lihiro

Revision is horrible when you have a case of acute man flu.

I'm feeling a bit better but still not 100% and it's definitely going to be a present factor on my performance in the hardest exam ever tomorrow... Thankfully I can take solace that unless something went horrendously wrong in the drug development exam on Tuesday I've already passed my degree at least enough to graduate - these last 20 credit exams I could not turn up to and still pass the degree with, albeit with a shit grade.

So I just took a brief interlude from revision and played some Minecraft, there are "Hunger Games" related servers where everyone starts in one position and you're boxed in a 500x500x500 area and told to fight it out. There were 150 people to start with, and despite the massacre at the start of the game where about half died, I found myself in the final 8, then the final 4, then the final 3. I searched for diamonds for a long time before giving up and resolving to deal with the remaining two with the iron gear I had. I equipped a gold sword with the knowledge that gold tools have a great speed yet little durability, so I figured a gold sword would do more than an iron sword.

Nope. I was wrong. My assumption cost me my life and the 3rd place when I heard someone picking away at blocks, carefully, slowly as I approached the surface. I dug up further, vertically, and eventually reached the surface to hear the digging beneath me. My enemy was crouched, sneaking, yet evidently present. I ran about 50 blocks away and crouched in a dirt trench as my provoker surfaced and eloquently typed "pussy :P" which was his most ironic downfall, as the moment the tongue-wielding face was on the chat the advantage was seized and I had leapt from the trench with the force of a thousand steeds, critting him in the face with a jumping gold sword slash.

Still stunned from the surprise, I landed several more attacks on his body as he threw down a slowing potion to attempt to stop my assault. I was caught, but I felt he must be sorely wounded from the initial attack. He pulled out his bow and arrow which I mistook to be a sword-block, and halted my attacks to dodge his arrows by careful jukes as the slowing potion prevented accurate strafing. I was upon him again and knew he must be close to death, when he pulled out his iron sword and an epic duel commenced around an oak tree.

The sun was beginning to set in the world as we fought, potions from him were thrown and his diamond legplates gave him the equipment advantage, and just as I felt he was about to die as I cornered him against a cliff after a righteous hammering, he slay me where I stood with an iron sword.

I then looked up the gold sword's damage rates to see that it deals 33% less damage than iron swords, which are easier to make... In fact, it deals 20% less damage than stone. It actually deals equal damage to wood swords. It was no wonder I had lost the fight - I landed far more attacks and outplayed him, but my preparation was lacking.

I got 3rd place out of 150 on my first game, and once I beat this exam tomorrow after adequate preparation this time, there will no doubt be more blood. (Minecraft blood, btw.)



Tal.

Hello!

Happy Star Wars day, though the more I say it the more it feels inevitably cliché.

I managed to successfully nail my dissertation by some miraculous work ethic which I pulled out of thin air. Three exams over the course of the next week and I should be plain sailing from then on in preparation for my final exam on the 18th. That's two weeks away.

It still puzzles me how short this university period has felt, but at the same time remembering details of life prior to the summer before first year is becoming difficult. This existence as a student is all I've ever known and the premise of encountering work-related and responsibility-related hardships doesn't seem wholly appealing. Then again if the PhD plan goes ahead then I guess I'll be a student, albeit a postgraduate student for a bit longer.

Honestly journal it's been a rough few weeks. I think it's gotten to the stage of slight apathy really, where things are so wrong and so much needs fixing that I'm pretending everything is alright, when it really isn't. I'm really not taking the imminent threat of an exam Tuesday as any particular warning, and instead am dossing about in the realm of boredom in an effort to escape what I feel is probably some problems I can't figure out how to address.

Namely, what the bloody hell is wrong with my ex girlfriend? Somehow from the remnants of the two previous posts I've made including a Dr. House quote, ad verbatim; "Everybody Lies" which is equivocal at best, she has somehow envisioned some conjecture referencing herself. Also the need of "censorship" wasn't from her, but from my housemate who has unfortunately learnt a truth I didn't wish for him to know quite yet. But there we go, things don't always go to plan.

Regardless I never responded to her strange game of "Be friends with me!" and suddenly "Now don't be friends with me!" when honestly I was quite happy with civility. Being a friend in my eyes isn't how much you speak to someone (she used the excuse that we never talk anymore) but how much you think of them. And granted, this doesn't mean I thought of her a lot but still as she was a relatively major part of my life I thought about her as a friend numerous times. Just like I think about Adam, April and Tamsyn when I go through droughts of not speaking to them, partially through unsociability and partially through introversion.

