girlofprey

Hello.

Things That Have Happened:

I had a birthday. And I partied like it was my birthday. It was an odd day, sort of. It started off with my sister (who I'm not talking to) calling me up at 11am, while I was in bed but not asleep, to wish me a happy birthday, and let my MN wish me a happy birthday. She started talking very excitedly about what I was doing later, and she didn't know what our/our mum's plans were. Also she kept asking me if I was okay, because I sounded a bit 'down' and quiet. My non-verbal signs that I didn't want to talk to her apparently weren't working. Anyway, she also apparently asked my mum what was happening that day, whether we were all going round to hers for cake as usual. Which is what I TOTALLY THOUGHT SHE WOULD DO. But we worked it out, basically, we've just made some plans that didn't involve going to see her. It still feels mean, but I just really don't want to see her, or deal with her on my birthday. Anyway. As it was nice weather, I went out to our local town gardens, then met my mum and ON out of school and we went to a local tearoom for some cake. Then I went for my counselling in Wakefield, and when I came out I went and met up with mum, dad and my ON at the Pizza Hut in Wakefield and we had dinner. Yesterday my MN came over as usual, and we had my birthday cake and candles and stuff, and sent most of the cake back to their house. So he didn't feel left out either.

And the birthday celebrations are sort of still going on. I expressed a wish to go to Cannon Hall Farm, as it is spring and they tend to have lots of baby animals, unlike our local farm shops. So we're doing that tomorrow. And then mum said we can go out for dinner on Sunday, which is also partly because it's Easter next week and I will be in London. It's really nice all of it. My only concern is that it's a little bit full-on, doing all these things, given that I've still got a bunch of appointments next week and then a trip to London to gear up for. But I'm pacing myself and I'm having quite a few days off, so I'll probably be fine.

I also got my feedback from last Friday's interview on Monday. It's a bit confusing really, because the woman said she could only find one HR form for me - making it sound like there should have been more - and she said there were eight questions in the interview, when I'm pretty sure there were nine. There were three people and they had three questions each. But whatever. In any case it was weird, because the questions I thought I'd done worst on were the questions I'd done the best on, and the questions I thought I'd done better on, I did worse on. She told me the marks I got out of ten for each question, and the first three, where I really felt like I was babbling and not saying much of relevance in, I got 8s and 7s for, while the rest were all 4s and 5s. But anyway. It suggests what I need to work on, in any case. I also called my Employment Coach, and told her about the feedback, and she sort of agreed with me that the fact they weren't giving me any sort of feedback, or asking me to expand on any answers - especially when I was only getting 4s and 5s - was a bit weird, and maybe they weren't exactly the best at interviewing either. But anyway. It's nice to know it wasn't a complete disaster, and like I say, I've got things to think about and work on for next time, at least.

Other things that have happened, in the week when I had the interview, included my finally finishing two games, The Darkness and Wet. It was sort of funny really, I'd not played either of them for about three months while playing Saints Row 2 and Skyrim, and had studiously avoided looking anything about them up in case of spoilers, and then when I actually started playing them again it only took me a few days to a week each to finish them. Oh well. None of you probably know what either of those games are. Suffice it to say that the ending of The Darkness was weirdly left hanging in a way I didn't expect, and then when I looked it up I was suprised to find out that The Darkness is actually a comic book series from 1996, and only got recently made into a game. Which possibly explains the unfinished feeling of the first game. And I'm quite looking forward to playing the game's sequel, which came out last month, and which I'm hoping is as good as the first one. And I love Wet. And Rubi Malone. Nobody ships her with the man I ship her with (except possibly one person who made a video). But it's still brilliant. And maybe I can look up posts about 'Wet' a bit more safely now that Tumblr has apparently got rid of a lot of it's porn.

Speaking of which, I still haven't heard back about either my complaint to ITV about that victim-blaming Loose Women thing, or the complaint I sent to Tumblr about the dumbthingswhitepplsay thing. I wonder if I ever will. I have no idea what the general timescale for replying to complaints is.

The only thing I'm really watching at the moment is Coronation Street. They seem to have mysteriously ended the Carla storyline by not looking at or having any scenes with Carla, which is...odd. But it's sort of miles better at the moment because they're letting David be onscreen again, and letting him shout at and try in a messed-up way to protect people again. Even though the argument he had with Audrey last night seemed a bit weird. I did pause right in the middle of it to listen to something mum was saying in the kitchen, but it didn't seemed to end with Audrey saying things she would never say. In my opinion. Anyway. It's a shame that I only really believe in Kylie when she's being a nasty, money-grabbing cow, but that the only reason I can see for her getting involved in the storyline too. Because she doesn't really seem to care that much for Audrey. But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe she has good, beautiful reasons for being involved.

