One graduation ceremony, in the bag. Let's tell the day in figures!

Alarm: 7am
Awake: 7:45am
Train: 8:45am
Train station at: 8:20am
Time from B'pool North to reach Preston: 20 min
Time from B'pool South to reach Preston: 35 min
# of stations between B'pool South and Preston I've never heard of before: 3

# of necessary paperwork items forgotten: 2
Internet facilities at Preston station: 1 public access kiosk
Sortedness level: A+
Price of breakfast and a drink at my favourite Preston quick stop: £2.00
Sortedness level: A+++

Inches of rainfall: 259085010578876598734587

Total walking time: 20 mins
Total milling around time: 1 hour
Total sitting time: 2 hours

# of songs: 8
# of songs I might go back to: ~2
# of choirs: 1!
# of times I imagined nMC filking in place: 39

# of hats: 1
# of hats after ceremony: 3
# of times hat slipped: 6,381
# of times hood slipped: 1,502,683.5

# of photographs: 4
# of photos of the back of my head: 8 billion

# of Mikes I expected to be graduating but didn't: 1 (?)
# of Dean's Prizes to accept: 0 (silly thesis! Still glad I did that one though)

Amount of food consumed, in tablefulls: 3.14
# of orange juice shots: 3
# of networking teachers at the refreshments afterwards: 0
# I caught up with later in the dept building while I went to find what happened to Mike: 1 (and counting?)

# of times I missed Oxford: 41
# of times I missed Oxford Anime Vision over the year: 6938682
# of times I missed Oxford University: 0
Train time from Reading to Oxford: 25 mins
and yet
# of anime societies at Reading: 1
Pool ball to consult for this one: 8

# of years in the education system so far: 1
# of undergraduate years: 5
# of UG years left: ZERO
Relief level: Very High

In our opinion these figures give a true and fair view of the state of draconic affairs on 15 July 2009, and have been properly prepared in accordance with the Silly LJ Posts Act 2001.

# of times saying no to accepting postgraduate places felt bad: 4

# of days until airyuu leaves home: <14
# of days until first Confuzzled staff meeting: 10-11
# of days until Harmuni: 16
# of days until Reading: 26-35
# of days until next Chica visit: ~80

Number of virtual toasts proposed: 1

how I feel today: accomplished

Just got the provisionals in for this here degree I spent 4 years doing. My project I spent most of the year on? Yeah, that. By my calculations I only got a 42 in the major part (the actual project), so I do believe I almost failed the module. I needed 40 or more to not fail.

The important thing here is 'almost'. Having just about not failed one of my classes, I still got a first though overall. Someone tell me how that works. o_o;

Not that I'm not thankful it did. o.o And on Friday, I can officially tell Reading! Wahoo.

All's good. I'm in Germany at the moment, enjoying some company and being productive and relaxed at the same time. Yay, vacations!

back on Tuesday :3

how I feel today: happy

Remarkably, stuff is going quite well at the moment. I'm in Sheffield, receiving hospitality and blankets from the nidonocuish one. And there was fooding in places, and I got to see calihusky for the first second time in quite a while, which was pretty good. :D And today there was Star Trek, and thus the little break continues.

I'll be in Germany from the 16th to the 30th of June, too. For the first week and a half I shall be in Hanover visiting Chica, and then, I will be in Giessen visiting adeptomega. At some point I'm due to find out what sort of degree I'm getting - having finished all my finals in May or thereabouts.

And I've still got a few stories to finish. Wahaha. More of those would be nice, but it's been a bit slow lately...

In the quiet times, due to being reminded I was already partway through doing so, I'm being extremely boring and reading legal and financial stuff from the little 2006/7 era when I contemplated self-employment and decided to fully learn what it would entail. Which I guess would still be nice. It's come back into fashion though, so there we go. It beats programming, I must admit that. ;)

I keep rambling about the future and the present. That's good for me though, ehehe. I don't feel like I'm being that interesting at the moment, although the more stories I do, the more I can offset that. Germany's going to be full of writing (and art (not mine! (ehehe))), I have pledged myself to a sort-of-writing-project ongoing through this year (it's a secret to everyone, shhh), and things are good.

I've been wandering to visit people since about April/May or so. (Even with sneaky explodingferrets sneaking up on me. Yaay. :D) Anyone else want a visit? :p I spent several weekends in London, and a day in MK with azakir and tarkara_kamaris, avoiding coffee.. hehehe.

And hey baloki! Because I didn't mention you last time. >:P Be around in July some more. I'm sorry I'm gonna leave you behind now that you're finally in the city. xD I'll be back here and there...

As well as all that I'm still working on music, mmm. Very fun. Two songs away from world domination a half-hour set, hmm. A bit later this summer (after Aug 10th) I'll be heading down to Reading, where there'll be even more! I believe a housefilk housewarming should be in order. Wait to hear about that. :)

Writing, numbers, and music. And meteorology? ...