Considering the timing of her assault at removing me from Facebook in unison with the removal of her housemates from Facebook (I hate the way I reference Facebook as an earthly, godly peer in this sentence) I can't help but feel something in her mind changed. Obviously she has changed an incredible amount from the girl she was in 1st year as everyone acknowledges, but I feel a more subtle change took place which made her lead this assault targeted at me, almost as if she was looking for the excuse to break contact. These are my thoughts on the situation, which she will never read as she's apparently blocked this journal too.

It's unfortunate but necessary I burn that bridge for my own emotional health - transactional games are not something I enjoy being a part of. (See "TheraminTrees" on Youtube for very interesting videos on Transactional Analysis.) I was happy being civil friends with her, but I suppose she has other ideas. Which I am okay with.

Moving on to the more pressing matter, I understand my housemate still has access to this journal which is why I choose my next words carefully and truthfully - I apologize, but I feel this is none of your concern and I hope to re-earn your friendship.

Simply put, I've been dating Zoe for a while now which is mostly common knowledge amongst almost everyone. As Pete once dated Zoe, he took up arms upon hearing this action despite my 10 month support and guidance following their breakup. After hearing that he had moved on numerous times from him which made me genuinely happy, I felt it acceptable to respond to my own individual feelings, with the ideology that I was still respecting my friend. It saddens me greatly that he reacted so negatively - every one of my other friends has shown their support in my decisions. The knowledge of how this came about is disputed, and though I have a large idea of the incidence it's too soon to comment.

It's been such a rough few weeks with these two events and the dissertation, and with exams in the near future I feel I'm calling upon my last reserves of resilience to make it to graduation. My friends have been unbelievable pillars of support, showing their care for me in text messages and Facebook messages in a tone that almost makes me think that they believe I'm about to break down from everything. I appreciate it (not sarcastic).

I'll probably update in a couple of weeks - apparently bimonthly is my new preferred schedule of journal updating. It feels nice not to have to censor myself anymore, but at the same time strange, as I've held it all in for so long now it's difficult to type everything out.

Anyway I hope all readers (and future me) are well, I've created a 22 track "Get Psyched" mix in preparation for exam revision.



I guarantee most people will find something that gets them psyched in that list. Somewhere.

Well I really wanted to post about my "Get Psyched" mix but ended up talking about a bunch of other stuff too, but I guess that's journal entries for you... Here's the 1st track off the list (but not necessarily the best).



Will update again shortly, en guarde, exams!

Waiting, it's past one o'clock and I'm out of time,
Can't undo the lock and no key to find,
Looking all around at the station,
Are we frozen? Failing,
To understand how I can hear your mind,
Racing on and on through the years of time.

Tal.

Hey guys.

I know it's been a while since my last update, I've had quite a few deadlines in the past few weeks, and unfortunately they haven't ended their ruthless bombardment quite yet. On the contrary my largest and most potent deadline of dissertation is due this time next week, on the 25th. I've completed approximately 30% of it, and that was attained in one day. Granted, that was the methods and so it was a case of chronologically writing up the > 400 hours of lab work I endured over the past academic year, but still it made for a good start.

I've been pretty ill recently. Not with a cold or a chest infection which I'm commonly prone to getting, but a full blown case of what I suspect to be food poisoning - and not an acute dosage. This was a full-on, 3 day bedstruck, every possible symptom bastard - an illness that I haven't experienced since the winter of 1st year. It was that bad. I first felt symptomatic the end of Friday night, and it pursued to its peak on Sunday. Unfortunately for me, I had an essay due Monday which I had set aside the weekend for.

By some heroic effort on 3 hours sleep over the course of 3 days, I stayed up all night on Sunday, fuelled solely on Jacobs Cream crackers and a massive bottle of water as that was all I could stomach, and pulled - wait for it - 4300 words, referenced, right out of my brain. Somehow. I'm pretty sure the closer to a deadline I get, the more my brain exponentially increases in power. I'm pretty sure if I started the rest of my dissertation 2 hours before the deadline, I could write the remaining 6000 words in an hour. (this is complete exagguration bullshit.)

