Imminence
Helloes. I'm not particularly having a great time, but things are happening still. I couldn't get through to Darius most of Wednesday, so I couldn't see him then, but once I finally did get through to him I said I needed to see him very soon, and the next day was agreed. So, on Thursday we had a brief meeting and I confirmed the details of what work was on offer. It seems very general, rather like what Nicky does, but I'm not really bothered what it is at the moment, as long as I make enough to pay for the things I need. In that respect I also shouldn't really have agreed to the wage, which is a little below minimum wage, but I know that it's easy work, I'll probably get free lunch, and that it's in a convinient place for me to travel to each day - so once again, so long as it's paying my bills well enough it doesn't matter for now.
Money will be quite close to the limits for the first month, but I'll be okay after that. It's just because I have to absorb all the initial expenses (deposit, first month's rent in advance, funiture, stocking up some food) with what little money I currently have. At least I know that after rent, I'll have about £400 per month to pay bills with, which is more than enough, and the rest will go towards paying off the overdraft and my credit card.
I wanted to talk to Shanna before buying any furniture, but she proved to be very unavailable this week, either coming early when I wasn't around, only staying for a few minutes, not coming at all, or a combination. I spoke to her on the phone for a few minutes today at her request, and she said she didn't mind what I chose anyway, but I still would've liked to have looked at things together.
I haven't been very... well, interested, supportive, kind, whatever, to anyone lately, particularly to Shanna. I'm conciously aware of it and I apologised for it, but everything is certainly getting to me. 2006, from the start of the year up until now, has been the most stressful time I have ever had in my life. This isn't really new, it just seems more noticeable at the moment. I had a kind of vision, when I was very ill a week or so back, that I was speaking at a close friend's funeral. It restarted again and again, but each time my speech had only one theme: a regret that I'd never shown real appreciation for the things they'd done or acknowledged their achievements, never complimented, said a few kind words when it would've been appropriate. The sad thing is, it was all very true - the only exception is that they're not dead.
That didn't really explain why I brought it up, but I don't know if I can. s'quite a private issue I suppose. I don't feel guilty about it, but I feel I am taking something for granted. The problem with that is just that I can and nothing will come of it, which isn't really fair. It's amazing how recent my contemplation of 'complex' people is, if that makes any sense, lol. People were always simple entities that I didn't really have to care about. I may not be social, but I understand how people work, and more to the point, how to get what I want from them. It's all different now, mainly because I know things I shouldn't know. Suddenly my relationships are a lot more complicated, and whilst it's fascinating, there are side-effects. Certainly brings a new appreciation for what I've got.
I tried to reinstall my operating system on Wednesday, which proved very frustrting. I have a Windows 2000 Server disk which is bootable, and a Windows 2000 Professional disk which isn't. Professional is what I use, but I need another operating system to launch the installtion from. I also thought I'd make a small installation of Windows ME, for playing old games. It really didn't work out, and though I got what I wanted it took six installations in total. It also resulted in a weird extra partition, which was apparently set outside the boundary of the physical disk. I'm sure the Windows 98 setup created it before it died with a billion memory allocation failures. Anyway, I got a tool to remove it... which it did, along with the other partition which was supposed to be there. You know, the one with all my data on it. I wasn't too worried, assuming the changes had to be applied to take effect, but unfortunately, examining the drive in Partition Magic (which was incidentally unable to remove the errorous parition, which is the reason I used another tool) showed that this program actually applied the changes instantly. Goodbye data, I stupidly had the idea of putting the partition back by creating a new one of the same size in it's place. Well, the idea wasn't that stupid, but continuing to use what was obviously quite an unsafe program was. I clicked create thinking I'd get some options, but nope - I got a new FAT32 partition over my old NTFS one, which it kindly formatted for me too, also instantly applied without confirmation. Yeah, thanks.
With a hex editor and much effort, I was able to manually patch it up enough for CHKDSK to recognise it as NTFS again, but of course the MFT was completely destroyed. CHKDSK was able to recover some data (about 13GB of the 114GB that was originally there), but I also forgot to consider where this recovered data would go. Of course it placed it on the drive in question, possibly overwriting some lost files. Or possibly not; it might have just restored the MFT records of the files it could, though I'm not sure. Graham sent me some good software to try and recover the rest, but whilst it's good at it's job, it's interface is very counter-intuitive and I can't seem to find a way to recover all the files at once - I seeminly have to pick individual file types to look for each scan. Not to mention I don't have 100GB free to recover the files to anyway, so I just had to purchase a new hard disk, which is yet another unwelcome expense at the moment. I did feel it was worth it to keep around the £70 mark though - I could've got 80GB or so for only £30, but it's more than worth it to pay £70 and get 300GB instead. That won't arrive until the day I move into the flat, so I'll just have to go without for now. Which is a further problem, because I need some of the lost data to help Shanna with the visa application. Meh, teh such timing as usual.
