girlofprey

So. After all of that whinging at the beginning of the week, here's how things actually played out:

• Part of the reason I was freaking out about the Jobcentre appointment was because at the last one, the advisor said this one would be a telephone appointment. So when I got a letter asking me to come in I assumed something must be wrong, or that I'd got a new advisor who might not be so thrilled at my progress as my previous lady was. Well, I got to the Jobcentre about five minutes ahead of time. 15 minutes later I was still sat there. I gave it another five minutes, then got up to ask if there was a problem, and the lady at the desk had a discussion with my advisor. It turns out I was supposed to have a telephone interview, and my advisor had been planning on calling me I guess, but - I didn't get the whole story on this - someone had gone into her diary for some reason, changed her telephone appointments to office interviews, the letters had gone out reflecting that, then those office interviews had been cancelled. I don't understand it, but it sounds like it was nothing to do with her and as much hassle for her as for me, because she had no idea which other telephone interviews had been messed with too. But anyway, she took me over for a brief chat as usual, like five minutes, and let me go again for the next three months. And that was that.



• I did end up going to Leeds on Wednesday. My (cover) service worker was v understanding about that, and also we didn't have much else to talk about. For those of you following the story with my service worker, my regular guy has been off sick for about five weeks now, and I have asked for a new one now, and for a female worker. Unfortunately the only lady who'd be suitable is also off sick, so it's not sorted out yet. But hopefully sometime this week it will be. But anyway, Leeds. I bought Lego and comics and chocolate, and got a free gift (sort of) from the Body Shop. I felt the most grown up I have in weeks.



• My birthday turned out to be super great. My plan was to spend it doing nothing and talking to no-one, playing video games. I have just started one of the DLC for Fallout: New Vegas for the first time, and it's frustrating but I'm really enjoying it. But anyway, those plans went out the window because my YN was down. So we had party poppers and I learned he can sort of say 'happy birthday', and then we went for a long walk to try to get him to fall asleep. We saw a few horses, one of which was way more excited to see us than I'm afraid we lived up to, another one that tried to eat the buttons off my coat, and maybe my nephew? Apparently he wanted to stroke it but mum didn't want to release him from the buggy because he's hard to get back in, so he just reached out, and this massive horse reached its head all the way down and licked his face. Then it realised we didn't have any treats, even buttons, and left. Maybe we should take carrots next time we go on that walk. Also we made friends with a dog, but it was on a farm full of dogs and another of them wasn't so friendly, so we had to leave. It was freezing cold on that walk, but a lot of fun.
  
  Afterwards my nephew still wasn't asleep though, so we had to go for a drive, but we discovered a whole town we didn't know about, so it wasn't so bad. Then I spent the next few hours building a Lego set what I'd bought. Then cake, which my YN managed to sleep through. Then video games. It was a good day.



• I did get the PS4, which is good because I paid £200 towards it. It was no surprise, because after getting through my Jobcentre interview, I ended up meeting my mum in town, and she was at the shop buying it. The dude did nicely put it in a plastic cover though, so no thieves would be tempted to steal it, so it COULD HAVE BEEN ANYTHING. But yes, it's mine. Haven't played on it yet because the game it came with is one I already have for the PS3, and there's been suggestions I could take it back and get money for it. And the other games are still around £50 - between Lego and going to London next week, I don't have that kind of cash to splash around. But my parents have quite nicely tidied the little bedroom where the PS3's set up (something they've been meaning to do for a while), so when I do get it out it'll be a lot easier to see where the wires are and should go and stuff. Thanks, parents.



• Mother's Day today. When we were out on Tuesday we saw a display of azaleas, which I remarked upon because I'd heard some interesting stories about how they were poisonous (fun fact: if bees make honey out of azaleas, the honey will be poisonous too. If you're looking for an extremely labour-intensive murder weapon, consider azalea honey). Anyway, mum said she used to have one in her student house, and it reminded her of her younger days. So I planned to get her one for Mother's Day. Then on my birthday, it turned out she'd gotten me one. She'd also picked up a little tweeting plush bird, so when it turned out the azaleas were all sold out anyway, I ran and got her one of those. Then yesterday she showed me one she'd bought herself. Dear mothers: you are impossible to buy for. Happy freaking Mother's Day.

