to do list

wow. sorry about that. i didn't realise it really has been a whole month since i last wrote. sorry :(
i guess i've been busy, but i really can't tell you what at. i could say i've had so many projects to do, and so many places to go with my school, but that's really just making excuses. i think things - everything - have been building up lately, so its probably a good idea i vent it all out in the next few days, because otherwise i might just burst! although, i can't write anything for the rest of the weekend, because i have to translate a whole 15/20 page script into Irish. not that i'm really complaining that much, but since i have another 3 chapters of Irish work to do for a week later, i'd have prefered to have more time to do it! but let's not get me started on all the Christmas deadlines i have.....

although my life seems to be pretty hectic at the moment, there's nothing in particular that really needs getting out right at this moment. so, i really should use this opportunity to look through all of my previous blogs and make a list of everything i promised to tell you about properly....

• that Christmas party.... (October 4th)... don't ask! but its funny (i guess), so i'll tell you about it
• my life-long best friend with tangled issues (October 7th)
• that 'horrible bitchy slut' (aka Y) (October 7th)
• the guy i used to fancy (October 23rd) (he has strange 'issues')
• 'social class, being yourself, and the very strange realtionship between me and [one of the "popular" girls]'... (October 23rd)
• how much easier it is to talk to boys than to girls (October 23rd)
• 'more things about me'...... (October 23rd)
• X's story (how horrible he is and all that sort of stuff...! ha! take that!) (October 23rd)
• "our" history (me and Andrew) (October 23rd)
• X and Y's 'friendship'. Ha! (i didn't actually mention this in a post, but i want to tell about it anyway...!)

Ok. that was both longer than i thought it would be, but also shorter. i guess that kind of shows you what kind of mindframe i'm in at the moment......

so that makes about 6 posts..... or more, if i know myself well enough.... and that's not even taking into account the other stuff that is going to happen to me from now until i get all these points over and done with! lets's see..... i'm completely caught up from now until Tuesday night at least. then on Wednesday night i have lifesaving. then on Friday night i have a fancy dress Christmas party - the theme is 'movies' (and i have absolutely NO IDEA what or who i'm going to go as!!!). i have 3 projects due on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday of the following week - none of which i have even started!! and some time that week i will have another themed Christmas party, which my class is supposed to be organising - and we havn't even brainstormed themes or dates yet! then on that Saturday night i am going to - get this - a Dinner Dance!!! me! a dinner dance! wearing a dress!! only if you knew me, could you know how amazing that is (and only if you were me could you know how much i'm really looking forward to wearing a girly, glitzy dress and pretty heels....). and in between all of this i have to get a Christmas tree, decorate it, get shoes to wear with my dress (which i may or may not post a picture of), buy all my Christmas presents (and that's a lot!), and wrap as many Christmas presents as possible (!!), because that following Tuesday is........ CHRISTMAS!!!!!!! Which i may as well tell you now, is my absolute, complete, favorite time of year....!!!!

so, anyway, there's not really that much going on in my life at the moment except Christmas deadlines - school-wise, personal-wise, and just about everything else-wise!

i'll write back as soon as i can, but the only thing i'm promising is that it will be before Christmas (but i'm not saying how much before!)

(and by the way, i can't help the fact that at the moment The Blogger has decided it wants me to have double line spaces between each paragraph, because i only wanted single but i have no idea how to fix it...!:P)

bye!!

