Adventures of the Anonymous Blueberry Muffin Thief

Work got done (although I still need to email it), sleep was had, words were written of Yuletide (but I am still engaging in that terrible feeling of BEARS) and I have sort of started to win the war against the lurg.

I have also seen the Hobbit. Helen and I have squeed over it, I have had thinky thoughts over one of the most insignificant parts of it, and while it wasn't the film I necessarily wanted of the book, I enjoyed it. Mostly I took from it this - since when were Dwarves sexy? (I blame Richard Armitage).

I have a staff meeting from hell tomorrow, which is prefaced by a pre-meeting meeting because my department is made of drama-llamas of the highest fucking degree. If I could, I would go in armour, sadly, I don't think that would go down too well. Nor would weaponry.

I should be in bed, but my throat is annoying me and I want to finish my tea. I also failed at dinner today; I got pie filling out the freezer, bought pastry on my way home from the cinema and then found when I got home that the 'chiller cabinet' in the co-op is actually the freezer, and my pastry was rock solid. So I had cheesey chips. Which was not the tasty chicken and mushroom pasty and veg that I wanted.

Right, bed, for I need to get up early and read the stuff I should have read for the meeting and then go to the meeting and not maim anyone.

I really ought to be reviewing my source material for Yuletide (again, the first attempt lasted about 200 words before I hated it to death) or finishing work. Or cleaning. God, why is there always so much cleaning to do?

Instead I'm sitting here bemoaning how fucking cold it is. Because it is, and I hate the cold.

I have no idea what I'm doing for christmas this year. I was angling to stay with dad and Kay, but I've just found out that my step-sister and her other half will be there, and I'm not sure I'm interested any more (not because I don't want to see her, we just have nothing in common apart from the marriage of our parents, and I don't really want to have to put up with her and her other half being couply because I am bitter and single, or something). I was pondering inviting people over to mine, but again I'm not sure if I want to. Hibernating could be a plan, but, blah. Christmas is weird for me.

I'm quite sad that Sir Patrick Moore has died. We were talking about him in the office the other day, wondering what had happened to him.

( Fannish stuff, because I am never sure what is a spoiler or not )

That's probably about it for now. I need to get on with work, and try and figure out if taking the potatoes out the fridge now will warm them up at all before I peel them (I hate peeling cold spuds). And possibly find a blanket, as it is bastardingly cold and I can feel my shoulder start to tense up weirdly again.

Oh, and I won NaNo this year. Go me :D

After the amazing awesome productivity of yesterday, today has basically been the day where loads of shit went wrong and I spent a lot of time grumpy. It was however to be expected, as today is a Thursday.

I could give you a huge long list of all the shit that has sucked, but instead, I shall leave you with a book meme, and then go read...

It's International Book Week. The rules: Grab the closest book to you, turn to page 52, post the 5th sentence as your status. Don't mention the title. Copy the rules as part of your post.

"Now she was Kimberly Ford only, or it seemed that way, and she felt daunted here on this ancient mound that yet gave the scent of sea wind here in the midst of Somerset."

(this book is one of the things that has been wrong today; I bought off GreenMetropolis, and the copy I bought had the right cover to match the other two of the series that I have. The one I got does not, and is not in as good condition as I was led to believe)

I have encountered a student who is the spitting image of my ex in his first year of uni, and a guy who looks like a dude I flirted with at uni, and whose name is Dean (and if it helps as context, both he and the dude I had a thing for look very much like Jensen Ackles).

It was my first day back. It's freshers week. It is like some kind of really shit circus and no one knows what's going on. (and my standard timetable looks awful and I don't have any of my usual students and the new office bod doesn't know that you' can't get between campuses in the alleged 10 minutes between lectures).

I'm really tired, and I was going to go for a run, but all I want is chocolate and my blanket and couch.

I finished NaNo. I wrote nearly 11,000 words yesterday, and I have 50,000 words that are terrible and need a hideous amount of editing to make them good and fitting with the rest of the universe.

