Hello. I seem to be finding so much of my time taken up recently. Apart from the four hours a day of computer games I'm still playing, I now have my jewellery course and counselling on a Tuesday, I've started a new Confidence Course on Wednesdays (at 10.15am!), and every other week I usually have an appointment with my employment coach on Thursdays. Altogether, this tends to mean that the middle part of my week is very, very packed, and I spend most of the rest of the week trying to get over it.

It woudn't be so bad, but it's the combination of having to get up slightly earlier on Tuesdays to go the course, then not getting back in until about 8.30pm that night, and having to get up at 8 on Wednesdays. While still trying to fit in my computer games so I feel like I'm getting my leisure activity time, and not varying it in a way that might get difficult when it comes to my OCD. Sometimes it seems a bit rubbish, given that by 12.30 on Wednesdays I have nothing else to do, and every other week I have nothing else to do for the rest of the week, aside from have my MN over on Thursdays. But by 12.30 on a Wednesday I'm usually slightly exhausted, and I do feel myself still feeling that way a couple of days later. A part of me keeps feeling like I want to jack in the Confidence Course, because I have (sort of) been on it before. But going out for earlier starts is supposed to be the kind of thing I'm challenging myself on and trying to work more into my regular routine. And I do like the course. So I probably won't. It's mostly just that when I planned to have more things I was doing every week, I sort of also planned to have them a few days apart so I could recover, not sort of all squashed in the middle. But it hasn't turned out like that, obviously. It's not that bad, and I can always stop going to things if I want to, and I have had a bit of a whinge about it to my employment coach. It's just sort of exhausting, that's all.

Anyway. There's still not a lot to report, unless you really want to hear me bang on about everything I love and hate about Skyrim and Saints Row 2. I have a list of things that annoy me in both if you do want to hear about that. At the moment I'm mostly trying to go through my quest backlog in Skyrim, which is sort of interesting and gives me a sense of achievement, but is also starting to feel a bit perfunctory. Still, I do feel like those imaginary people have been waiting for me to complete their quests for long enough. And in Saints Row 2 I am almost finished with the gang storylines, I have gotten rid of two of the three gangs that were in the city when I started it, and I am probably going to finish off the last gang tomorrow, at which point I will presumably start on the Ultor storylines. There are only three Hoods owned by Ultor, although it seems like there's going to be more to it than that, seen as how the game keeps mentioning them and they're like this massive company. So I genuinely don't know how close or far away I am from finishing (and I don't really want to). My save game information says I've completed about 60-something percent of it, but a lot of that is to do with side acitivites and jobs and things, so I still really don't know. Hmm.

Most of what I want to say about Saints Row 2 is just how much better it is when you play as a female character. From a gender standpoint, obviously. I know that's going to seem incredibly obvious, but just - everything's gayer. It's passing the Bechdel test left right and centre. IT'S AWESOME. And so on. They have some decent female secondary characters, whoever you play as, but they also have quite a lot of problematic stuff. And obviously it's not really the same as making a game like Saints Row 2 with a specific main female character - the same as it's difficult to be fannish about Skyrim or Saints Row 2 (which I am) when there isn't really a specific main character to discuss - but just the option makes it so much better and ksdjfklsdjfkljfklsd it's great. I LOVE DARCY.

Anyway. Other than that, I was sort of planning to go down to Nottingham last Saturday for the ACTA protest, but then I didn't. Like I've said, I sort of want to go travelling about a bit before my Young Person's Railcard runs out, and it would give me a chance to go to the Focus Gallery and maybe see Alys Power as well. But then I remembered that those types of protests tend to start at 9am or something, and I was exhausted, and it was possibly about to snow again, and even if it didn't it was still kind of cold. So I didn't. But I was there in spirit. Sort of.

