My vampire overlords told me to do it!
Surreal moment of the day: having to phone my parents' erstwhile hosts to ask them to let them in because their doorbell was broken.
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Last Monday, I gave blood for the first time. It was pretty painless, and despite the nurse's fears I wasn't allergic to the fluid they put on my arm first. It was an excellent way of getting out of an hour of history, and an excuse to tell people that I had been exsanguinated, which was true, and to tell everyone to 'Remember! It is pronounced Tzep-pesh!' which made me giggle. A lot.
I have learned several things from giving blood:
1) I'm not scared of needles.
2) I really should pay attention when told to eat, drink and sleep lots before and after giving blood. Otherwise I do silly things like fall asleep in English lessons (although admittedly we were watching a very hypnotic video and it was dark and I probably would have done so anyway and half the class did) and then feel so bad the next morning that I don't make it into school until lunchtime again.
3) I should take a good book with me to read. Because lying on a couch for ages with nothing to do and a tube in your arm whilst you have to be awake is very, very boring.
4) I should get a badge made that says 'I am only giving blood because my vampire overlords told me to', because being told that you've done a wonderful and very selfless thing and that I should be very proud when I've just filled in a questionnaire and been mildly inconvenienced for a while is embarrassing. Especially by the third time.
Also, it would be funny.
The other thing worth mentioning about it is that it raised a question that I haven't quite bothered looking up the answer to: what happens to all the space? The body is a finite physical entity with a finite volume - and yet that volume doesn't seem to change when a milk-bottle's worth of blood is siphoned into a little plastic bag. I presume that there's just a massive drop in blood pressure, but I don't know...
stripyglove? freya? Anyone? Bueller?
---
On the Saturday after that, I went to purplefringe's purple party, which was probably the best party that I've been to in my life. There was good music, lots of people who I knew, lots of cool people who I didn't know and then talked to, and Flying Saucers.
There was also lots and lots of purple clothing, which was rather fun, and provided a good talking point. I talked to a lovely young lady called Camilla and the scarily-organised-but-also lovely Sarah, who was the party's other host, and I also actually met safebox, who is even lovelier in person than she is on eljay, and who I can now effectively refer to as 'Amy' in my head rather than as 'safebox'. She and I and charcoal_cloud formed a little eljay corner for a while (purplefringe being far too busy flitting around like a purple and shiny butterfly high on sunshine and rainbow dust, although she did come over and natter with us for a little bit; all_my_words doesn't really post very often, and meine_kleine was in Paris being musical).
This is also a good opportunity to compliment both of these wonderful people, which is something that I do far too seldomly. charcoal_cloud is one of those people whom I see very seldomly but always reminds me by being so of ho cool they are, and is in fact cooler every time I see her. purplefringe not only knows how to throw a very wonderful party and knows lots and lots of lovely people but also looked absolutely stunning.
---
I've finally gotten over my various lurgies: I am no longer constantly fatigued, sneezing, headaching, dizzy, having trouble breathing or coughing up my lungs. This makes me happy.
---
I have been driving a lot recently, and it shows. After driving Helen and Lucia to purplefringe's party, I decided that I'd not be taking anybody I knew in the car with me ever, ever again, or at least for a very long time, despite their protestations that I didn't drive too badly. On Friday I drove all the way to my uncle's house in Cambridgeshire with mum and dad and Helen, and enjoyed it. I'm much more comfortable with driving at high speeds now (almost empty dual carriage ways are fun) and far better at judging distances and roundabouts than I was previously, and am now confident and comfortable enough to engage in conversation with my passengers when I'm doing something fairly straightforward. Helen said today that I drove well enough that she almost fell asleep on the way back; then again, she'd had to get up at the unwholesome hour of ten o'clock in the morning and was therefore probably rather tired.
She also said, whilst we were in-transit, that if I'm arguing then I'm fine, which on reflection is very true; I will wise-crack at dad in a very relaxed manner when I'm doing something that I know I can handle, but as soon as it's something more challenging I clam up and don't take even the most tempting targets for a witty verbal riposte. It's actually a far better gauge of how tense I am than my judgement of how tense I am, which probably doesn't really make any sense, but is somehow true.
