To Gavin......

wow, six months later... lol

so, for those of you who are too lazy to read ALL my posts, way back to the beginning (umm, myself included!), Gavin was basically a childhood friend - although it's always felt like something a bit more special than just that to me. He used to live next-door, but he moved away when we were about 6 and i haven't seen him now in over 10 years - although last summer he 'magically' found me on bebo, and seemed just as eager to keep in contact with me as i was to keep in contact with him.
Anyway, i was talking him to on MSN last night - we only chat every few months - and this afternoon, well, i was missing him a bit, as i sometimes do (wow, 10 years, a long time to keep missing someone, huh?), and i just felt like writing this (oh, and if for whatever random reason Gavin mysteriously reads this blog and realises it's about him (might be kinda difficult, since i don't even use my real name), um.... it's all in your imagination, okay?!):

To Gavin....

I IM'd you 'happy christmas' on MSN last night, just when you were about to IM me. I could tell even without you mentioning it, because a message came back the second I hit 'enter', an incomprehensible or incomplete 'st'. Thing is, it wasn't as if I didn't give you time to write first,or anything. I mean, I saw that you had just signed in by the little musical box that popped up in the corner of my screen, and, well, I had my usual reaction - a little smile, a little happy feeling, a little sadness and longing, a little futile reach out to you... And as usual, I hoped you would write, and you didn't. A minute or so later maybe, I'm not sure, but definitely not sooner than that, I thought that maybe I could write you 'happy christmas', that should be ok, acceptable, it was this time of year, people do this, right? I deliberated about it for another few minutes, will I, won't I, should I? What would your reaction be if I did? I mean, sure, you would chat, but would it be minimal and would you feel annoyed for my initiation of contact? I didn't, and don't, know how you feel about me. Oh, sure, I have my hopes and wishes, but that's all they are - hopes and wishes... Am I simply an old childhood friend to you, who you happenned to come accross, or have you ever thought about there being one day something a little more there.....?
So anyway, I eventually decided to go for it, to say 'happy christmas', so I opened up my MSN, double-clicked on your name, and brought up the conversation screen. I typed my message - 'hey, happy christmas!' - and my finger hovered nervously over the 'enter' key. Was it too cheery? Too cheesy? Did you want to hear from me, or did you just add me last summer to be nice?
The mystery of the unknown, trying to protecting one's feelings, unsure of one's self, wanting with all your heart but afraid to reach out and try.....
But I pressed the buton. Instantly I felt a little jolt of regret - or fear - that it 'looks stupid!' or 'he doesn't want to talk to me! what am I dooing?!' And then almost instantly again, way too soon for you to have typed any sort of reply, a message came back from you - 'st'. I was a little confused, and in the second or two before your next, explanitary message came through, I contemplated asking you what you meant. Perhaps you didn't mean to send it to me at all, perhaps you were talking to someone else but it sent to me instead. But before I was able to even bring the cursor down to the message box, your next message came up - 'I was just about to type to you! :) '
You seemed so happy to see me.....
I don't know that you can imagine the 'warm and fuzzy' jolt of joy and happiness that coursed through me then - pathetic and sad as it sounds, I miss you... And lacking anyone else to focus my affections on, and given my weakness for anything sentimental or with any links at all to my childhood... Well, I only know what I feel... Pathetic as that may be.
So why had you waited a few minutes before messaging me? I mean, you knew straight away that I was online too, and you did message me after a few minutes. Does your computer automatically sign you in, and you were off getting something? Were you in the middle of writing a huge long message when I cut you off?! Or was it something else...? Were you deliberating, like me...? Well, there's no harm in wishing.....
And as for you not wanting to talk to me, well, I could hardly get a word in edgeways - you type so fast! I'm going to mention that next time...
So we had our conversation, and it was happy... and then you stopped. You just suddenly stopped replying. You had asked me what I got for christmas, and I had taken a bit longer than usual to answer because I'd gone into the kitchen to get something to eat, and when I answered, and returned the question to you... Nothing. MSN said your status was 'away' (rather than actually 'offline'). So I don't know what happened. I guess I never will.

As I said, I miss you Gavin. I don't distinctly know why I feel these things, we haven't seen each other in over 10 years, the last time I heard from you before you 'found' me last summer on bebo was a Valentine's Day card sent shortly after you moved away. I only know that I missed you and felt this way before we 'found' each other in cyberspace, and no matter what your excuse was as to how you found me (given that that particular way isn't acutally possible...!), the fact that you did means you were looking for me, and that you remembered me, too. We have something, however small. I can feel it. We've renewed our contact for a reason. Our friendship wasn't ready to be over......