Now I'm gonna go watch the Apple WWDC video, ooh. Shiny hardware. Seeya later!

how I feel today: bouncy

One of the side effects of coming to piano from keyboard is the jump away from block chords. I had played piano music before I stopped going to lessons (after 7 years), but my left hand still does less interesting things than my right when left to its own devices. This is an interesting issue that pops into my notice now and then; generally because if I'm not paying attention - or even if I am - I'll slip into arpeggios, which are fine /if/ they don't permeate every song!

The best way to sort this mini-problem out, or so I suspect, is to actually pick up sheet music from a big number of genres and play those. Eventually I auto-learn a number of extra left hand patterns, my mind does the recombination thing with other keys for other songs, and suddenly... the world! (The other alternative is to write a song with more interesting left-handedness, which could be fun. Ooh.)

I'm sure I've asked for suggestions on sheet music to pick up before. Utterly convinced of it, in fact. Might want to go scour my own journal history, heh heh...

Maybe it's like I said last year; I should consider a few lessons in playing style. Hm hm. Of course, listening to music in general is good too; I seem to either play or listen but not both. ;)

In other news, thanks pola_bear for lots and lots of house possibilities! I have thrown some emails out, and we'll see what happens.

A bunch of things to report, actually. I seem to be bad at the regular updates, but that's because I'm partway into exam time. Ahh. The hardest two are out of the way now. I think I've made all my mandatory 70+ quotas.. now I just need to top 55 on my project and I'm home free.

It's possible I don't even need to worry about taking a 70+ in half my modules. But better safe than sorry. Not as though I have any control of the process anyway. 8)

As well as exams:
* I signed up for Harmuni.. now I need to consider whether I want to do a set. Hee hee.

* I seem unable to get a job. How annoying. I'm not much good at this jobfinding thing.

* That doesn't matter though, since I've been accepted for funded MSc study at the University of Reading, within the Department of Meteorology. Yay! To the south I go~

* I have forgotten so much maths and physics. So I will need to spend some of summer relearning things a la http://physics.open.ac.uk/flap/. Possibly doing computer science as well.

* I have a new PC, as mentioned. Pics are still not done. That'll happen eventually.

* Hugs to callylevy and little_cinnamon in regards recentness.

Been in London the last two weekends, and as coincidence would have it I might be there this weekend too, to visit people. Really need to see how the Benevolent Dragon Fund is doing before embarking on that though. :O

And that's it! Now, there is more napping. 9 hours of sleep in 2 days is not optimal, and especially not on exam days. Why did this happen? Oh yeah, they've all been 9am starts, so I need to wake at 6am...

how I feel today: tired

Unless something unusual should occur in this area, I'm unlikely to be changing to Dreamwidth within the foreseeable future.

...there's a running theme on my friends list, and I felt left out. 8)

In other news, my project is now done, so I have time again. Yay. I also have a new PC, which I still need to get an LCD monitor for; if anyone out there has a spare they don't need, I'd be much obliged.

Photos later!

Some of the more vigilant folks on IRC might have noticed I have been even more absent than usual. Most of the time I am actually here, but I am doing my project report. 10 pages down, 40 to go!

checklist for shiny degree:
* PT: I just 0wned your boxen, technically speaking. 90% please
* project (28th Apr)
* one Cisco test (oops, haha)
* May: five exams and a poster session
(NDM 7th, 09:20; Wireless 8th, 09:20; Routing 13th, 09:20 OR 13:50 (how do I know?); 20th, 09:20 and 13:50; poster: 18th, or 19th)
* is it bad I am looking forward to the exams because they will signify that I've done my project report

checklist for everything else:
* pick up postgrad documents and mail them (ASAP ie 14th. WHY DID THEY MAIL MY TRANSCRIPTS WHEN I SAID NOT TO, ARRGH. plus I need to get hold of my second set of references, grrr)
* one assessment centre (21st, and so MK 20th to the 21st? 22nd? Hopefully I'll actually have free time while I'm there!)
* Swiggle? (25th)
* requiring two things; that I have finished my project report, and taken my guitar to the shop (ideally)
* Birmingham open day (28th, we'll see)
* Reading visit day (if they offer it me! 29th?)
* getting sick of all these stupid times for uni postgrad days. What do you think some of us finalists are doing in Apr/May? Sleeping? (well, some of the time yes, but still)
* CLASH (May 30th) when all this will be over, hoo-rah.

stress level: medium to high

Perhaps I'm just going to have to leave this job-finding to the summer. Unless something /does/ come along, anyway. I'm looking avidly at this assessment centre thing; I'm assuming I didn't tick through to get a guaranteed interview under disability rules. (I don't usually, so this should be no exception.)

Back to work!

PS: Oh, I got a new computer the other week, which I'm tentatively calling 'bluebox' because it just seems to have stuck. I need (read: want) to do a little bit of work on it, but there will be pictures later maybe. I'm not on it because the monitor doesn't work. First I'll try a DVI connection in place of the VGA one, and if that fails, bleh.

Happy birthday azakir!

One month until the end of lectures.

