Life etc.
My life is taking a turn for the more busy (and complicated) lately, so I feel the need to talk about it.
I haven't mentioned (much) here about my stupid, annoying health issues, it needs some explaining, otherwise my life will make no sense. I have a medical condition, which I have had to live with since I was 10, I am not going to go into lots of details, but essentially it mostly affects my energy. One of the best things about being home with my family and not at uni anymore, is that I don't have to say more than 'I'm tired' for people to leave me alone. The number of times I have had to spell it out explicitly for friends - 'I can't go to x bar on a Thursday, if I want to be physically able to get out of bed tomorrow', or 'I can't have another drink, if I want to be physically able to get out of bed tomorrow' or 'Swimming sounds like a lovely idea, but I can only do 5-10 lengths so it seems a bit of a waste of a fiver'. Most of the time this stuff doesn't bother me, but we have a guy (who is a year older than me) staying with us while he does an internship at a City bank, he leaves the house at 7:30 and gets home between 8 and 10 in the evening. He has been making derisive sounding noises about the fact that I don't do a huge amount. I went on this Creative Writing course, and he said: 'oh do you want to be a writer when you grow up?'. Anyway, I am always really unsure about how to respond to this kind of thing, I really don't want to get into 'oh I have a medical condition ... ' with people unless I absolutely have to. I usually only tell people when forced to, usually this happens when I am either backed into a corner, or I feel that unless I explain I will have hurt someone's feelings.
Anyway ... I have been back from uni for awhile and I have been getting my energy and concentration skills back. I have been doing quite a bit of child care, I can make decent money and I am quite good at it. Of course, looking after children can be a very large mixed bag. I have these neighbours, whose kids are 13, 11 and 8, we basically watched Toy Story 2, then Friends and then they went to bed with NO fuss what so ever, then I had two hours to myself (I edited podfic) with their wireless and sky tv. At the end of the night I got £40 (they rounded up because it was after midnight), easiest money ever. However, my aunt has put her youngest boy in Private School (ACK) and they break up two weeks before everyone else, so she needs child care. Due to my 'depressing condition' I didn't feel too guilty saying that I could only do 2-4 days if they were spread out. On Tuesday, he (Richard) came over at 8am and left at 5:30pm. I got a friend to help and we took him to the National History Museum too see the Dinosaurs - but the Dinosaurs were 'On Holiday' so we had to take him to an exhibition that cost 18 pounds and we had to share with annoying school kids. The whole day was difficult and energy consuming, and once we split the money I only got £40 (I did get reimbursed for the exhibition tickets). This is totally a fair amount of money, but when we compare with the earlier child care experience, it doesn't seem enough. Anyway, this week I am babysitting, today, Monday, Tuesday and Thursday. This does not bode well for me to be able to finish my draft of BBB2 by Friday.
One of the good things about my 'depressing condition' is that my family are pretty awesome about it. So on Tuesday, no one complained when I went to bed after dinner without helping clear and slept for 14 hours. On Wednesday no one asked/expected me to do anything. I spent the entire day making podfic, most of which I edited and posted yesterday. Thursday was worse because I was still tired, but I'd agreed to cook and my brother wanted my attention. So I ended up trying to watch Lord of the Rings and edit podfic at the same time, weird. But I made awesome tortillas - I made Salsa, Guacamole, chilli and garlic black beans, red onions with tricolore peppers, all with massive flour tortillas and cheese. I love to cook, but it does make me tired. Since I've been back and Kate (mi madre) is at work, I have been cooking dinner twice a week as my contribution to the household. Next week, I am making Caramalised onion and Goats cheese tart, and home made pizzas.
Things that made me smile this week:
- Self Patterning Wool - I am making these socks and it is a bit difficult, I have already made five or six mistakes - but it is kind of awesome. I have to use four needles!!! On the plus side I have learned how to 'unknit', which is a useful skill.
- Haven squee - I fell in love with this show sometime last September and the wait has been agony. OT3!!!
- Writing. On a complete whim, buoyed from a tiny foray into writing for the bandom kissing meme, I signed up to write for the Bandom Big Bang wave two. It only has to be 10K (I say 'only' completely ironically). I am at 2000, and the deadline for the rough draft is Friday. If I can get to 8K by then I'll go with it. But I am only 50% sure this will happen. It has no title, apart from what the doc is titled: 'Spencer Smith is a Werewolf' - it's Spencer/Brendon High School AU where they are both Werewolves. I am a bit in love with it (is that allowed?). I am not sure about the 'beta thing'. If I manage to finish a rough draft I will need one, but I have absolutely no idea how to go about getting one. I may trade on my new podfic presence in fandom, but I feel a bit weird doing that. Volunteers?