And the other main thing that's happened is that - if you've been reading this LJ for awhile you may have noticed me previously complaining about having to buy a new version of Microsoft Word soon, because I couldn't register the copy of my mum's I had installed on this laptop, and it was telling me I could only use it 22 more times or something. Well, as is my usual way, I didn't buy a new copy of Microsoft Word, I just stopped writing on it or saving fic I liked to it or reading old fic I had saved on it. But the other night I decided I did want to read some old fic, so I opened it for what it told me would be the last time. And then when I was finished I closed it and decided to open it again just to check that it definitely was unusable now. And it started up just fine, and told I just wouldn't be able to use certain features now! Those cunts. I mean, obviously, the point is to make each and every single person go out and buy their own copy of Microsoft Word. But they had me thinking it would just SHUT DOWN PERMANENTLY after my allowed uses were used up. And now it's just fine. Set of bastards. skdfjkdjskl.

And the other main thing that's annoying me is that, it's really nice that there are websites set up so that little-known artists can sell their prints to people who like them. But it might also be nice to have somewhere - somewhere VISIBLE - a page telling you how they ship them, and where they ship to, and how much it generally costs, before you actually try to buy something. The two I have seen seem to ask you to pay using Paypal, and I know I've seen on sites before that they can somehow use your address on Paypal to send things to you, so I'm guessing that's how they do it. Still. A page EXPLAINING that or even SAYING IT SO YOU KNOW might be useful. Grrr.

Some other things that have happened in my life:

• I made it to Holmfirth for the art market on Sunday. Despite it taking two hours to get there, getting up late, and missing the next bus after I did get up. On the way, I discovered exactly how beautiful some of the rural towns only a few hours busride from my house could be. The main ones being West Clayton and Denby Dale. It's hard to describe, they were just full of weird little cottages and churches and things that obviously used to be churches but weren't anymore. They were sort of creepy and beautiful at the same time. It was a really nice busride. Then I got to Holmfirth, which was also beautiful. It's an old mill town, and they've got a slightly exaggerated idea of what a river is, but it's a really beautiful place all the same. The art market was also lovely, and I manfully bought hardly anything. Unfortunately, the jewelley maker I'd been meant to be picking my necklace up from had forgotten it, which was disappointing, but I know her quite well and she was really nice about it, and she's promising me a big discount when I finally do get it, so I'm not too upset. But it was a really nice day out either way. I had lunch in a tearoom, decorated with little teapots. It was wicked.



• I may have made a huge mistake in, having finished the main questline of Oblivion, installing and starting the two expansion packs included in the Fifth Anniversary Edition at the same time. The problem is that one comes before the other, it doesn't have to but technically, you know, but I like the second one better. So I'm just playing both! And not really focusing properly on either! And it sort of gives me a headache! But maybe it's better than just playing one until it's used up and then using up the other, I don't know. Probably I should still just pick one and stick with it.



• Yesterday I managed to make it to my jewellery course, go most of the way to make my first 'piece' (a very, very small house with windows on that might be going to be a brooch or pin), then get to Wakefield for my counselling, and in between I got a call offering me an interview for the job I applied for. Considering that I started my period on Monday and didn't know if I was going to be able to stand up yesterday, it turned out to be a very good day :D



• Death Valley turned out to not have done the horrible thing I thought it might do, hurrah! And it did something else that pleased me. So hurrah again!



• ( Grimm 1.03 )



• ( Once Upon A Time 1.04 )



• Also, adverts. During the time when I wasn't posting, I discovered what was probably my least favourite advert in the whole world. It's had a lot of competition over the years, but it's definitely, definitely the McDonalds 'On The Street Where You Live' advert. It's just such a perfect combination of trying to be something it isn't, hideous, and nothing, that I really can't believe it. Shortly after I made this decision, I didn't see it as much, and thought they'd pulled it. But no. It's still on. It's horrific.
  
  Also, on a similar note but much better note, Charlie Brooker and We Love Hollyoaks have pointed out the Sevenesque-ness of the new John Lewis christmas advert. And now I can't unsee it.



• Someone I don't know is following me on Twitter. I forgot about that aspect of the whole social networking thing. Ugh. It's fine I'm sure. They haven't talked to me yet. I just cannot imagine what they have joined up for, looking at my tweets page. But they did. Fine.



