Life has been progressing at a slow pace here at Sarah Monster Mansions, though somehow the year seems about to slip in to March and it feels like we should still be in January. Why is it going so quickly? If I'm not careful my whole life might disappear like this, a worrying thought.

In Photography today, the tutor announced that due to us as a year group generally being crap (though I think he should be included too, for refusing to do any work over evenings and weekends), the deadline dates for our coursework are being extended. Now I actually have a chance to make some of my "work" look half decent. I took my matchbox project in today and people mostly liked it. Paul the technician did and he said that many of my photographs were very good, which was a bit of a boost for me. I like it, I just wish I could have produced more good work this year. There is time to squeeze in one more project before we have to hand our work in, but I would be much better off spending the time improving what I've already done. We'll be getting our exam papers next week so I really need to be focusing on that, seeing as it's 40% of my mark for the year and the portfolio is only 30%. We'll have four weeks of preparation time after the Easter holiday, we have to be given a minimum of three by the examination rules, but I'm not sure it will be enough. I think depending on what I'll be doing for the exam, it would be a good idea to try and get most of my shots taken during the holidays. Ah well, we'll see what happens. 22:00  

I'm feeling a bit pants. The weather still beats on relentless, though at least it's no longer snowing. I wasn't hungry yesterday and so didn't eat much and now I'm torn between eating all the lovely food and trying not to eat for as long as I can, just to prove to myself I can still do it. Aime, a girl on my course who is rather obviously anorexic, is so thin. I don't want to be as thin as her but I want her control. And now I have to send an email with an attachment but the webmail server isn't working and Hotmail produces a DHTML (I think) menu before you can upload anything and the menu refuses to display. Yesterday wasn't my day and it looks like today might not be either. Though my copy of A Northern Country arrived this morning, just as I was getting ready to leave for college. That's something positive, at least. 09:51  

It has been snowing or raining all day. Relentless, driving, wet. My mood has been somewhat similar. We started on dry point again in the print workshop. We're meant to be doing something about the body and for lack of anything better to draw, I did half a face. I find the tools very hard to control and thus had lines where I didn't want them and so on. The lines I created to represent hair were long and multiple. They reminded me of how my arm looked when I was still cutting myself. It didn't help that I selected red paint to take a print with. So the reminder of the past, combined with the feelings of inadequacy of the print work, when everyone else seemed to be producing wonderful pieces, made me a little bit depressed. I went and took a break, went to the library and did some research for the essay we have to write. I'm now definitely doing it on madness, from some angle or another. I found lots of articles from magazines to photocopy and by the time I was finished, the class time was almost up.

I didn't want to continue with the afternoon session, life drawing, but I made an attempt anyway. The room was in a much better state this week, there wasn't charcoal and masking tape all over the floor, but I couldn't seem to draw anything worthwhile. At the break I came home, sheltering from the dreadful weather finally by hiding in bed and reading my photocopies. 19:29  

Fuck it's cold. Very, very fucking cold. And I have an addiction to Chocolate Frosties. Cereal is not the best food to be eating when it's snowing outside. Why can't I have someone to come help keep me warm? Rory and Thom are both coming next month, but that's a bit far away. I do however have something of a warm inner glow as I found out that the condition college was requiring from me so that I could have a place on the Vis Com course is that I have to pass the College Diploma I'm currently taking. The chances of me failing it are very slim so I'm almost guaranteed that place! Right, enough blogging for now, I think. I'm off to shiver in bed. 18:16  

Another blog: Round Here is photoblogging as it should be - gorgeous, awe-inspiring, jealousy-creating beautiful pictures. Bastard. 22:16  

As we all know, corsets are Good. So are blogs (well, some anyway). So here's a blog full of corset pictures. You may start drooling now. 20:08  