So i guess this makes me sad and pathetic, right? Go figure....
He was online again earlier, but I don't know when I'll talk to him again... We only chat every couple of months... It could be the summer. That's just how this works.

see you soon (...ish...!) and happy new year (almost!)!
xxx

Happy Birthday to me!!

in honour of it being my birthday (i'm 17 today!), here's a little something (i found it ages ago on someone's blog):

1. How did you get the idea for your profile name? i wanted to be annonymous. in hospitals (etc) in america when they don't know a female's name, they call her 'jane doe'. in ireland when you want to think of a random name for no particular reason, sometimes people say 'joe bloggs'. my profile name was originally 'jane bloggs', but i didn't like that, so i changed it to 'lady jane'
2. What song are you playing now, or wish you were playing? 'I'll Be' by Edwin McCain
3. Has the death of a celebrity ever made you cry? no
4. What colour underwear are you wearing? black and white lepard-spotted ;-P
5. Do you want a baby? not now (obviously!) but in the future i want three
6. What does your dad do for a living? civil engineer
7. What does your mum do for a living? town planner
8. What is/are your pet's name(s)? i want to say that, but i also want to make sure i stay annonymous, and they're kind of original, so i won't. but i have two dogs and a goldfish
9. What colour are your bed sheets? white (i know, boring!)
10. What are the last 3 digits of your phone number? 203
11. What was the last concert you went to? never been to one :-(
12. Who was with you? ....
13. What was the last film you watched? a film me and my friends wrote and starred in filmed professionally by a crew from a tv station.... in irish!!
14. Who do you dislike most at this moment? Y.... she's a bitch.... (go on. search back. you'll find her eventually...!)
15. What food do you crave right now? anything, everything. but i'm overweight. so i can't.
16. Did you dream last night? you dream every night. i don't remember what i dreamt last night
17. What was the last TV show you watched? Home and Away yesterday afternoon
18. What is your favourite piece of jewellery? i always buy loads of cute jewellery, but i never wear it. but i think my favourite is a necklace i bought myself in France about 5 years ago. it has a gold chain and a small glass pendant with a blue butterfly painted into it
19. What is to the left of you? a list of songs i want to download for my iPod
20. What was the last thing you ate? breakfast
21. Who is your best friend of the opposite sex? i don't think i have a best friend of the opposite sex, but i know the only one i could have a serious conversation with is X (yes. look back. you'll find him too), and that's an important thing in my book
22. Who last MSN'd you? god, it was months ago!! but i'm pretty sure it was one of two of my friends from primary school that i haven't seen in ages (maybe years!)
23. Where is your significant other right now? :-(
24. Do you have a crush? i don't really know..... but i don't think so
25. What is his/her name? .....
26. When was the last time you had your hair cut? three weeks ago
27. Are you on any meds? only vitamins!!
28. Do you have a mental disease? no
29. What shirt are you wearing? i'm in my pyjamas!
30. Are you sexy? i wish....
31. What's your favourite store? Pennys!! i could spend days in there...
32. Are you thirsty? i am actually. thanks for asking...!!
33. Can you imagine yourself ever getting married? i can't imagine myself not getting married
34. Who's someone you haven't seen in a while and miss? gavin...... (see my second ever post)
35. Where do you work? i don't! (yet....)