I have:
* four weeks of PT practice
* three two Cisco chapter tests
* two one net tech assignments
* one wireless WPA2 Enterprise/PEAP demo
* a billion jobs to wade through
[* an interview!]
* one PT practical
* one Cisco practical

After two weeks of spring break I have:
* one project writeup
* one poster session

Some time over the weeks thereafter I have:
* three finals; net design, Cisco, wireless
* one CLASH 2009 outing
* one graduation

And I'm clearly not doing enough work. I may have to be scarce for a little while. o.o

cover letter:
To whom it may concern,

You make me so mad, o company that I can't see because they're behind a recruitment firm. You would probably make me mad if I /went/ to such a university, because then I would have to imagine being anywhere near the same ballpark as people who think like this, and that would be distressing. So long as it's a real degree and the person fits the specification, what do you care?

Although to be honest, I guess that could be unfair. Maybe you're just being upfront about something to the tune of what other firms do as a matter of course. My knowledge of work-fu isn't quite so developed. I wouldn't like to say that really, for the same reason. But it does inspire the concern that it might be the case.

Either way, ta. I have jobs to get and after devaluing my degree in my head enough already, I get externally validated. Yay what.

I am fairly awesome, though. But I will just have to go be awesome somewhere else. :O

No love,
~ dragon

@soiry

I don't entirely get it, but that's okay, I think I probably have a future use for it. Right now:
* things are boring, and
* my SMS is expensive,
and so it will be low traffic. Although I've hooked it up to my Gtalk, so ya know, maybe I'll wind up using it to converse with outwardly mobile people. Who knows?

Some people do the daily LJ agglutination, but based on the above I will not.

Yay for communication. O_o

As I sat in the Atrium in my fleece jacket, polishing off the end of a panini and salad and sipping a strawberry and yoghurt smoothie, I listened to incidental bagpipe music and suddenly realised two mildly unimportant things.

The first is that I wasn't wearing a fez.

The second is that I would have made a really lousy art student.


I guess next week I'm back to grilled salmon at the nearby Wetherspoons, huh? :P

(PS: My dissertation is no longer a steaming failure. And even if it was, I can still totally rock my year. --worry;)

how I feel today: chipper

But then I associate this day with something different. ^^

(And, I have a story to write. Eeeek.)

Still alive! Not done a con report yet but I will. Well, bullet point report..

On closer examination of my funding I appear to have enough to get down to aXXIdental. I forgot about Xmas money. And I could really use the break.

Incidentally, I'm going. 8)

how I feel today: cheerful

Ow, general pain. 17 hours sleep over 3 nights. The walls are out to get me and I'm all alone in a pointless universe, etc. I don't think I actually believe that, but I can't say I'm feeling anything other than low just now. Bah.

My final year dissertation is not going so well. Again, it's all the fault of overambition. I live by reaching further than ever before.. but everyone has their limits, right?

I sorta feel like I wanna kick off from college when I'm done, get a quiet and unassuming tech job somewhere with odd hours, and devote to writing and music. It's like, total protonic reversal, since I've always been a scientist. But my writing and music are the best things I've put out in general productivity terms for a while. Everything else kinda feels big and obnoxious, and will always have these things called 'deadlines' that chill the blood and null the senses.

I ran the maths on my project. Since most of it is writeup, there's a small chance I can uncover a reasonable mark even with a sunken development process. Isn't there?

On the other hand, azakir! I'm almost done with Dragoncharm. I think after that I'll read that latest short story of yours. And then write a contest entry for FA. To help me relax, of course. I have a kick-ass story on the go, gonna see if it doesn't turn some heads, wheee...

how I feel today: depressed

Well, today was pretty quiet and dull.

Then I pick up the mail and Corin has a postcard from the vicinity of draegonhawke.

Magi won't see this post (unaided), but because of it I feel much better now. Thank you. :)

how I feel today: grateful

I've had a quiet sort of Xmas, and I fudged the train getting back. So, happy reschedule of the family get together for the weekend. It's cool, and easy because there's only two of us left.

Merry December-Holiday-Period-Ish, folkses. :)

(Because I'm fairly sure some people I know will enjoy this)

Suspended ghost-like in the air, she is quiet and calm. A long, thin dark scarf conceals her features below the mousey nose, wrapped around and trailing behind her, down her back, ends shaking in the wind. She is - was once - a Raichu-morph; her eyes a shining black with a sheen of red, those telltale curved ears studded with ruby and ebony jewels. She has wavy black and grey hair, low at the front, tied into pigtails behind her ears with black ribbon. A short, flat-topped, thin-brimmed black hat sits on her head, uniform with ruffles and decorated with simple black Pokemon-shaped figures; Zubat, Duskull, Gastly, Absol, Hoothoot, etc.

Her porcelain white skin looks cold against the deep velvety blacks she wears, with the small touches of hot, bloody red. Darkness is her colour of choice, a matte-black old fashioned dress with red buttons down the whole length, and a thin ruffled trim at her collar, sleevecuffs and skirt. She has a simple belt, secured with a bat-winged Mew buckle, and antiquated red lace gloves on her hands, thin and nimble, crisscrossing over browny-black hands. She wears high kneesocks, legs hidden, pattened by a row of crossed feathers in red down each side, ending in a pair of schoolgirl shoes, suede with a single strap and buckle. In place of a tail a stiff silver double-chain hangs below her skirt, curving naturally and ending in a tailbolt loop, upright and sparking with electricity; almost as though the spirit world had allowed her here, but kept on a leash.