Which brings us to today, when I am waiting for lunch because my sister has invited us up to her house for it. I really don't know what to expect. I wasn't expecting this. Apparently she's cleaned up the house and has some new, not-yet-broken furniture from my grandma's house, which just got sold this week. And from what I could tell from a phone call earlier this week she's started cooking, because mum had driven off with her shopping and she couldn't start the dinner without beef for the 'bourguignon' (?). So she's invited us up for Mother's Day. Should be interesting at least. Aside from the fact that I haven't been speaking to her for two and a half years, and my mum apparently spent most of Friday unable to deal with her behaviour and fighting with her. It's in an hour and twenty minutes. At least I still have some birthday cake left.

Well, what an interesting week I've had.

I think in my last post I mentioned my MN was on the points of being expelled from school. Well, last Wednesday he was excluded until after the weekend. Something happened in class, I can't remember what, but he responded by having a tantrum, flinging things around the classroom, and ripping other children's work down off the wall and tearing it up. The teachers took pictures to prove what was happening should it come to that. He went back on Monday, and had to be brought home again that afternoon, but since then he's been okay apparently. My sister's had to finally make an appointment with the doctor for him though, with a possibility he's going to have to be assessed by CAMHS (child mental health services).

Meanwhile, after months of trying to get my ON into my MN's school, so they can go to the same one and only need to be taken across the street, my sister found out this week that one of her old friends from her old neighbourhood just moved near to where she lives, and their child of the same age just got in, with "one place left". So no-one's happy.

And then I had - well, on Sunday my parents and I went to a pub near our house for Sunday lunch, which we do about once a month. And you know how it is, you eat a lot, but I don't think I ate more than usual. And then on Monday I had an appointment with a replacement worker for the service I'm with at the moment, since my usual guy was on holiday, so instead of going and having a drink and a chat we ended up going to the library and hunching over a single library computer while the guy sort of got a bit pushy about what I was going to do next. I mean, I am moving slowly so fair enough, but I want to start kickboxing, and my usual worker used to be some sort of martial arts champion, and he said he was going to tell me about the instructors in the area. So I don't see the point of wasting a resource like that, or booking anything before hearing from him? I don't know. But anyway, it was physically uncomfortable and slightly more stressful than usual for two hours. And as I was walking home my chest was physically hurting whenever I breathed and my abdomen was aching for no apparent reason, and for the next couple of days I could barely eat anything without some sort of physical pain. I skipped a couple of meals altogether. And then my spine got involved, aching like crazy whenever I sat too straight or tried to lie on my back whenever I, I don't know, tried to get some sleep.

My mum said it sounded like a muscle thing - I feel like I somehow strained my entire digestive tract and chest. But even she was surprised by how long it lasted. I'm still feeling it a little bit now. I have to say, as stupid as it sounds, I suspect my sudden passion for I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here had something to do with it. Apart from anything, two to two-and-a-half hours for the show and the aftershow is just a hard thing to fit into your routine, especially when like to be quite set in your routine like me. But I also got pretty wound up hating the people who were picking on one of the girls, and then having to admit to all of that girl's flaws as well. For the record, most of the people getting at her have gone and she's shown herself to be pretty selfish, which I sort of always thought. So it's all gone a bit blah. But yeah. Mum says tension, as in tensing up because you're in pain, is one of the main things that keeps muscle strain going, and I suspect I was tense because of IAC. I could literally feel the pain coming back when I thought about it, and going away when I stopped. So yeah. This is why I don't like watching reality tv shows. Because they tend to be either boring, or quite emotionally full-on in what is probably quite a manipulative way. But anyway. It's a good example of how stress can cause physical problems, I guess.

So that was my week. Problems with my nephews, physical pain and I'm A Celebrity. We did go to Nostell Priory at the weekend though, me, mum, dad and my ON. It was all done up for Christmas, and it did end up making me feel quite festive, finally. The only annoying thing was that they had Christmas carollers, which made me want to sing along, but it was still November and I don't like to sing them before December. It was Temptation Incarnate. But I did get a pair of new gloves in the shop, and because they were the last pair left and were a bit marked because they'd been on display, I got 20% off. Result.

