girlofprey

,My mouse really needs to start scrolling when I tell it to. Also, to stop scrolling when I haven't told it to.

Anyway. Just to make it clear, the thing that happened in Coronation Street on Monday is the extent of the spoilers I know. Other than a vague thing my mum said she read about when the storyline might end.

( Coronation Street, including mentions of a rape storyline )

Bbrrrr, in other news I got two things in the post today. One was a letter from the House of Commons, which is what my MP tends to send me when I send her 38 Degrees emails about the NHS. It is sort of interesting to see her different reactions to the different emails I send. If I send something about a relatively minor issue, I get an email with a PDF from (seemingly) someone in her office. I send her an email about something bigger, like the NHS, I get a signed letter from the House of Commons. Naturally, I assume it's because she feels more strongly about certain issues than other, rather than just because she wants to seem like she is. Naturally. The other thing was a new bank card. Which was kind of nice, because I've been moping a bit about my old (now) bank card running out this May, and how once that was YEARS away. So it was sort of nice to have that suprisingly pre-empted by suddenly getting a shiny new one. And the new one doesn't run out until 2015, which is YEARS away! Although it's a bit weird that it's only three years, given that I'm pretty sure I had my old bank card since university, and I graduated from there in 2006. Maybe Barclays have plans for even shinier, newer bank cards they want everyone to have in 2015. In any case, YEARS away. Although now I do have to remember a new card number and security code whenever I want to buy things online.

In other other news, it is March, the year of my birth. The daffodils are starting to come out. And it really is quite nice to have a nature sign that your birthday is coming soon. However, it has got a few problems with it. Number one, I'm trying to do the Black March thing - harder when you remember that 'entertainment items' also include books - so I really don't know what to ask for/get on my birthday. It's not really that big a deal, because my birthday's on the 27th, so it's only a few days after that until it's April, when I could buy anything I wanted again. But it might be slightly weird to either just get money or not get something I actually WANT on my birthday, unlike pretty much every other year.

Te other problem is whether or not I want my sister to be involved in my birthday celebrations. I don't, but actually excluding her might be a bit difficult and awkward. I didn't go to anything to do with her birthday last year, but I do think it's a bit different choosing not to go to a family member's birthday party, than not letting them come to yours. The thing is that I normally do at least see the kids on my birthday, and my sister and her partner are usually there to look after them if nothing else. So I'd probably have to exclude them as well. Which I don't especially mind, but it still might be a bit weird. I've already talked to mum about it, and she's acting like she can't understand why I'd WANT the kids to come to any birthday dinner or whatever of mine at all, as if I, my parents, the kids and my sister haven't all been out somewhere together on every other birthday of mine. Last year my parents and I went out for a meal, just the three of us, on one night for my birthday, but I'm pretty sure we went out somewhere for dinner with my sister and the kids the next day as well. And we usually have them over or go over to theirs for cake on people's birthdays. Although I don't think I've been the last couple of times we did that. So I don't know. I don't really want her there, and I'm not ready to start pretending things are alright between us again - if I ever will be - but it's seems like it's going to be awkward actually saying she can't come. I don't know, maybe it won't be. Maybe she won't care, and it won't even come up. Not having the kids around might be another issue though.

( Benefits stuff, irritating )

Anyway, maybe the people will call tomorrow and say it's all been a big misunderstanding, and I can have my payments after all. But I've called and made an appointment with my doctor anyway, just in case. Although that's annoying in itself, because this week I was supposed to have three appointments, an application forms workshop yesterday, a counselling session tomorrow, and an appointment with my employment coach on Friday. And it felt like a bit much after the meeting with my case manager last Friday and then going to Nottingham for Batman Live (I did that, by the way) on Saturday, so I was wishing for a bit less to do this week. But then yesterday my employment coach came and asked me if we could rearrange our Friday appointment for next Monday, because she had a client she suddenly needed to see on Friday. And my counsellor just called today to say she couldn't make our appointment tomorrow any more, could we make it next Wednesday. And when I called the doctors, the soonest I could get an appointment with the doctor who gave me my last sick note was Tuesday morning at 8:30, and no later in the day, or Wednesday at 9:40. So now next week I have an appointment on Monday, and a doctor's appointment at 9:40 am and then a counselling session at 2:00 on Wednesday. Sigh.

But anyway. At least I have the rest of the week free, even though I was sort of geared up for the appointment tomorrow. And I have slightly less on next week than I was supposed to this week. And if those guys call and say 'big misunderstanding' (who knows?), I can just cancel my doctor's appointment. Although I'm not exactly holding out too much hope for that.

But, some good things: I was at Aldi buying chocolate on Sunday, as is my custom, and I discovered they're now selling cherry and chili dark chocolate. Which is lovely, although it's still not a good idea to eat too much chili dark chocolate all at once. I did go to Batman Live, as I said, and it was quite good, although probably not brilliant enough for the amount I ended up paying to see it. ( Sort of spoilers )

Another weird thing, if not a good thing, is that for some reason I feel about three months ahead of myself at the moment. When I came back from Prague, in June, I really really felt like summer was over, and I was ready for like autumn and Halloween and stuff. And now the sky has gone a bit grey, and it's gotten a bit colder, I'm feeling suddenly ready for Christmas. I don't actually feel ready for Christmas, I'd definitely like to have Halloween and Bonfire Night first. But it sort of feels like that sort of atmosphere. I really like this time of year, at any rate though. The shops have started putting scarves and gloves out, and it recently occured to me it would soon be the weather to have soup regularly again, and start getting wrapped up before I go out. Hurrah :)

In soap news, ( Vague discussion of a domestic rape storyline )

But in happier news, a while back I came up with and did a picspam on the Doug/Texas/Leanne OT3 I really wanted Hollyoaks to do. And I never really expected it to actually happen. But Texas and Leanne were looking for somewhere to live together for their second year of uni, and yesterday we had a scene of Doug throwing out his current roommate, and then Texas and Leanne walked down the stairs saying they'd had a look around, and were happy to move in straight away! Hollyoaks, you DO know how to make me happy. Hurrah.

