Got on coach, very tired from getting work in last night.

Ate smoked salmon sandwich, slept
slept
crossed channel
ate smoked salmon sandwich slept.
Slept slept
ate ham sandwich
slept slept slept
2 hours amsterdam
cool snazzy bar, had bloody mary and sleepy pills to ensure good nights sleep.
slept slept slept
work up 7am handburg, changed coaches
finished sandwiches and ate mince pies and tangerines.
slept.
got into copenhagen. went to awesome magic land, and roller coasters. registered at copenhagen conference, came home to flat.

deciding whether or not to shower before sleepign.. can try and stay awake a few more mins.

December is my book for Book Group, and will be Breakfast at Tiffany's. I finished it yesterday and enjoyed it quite a lot. Today, I sent out some initial thoughts for the rest of the group, which you can use

( Book Group for those reading at home )

I wrote a bonus Idea102 this weekend, on the subject Reed Richards explains wit I've now got a group of Iowans who are following it, which is nice. It's them and my girlfriend that are reading and not many more people.

I'm going to take Ultimate Alliance 2 back to GAME to trade in. I've got absolutely no desire to play it again and it's pretty much inferior to UA on the PS2 in every way. Shame, really. I also think that X-Men Legends 2 is the absolute best game of the 4 player Marvel heroes game

*( The Carousel )

Okay - so I haven't updated in forever this is true.

But
EVERYONE HERE HAS TO SUPPORT THIS!

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=184214588291&ref=nf&v=info

The real news is that I'm working my backside off and spending more and more time up to my eyeballs in work with 9 classes (last year I had seven) - it seems to be the past time of my work to see exactly how much they can load on me before I shatter, although I am not the only one.

Although I am enjoying facebook one-line updates at the moment.

Oh and I just put our Christmas decorations up - so so pretty. I love seeing of the twinkly, twinkly lights up

This week I have been bopping the black dog with a rolled-up newspaper by being taken, respectively in and out for dinner with the lovely khalinche and the ravishinglaumiere . Thank you, ladies - I had a marvellous time.

Off out for more food tonight with a range of activists and squatters I've never met, in an incongruously swanky restaurant that I can't afford, and therefore am being moderately paid to eat at. Hurrah for patronage :)

In other news, I'm coming to wish that I'd put half this much work into doing my degree. I might have got the first I failed to pretend I didn't want. Mind you, if I had, I probably wouldn't have had the kick in the arse I needed to start working like this, so hey ho.

- Su dokus (1 per hour)
- pencil and pen
- no change (keeps me away from the vendies)
- book which is easy to read or magazine
- crochet work and needle
- notebook
- diary
- work pass
- fruit
- tea bags, milk and travel mug
- warm jumper

Two excellent things are going to be happening within ten days of each other, and I feel the need to promote them shamelessly. If you are, or are able to be, in Oxford, I'd love to see you at either.

DJ deathbyshinies
Place: The Cellar
Date: Tuesday 8 December
Time: 8.30pm
Cost: Free

DJ deathbyshinies takes to the decks once again. The first thirty people to arrive for her set will get a free stamp for all-evening entry, so why not come along to grab your free entry, hear her show the Intrusion DJs how it should be done, and then take a break to get a decent drink elsewhere? Your stamp'll get you in free whenever you choose to come back.. Alternatively, the goths in the corner will certainly be happy to lace you into your corsets and smear you with eyeliner. I shall be rallying the troops (and needing someone to lace me into my corset..) in the Three Goats' Heads from 7pm.

Many Awesome Bands
Place: The Z0₂diac
Date: Saturday 19 December
Time: 6.30pm
Cost: £10 (£5 if you tell me by Thursday 10 December, or get them yourself from band@borderville.com)

Electric Six, Eureka Machines, and Borderville. (Cherish them!) Jaw, meet floor. You will not find camper punk-rock, you will not find happier goth-rock, you will not find more intellectual glam-rock, you will not find darker pop-rock, you will not find me anywhere else. Because, inexplicably, the whole world has not fallen under the thrall of Borderville, I provide yet another enticement: I've played you the music. I've dissected the meaning. But have you seen the charisma that these men have? The electrifying stage-presence, the showmanship, the artistry?

I wish I could show you what it feels like to be in the front row at one of their gigs. But I can't - videos of gigs are always so grainy, and from such a distance - so you can have the closest thing I've found; it's a stripped-down version of one of their songs, recorded for BBC Oxford. Musically and aesthetically, I'm sad that it lacks the bassist and the drummer, and some of the more spectacular costumiery; but it's the closest I've seen to the electricness of seeing them live.

The article is here, for those who were interested!

I made a Wordle

My GOD I'm broody. I keep looking at babies on the tube and going all spoogly inside. I would like a little baby all of my own. Have to keep reminding myself that the things are *proto-teenagers*.

I'm not sure if getting some sort of pet would help. At this point I'm willing to try anything.