Anyway, as far as life goes, I guess things are looking alright, on the proviso my dissertation gets completed to a decent standard. I received an email from Bangor postgraduate office - I've been offered my PhD if I can raise my average by 5% to a 2:1, something which I'm going to go all out on in these last exams. If anyone can remember the mentality I mustered at the end of the 2nd year of A level, prepare for a repeat of the take-no-prisoners attitude towards revision.

I've blocked Facebook, Reddit and deleted LoL temporarily to aid in my learning/writing of dissertation. It's helping, I'm slowly but surely trudging through the dissertation despite a slight complication. Also I'm pretty sure my Facebook is being bombarded by friends of which I can't be sure what's going on - not till tomorrow evening, anyway. It could be anything.

Emotionally I'd say I'm pretty stable right now, except for some strange reason I keep getting completely, completely random outbursts of wanting to cry. They last for about a second before vanishing and I'm left with slightly watery eyes and a feeling of "what the hell was that?" Honestly, 3rd year has been rough. I mean, really rough. Probably the worst year since the first year of 6th form. Right now I just want it all to be over - and I can take solace in the fact that within a month's time, it actually will be...

There are so many things I wish I could write to you, journal. But each thing would inevitably provoke a reaction with at least one frequent reader. It's sad that I'm having to filter my thoughts, so I may have to change journals sometime in the near future, which may be beneficial but we'll see.

I'm sorry to future me for not documenting things very well the past few months, there's probably going to be a big gap in events. Anyway, I better go back to dissertation, here's some lovely Iron & Wine:



Some days her shape in the doorway,
Will speak to me,
A bird’s wing on the window.

Tal

Oh man it's April fools day tomorrow!

If I remember I will be making a mock journal entry to highlight this fact. It's going to be the most ludicrous, over the top journal entry story ever created, and it's going to be done solely so I can look back and think "holy shit that day was awesome". Expect dinosaurs.

So what's been happening? Well actually I've been meaning to make an entry for a few days, but I've been rather waylaid with a troublesome essay that was due at midnight last night, which I successfully submitted with confidence it'll grab me a B, possibly a C. It's worth a fair chunk of my degree I worked out, so hopefully things'll work out!

I've been on chatroulette and omegle and IRC a surprising amount recently. I sit on CR with my guitar and play until someone listens, then I'll run them through a couple of tunes and see what they think. I get quite a lot of smiles from people and have even ended up with some skype addresses from the people I get along with better than others. Yes, they have all been girls... (what do you expect from me?)

However no, I have no amorous intentions. I've thus discerned I am not very good at the whole dating and relationship scene. I absolutely do not miss it. It's consistently left me in a worse position every time around than where I started. Ultimately, as Dr. House puts it, everyone lies, and that's something I just can't deal with.

I've sent off some applications for places (see: three) but have yet to hear back from any which is disheartening but the more I think about it the more the idea of hiking the Appalachian Trail sounds appealing. I doubt my parents would agree with it, but at this stage of the game I'm pretty much the one calling the shots - to quote my mum "once you're 18 you can do whatever the hell you want." - Thanks mum.

If I were to do the Appalachian Trail however it'd rely on spending some inheritance money I received from my late Aunt. I don't tend to talk about her - at all - which is somewhat saddening but nobody honestly likes to talk about deceased relatives - it's simply an uncomfortable topic. But this journal I decided I am going to talk about her, and honour what I remember of her before my memory inevitably deteriorates with time.

Her name was Judith Mackechnie, and yes I understand the surname is not only different from my own, but also of my mothers. My mum's side is rather complicated in terms of marriages and remarriages and name changes. She unfortunately passed from ovarian cancer when I was 16 years old, on August 27th of 2008, which was deeply saddening for my entire family. I remember being awake in bed at 1:30am with a bad feeling looming over my head preventing me from sleeping. Not to claim I was being prophetic, but I couldn't shake a bad feeling. Then all I heard was my mum scuttle downstairs and a wail of "she's gone! Oh no she's gone!" and started ascending the stairs. I was straight out of bed and on my feet to catch her in an embrace.

The worst thing was, at that time of my life, my Grandma was also in hospital, and even though it was never explicitly stated to me or my sister about my Auntie's condition, they had called for my advice on working a website link about Ovarian cancer of which I formed my own deductions. When my mum wailed those words on the stairs, I knew I'd lost one of my family, but I just wasn't sure which one.