It also applies to situations other than driving, most of the time. Either I'll stop playing the funny man completely and become very serious, or I'll be incredibly flippant, depending on the nature of the situation.
---
I spent a lot of time tidying my bedroom this morning, therefore it is a mess.
With most people, the therefore would probably be more likely to be a because, but my room tends to get so messy in localised areas that tidying involves stuff to be sorted being strewn liberally on my floor and then slowly coalesced into piles and then put into cupboards or draws or bins or on my desk or bookshelf or table or under my bed. I pulled everything out from under my bed, some stuff from under my table, sorted out my cupboard (which included repairing the shelves in the alcoves/cubby-holes, all of which mysteriously collapsed yesterday) and reorganised my bookshelf again, although I'm still not satisfied with it (I don't like shelves too far below eye-level and always tend to try to organise my shelves somehow, and also have a problem of having shelves that tend to be slightly too short for some of my books). Once I've finished, the next job will be sorting out the cupboard above my head at the desk downstairs, and then I'll start on my wall again.
Whilst pulling things out from under my bed (which included, for the curious, two cardboard whiskey containers full of model cars, some books, my exercise books from last year, some poetry, some music, some more books, some postcards, a bandana and a green plastic two-litre bottle four-fifths full of water from Jerusalem) I discovered a CD that I thought I'd given to someone I'd never met. When Helen and I first listened to it, we thought it was rubbish, to the point of actually turning it off rather than listen to it. I listened to it again today, and it's grown on me a lot, with several songs that are really rather good, and one of them is a gritty cover of Fred Astair's Face The Music And Dance, which reminds me of Hard-Fi's cover of Seven Nation Army and makes me very happy indeed.
---
I went out for a curry with my parents on Thursday night after they'd been to see Lenny Henry, and my father attempted to tell me a dirty joke that the Man had told. I interrupted him before he got too far (and murdered it completely, I might add) because I'd heard it before - it's the one about the old woman and the shop assistant - which itself was probably funnier than the actual joke.
---
I was going to post some other things, but I got distracted by my phone and Lucia and a rather interesting eljay community and things.
One of these days I will not end an eljay post by informing people that I am tired and am going to go to sleep. I promise.
---
Last Monday, I gave blood for the first time. It was pretty painless, and despite the nurse's fears I wasn't allergic to the fluid they put on my arm first. It was an excellent way of getting out of an hour of history, and an excuse to tell people that I had been exsanguinated, which was true, and to tell everyone to 'Remember! It is pronounced Tzep-pesh!' which made me giggle. A lot.
I have learned several things from giving blood:
1) I'm not scared of needles.
2) I really should pay attention when told to eat, drink and sleep lots before and after giving blood. Otherwise I do silly things like fall asleep in English lessons (although admittedly we were watching a very hypnotic video and it was dark and I probably would have done so anyway and half the class did) and then feel so bad the next morning that I don't make it into school until lunchtime again.
3) I should take a good book with me to read. Because lying on a couch for ages with nothing to do and a tube in your arm whilst you have to be awake is very, very boring.
4) I should get a badge made that says 'I am only giving blood because my vampire overlords told me to', because being told that you've done a wonderful and very selfless thing and that I should be very proud when I've just filled in a questionnaire and been mildly inconvenienced for a while is embarrassing. Especially by the third time.
Also, it would be funny.
The other thing worth mentioning about it is that it raised a question that I haven't quite bothered looking up the answer to: what happens to all the space? The body is a finite physical entity with a finite volume - and yet that volume doesn't seem to change when a milk-bottle's worth of blood is siphoned into a little plastic bag. I presume that there's just a massive drop in blood pressure, but I don't know...
stripyglove? freya? Anyone? Bueller?
---
On the Saturday after that, I went to purplefringe's purple party, which was probably the best party that I've been to in my life. There was good music, lots of people who I knew, lots of cool people who I didn't know and then talked to, and Flying Saucers.