This week, I've got another meeting with my regular service worker (I think) and an appointment with the Jobcentre about my Work-Related Activity. I'm going to ask about the 18 months thing on my appeal statement, but some people have said it's probably from the original assessment and some people have said it's probably from the Tribunal, so I don't know what to think. I'll just have to ask. I should probably do some Christmas shopping as well at some point. And it's my YN's birthday on Thursday. Happily I already bought him a present months ago - the day of my Tribunal, in fact - so that's all sorted. Bar the wrapping, I guess. Hmm. But mostly it should be all in hand. I also got a call back from the local mental health services this week about being referred for CBT, but as I suspected I'm going to have to wait about 2 or 3 months for it. But at least it's moving along, I guess.

So I called the Jobcentre yesterday. Again, it was one of those conversations where I didn't understand everything the guy was saying and I hoped he would explain it before the conversation was through, but he didn't. But he seemed genuinely perplexed by the idea that the Jobcentre would appeal the Tribunal's decision, because it doesn't happen very often - which I knew, but still. He kept saying he didn't know why "they'd done that", and I couldn't tell if he meant why the reasons for the Tribunal's decision were requested or why the court told me they'd been requested - it seemed like he meant the latter, but the letter was just a courtesy thing, as far as I could tell. I was mostly freaked out because the last time I won an appeal (so much experience now), I didn't get a letter saying anyone had requested the reasons for it, as I recall. So it seemed like a ~special case~. But it probably wasn't. In any case, the guy said there was no note on my records saying the Jobcentre was planning to appeal, he said they were working on paying me my arrears, and that my case wouldn't be treated any differently from anyone else's. Like I said, I still don't entirely trust the Jobcentre, but that's about as fair as anyone can say about it for now, so I'm happy with it.

I'm nearly done with Saints Row IV now. I've been super-enjoying it, but I also don't really see where the story can go from here, if it all plays out as I'm assuming it will. Maybe back into the past. Into fantasy world. They can fight Cthulhu. But then this game has been quite retrospective, which is sometimes a sign that a series is coming to a close. But I'm sure that'll depend on how much money they make from it. Anyway, I really like it, even if it's not really like Saints Row 2 anymore. And I'm sure my tendency to ship badass protagonists with their enemies will abate any day now. Although Dane Vogel is still her truest love obv.

I also found a Saints Row Kink Meme on Livejournal, which was great, except that it doesn't have a single entry on it. By which I mean, not even a post saying "Yo put your prompts here!". It's like the saddest thing I've ever seen. EXCEPT NO because I've been getting into Olan Rogers lately (dude from the video the other day) and today I caught up with some of his 'updates' from a couple of years ago, and - as I suspected and feared - it was about him moving away from his home state so he could have any kind of career in video work, and he was crying because he'd had to leave all his best friends behind. Including Reid. REID. The other dude from the video the other day. Oh Olan. Get rich and buy a big house so he can come live with you.

( Saints Row IV and 2 blather )

Also, today my YN officially started calling me something along the lines of "Rachael". It sounds more like "Wey-dul", and he only calls me it when shouting up the stairs for me. But it's better than "daddy", or nothing. Woo-hoo!

On a less pleasant note, I also got a letter today from the Tribunal service, saying that a request had been made to see the reasons my appeal was allowed, and they were enclosing a copy for me as well. Which sounds like the Jobcentre are "double-checking" whether I really do deserve the ESA I was awarded at my appeal. Apparently the Jobcentre can overturn or refuse a Tribunal's decision, or appeal against it or something, but I'm assuming they don't do that very often or else there wouldn't be much point having an appeals system. If they were just going to say "no" anyway. So it's probably fine. Still makes me nervous though. Wankers.