The List Lady

the List Lady is back in action!!
i was kind of freaking out until yesterday because i'm going on holidays for two weeks this weekend and i had no lists, i wasn't prepared, i had nothing packed (as a matter of fact, i didn't actually have much that i could pack!). but then yesterday morning i bit the bullet, went downstairs and got an actual blank copybook to put all my packing lists in (i know. they call it obsessive or crazy. i call it organised:P ) and started my holiday lists. i am now hapily listified! but then again, i'm still unprepared and majorically (as my friend would say!) unpacked and i still need to get some stuff before i go! but at least with the lists, i feel more in control.......
i wanted to write about 'social class and being yourself'..... well. i'm not really sure where to start, but i know my opinions on this matter alright. in my school, you can very easily see the 'cliques' - well, in the girls at least. there are lines, and you know exactly where they are. it's a part boarding school, and the groups of girls go like this: me and my friends, the other day pupils, the boarders. maybe the boarders are split up, but it's definately not as 'straight and narrow' as the day puplis. but the thing is, we're not split up as if 'we hate each other' or 'we never talk to each other'. it's jsut the way we've happened, the two distinct groups. we might chat briefly once of twice, about trivial subjects usually, but most of the time we just keep with our own friends. a word of warning to any girl becoming a day pupil in my school in the same year as me: you don't have a choice who your friends are! if you are, without a doubt, one of those people who is immediatly classed as 'popular' - and we all know what that means, so don't try and pretend you don't - you go into the 'other' day pupils' group. if you're not, not matter how close or far you are from that 'status', you group with me and my friends. it doesn't matter if you're a hair's breadth away from them, or if you never have a chance - or the inclination - to be like them in the future, you still end up in our group. i think it's different with the guys in my year though, maybe because there's more of them or maybe because they're simply guys. there are more, smaller 'groups', but the lines are so blurred you can hardly see them, and the guys will basically get on with whover happens to be sitting next to them, boy or girl. which brings me to my next point, 'how much easier it is to talk to boys than girls'. now, before i begin, i should just breifly mention that my year in school seems to be considered the 'nicest'. i think that within the school, regardless of whatever i say here, it is the least concerned with social class. another good thing is that only a small handful of people smoke, and those that do don't brag about it because for once (!), in my year, it's not considered 'cool'. anyway. talking to guys. right. well, guys just don't really seem to care very much about social class, definitely not as much as girls anyway. i mean, they know about it, and they 'stick to the rules' in principal (god, girls really are bitches aren't they!), but i don't think they're really that bothered about it. take my trip to the outdoor education centre in october (see sometime in october (or i could have posted it in november!) '07) for example. the girls in my group were all pretty much from the same 'social group' (they were all from my group of friends, except for one boarder), but the guys were totally mixed - there could have been some of ever type there! but we all got on together. guys are so easy to talk to! take this for example: in the middle of the night, sitting around the campfire with a group of people we would never ever have mixed with before until 3 or 4 days ago, we started playing 'truth or dare'. since we were on our own in the middle or nowhere (and the two goodlooking guys had girlfriends!) there wasn't really any dares we could do, so after a few people pretending to sit on the fire for a while we ended up just playing 'truth'. but since the only really question you end up asking is 'who do you fancy?' we eventually went around in a circle saying who we fancied. yes. i know. who'd a thunk it? this is me we're talking about! but yes, i said it. a: it was a group of people i had never really spoken to and was unlikey to again, and b: they were guys. but thinking back just now, i don't think i would have said it if they were girls. i dunno, i would have bluffed out of it somehow... i have a reason for each group: if they were boarders - well, boarders can't keep anything quiet! and if they were the 'other' group of day puplis - well, my friend calls them 'the pussy patrol' for a reason. they pretend to be nice to you to your face, but to be honest, most of them are shite at it. AAAAAHH i actually hate them!! when i think of them i wat to punch something!!! i mean, there's one, maybe two, that are genuinely nice to you (or else they're just really good liers), but the others....!! sorry, little minor outbreak there...! but anyway, basically, guys are way easier to talk to than girls. i had more reasons/examples/whatever than this, but right now i can't really be bothered. i guess this would be a good time to mention the last (!) thing on my list. sssss it's like ripping off a bandaid, i just have to do it quickly and get it over with. well, iv'e never kissed anyone before. mever had a boyfriend. never been asked out. im nearly 17, for christ's sake!! i can legally have sex in a week and a half!!!!! kill me. Oh, and one more thing. for anyone that's wondering (and then again, i doubt anyone is), that guy i liked? i think i called him andrew or something? remember how i kind of practically loved him or something? (or thought i did, anyway!). the one i briefly mentioned at the end of my post about the brown-eyed guy at the lifeguard classes? well, then i said that i didn't know how i felt about him. i thought i was 'getting over him', but i didn't want to say it out loud, i don't think i could even say it here. well, i really don't now. it's just.... gone.
well, that's pretty much all i wanted to say. i'll see you on my birthday! and after that.... i don't know.
see you
xxx