Thing is, now I'm not sure what to do with myself. I mean yes, I have work to do and books to read and whatnot, but I don't want to do any of those things. I have been writing all month. I have ideas for more writing. What do I do with them?

I'm having fairly serious work related stresses at the moment, which is wonderful and just what I needed.

The house is actually finally getting somewhere. I have a mostly plumbed in bathroom, the kitchen still needs to be done, and this weekend me and dad are going to start moving all the furniture and stuff out of the storage locker. Where exactly it's all going to go I'm not entirely sure, as there's still stuff everywhere in places where there should be furniture.

Captain America comes out over here on monday! That's going to be my "you finished NaNo and didn't completely suck" reward (it was going to be shoes, but then I hurt the car and had to pay the excess on that, so no shoes this month).

When I'm nowhere near the posting page, I can think of stuff to say, so of course when I am near it, I have nothing interesting to write. Oh well.

Shower and then laundry, since I have an unexpected morning off.

I'm cold, and while I know I ought to go over to the house and strip wallpaper, the idea is not in the slightest appealing to me. It's sort of one of those days. Actually, I think it might be one of those weeks.

Sunday evening dad sliced his wrist open when a plate smashed in the sink while he was washing up. Cue mad dash of him and Kay to the A&E at 11pm. Apparently bleeding profusely gets you seen far faster than being in untold amounts of pain. I'll have to remember that next time.
Monday morning, dad couldn't ride his motorbike because of the stitches, and I needed the car for work, so I had to go with him to work (oh god oh god his driving makes me have panic attacks) and then take the car home (oh god Brackmills, why must you suck so much) and then go to work (oh god, student, why don't you tell me that you're not turning up).
Yesterday was student being pissy, student not showing up (the same one, who did then text to say she was sorry she hadn't told me that she wouldn't be in), and then student being pissy and rude to the lecturer by doing research for another essay while he was trying to lead a discussion on Ezra Pound's poems. I mean, I have no great love for Pound, but she knows about manners, we've had discussions about them, and she has plenty of time to get her essays done without being quite so rude.
Today is a suprise day off due to student not being in, which makes up for the fact that tomorrow I have to go in, no doubt be stood up by a student, then cover a midwifery lecture for which I have had the disturbing content warning and "we can provide counselling afterwards" talk when I went to the office the other day. And then 3 hours of sitting doing nothing. Woo.

I'm getting a bit fed up of the way that lecturers are now basically telling students everything that needs to go into an essay, almost to the point of a paragraph by paragraph breakdown. In the first year, for the first couple of essays, maybe, to get them into the swing of things, but these are second years now, and if they don't know how to construct an essay and how to analyse a piece of text, then I think all hope might be lost. And it's not like the grading is really harsh, most always seemed to come out with at least a C- last year. It seems to be more the English department that does it, and that makes me feel even worse, as we never got that sort of help when I was at uni, and it feels like these people are going to come out with higher degrees, having done less work than me, which sucks.

The up side of today is that I have Panga the panda back. She is all shiny and without dents or a buckled wheel rim. And I now owe dad £250 and we have to have a 'talk' about money. I may be hiding upstairs later. I suspect a steep rise in rent is coming my way, or the announcement that I will be getting a housemate when I move back. Joy.

There are goldfinches on the feeder again, and I'm thinking I should go and get garlic bread for dinner and maybe forage for some lunch. And then there is to be an Iron Man watching session.
And maybe I will remember to do the tiny bit of work typing that has been sitting on the table all morning looking sad and pitiful.

And I should probably crack on with NaNo, as I've not written anything since saturday. oops.

Life is crazy cakes right now. Not entirely bad crazy cakes, but still. Work is full of stupid people, I mean really, I wonder how some of these students actually managed to get onto the degree courses that they're on.
There's weird office politics going on, and the university continues to face cuts left right and centre.

I had a minor car accident the other day, which as led to a dent in my bump Ier and an awful lot of running around trying to get hold of insurance companies. I've finally got through to them after a botched call on monday, which they have no record of.