Dragon Age 2 is so dull. SO DULL. I am into Act 3 now, and I don't care, all the care I previously had went away. And all my companions are dicks, I literally hate asking them for help, and I know it's because game 2 is all about Politics and Fantastic Racism, but aksnldcmclndlanj. Where is the part where they say "You're right, Hawke. You're beautiful and amazing and ALWAYS RIGHT, I will stop being such a dick now"? WHERE IS THE PART WHERE I CAN CHANGE THEIR PERSONALITIES TO SUIT MY WHIMS, I'm PRETTY SURE I get that option in most RPGs nowadays. Is that the ending? Is a big party with cake and everyone realises the error of their ways? Are the errors of their ways still to come in the story, and THEN maybe they'll have a change of heart over it? Because I don't care. I no longer care. I hope most of them die. After they've finished helping me in fights and stuff. Pretty much the only companions I care about are Varric and Anders, but my relationship with Varric is going nowhere since all we ever discuss are the stories he tells about me (AND I CAN'T TELL HIM I LOVE HIM), and Anders is going weird. I'm pretty sure I mostly only love Anders because my PC from Dragon Age Origins recruited him, and she would LOVE HIM, no matter what he did. Barring a few things, obviously. Ugh. I hate Templars, but I'm pretty sure they're going to give me a reason to hate mages shortly. And every other quest is basically a fetch quest, where my basic reward is a bit of money and a 'tick' next to the quest in my journal.

It's fine. It's perfectly fine. I'm just really bored.

In other news, people are saying Livejournal is no longer sending comment notifications, is that true? It sucks if it is true. I'm assuming I will get a 'notification' on the home page, or my journal, if you comment on this post. If not things are going to get a lot more complicated around here.

I have also been watching Springwatch, this week and last week, as I attempt to do every year. I love Springwatch. And I love Michaela Strachan now she has calmed down and stopped trying to do cheesy jokes and wacky presenting all the time. I have to assume either the others told her to calm down, or she found a genuine love for nature, or - in a way that is sad but perhaps for the best - she witnessed one too many 'tragedies', like entire nests of cute chicks being eaten by weasels, and it soothed her manic soul. In any case, she's a lot better nowadays. And I seem to be detecting a frisson of sexual tension between her and Chris Packham on the show. If not, they're still really lovely with the way she makes him laugh despite himself all the time.

And while watching Springwatch, I saw the presenters make a few comments suggesting cuckoos were getting really rare in Britain nowadays. Which made me lucky, I suppose, since on Tuesday my mum and I took my ON to a local nature reserve, Fairburn Ings, and totally heard one in the woods. Result.

I also had to go see a woman from the Jobcentre on Wednesday. It was the Disability Advisor, and it was just a routine checking in type of thing, but it was a new woman because the previous woman retired, so I decided I should go in and meet her face-to-face, and I was a little bit anxious about it. But she turned out to be really nice, I explained everything I was doing and everything I wasn't doing, and a bunch of things I was waiting to hear about, and she suggested a new website I could look at for volunteering opportunities, and a new service I could go to for therapy once my current counselling is finished, and that was it. It all went pretty smoothly and she'll check in with me again in three months. Hurrah.

Also, you know what I don't understand? When you see the same actor over and over again in roles where they are meant to be not very attractive and kind of creepy, but they use actors that are obviously incredibly attractive in a slightly odd way. The main person I am thinking of is Harry Kershaw, who looks like this:


(from microsite.bournemouth.ac.uk)

See what I mean? I guess that's what they mean by "TV ugly". They mean not ugly. I feel like I want to follow Harry Kershaw's career, in the hopes of one day seeing him in a thing where they treat him as as attractive as he is. Apparently he was in Skyfall. As "Q's assistant", which was probably the most forgettable role ever. Still. Maybe it means he is moving into Hollywood, and will have massive success in the future. Tom Hiddleston managed.

Also I really hate the changes Youtube have made to their site. Just so everyone knows.

And then I finished Bioshock 2. Which was also good, but...sort of unsatisfactory too. I don't know. I don't think I like karma systems in games. I mean, it's interesting, and it means you have more choice and it adds to replay value, obviously. But I just think at the moment the way games are set up it just messes with the writing - because in almost every one I've played with a karma system, the karma things you do - which WOULD be a big deal, and worth mentioning between well-written characters with well-written relationships - just don't get mentioned until the end, or mentioned in a barely passing way at the end of each quest. In Dishonoured you regularly just got a note from someone, even someone you shared housing with, if you did something nice, and a bit of extra gold. And in both Dishonoured and Bioshock 2, you got sidequests and extra characters who showed up and seemed important for karma choices, and then just never showed up again - because the writers couldn't include them in the later plot in case you'd killed them or let them die. Bioshock 2 probably did the karma thing better than most games, because from the things that got said I'm guessing a lot of the ending was different depending on which choices you'd made. But the main place I saw it done well really was in Fallout 3. Which is a role-playing game, where the point is that you get to choose who your character is, and you don't tend to have lots of involved converstations with the same characters. I don't know, I just feel like a lot of games are swinging towards that role-playing element so players feel more like they're playing the kind of character they want to play, rather than having specific, well-defined characters the players have to play, which is also a pretty good way to write (and play) videogames.

