politics stuff, so no-one's really in the spirit. Watching Sky News all day really doesn't make me feel too Christmas-y. But anyway, it's true. I can sing Christmas carols to my heart's abandon, even though I don't feel like it, and yesterday I tried to think of even one and could only come up with 'Greensleeves'. Anyway. I'm going to have to do some Christmas shopping soon too, although I don't know when. I have an idea for something to get my mother, and I have the money for it this year too - but it does mean I'll probably need to get my dad something of a similar value, and I don't know what that is. Plus the kids. It's my YN's birthday in less than two weeks. Although I do have a present from last year that I never used hidden away in a drawer. Maybe that will have to do.

After all my worrying about how much time I have these days (despite my claims to the contrary), they're asking me to work extra hours next week, because the morning receptionist is on holiday. I awkwardly explained to my boss that I have OCD and find changes to my routine hard, so I couldn't say I was raring to do it, but I would. He was very nice about it, and said maybe I wouldn't find it as bad as I thought it would be, so we could take about covering in future after that. The thing is it's not the work, it's the amount of time outside of work I'm going to have. They want me to go in for 11 - and really, I think he was hoping for 10 - which means I won't have to get up any earlier, but I won't have time to have a shower on a morning like I usually do, and I won't be able to stay up a little late, because if I sleep in it will really fuck me. So I'll have less time of an evening. But maybe it's only my expectation of what I'm going to get done in a day that really upsets me, and if I let go of that it will be okay, or better at least. And it is only for a week. But the morning receptionist is pregnant, and so she's going to be off for months shortly, and I really don't think I can do that, no matter how well next week goes. I came to this job very much as a part-time job. But like I say, they've been very nice and flexible so far, so we'll see.

Things I have been doing: playing Final Fantasy XV. It's a game that's taken 10 years to come out, so it felt very special to pick it up on day one. And the game had a little leaflet in the front, which was a print-out of a thank you note signed by everyone on the team that made it. Which was lovely. I wanted to get my own opinion of it, rather than just having to listen to all the reviews and whether it was a 'real' Final Fantasy game or not. And I really like it. It's very atmospheric, and everything sort of feels like it goes together, which is hard thing to explain but really makes a game feel special for me. When the story and the characters and the mechanics all seem to work together, and nothing's jarring or feels too 'video-gamey', like it's just a set of mechanics. I really like the combat too, which is cool, because a few of the demos felt very janky. I haven't really touched the story yet, but I'm really enjoying it so far. And really, having everything work together is a real achievement for a game that was in development for so long. Well done to them.

Also, I have been reading the original Superman comic strips. They are amazing. Superman does not give a fuck. The first strip involves him going to see a governor in the middle of the night, who has a SOLID STEEL bedroom door. And the butler's like "haha, just try to get through that", and Superman's like "haha, I will" and rips it apart. Then the butler tries to SHOOT SUPERMAN. Like a fool. But Superman just laughs it off. And then saves a woman who was about to be wrongly executed for something she didn't do. It's great. Of interest to me: Jonathan and Martha Kent were not in the story from the beginning. Superman was raised in an orphanage, where they were like "golly!" about his super-strength, but decided not to say anything about it. But Lois Lane was there from strip one. And she is amazing. An example of their dialogue:

Clark: "Why is it you always avoid me at the office?"
Lois: "Please Clark! I've been scribbling 'sob stories' all day long. Don't ask me to dish out another."

Interestingly, I guess because of the time, Clark Kent is the star reporter at the Daily Star, and Lois is a 'sob sister', which basically means an agony aunt/writer of the sentimental pieces. She's pretty mad about it though. Perry White won't put her on a story about a dam bursting, so she tricks Clark and goes anyway. But then she nearly drowns in the flood and Superman has to save her, so it's not like it's super feminist. But still, she's great. And Clark is all about her. Which is quite lovely.