My cousin Alex was visiting Cornwall at the time coincidentally despite normally living in Swansea, and he was Judy's son. In a way, I was very thankful he was in Cornwall at the time of her passing. We assembled, my mother, sister, Alex, Glen, my other cousin, and his fianceé at Judy's house no more than 30 seconds walk from my house and sat in dead silence whilst people cried, paced, and pondered over the loss. Being 16, I made sure not to cry even a single drop, to act as some loose semblance of a pillar for the rest of my family.

Auntie Judy to me was the lady who taught me how to fish at Swanpool when I was young. She used to take me on walks with her and her dogs, and due to living 30 seconds from my childhood house, was a pretty big part of my life.

During her cremation, I was asked to stand at the front and read aloud a poem she had written about the passing of time. It featured "from 16 to 60" in one line, which resonated deeply as she was 60 at the time of passing, and I was 16. I spoke it aloud, with clear confidence and a perfect rhythm, despite the saddening organ music that played in the crematorium. There are few moments of self-pride I value in my life, but knowing that I had delivered that poem to the crowd in a way that elicited a compliment from my mum (a rare thing) was definitely one of them.

As the coffin was lowered into the cremation pit, they played one of her favourite songs and no doubt the most fitting song ever for the occasion:



So here's to my Auntie Judy, who I never speak about and feel guilty for not thinking of more often, a journal entry in the cavernous internet.

Also I'm really sorry this entry has been so saddening, all in all I'd rate life as being relatively good despite the harsh workload. I'll do another post shortly, tomorrow if I can!

Hey Jude, don't let me down,
You have found her, now go and get her,
Remember to let her into your heart,
Then you can start to make it better.

Tal.

Got home yesterday at 8pm after working in the library for a couple of hours reading up on some sections of my dissertation. Checked Facebook to find one of my PHD mentors angrily telling me how I should better use my lab time despite working to her specified (literally it is drawn out and given to me) timetable that she thinks will help me succeed. And while I'm grateful for such direction in my project, using it as a tool to unjustfully berate me just isn't kosher.

I ate a pizza, drank some water, ate some mini eggs and avoided everyone, going to bed at 9:30.

Still emotionally heightened, unsure of whether I was angry or sad or blaming myself for failing to do better despite knowing full-well I'm working as best as I can, some funny mixture of the three, I woke up at 2am. I couldn't get back to sleep, so resigning myself to insomnia once again I booted up the desktop and made myself unavailable to all IM clients.

I started a game called Dear Esther which is a non-interactive non-combatant "ghost story" game created using the source engine released in 2012. The premise is the story has random sections of voice entries depending on which areas of the island you are placed on are explored. The controls are basic, typical WASD with mouse-guided orientation and a strangely bound "Q" key to raise yourself from water. They are the only controls. Typically the creators were trying to do something "new" by creating a wholly story based game.

Oddly enough, it seemed to work. But this may have been because I had been oddly woken up by an overactive mind at 2am and was in a haze of depression and tiredness ultimately culminating in a vivid mind trip through the game's 90 minute duration. The game forces you to draw your own conclusions from the story and the soundtrack and surroundings, despite reminiscent of Half Life 2 are actually rather beautiful.

Overall, the game's a relaxing and very different experience from typical games, which instead of heightening your reflexes and making you more alert, relaxes you whilst simultaneously keeping you on edge, subtly placing shadowy figures on cliff tops which fade as you meet their gaze. For this reason I'd recommend playing Dear Esther just the once to see how you interpret the very mixed story and the extremely different gameplay style. Set aside an hour to an hour and a half, make sure you're not in a mood to klll lots of things and play it through.

After I nailed Dear Esther I felt the need for more ambiguous indy storyline and thus ventured into Bastion, a top down indy RPG released in 2011. I've played a few levels and the gist is that a mysterious force named "The Calamity" hit a fantasy floating island, basically destroying it. As the male protaganist named "The Kid" you have to rebuild the island by collecting cores from different worlds, which doesn't sound as thrilling a concept as it actually is.

It neatly combines a relatively easy storyline (I may be biased - natural affinity for video games) with rather complex challenges that you can use to overclock your skills into more powerful versions. This creates what I can imagine to be a nice balance - non-gamers may struggle with the storyline difficulty whereas dedicated gamers such as myself can choose to complete the more complex challenges to achieve that fake self-worth that often comes with completing mundane challenges in video games, like getting several WoW characters to level 85 or completing I Wanna Be The Guy. The sort of self achievement that is completely useless on a CV but in a parallel universe would resemble some huge indication of success.