xxx

i bruise easily

i think this will be a rather serious post.......
i metioned this very briefly in my last post. i wanted to write about it properly, but the moment has passed - it occured exactly a week ago, and that's too long ago for me to write about it properly with real feeling. i would leave it out altogether, but i feel as if its something i should write about.
basicly, i was having a pretty bad day last monday. well, to be honest, it had been building up all weekend. everything seemed to be going wrong, although i couldn't tell you specific things. i guess i was just going through a bad patch. but it really was a bad patch. things seemed to be going especially bad that monday evening. again, i couldn't really tell you what exactly, but almost everything that happened was making me break down and cry. not that i let on to my family, that is, i just bit my lip and held it inside. that evening after dinner the whole family was watching tv together - something we never do, but it was neccessary that night for reasons that aren't important now. i went out into the hall to do something, something that was actually driving me nuts, but i had to keep working at it or i felt that i would burst into tears - and by the way, i know this is sounding just like overactive hormones or whatever, but trust me, they have never, ever been this bad. anyway, i was in the hall working on this thing to keep myself sane, but eventually i just couldn't stand it anymore. there happened to be a cushion on the floor (don't ask why) and i just lay there and started sobbing quietly so the rest of my family couldn't hear me. i lay there for a good while, actually, but then i finally got up and went upstairs to have a shower. the shower didn't cure me though, so when i got back to my room i put on my Avril Lavigne CD ("Under my Skin"). i've had it for about 6 years, i'd say, but that music is still as depressing as it ever was - i hadn't listened to it in about four years, it truely is my sad music. anyway, i was sitting there, on my bed, with music playing in my room and my family all watching tv downstairs, and so no-one could hear me. after a minute or two i felt the sadness wash over me again, like i knew it would, and broke down into sobs once more. by the second song on the album i coulddn't even sit up anymore, and so i was lying down on my side on my bed, with my hair still wet and a damp towel still around me. im not sure exactly when my carefully controlled tears turned into gasping, heaving sobs, but they did. sometime in the middle of all this i looked down at my bare, still damp arm underneath me, and hated it. i'm not proud of it, but i was so repulsed and upset and generally not even thinking straight that i started hitting it, hitting it as hard as i could, with all my strength. i wanted a bruise, something to not let me forget about it. i felt if i closed my eyes and didn't see myself do it, then it didn't hurt. i was literally putting every ounce of strength in my body behind those punches; by the end of the album i didn't even have to close my eyes, i was so far gone i couldn't even feel them. i was using as much force as X had used on me that day in Cappanalea, if not more. i know it sounds so crazy stupid, but i really wanted to have a bruise, just so i myself could see it. by the time the album was halfway through its second run i was beginning to calm down just enough to know that i had to get it together enough that my parents wouldn't be suspicious when they came up to bed. by the time my mum stuck her head around the door to tell me to turn my music down, my swollen eyes just looked tired and she didn't question me.
i didn't have a bruise the next morning (it was on my inner forearm; a word of warning to anyone - you don't bruise there) but it did hurt the second i put any pressure on it, or even just folded my arms, for the next two or three days - perhaps even more than a bruise. and the worst thing was, i didn't even really regret it...
before you tell me, i know what i did was really, really stupid. the only time i ever did something like it was about two years ago, again only one night, when i delibrately scratched my wrists a few times - just with my fingernails though, and not really very hard.
i'm not the kind of person who self-harms.
i love my life, and i wouldn't give it up for anything.
i never plan to do that again, so please, don't worry. it was just a moment of weakness. i was having a bad day, going through a bad patch. i just needed that one little release.
i promise.
xxx

What Katy Did Next...