- I haven't been doing as much reading as I'd like, but I stumbled upon this random series of books. They are adapted from a fanfic she/they wrote, jumping off the Fall Out Boy video for Sixteen Candles and one of the fun things about the books is attempting to figure out which bandom characters various are supposed to be. It is not always easy, as the a lot of the genders have been changed. Pete, Frank and Gerard are girls. The parings I have been able to figure out (so far) are Pete/Patrick and Frank/Gerard, although neither have 'happened' yet. There are two characters who I think are Ryan and Brendon, and one who I think is William (I got this from various other fic I've read with William as the evil vampire guy). I got the books for free in PDF format off the authors website - she has a donate button. I am only half way through the first book, but it's not bad. Oh yeah, it's called The Wolf House.
- Podfic. I've gotten back into recording Sea Change. I recorded the first two parts on my old computer, so I'll have to redo them. But it's the most AMAZING story ever, so I'll get that ticking over while still keeping to my Discipline commitments. I am going on holiday in two weeks, so I want to get at least two or three arcs done before I leave for Madrid. Sea Change makes me sad though. The Spencer POV is heartbreaking. So I made a recording of a reni_days story, that I'll see if I can get around to editing tomorrow, as a way to feel better. Except the story I chose also had a bit of a depressing Spencer voice, but at least with that one I got to the happy ending. WIth Sea Change I know that there is still so much sadness to come before the pay off. There is this scene with Brendon and Spencer on the roof of their hotel and Spencer wants to go inside because he is cold, but Brendon begs and begs him not to go, as he sees it as an excuse for Spencer to leave him. Both Brendon and Spencer are sooooo broken, i don't know how to cope. Yes I do realise they are fictional.
-The new Cobra Starship video. It is a great example of a music video enhancing the listening experience. When I listened to the song a little while ago, I didn't really like it. But, I just watched the music video a few/million times, and now I can't get it out of my head. I love Gabe's new hair, and Vicky-T is still amazingly good looking (she is single handedly responsible for my new bisexual theory), Nate somehow looks even younger with his shorter hair and there is the most completely random WTF i-pad moment that made me laugh so much.
xxxx
I am listening to Neon Trees on last.fm and reading I Robot.
I haven't mentioned (much) here about my stupid, annoying health issues, it needs some explaining, otherwise my life will make no sense. I have a medical condition, which I have had to live with since I was 10, I am not going to go into lots of details, but essentially it mostly affects my energy. One of the best things about being home with my family and not at uni anymore, is that I don't have to say more than 'I'm tired' for people to leave me alone. The number of times I have had to spell it out explicitly for friends - 'I can't go to x bar on a Thursday, if I want to be physically able to get out of bed tomorrow', or 'I can't have another drink, if I want to be physically able to get out of bed tomorrow' or 'Swimming sounds like a lovely idea, but I can only do 5-10 lengths so it seems a bit of a waste of a fiver'. Most of the time this stuff doesn't bother me, but we have a guy (who is a year older than me) staying with us while he does an internship at a City bank, he leaves the house at 7:30 and gets home between 8 and 10 in the evening. He has been making derisive sounding noises about the fact that I don't do a huge amount. I went on this Creative Writing course, and he said: 'oh do you want to be a writer when you grow up?'. Anyway, I am always really unsure about how to respond to this kind of thing, I really don't want to get into 'oh I have a medical condition ... ' with people unless I absolutely have to. I usually only tell people when forced to, usually this happens when I am either backed into a corner, or I feel that unless I explain I will have hurt someone's feelings.
Anyway ... I have been back from uni for awhile and I have been getting my energy and concentration skills back. I have been doing quite a bit of child care, I can make decent money and I am quite good at it. Of course, looking after children can be a very large mixed bag. I have these neighbours, whose kids are 13, 11 and 8, we basically watched Toy Story 2, then Friends and then they went to bed with NO fuss what so ever, then I had two hours to myself (I edited podfic) with their wireless and sky tv. At the end of the night I got £40 (they rounded up because it was after midnight), easiest money ever. However, my aunt has put her youngest boy in Private School (ACK) and they break up two weeks before everyone else, so she needs child care. Due to my 'depressing condition' I didn't feel too guilty saying that I could only do 2-4 days if they were spread out. On Tuesday, he (Richard) came over at 8am and left at 5:30pm. I got a friend to help and we took him to the National History Museum too see the Dinosaurs - but the Dinosaurs were 'On Holiday' so we had to take him to an exhibition that cost 18 pounds and we had to share with annoying school kids. The whole day was difficult and energy consuming, and once we split the money I only got £40 (I did get reimbursed for the exhibition tickets). This is totally a fair amount of money, but when we compare with the earlier child care experience, it doesn't seem enough. Anyway, this week I am babysitting, today, Monday, Tuesday and Thursday. This does not bode well for me to be able to finish my draft of BBB2 by Friday.