Summer Sun

Right.
I'm sitting here with my list, as promised, in what must be my quickest following post in god knows how long!
this is quite a sacrafice for me (or not, as the case may be!) because for the first time since last summer, we've been getting long, hot, sunny, cloudless days since lunchtime on friday! in fact, i spent the whole of yesterday afternoon swaning around the garden in a floaty skirt and a suntop, something i really haven't done since last summer! (and i got sunburned!)
there's a couple of things i mentioned a while back that i promised to write a blog on, but to be honest, i don't think anyone really cares about them, so i won't bother. today's post will be kinda short, because i only have about 20 mins/half an hour before i have to leave for my friend's birthday.
so here goes (some of these things just randomly popped into my head over the last couple of months, and i said to myself 'oh! i might as well write about that!):

1. has anyone ever notcied how the guys in 'S Club 8' (if anyone can even remember who they were!) sounded so much like the girls?! i know it's cos of them being young and their voices not breaking, or whatever, but i still thought it was kinda funny!
2. why i absolutely can't stand going shopping with my mother: these are frequent comments i get from her when we go shopping: "of course young people your age wear those clothes casually around the place!" (while pointing to what i would consider fairly posh evening wear) and "are you sure that handbag's not a bit too fancy for everyday use?" (while pointing to an ordinary everyday handbag). Grrrrrr, she drives me insane!!!!!!

hmm, ok, the next few things are a little less trivial....

1. "my life-long best friend with tangled issues" (i mentioned this around Christmas when i posted a list of blogs to write). ok, first - yes, she is my life-long best friend, and we have been since pretty much junior infants. sencond - well, when i wrote it originally, i think i had 2 tangled issues in mind, the first (and biggest) being that we liked the same guy, and there was no way i wanted to lose her friendship over some guy. well, that particular 'tangled issue' has since righted itself (for reasons i will tell you in the next blog), but there's still the other little issue she has. i don't really want to go into detail on this, but basically, she's sick. she has an illness. but that's all i really want to say about it.......

wow, ok, well it looks like i had less to say on each topic than i thought.....

(stupid computer making me do double line spacing even when i don't want to....)

the next couple of topics are all kind of related, and i'm guessing (!) will take a bit longer to write on, so i'll put them all in a post together tomorrow or the day after

if anyone reading this (if there even is anyone reading this) wants to know about anything i've written, just leave a comment

other than that, i guess i'll see you tomorrow!

xxx

Missing Midnight

ok, first off i'd like to say sorry, yes i know it's been two months, but get over it. this is me we're talking about.
secondly i'd like to tell you about the title of this post. when i came up with the title, i had just finished the first book in a series called 'Midnighters'. i had asked my mum to get me the next two books in the series, but she was only able to get the third one (she said she got it, even though she knew i didn't have the second one, just because....). Anyway, after seeing the sticker on the front that said 'Not suitable for young readers' in big purple writing, i kind of wanted the second book just a little bit more....!! excpet that i was going off to France the next day (and i wanted books to read on the trip!) so i couldn't go looking for it. i was also kind of nervous about going to France, as it was an exchange trip where i was staying with a french family and supposed to be speaking french all the time (and i really don't think i'm any good at french - i was really nervous!). Anyway, the whole thing was so messed up, i wanted to blog about it before i left, but i knew i wouldn't have time, so i just wrote it out to post at a later date. i still gave it the title 'Missing Midnight', even though the post had absolutely no relevance to the book issue. i should mention, before i post it, that no, i do not always refer to myself in the third person, but often when i'm writing something like that i write it as if it was happening to someone else (i think it's easier or something that way, easier to say it more truthfully or get more detail). i also think i do this because.... well, i won't say i want to be an author as such, but me dream is to get one book finished, and although i'm always coming up with new ideas, there's one i've been working on for a few years (don't look so surprised, you know the frequency of my posts here!) that i really want to finish.....
well anyway, here's 'Missing Midnight'