Hanging secure to her belt are two plushies; one of an old sooty Raichu with a scar and a shabby coat, the other a gothic Flashfire with hat, coat, and chain-festooned trousers. Their colours are faded and worn. In her hands, she holds an Aerodactyl design sceptre, fantastically intricate and weathered. It has a spade-tail at the bottom, feet posed as a ridged handle, stylised wings fork either side near the top, and a large open-mouthed head. It is grey and black, with dark eyes and silvery teeth. And with hands on her shoulders, against her back sits an Abra, passively colourful with gold and brown peeking out around the black ninjaish cover-all it wears. Its eyes are shining softly, being the reason for the girl's levitation.

Tatikyas is nowhere to be seen, meanwhile. Perhaps he got lost or delayed? For now, here is his younger sister, Saki, who is a much more interesting sight.

(Tati's costume for Halloween Do 2008 on PMM (http://pokemorph.com). Got less general notice than I was expecting, but did everything I wanted it to do. And then some. Oh dear me. XD)

OK

Hello everyone! I am going to purport one of my usual large, informative posts.

... sorry, that was a joke. This is a meme. :(

( A seeekrit meme. Admittedly, I bet somewhere on the internet has destroyed the mystery. But you know, I still asked for the questions and I'm still going to do it. :) )

Hi!

I'm not actually dead. Cool. :O

I've done lots of stuff though. Including have a birthday today!

Being 23 doesn't feel much different than being 22. There was, however, cake. Mmm cake.

I do not hate Gab. :D

Thanks for playing!

brb, america

Not posted for a while. Let's solve that. Ignoring the screaming children outside, no less!

It occurs to me that, although much of my friends list has something to do with PMM, there are many who do not. So, I think I'll go make some mention of it.

Pokemorph MUSH (PMM) is a roleplay MUSH that concerns Pokemorphs - anthro Pokemon, i.e. the Nintendo creation of a menagerie of varied creatures with a wide array of special powers. PMM is the foremost source of this sort of roleplay on the Internet today, and was established in 2000, so it is standing up rather well against the passage of time. It encompasses a world refined by thousands of hours of invested thought and over eight years of running time, and the community of many dozens of people that exists around it. Its webhome can be found if you dial your browser to http://pokemorph.com/ and hit the 'Gimme' button. PMM has an IC livejournal at pokemorph and comes with a developing wiki infobase at http://pokemorph.com/wiki. (MUSHes are like every text based thing you've ever used to RP, only better. BeipMU is my client du jour if you live in a GUI world, which most of my readers probably do.)

The RP world is set 28 years ahead of time, a cunning mathematical trickery that results in days and dates and months matching up exactly. Neat, huh? And in this world, Team Rocket have used their scientific knowhow to engineer Pokemorphs; creatures capable of serving their ends. However, resistance came from inside and out to liberate these new creations - into a world that, on second thought, suddenly realised it didn't want them around. Deported to a dwindling island territory of Kanto, the Pokemorphs have adapted to use the abandoned city and its surroundings as their home; a place to have life outside of servitude. But Rocket have followed them there - and they have their own plans for the future...

Why plug? Why not. Kinda inspired by Marcellus's DA post from a couple of months ago. It's not necessarily Pokemon roleplay itself, but it exists in the same vein, and it's the nearest left in MU*dom any more; I checked, I can't find anything else that's actually got some life. I'm Tatikyas on there, and it's for that character that this journal is actually named, so. It's been a long time since when I joined there. XD The world is very detailed, but dynamic; it's got scope for all sorts of roleplay, and there's always quite a selection of people connected at any one time.

It is at the moment suffering from a little bit of collective player shyness - so if there's anyone on my list who is feeling bold and wants RP, come give it a shot! I am trying to make a point of RPing with someone new every day, hee hee. It also just took on a group of new staff, including yours truly, so the experienced MU*ers out there might need to prepare for some chattering voices of help and assistance. Don't worry, people are just a bit.. hyped. Not a bad thing, some enthusiasm, hm? I've been around a bit now, and it really shows when people care about a place like that. PMM is too big to be highly closed-knit, but people have their friendgroups and we do try to keep things happy all round.

Outside of PMM I've been hearing tales of 'where is the RP?!', and this is my bid to solving that, although I don't know if the subject matter is quite to everyone's taste. Pokemon seems to have a little box to sit in and be viewed by the world in one way or the other. And sure enough, some people have great fun tying concepts from the games and anime into their play. But it's more about the characters and the differences than that; it's about how it works in a realistic setting.

I'm there for the people first anyway. :D They are so cool. You know who you are.

Now go join! It will make me happy. :)

So as to not make this post not worth reading for those of my friends who do PMM it up; comment to me! Saying who you are and what you like about it, if you may. Some of you may wish to think of this as a quizzle. ^-^

...