Things:

• I am all up to date on Coronation Street, and have been for the past week or so. ( Spoilers up to tonight )



• I've been feeling really weird and blah lately. I'm assuming it's because my sleep got a bit messed up last week when I was running around all over the place. And it was weird not having my mum around. And I'm trying to sort out my money again. And my sick note ran out, so I'm having to try to sort that out again. And I'm assuming my hormones have something to do with it, although I'm not sure you can just keep claiming that for weeks. I do think I'm due a period though, and it would be nice to get one if it might actually make me feel better.



• The other possibility is that I've been playing my new PS3 game, Folklore, until I feel a bit exhausted most days. I love Folklore. It's sort of like Pokemon, but with fairies. And a storyline about a fairy war. And also about a murder mystery in the real world village your characters are currently staying in. I have no idea if posting about when you probably don't know what I'm talking about will be really dull or not, so I'm going to try to keep it to a minimum. Mostly when I've not been posting because I've been playing a game a lot I think that maybe I could just post about the game, but then I think "or I could just go play the game some more", and then I end up doing that. But suffice to say, things started getting a bit difficult and I got a bit stuck, so I decided to go back and power up the creatures I already had. Which is partly very satisfying, going back and having a load of fights you know you can win. And partly very frustrating, because sometimes you need to try to power them up in very specific ways. In the middle of a battle. When lots of things are attacking you. And you don't really get the satisfaction of progressing in the game and learning any more of the story. You do get the satisfaction of winning quite a lot of your fights though. And being kind of amazing. I love Ellen. You don't know who she is. But I love her.



• My dad has messed up the music on my computer. That's a lie in a lot of ways. But still. He really likes music (his kind of music), and usually has some of it on on car journeys and stuff, and sometimes I like a bit of it, and I've been sort of asking him if he's heard of any bands I like every now and then. And he said no, and then the other week he said I'd have to make him a mix CD of music I like, to see if he likes it too. Which was fine, it was not high up on my to do list, but it was a decent idea and fine. Then last week he came up to my bedroom with a flash drive, with all of his music on it. 3GB worth. Which is another thing he's talked about doing for a few months, and I always said I couldn't because my laptop didn't have enough space on it. But now I have a new laptop and it does. So he did. He told me I could just upload all of his files, and then sort through them and delete any I didn't like. And that he wanted it back by Monday morning, so to do it soon. So on Saturday, very quickly, I uploaded the files and put them in my 'Music' folder, which seemed logical. But I didn't realised that meant they would automatically be uploaded to my Windows Media Player, in with all my other music. Even now I have moved the file to a 'Downloads' file of mine, it's still there in my playlist. The first time I tried to open my Windows Media Player, without realising what had happened, it wouldn't respond and I had to close it. Then it took me about 10 times as long as usual to skip through tracks, because they were all new tracks to Windows Media Player, so it kept saying "media changing" and I had to wait. And twice when I tried to just scroll through the songs, it jut crashed. So now I have my dad's 3GB of music on the general playlist with all of my songs. I can't just let it play music at random anymore, because it keeps playing songs I don't know, which is fine, but not always what I'm in the mood for.
  
  It's not all bad. He's got quite a lot of good-looking songs in there, and some things I recommended to him even (like some Melanie songs). I just really expected to be able to go through his songs at my leisure, or just when I chose to, and now I can't, and I can't really just randomly listen to my own music anymore. It's incredibly frustrating.



• The 2004 version of the Merchant of Venice was on on Saturday. It's the one where Al Pacino plays Shylock, and they put a load of stuff on at the beginning about just how awful and hard it was to be Jewish in 15th Century Florence, and within about 10 minutes I was suddenly shipping Shylock/Antonio. I figure if I do just ship a load of pairings who hate each other, at least I'm hitting the big ones. I didn't watch most of the rest of it though, because I couldn't stand Bassanio and the woman who played Portia was really annoying me, and I figured it would probably have the same horrible ending, anyway. Maybe one day I'll watch the rest of it.



• I watched a few episodes of Man Stroke Woman last night, with Nicholas Burns. I forget he had long hair in it and was really especially pretty. Also, I'm pretty sure some of it is the straightest acting I've ever seen him doing. In a half hour sketch show. A pretty good half hour sketch show though. I love Man Stroke Woman.



• A while ago I bought some Amazonite beads from the Bead Shop in Nottingham, and now I've got an idea for a bracelet to make with them, but I'm not sure I have enough. The Bead Shop don't seem to sell them anymore, or only mixed in with another type of stone and not many of them, so I went looking for some online. I found some on eBay that seemed to be the right size, so I clicked to buy them. It was only after I clicked to buy them that it occured to me that I wasn't sure if they had holes drilled in them, actually, or were just stones. But I'd ordered them, and they were only £3 or so. So I paid for them anyway. They arrived today, and they don't have holes in, and they're kind of massively too big. Woe. They are still pretty though.

I didn't post about this because Ugly Betty was on, but ( Tonight's Coronation Street )

In other news, I love that Jodie stayed in the dancing. And Mark has become properly lovely. He's smiling and talking about going out there and enjoying himself, and he and Hayley seem to be getting on a lot better, and he is great. It occurred to me on Thursday's It Takes Two that Don could give him acting tips. And he could show Don his impressive pull-ups. And I don't know why I'm suddenly slashing Mark and Don. That just sort of happened.

My current job finished today, and I don't have any for Monday yet. But I might be applying for the permanent job soon. Rah.