I get paid today, so I can continue to buy computer parts and actually try and get the thing built. Woo hoo. Also the tax credits place have written back to me, and now they want to pay me £380 a month instead of £390. Which is fine. Still seems bizarre to me, and I suspect it won't last past April, when the new tax year starts, and all my 'freshly working, was recently on ESA' stuff won't really apply. But I've queried it, and they've said it's all fine, so it's very welcome. Given that I'll probably be fine on my wage, I can just put it into my savings account. And then, if they decide they DID make a mistake, it will all just be there anyway to give back to them, and I will be mad, but it will be doable.

Meanwhile the company my company's working for is losing money every year, apparently, so I don't know how safe my job is, and my sister's partner's firm went bust, and I thought he'd been taken on by the firm that took over from them, but apparently everyone except him and his friend got picked back up, so he isn't working. And Christmas is coming, and my sister just got a £150 fine for not showing up to an anger management course they said she had to go on after assaulting a woman last year. So it's all a bit up in the air. But we're out of the depths or recession, say the Conservatives! So hooray. My sister and her family are moving into the new house this weekend apparently. They can't afford to pay my parent's rent yet, obviously, but they will at least be in there. So that's something, I guess.

I've asked for two things for Christmas, but all I truly want is this.

It's always Christmas husky. It's never Christmas Wolf.

Christmas was - well. One of the nicer ones I've had for a while. Maybe I should have a weird health scare every year before the big day, and pop some of the tension. But Christmas day was like, I got a bunch of stuff I wanted and hadn't gotten around to buying myself yet, then watching Football's Funniest Moments with my parents, who liked their gifts from me. My sister and the kids came down, and sometimes it was a bit manic, but mostly it was fine, and they played and didn't kick off, and we all had a pretty nice family dinner together.

We had a few blips - my dad screaming at my ON for nearly scratching a new tablet he'd just been bought, and making him cry, me having to argue with him about it. My sister claimed two presents were wrong, stuff she'd ordered online that my mum had picked up - she said they weren't what she'd reserved. My parents went back to the shop today to ask about returning them and the woman showed them a shop record that said she had reserved those exact those, and when my sister called and didn't ask my dad brought it up, and made it sound like she'd messed them around or hadn't done it right. They had a small argument and then hung up, and then she called back to complain about how dad was treating her like she was stupid and being awful to her. But other than that, it's been pretty straightforward. My ON decided he wanted to stay last night and this night, mostly just to play Skylanders on his PS3 from home in the little bedroom - but we watched Arthur Christmas, and had a Boxing Day meal in the fancy dining room we're usually barred from for being too common, and tonight we had snow. Beautiful snow. So all in all, so far it's been quite nice.

( Coronation Street, some spoilers for actors leaving )

I went to a Carol service tonight, for the first time in my life. I don't hear carols sung very often - carollers don't come to our door very much, I think due largely to my dad - and I wanted to do something Christmassy, since at the moment I'm spending most of my time in Dragon Age world and it isn't Christmas there. It was quite nice, but I think I was expecting more of a choir performing for my benefit, and it was in fact a service. It ended with a slight tinge of anti-semitism and islamophobia, and we had a slightly disturbing reading where the response to every line was "But that did not stop the birth" - mostly a warning to low-income pregnant women than anything, but the carols were quite nice. We sang The Angel Gabriel From Heaven Came, which is my favourite, and you don't hear sung very often.

Oh Bianca. (This has become a The Apprentice post). I was very happy she got through last week - it was slightly impossible for her not to when Roisin didn't know anything about food production and Solomon's business plan was pictures. But it was a bit of a shame she didn't know anything about hosiery production and wasn't willing to listen, hopefully she'll do well in the future. Mark chose a team of all men, and the woman who thought all businesswomen should wear short skirts, "for some beauty". Quelle surprise.

I went to Leeds today, and on the way back I passed a sign for a beauty salon, and I couldn't tell if it was called Fantastique or Santastique. I imagine it's probably Fantastique, but if it's Santastique, that is the best Christmas-based pun I've seen in a long time.