So. My main job at the moment is too remember not to spend all my money before next weekend. Which is a little unfortunate, because Black March is ending tomorrow, and there are things that I've been sort of putting off buying. But I still need to pay my half of the hotel room, and it's the convention I go to that doesn't involve food in the room price, so I'll have to have some money put away for that too. I do at least have my tickets all booked and sorted though. And I do have a bit of birthday money at the moment, and I should be getting another ESA payment on Wednesday, so I should be alright. As long as I remember not to spend about £400 in the next week or so. I really shouldn't do that. I am planning on getting another secondhand console at some point though - it turns out that CEX (which I totally love) really does sell PS2s, and at a pretty good price. Just not in the next few days.

Today I:

• Watched some of the snooker and fell slightly in love with Dominic Dale. I'M SORRY JUDD TRUMP. I try so hard to support you. But I just never do. He was very good again by the end though.
  
  I have a slightly odd relationship with snooker. I really enjoy it, but my actual commitment to watching matches is sort of...in and out. But then there are particular players to whom I seem to have the same reaction as in this Hark! A Vagrant strip. Except not sexual. Mostly. In any case, previously this has only really been John Higgins. But today Dominic Dale sort of joined those ranks. Well done to him. I wish he had won his match.



• Having seen quite a lot of videogame art on Tumblr and having recently fell in love with (though still not finished) the game Wet, I decided to search for 'wet' on Tumblr. I won't be doing that again.



• I was going to call my doctor and arrange an appointment before my current sick note runs out again, but I checked it today and apparently I'm good until the 28th. And the last I remember, you can only make appointments at my doctor's surgery for the following week, unless I'm very much mistaken. So I don't really know what to do about it now. I decided to not call today and maybe try going in and asking about it tomorrow, or some other time.



• I got my mum to go and put various bits of cash I had stashed around the house into my bank account, so I can actually buy some things. Like tickets for my trip to London this weekend. Hurrah!

Here's what's been happening in my life:

• I watched Sleepy Hollow again. It is kind of rubbish, but Johnny Depp is very good.



• I went to see X-Men: First Class again. It is still kind of rubbish.



• I went to Santander! (I know it doesn't have any punctuation in it, but that's just how I want to say the word whenever I think of it) to try to get my banking details sorted out so I can pay mum back for the expensive necklace I bought in Prague. Also so I have access to my banking details. While I was there I checked my balance and turned out to have slightly more money than I thought I did. Hurrah!



• The Riverside Festival in Nottingham is happening in about a month, and despite having a bit more money than I thought I did, I am still uncertain about whether I'm going. K and I talked about going together when I was in London in February, but I haven't heard from her since. And it feels a bit odd to contact her about it when I don't actually know if I can afford to go. Hmph.



• I've started my appeal process. I finally got the form filled in over the weekend, went in to the Jobcentre on Monday to check I was doing it right, got some slightly confusing advice (the man told me to call and notify the office on the letter, and when I called they weren't bothered about that). But I sent it off that day, and got a call today saying the appeal process was in the works, and in the meantime they'd be paying me. Now I just need to get a doctor's note again though. Hmph.



• I watched Coronation Street tonight, and David has weird hair again and made a joke about his wife doing things to him that 'weren't consensual'. I love him. He didn't become INCANDENSCENT like the Sky programme description promised he would, but still.



• I've been sending a few 38 degrees emails to my local MP, Yvette Cooper, and now she's emailing ME asking me to fill in questionnaires and petitions. Booooo.



• I discovered a new webcomic to follow, Band Vs Band. It's got some quite lovely art, and a lot of slash. And how. Honey/Turpentine forever.



• I finished Folklore, a game I have been playing for a few months! And a thing I thought was going to happen sort of happened, but not really in the way I was expecting it. It was pretty sad though. Also I ended up sort of shipping Ellen/Keats. Who knew?

I think that's about it. Mostly my life in the last week has involved appointments, form filling in, and checking the X-Men kink memes. A prompt of mine got filled! That was pretty nice. It wasn't for a pairing, but still. It's still only vaguely alleviating the kink meme experience for me though. And finding other anonymous Charles/Shaw fans. I still keep checking though. No-one is less proud of me for doing this than me.

Also, I found some old/newer episodes of Will and Grace on some channel on Sky somewhere. Oh Karen! And Will a bit. And Jack sort of. And whenever Karen and Will get to have scenes together. And y'know, Grace. It's kind of weird seeing some of the jokes they used to do on there, but kind of lovely all the same. Oh Karen! That's mostly my reaction.

