Are you unsure of your sexuality? Well now Rory's friend has developed a wonderful new tool to help solve those quandries! In the words of the inventor himself:

"this is a my special lesbian testing stick, you have to put it in your mouth, if the special liquid comes out it dosent really matter whether you are or not and oyu can exit through the door"

I believe orders are already being taken. 20:05  

Holidays are always dull for me. Nothing to do, no one to see. So last week was enlivened somewhat by Rory's friend Mark coming over for an evening again. Much fun was had, I can assure you. It seems that this might be a semi-regular occurrence, something quite surprising considering he finds polyamoury strange and disconcerting and is very monogamous at heart. The only explanation I can think of for him to put up with what, for him at least, is much weirdness and probably some head-fuckery, is he must really, really like me. I find this a very bizarre concept, especially as I don't think I'm being particularly attractive right now - lots of wobbly bits and cellulite. Somehow though he's looking past all this, and we're able to have lots of fun with each other. Hurray for that.

Christmas was a mostly boring affair. I went to my parents on Christmas Eve, and my dad, brother and I went for a curry in Bradford. It was quite nice, but the decor was better (silver minimalism). Christmas Day passed mostly unworthy of comment. I did however get some decent presents: a nice pair of M&S pyjamas, two bars of Green & Black's cherry chocolate, The Doodle Book - both 1 and 2, The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy, Maps For Lost Lovers, Nature's Numbers, Luxury Problems by Patrick Duff, an Onion desk calendar and a Pencil Tin CD. Quite a good haul, considering I also got about £300 worth of camera lenses in October. And a lip piercing last week.

On Boxing Day Rory came over. We spent a bit of time at my parents, ate food, then came home finally. We were both desperate to escape the overbearing heat from their central heating, and I needed the peace and space I'm used to from living on my own for over six years. Today we went shopping in Leeds and I came back with Withnail and I and The Virgin Suicides on DVD. I exchanged my Onion calendar for a copy of Amelia's Magazine in Borders - something much more worthwhile. Rory also bought many DVD's so we're planning on spending the next few days watching those. Hurray for sales in HMV! 14:51  

Just when you're expecting a quiet day compromising almost exclusively of reading and being bored, and thus have eaten a giant breakfast as there will be no need to move for the next few hours, something always gets in the way. Today it was my brother who decided he had to go Christmas shopping. I went with him because it was far easier than trying to explain the details of all the books I'm interested in over the phone.

But wait! What is this I hear? A thought? Suggesting that maybe a piercing would be a more suitable present than book, given that the "unread books" pile is currently overflowing from its bookcase and has started taking up the floor in front of it too? Blimey! So now I have another hole in my face:



I may not look happy there, that's because I was tired. As for the piercing itself, it was quite painful, though nowhere near as bad as my cheek. It didn't help that the piercer refused to let me have anesthetic, saying she didn't know how it would react with my medication, despite my assurances that I have previously used it and been fine. Now I have more metal in my body. My mouth tastes of metal and it's strange. Well, it did before I ate all that cereal... Now it's a bizarre hybrid of the two.

Following the piercing, and my brother's insistence that half the piercings they offered on their price list must surely be made up (trust me, they're not. You can read BME for proof, if you like) we had to go shopping for his present for mum, which was to be a pair of leather gloves. He wanted me to try them on to see how they fit, as my mum and I have similarly sized hands. I flat out refused. The idea made me feel ill. Anyway, I was dragged around various shops looking for some. I still reckon his best bet was to buy the wonderful rubber washing up gloves from Octopus in a variety of interesting colours and with coordinating plastic flowers attached to them. He wasn't so sure. More the fool him, I guess. Tomorrow: a resumption in reading and laying around the house in a lethargic and useless fashion. 21:29  

The holidays are finally here, free from classes and lectures and seminars and workshops and all other such frivolity. In the next three weeks I am planning on relaxing completely and never contemplating such useless concepts as "work" doing nothing for the first fortnight then spending the last week staying up all night panicking about not having done any of the mounds of work I need to get through. Business much as usual, then.

Yule shall be here soon. The season of mistletoe and holly may be with us already but the actual celebration itself isn't until Wednesday. Last night it occurred to me that I should probably mark the occasion. I promised myself I would try harder with my Craft practices this year and as I have no college to distract myself with right now, I have no proper excuse for not recognising it in one manner or another. Beyond the usual laziness, of course. Thus I have spent all day reading Hedge Witch (a very good book, incidentally, with some excellent meditations in it) in the hope of gleaming some inspiration for what I might do.