"She felt heavy and immoveable as she left so many things unfinished. She was never this disorganised. She felt so unlike herself, like there was someone else living in her body. This was not the kind of person she was. Sure, she still had the lists, but they weren't proper and she hadn't been really following them as they weren't really that informative. A week from today she would be an entirely different person. She had spent time away from her parents and other family before, of course, but this was different. Yes, it was only a longer time than the others by one measly day, and yes, it wasn't the first time she had been without her family to a country where she wasn't fluent in the language, but this time, she was on her own. Not only would she be both family- and friend-less in a household where people wouldn't be speaking English to her, but she and two of her friends would also be making the transition from one airport to another all on their own, without any kind of real adult supervision. Sure, she would be 17 in only a month and a half, but still, it scared her. Not being organised. That was her thing. Just like Chandler's was being funny and Ross' was getting divorced. She was always organised. Lists and double-check lists for everything, every single item down to the last tissue accounted for. But this time she was scared, and truth be told, it had been lurking in the not-so-distant back of her mind for a while now. She didn't feel ready. Well really, she didn't know if she would feel ready. She didn't know what she needed, she didn't know what she should bring 'just in case', at least half her stuff was not only still to be packed, but it was still to be decided on or even still to be thought about altogether. Just now, as she sat there, immobile, dreading the morning and not knowing what to do, she realised she was already forgetting her glasses. Now she was remembering that she and her friends didn't even really know any of the details regarding the flight they would be taking on their own. She felt like she wanted to cry. In fact, she didn't feel like she was directly upset about any one particular thing, she just felt scared and emotional. She wanted some time, just to be by herself, to cry. To play her sad music - not her all-out depressed music, but her upset and 'i want to cry' music. But she didn't know how. She didn't know how to relax. She didn't know how to be herself. She didn't know how to be real."

as you can see, i tend to - i don't know, overdramatise? - some things that maybe should be just writing sometimes
anyway, there are approximately 5 days that i can post between now and when i go to croatia in a week and a half. that's 5 posts. i promise! i'm making a written list, guessing it will be easier to stick to (!), of things that i am going to post about before i go.
so see you tomorrow!!
xxx

Mid-term Break

--yes, i'm aware that's the title of a rather depressing seamus heaney poem that always makes my mother cry, especially at the lines "...a four foot box, A foot for every year.", but its the only heading i could come up with.

RE:the guy at the lifegurading course (i passed, by the way!) - i miss him..........
i really felt like we had some sort of connection, besides the fact that i talked to him not only more than the other guys on the course, but more than any guy i'm not technically 'friends' with (big and complicated, i know, but you get my meaning...). I still remember his eyes - they were so brown (heehee, i've just realised the ties there that i cant say here...!), they were the first thing i noticed, and they were so beautiful (this is the part where i say 'dont laugh!!'). And he seemed to really get along with me, more than the other girl anyway, and more (or in a different way, anyway) than guys have gotten on with me before (and dont even try to make that statement into something obsene!). When the group of us went out together for lunch, we would usually seem to end up talking to each other. And every so often, when we were doing the practical swimming mostly, i think, he would give me this little wave, and i would smile. he didnt do this with the other girl, and the last time he did it, i realised when i smiled that i was smiling with a lot more happiness than i would have expected..! i was upset when all the guys had left before me and the other girl came out of the changing rooms after the test on the last day - i wished i could have at least said goodbye, to all of them in fact (i actually saw one of them a week or two ago at a hockey match, but that really doesnt bear much significance with me). i knew the guy's last name, so i looked him up on bebo that evening and found his page. i was a little bit nervous about adding him as a friend - i didn't know what his reaction would be; did he expect us never to have contact again?, but eventually i just added him anyway. When he eventually went online and accepted me as a friend, i was a bit surprised he hadnt replied to the comment i'd left him - which, being me, i was already getting nervous about - i felt as if my persona was different online, and i didnt want him to know that me, i wanted him to know the real me, somthing right now i feel only my friends know. that bit's actually quite amazing to me, i usually relish the chance to flirt with them a little bit online, i would get embarrassed if it was face to face. but it seemed i felt this guy was different. a casual chatting-on-bebo relationship wasnt what i wanted, i wanted him in person, even just to talk to - and let me tell you, that really did surprise me. but anyway, that part of things either seems a little hazy in my mind, or it't too hard to explain, but either way... As i was confused about him not answering my comment (and also because i wanted to find out what his persona was like on bebo), i decided to (yes i know it's kind of mean... or something like that...) do a bit of 'snooping'. It was then that i found out he hadnt replied to any of the comments that showed up on his page (which went back many many weeks, i can tell you), except perhaps one person, whose profile was private so i couldnt check - her comments were the only ones which seemed to be regular enough to form one side of a conversation, but as i mentioned, i couldnt see his side of it. all his comments went back so far, it seemed as if people had given up sending him any - and since he didn't reply, i cant say i blame them!