Also I love Mitzeee and Brendan Brady and Jacqui from Hollyoaks. And Carmel is pretty this week! That is all.

( Further thoughts on Coronation Street )

Well. I've pretty much enjoyed this week of Coronation Street, even with it's occasional lows, anyway.

Also, some Emmerdale news! ( Possible future Emmerdale casting/return spoiler )

Also, I'd like to tell you that in the end I just gave up and decided to open the MP3 player and start using it. I've been gearing up to buy it for a while, and the one from the website wouldn't come for at least 3-5 days, and I'm going on holiday in two weeks, so I don't really want to be messing about or possibly missing the return date. And it's only £10, and I didn't go to the cinema this week, so it probably evens out. I'll probably be annoyed if I have to pay for another customs charge on some Threadless t-shirts though. Growl.

The only problem now is that I've plugged it in to charge, and the only user's manual I got is a tiny booklet that explains what the buttons are for, so I'm not really sure how I'll be able to tell when it's charged. Hmm.

I want to go check if So You Think You Can Dance is on now. I don't think I ever said how sad I was about Charlotte going last week. It's really kind of a shame that the first week she wasn't with Matt, she got pretty bad comments for pretty much all her dances, and then got sent home. But I could kind of see some shortfalls in her dances compared to some of the other girl's dances. I have decided that Matt is my favourite now. Especially after that boys' group dance. With Kirsty coming in probably second. And Lee B probably in third. Ironically, I decided I quite liked Bethany Rose last week, for the first time, while she was doing her hip-hop dance, which the judges hated. I get the feeling Katie will win though. Partly because she's a really good dancer, partly because she's quite pretty, and partly because she's been pretty popular all the way through. I'll still probably be watching until the end though (or until all my favourites go, if that happens, I guess).

Hello. I went to jekesta's for the weekend to watch Eurovision with her and cakesy. Which was lovely. I was rooting for Iceland and Moldova and possibly Ireland, but Azerbaijan stormed through. Somehow. Also we watched MANY OTHER THINGS. I can now proudly say I have watched all of the paintball episodes of Community, and the latest Parks and Recreation (I am a fool to not keep up with it), and roughly half of Crusoe. Neither Crusoe nor Friday are kings of Narnia (probably). But that doesn't mean it would have been weird for them to make themselves crowns.

Also jekesta watched Vera with me, which was lovely of her. Now she too knows how lovely Vera and Joe are, and how slightly incompetent at being police they sometimes are. Also I saw some of Summer Holiday for the first time, and was only squicked out by some of it, and while cakesy was there we saw one of the weirdest episodes of Columbo ever. Apparently if you date the main witness of a murder you commit, you can nearly get away with pretty much anything. Also, sharks help solve crime. Fact. Um. Sort of.

Anyway. We also watched So You Think You Can Dance (oh, Rithy), and Doctor Who. Well.

( Spoilers for The Doctor's Wife )

Anyway. I'm back now. I got the Settle-Carlisle line back to Leeds, which sadly now appears to be the Leeds-Carlisle line. It was still lovely though. There were all sheep and lambs in the fields, often getting spooked by the train running past. I quite love the train journeys to and from Lancaster.

In other news, money. After accidentally leaving a gap in my sick notes and not hearing anything from the Department for Work and Pensions about it, I wasn't sure how much I had last week. So I checked just before going to Lancaster, tomake sure I had enough for train tickets and food and stuff, and they had totally paid me, and I had £300. I'm pretty sure I have quite a lot less than that now though. After going straight out to New Look to buy some clothes I'd been wanting but didn't think I could afford, and then some random bits of jewellery from Topshop, and then some t-shirts when Threadless reprinted some designs I'd wanted. But I'm hoping to keep it a bit more under control from now on, and I should be getting paid again on Thursday anyway. Yay.

In other news, next week isn't looking like it's going to be a fun week for me. I was thinking last week that it was going to be tough, because I had a doctor's appointment that week, then my first new counselling session, then my disability assessment, then my confidence course. But then I remembered that no, my doctor's appointment was this Friday, so it wasn't so bad. Then this morning I got a letter from my doctor, saying that sadly my doctor's appointment on Friday would have to cancelled, so could I call up to arrange another. I called up and the earliest they can see me is next Monday. So it is pretty much going to be like I thought it was going to be. Hmph.

Also, re: this week's Oglaf: askdfjklasdfhjkasdfnhj what?