In other news I'm in Blackpool for a few days. I was born here, lived here for 18 years, but I am not comfortable in my own place at the moment. Mebbe I'm just tired, and it will pass. Hope so. o.o

how I feel today: z.z

The champion: Still hitting strong for a septuagenarian; the undefeated, undisputed, DSA approved, UK standard practical driving test for a car with manual transmission (B); 4-0 Cheetham Hill x2, Failsworth x1 (2008), Blackpool x1 (2004)

The challenger: young, white, fluffy, and drizzled with vanilla, eager to not tip another £100 at this entire thing - me!; 0-4

The combatants:
"This ends. It ends here. We go out and we go round and everyone knows I can do this, but it never seems to come together on the day. No, today it will, you'll see."
"Tell me how you would check that the power assisted steering is working before starting a journey. Please pull in at a safe, convenient, and legal position."

The commentators:
"He's here for his fifth visit. It's changed a lot since 2004 even, hasn't it?"
"Since the last time he had the test they've added more road safety questions. Time is moving on, soon he'll have to go all the way back to the start."
"Is the challenger even awake? Is he high? He's just glazed, surely this isn't legal."
"No, Bob, he always looks stoned. But for once he's on home turf, and he only gets better every time they fight."
"That's what you say, but he took 3 major faults last time at Cheetham. The away game just isn't his thing."
"But he's not exactly done much around Whalley, either? It's all roads, he won't remember them just like that."
"Every time he's out on the practice ring, he runs circles around everything. Has for months. No, past aside, this continues to be interesting each and every time."
"The only problem is The Conversation. It's a deadly trick that continues to throw confusion out every time. It will happen; can he be ready for it?"
"Can anyone be ready for it?"

The peanut gallery:
Boots silently wills Tati failure. ^o^
Hope wills Tati victory!
Stardust wills PANCAKES

'So what do you do?' "I lead a small resistance faction on a tropical island populated by half-Pokemon creatures."
'So, how's school?' "Oh, it's just excellent. Soon, the children will have learned to kill."

(did I mention? my friends are the coolest people ever) (+100G)

The venue: Whalley Range
The time: 13:30

The preparation:
Opened umbrella in the front room to counteract Boots. (+50G)

The drive: Just like I feel it always is; reasonably accurate, to within a few decimal places
The weather: rainy and poor, but I've driven in Nam, baby, I can dig it
The examiner: sounded a little happier to be here than usual

The manoeuvres:
Parallel park: "oh crap I'm too close oh crap I'm too far oh crap the wheel's wrong.. oh cool I've done this so often that it doesn't actually make a difference. huh."
Turn in the road: "I could do this blindfolded" *blindspot fault* "ARGH NOT LITERALLY" (+5G)

The Conversation:
"I don't work any more."
"I live.. around Manchester. Well, sort of. My licence says Blackpool, that's correct. I live in Manchester, that's correct. No, my address is correct. I just have two of them."
'You'd do much better with your skills [in computing] over in Canada or Australia.' "Quite possibly." 'Bigger areas, cheaper living..' "Easier driving tests..." (+5G)

The verdict: 12 faults. Many 'lazy' blind spot halfchecks - but in the end, and at some surprise to my instructor given the results sheet - 0 serious.

YOU'RE WINNER

[Lost Provisional Licence.]
[Gained Test Pass Certificate.]

Mog: Please wait up to 3 working weeks for your replacement licence, kupo!

every writer dreams

though not every dreamer writes

but what if they did?

how I feel today: hopeful

I have a throat infection and an absence of known ways to spend Saturday and Sunday in the south, so no Swiggle for me. Toldya, hermitude, and not even my fault. Nothing much I can do about it either, other than hope my luck improves.

I suppose I've been a bit quiet lately. I think work's been taking its toll finally, and all it means is weeks pass before I realise it. So I need to stress that if I've not spoken to you for a while, it's not your fault. Is it mine? I suppose that's in the eye of the beholder, I certainly haven't intended it. :(

Kinda feel like people assume the worst of me on occasion! Like I somehow desire to inflict the maximum pain by virtue of action or inaction. Please... don't. ^.^ I'm still used to being able to pick up where I left off after small hops away. Ask explodingferret, who I seem to go months in between seeing. (ps. come north, I have pie. and piano.)

I will enjoy summer because I'll start being able to do things on my own time again. 2 months, oooo. After July 4th. Haha imagine that, iconic. Two weeks or so thereon with nidonocu (beginning July 7? maybe?) and a month in Utah with everyone ever (aug 22 - sep 19), leaves me the biggest part of a month to play with, including the last weekend in July, which is next Swiggle. Hoohaa!

Today, though, I will appease my throat with water, nap a bit, and ponder where my future lies.

how I feel today: melancholy

I appear to have gone into hermitude again. Whoops. o.o

how I feel today: contemplative

The subject is a young adult dragon whose common day to day lifestyle for the last 9 months has been categorised as follows:
1. Work (typing on a computer for 8 hours)
2. Free time (typing on a computer for x hours)
3. Piano (pressing keys for 1-2 hours)
and where some weekends are categorised merely by 2 and 3.

