Yesterday was a good day. I didn't sleep very well the night before as I'd just found out I had to go for an EEG scan in the morning and I was nervous about it, and I had to make sure I got out of bed in time to make sure I wasn't late. But these things went smoothly enough, the bus wasn't late and I found the department easily. I didn't know what to expect to happen during the scan but it was simple and painless. They put a cap on my head which I didn't see but must have had holes in it as then they slathered my hair and scalp in KY jelly. Urgh. They attached electrodes to my scalp, and clips to those, and then ran, I presume, differing electrical charges through them. I had to open my eyes at certain points and keep them closed at others but it was all easy. They also asked me to breathe heavily through my mouth, and after that they shone bright flickering lights in my eyes. Nothing strange happened to me and the test was over in half an hour, despite the letter I was sent saying it should take an hour.

As the KY was drying and making my hair gunky and horrible I went to collect my results for my Photography GCSE. I got an A! I was hoping for an A but expecting a B so I'm very happy at the outcome. Rory didn't seem too moved by it but my mum was very happy for me, and so were Robert and my dad. I went into town, stopping at Beanos for a celebratory sandwich, drooled over the pretty art and photography books in Borders and Waterstones, then went to SHIP. The day before I'd redesigned the leaflet for the LGB group and created us a poster and now they had to be printed out. It was a monotonous and dull job but it was better than sitting at home being bored. Whilst I was there someone rang up enquiring about the group and he's coming for an initial on Wednesday. Andy asked if I wanted to sit in, as part of being a facilitator is doing initials, so I have more things to do now! Yey! Then he said that if I wanted I could come in every Wednesday afternoon to do miscellaneous things, which was even better news. Once I'd sent all my files to print someone else, a middle aged woman, started using the computer. She was typing up instructions on how to check for new emails. It was so painful watching her I wanted to throw her out the window and do it myself. It was exceedingly hard not to offer to do the job but I knew I should leave it to her, so she could gain more computer experience and eventually become as fantastic at it as me (!). It took her half an hour to type the heading and the first sentence, I could have done the whole task in ten minutes. She spent most of the time on formatting it. Using spaces, naturally. And typed the whole thing using Caps Lock. I remember I used to do similar things, but I had an excuse, I was 12.

When I got home my dad rang me to say he'd sold my house. The day before an estate agent came round to value it and dad had agreed to let him sell it, and then someone was supposed to be coming round (yesterday) to measure up and take photographs. Apparently once this bloke arrived back at the office there was a customer in who was looking to buy property in the area and he liked the sound of our house. They tried to contact me to see if it was OK to take him round but my phone was switched off as I left the charger in Belfast and my battery was almost dead. Dad said it would be fine to bring him to see the house and he made my dad an offer which was about £10k more than we were expecting to get. Which was nice. The house can't have been up for sale for more than an hour! Not that I'm complaining, of course. Though if I had known a prospective buyer was coming round I would have hidden the flea spray and moved the washing. I'm sure he really wanted to see my underwear hanging up to dry.

Rory offered to buy me a present to celebrate my exam result but he was reluctant to buy me the things I want most - CDs and books, he says I have too many I haven't listened to / read as it is. I talked him round to buying me pretty picture books though and Femme Fatale, Women By Women and Love and Desire are winging their way to me.

The final good part of the day was Tef and I had a conversation and exchanged emails and he doesn't hate me and doesn't think I'm stalking him, so all is well there. It made a good change to have an enjoyable day, though dad did try to ruin it by having a go at me about mentioning fleas to the estate agent the night before. I can't help it if I don't have common sense. Some things just don't occur to me. Today I don't have anything special to do, nor do I have anything to do until September. Hmm.
12:38

I've returned from my grand tour and I'm knackered. The 10:45 flight I was meant to catch, and thus got up at 7:30am for, was postponed til 1pm, so I spent three hours in Belfast airport being incredibly bored. Mind you, that's not miles away from what I'd spent the whole week doing. Regardless I managed to make it home for half past two thanks to my brother picking me up, and I persuaded him to give me a lift into town so I could go rant at the LGB group. The group was fairly run of the mill with nothing special to report save for there isn't going to be a group next week thanks to the sodding bank holiday. I hate bank holidays. This evening has been pretty nondescript also, except for my dad ringing to complain at me about my lack of cleaning again, when I thought I'd done a pretty good job considering I had people staying and so on. He wouldn't have been satisfied no matter how clean I'd left it though.