So I got a conditional offer for a place on the Vis Com course. On Friday I made my tutor go talk to Admissions to find out what was happening and he said they were waiting for the assistant principal to sign the letter offering me the place, and so it's all unofficial still but I GOT A FUCKING PLACE! I don't know what the condition is, I'll find out when I get the letter, I expect. As long as it's not that they want an A in Photography I should be fine. I'm very, very happy about it. When I told my parents my mum started crying. I bought some ace new trousers from Top Shop and some chocolate biscuit cake to celebrate, then spent the evening listening to The Blue Notebooks. Yesterday was a good day. 17:32  

I'm in college. We're meant to be doing more life drawing. Today is the first time we've use the life drawing room in the afternoon; previously we've always had the morning session. The floor is covered in bits of paper and masking tape, squashed pieces of charcoal and dust. It's making me feel physically ill. And Tony seems to be ignoring me, I might as well give hope of even becoming friends. I just feel like nobody likes me and it's all inevitably doomed. Simon came last night and we had some hugs but I need someone who's around more, who I can call up when I need them... I just want to go hide in bed. 14:36  

Life hasn't been particularly exciting. I've been going to college, then being too tired to go to SHIP. I rang the women's group to say they shouldn't expect to see me until the summer. It's better than having to ring every week to say I'm too knackered yet again. I haven't heard back about the interview yet, Hugo, the bloke in my class who also applied to the course, has already received a rejection letter, so it's positive for me that I'm still waiting to hear. If I don't get in I'll apply to Leeds Met, and if I still don't get a place there I'll reassess later what I need to do. Not thinking about it yet. My photography tutor's enthusiastic about my essay despite it not being finished yet and the deadline for the final draft was on Monday. I still need to tidy some pieces up and write a conclusion and then I think I can call it finished. It's been fun researching, I've learnt so much about Leeds and Yorkshire because of it, and I've discovered some very strange people who seem very protective of what they think Yorkshire is, amongst other strange people. I'm glad it's almost finished though, it would be dragging on too long otherwise, which was what happened with last year's essay. For the essay I have to do for the other course I'm looking at writing about art therapy or art and madness. If I can't find something workable there I think I'll just have to hand in a shorter version of the photography essay as I'm really stuck for ideas. As for my photography portfolio, that's meant to be finished and handed in in two weeks. That's no where near enough time for what needs doing to it. I'm worried now that I won't be able to get that A I want and will have to make do with a B, unless my essay is much better than I thought it was and I manage to produce some stunning work for the exam. It's disheartening but there's not much I can do about it. I have ten hours of class time left, it's just not doable. Ah well, there's worse things I suppose. 21:07  

My new computer has finally arrived. It is small, silver and shiny. It really is tiny. And it's quiet. Very unusual given that my last one sounded like a lawnmower. I'm still copying all my music files from the old machine to the new so my living room is a mass of wires and boxes. Good job I never got around to cleaning in here. My internet connection went down for most of yesterday, leaving me pining after my precious web, and hoping that none of the ebay auctions I had my eye on would finish before it resurrected itself again. I can't really complain though - I do get free broadband, email and hosting and the service is great the vast majority of the time (as long as the web server doesn't die for nine weeks, heh heh). Being internetless did mean that I got some useful things done though. I finished reading The Interpreter of Maladies which was wonderful though somewhat depressing. I also did a little bit of work on my coursework essay and wrote to Harriet. I even got around to putting away the bedding I washed a couple of days ago. But will I keep up with this new side of me which can accomplish tasks after only a handful of days? Nah, not when I can spend several hours playing Weboggle again. 13:00  

It seems this cleaning bug has spread to more than just my house. A new site layout has been implemented, as I hope you all can see. It's not quite perfect just yet, the archives are still running on the old format for some unexplained reason, but Rory should be much happier now I'm no longer using php. All the green reminds me a little of Christmas, especially with the small stars in the background, but sod it. Web design never was my strong point. Can make you a site which looks like whatever you tell me, but buggered if I can make a site of my own look interesting. Just seem to lack the necessary design skills to imagine such a thing. Ah well, I'm sure we'll all get used to the feeling of living on a snooker table with dandruff after a little while. 00:31  

Cleaning is not something I do. It's just not in my repertoire. I do my best to avoid it, stretching to a light dusting of the worst parts every couple of months, maybe cleaning my bathroom every six. Dirt and grime makes me feel ill, so I ignore it. None of this "preventive measures" lark, like cleaning at least once a fortnight. I leave it til I feel physically sick by looking at the offending article. And we have once again come round to this point.