So. I've had a busy week. Sort of. ( On Tuesday I went to Nottingham )

( And on Thursday I went to Wakefield and Leeds )

Anyway. Then today my mum came back from her holiday with my sister and my two nephews. I was invited on this holiday, but I said no in the end, because I remembered what happened last time we went on holiday to Filey with my sister and my two nephews in April, and I didn't feel like I'd be up to doing it at the moment. She got back tonight at about half past seven, and she looked shell-shocked, and I asked her how it had been, and she said "Put it this way, this morning I bit a hole in a football." Which I think says it all. She's glad to be home, I think.

My parents gave me £50 for my birthday. And apparently, the Playstation 3 is coming tomorrow. Which is very nice of them. Especially since I realised that even if I have the Playstation 3 and manage to hook it up to a decent screen, I don't have any games to play on it, and I can't afford the ones I like. But now I can. I'm a bit excited really. This is the first time I've ever had a games console, aside from the time my sister borrowed a Playstation off a friend of hers for a few days when I was in highschool. We played a bit of Tomb Raider for a few days, couldn't get out of a cave, and then gave it back. Good times.

We went out for lunch as well, to The Rustic Arms, which is a pub in Ackworth that I haven't been to since I was a teenager, and used to go to a bit as a kid. It had a big playground and a lake/pond, and we thought it might be better for my nephews than the slightly posher place we normally go to. The playground has either been changed or I remember it being a lot bigger, and the pond was fenced off for the local fishermen/people, but it was lovely, and really child-friendly, and the food was really nice, so it was quite a nice day out. We came back to my parents' house for some cake, and brought my grandma down, which she ended up complaining ferociously about (as always), but there were no real fallings-out and it stayed quite nice. And then I came back and watched the Dancing On Ice final, and Chris Dean and Jayne Torvill danced the Bolero, and Craig Mclachlan, with beautiful scruffy hair and a load of stubble, skated a little bit of his routine he did in the first week. Which was all lovely.

However, I am not so pleased about this habit of me having to lose an hour of my birthday, world. I dimly recall it happening before, I think. Less of that, please.

Anyway. In other news:

• Since reading all of Gastrophobia in the last week or so, I thought I couldn't love it more. But then I saw the latest strip, and it turned out I COULD love it more. New Who lovers may want to, um, not read that. ETA: UNLESS YOU LOVE PARODY. Maybe you should read it then.



• It's a Cracked.com article, so possibly on shaky ground scientifically or prone to exaggeration, but apparently crows are even more intelligent and slightly terrifying than we generally thought they were. Crows will TELL THEIR FRIENDS YOU ARE DANGEROUS AND TRIED TO HURT THEM. I love crows. And even after that article, am only slightly afraid of them.



• I also spent a lot of last night reading various Cracked.com articles about many comic book stories/characters you will probably wish did not exist. It's the combination of hysterical laughter and horror that is such a big draw for me.

Hello, it's me again. It probably doesn't need saying at this point, but I'm not doing a pairing picspam today. I still don't have my antivirus protection sorted out, so I can't relaly use my computer at the moment. My current situation with my antivirus protection is that I went into my local WH Smiths, not expecting them to be selling Norton Antivirus protection, but they were, but it was the new 2011 package so even with the discount they were offering it was still £35.99. Which is better value than £39.99 to update my old package, but not much cheaper. My dad either looked at the licenses he's got and found out they were no good and didn't tell me, or decided not to do that and didn't tell me, or forgot about it, but he's not mentioned it since. But he's said that if people have Barclays online banking, which I have, they can get free antivirus protection packages with that. But he didn't say what kind or how good they were, so I'm meant to be looking it up, which I haven't yet. But yes. My progress is still basically in the planning stages.

Meanwhile, I have been playing lots of Black And White 2 again, and am nearly finished with it. I'm on the last level, and things were looking a bit awful for a while, but I got some unexpected in-game help and now I just have to impress the Aztecs or destroy them. One of the two. But anyway. I got excited a few days ago, because I thought that if Black And White 2 works on my new laptop when it didn't on my old one, maybe Oblivion, which I never bought because my old computer didn't meet the system requirements, might work on it too. Oblivion is one of the Elder Scrolls games, in the same series as Morrowind. I may have mentioned before that I LOVE THEM INCREDIBLY. And it looks like Oblivion totally would work on my new laptop, so I'm pretty excited to get that at some point. Except not now, because with the two expansion packs it's still about £40. BUT, Bethesda announced suprisingly last year, after no word on it for ages, that they were bringing out a new Elder Scrolls game in November this year, Skyrim. And after thinking maybe Oblivion would work on my new laptop, I briefly thought that maybe Skyrim would work on it as well, given that it's a brand new laptop, and they are unlikely to make a game that you can't play on anything that wasn't bought a few days before the game came out. But then I remembered I have a new laptop, and it's PCs that the games are generally designed to be played on. And there are no system requirements out for Skyrim out at the moment, but based on some predicted system requirements someone made, it sounds like it wouldn't work on my laptop. Which is pretty irritating because generally, I was a lot more psyched about ( General spoilers for Skyrim storyline ) than political intrigue in the Imperial City. But whatever. I probably can't convince my dad I need a brand new pc in the same year as I got a brand new laptop. Oh well.