i know i havn't written in a while, but i've been, um, busy... well no, i havn't, i've just been reading lots of fanfics from my favourite books, but i needed a break tonight. one day when i really do have nothing to do and when i have proper access to the computer for a proper length of time i will start talking about all the threads i mentioned in passing in all my past posts (including this one, i'm afraid!). although that will probably take more than one post! but i'll do my best.
i guess i told you everything of real importance during my trip in my last post, except for one thing. this thing will need a bit of background, though. well, i'm giving it some anyway whether it needs it or not! there is a guy - lets call him X. i metioned him every so slightly in my last post - he's the guy who 'thinks he's our friend'. i guess this is where it gets kind of complicated. in 1st year, none of my friends (or me, just in case you were wondering) were 'friends' with him or generally wanted anything to do with him. every chance he got he would come up to me, telling me another guy, a freak (i know that's really harsh, but this is how i have to tell it), wanted to have sex with me and asking me to score with that guy (that guy has since left our school, just so you know). he also fancied my friend (well to be honest, we'll never know if that was true or not, it's a suspiscion he was only doing that for attention or to get at us, but anyway...) and he would follower her around and drive her mental and annoy her in every way possible for the whole year. i can't really remember what he was like in 2nd year, but eventually he 'got over her' (and yes, ok, i am the kind of person who would say in response to that "when was he under her.....?!" (only around my friends though... they know what i'm like!)). but then in third year a little bitch i am deciding to call Y showed up in our year (i will have to tell you all about her, but that's for an entirely other day). she decided she was friends with X, and all of a sudden he was part of our group. this was at the start of the year, i should explain, before we knew her 'true colours'. anyway - she knew, from listening to us, how much we didn't like him, but she still went ahead and invited him into our circle, and there he has stayed. thinking back over it now makes me come up with the thought: "i bet it was a conspiracy of her's right from the beginning...!" haha. we say: "go away X, we don't like you!" (harsh though it may seem, nothing seems to affect that guy. that sure didn't.) her defense: "well he's my friend!" so, our 'friend' he stayed. although, in all fairness, we are a very accomodating bunch of people, so in our group he stayed. and truthfully, by now, we would really all consider him a friend, although none of us would ever say it out loud (especially not where he could hear us!! and that's not totally due to his tendency to get big-headed and never let things drop!)
so, um, yeah, that was the background! sorry, i tend to run away with myself a lot! anyway, the main things i wanted to say about this X are these: firstly, when we were in Cappannalea one evening, me and X were sitting on one side of a table playing cards with my friend and Andrew respectively. i can't remember why, but for some reason X was trying to get me to push over i think, and i wouldn't. anyway, he started ramming his chair up against mine. i started hitting at him, but in a relatively friendly way, when all of a sudden he elbowed me really hard in my upper arm (i think i have a pressure point there, because it always really hurts when someone so much as pokes me there!). i know what you're thinking, "yeah right, really hard, but i'm deadly serious. i woke up the next morning with a huge bruise - and not only was it huge, it was the kind of bruise i only get when i fall down the stairs badly (yes, i do fall down the stairs a lot... ours are really slippy when you're in socks!!). so yes, X did hit me really hard. he hit me with the kind of strength you only apply when you really want to hurt someone. and i mean really hurt them. and for once, i'm not exaggerating. (it was the kind of strength i used the other night when... i was going to tell you tonight, but i won't have time. the next time...).
the worst thing was, he was proud of this bruise. he told me so himself! repeatedly! (granted, it was only after i had shown him (that was not a dirty phrase!!!!!)). which kind of brings me to my second point, i think. a week or so ago, our school had a disco (which it does every so often, seeing as how its so nice and all...). anyway, even though i will never tell him he's right, X knows i like Andrew. don't ask me how; this is something i will touch on when i tell you about Y, i think. except that at the disco, every time i started dancing near to Andrew (i know what you're probably thinking now, but i have worthwhile explainations which will come at a later stage...) X would intervene by coming in between us. now, i don't know how much guys talk to each other, maybe he was doing this for Andrew, by my conscience started to tell me otherwise. and i was not liking this one little bit. i mean come on, this is X!! which brings me to quite a freaky possible-but hopefully COMPLETELY UNTRUE-maybe-but i hope not!!!!....thing (i was going to say realisation but that is just not right!). when i saw X dan... no, sorry, i can't even say it here!! i just kind of looked at him and though, god, if he weren't so annoying and if he didn't drive me mad so much i could even......... (this was immediately followed by) NO!!!!!! sorry, it's really too wierd!! and no, just to let you know, the annoyance is not the kind that is really me in denial and at the end of the day it turns out that i like him really. by brain automatically analyses things like that both about me and about other people, and i assure you, it's not like that. but still.. the second i get back to school (i'm on mid term break at the moment) i have to say to him: "annoy me. now. PLEASE!!!" i have to get out of this kind of mind! it will kill me!! and i'm not just saying that!!!!
sorry for that liitle rant just there...! i just had to kind of get it off my chest. or something. and he hit me!!!!!
anyway...!
i kind of have to go now. what with it being really late here and all (or early. whichever way you want to look at it...!)
bye..........
xxx