My greatest problem is definitely laziness, it all seemed like too much bother, which is an appalling attitude to take towards the Craft. I don't know yet how I'll motivate myself. Normally I would suspect that I wouldn't bother trying, but this is important to me. If I don't do anything for Yule, I might as well not bother with witchcraft as a whole. It seems like this is the turning point for me. Now or never. I have to overcome that apathy and throw my whole self into it, if I want any kind of return at all. It's not too late to salvage my magickal being, but soon it will be, I suspect, so I have to act now. So I will do a rite for Yule, I just don't know what. But it will probably be very apologetic, I sense. I have a lot to appologise for. I can start again, if I try soon enough, but it has to be something I'm serious about, something I devote time to, not just a passing hobby or interest. It was easier before, as the novelty of the new was still shiny and present, but that's no excuse for giving up now. Damn it, I have to do this. For myself and my Gods. I just need to remember that on Wednesday. 22:09  

Today has been a fairly good day. It started with feeling shit - I've been eating far too much recently and this morning it finally hit me how awful I look. Thus I wasn't feeling great when I got to college. I had a tutorial with Sharon, one of my tutors, straight away to receive the marks for the project I handed in last week.

It seems they quite liked it. In fact, I got the highest mark in the class for my finished piece, the Marie Claire style article on prostitution. Admittedly not all of the work has been marked yet - David, the other tutor, has been off sick for the best part of a week, so his half has still to be done. Sharon did say that mine was one of the pieces which they marked together, so they must have felt that mine was the best overall to have reached that decision together. Regardless of whether or not someone ends up beating me after all have been marked, I'm still extremely happy with it!

My overall mark was 67, I believe, which is a 2:1. I could have had a first if my book wasn't so dogged down with technical problems. Stupid book. Apparently I also came joint top in the typography work, which was a surprise. All I can say there is that some very poor work must have been handed in.

So I'm now a much happier bunny than I was this morning. Plus tomorrow's Critical Studies lecture has been cancelled so after the 10 minute tutorial I have in the afternoon, I'll be free of classes until January. Unfortunately I have a lot of work which needs to be done for that time and I'm not sure I can do all of it. At least it'll keep me occupied over the holidays though.

At the end of the day, the second and third years opened their exhibition. Some of the work was so good it almost spoilt my good mood. Here's hoping I can start making work like that soon. 19:03  

Those of you who bother to pop round more than a couple of times a year may remember that I had an assessment for Disabled Students Allowance, which concluded in the purchase of computing goods for my benefit by the Local Education Authority, including a printer, a scanner and other such items. The thing was that I was bought a Canon scanner. That's Canon. A Canon Scanner 4200F, in fact. The problem with Canon scanners and Linux is that they don't work. At all. Completely unsupported (well, this one anyway).

I rang Canon, after their website (with more than enough links opening in new windows and frames and Flash and other such lovely compatibility delights to give you a heart attack, let alone a headache) told me that under no circumstances were any drivers which might alleviate my problem be released. Ever. That's CANON and SCANNER and 4200F and SHIT. The woman I spoke to at Canon didn't recognise what I was on about when I explained I was running Debian Linux, it took a little while for it all to sink in. I enquired about what they recommended I should do, seeing as they don't support Linux themselves. She said I should contact my Linux community and see if they can help me.

So in summary: Canon Scanner 4200F Linux Debian DO NOT BUY UPON PAIN OF DEATH.

Hopefully that'll be enough for Google to get the idea. 15:29  

I'm ill. Again. I've spent a lot of time complaining and whimpering and feeling sorry for myself. Luckily Rory's here so he can be ill too and I can get lots of hugs. We've not been doing much, beyond hugging. We had pizza. Well, I did. All tired. No energy, despite eating pizza and chocolate and cereal. And I'm running out of Sudoku to do. How will I cope? All this and more, in next week's thrilling installment.

No, wait, where are you going? 20:27  

I have been reading Grace Notes and found a passage which explains so perfectly one of the problems I have:

"There was an audience of people out there buzzing with talk and expectation. Her anonymity would disappear. She knew, however well- or ill-received it was, she would have to go up to the rostrum and take the applause. Bad as all that was, it wasn't the worst thing - the worst thing was that her notes were going to be played to people who might hate them, might ridicule them. They might say, who does she think she is? She shuddered. This was the unknown. It was like the blind man diving. What if everyone had conspired to lie? And her piece Vernicle was awful? Pain for fuck all, as Marge had said. An act of no creation." 21:32  

I am in a class about blogging. I have been blogging for 5 years. Oh joy. 09:42  

I have had one fucker of a day. I managed to get up early and get to college for 8:45, only to discover that all the work I had done on Friday had disappeared. I had saved those files to the hard drive, to the network and to my memory stick and all had the wrong version, the one from before I started working on Friday. I don't know how it happened. Even if I hadn't transferred the files from the hard drive to the network and my stick, the one on the hard drive should be correct, but it wasn't. They disappeared into the ether. Even the technicians had no idea what had happened.