I have been cleaning.

My bathroom furniture is no longer a shade somewhere between brown and grey and is something now more akin to white. The kitchen sink is not brown and growing its own bacteria, it has returned to its original silver sheen. The kitchen floor is not sticky with juice residue and whilst I'd never like to eat my dinner off of anything I'd cleaned, and that includes my dinner plates, I think it's now much closer to such a state than it has been since I moved in. Eighteen months ago. I've even stuck my bed sheets in the wash, so there'll be that divine clean sheets feeling tonight for a couple of nights.

I'm not done with my cleaning yet, I still need to sweep the living room floor, and then there's those jobs which I refuse to do no matter how bad they look: windows, most of the dusting (my excuse is I'm so short I can't see the dust at the top of the [insert household item here] and thus its existence does not trouble me), hoovering under my bed (mostly because the hoover doesn't work) and finally washing that rug which has been in the washing basket for three years or so, still remain on the proverbial To Do List.

Why all this sudden cleanliness? I'm not sure. It's too early to lump me in with the spring cleaning lot. It's just that it's been needing doing and now that Alex has gone home, I have the time to do it. Time I should be spending on my coursework, but I think even Rory would prefer me to have done the cleaning. It's also a sunny day, which is always helpful to elevate the mood and create an active frame of mind, and then there's the energy I'll have available from last night's celebratory pizza. Whatever the reason, it's definitely a good thing. 14:53  

I've done it. I've survived. I went to the interview and the celebratory pizza is on its way.

It was a very bizarre interview. They asked what my seven wonders of the world would be. I eventually went for
1. the Human Rights Act
2. the Internet
3. Free Speech
4. universal suffrage
5. the fact that Iceland can produce so much amazing music when it's an island with a population of 250,000
6. that glitter glue sticks for glue guns exist
7. vegan egg replacer

They also asked what areas of study I'm interested in, what I'd do with a free 3 minute slot on national TV, and how I'd resolve a conflict between two people, one of whom was insisting on speaking in French. This last one was role played. They also asked the more obvious questions such as why do you want to do this course and what can you bring to the course, and what do you want to do after your degree. They didn't ask a single thing about my portfolio so I asked them what they had thought of it. The answers were pretty positive. They liked my illustrations, especially the hippy tank, and were impressed with the mosaic as no one had presented one to them before. I told them a little about the Swarthmore course I'd made it on and then our time was up. I should find out how I did in two weeks or so. I'm fairly positive, though not confident. It's just a matter of waiting now.

On a different note, have a scale model of the universe, in pixels. I'm finding it a little system intensive, however. 19:07  

So today is my interview at college. I took a sleeping pill last night to make sure I slept properly, only I woke up at 5am and have spent the past two hours dozing and worrying. I decided it would be better to get up a little earlier and immerse myself in something, even if it was just checking my e-mail, than letting my anxiety build up like that.

Yesterday Alex and I went for a walk in the park. It was a lovely day, with some February chill. There wasn't many snowdrops left, but the crocuses are flowering and the daffodils have started sprouting too. We went on the swings and had some lunch at a cafe at Hyde Park Corner. In the evening we went to see 2046. It was very good, I even managed to mostly follow what was happening.

Hmm, this distraction technique doesn't seem to be working. Maybe I should go have a shower. 06:58  

A knitted 1950s living room. Now I really have seen everything. 22:18  

Behold, the Penguin of Death!