What Katy Did

well, i have a time limit on this post. i have to be off in exactly one hour, or my brother will have another hissy fit, and i really cant deal with that right now. you know, in spite of me being in the legendary 'Transition Year', i actually feel like i'm under more stress this year than i was doing my Junior Cert. i don't know. maybe i'm just misjudging it, forgetting already what it was like last June. who knows? either way, i know for a fact that i wasn't really stressed at all this time last year, whereas now.....
anyway. im sorry i had to wait so long to write. from the second i got back from Capannalea it's been 'spina bifida this' and 'book report that'. oh, and even more 'spina bifida'. but i've finally got all my assignments up to date (as far as possible), and i've found a few minutes to sit down and splurge some of my feelings. i wont be able to get all of them though. i have way too many issues for that...! but i'll get down as much as i can. it will take a lot of individual posts to bring everyone up to date, but that's probably a good thing. if i were to write everything in one post, not only would it take positively weeks, but it would be so long you'd fall asleep after the first 50 paragraphs or so... so anyway. here's today's batch of issues and so forth...
Capannalea was, in short, a good laugh. even though i didn't think i would enjoy it properly, as me and hillwalking really should not be on the same continent together (and i'm really not the kind of person who says things like that, so that just shows how much i despise it), but to be honest, i even managed to carry my own bag up the hill on the day of the overnight adventure - one of the only girls who did, thank you very much! even though the slope was almost verticle. and that is one thing i am not joking about. we practically crawled up the last 50 meters or so. but the guys in my group were really nice. the staff at the centre put us into groups, so we weren't neccessarily with our friends, and the guys i was with were ones i don't think i had ever had an actual conversation with (except for maybe one of them). one of them was a guy i used to fancy a few years ago. even though i really am completely over him, i still feel a little awkward around him. the way i feel about him is: yes, he's really good looking, really sensitive for a guy and actually a real gentleman, something i never thought i'd see in a 16-year-old in the 21st century; but honestly, i always knew i never even had half a chance with him. i respect him, though, and there will always be a little part of me that still has some sort of feelings for him.
that guy was one of our nominated group leaders - we had two, the only group ever to have two according to our 'adult' leader. it wasn't exactly a concious decision - "let's have 2 group leaders" - but everyone else just unanimously decided - "these two are perfect. it's stupid to try and pick one over the other. they're both good friends so they'll get on well. let's just have them both." our other leader was a real gentleman aswel - it's amazing what you find out, things that you never though even existed before. anyway, this second leader was a guy i really had never spoken to before. it's not that i didn't want to, it's just that the opportunity never arose. our groups of friends don't really mix, and really we're from different 'social classes' - his girlfriend is (still) one of the 'popular' people, and me and my friends just prefer to do our own thing, in our own way, and be ourselves. one day, i will write a post about social class, being yourself, and the very strange realtionship between me and the second leader's girlfriend (in short - we used to be best friends, we're not any more. but it goes ever so slightly deeper than that), but not now. i have other things on my mind right now. these two leaders, well, they were so nice. even though i've never really spoken to them before, and technically they would have gotten away with just letting me do my own thing with the few of my friends that were in that group with me, they made a real effort with everyone and, strange as it feels to be wording it this way, it really felt like they cared. which brings me to mention something else i must write a post about some time - how it really is so much easier to talk to boys than to girls.
another subject i know i touched on in my last proper post was that guy. for confidentiality's sake, and so that i don't have to keep saying "the guy, the guy, the guy", let's call him.... Andrew. i know how pathetic this must sound, because i've scorned about it before, and i realise this is probably the time to tell you some more things about me (which i promise to tell you soon enough... i just don't know when...), but i'm going to say this anyway. there was an odd number of my female friends going on the bus to Capennalea, and as i was the last of them to get on the bus, i was sitting in a seat on my own. Andrew was already sitting in front of me with one of his friends (who also, incidentally, sees himself as one of our friends... another long and complicated story which, like so many other topics, i really don't feel in the mood to be getting into right at this moment). when he noticed me sitting on my own, he ditched his other guy friend and sat beside me instead. i know what you're saying - "wow, big deal, woopdeedoo" - but for me this is a big deal. being the quiet and conservative person that i seem to be (though i don't like to say it), i don't sit beside guys on buses that often. added to this fact was that this was going to be quite a long bus journey, and Andrew had ditched his guy friend to sit next to me. this made me feel really happy - quite really happy (i don't care whether that phrasing makes sense or not, by the way - in my own writing, i am given to saying things in the exact format they pop into my head) - especially since we filled pretty much the whole bus journey with relaxed conversation (when i first started liking him, over a year ago (i will give you 'our' history in another post (whether you want to read it or not!) it felt like kind of awkward when we were on our own together, but for the last year it's been fine - so much better, in fact). strange, and rather pathetic as it may seem, this feeling kept me happy for pretty much the whole rest of the day - something i feel can often be quite rare with me...
two things that are honestly really quite random, and for the most part reasonably unconnected with the other points in this post, are as follows:
firstly, one the first night - we were all staying up fairly late, as lights out wasn't until 12:30pm, which no-one was exactly complaining about. we were watching the 'Tokyo Drift' DVD, another thing that is quite strange for me, as i famously have pretty much no interest in cars whatsoever (Tokyo Drift is about the only car movie i will watch!), and people started drifting off to put on their pyjamas... and then coming back down to the common room again! it really is a kind of... i don't know... wierd (?)... experience to be sitting there, in your pyjamas, in fornt of all the guys! it's not something i normally do!
secondly - and of course, typically me, i've completely forgotten what i was going to say... and i just know i'll remember it the second i publish this!!
oh well, time to go so i can divert a life threatening hissy fit.... (and i am not making a joke out of this. i really don't like doing this, it makes me feel so... alone in life... (please don't laugh at that. i was being serious)
ciao
xxx