One of the good things about my 'depressing condition' is that my family are pretty awesome about it. So on Tuesday, no one complained when I went to bed after dinner without helping clear and slept for 14 hours. On Wednesday no one asked/expected me to do anything. I spent the entire day making podfic, most of which I edited and posted yesterday. Thursday was worse because I was still tired, but I'd agreed to cook and my brother wanted my attention. So I ended up trying to watch Lord of the Rings and edit podfic at the same time, weird. But I made awesome tortillas - I made Salsa, Guacamole, chilli and garlic black beans, red onions with tricolore peppers, all with massive flour tortillas and cheese. I love to cook, but it does make me tired. Since I've been back and Kate (mi madre) is at work, I have been cooking dinner twice a week as my contribution to the household. Next week, I am making Caramalised onion and Goats cheese tart, and home made pizzas.
Things that made me smile this week:
- Self Patterning Wool - I am making these socks and it is a bit difficult, I have already made five or six mistakes - but it is kind of awesome. I have to use four needles!!! On the plus side I have learned how to 'unknit', which is a useful skill.
- Haven squee - I fell in love with this show sometime last September and the wait has been agony. OT3!!!
- Writing. On a complete whim, buoyed from a tiny foray into writing for the bandom kissing meme, I signed up to write for the Bandom Big Bang wave two. It only has to be 10K (I say 'only' completely ironically). I am at 2000, and the deadline for the rough draft is Friday. If I can get to 8K by then I'll go with it. But I am only 50% sure this will happen. It has no title, apart from what the doc is titled: 'Spencer Smith is a Werewolf' - it's Spencer/Brendon High School AU where they are both Werewolves. I am a bit in love with it (is that allowed?). I am not sure about the 'beta thing'. If I manage to finish a rough draft I will need one, but I have absolutely no idea how to go about getting one. I may trade on my new podfic presence in fandom, but I feel a bit weird doing that. Volunteers?
- I haven't been doing as much reading as I'd like, but I stumbled upon this random series of books. They are adapted from a fanfic she/they wrote, jumping off the Fall Out Boy video for Sixteen Candles and one of the fun things about the books is attempting to figure out which bandom characters various are supposed to be. It is not always easy, as the a lot of the genders have been changed. Pete, Frank and Gerard are girls. The parings I have been able to figure out (so far) are Pete/Patrick and Frank/Gerard, although neither have 'happened' yet. There are two characters who I think are Ryan and Brendon, and one who I think is William (I got this from various other fic I've read with William as the evil vampire guy). I got the books for free in PDF format off the authors website - she has a donate button. I am only half way through the first book, but it's not bad. Oh yeah, it's called The Wolf House.
- Podfic. I've gotten back into recording Sea Change. I recorded the first two parts on my old computer, so I'll have to redo them. But it's the most AMAZING story ever, so I'll get that ticking over while still keeping to my Discipline commitments. I am going on holiday in two weeks, so I want to get at least two or three arcs done before I leave for Madrid. Sea Change makes me sad though. The Spencer POV is heartbreaking. So I made a recording of a reni_days story, that I'll see if I can get around to editing tomorrow, as a way to feel better. Except the story I chose also had a bit of a depressing Spencer voice, but at least with that one I got to the happy ending. WIth Sea Change I know that there is still so much sadness to come before the pay off. There is this scene with Brendon and Spencer on the roof of their hotel and Spencer wants to go inside because he is cold, but Brendon begs and begs him not to go, as he sees it as an excuse for Spencer to leave him. Both Brendon and Spencer are sooooo broken, i don't know how to cope. Yes I do realise they are fictional.
-The new Cobra Starship video. It is a great example of a music video enhancing the listening experience. When I listened to the song a little while ago, I didn't really like it. But, I just watched the music video a few/million times, and now I can't get it out of my head. I love Gabe's new hair, and Vicky-T is still amazingly good looking (she is single handedly responsible for my new bisexual theory), Nate somehow looks even younger with his shorter hair and there is the most completely random WTF i-pad moment that made me laugh so much.
xxxx
I am listening to Neon Trees on last.fm and reading I Robot.