• That is all the news I can think of right now.

Hello. I am still around. Oblivion has just continued to take over my life, that's all. I still love my horse and girlfriend best. Except that I'm now getting to the stage where I can afford a better horse, and kind of want one, so I'm kind of feeling some guilt over that. And nothing further has really happened with my girlfriend. I'm starting to get the feeling that most of the game isn't going to be about our epic love. But that probably means they're much less likely to kill her, so in a way I'm quite happy with that. Also, I've mostly learned that brown bears are literally the bane of my in-game existence. Somehow I have as much if not more trouble killing them than minotaurs and ogres. Fucking brown bears.

Anyway. Other than that, I've mostly been involved in Resident Evil fandom. My Resident Evil journey has been a slightly odd one though. Basically, I'd heard about it for years, vaguely, as you might expect. Then I started watching 666theheartless666's Let's Play videos, and in one of them he mentioned Wesker and one of his catchphrases, and I thought it sounded vaguely familiar, so I looked it and Wesker up, and learned a bit about him. Then I came into the room one day and found my dad watching part of one of the Resident Evil films, and saw a bit of Alice and Wesker and some of the other characters, and I looked for fic, but not terribly seriously, just to see if it was there.

Then I watched 666theheartless666's Let's Play of Resident Evil 5. And to be honest, I really didn't notice that much about it. Until I noticed HOW GAY WESKER AND CHRIS WERE. And then I really did start looking for fic, and found loads. And I thought about looking for the previous games, so I could actually see what had happened in them. But I figured they were so old, I probably wouldn't be able to find them, I probably wouldn't be able to play them, and there probably wouldn't be any Walkthrough's of them on Youtube or anything. So I got on with spoilering myself, and reading all the fic.

But now it turns out that you CAN get hold of the older games, that I probably COULD play some of them if I wanted to because my PS3 is backwards compatible with PS1 games, and that there ARE walkthroughs of them on Youtube. And I ummed and aahed and put it off a bit, because I knew that walkthroughs would take time and might not be that gay, whereas the fic was RIGHT THERE, and it WAS pretty gay. But now I am trying to watch at least some of the previous games. So that I can actually know the canon - more than I already do - before reading (more) of the fic.

Anyway. I've watched a Jill playthrough of the first game so far, and am watching a Chris playthrough of the Director's Cut of the first game at the moment. And friends - I had no idea how wonderful they could be. The cutscene at the beginning was more than thrilling enough. The only thing I can think to compare it to is Ripper, and yet Ripper - somehow - had better acting in it. Then we got onto the actual games, and the joys of the voice-acting. "A master of unlocking". I HAD HEARD ABOUT IT BUT I DIDN'T KNOW. Oh my god. So yeah. In some ways the playthroughs are their own reward. There's not a lot of gay so far. But I'll let you know if there is. Maybe.

So anyway. That's mostly what I'm doing at the moment. Playing Oblivion and watching Resident Evil playthroughs. And sometimes reading Resident Evil fic. I've fallen behind with pretty much everything else, including soaps. Which is a shame, because last week was the Costello-McQueen wedding week, which I'm assuming was a pretty big week for Seth, one of my favourite characters. I want to catch up on that but I don't know when I'll have the time. I still have a month or so before it goes on 4od anyway. And in the meantime I'm trying to do more useful things, like trying to tidy up my bedroom and do some of that stuff I'm supposed to be doing for my Employment Service thing. And go to that jewellery course. Um. Tomorrow. So yeah. There's that.

I've not been reading a lot of my flist a lot lately or downloading any shows - NTSF:SD::SUV finished, and I really can't find a new episode of Death Valley anywhere. And I really haven't noticed if any of the new shows I wanted to watch have started. But I am still around. Mostly. Just probably killing monsters and running away from bears, more than anything. x

So, today:

1. I woke up pretty much in pain from period cramps, and had to spend an hour on the couch waiting for the mefanamic acid I took to kick in so I could get up and go do things.