Bastion is fun. The soundtrack is decent and whilst I still think the "Breaker Bow" weapon outclasses absolutely everything once you power up draw speed and attack power, it feels like a stressful and fast-paced game toned down to a mellow blend of colours and melodic soundtracks with an appropriate difficulty curve for the majority of audiences.

Then I looked at my watch, realised it was 4am, and went back to bed to try and get some sleep. I woke up at 9:05, walked into labs and have spent the past two hours doing the appropriate procedures until I can do no more, finding myself here in the 2nd floor computer lab idly wasting time for the aforementioned PHD mentor to turn up into labs herself, which is partially ironic though I'd feel bad ripping into her considering how much help her and the others have given me.

Guess I'll just sit about a bit more then and kill some time. I'm feeling good today. Not happy. Just good.



Tal.

Hey.

Things aren't so great. I'm not going to lie about it and say that they are, especially to my journal. But considering the amount of posts where I basically say how not okay I am, I deliberated extensively over writing one right now. However, it has been 3 weeks since the last and I can't see anything getting better in the foreseeable future. Therefore, here's my update.

My dissertation is doomed. I cannot get results, and neither can the PHD students who are working on the same project. It isn't working for all of us and not even my supervisor can give a definitive indication as to why this is. After speaking to him he acknowledged that a lack of results isn't going to be my fault and that I wouldn't lose any marks, but still this is my project I've worked on for months, extremely long hours (for a student) and with a fair few battle scars to show. I just wish I wouldn't have to end with no results to show for it - it's incredibly demoralizing but I suppose this could only happen to me.

I was wrong to pick a project that involved biological systems - beings divided between logic and a stroke of chance. Because as is often proved with chance and I, if it can happen, it most certainly will.

I didn't make it into labs yesterday. I couldn't sleep because I feel so cornered right now as to how things are going. The dissertation is due in 6 weeks and I have yet to start, failing one of my resolutions from V-day. I'm sure, positive no less that I can get a draft out in a week, but I want to tailor the dissertation with the knowledge that I have results, or don't have results.

Something needs to change, to provoke an attitude change and see if I can find the objectivity I somehow lost along the way. I have never felt so unmotivated my entire life to succeed.

So yes, this journal is basically about me claiming to be a victim of fate and not of my own undoing. Which is completely untrue - I'll meet fate halfway on this one, as I'm sure even synthetic happiness and a positive outlook on the way things are going might help to shape the next two weeks.

I don't know what I'm doing anymore, and not in a good way. Normally I don't know what I'm doing, jumping from vine to vine in a jungle, catching each successively as they're thrown at me. But right now, my hands feel greased and I'm blind.

I've been watching Ted talks in my breaks recently, partially because I can't break my lent resolution thing of going on reddit, and partially because Ted is a super-interesting learning medium. I'm particularly interested in the psychology lectures - things on happiness, love and success are the most fascinatingly themed I find. How happiness leads to success, and how love is a reproductive urge, and not a happiness mechanism.

So how can I possibly be successful in a mindset like the one I'm in now? Quite simply, I can't. And that's why I'm desperately seeking a happiness that'll shape me for the much-needed/desired success this coming spring. And no, there is nothing any of you can do, this is something I have to figure out myself.

I think some alone time is needed - expect me to retract into my room for a while.



Tal.

Dun dun duuuuuuuuuun. It's V-Day.

Man the guns, because Facebook is flooded with hearts and status posts thanking other halves for all the lovely things lovely people in lovely couples send to each lovely other. Not like I really mind, as I get to do my annual thing (when I'm single) of being as completely lame as possible for irony's sake. Unfortunately, I have to be in labs all day today (I am currently) and have a lecture later, so I can't do what I did a couple of years back when it fell on a weekend and hole myself in my room, playing WoW and/or crying into tissues. ((overexagguration))

Honestly I don't care for Valentine's Day as a single man. I don't wait patiently for a card from a potential admirer, nor do I shun couples doing coupley things as I know if I was in a couple I'd be doing the same.

I've been going through a rough academic patch the past couple of months. Exams went badly, my plasmids aren't working correctly and I generally feel completely unmotivated to work at all. I don't really know why. I haven't been to fencing in ages, I haven't started writing up my dissertation and I still haven't applied to the majority of places I want to for postgrad.

