Ok, New Plan...

I don't want to go back on anti-depressants again.

The problem is that it's looking increasingly likely that I will soon be in a position where I essentially have no choice. (I know, we always have a choice, but external pressure is a bigger thing than you'd think, as is the shadow of suicide, hence the "essentially" modifier.) I want to stave this off for as long as I can. Luckily, my doctor is almost impossible to get an appointment with, so that helps.

If I want to get anything done I'm going to need to reimpose some semblance of structure into life. I am not functioning at anything even approaching optimal, in fact there seems to be far less than 50% operational efficiency, and I know that lack of structure and routine clouds my mind. Therefore, reinstating this would seem to be a logical thing to prioritise. If my hypothesis is correct, it should at least mitigate, to some extent, the debilitation I currently seem to be experiencing. So, not so much new plan as reinvented old one.

A theoretically public forum may be expected to produce a sense of obligation to maintain standards set, and thus I have chosen this blog as one of the starting points for this regime shift. I will attempt, in particular, to begin using a Word of the Week type premise again, in order to have something in my new routine which is not work related but may be subjected to analysis and is a compatible activity with the need for timetabling.

Any other suggestions, besides "pull yourself together" (or equivalent), would be gratefully received and taken into consideration.

Here We Go Again Then

Who would have thought it - I made it to the start of my Master's year? When I was growing up, particularly in my teenage years, one of the things that I considered to be an inevitability in my future would be the acquisition of a degree. The astonishing effort to get this far was not something that I remember featuring in this prophecy, and the exhaustion which it has generated was more than a little surprising and deflating. I am thus looking forward to my final year with mixed feelings. In principle, University has been fantastic, the majority of my units over the last few years have been things that, had I been in better health, would have been of great interest to me, and so I should be tremendously excited... There is, however, also the increased sense of trepidation which has been steadily growing since I was told that I had passed last year's exams, and is in fact only the latest, almost seamlessly transferred, incarnation of fear which has engulfed me for a number of years. Basically, my anxiety seems to have more lives than the Master - every time I think it's dead, it glows a little and returns in a newly regenerated form of madness.

This time next week I will have had my first day at Uni. I say day, but I think that it will be one lecture only on Monday. In fact, before Christmas I believe I have an average of 8.6 contact hours a week. Don't be fooled into thinking that this is one of those degrees where you have a couple of lectures a week and then spend the rest of the time drinking and sleeping - I will study 8 units and write a thesis (with accompanying website and poster design) in the course of this academic year, and I can quite easily envisage putting in a lot of 60 hour weeks before I am through. If anybody is reading this and happens to be interested in the work I do, I plan to maintain an online chronicle of what a final year in Engineering Mathematics entails, hopefully at a level accessible even to the sciencephobic.

The hope is that this year will progress in a smoother fashion than those preceding it, but as I am not renowned for my optimism, I am not going to lay odds on it. As usual - and based on everyone insisting that it's the healthy thing to do - I will attempt, during term-time, to assign more recreational activities to my schedule, which probably means I will try and reinstate my Word of the Week hobby, and perhaps begin writing and taking photos again. The likelihood of renewed panic seems to be quite high, and as this site has been designed as a venting place, I imagine numerous dark and/or inane ramblings will appear here in the near future.

‘Title’ seems to be the hardest phrase…

Howdy folks, it’s been a while.

I won’t bother to explain away my absence, but I can explain my re-emergence: I have a new schedule in place which is aimed at helping me to work more effectively. How does this affect my blogging? Well, part of this attempt to improve the quality of my work involves creating the appropriate ratio between work and breaks – 45 minutes working followed by a 15 minute break, as opposed to spending the whole hour ‘half working’, as well as regular, longer breaks.

As such, I now have specified periods in which to do ‘nothing’. Unfortunately, I don’t like feeling that any time is being completely unproductive, so I plan to use those times to revisit some of my old hobbies. These include things like origami and writing, and the blog seems like a useful place to chronicle the success (or otherwise) of this new schedule – somewhere that I could keep a clear chronology of my own progress, and where other readers could possibly also keep a check and perhaps give me some advice/suggestions to keep it going.

As this explanation has been quite long-winded, I won’t include any additional ramblings, but hopefully I’ll post something equally inane, if somewhat less topical, soon.

Trawling through old material...

... because work and life were getting too much.

I write a lot of random (and quite weird) stuff. Currently I'm writing an exposition about why you shouldn't pretend to be an expert on things which you really don't understand, but that will probably be a bit heavy-going, so before that I thought I'd give you something a little less moody.

This is an introduction to a piece of fiction which I have planned and may or may not write (I have numerous plans for different stories in various stages of development)... It's not very good, but it's certainly not as unpleasant as the essay that's on the go at the minute.

I'd value people's opinions on this as I don't normally share prose (in fact, it's fairly rare for it not to be burned upon completion).

Story Beginnings...

(This links to a Google Docs page, please follow it and take a look)

... of the Week (#1):

This week – Word of the Week (#1):

So, recently I have been indulging in a little fancy. Every week I have been picking a word - generally one out of common use, and giving myself a week to try it out and see how it feels. On the whole it's been pretty fun, and I'd like to share the experience.