2. ( Possible period TMI, it's just really irritating )



3. For the second time is as many holidays my parents have gone on without me, my sister turned up unexpectedly at the house, and I had to deal with that. She was here for about twenty minutes, and she still managed to be all annoyed that I wasn't being matey with her, and my youngest nephew spilled crisps all over my dad's study carpet.



4. My cat finally actually did leave a dead bird in front of my garage, and I couldn't really leave it there, so I had to pick it up and put it in the bin.



5. And it turns out, I assume because of the dead birds already in there, that our outside bin is full of maggots.

On the plus side, I got to sit around in my bathrobe for most of the day, eat a tub of Ben and Jerry's ice-cream, and the place doing that jewellery course I was trying to get on a few months ago called this morning and said there was a place for me if I wanted it. They called at about 9am (I think) and were all "It starts today, can you come in today?", and I said "Well, no, but I can come in next week". That seemed to be fine, but they want me to send in my enrolment form and payment so they can save me a place. I think I might just go to Leeds tomorrow and try to take it into them, just in case there's something wrong with it, and so I can make sure it gets there. But that was pleasant anyway.

But still. In other ways, this is probably one of the worst days of the holiday so far. Hmm.

Managed to eat dinner (most of it) and wash my hair last night, and get SOME sleep (yay!), and go to my confidence course today. Which is probably for the best, since next week's is apparently the last one. But anyway, I did it, and I can now make the post I was planning to make at some point last night.

( Last night's Coronation Street )

In other news, while I was trying to finish my dinner last night my parents put on the latest episode of the Apprentice, and I saw probably the only full episode I've ever seen. I think I picked a pretty good one to watch though. ( Spoilers for last night's The Apprentice ).

And in Hollyoaks, Leanne still loves Texas. I had hoped, wildly, that Hollyoaks might do something glorious, like have Leanne, Texas and Doug bond over having loved ones be killed by the maniac murdering girls in Hollyoaks just at the moment, or having been (supposedly) maybe attacked by him, and then TEAM UP to catch him. And in the end Leanne would catch him, partly by out-madding him, and then when he was caught she could own up to having never really been attacked in the first place, and being really sorry. And Texas and Doug would be disappointed in her, but by then she'd have caught the maniac (Silas) and sort of avenged their sister and girlfriend, so they would just love her anyway, and be an OT3 forever. But sadly tonight Texas and Leanne were still hanging out together, but Doug was off with his friends, and then an (unbeknownst to him) underage girl. So possibly not. :(

Hello. Mostly I want to apologise for that post last night. I was quite jittery, and attempting to not let it ruin fannish things/soaps for me. Also it did make me feel a bit better to just talk about it for a bit. Sorry if it was weird and didn't make a lot of sense though.

( The assessment. Cut for rambling, and possibly triggery for mental health issues and thoughts of self-harm )

So anyway. It's over now. I just have to wait and see what happens. Like I say, I've heard all the horror stories online about people with proper physical illnesses, things you can probably measure and everything, being classed as 'fit for work', so I'm not holding out too much hope of getting it. I'd like to, obviously, but I know it might well not be anything to do with me if I don't, or not entirely because of me, or whether or not I deserve it or anything I guess. And even if I don't get it, and I'm not on any benefits for a bit, I'll still have some money coming in, so it won't be too awful. Anyway. We'll see what happens now, I guess. I am glad I've done it, and not done it too badly (I think), though.

So. Anyway. Now all I have to do is my new counselling session tomorrow, and my course on Thursday. Tomorrow should be alright, it's just weird the thought of starting all over again with a new counsellor, and the possibility I might get a counsellor I don't get on with, I guess. But hopefully that won't happen. The main thing I'm worried about now is, after a week of getting up to go to appointments, having to get up and go to my course on Thursday again. I've already been having problems getting up in time to get the bus that gets me there on time as it is, I'm not sure how I'll feel this week. But I don't have go if I don't want to, I guess. Other people skip weeks sometimes, I could too. I'll see how I feel tomorrow, I guess.

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.

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.