Recently, the follow symptoms have been occurring:
* weakness and tingling in the thumb, forefinger, and middle finger of the left hand (some months ago, since passed)
* sluggish and painful movement of the right thumb flexor (last week)
* painful flexion and extension of the right thumb thenar (last few days)

* no more pain, minor discomfort of the wrist, lingering reduced motion and tingling of thenar and discomfort in thumb extensor (just now, after some exercise)

Phalen's manoeuvre, a diagnostic test for carpal tunnel, seems to indicate problems with the right hand (along with one mad bad evil CLICK that scared the hell out of me). I'm not a doctor but I do this to be sure because I hate wasting their time; by this point, I am reasonably convinced I should get it checked out, at least, though I'm not sure he'll tell me much differently, and I could be waiting a while to see a specialist.

However, the biggest aid to this sort of thing is future prevention which means I really need to organise the way I do stuff. I have wrist rests at work but they don't feel like they help (although if the aim is merely to level the wrist, they do that). Biggest problem I think is sadly the piano (judging by many many years of typing without incident), where my seat is just a little too low sat down and the piano itself is just a little too low to play stood up because of my long legs of longness, and mostly because my technique has a few holes and is sorta geared towards destroying my hands whenever I play loud and fast. Hahah.

Advice is welcome! It would be horribly embarrassing to wreck my wrists before ever playing at a filk gathering, for one thing. ;)

[edit: Previously I wrote the above named test as 'Phalen's manoeuver', which is an odd combination of the US and UK spellings of the latter word. This phrase, as of this moment, returns my journal as the top hit on Google. Huh. I have nonetheless edited it.]

Corin's b'day gift for moi didst come in the other day:

http://soir.co.uk/soir/Soiryfig01.jpg
http://soir.co.uk/soir/Soiryfig02.jpg

*glee*

3 serious, 6 minor.

The nervous pressure of being on test is now the only factor of issue in my driving, and as we can see, it's the worst issue ever to plague it. As such there is no other recourse but to go again.

This is really, really annoying.

The champion: multi-standardised, supremely awkward, able to pluck its opponent's demise from out of the blue -- the UK driving practical test!

And its challenger, twice to the plate and twice cobbled, three years past due and still looking for the victory.. the white dragon, Soir!

Be thrilled as these two titans of ground and air battle it out for supremacy. The venue: Failsworth, Greater Manchester. Foreboding arena, certainly. No kayfabe; all anguish is real.

14th March, 2008.

This ends.*

* er, well, I rather hope so. Can I just take 20 and be done with it? </D&D>

By the time I wake up the internet will know more about the actual details than I do.

Still, worth putting something down.

Now, to bed!

13 minors (over 8 last time; too nervous, too warm), 3 mirror-signal faults, and 1 van too close to our backside for comfort for this very reason (which I never even saw), so 1 serious.

1 control fault for a manoeuver variant my instructor overlooked; reverse right bay park, which I had to improvise (and I bet one hesitation fault at the start where I went '... hold on, I've not gone right before'). Pretty happy with that performance, actually.

10 days (minimum) and ~£100 before I get to do this all over again.

0 dangerous! Better than last time.

1 positive, though mildly unhappy, dragon.

[Edit for clarity. XD]

how I feel today: sore

Here's for second time lucky! *runs away*

how I feel today: hopeful

So this weekend I went off to my first of this particular convention (not quite my first con, as I'd gone to Harmuni 3 in August) and much fun was had. Like, lots of fun. This is great stuff, and I say now that I will be around filk for a long time.

The con's going to have a lot of reports, but I'll do my usual; asserting that I might conrep and then never actually doing so, but there will be a few snippets:
* Friday circle - mellow (at least for me), winddown at about 2:30am, which is early in my books
* All the rooms look the same! Whatever shall we do?! Every room I ever entered did look the same, though for my part I only entered two.
* Pizza is a bad idea and the Fates will not let us try it - going so far as to send us in diversionary circles around Grantham. Drrt-drnt, fail!
* Saturday: breakfast! win! Making up for the fail of before with breakfast, though no amount of liquid will heal these lips so dry...
* Ciaran comes with a song and acquires a spontaneous band. I have to imagine that went something like 'Well, I have this mp3-' "This is filk, we have better way!" And he picked up SAMs noms. Go you!
*
* Rika's set. (Rika and "my band... I like that, they're *my* band")
* Christo's set. (Hatstand man, the hatstand man, one-a-penny two-a-penny hatstand man..) and "The man is a tortured genius... Just not tortured enough!"
* Saturday circle - bouncy, becoming more incoherent near the end. Keyboard missing, so we sung Wings, by Michiko Naruke, along with Azakir (it's the one I had that we both knew at short notice). Said 'I won't ever go a circle without singing'. Winddown at 4:30am!
* Sunday breakfast was attended by zombies. After relearning how to eat solid food, things went well.
* More sleep more sleep more sleep now
* More concert!
* SAMs awards and songplay - a miniature summary of the con, mmm.
* Sunday was a pretty good day. After the SAMs I was a lot more relaxed and there was much random discussion around the table, during which I somehow agreed to a one-shot at aXXIdental, next year's con.
* Sunday circle(s) - room too small, population too big, so we gained an inner circle, yay! Mentally queued up Fellowship Gone South as my 'I'm leaving!', before Azakir (who had been thinking like me for most of the weekend) had the same idea and sung for our sendoff - and he did great. I did backing, though! Maybe I can get away with counting that, so I didn't fail Sat circle's statement the very next day. Nuh uh. Eheehee.
* .. in the goodbyes outside, the idea was implanted of having a housefilk; Mich is a skilled enabler. It was also theorised that this wouldn't necessarily require me to use my own house. Huh. Anybody fancy all the fun of a housefilk but with none of the admin? :D
* FuMP vol 3 "I can has FuMP?" - car filking. Mmm.

