Damn university. Damn degree. Damn slowly becoming obsessional about a hobby requires me to be at home and therefore can’t be partaken of for over half of the year!! (Does that sentence even make sense?)
Damn life getting in the way of fun things, eh?!
Another attempt will be made to upload photos soon, but that requires a) the photos to be taken and b) for me to be bothered to upload them..
Today has been one of those days of Do. Not. Want..
It’s been gloriously sunny, so I did head down to town to buy some vegetables and the like, but it took me a long while to make a decision on anything and a combination of the heaviness of my rucksack and the waves of tiredness/ faintness/ nausea that had started before leaving the house persuaded me to catch the bus back up the hill.
Then I came home, and ate an apple and some flapjack, and eventually cooked lunch. Then I read the paper. Then internet-ted while eating chocolate. Then curled up on my bed with some more of the paper and some custard creams. Nausea only turns me off orange juice, it would seem – I still manage to consume sweet and unhealthy things at an alarming rate.
I was going to go out tonight but college tutor hour’s been cancelled. I have an overdue summative essay (with extension, worry not) that is under half done. I don’t actually give a damn about it. The only constructive thing that I can contemplate doing is starting to work on the camisole that I’ve got a pattern for – but all that’s back in Birmingham, and hypothetical constructive plans are a bit of a contradiction in terms, anyway.
I could go and chat to my housemates but they’re probably working, and, well, I’m never sure exactly what to say to them when I’m in one of these moods. I’m sure that the feeling’s mutual.
On the positive side, though, I’m a week into taking the citalopram and so far so OK. It’s not lifted me up particularly, it is true, and there are a couple of new side effects (: perceived raised temperature and faintness). But I have been feeling mildly more balanced recently and haven’t had any of the plummeting lows in the last week, so I am hopeful yet – especially given that it’s meant to take a couple of weeks to kick in anyway and I’ve probably still got a fair amount of t’other in my system.
If it wasn’t for the whole anonymity/ shred of self-dignity thing, I would post a picture of just how much I’ve been screwing my face up for the greater part of today. It’s not pretty, but does have the same sort of satisfaction factor that kids get from crossing their eyes and sticking out their tongue…
There was a DSU (Durham Student Union) council meeting on Thursday at which the Environment and Ethics Officer proposed a thoroughly contentious motion – to boycott Israeli goods and majority-state-owned Israeli companies from the union premises as a protest against Israel’s human rights record, both in the recent disproportionately violent treatment of Gaza and in its treatment of conscientious objectors.
For those interested, the meeting’s documents can be found here, under the heading of ‘Thursday 22nd January’. The motion itself is contained within the Agenda file.
It was a long meeting and by the time that the union buildings had to be closed at 11:30pm, no consensus had been reached – a sufficient number of council reps had had to leave to catch buses that a vote would be meaningless. Quite what happens remains to be seen. There are calls for a university-wide referendum. There are calls for the motion to be kicked into the ground and ignored. Despite the best efforts of the DSU Exec to maintain a rational, measured discussion, it was inevitable that feelings were going to be running high, and one group of students in particular did themselves no credit by taking the discussion to a highly emotive and personal level.
There are arguments for, arguments against, and arguments why it should never have been brought up in the first place. Part of the problem is the general level of ignorance surrounding the exact technicalities of international and national human rights law, and while I hold up my hand there with most people, I’m afraid, it does not make for a productive discussion.
Those of you who know me and know my political views will probably know which side of the motion I supported – and here I would like to point out to any Facebook stalkers who have put two and two together that I would have held that opinion regardless of any personal ties or vested interests. As I wrote in an email to my college representative,
“This is not anti-Semetic. This is anti the abuse of basic human rights. Whether or not you agree with the Jewish cause for land, and whether or not you agree with national service this is about the freedom for innocent civilians to go about their lives in peace, and the freedom to stand up for one’s beliefs. If the latter in particular is not what a union should stand for and support, then I don’t know what is.”
Listening to this only reinforces my conviction (as well as being sheer genius on the part of Tony Benn :D)
I realise that even publishing this blog entry is risky in terms of the potential offence caused to readers. I have heard arguments going back and forth on the topic already. I’m happy to debate, and everything, but I suppose I didn’t post this to go over the pros and the cons of a boycott motion. I posted it as a reminder that sticking up for your beliefs is neither easy nor always black-and-white, but still fundamentally important if we dare to hope that the world can ever be a better place. Sometimes you just need to stand up and be counted.
The gods of t’internet must have noticed that ‘Fluoxetine’ was looming disproportionately large over the category cloud at the right of this blog, and have realised that for it still to be that dominant (in a bad way), som’ing was up. Or maybe that was just me. Either way, that category will loom no larger as I have a new one to replace it.
So yeh, I guess we’re back to Day One again, so to speak.
I thought I’d spare you the Wikipedia-combing this time :-)
As a partial response to a Facebook conversation I am currently having with Jenny, may I present to you a swirly tailed, single round eared, three-legged and bearded mouse? This one has no tummy button, in which it is lacking somewhat.
x
(Original source. Excuse the cringeworthy blogging style, if you will. It’s amazing what you think of yourself from an older and questionably wiser perspective..)
Yesterday was a good day :-)
So, I averaged 84% in my second year exams. On a three year course, 2nd:3rd year weighs 2:3 – on a four year course, 2nd:3rd:4th year weighs 2:3:4 (rather satisfyingly!). I would like a first. Whether or not I stay on the four year course, maintaining an average of 70% would require me to get 61% this year; to get a lower borderline 2:1 I’d need 44%, or to average a scraped pass at 40%, I’d need 11%*.
I can decide to repeat third year at any time up until the start of my first exam, and would be granted the concession to do so. There are big implications to any course of action – academically, financially, and erm, mentally. My degree, as it stands, is pretty screwed but I can’t work out how irretrievably screwed, especially as my prospective brain-state is such an unknown; I go and see the doctor again in about a week’s time, and I think that the chances are high that I’ll be changing medication.
Hum…
x
*Hey, worst case scenario, right?!
To take or not to take, that is the question. Is the precedent really worth following?
(Seeing as you all had so much fun with the last molecule-related clue… Hint: I’m still on the fluoxetine)
The world as we know it has ended! Turns out there’s something that won’t be held together by tit tape!
(Greaseproof paper, if you were wondering)
(I’ve been trying to think of a more middle-class-acceptable description for tit tape. ‘Dress tape’? ‘Cleavage tape’? ‘Modesty tape’? Y’know wha’, it’s ti’ tape, olwaiys ‘as been, olwaiys will be…)
One of the offerings from Father Christmas this year (or Mother Christmas, to be more precise) was a novel – Rose Tremain’s ‘Music and Silence’. I read it in Shropshire, and I have to say that it was wonderfully written and I enjoyed it a lot (go read! go read!).
But what I really wanted to post was a rather lovely, and apt, couple of lines:
“For what is truly verifiable in life, I ask you? Only mathematics!
Two plus two will always and for evermore equal four,
but how is this going to resolve what boils in my brain?”
I don’t hate my degree, far from it, but sometimes it just doesn’t seem that important in life and that’s all there is to it.
Today, incidentally, is an OK day :-)
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