so i guess i'll never see him or talk to him again. well, i may see him once or twice if i'm lucky, because he plays rugby and our schools often play against each other. but that doesnt really make up for anything... i do still kinda miss him, but its not like it was the day or two after the course ended..... :(
a good thing that finally came out of this is some kind of closure: ever since just befire christmas, my head has been confused about my feelings for andrew (hands up if you remember who that is... ya, i didnt think so). basically, the same thing happened at the christmas party as happened on valentine's day last year (read a long way back for this story... i'm pretty sure i told it fully somewhere...), only i hadnt asked my friend to ask him - in fact, when she metioned it, i vhenematly (i have no idea how to spell that!) told her not to. then, in front of him (technically, although he couldnt hear us because of the music) we had our little fight thing (yes, i will explain it at some stage...). but basically, she then asked him, he said no, blah blah, blah, blah, blah. Only this time my after-reaction was different (yes, i do tend to make up phrases sometimes...!). The previous time, i wasnt able to get over him, i either kept making up excuses for him, or decideing he could change his mind over time, or just not thinking about it in the hope that it would sort itself out. i ended up just acting like nothing had ever happend. This time, however, it was different. For many reasons. I spent that night at my friend's sleepover party, with all my friends, so i could cry there (dont say i could, because i couldnt). The next day was the last day before christmas, and i coulnt even look at him. It took weeks, untill almost the end of the christmas holidays, until i was finally able to cry for him. but even then, it was barely anything. from then, and back at school, i found myself feeling unsure about him. did i still feel the same way? i remeber saying (somewhat poetically) to myself on the ski trip 'i love you more now than yesterday, but still not as much as before' (or something like that). But when we came back, i think my feelings were still very very slowly fading. i didnt want to say to my friends that i didnt like him - well, that one friend especially - so i really hoped it wouldnt come up. im still hoping it wont, because i dont want to lie, for my own sanity, but im not quite 100% sure sure what to say... But basically, what i wanted to say, is since meeting the guy at the lifeguarding course (or more importantly, since not seeing him again), i have pretty much almost completely (see, i still dont want to say it, even here) totally kind of (oh come on! just say it!) gotten over him...

i still wish the guy from lifeguarding.....
well...
bye.....
xxx

The Lifeguard

-- that's the title of a huge folder i got today.
yes, i know, that makes perfect sense!!

i'm doing a lifeguarding course that started today - so i can hopefully get a summer job, because i really need the money! and to be perfectly honest, the only reason i wrote tonight is to mention the guys - hehehe lol! i normally go to things where i don't know anyone in the hope that i can 'be someone i'm not' (ie more confident), but if i start off like that it normally just fizzles out after a while. but (i'm hoping...(!)) it's not going to fizzle out this time. it's probably a lot because i'm one of only 2 girls and guys (of which there are 4) are SO MUCH easier to talk to, in a sense, and they are much more socially accepting (strange as that may seem!). anyway, they're all a great laugh, and myself and the other girl (who didn't know anyone either) have been talking to especially one guy (who happens to be the oldest) who didn't know the others (who also happens to be the most 'mature' (haha) and the least interested in finding a 'push' or 'pull' sign broken off a door and sticking it on the front of his pants for a laugh......). oh yes and by the way, he also happens to be the hottest!! lol. yes well i'm only a girl!! hehe

anyway, that's about it!! lol
bye!
xxx

URL

i didnt want to download this video so i couldnt upload it here, but here's the URL - more for myself than anyone else i suppose, but i wont lose it here!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GE4QJsqBa5Y

xxx

Happy New Year!!

i know it's almost a week late, but Happy New Year to all! sorry it's been so long, but the computer broke last weekend. i know i had promised above all to write before Christmas, but i think i have issues with promises to myself like that...
so here i am, on our old Windows 95, while our XP is getting fixed. i'm tying on a keyboard that kind of feels a bit like a typewriter to me - it's got thick, chunky keys that you have to hit quite hard to get any response out of and that make a funny noise when you do. it's got a mouse that fortunately does have a centre scroll button (unlike my friend's computer which i was using briefly on Friday), but ignores completely what you want and scrolls the page up or down - or keeps it still - to its own preferences. it has wierd issues with showing up web pages the way they're suposed to be so i can't edit this plain text at all. and i'm on dial-up internet, so i only have about 10 minutes, and this is probably all i'm going to get to say.
just wanted to write to reassure anyone who's reading this that i'm still alive or whatever else they might have thought (or hoped) had happened to me.
i'll write again as soon as i can when our computer is fixed - i'll try and make it a New Year's Resolution!
see you soon (i hope!)

xxx (imagine it pink...!!)