I got my bike sorted (the brakes were dead), so I'm ready to use it to ride to work. I was disappointed with how much effort it was just to ride into Kinson - riding the five miles to college used to be no problem when I was doing it every day but now even the one mile to the bank is difficult. Have to get my fitness back up, though I'm sure a few weeks of riding to and from Wallisdown each weekday will see to that.
Got an email from an old friend of mine today. Well actually, it might have been anytime between now and when I lost my data since I don't have any mail client installed yet, but I only noticed it today. I go past where he used to live very frequently and always remember him and think I should send him something, but never sure what to say. He even invited me over a long time ago, but even then it'd been at least two years since I'd seen him in person and I'd have felt very awkward around his family. Maybe we can go out somewhere together sometime.
He asked how the business was going, and I don't really know. We (as in, mostly Graham) have finished the Inter-County site, so we'll be paid for that soon, but I'd rather not take much of the money if I can avoid it. Although I did do a lot of work on the design, at least 85% of the whole project has been done by Graham alone, so I haven't really earnt anything even if I'm technically entitled to it. I might 'borrow' £200 or so, but I'll be sure to put it back.
Now that I've taken a job with Darius and Graham is looking for a job too, it's not really clear what will happen with XVII. It won't be forgotten; I'm always trying to push it forward, it's just that survival has to take priority for the moment and I need to support myself and Shanna. After that, no idea.
In fact that's the outlook in general now. Everything I've ever done has been working towards this event, starting an independant life with Shanna... but once I've done it, what comes next? I quite honestly don't have a clue what's going to happen, but I know I will have nothing but disappointment unless I can always feel I'm achieving something; our life must be on a constant progression to better things to feel worthwhile. I know I'm going to take it easy for a bit initially though. Stability is also important, though I know in theory that we can sustain a decent standard of life together, I need to see it in practice before contemplating what comes next.
Shame I can't see this step as an achievement. Many people have actually complimented and congratulated me on taking this step, and everyone thinks I should be excited about it. I'm not. It's almost viewed just as a task. Not that I'm not happy about finally being able to Live In Peace™ with Shanna - I've wanted that for years - but it's hard to find enjoyment in something that's this difficult, and I can't just take pride in achieving it 'cause I don't think it's anything impressive.
I will be happy, though.
Money will be quite close to the limits for the first month, but I'll be okay after that. It's just because I have to absorb all the initial expenses (deposit, first month's rent in advance, funiture, stocking up some food) with what little money I currently have. At least I know that after rent, I'll have about £400 per month to pay bills with, which is more than enough, and the rest will go towards paying off the overdraft and my credit card.
I wanted to talk to Shanna before buying any furniture, but she proved to be very unavailable this week, either coming early when I wasn't around, only staying for a few minutes, not coming at all, or a combination. I spoke to her on the phone for a few minutes today at her request, and she said she didn't mind what I chose anyway, but I still would've liked to have looked at things together.
I haven't been very... well, interested, supportive, kind, whatever, to anyone lately, particularly to Shanna. I'm conciously aware of it and I apologised for it, but everything is certainly getting to me. 2006, from the start of the year up until now, has been the most stressful time I have ever had in my life. This isn't really new, it just seems more noticeable at the moment. I had a kind of vision, when I was very ill a week or so back, that I was speaking at a close friend's funeral. It restarted again and again, but each time my speech had only one theme: a regret that I'd never shown real appreciation for the things they'd done or acknowledged their achievements, never complimented, said a few kind words when it would've been appropriate. The sad thing is, it was all very true - the only exception is that they're not dead.
That didn't really explain why I brought it up, but I don't know if I can. s'quite a private issue I suppose. I don't feel guilty about it, but I feel I am taking something for granted. The problem with that is just that I can and nothing will come of it, which isn't really fair. It's amazing how recent my contemplation of 'complex' people is, if that makes any sense, lol. People were always simple entities that I didn't really have to care about. I may not be social, but I understand how people work, and more to the point, how to get what I want from them. It's all different now, mainly because I know things I shouldn't know. Suddenly my relationships are a lot more complicated, and whilst it's fascinating, there are side-effects. Certainly brings a new appreciation for what I've got.
