Mostly lemon based

Day: April 27, 2006

  • Crisis of Confidence

    So I’m staring at my dissertation. All… let’s check now… all 343 words of it and I feel completely fucking lost. I know what the research says. It says being a Gay or Lesbian patient in the healthcare environment sucks. It says you’re likely to feel insulted, abused, have insufficient pain relief, it says you’ll be ignored, not connect with your healthcare workers, will present later because the chances are you’ll have had an unpleasant healthcare experience in your life. One of the bigger studies had 44% of GLB people avoiding healthcare interactions. 44%.

    I just don’t seem to be able to find any words. I keep thinking what my supervisor said – that you’re trying to say what the research says and critique it. But it’s so hard, because there’s very little disagreement. And after today’s bike incident I’m just feeling a bit crap. A bit useless. And I know I’m not. And I know this is just a temporary glitch. But having a phonecall from my mum who’s getting grief from the kids in near her house again and not being able to do anything about it, and the bike, and being completely stuck with my dissertation, it’s all adding up to sensitive and unhappy Kate.

    I could do with a shoulder to cry on today and perhaps the curling up with someone on a cofa would be good. It’s times like this that being single is less fun.

  • The MOT

    So I was all ready. I popped Cherry outside to bask in the sunlight while I checked her over. Tighted up the seat bolts, which I’d not noticed were loose yesterday. Popped her out on the paving… and noticed a drip. Hrm, I went in to get the spanners – perhaps that brake hose was a touch loose. Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip.

    I looked at the calliper closely before tightening it up. No brake fluid visible at all.

    Drip, drip, drip, drip, drip.

    Shit, the seal has gone on the brake caliper. Still, with an hour and 15 minutes I can probably change back to the incredibly grotty grimeca calliper that came with the bike. Sprinting in, I switch into my bike gear, lock up the back of the house for a quick getaway and grab tools and the folding workbench. Clamping the calliper in the vice I manage to free the (obviously never been touched) bleed nipple and I (amazingly) detach the severed brake hose and chuck it unceremonioulsy in the bin. Grabbing the bike I run it back round next to the bench. I whip the calliper off the bike and jam it, still attached, in the vice and… with some force, manage to get the (already somewhat rounded off) hose off it. Pausing to drop the leaky caliper from Claire into the bucket of brake bits I attach the hose to the grimeca calliper. Because it lost it’s copper washers when it was originally fitted it’s always had to be done up tight. I get it done up and whack it unceremoniously back on the bike. It’s still oozing fluid. Off it comes, tighter still. I stick it back on the bike.

    One squeeze of the lever and it becomes apparent that something is ‘very wrong’. The fluid gushes from the joint above the caliper (there’s two between the hose and the calliper). I go to tighten it and realise that it’s cracking. It’s not *meant* to be taken apart and done up so many times.

    Fuck.

    I run to the (thankfully) emptied (this morning) dustbin and tip it up. Out rolls the severed end of the old brake hose. I manage to jam it in the work bench with a spanner, and separate the two sections of the old hose. Amazingly, despite 10 years of neglect they come apart without snapping. I grab the new hose… and… it’s a different fucking connector.

    At this point, up to my elbows in highly toxic dot 4 brake fluid, it becomes abundantly clear that without a new brake hose my bike is going absolutely no-where. And given the condition of the two callipers I have, even then the likelyhood of a quick departure is slim.

    Almost ready to cry I ring the MOT station and cancel the MOT. So, the MOT, it didn’t happen.

    And y’know what? New brake seal kits, not cheap. So now I have to rejoin the MZRC, because it gives an insanely good discount on parts. Not that I don’t want to rejoin the MZRC, I love the MZRC, but the fact that I’m having to spend the money on that… so that it makes getting the rest of the bike sorted… that’s bad. *sighs*.