Why am I being so lacklustre in my efforts when every night I go to bed thinking "tomorrow I will do better" and never do? Is that what life is going to be like for me? That I lack the motivation to even fail to achieve things I set myself, let alone things others set me to achieve?

That's it. No more prior-to-sleep thoughts about making things better for myself only to sleep it off. I'm going to write down right here, right goddamn here, what I'm going to have achieved by the end of February.

1) Start sleeping and eating straight.
2) Keep on top of washing.
3) Start my dissertation.
4) Apply for all postgrads that I want to.
5) Started looking over notes.

Five things, that's all I have to do in 2 weeks. To make things better for myself. To break an old habit that I've culminated over my academic progress. To remind myself that I can do the things I want to, and not to expect failure when I try.



I know 2012 is a leap year. So this year, I'm going to make the leap.

Birds are leaving over autumn's ending,
One of us will die inside these arms,
Eyes wide open, naked as we came,
One will spread our ashes 'round the yard.

Tal.

Hey.

So today I was on one of my many short breaks in the lab as I let my bacterial children multiply (that sounds wayyyy more twisted when referred to in that context) browsing 600 reddit posts and upvoting most of them, the usual. Eventually I stumbled on an article saying how the growing marijuana penalties have been decreased in the U.K.

I'm pretty analytical when it comes to marijuana. Reading articles and watching documentaries on the topic leads me to believe that tetrahydrocannibinol (THC) the active ingredient in marijuana is actually non-harmful to humans with the exception of extentuating already present schitzophrenia. So whilst I trust the science that says it's harmless, I'm still skeptical due to the social stigma it's associated with.

This annoys me as it makes me feel conditioned, that I'm not trusting in the hard science and instead relying on some form of socially imprinted instinct. It made me question whether I was really such a free thinker I thought I was or if there are more of these subtle conditionings present in my mentality. Of course I was brought up with the "all drugs are bad" stigma as a child, and whilst the science holds up behind this statement in heroin, LSD, cannabis, alcohol, tobacco, I simply can't find any evidence behind the criminilization of marijuana.

Now, I'm not going to start wearing hemp shirts and broadly declaring/fighting for it's decriminilizaton, it has made me question why it's deemed worthy enough to act as a medical drug for many conditions yet harmful enough for it to be criminalized, especially in the presence of the larger killers, alcohol and tobacco. I'm not a professional scientist, I'm a guy who knows very, very little in the broad scheme of things, but it boggles me, it really does.

Also I don't understand how so many people act as if they know so much when they're clearly clueless as to just how much there is to know. I don't know why people act like they know everything when we are all ultimately incredibly clueless. Fictious deities of intelligence such as House falsely represent the human mentality because honestly - we have entered an age where simply knowing a topic isn't comparable to knowing how to access the information.

Unless you're thinking on your feet - paramedics for example - having the ability to conduct research and view current research is going to be the way forward rather than memorizing an entire spectrum of growing science, I feel. I don't know it, but I certainly hope it's going to take that turn.

But I'm just saying that because I'm bitter. My exams didn't go too well. I averaged 57% like usual, but dropped below 40% on one of my exams with the other grade being a high first. Honestly, this is suspicious to me. I felt the exam I got 37% on went fine, and I suspect an error in marking - I diverted my questions around the pages awkardly, and answered the last question in a roundabout manner.

The exam pressure just doesn't represent my ability as a wannabe-scientist. It just doesn't. I wake up every morning to go and work in the labs and I do everything to the tee, I read articles in my spare time and I take an interest in the scientific community. And sure, I don't know anything in the grand scheme of things, and I might be able to plug something out of my memory to you in conversation, but being able to read and apply the knowledge to things as and when they're necessary is far more useful than being pressured and asked to recite irrelevant things to what you want to learn in an exam.

Examinations tailor your mind to try and know everything, even though in my opinion, that's a fruitless and hopeless ambition.

You can tell I'm annoyed at myself. I'm pretty anxious right now - apparently the 37% is recoverable providing I pass everything else. Still, it's a pressure I don't need and a pressure I don't deserve. Or do I deserve it for being ill-prepared for a cause I fundamentally disagree with?

I learnt something today about my inhaler that I've used since I was 4 - so pretty much my entire life. Side effects include, to quote;

"fine tremor, anxiety, headache, muscle cramps, dry mouth, and palpitations"

... Of which I have experienced...

