Category: General

Today is not the 31st of August.

I realised this some of the way to university. I decided to check anyway, but no, it not being the 31st the results weren’t back.

So:

– House lease runs out on the 8th October
– I’m on holiday from 24th October
– I have no written job offer as yet (although a conditional one by e-mail); they won’t send me a ‘full’ offer until they’ve got my occupational health clearance and my references back
– One of my references hasn’t replied yet
– Because of my complex health history (I suspect) and latex allergy they want more stuff to do occupation health clearance
– It takes at least 3 weeks to buy a house in the UK

So. The only option I can really see is to extend the lease – *now* so that I’ve got somewhere to live. Because at this moment I have no house and no job which is a somewhat untenable situation. But how long to extend it for. Do I hope that everything comes through and just give myself the extra couple of weeks -if they’ll extend it – or do I give myself another month and a chunk (because one month only gives me ’til the day I get back from Toronto). Argh. I’m not sure what I should do at this point.

To make things just that teensy bit lovelier today, I need to go over to UWE and see if my results are back from my essays. I’m terrified. If I’ve failed again I’m royally fucked. Argh.

So, at home again. It is, today, the first anniversary of my dad’s death; and so I came home to spend the weekend with my mum; to give dhanna (sp.) to a small group of monks and nuns my mum had invited over from Amaravati, and – as usual to do a few odd jobs around the house; do some tidying and sorting and so on.

So, today was giving dhanna; which was good. Yesterday was spent mostly cooking, and then today again the entire morning spent cooking to produce what can only be considered a vast quantity of food – the monks and nuns arrived and we gave dhanna; and then talked – in a way completely unlike that that we normally encounter at the monastry – I’m sure my mum’s informally talked to monks and nuns before, but for me it was somewhat of a novel experience. Mostly, my mum took the lead, and we spent some time talking about my dad – his illness – his death, and perhaps more importantly his life. Eventually, they headed back to the monastry, and we began the long process of cleaning up.

It’s funny, as long as organised religion and myself stay far enough apart I’m not made uncomfortable by it – and this experience, like my experiences of working with chaplains (at work) – again, was totally fine. However, when after they and my sister had headed off my mum wanted to do some chanting – well, that’s always been fine before; but this time she had her hands on a book which has the translations in it of what the chants mean. Now, for the most part I only know the basicest, basics of the chants. I know what you say before meditating and err, after. And that’s about your lot. I can do a passable repeat-after-me; but generally at the monastary you just listen and it’s all in mangled parlee (sp.) (apparently the anglicised pronounciation is terrible!).

So, yeah. I did it, let’s get that clear. I didn’t express to my mum my discomfort. But I was uncomfortable. See, I have no problems with religion in general. I’m not mad keen on it, I think lots of quite rude thoughts about it, but so long as the religious believer doesn’t try and inflict their beliefs on me then that’s fine and dandy. Believe what you want. I don’t – and never have – believed in god (with an upper, or a lower case g). I am, loosely, buddhist. Very loosely, apparently. See. Generally my problems start once you get beyond the ‘good idea’ and into the ‘reverence for things or people’ area. Philosophies I’m good with. I really love the buddhist philosophy – that which I know of it – but it’s not that that’s the problem. I really loved spending time with the monks and nuns, they’re wonderful people who are good, and devout, and funny, and intelligent, and able to express themselves well.

It’s the chanting. It’s the whole point at which you, or at least buddhism, seems to lose sight of this whole thing. The Buddha, I am told, never wanted people to use a statue of him as a symbol. He suggested ’empty space’ or – if you needed something to concentrate on – a bodhi leaf. Which I, somehow, would far prefer. Because this whole chanting process seemed not to revere just the teaching, but also the buddha – and that bothers me. I’m not good at that.

It ended up being almost the same discomfort that I had last year, in Alaska, with the Carol singing. Which suprised me. I hope my mum doesn’t ask me to do it again, but I suspect she will. I don’t quite know how to explain the miriad complexities of what I think in my head – again, we’re back to my own personal philosophy about life – and it’s meaning – and purpose. Which some of you have asked me about and are aware of it’s many flaws, contradictions and it’s general incompleteness – but it works for me. But one of the most notable things about it, is that it lacks any figure  to be revered. Perhaps it comes down for my general lack of respect for humans as a race; individually yes, I have met some fantastic people, but overall, not that keen. Or perhaps it comes down to the fact that we are all people. Some are nicer people, better if you wish, but I tend to feel that people are people and all deserve respect.

I don’t know, it all ends up being complex – and obviously, it gets blurry because of my upbringing and my childhood, but at the end of the day, I think it’s simply that me and organised religion, we don’t mix.

So, it just looks changeable enough that I don’t fancy taking the bike (Pirate Charlie) out and sanding it (nothing to do with me just being a lazy cow then?); so I’m sat listening to Seanan McGuire’s CD again. I love getting new music – and I am weird enough that I particularly like it when it feels like it’s something that other people don’t know about. I guess I just like introducing people to new stuff, which often isn’t that hard for me – ‘cos I have such wide tastes that quite a lot of the time I join the dots between other peoples musical tastes.