So all that's left is to relate the happenings of my journey. I was planning on writing the blog whilst I was away, saving it, and posting once I returned home, as I can't blog from online, but despite my best intentions I failed to write a single entry. I guess you'll just have to wait then.
21:24

I had a little rant about books earlier, and thought I should probably save it.

you cant beat proper books. i can sit and stroke them and smell them and gaze through them for hours. the knowledge in them, the love and devotion and effort which has been put into them, the handicraft and skill. people used to die for books, when the great library caught fire people were running in trying to save scrolls despite being on fire themselves. in the digital age when a whole book can be copied in seconds, can you see people doing these things for them? would people die to save some floppies? before the printing press every single book was handwritten, contained the essence of a person's being for the time it took them to create the book, it gave books life, made them into almost sentient beings. and you had to be special to have access to books and what they taught. you needed to be able read, and to speak the language the book was written in, which at least 90% of people couldn't. books were for the elite. and when literacy grew, books were for the wealthy. anyone can buy a book now, they're becoming devalued. we need to learn to listen to what they try to tell us again, not to take them at face value. it's not just the words in a book that's important, it's its whole being.
00:34

I haven't posted in aaaaages. I just didn't feel like it, but for some reason the urge has returned. So here's a brief run down of everything I've been doing in the past six weeks.

• I went to the Witnness Festival with Rory and some of his friends. I was very depressed, it was very hot and there wasn't any shade. I managed to see two and a half bands, equalling last year's total. I bought some more knickers though so it wasn't a complete waste of a weekend.
• I'm now seeing an eating disorders therapist who's trying to help me restore my eating and views about eating and its effects on me to normal. I have to follow an eating plan, where I'm supposed to eat three meals a day at set times. I knew that if I plunged straight into it though I would end up very depressed and it would do more harm than good, so I'm easing myself into it with a homemade version featuring two meals a day. Even this lighter adaptation is difficult though and I now resent eating and spend a lot of time thinking about food and worrying about whether or not I'm sticking sufficiently to the plan.
• I got my hair dreadlocked last Saturday. Simon was kind enough to do it for me, and it only took three hours due to having short and thin hair. It's given me more self-confidence and made me think I could potentially be pretty. Everyone I've spoken to likes it, and even my parents weren't too shocked. It has caused my anxiety to raise whilst I'm outside though, I'm convinced someone will come up to me and make fun of me, or that a black person will come up to me and shout for having a hairstyle that, whilst now being common no matter what your ethnic background is, is traditionally one used by black people. Ah well, I always have to have something to worry about.
• A few weeks ago I had a fit of some sort. I don't remember the details, I'm missing a whole week from my memory, but I went to see my GP who referred me to a neurologist. I spent a long time talking with him and he said it's possible that I might have epilepsy. To test for it I was sent for a CT scan which I was nervous about but all went well. I should be getting the results back very shortly. He also wants me to have an EEG scan which should be happening around September I expect.
• I've enrolled to go back to college. I'll be studying A-Level Photography and Textiles at Leeds College of Art and Design and Arts Splash at Swarthmore. Arts Splash gives me the chance to try many kinds of creative activities, such as mosaics, stained glass, pottery, print and "papercrafts" but what that will consist of I don't know. I'm really looking forward to it all though.
• After many months of house hunting we finally found a house which was acceptable to both my dad and me, and was in our price range. It's in the area I want to be, and would suit me perfectly. We received the surveyor's report today though and apparently there's many problems with it, despite all appearing fine on the surface. It shout take quite a bit of money to rectify them all but it doesn't necessarily mean dad won't agree to the purchase. He was trying to explain our options to me earlier but I was in a hurry to leave the house so I didn't pay too much attention.
• The B3tans who are going to be staying with me are due to arrive on Monday. There's a Leeds bash organised and on Thursday we're all driving up to Edinburgh to stay with another kind B3tan for a long weekend. It will be the first time I've been to Edinburgh since I was 13 or so. There's an even bigger bash organised for Edinburgh, it seems half the board is scheduled to turn up. On the Monday a lot of people are going home and I'm flying to Belfast to spend a week with Rory. Like most things I'm nervous about how it will turn out, but on the whole I'm looking forward to it.
• Cinnamon has been staying in for the past week. Last Thursday I discovered he had an injured ear, it was bloody and looked rather nasty. I wasn't sure how long he'd had the cut though as he'd been staying outside for some time as I was battling with fleas and they weren't dying off, so keeping him outside and away from them helped to sort it out. During this time he was never around when I was ready to feed him in the morning so I was only seeing him at night, when it was too dark to check him over properly. The Thursday was the first time I'd seen him in daylight for about a week. I rang to get him an appointment at the vets, who we saw on Friday. It was decided the injury was probably gained through fighting with other cats and to help it to heal I had to bathe it four or five times a day and give him antibiotics for a week. And he had to stay inside the whole time. We almost killed each other this week, but at least he's remembered what his litter tray is for. I threw him back outside today as he'd developed a bit of diarrhea and smeared it all over my kitchen work surfaces.

Hmm, that's all I can think of right now. Stay tuned, if there's anybody out there still, to see if I can be arsed updating again.
19:30