alive

just letting you all know that i'm still alive!! that i didn't fall down a cliff or drown or anything!
i don't have time to write anything proper now, because if i started i would be going for hours! (i tend to rant a bit, as you may have noticed)
i'll be writing again soon, hopefullly tomorrow but if not then definitely this weekend
i just wanted to kill the suspense a little! (haha)
see you then
xxx

no rest for the wicked

i think my head is about to explode!!
i've been working on my science essay since lunch time, and its now after 6pm - thats 5 hours! and im not even half finished!! i started out with a pile of information about as long as my arm, but now thankfully its down to 5 pages. it was all pretty much the same stuff, though, just worded differently, so it was an absolute nightmare to try and go through everything and decide first of all which bits i actually needed, and then to try and write it so it actually made sense! imagine wading through piles of information, each bit saying much the same thing but you dont know that until you've read it!! the worst bit is, i've written about almost every aspect of spina bifida i can think of - types, causes, diagnosis, incidence, treatment, life with - and i dont even have 2 pages! the only one i have left to write about is treatment, and even though it looks like i have more information on that than on any other aspect, its hardly goin to take up 2 pages all by itself! if anyone has ideas for what else i could write about then please, leave me a comment before next weekend!!!
with work experience behind me, i now have a week in Cappanalea, Co. Kerry to look forward to. its an outdoor adventure centre where we'll be doin canoeing, abseiling, hill walking, and so on. we're staying in a nice, warm, bathroomed, four-walled and roofed building on monday, tuesday and wednesdy night, but on thursday night we have to camp out. ick. i hate camping. and hilwalking. im not too fond of canoeing either, even though my parents introduced me to it the minute i was able to sit up by myself. i like abseiling though. always been a fan of jumping off huge rocks, although its usually into the water and without a rope. i've always wanted to go abseiling.
i suppose one of the things i'm most looking forward to about going to Cappanalea is seeing my friends again. i know that sounds kind of sad, but when you live in the middle of nowhere and you're shy around new people (eg people you're supposed to be working with), a week can seem like a long time... how the heck do i survive the summers??! but im really a people person at heart, even though its not apparent until i really get to know people - i know that doesnt make any sense, but sometimes a girl really needs her friends, you know? for laughs and stuff. then again, i suppose im talking about one friend in particular - not as a girly friend, though (although sometimes im not entirely sure about that...!). yes, ok, its a guy friend...!
and i adore him, of course. i know, two years ago i never thought i would be the type of person to 'fancy your guy mate'. thats all it is though. unfortunately. not through lack of trying on my part though (another thing i'd never have predicted, me being the shy-ish type of person i am and all...). i was flirting with him like mad at the halloween disco last year, and even though he didn't say anything directly the next day he seemed quieter than usual, and pensive - something he's definatly not usually - he even walked to school on his own, instead of with me and my friend, something he has never done in the whole three and a bit years we've been walking to school together - there was definatly something on his mind that day...!
and then at the Valentine's disco back in February of this year i plucked up enough courage to get my friends to ask him to score with me - i know, it doesnt exactly sound so courageous if its just my friends who were asking him for me, but i dont think even my very closest friends know how dificult that kind of thing is for me (as you may have guessed, i have serious self-confidence issues). anyway, he said no, and obviously i was upset, but then one of his other friends said he didn't think i would go out with him anyway. so consequentially, my head was so completely messed up. i avoided him for a few days, and i tried for the whole easter break (the following two weeks) to get over him, but after being back in school with him for a week i realised it was just not mentally possible for me to do that. as cliched as it may sound, i really have never felt like this about anyone... and i really never thought i'd be the kind of person to say something like that!!
this tangled story has a lot of issues to go with it - including a life-long best friend (with tangled issues herself), and a really horrible bitchy slut who joined our school last year and who i have to pretend to be friends with (then again, she's pretending too - its kind of like a modern Cold War, only worse...)
well i really want to keep going (honestly, i really do...!) but unfortunately, my rucksack's not going to pack itself. i guess i wont see you until next friday night, so i hope i'll have some good news for you by then!
ciao for now
xxx