Suppose you have a choice between buying Item A, which is has quality 100 and costs £100, and Item B, which has quality 80 but costs only £50. Now suppose that you are buying these for Application C, which demands quality of at least 90. If you buy Item B, you have not saved £50 for a marginal reduction in quality; instead, you have completely wasted £50.

I keep making this mistake; hopefully now I've written it down I'll make it less often.

Feeling gloomy about the future for the planet, I search for hope.

How do I search for hope? The same way as I search for everything.

And what do I find? High quality disc brakes and bicycle parts.

That's got to be a good sign.

Advent is nearly upon us, so it must be time to work out the mathematics of secret santa. I've been thinking about a mathematical problem, and I wondered if any of the assembled audience out there wanted to solve it. There may be a small bottle of gin for the person that does it.

The problem is to find an algorithm to find a secret santa assignment such that everyone knows who to buy a present for, but does not know who's buying the present. We also want a secure way of doing this, such that players cant tamper with the assignment. I do not know the answer to this, and it may be possible to prove it's impossible.

I'll try and formalise a little more:

( A more formal statement )

I'll see if people want to play first before posting my own thoughts. Merry secret santa!

So, I'm looking to talk to people about what they think about the benefits of mental health diagnosis. I'm writing a feature about the usefulness of mental health categorisation. FWIW, One In Four doesn't have a position on this, we just use the term 'mental health difficulty' rather than 'a person with a diagnosis of X' because we believe the difficulty and the challenges people face are more important than the diagnosis.

Particularly interested to hear from people with borderline or bipolar, people who have had several diagnoses in the past, or people waiting for a diagnosis. Did getting your diagnosis help you? Have you ever felt unfairly labelled, or like doctors are treating you differently because of your diagnosis? Was it what you expected? Do you think your diagnosis is correct?

Me, I'm desperate for a diagnosis, because I feel like that'd help me handle my condition better. The last official diagnosis I had was anorexia nervosa, and that's clearly not what the problem is anymore: I'm recovered from anorexia, but it's still on my files as the problem, and I feel like when I'm talking to GPs that holds me back. I don't want to talk about what my problems were then, I want to talk about how to recover from what my problems are now!

I'd be interested in hearing you guys' experiences, and especially if anyone - with or without a mental health difficulty - has links to research on whether or not diagnoses work. NB if I'm going to quote anything, I'll ask for permission first!

L.xxx

- for a job it turns out that I really really want -

and I haven't heard anything yet. Realistically I know that this means they have offered it to someone else, and are waiting for formalities and references before they commiserate the unsuccessful applicants; but my gods this is driving me slowly insane!

There are many wonderful things in the world - most notably, Theatricalia, which is well on its way to being IMDB for the theatre, and this most excellent queer/straight rights petition - but I'm unable to give them my full attention until I can draw a line under this job interview, one way or another. I am being plagued by increasingly toxic hope.

Still, it's the Geek Quiz tonight, Social Highlight of the Term and all that...

In response to several horrific posts by other cis feminists around TDoR I've published the article that's waiting for publication at The F Word to Penny Red. I worked very hard on this, as did many of you guys; I hope you approve of the result.

I have gone 280posts back on my friends page. It won't let me go any further back. Maybe I've neglected this a little bit. Sorry for not commenting, I've not been the most awake/organised person recently. In news:

Depot placement has started. Over the past two weeks I have done earlies (get up at 4:30a.m. for 7a.m. at Tyseley) and nights (leave Derby at 8:30p.m., get back at 7:30a.m.) during which period any time I've had not at the depot has been spent sleeping, cooking, eating or wandering around in a zombie like daze. Phil & Barry have been very nice to me though with emergency cooking help.

I've very nearly bought my bungalow! An obscene amount of money has gone to the solicitor and a much less obscene but still sizeable amount to Direct Line for insurance. I now feel very poor, especially as Gladys broke a front suspension spring the other week that required even more money shelling out. Oh, and I'm already paying tax, although I'm only just over half the personal allowance limit. Need to ask Dad about that as the tax website is too confusing for this time of night. *grumble* Unfortunately I'm sure there's a really sensible reason for that. :( Anyway, I pick up keys tomorrow. SO EXCITING! :D

Really am looking forward to having my own place. Hate the bathroom here - no proper shower, stand alone bath with no shower curtain, mirror in the most awkward place possible bar the ceiling. I'm always cold and having to put on more clothes - Phil & Barry, whilst lovely people, have a much lower optimum temperature than me and I don't think the radiator in my room works. Washing clothes takes a lot of advance planning. If I slack off slightly, my room immediately becomes a complete tip as there's almost no space. Parking is a right nuisance. But for all that it's made life a lot easier the past couple of months. Just... very ready to move out now, not that it'll happen for another couple of weeks at least.

Last but never least, I miss mansunite terribly during the week and treasure the time we get at weekends. Last weekend was fantastic, stayed with him in Oxford and didn't have to share him with parents or friends at all! *is selfish*