I spent this afternoon painting the bathroom. The house is slowly starting to look like it will be habitable soon. The bathroom floor goes in on saturday, the bathroom and oven go in next week some point, and then it's a case of starting to move stuff back in.

Term ends tomorrow. I have no idea what I'm going to do. This is the problem with term time work. *sigh*

My peonies are springing up in the garden. As is everything else. Seriously, I went out there this morning and I was savaged by a jaguar... actually it was a neighbouring cat that decided it had had enough fuss thank you very much. But the garden is just a tad over grown.

The bus driver insisted on checking my id card this afternoon. I realise I look like a student, I realise I look all of 20 at best, but really. That's perfectly old enough to work there, and why would anyone want to fake a staff id card? It doesn't do anything special.
And then he shouted at people for not giving up their seats for old people. (This is a bug bear of mine. If old person looks like they're having problems, I will give up my seat (providing my feet are working properly) but otherwise, they can damn well stand like the rest of us, and I object to the assumption that just because a person looks young and healthy that they are capable of standing on a bus, especially given the way the drivers round that route drive.)

My shower continues to be broken, despite dad swearing that he'd fixed it. I also managed to drive him to MK and not die in the process. I'm still not allowed the car on my own, but it's a start.

I'm watching Justified at the moment, and I am enjoying it muchly. And the music. I'm also sort of watching my way through Battlestar Galactica, but that's not going too well, as I hate most of the characters, and the first season just makes me want to stab them all in the face and save an awful lot of time.

I have student infected plague. I am NOT impressed, as it was impressed upon said student that coming in if she was that ill was a bad idea, and she'd be better off resting and getting better quicker. But no. She was adamant that she was coming in (when half the bloody course is out with colds and flu) and now I'm sick as a fucking dog, which means I risk passing it on to another of my students who is even more succeptible than me.
And unlike her, who has no financial responsibilities, I have to show up to work, or I don't get paid. And I have bills, and rent, and am trying to save for a car.

So yeah, now I can't breathe through one nostril, the other is running a marathon, my throat is gunked up and I'm losing my voice. I'm going to be awesome today.

Well, if I punch the creative writing lecturer, at least I can blame it on the medication.

Right now, I just want to curl up with my book under my blankie and not leave the house (although I'm out of milk, so that is out of my control).
I was even pleased with myself for managing to get out of bed to put the glass recycling out, and then as soon as I'd done that, I felt like I'd run a marathon and had to sit down. Not on body, not fucking on.

Anyway, back to (non-paid) work for an hour or so, before I trudge in to the uni.

Not dead. Mostly. Work is eating up a lot of time, plus gaming, and gearing up for the LARP season again. Why does it always come around again so fast? This year has involved some very heated discussions, and some things that may go down like a sack of bricks. But hey. It's for the good of the club.

In other news Northampton's old age pensioners get in on the vigilante action. Little old lady (with a mean handbag swing) is currently being hailed as my town's hero after she beat up some jewelery store robbers. I'm fairly sure that store has been robbed more in the last year than really makes it worth existing. It always seems to have a window boarded up when I go past it.

Hmm, what else is happening? I'm trying to do this whole 'being a grown up' thing, with varying levels of success. I'm remembering to eat meals, and I'm mostly keeping on top of the washing up. But that's about it. The house looks like a tornado has gone through it, and most of my clean laundry is still sitting on one of the living room chairs because I keep forgetting to take it upstairs. And I have people coming over in a couple of weeks, and not much time to get it sorted by.

My Unknown Armies game is going well, apart from the player who seemed to ignore the whole "you will have encountered the occult at some point prior to the game start" and is acting like this is all completely new to her. It's irksome as it's making her really hard to integrate into the plot (she's also the only non-magical member of the party, the rest of them being Adepts or Avatars). Plot is finally starting to unwind, and they're putting things together, and next week, they're going to Newcastle. Either to find stuff out or get eaten. It depends.

Now, to get on with work, or to try and make some attempt at cleaning. And shifting furniture around...
... or to make tea.