Dear Jo

i dont know why i titled this blog 'dear jo'. i guess its because i just got emailed a song by someone on bebo that they wrote called 'dear jo' and it actually seems like a pretty good song. i know that is so exteremly random but thats just the kind of person i am...!
here's the song:

Dear jo,
Come take a walk with me.
Let's pretend we're just two people and
You're not better than me.
I'd like to ask you some questions if we can speak honestly.

What do you feel when you see all the people you hurt on the street?
Who do you pray for at night before you go to sleep?
What do you feel when you look in the mirror?
Are you proud?

How do you sleep while they cry?
How do you dream when a guy jumps of a bridge?
How do you walk with your head held high?
Can you even look me in the eye
And tell me why?

Dear jo
Were you a lonely girl?
Are you a lonely girl?
Are you a lonely girl?
How can you say
No one is hurt?
We're not dumb and we're not blind.
They're all sitting in your rooms
While you pave the road to hell.

What kind of father would take his own daughter's rights away?
And what kind of father might hate his own daughter if she were gay?
I can only imagine what your mum has to say
You've come a long way from trying to hurt them.

How do you sleep while they cry?
How do you dream when a guy jumps of a bridge?
How do you walk with your head held high?
Can you even look me in the eye
And tell me why?

Let me tell you 'bout love
When you care bout someone
Let me tell you 'bout havin
Friends that care bout you
Let me tell you 'bout havin
A heart when you love someone
Let me tell you 'bout true love
True lovetrue love
You don't know nothing 'bout true love
Yrue love
True love
Oh

How do you sleep at night?
How do you walk with your head held high?
Dear jo,
You'd never know true love.
Would you?

as i was saying, pretty random... but i thought it was good!
anyway -
this morning i was working with 'Alan' in physio - and may i just mention how hot he is?! hehe. at this point i may just point out that there is a total of 4 guys working in the entire building...! there's Alan; there's some fat older guy that does... um.... something...!; there's another fat older guy but i really dont have a clue what he does!; and there's another really old guy whos always wandering around the place in paint-spattered overalls but i dont think he actually does anything...!!
so that was pretty much my whole week of work experience - fairly uneventful as you can see, except for the episode with the freaky drunk old guy on monday......!
i think i'll warn you now though - i have a feeling my next post will have just a bit of ranting and raving...!! hehe i'll see you tomorrow!
xxx

hard work??

its strange. people ask me what i've been doing during my work experience and i tell them: "well, i played with little children for a while, i went swimming, i wrapped christmas cards and today i made clay pots...!"
today i was working with disabled adults - i went to an art class with them (where i made the pots) and i went to a 'personal development' class. i think one of the disabled people's PAs was a guy who was in 6th year in my school last year, but im not absolutely 100% positive -he looked REALLY like him, except his hair was completely different - i know he could have dyed it (a lot!) but i dont think it could have become that long over the summer! (i saw him at the end of june, working in a surf shop in town - its strange, because he said hello to me then even though he was 3 years ahead of me in school and we had never spoken to each other or acknowledged each other in the whole three years! (except for a game at the christmas party, but im not getting into THAT now....!) i guess he just recognised me)
it was hiarious working with the adults today, especially the men. its so funny having a 30-something year old with the mind of (in these circumastances probably a 20-year old, so its not weirdly pervy!) start prenteding to hit on you while you both laugh your heads off at him! i know, its seems really strange and wrong but honestly, you just had to be there!
so this week hasnt exactly been the most demanding, even though it was supposed to be work, but im in physio tomorrow, so we'll just see if it stays like that!!
xxx

All work and no play.....