I have a list of songs I want to add to my hoard, mmm. I did good. It's in three separate places; my PDA, which ran out of battery, a bit of paper with Rika's first set songlist on the back, and my travel journal with the chaos patterning.

Soon, I can has Aberdeen. Until then, have a nice day!

how I feel today: tea tea tea tea

Picture the scene. It's a breezy day, snow is falling gently, the few leaves left falling from decrepit trees whisper through the winds. Tranquil. It's like someone took a photograph and stuck it to the camera. There is a cake and a cube with a heart on the side. It's picturesque. It's inherently deceptive. Something is about to happen. Let's let Ditto take over.

<@Ditto> here have a caSUDDENLY
<@Ditto> OUT
<@Ditto> OF
<@Ditto> NOWHERE

http://soir.co.uk/gallery/albums/soir/Soiry-small.jpg

(by FrostDrake; thanks lots!)

how I feel today: happy

Still alive. Home for Xmas. Been a bit busy and all. ^^ I was going to make a post on how I think draconity would benefit from having a single community again, but it feels a bit tenuous. Short version: there's a number of dragon communities, and aside from those, a number of clusters of 'em in their own spaces on the 'net. I think between the communities they can't be serving more than 100 people any more, and it's all pretty quiet much of the time. Who's talking to the new fish? They're definitely out there somewhere, whether anyone sees 'em or not; it's a hard situation for the new sometimes. IRC's mostly quiet, the forums are a bit sparing and slow compared to what I'd expect. Think maybe it's time for a bit of solidarity, of the careful sort, but I'm not sure if anyone else would agree. Better than ennui seeping in, surely?

Comments welcome.

So, for the past few months I've once again been the possessor of a musical instrument. Cool.

It has taught me that six years of keyboard playing are more valuable than they seem.

With the advent of MIDI technology, I can offer this low-bandwidth, very subjective snippet cut from a brief practice session I did. The first part is well-known, the second (after the 'oh, whoops, that's not how it goes' bridge) is a bit of edit from the first, and the third was improvised on the theme, and it has a few blips, but otherwise, it's alright.

http://soir.co.uk/misc/untitled1.mid
[Edit: Assuming you can get it to work at all. XD Timidity on Linux had no problem, but I'm on Windows now, and my programs don't seem to be smart enough to put a default instrument to it... hmmmmm. o.@]

(Azakir, Corin: this is certainly not an unfamiliar track to you two. :p)

Antipasto meat, lightly fried and put on soft cheese sandwiches.

Don't run away, it's not all that bad. Hello, world of the Internet. It's been a while since I've spoken about anything of substance. (Some would argue I never have!)

I got a USB to MIDI thing the other day, and now I can record MIDI files, which aren't exactly definitive audio, but certainly help in notation. So, whenever there's cool thing I do on the piano by accident, I can work out what I did. :D

I've almost finished buying a bunch of gifts for people! Yay! More on that as news breaks.

50158. Been a long road, though not as long as some.

http://image.sl.nsw.gov.au/banks/50158.jpg

I fear had I not been armed with my trusty laptop Chibisuke to perform this endeavour, I may well have scribed the last thousands of words about as legibly as the above.

http://www.shopbigsky.com/productphoto/50158.jpg

The balancing act ends, though, and I can happily return to squandering my free time on friends, loves, and music. And get me some grub, as well. I'm hungry.

http://www.sportswarehouse.co.uk/acatalog/rk50158.jpg

... but not _that_ hungry.


Kudos to all, especially azakir, whose assistance has been invaluable and without whom I would have failed to even begin. Now, you get to read the strangled mess I have created! Bwaha!

The end is in sight. (Though the pictured binoculars may come in useful.) After 2 abortive nonstarts, this year will be the decisive victory.

Story isn't going to end at 50k, either, but at least after I make it, I can write at a more leisurely pace!

Well...



19416. azakir-style, but lazier: rather than putting the word count into the image, I'm putting the word count into Google, and letting it do the image for me. Admittedly, it may not be immediately clear what resemblance it has, but everyone trusts Google, right?

In other news, mum may (I am told) have diabetes. Aagh. Dunno what type yet, though...

15,261.