In other news, blah. I'm still not unpacked from London. I don't think my bank account is looking very healthy. Past Times has some new jewellery out for this season, and some of it's lovely and costs more than a few pounds, and that isn't really fair. I watched the last episode of Mad Dogs. And I just recently watched the episode of Emmerdale after detective Nick something shot himself in front of Katie and OH MY GOD, OH MY GOD. Everything I predicted about how she would react to it and towards Andy came true but even worse than I imagined, oh God. And I can't stand how soaps have women do bad things but for justified (to them) reasons and then let people/men shout at them in a really intimidating/demeaning way over it, I really can't. They've done it to Becky in Coronation Street this week, and they did it to Ruth in Casualty, and oh my God. I properly hate it. But David's turned up with fiancee, finally. A few weeks ago the actress playing her was doing an interview in one of the soap mags and discussing how Gail would react, and the woman said everyone knew how "possessive" Gail was over David. Hmm. Possessive. Yes. She was getting a bit possessive tonight. I'm sure this will turn out pretty much as well as the last time Nick got engaged to someone. Although David's slightly less inclined to take it from her, I think. Well, we'll see if they make it to the wedding, I guess.

You know what's a good film? The Big Easy. I watched it, or the last half of it, last night. Cajun detectives may be my favourite kind of detectives. Although John Leguizamo may soon PROVE ME WRONG. Oh. The main detective was called Remy, and had a bweautiful accent, and called people "cher". He was a bit creepy at the woman he liked, but mostly he was very good. And you know how people sometimes get excited that Dennis Quaid is going to be in films? I TOTALLY UNDERSTAND THAT NOW. Dude.

In other news, good news! You remember that CD I was banging on about a lot a few weeks ago, that I might have to go to Paris for? I've found a place on the internet that sells it. Thank you, Wales. Unfortunately just at the moment I have no money. TO say I have zip would be being kind. I had to transfer money from my savings account, which I said I wasn't going to do anymore, to cover this month's rent. But hmm. Eventually.

Right now I have wet clothes to hang up , and I have to go do this week's food shopping. Eventually I'll have time to myself. I might watch Being Human tonight.

I've been thinking about taking one of the film courses at the Broadway as well this autumn. Oddly, I'm not usually interested in any of them, but now I'm looking at three. There's one about Canadian cinema, which appeals to me even though I'm not sure why. There's one about An Alternative History of the Western, which looks at female-led Western films, I think. And there's one about Anime from the Second World War to now, which probably wouldn't interest me so much except except that I really love Laputa: Castle in the Sky. And it's meant to be quite renowned, I think, so they might talk about it. They all sound a bit great.

Hello. I spent the weekend at my parents. It's my dad's birthday today. Most of the weekend was spent doing a puzzle at my nephew's behest, and trying to finish it before he smashed it. Also trying to work out a lot of what he was saying, like telling "No me scared" from "Mummy, red". He has gone from calling me 'Rari' to 'Ra-el'. I love him quite a lot. Also, parents and I went to see Elizabeth: The Golden Age. Mostly what I've learned from it is that Clive Owen really can act like a twat, and Samantha Morton is a bit hot as Mary Queen of Scots. But personally, I prefer Blackadder's Elizabeth.

Anyway. I'm sort of out of a job at the minute. There was a lot of confusion at the university job, with me going next week and then possibly needing to stay another week, but they couldn't get in touch with HR, and basically they didn't tell me I was definitely finishing last week until 3 o'clock on Friday afternoon. After which I immediately called the agency, but the only job they had was another university job which had also been filled by their HR. ( Blathering about work )

But yes. I'm sort of a bit penniless at the moment. Mostly getting through it by going through old dvds I never watched, and a plan to stay in the flat. After getting some food. I might need to sign up with some other agencies if nothing turns up.

Mostly at the moment I am intrigued by Being Eliza Bennet: Create Your Own Jane Austen Adventure. I saw it in Waterstones today, and omg, what. You get to choose who you marry, but sometimes they get crushed by carriages. And you get to have a list of failings. It's sort of on my Christmas list.

Probably you're all out at bonfires. WELL FINE.