well.
sorry i didnt write yesterday, but i was just so exhausted!! its amazing how tired you can get just playing with little children all day! luckily for me, the drunken old man didnt get the bus again yesterday - but i was a bit worried about it for a while!
i was in the preschool again this morning - and i turned up at lunch time covered in yoghurt and red paint! and then for a while after lunch i went to the fundraising section of the company and i got to wrap up bundles of christmas cards in shiny plastic! hehe i love christmas. im the one in my house in charge of all the celebrations, but i really come into my own at christmas. i really love wraping all the presents - i'd wrap my own if i could, except i prefer being surprised with what i'm getting!
i wasnt as tired today as i was yesterday, probably because i was only in the preschool in the morning - after wraping the christmas cards i worked with a physiotherapist for the rest of the afternoon. it was pretty interesting, and i might be working in physio again on friday.
i think the reason i enjoyed wraping the christmas cards is because i prefer to be given an actual task to do; simple, fairly repeditive and fairly brainless, but an actual action that you have to do that gives some sense of accomplishment. i know, its a bit strange, but i think its kind of the way my mind likes to work sometimes. its why i always prefered snakes and ladders to cludoe - i dont have to think! for example, this weekend i spent almost an hour sorting and folding neatly a big box of old paper carrier bags - just because i was bored! i think im the kind of person who likes routine, and i definately dont like change! it messes me up completely!
i missed the first bus home this evening because i was let out 5 minutes late, so i had to get the next bus. that meant i barely had time when i got home to pack my bags and head out to swimming - im doing life saving classes, i want to get my bronze medallion this year. sometimes they can be fairly demanding, but im a very good swimmer so im not worried about it!
i guess i'll write again tomorrow, unless im too tired again!
see you soon!
xxx

DynaVox

so i get up at 7:30 this morning, three-quarters of an hour later than i usually have to get up on weekdays. i get dressed, rush a quick breakfast, and my mom drops me to the place im doing work experience - 15 minutes early on my first day and no idea where im supposed to go. so i go inside, sit down in reception and wait awkwardly for about 15 minutes while employees pass me and wonder who the heck i am. then eventually a receptionist arrives and makes me put on a name tag saying im a visitor, and i sit awkwardly around for another 15 minutes while everyone who passes pretends they're not trying to read my name tag. then eventually at 9:15 the person who's supposed to be in charge of me for the week comes in - by this time i've lost count of the number of times i've said "im doing work experience, im supposed to talk to Claire James". anyway, she then shows me around a bit and sits me down at a desk on my own and says she'll come back for me in a few minutes. 20 minutes later she comes back and brings me to a room where im to spend the rest of the day - listening in on a demonstration of how to use those little computers that talk for people who cant speak, called the 'DynaVox series 5' (im doing work experience with Speech and Language therapists).

we break for coffee at 11 and everyone goes to the cafeteria - where the only thing to do is talk and drink tea and coffee - but i dont drink tea or coffee - so i sit around awkwardly for another 20 minutes. then we go back to the demonstration, break for lunch (more sitting around awkwardly, as my mom has made me bring a roll for my lunch, and there's not much messier to try and eat than a really crispy roll), and then back to the demonstration. it finally finishes at around 4pm, but im not supposed to finish work till 4:30 and there's no sign of Claire, so i just follow one of the other SLTs around for a while. she actually quite nice, and to be honest she's not that much older than me, so it's not too bad.

then finally at 4:30 i leave and go to the bus stop. i dont actually know when the next bus is coming, and its starting to rain, so im hoping i dont have to wait half an hour in the freezing cold. luckily, a bus comes along in about 5 minutes, so i hop on. this bus only brings me into town, though, so i have to get a different bus once i get there that almost goes straight past my house. for once, my luck holds, and im able to catch the bus that leaves at 5pm. however, about halfway through the journey, a drunken old man gets onto the bus. i try to push my bag out onto the seat to make it seem like there's no room, but its too late. i can smell the whiskey from his breath. who gets drunk by 5 in the evening, seriously?! i grab my bag onto my lap and look out the window, hoping he wont talk to me. it doesnt work. he's practically asking for my life story - what's my name, was i at school, what to i want to be when i grow up? i try to be as polite as possible while mumbling the simplest but not neccessarily true answers. i dont want to ignore incase he gets violent, so i smile nervously whenever he talks directly to me and try not to look at him. his name is Paddy, apparently. i get a bit more nervous when he tells me i have a nice smile, and asks where i live and how tall i am. i mumble inaudiably, but he seems to hear me and carries on talking away. at this stage we are nearing my town, and the bus is starting to empty, but he still hasnt gotten off. there's a woman sitting in front of me, and despite her bleached platinum hair and orange face, she still looks like the kind of person who would help me if Paddy gave any trouble. the old ladies opposite us, on the other hand, look more likely to blame it on me. but then, the nice-looking blonde woman gets off, and so do the old ladies. Paddy still stays on. im staring to get quite nervous at this point, as i dont want to have to ask him to move when my stop comes, and i start getting paranoid that he'll try to follow me home or something. but finally, to my relief, he gets off at the stop just before mine. i feel my wrists unclench, i didnt even realise they had been balled up. i start to relax again, until i get off the bus and realise i left my keys at home this morning! i pray that the spare key will still be in the shed, but as usual, its not. so i spend the next 20 minutes sitting outside in the rain with my dogs, waiting for my mom to come home.