  • Concentration span of a flea

    Damnit. I was just about getting into the work. Just about. Words weren’t exactly ‘flowing’, but they were kind of plodding. It wasn’t great, but it was okay. And then I looked at the time. I looked at the time and thought, ‘ack, I wonder if all my bike gear’s still around’. So I went, and I looked, and yes, there it was. But since I’d stopped working I thought I’d go and check the ‘zeds brake. Still okay. Okay, but while I’m the garage I should get together stuff to take… that’ll be… uh, a spark plug spanner then.

    Oh, and a spare plug.

    Oh, and the D-Lock. Crap though it is.

    Oh, and where’s my bike helmet?

    Riiiight. That’s everything all together in the one place.

    Hrm. But now it’s only half an hour ’til I’m intending to leave. Balls. Too late to really get any work in. I’d forgotten how much I loved riding the bike. And it’s all coming back to me. I’m ridiculously over excited. At the same time I need to be really careful. First up, the bike’s equiped with delightful Chen Shin tyres. Not the Chin Hung that nearly killed me. Some people say these tyres are ‘okay’. I’m willing to give them a test, since they’re on there. First sign of teflon’d mahogany like grip and they’re gone (potentially so am I. But we’ll see). And second up – coming to bat now is Kate hasn’t ridden a bike for months. Lots of months. More than 6. Again. I’d only just started to get back into the swing of things with the last bike.

    So, excited though I am, I must take care, oh, and go and have a second quick look at the iffy fork and check it’s not leaking.

    Wish me luck, I need this bike to pass.

  • Limits

    I have finally found something that scares me. My dissertation.

    The section I’m about to write is a puny 4,500 word, I’ve been thinking it was 6,000. But. I don’t feel like I know the papers well enough. I don’t feel prepared to write it. I’m fucking terrified. I keep looking at this other person’s that I printed off to get a ‘style’. It’s fine. If only I could *actually* feel like I could write it.

    I need to start, but I’m feeling slightly sick. It does, of course, make a difference that I actually care about this topic. I want to do it justice, not rattle off another managementese essay. The phrase “get a grip woman” springs to mind. Aaack. But dissertations… well. I need to get a good mark on this. I fudged my IP3 essay – which I expected to, but I’m also concerned about [whatever that previous essay was about, I can’t actually remember]. So this is my chance to make sure I get a decent final grade. There are no exams. This is it.

    And that’s why it’s scary.

  • Isn’t technology Brilliant!

    Because, right, they’ve made the MOT test in the UK all computerised right, which means that it’s all done by computers which is Brilliant. Right. And that means that when the computer network goes down. They can’t do any tests. Which is Brilliant! Aren’t computers Brilliant. So I can’t do my bike’s MOT test today because all the test places are saying the network’s gone down. Isn’t that Brilliant….

    [end of fast show reference]

  • The clumsy girl and the day

    So, it’s morning. I’ve had breakfast, watched Azumanga Daioh, had a shower and managed to check my bike’s brakes (spongy, but better. Added more fluid. Better still, still spongy though. Hopefully passable. I can now not pull them back to the bar). And I started to think about work. Grabbed breakfast bowl/mug/cafetiere, headed down the stairs and my ankle randomly and without warning gave way.

    I managed to save myself, and all the breakfast stuff except the spoon which did what I was expecting to do and skittered down the stairs.

    So, rather gingerly made my way down the stairs, got my fresh cup of Raspberry and Loganberry tea (which fails the blue test (it’s purple, like *all* fruit teas)) and decide to nip off and cut my toenails (I realise this is excitement personified) – during which process I manage to snap the nail clipper. I mean, completely snap it. Like ‘plink-crunk’ – which left me feeling a little shocked – especially as I’ve no idea where a chunk of it has gone.

    Then while scooping up the bits of broken nail clipper, I sneezed, scrabbling for a tissue I did think… what on earth is going on today. Did I hit the ‘clumsy + chaotic’ button on my alarm clock? Feh.

    Anyway. I need to book an MOT (place opens in about 30 mins, I think); and then write like a demon. Although I am exhausted, which I blame on everyone else keeping me up late.