Ohh yeah, bring it. >D

Word count: 10,342.

No, seriously.

o_o;

I'm on 42 words.

...

That's the correct size of laugh. You may move along now.

...

For the curious, at the current rate I ought to be finished by Feb 2nd, 2021.

don't wait up

108 words. Damn, I know me too well. (new estimate Feb 10, 2009)

how I feel today: still kinda miffed

Mmm, I get to see Suikoden again, yay.

So I checked LJ for the first time in a few days, because explodingferret is still here and I'm not really being around a lot at the moment - and I encountered a meme. Ooo. That's pretty. However, there's also probably going to be a dozen of you before I get around to having enough time to go around, and I am curious, so. I chanced to peer down and see that I have a keyboard, with letters on it, and there became a zenith of realisation - memes can be tweaked!

So. u.u

Comment with a picture of the fictional character that most reminds you of me, and I will comment back with a picture of the fictional character that most reminds me of you. Then post the same in your journal unless you're of the half that already has, in which case you may do a dance instead.* ^o^
* pics or it didn't happen X)

And I tag chriskarate, at least. XP~

Work! Nooo~!

So, weekend came. Had a bunch of people over; eclective (by default), azakir, ciaran_h, haunter_uk, and baloki+Miles. Gaming, music, and lulz. Can't be bad.

Everyone left by now, though. Work tomorrow for a number of us. I'm exceptionally tired at the moment, too. Was pretty neat though!

I have books to read, yummy.

how I feel today: sleepy

Alright, so I'm doing amounts of travelling. Woo!

Today (in about 4 hours) I'm going up to Aberdeen to see zelandeth, and Sunday 9th, I'm in London, to attend an nMC rehearsal. This should be fun, and I will possibly finish the Stand. I will, more than likely, sleep a bit too.

Next weekend poses an interesting notion; I'm going to be heading to London on a Sunday, a journey either 6 hours round by train, or 8 by coach. That's a lot to do in a day; I was wondering if someone in the area could oblige me somewhere to stay Saturday night? Then I could break it up, and all would be fluffy.

Answers on a postcard - or a comment, either or. ^^

(Also, I am not much on checking my LJ friends list at the moment; I'll get back to it, but the speed it renders at on dialup is just not happy. Alas.)

how I feel today: flower++

So, we have a move date set. Next Saturday (25th August).

I would be most enamoured to requisition an azakir for this date.

I also have the impending thing about being 22 in about a month (16th September). Hmm. This is interesting, I've never been 22 before. At least, not that I can remember. But it's a Sunday, which is excellent and means I can relax. Maybe even take the Monday off and doubly relax.

Ooh! I get the Monday after moving weekend off as well! Brilliant. This is of greatness.

Sorta mousing about today, I went to sort out my documentation for the move - it's all present and correct for once. Organisation++. I also bought the best little folder for my filk stuff, it's got white scales on the outside, or it looks like it does. Much win.

Lolcode is much win too.

I has a headset with microphone! About time, too. Now I just need a webcam (again)...

Short con report: Harmuni 3 (11-12 August)

With azakir. Got there Saturday, as per the Travel From Oop Norf, parked, went in, signed up, went to room, relaxed for a little while. Azakir fell asleep, I think. (I know he did at some point before we did sleep for the night, can't remember, but betting on Azakir being asleep at some given time is likely a safe bet.)

Somewhere in between the above events, we had already been greeted by a lot of people, and our names had been added to the instaband roster. Now that's fast.

So after that there was Sib's set (beep beep beware) and Franklin's set (taHnk yUo f4Or tH MuOsci) and they were both very good, mmm. Free time erupted all around like, well, free time - and while Azakir went off to rehearse, I dispersed, hovered a little, and went off to do some song-select with callylevy (code name Mich). This was done, then we escaped to a Pub for some Well Deserved Food. (And then I came back and did some rehearsal!) And then we entered the Realm of the Circle (though Azakir stopped off at the RPG auction). By this point, it had felt like a full weekend already - and there was still a day left.

Which began by missing breakfast, which happens when you're of the last to leave the circle. We foraged out in the wild for a while, bringing back our prize and promptly devouring most of it; and then dashing off to encounter more Rehearsal, and then lunch, or this was in some order or other - we had enough food to get by until dinner. But rehearsal was good, and we tied it all together and had good fun with pirate gear (and hats that never stay on) and singing and then, there was chinese food, and closing ceremony, and I haven't an SFing LARPing filking clue, and the dead-dog circle (ooooh), and then we left amidst the onset of postcon blues, and then we stargazed somewhere between MK and Cambridge, and.. ta-da.

And then I had Monday off, and I played through every song I could get my paws on.

And then Tuesday was work (boo), and then dinner with Mich, and we wandered a little and talked and ate food and went to see Tales from Earthsea (again!) and that was nice. Very nice little evening, as I/we have said quite a few times now. Must arrange something again, mmm.

For now, though, I have an eclective here and we're due for some sleep. G'night world.

how I feel today: chipper

*insert con report and A Tuesday Evening In Manchester With callylevy here, sometime when it's not 1am*