"fine tremor, muscle cramps, dry mouth, and palpitation"

What's missing? C'mon, play spot the difference!

Yeah, anxiety and headaches. I used to say I didn't get headaches and whilst that used to hold true, I have had one or two now so I guess I can rule that out. What's left?

It made me re-evaluate a few things, such as how liberally I use my inhaler. I might try to stop using it so attentively when my condition flares up. Then, I read the more rarely occurring but still present, non-allergic side effects;

"tachycardia, arrhythmia, flushing, myocardial ischemia, and disturbances of sleep and behaviour"

... Call me anxious but I have honestly, truthfully experienced;

"tachycardia, arrhythmia, flushing, and disturbances of sleep and behaviour"

Spot the difference this time. Protip; myochardial ischemia is the precusor to angina and heart attacks. And yes, I have seen the doctor about my tachycardia/arrhythmia which he shrugged off, and now I finally understand why as he would've had my medical records.

Worrying. Yet I have to get back to labs.



Teardrop on the fire,
Fearless on my breath,
Nine night of matter,
Black flowers blossom.

Tal.

http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/ovfgo/youre_given_4000000_that_you_can_only_spend/

"You are given $4,000,000... That you can only spend on harassing your best friend. How do you use it?"

[–]hannahalexia 7 hours ago

I'd buy a few million dollars worth of Skittles, and use the rest of the money for storage, and on-going petrol costs for my harassment. I'd start off really slowly, by leaving a couple of Skittles in his pockets, a few in his car, maybe one or two in drawers around his house. This would go on for a few weeks. I'd then fill his bedside drawer entirely with Skittles. Months later, I'd fill his entire car with Skittles overnight. The next available opportunity I'd fill his entire bedroom with Skittles. Then do nothing for two years. Then I'd start over again, with a couple of Skittles in his pockets, and build up to the room full of Skittles again.

TL;DR Insanity by Skittles.

* reply

[+]K4ylan 5 hours ago

He'll eventually see a therapist. One day, as he walk into his therapist's office, he sees the room filled with skittles.He hires a private investigator. The investigator is killed, gutted, and filled with skittles, left in his bedroom filled with skittles. He collapses out of stress and goes to the hospital. He wakes up in a room of skittles. 12 years later, you place a pack of skittles on his grave.

I'm still laughing. That is god damn hilarious. Holy shit.

So hey. I've been, and this is truly shocking - in a routine the past few days. Early nights (10pm) and early starts (7am) for about 3 or 4 days now. I wake up, have a shave and a shower, play about on reddit to stimulate my mind (honestly it does!) then get dressed, prep my bag and go to labs. Annihilate my labs work because I'm not half asleep, go into town for some brunch. I get the same brunch, a pork and sausage roll and a bacon brunch from the bakery, and I'm pretty sure the lady is starting to know what to get me as I walk in...

Then it's back to labs to work for a few more hours, turn in and go home and relax in my chair gaming and speak to my lovely friends. I really enjoy this existence.

Last night at fencing I heard someone say something that upset me quite a lot, but I took it potentially out of context so I took some necessary precautions and slept on it and woke up feeling a lot better. I'm doing things three times as fast as normal in labs, and actually doing things actually makes me feel productive and healthy. I'm eating and sleeping regularly and am of sound mind and productiveness... I must be sick.

Heading out to the cinema in a couple hours, once my little e.coli babies are done incubating/sleeping. Actually that's strictly not true, the e.coli babies are amidst two restriction enzymes which are cleaving their DNA piece by piece... Yeah, maybe sleeping soundly isn't such a good analogy...

Rhi's coming to visit in a couple of days so I'm excited for that, I'm on schedule with my lab work, I started a fascinating new module named Drug Development, and I'm generally feeling pretty good. If I can figure out what I'm doing with myself next year, I daresay I may be on target.

I'm going to go browse reddit some more until my plasmids are finished. Huzzah!

Oh, and you owe it to yourself to check out this amazing video, it's got about 36 million well-deserved hits on youtube, the song is really pleasant and the girl's voice sends shivers up my spine.



Now and then I think of all the times you screwed me over,
But had me believing it was always something that I'd done,
But I don't wanna live that way,
Reading into every word you say.

Tal.

Just finished the book. 9am.

Oh... My god.

That's all.

Bed.

Tal.