I tried to reinstall my operating system on Wednesday, which proved very frustrting. I have a Windows 2000 Server disk which is bootable, and a Windows 2000 Professional disk which isn't. Professional is what I use, but I need another operating system to launch the installtion from. I also thought I'd make a small installation of Windows ME, for playing old games. It really didn't work out, and though I got what I wanted it took six installations in total. It also resulted in a weird extra partition, which was apparently set outside the boundary of the physical disk. I'm sure the Windows 98 setup created it before it died with a billion memory allocation failures. Anyway, I got a tool to remove it... which it did, along with the other partition which was supposed to be there. You know, the one with all my data on it. I wasn't too worried, assuming the changes had to be applied to take effect, but unfortunately, examining the drive in Partition Magic (which was incidentally unable to remove the errorous parition, which is the reason I used another tool) showed that this program actually applied the changes instantly. Goodbye data, I stupidly had the idea of putting the partition back by creating a new one of the same size in it's place. Well, the idea wasn't that stupid, but continuing to use what was obviously quite an unsafe program was. I clicked create thinking I'd get some options, but nope - I got a new FAT32 partition over my old NTFS one, which it kindly formatted for me too, also instantly applied without confirmation. Yeah, thanks.
With a hex editor and much effort, I was able to manually patch it up enough for CHKDSK to recognise it as NTFS again, but of course the MFT was completely destroyed. CHKDSK was able to recover some data (about 13GB of the 114GB that was originally there), but I also forgot to consider where this recovered data would go. Of course it placed it on the drive in question, possibly overwriting some lost files. Or possibly not; it might have just restored the MFT records of the files it could, though I'm not sure. Graham sent me some good software to try and recover the rest, but whilst it's good at it's job, it's interface is very counter-intuitive and I can't seem to find a way to recover all the files at once - I seeminly have to pick individual file types to look for each scan. Not to mention I don't have 100GB free to recover the files to anyway, so I just had to purchase a new hard disk, which is yet another unwelcome expense at the moment. I did feel it was worth it to keep around the £70 mark though - I could've got 80GB or so for only £30, but it's more than worth it to pay £70 and get 300GB instead. That won't arrive until the day I move into the flat, so I'll just have to go without for now. Which is a further problem, because I need some of the lost data to help Shanna with the visa application. Meh, teh such timing as usual.
I got my bike sorted (the brakes were dead), so I'm ready to use it to ride to work. I was disappointed with how much effort it was just to ride into Kinson - riding the five miles to college used to be no problem when I was doing it every day but now even the one mile to the bank is difficult. Have to get my fitness back up, though I'm sure a few weeks of riding to and from Wallisdown each weekday will see to that.
Got an email from an old friend of mine today. Well actually, it might have been anytime between now and when I lost my data since I don't have any mail client installed yet, but I only noticed it today. I go past where he used to live very frequently and always remember him and think I should send him something, but never sure what to say. He even invited me over a long time ago, but even then it'd been at least two years since I'd seen him in person and I'd have felt very awkward around his family. Maybe we can go out somewhere together sometime.
He asked how the business was going, and I don't really know. We (as in, mostly Graham) have finished the Inter-County site, so we'll be paid for that soon, but I'd rather not take much of the money if I can avoid it. Although I did do a lot of work on the design, at least 85% of the whole project has been done by Graham alone, so I haven't really earnt anything even if I'm technically entitled to it. I might 'borrow' £200 or so, but I'll be sure to put it back.
Now that I've taken a job with Darius and Graham is looking for a job too, it's not really clear what will happen with XVII. It won't be forgotten; I'm always trying to push it forward, it's just that survival has to take priority for the moment and I need to support myself and Shanna. After that, no idea.
In fact that's the outlook in general now. Everything I've ever done has been working towards this event, starting an independant life with Shanna... but once I've done it, what comes next? I quite honestly don't have a clue what's going to happen, but I know I will have nothing but disappointment unless I can always feel I'm achieving something; our life must be on a constant progression to better things to feel worthwhile. I know I'm going to take it easy for a bit initially though. Stability is also important, though I know in theory that we can sustain a decent standard of life together, I need to see it in practice before contemplating what comes next.
Shame I can't see this step as an achievement. Many people have actually complimented and congratulated me on taking this step, and everyone thinks I should be excited about it. I'm not. It's almost viewed just as a task. Not that I'm not happy about finally being able to Live In Peace™ with Shanna - I've wanted that for years - but it's hard to find enjoyment in something that's this difficult, and I can't just take pride in achieving it 'cause I don't think it's anything impressive.
I will be happy, though.