New Year Blues

I don't really have the time to write this - to much Uni work still to do. However, I've just had a panic attack and am trying to stave off the next one.

I'm aware that people in the past have permanently stopped reading my blog because of posts like this, and I'm quite happy for you to stop doing so too, although my only query would be 'why are you here in the first place?' This site was originally set up, as a part of my therapy, as a place where I could let rip in a way that I never could in person or in a diary. So, posts like this basically fulfil that remit, and if you don't like it, you are quite welcome to leave or silently curse me, but please don't post comments about how I should pull myself together/stop whining/get on with it etc. because doing this in this limited arena is aimed at helping me do just that in the real world.

Frankly, I don't care if no one reads my blog, for me it's all about the potential for anonymity, and although I am quite often really personal, this feels somewhat more detached. On here I can focus on my grammar and spelling, and the blog layout. It is precisely that focus - which I cannot achieve in conversation, that helps me to lessen the effects of a panic attack.

Of course, if you are reading this, then welcome and thank you very much. I am not completely anti-readers - on the internet that would be pretty stupid - it's only ignorant people that I don't like, but then I'm sure you're not. I'm also not anti-comments, and if you have some advice, some (constructive) criticism of myself or my blog, or just generally want to say hi, then I'd love to hear from you.

I had meant to do a bumper edition of ... of the Week this week, to make up for the silence over Christmas, but this will have to wait, as I really should be getting on with my coursework. I am very stressed, and this has probably contributed to the panic attack, not helped at all by finding out that I failed the last piece of (easier) coursework for this unit. I'm in a bit of a low state in general right now, and next week I think I might talk to my tutor about leaving/taking some time off, but I have two deadlines before that and so I'd better get on.

If you've made it this far, thank you and congratulations. Your prize is the answers to my Christmas Tree quiz, and my Word of the Week: Trepidation.

... of the Week (#12):

This week - Word of the Week (#11):

boffin

n. Possibly an acronym taken from the Armed Forces, meaning 'Back Office Intelligence'.

The etymology of this word is actually uncertain, but I have presented my personal favourite theory. Having had this word levied at me as an insult for the majority of my school career, this post is aimed at reclaiming it as a positive word. I was always proud to be called a boffin, and I would like to think that this definition may help others too.
If you are unsure of how to use it, think of it as the original English version of the now commonly used Americanism - geek.

This post is a couple of days late due to a horrific coursework load, sorry about that. Apologies also for the somewhat lacklustre words lately, I will soon be returning to London and the majority of my books, so hopefully I'll be able to share some more unusual/fun words over the Christmas period.

Panic

I'm having a panic attack, and the only way to try and keep it vaguely under control is to be writing something like this.

I would be doing coursework, but just looking at that seems to make it worse: I can feel my head burning as though someone had just poured a mixture of boiling oil and burning tar into every crevice in my brain and watched as it seeped it's way through all my synapses and seared away any pretence I had to intelligence.

So instead I'm doing what I started this blog for - using it to stave off the wave of hysteria by writing a post and letting my obsession for decent grammar and content flow and take over my head. Unfortunately, when I'm in a state like this, what my mind thinks is good content and grammar is different to what I would normally consider checks those boxes. So apologies to anyone reading this who is wondering why it doesn't seem to make much sense.

This is one of the worst panic attacks I've had in ages, and it is making me feel very ill indeed. I went to bed ridiculously early last night because I thought that if I could get to sleep it might not come. I didn't get to sleep. It did come, and it has lingered on into this morning. You don't want to know how long this post is taking to write, it's quite hard to type when you're shaking harder than the last Pope.

I've been trying to think of a way to describe the way that I'm feeling at the minute, but I can't get the words out. They've been taken in the flood which washed away my coherent thoughts of work and calm and forced itself out of my system in tears and sweat and phlegm and mucus.

This has not been a good first week of my countdown, and I am feeling more and more disillusioned with everything. I still wake up every morning and am still around to pray it might be otherwise every evening. I had hoped that this might not be the case and the the decision would have been taken out of my hands, but it was quite a vain hope I suppose.

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.