Quite often I use a book that I have which contains a selection of Dr Samuel Johnson's definitions. However, this week I have decided to post a rather more relevant word, which the world seems to have almost desensitised itself to. These days this word carries with it an aura of flippancy, and I have used it myself in that sense, but for students, especially those with health issues like me, it has a very particular pertinence:

failvb
1. to be unsuccessful in an attempt.
2. to stop operating.
3. to judge or be judged as being below the officially acceptedstandard required in a course or examination.
4. to prove disappointing or useless to someone.
5. to neglect or be unable to do something.

This word will probably last a fortnight, but I promise the next one will be better/funnier, and at some point I may mix it up a bit with some new phrases or origins of myths etc.

This is me, getting a life.

I've decided that if I want to get out of this rut in my life, I need to take some affirmative action. So for starters I am making a list (in itself something I like to do) of things that I feel I should/would like to do sometime in the near future.

Doing more stuff that you like and trying new stuff is generally acknowledged to help improve the way people feel and although everyone knows that I am a neophobe, I've got to the stage where I'm willing to try anything.

Now, you may be asking why I'm bothering to post this, but I would like to ask you lovely people to take a look at the list and maybe suggest either things to add, or ways to do stuff that's on there.

Here goes:

Stuff I have let lapse and would like to start up again:

* Enjoy Maths

* Photographs

Take

Edit

* Poetry/Prose

Read

Write

* Recreational walks

* Origami/crafting

New Stuff I would like to try/do:

* Buy and watch Guys and Dolls

* Buy a CoolBoard (If staying at Uni)

* Start to enjoy Programming

* Get properly and catastrophically hammered

* Go Bowling

* Go Ice Skating (?)

* Dye Hair

* Henna Tattoos

* Go to the Gym more

* Lose some weight

* Listen to more music (New Stuff?)

* Eat better/more (New Stuff?)

* Learn to drive

* Write comic for Mark to draw

* Get more sleep

* Find a new hobby

This list is in no particular order, and I would really appreciate any suggestions for prioritising the list, adding new ideas, or psyching myself up to actually do some of this stuff! Thanks peeps, love ya all.

Deadline

I am giving myself 5 weeks, starting Monday 18th Jan, to sort stuff out, particularly my grades. If nothing improves, I plan to quit Uni and end this chapter of a somewhat unfulfilled and unsatisfactory life.

I really don't want to do this, but it is important to be realistic; I have found that looking back, as pragmatically as possible, over the last two years, and assessing the pros and cons of remaining a student, the negative feelings and outcomes of my time at Uni are outweighing the positive ones. This is particularly true of the last 6 weeks, and I feel that setting out a deadline of 5 weeks is a sensible period of time in which to try and straighten things out before making any sort of decision.

I should point out that this is not one of the negative cycles that I find myself in on a semi-regular basis, and I am in fact being as objective as possible about this. I intend to keep some sort of record of how each day passes so that when it comes to making the decision I will have a decently sized continuous data set to consider, as well as the general view of things up to the start of this period.

The Clock's ticking, I hope very much that things will be better by the end of February.

Do I know you from somewhere?

Wow, it's been a while.

Just a quickie to thank everyone for their support with my exams, exam results and house-hunting. This time next week I will be back in Brizzle, in my band new flat (pictures and description in due course). If you are for any sad reason a regular checker of this site, here is a list of what I expect/hope to be in the blog this new academic year:

Hopes- General updates re. (hopefully better) health and state of mind;
Pictures of my new flat, and hopefully from some outings that I would like to undertake this year;
Some more poetry and prose separate from my normal chronicled stuff and exclusive to the web;
Possibly some book reviews as I aim to set aside more time for recreation which will cheifly involve reading.

Other possible inclusions-
More blogs from my darker moments (this is my place of venting to avoid panic attacks);
Updates from the doctors;
General rants re. my health and my course.

So, some I hope some good will come of this blog as well as all the bad, but if you are reading this in a few months time and haven't seen any of the good stuff, I apologise, but you all know by now what I'm like, and as much as I would like something to happen, it's by no means guaranteed.

Anyhow, take care for now folks, tchuss

Who says Miracles never happen?

Okay, don't ask me how I did it, but somehow I managed to pass my first year retake, and almost respectably too. This means that at the end of September I will actually be going back to start what will be my 3rd year in Bristol, and my 2nd year of the course. I can't say enough how grateful I am to the folks who were, and indeed still are, supporting me, you all rock. Hopefully, with the plans I mean to implement over the Summer, I will be better placed to work and repay the belief that everyone seems to have in me.

I hope this holiday to consolidate the experience/knowledge that I have, apparently purely by osmosis, gained over the last year, and also to do some advance reading on next year's material, including an early look into the two new programming languages that I will be studying. This and the new daily schedule/routine that I am going to be settling in to over the next couple of months should mean that I can once again take on the role of the diligent student.

Further plans, which may, or may not, come to fruition, involve picking up some old hobbies, including some model making; and restarting the writing (poetry and prose) that I have been sadly neglecting lately, I'm out of practice, so apologies for the poor quality of this post. If I manage anything that seems okay, I will contemplate posting on here, maybe it will make up for the depressing rants that have been taking up all the space lately...

So, thanks again to everyone, and I really do hope that I will be able to make you all proud over the coming months/years.