so that was my wonderful first day of work experience. tomorrow im going to a disabled pre-school and we're going swimming....! wish me luck!
xxx

Me, Myself, and I

some things people don't know about me:

1. im supposed to be writing a 2000 word essay on spina bifida for friday and i havnt even started yet - im writing this instead
2. my brother just came in and looked at this while i was out feeding the dogs - now hes going to tell my mom what im doing and il get in heaps of trouble, besides the fact that no-one i know is supposed to know this blog even exists
3. the thing i get most stressed out by is, in fact, my brother. i dont know what it is, but even just since he started at secondary school with me last year iv been getting more and more frequent headaches and sometimes i feel like his only purpose in life is to give me a nervous breakdown - i know brothers and sisters often dont get along, but this is worse than any other siblings i know - i sometimes even feel in physical pain from it
4. i cried myself to sleep over a boy last valentine's day - something i never in my life thought i would do. im just not that kind of person -well, apparently, i am
5. im writing a book - well, attempting to write one. its been in the process of being written for three or four years. i keep changing the plot - a little bit here, a little bit there. this summer i decided to try and do it properly. i started from the beginning and worked forward, instead of just writing the scenes i was interested in. i guess it's kind of working - i've written about one chapter, which is probably the largest whole part of it i've ever written. theres lots of differnet plot threads, but i think im finally beginning to settle down i write it properly - i hope!
6. the real reason i only got a B in science in the junior cert, instead of the A i expected: because in the middle of studying for it, i had the most brilliant idea for a story, and had to write it down - even thought it was only a page, it could have meant the difference between an A and a B. (i havent started writing this story yet - im making myself finish the other one first. but when i write it, it will end up being two stories, because i want to write the bit that comes after the page i wrote, but the way i wrote it demands the story that comes before it aswel)
7. when i was 5, i was really great friends with a guy called Gavin. i mean really great friends. one of the memories i have of us is me saying "we're getting married when we're grown up, arent we, Gavin?" but when i was about 6 he moved away, and except for a valentine's card that year, i never heard from him again. then about a year ago i stared really remembering him again. i really wanted to see him again, but i had no idea how to find him - i didnt even know his second name! i thought about him a lot, but never managed to do anything about it. but then, only a month ago, i got the best surprise of my life - somehow, he had found me on bebo! i couldnt believe it - after 10 years, we were finally talking again. he felt the same way i did about the long 10 years - he said "i really regret not keeping in contact..." - now that, from a guy, is commitment!
8. lastly, i tend to be quite a private person. when im upset, worried, frustrated, stressed, or any thing like that, i usually keep my feelings to myself. i dont know why this is, but i do it anyway. i try to work through things on my own. one of the only things that can truly calm me down when im stressed, worried or excited, is playing the piano. i wouldn't say im brilliant or anything, but i can play a bit and it calms me down. but i wont play in front of anyone. i wont even play if anyone else is in the house. even if theyre fast asleep or something. anyone except my brother, that is. for all that he drives me crazy, he's the only one that can be within earshot when im playing. hes the only one who wont make any comment about it or aknowledge that im playing at all. my parents would come in and say "how lovely!" or something, or they would comment on my "lovely" playing later on. but i prefer to play just for myself

so thats me. but as interesting as it was, im sure you all have better things to be doing...! as do i - like an essay on spina bifida!

see you!

xxx

welcome to my life....

so.
hi.
i guess its sunday now. its late. i should sleep. before my mom comes home and gets mad at me. i cant take that kind of stress this time of night. its too compicated. at least my brother was civilised tonight. so im calmer than usual after we've been left on our own in the house all evening. hes in bed now. thats the only reason im actually able to be online......
so anyway.
goodnight, i guess.
xxx