There was also lots and lots of purple clothing, which was rather fun, and provided a good talking point. I talked to a lovely young lady called Camilla and the scarily-organised-but-also lovely Sarah, who was the party's other host, and I also actually met safebox, who is even lovelier in person than she is on eljay, and who I can now effectively refer to as 'Amy' in my head rather than as 'safebox'. She and I and charcoal_cloud formed a little eljay corner for a while (purplefringe being far too busy flitting around like a purple and shiny butterfly high on sunshine and rainbow dust, although she did come over and natter with us for a little bit; all_my_words doesn't really post very often, and meine_kleine was in Paris being musical).
This is also a good opportunity to compliment both of these wonderful people, which is something that I do far too seldomly. charcoal_cloud is one of those people whom I see very seldomly but always reminds me by being so of ho cool they are, and is in fact cooler every time I see her. purplefringe not only knows how to throw a very wonderful party and knows lots and lots of lovely people but also looked absolutely stunning.
---
I've finally gotten over my various lurgies: I am no longer constantly fatigued, sneezing, headaching, dizzy, having trouble breathing or coughing up my lungs. This makes me happy.
---
I have been driving a lot recently, and it shows. After driving Helen and Lucia to purplefringe's party, I decided that I'd not be taking anybody I knew in the car with me ever, ever again, or at least for a very long time, despite their protestations that I didn't drive too badly. On Friday I drove all the way to my uncle's house in Cambridgeshire with mum and dad and Helen, and enjoyed it. I'm much more comfortable with driving at high speeds now (almost empty dual carriage ways are fun) and far better at judging distances and roundabouts than I was previously, and am now confident and comfortable enough to engage in conversation with my passengers when I'm doing something fairly straightforward. Helen said today that I drove well enough that she almost fell asleep on the way back; then again, she'd had to get up at the unwholesome hour of ten o'clock in the morning and was therefore probably rather tired.
She also said, whilst we were in-transit, that if I'm arguing then I'm fine, which on reflection is very true; I will wise-crack at dad in a very relaxed manner when I'm doing something that I know I can handle, but as soon as it's something more challenging I clam up and don't take even the most tempting targets for a witty verbal riposte. It's actually a far better gauge of how tense I am than my judgement of how tense I am, which probably doesn't really make any sense, but is somehow true.
It also applies to situations other than driving, most of the time. Either I'll stop playing the funny man completely and become very serious, or I'll be incredibly flippant, depending on the nature of the situation.
---
I spent a lot of time tidying my bedroom this morning, therefore it is a mess.
With most people, the therefore would probably be more likely to be a because, but my room tends to get so messy in localised areas that tidying involves stuff to be sorted being strewn liberally on my floor and then slowly coalesced into piles and then put into cupboards or draws or bins or on my desk or bookshelf or table or under my bed. I pulled everything out from under my bed, some stuff from under my table, sorted out my cupboard (which included repairing the shelves in the alcoves/cubby-holes, all of which mysteriously collapsed yesterday) and reorganised my bookshelf again, although I'm still not satisfied with it (I don't like shelves too far below eye-level and always tend to try to organise my shelves somehow, and also have a problem of having shelves that tend to be slightly too short for some of my books). Once I've finished, the next job will be sorting out the cupboard above my head at the desk downstairs, and then I'll start on my wall again.
Whilst pulling things out from under my bed (which included, for the curious, two cardboard whiskey containers full of model cars, some books, my exercise books from last year, some poetry, some music, some more books, some postcards, a bandana and a green plastic two-litre bottle four-fifths full of water from Jerusalem) I discovered a CD that I thought I'd given to someone I'd never met. When Helen and I first listened to it, we thought it was rubbish, to the point of actually turning it off rather than listen to it. I listened to it again today, and it's grown on me a lot, with several songs that are really rather good, and one of them is a gritty cover of Fred Astair's Face The Music And Dance, which reminds me of Hard-Fi's cover of Seven Nation Army and makes me very happy indeed.
---
I went out for a curry with my parents on Thursday night after they'd been to see Lenny Henry, and my father attempted to tell me a dirty joke that the Man had told. I interrupted him before he got too far (and murdered it completely, I might add) because I'd heard it before - it's the one about the old woman and the shop assistant - which itself was probably funnier than the actual joke.
---
I was going to post some other things, but I got distracted by my phone and Lucia and a rather interesting eljay community and things.
One of these days I will not end an eljay post by informing people that I am tired and am going to go to sleep. I promise.