Understandably I was a little upset about this. I spoke to Sharon, one of my tutors and she said it would be OK for me to have an extension so I could redo the work. The forms confirming the extensions have to be signed by the course leader however, which is Graham. He said technical problems aren't a good enough reason for an extension as it's something the student should work around. I got upset again. Luckily David appeared soon after. He's been ill with a cold or flu, I'm not sure which, and it wasn't certain if he was coming in or not. I'm glad he did though as he also has the authority to sign the necessary forms and did so for me. I felt a bit better again.

Looking at other people's work, some was excellent. There was a good selection of collages. Someone had done some illustration but created it with embroidery. Peet had chosen some overheard conversations and printed out the text in 8pt type, which he then cut out and stuck to parts of the wall and heating pipes. I liked it. There was many good pieces and it was enjoyable looking at them. Had mine been finished, it would have been the only one with a large proportion of text, however. I think I'll need to be careful in the future to curb my use of text. This is an art course after all, and not a language one.

We all finished looking at each other's work quicker than planned and so I had two hours spare. I could have sat in the cafe and had inane conversations but I realised I should probably take advantage of the time and try to finish the work I needed to redo. It didn't take me as long as it did on Friday as I knew where I wanted things to be positioned. I managed to get it all done and even printed by the end of lunchtime, which was a big relief. The prints weren't perfect, but this isn't Final Major Project work, so I wasn't too concerned. I was mostly glad it was just over.

After lunch we watched the time-based pieces which had been made. Ali and Jess did a wonderful stop-frame animation with some teddy bears on The Dangers of the Canal. It was short and cute and funny and I liked it lots. Much like Ali, in fact. There was some other good work too, some quite dull, but all interesting in one way or another.

That done with, we then had to reconvene for crits. People were very enthusiastic about my work, despite it not being finished. Sam said that it was the only piece which had followed the true meaning of reportage and that it was very daring and brave. It was about people and what's under the skin of Leeds, not just urban decay, which was what many people had focused on. This made me feel very happy indeed and I grinned quite a lot.

We were then free to go home but instead I stuck my prints into the magazine. It looked good once they were in there. Handing it in felt wonderful, finally getting rid of it! I don't care about the marks, right now, I'm just glad it's over. Of course I'll probably be saying something different next week, but for now I don't care. 16:17  

What was expected to be a dull weekend turned out to be rather interesting after all. Yesterday afternoon Mark, one of Rory's friends who has just moved to Manchester, was expressing his boredom at being in a city where he knows no one and where he has to go to work to check his e-mail because his flat doesn't have broadband installed yet. After a little conversation it was decided he was going to come see me, and save me from my own boredom.

We ordered pizza, watched my Suicide Girls DVD, had lots of hugs, and retired for an early night. And a late morning. And somewhat of an afternoon too. He's gone home now, and I'm left trying to assemble all my work for my deadline tomorrow. My font problems may have been solved, but I can't find out until tomorrow, and just in case they haven't been, I need to make sure I have the most amount of time available in which to try and fix it. So I'll be at college from 8:30. Looks like another early night.

Yesterday morning I had an appointment at Relate with a view to starting some counseling there. It was scary but I managed and did OK. And my CBT psychotherapist has got sick of me and is finishing our sessions. Yey. I didn't like going anyway. 21:06  

Today's rant come courtesy of the computer department. We have a very limited set of fonts available in college. A frustratingly limited set. So you might assume that those fonts would be available as much as possible, where they are needed, yes? It kind of makes sense.

So say for example that I want to print something in Word or Quark which uses, oh, let's say. Tahoma or Century Gothic. They're very popular and widely available fonts. It be sensible to make sure they're accessible, surely?

They are. On screen. The minute you try to print with them, however, and all you get is Courier. Which is alright. In its place. Which isn't where Tahoma or Century Gothic should be.

So what can you replace it with? Well, there's no similar fonts available. You could take a screen shot of your text and try printing that instead of the actual text, but that looks pixelated and shit. You could print out the text at home and glue it onto the other page, but again, you're compromising your aesthetics there. You could scream and shout about how fucking useless and frustrating the whole computer department is, but that's not going to solve your font problem. Especially when your deadline is 10am on Monday and college doesn't open over the weekend.

Or you could curl up and cry and hope it all goes away. (Or rather, in this case, comes back.) 21:14  

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