He is strangely attractive because of his enigmatic smile, you know. However you should be very careful as he can kill you in any one of 412 ways. Alex took the risk and bought him for me.

Not much has been happening here. Sleeping, eating, hugging (for a change). Probably going to the cinema tonight, not worrying too much about Wednesday's interview yet, looking forward to Wednesday evening's pizza. 16:02  

I have been spending Silly Amounts of Time in college in an attempt to finish my portfolio off, and I finally managed it yesterday evening. Now I just have to wait for the interview. Not too anxious yet, but no doubt that will change in the next few days. Alex is coming on Sunday though, so at least I'll have hugs through it. It also helps that my photography tutor told me to forget about my coursework essay for the time being and to focus on the interview, which was far more important. Whilst Alex is here we have plans for the cinema and some hardcore hugging, and I've declared Wednesday to be Pizza Night, as a reward for surviving the interview.

My bandage has come off my finger now. It doesn't hurt so much when I bang it any more, but it's still painful. I can see exposed flesh, the knife went all the way through the skin and into flesh. Scary.

I've also been coping surprisingly well with random abuse in my comments. A couple of years back I would have been depressed for days, but I just shrugged it off. The offender is being presumptuous, aggressive and beyond saying that I complain too much, which I readily admit to, their remarks are completely false. It's nice to know that I've moved on and increased my self esteem and confidence, and in a way I'm grateful to them for giving me the chance to recognise that. 18:54  

The New York Times asked a selection of scientists to state what they believe in, yet can not prove. It's an interesting response. It asks you to register before you read it, but you can get a dummy account through Bug Me Not.

What do I believe in but cannot prove? That the nuclear family is extremely damaging to the individual, that people who find no joy beyond their children are seriously ill and need a good bout of therapy and a course in self-esteem, that a god exists which is both male and female and which permeates every level of existence, that there is a soul, that life in one form or another continues after death, that the soul returns to Earth in a process of reincarnation, that human beings are not capable of comprehending the "true nature" of the universe, that all forms of life are inherently equal to each other and deserve equal rights to the Earth's resources, and a whole bunch of other stuff which would take too long to detail right now. 20:13  

It's just been pointed out to me that today is the 10th anniversary of Richey's disappearance. A whole decade has passed, almost as in a blink of the eye. It's hard enough to believe we're already in February, let alone that it's been 10 years of personal depression, self hatred and Manics obsession, though waning a little in the end few years. The Manics don't mean to me nearly as much as they used to, mostly through there no longer being a need for that empathy and support, I suspect. And through discovering a whole range of other fantastic bands to obsess about. If the Manics soundtracked my depression, who will soundtrack my recovery? Applications to the usual address. 21:48  

The gorgeous weather we had on Sunday has been continuing into this week. The snowdrops which are around right now are doing more sunbathing than weathering the snow, as they're more renowned for. It's not a typical image of Imbolc, but a welcome one nevertheless.

I've been spending my time, and money, working on building a portfolio. At £20 for the folio itself and £2 for a folder insert, it's a costly business. Luckily my dad said he'd pay for most of it. As for what to put in it, I'm slightly more optimistic than I was at the weekend, but still not sure of the worth of most of it. My teachers are more enthusiastic, but unfortunately it's a feeling which doesn't seem to be catching. What I suspect was really affecting my mood however was that Tony was in college and had barely spoken to me, which is normal, but he didn't even mention if he had liked any tracks on the CD I gave him, or what he thought of the question I posed him on Friday. I felt loveless and abandoned, and still do. What doesn't he like about me? I don't mean that in a rhetorical sense of there being nothing to dislike due to my intrinsic perfection, but as a genuine question. If he doesn't like me, I can accept that, I just want to know why so that I can work on it and make this rejection less likely to happen again. 20:45  

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