Anyway, there’s a big ‘ol review of it here (the CD that is, not my musical tastes). Sufffice to say it’s currently top of my playlist – and seems to be holding it’s own nicely.

My plan was simple, incidentally. I will, I thought, put my Athlon XP together again, put up with the phenominal noisyness of it, and install *an operating system* on it. I’d not quite decided anyway – and then I realised that my cunning plan of giving away all my 17″ monitors was great – it’s cleared lots of space… except. Well. Now I don’t have any remotely movable monitors. I *can* lift the 19″ monitors, but it’s not a whole big bundle of fun. And the idea of lugging one downstairs to install an OS and then back upstairs when I’m done with it, well, it doesn’t fill me with joy. But there’s no room upstairs to put a computer because it’s filled with a half disassembled computer. So I guess I’ll leave that one for today.

Perhaps I should just flog off the board and processor.

Mrr.

I need less crap.

So I just spent half an hour chatting to Kate about Mortgages; isn’t that scary? Me. With a Mortgage. And a house. No, seriously, it’s something which looks likely to happen. I just need proof I’ve got a job and then I shall be buying a house, I hope.

ISKT – Or International Standard Kate Time. Because of my job (and it’s shiftyness) and because of my brain working the way it does, I find it ‘convenient’ to tell my body what time it is – not by any standard means of telling the time, but instead by what time I need it to be. So, it’s currently 10am ISKT. That’s because I’m working a night tonight, so despite the fact my little clock says 1400 It’s clearly 10 am. Otherwise the fact I’ve had breakfast just a little while ago and am currently sucking down a morning cup of coffee would make no sense at all.

So yeah, I’m still on the Dark Angel kick – I’ve just started Season 2 – which is very cool indeed. I will probably toddle out and put another coat of paint on Pirate Charlie who is beginning to look really, really, quite pink. I need to get some clear top-coat to put over the pink – which I’ve noticed is not has hardy as some other paints. Still, at least I’m not going for your high-quality-top-end-shiny finish, otherwise I might have been disappointed. I am getting through paint at a frightening rate though, and the pink is very…transparent. After 3 coats you can still see the patches where I’d sanded through the white top-coat to the darker undercoat on the petrol tank. Which is slighly meh. Still, I’m mostly doing this… well, because I’m strange, really. I’m mostly doing it as a bit of fun; so really I’m not desparately worried about the perfect paint finish.

Otherwise this week continues to continue. I’ve ordered the new bits for my PC – apart from the fracking new processor fan (sieve like memory, me); so I’ll have to go pick that up next week. Hopefully we should be back having an all-systems-functioning environment shortly. Well, at least some of them. I guess I should try and get the Athlon XP back up and running too – since it’d make a good DVD player…

I also need to learn all about shiny shiny endocrinology. And most importantly go and find a house – well, after I’ve got some written “you’ve got a job”. It’s all getting a bit, well, scary. I’ve got just over a month to find a house, and still no written confirmation (beyond the e-mail which has no start date, no anything really) of my job. Gaaaah.

…but it won’t work.

Fuck you universe, I’m going to cheer up whether you try and piss me off or not.

Headache (and 400mg of Ibuprofen / 1g paracetamol) not withstanding I’m starting to bounce back. Of course, to cheer me up I got an e-mail from Scan saying they can’t find the fault with the board. It would cost 20 quid for them to send it back. Given that a new equivalent board was 30 quid yesterday I told them thanks but no. Bastard thing. I hate PCs, did I mention that?

So, I’m actually relatively impressed with Scan, despite this. They seem to have done a fair RMA job – and I’ll accept that the fault was subtle enough to require the kind of testing that they’re not willing to subject it to. Next time though, anything I RMA will be stone-cold-dead.

So, I’m waiting for motherboards to be on their discount offer. *sigh*. It’s an expense I could well do without, but there y’go. The cookie has chosen to crumble this way and I’m all ready to stomp all over the cookie now.

I can’t do anything about my dissertation results. 67% is still 2:1 terratory, I just hope that the rest of my marks manage to keep things there. I’m really fucked off about it, but hell, they can stick it, collectively. I never got on with UWE; I never understood what they wanted in the nursing course and I guess it shows. I’m still a fucking good nurse, although I could do without nursing this headache today.

In a few minutes I’ll go get changed and head off for another exciting day of being treated like a child; assuming micro-management-nurse is still on. *sighs*. Some people should not be allowed minions. Of course, it saves me actually thinking for myself at all.

I will, however, need to check – tomorrow – where the fuck the clutch I ordered is. It’s taken nearly a week. How long can it take to get me some parts? I want Cherry back on the road *now* god damn it. I’ll also be mailing my vaccination results in; they took their own sweet time arriving, but now they’re here… Yeah. I’ll drop them off to A&SP NHS T – hopefully then we can start getting this job – and more urgently – house situation sorted. Sadly, it means more days without my PC, more days without my music, on the other hand I probably get more done. Only, I’ve got quite used to surfing on my little lapytopy, so, yeah, back to normal on that front.

So. Yes. See, I bounce world. Like a fracking ping-pong-ball. So Screw you.

Stop feeling so damn sorry for yourself.

love
Kate.