Also, in Bioshock 2 and Dishonoured, I have just played two games where the main character was male, and the main NPC female character was either a child or very much in a child position, whose personalities were massively influenced or completely defined by the choices their fathers/father figures made. Which was nice.

Anyway. I am kind of in a video game limbo state at the moment. I don't really know what to do with myself. My head says buy more video games. Or finish some of the ones I've already started. I started playing the first Portal game today. And, as far as I can tell, have nearly finished it. It is wicked. I can probably pick the second one up sometime this week if I finish it. Which will probably help with the limbo state thing. Also I kind of really want to play this game. Even though it looks disturbing as fuck. Maybe BECAUSE it looks disturbing as fuck.

Of course, a different part of my brain says maybe I should use this time to do some of the other things I kind of need to do. While I was on holiday the disability advisor woman from the Jobcentre called and asked me to call her back as soon as possible, which meant calling from Crete to basically say I couldn't talk to her. I tried calling back last week, and they said she was away, but had scheduled a telephone interview with me tomorrow at 11:10am. So that's happening tomorrow. I have no idea what she's going to say - it might be very short if I just have to tell her I've been kicked off ESA and am appealing, and she can't offer me any services in the meantime. I don't remember them calling me in or giving me a disability advisor the last time I appealed. So we'll see, I guess.

Also I need to fill in my appeal form. I need to fill it in and possibly have it back to them by next Monday. But I don't really know what to say. EVERYTHING'S WRONG, EXCEPT I'M A LITTLE BETTER THAN LAST YEAR, EXCEPT I DON'T THINK I'M READY TO WORK YET. Really. For some reason I've gotten stuck on the idea that they might not pay me if my form isn't good enough or convincing enough, which is probably not true, but still. And I can't really remember what I put on my last appeal form. Hmm.

Also it's my dad's birthday tomorrow. Also I need to organise that volunteering I've been meaning to do, and had to not go to in October. Also I need to catch up on Dallas. Since I'm pretty sure it's the last episode this week. And I have an appointment with my employment coach and with the dentist this week. It's a pretty full week really, all told.

I got my letter from the Jobcentre today, explaining why they'd stopped my ESA.

( Cut for...reasons )

And then on Emmerdale they ( Emmerdale spoilers ). Which I was expecting, since it was the 40th anniversary episode and they made a big deal about how someone was going to die, and it would be someone who was involved in 5 different storylines, which he was, and he's been acting like enough of a dick lately. But still. I didn't actually see most of the episode, I just caught the end, and I'd like to watch it just to see some of the scenes that came before it. But he's been on a downward spiral for months or years now, and even I was starting to lose interest in him. But still. End of an era. And it's making me think back to those early years when I really really loved him. Well. At least my OTP are both on the same side of the afterlife now, I guess.

I just went to look for something on Youtube, and oh my God it's hideous. Well done on continuously changing it and never making it any better, Google.

On the plus side, John Ross from Dallas is pretty, and I love Bioshock 2 and Dishonoured. I've gotten used to the not-killing-anyone thing now. Although still not to the fact that when I change games, the controls are almost completely the opposite.

( Benefits stuff )

Also I went to see the bank where I have an ISA, because I need to transfer some of the money the DWP just gave me, and they want to have a long talk with me about updating my ISA and maybe getting one that will give me more interest. So I have to go in again on Monday. And I went to see the bank where I have my regular account, to get a mini-statement and see exactly how much I did get paid. Quite a bit, it turns out. Hurrah.

I'm going to make a list of all the things I could spend the money on and what I'd like to do with it, I think. And then I'll probably put it in the ISA and just not spend it at all. Yay.