Lou-quacious

This weekend, I'm taking part in the Blogathon, over on my blog. I'm raising money for MDF the Bipolar Organisation and yes, this is a begging post for sponsorship! So, um, please please please please please? Seriously, if you can sponsor me for just a couple of pounds or dollars it would be fantastic - even the smallest amount helps. I've written a bit more about the charity and the whole blogathon process here in my blog.

One of the things I'm planning on blogging about during the 'thon is bipolar disorder, and to try and combat my tendency to ramble on forever, I wanted to decide on some topics to cover in smaller per-post bites. And, I'd also like to ask if anyone has any questions they'd like to ask about bipolar - my experience of it, info in general, impressions gained from the media or fanfic - whatever you want to know. Feel free to ask anything, even if it might be personal. If I'm not comfortable answering then I'll let you know, but I want to try and answer as much as I can. So, here's a handy poll... it'd really help me out if you guys could fill it in (or if you prefer you could fill out the mirrored one on the blog:



Thank yoooou! :-)

PS - Plzzzzzzzz sponsor me, kthxbai!

Well.... damnit.  I called the dentist this morning, and guess what?  Apparently, I'm no longer a "current patient" of theirs, and would therefore have to come in to fill out a new set of forms and leave a deposit.  They can fit me in for that at the end of January.  Great!  When I asked them how come I hadn't had a notification that I should make an appointment to keep me "current" (like I get from the optician, for example), they told me it's the patient's responsibility to keep track of that.  *sigh*  Unfortunately for me, my brane can't really cope with that kind of thing these days: it's a cause for celebration if I make it to my doctors or psychiatrist appointments.  I've been trying to get up to the hospital for a simple blood test for the last four months or so and haven't made it yet.  And my mother is actually going to come and get me and shepherd me to my upcoming optician and med exam appointments to make sure I don't have an "omg cannot leave house" moment.  Keeping track of time (especially considering that I'm tending to lose months here and there when I get low) to know that I even should be making an appointment is highly unlikely to happen.  *siiiiigh*  I suck.

Anyway, I'm told that all I can do is either wait til January (or try a different dentist and see if they'd take me on, I spose), or call the emergency service.  Which, had I known all this, I could have done on bloody Friday when this happened.  Gah.  But anyway, I'm only sposed to do it if I'm "in pain".  Um.  Well, my tongue is certainly painful, and I can't eat or speak without plenty of difficulty and discomfort.  Do you think that counts?  The tooth itself doesn't hurt though.  I spose the only thing I can do is call when they open at 6:30pm and find out.  And sincerely hope that they aren't in some out of the way place that I can't get to.  Because of course most of the buses stop after 6:30, too.  This should be fun.

ETA: At suggestion of The Mother, I called my old (her current) dentist, who hadn't been accepting 'new' patients when I moved back to town.  But now they are, and lo!  Despite there being some weird computer thing that needs a senior receptionist to sort out in the morning due to my having been on the old system, they can probably take me back on to their books and fit me in for an emergency appt tomorrow.  I think I'd rather do that than try the out of hours clinic, which covers the whole of this area and so might not even be based in this town tonight!  If I was still allowed to drive it'd be one thing, but no: too mad!  Oh well.

I have new hair.  Or specifically, newly coloured hair.  In a gorgeous aubergine shade that makes my pale pink and electric purple extensions look fantastic.  Whee!


Also, I hear that teh internets broke the other day because someone pulled the plug out.  Or their rabbit ate through the wire, or something.  I must confess that I totally didn't notice, because I was on Ravelry, which wasn't affected by the outage.  Do I lose at LJ now?

Aaaaaaaaaaaanyhow, back to the Blogathoning.  I'm about to post a Doctor Who ficlet on fandom_helps, and I've also just made a looooong post on my blog talking about bipolar disorder and why I'm blogging for MDF.  Just in case you're interested ;-)

Looking at all this in one go, I may have gone a tiny bit loopy... but recently I've been signing up to stuff.  And making commitments, and all that kind of thing.  Which I am going to follow through on, yes I am!  Because, hoorah, I'm feeling sufficiently better.

1. Blogathon '07, which is taking place on 28th-29th July.  I'm going to be taking part in it over on my other blog, mainly because I'm going to be doing a knitting-y theme for the most part.  More details are over here, including what you'll get if you're kind enough to sponsor me.  The charity I'm blogging for is MDF (Manic Depression Fellowship) The Bipolar Organisation - it's something that's obviously near to my heart (or, um, brayne) and I'd like to support them with more than the piddly membership fee that I pay annually.  So, sponsor me kplzthx?  I'll love you lots, and stuff.


2. In addition to my own blogging, I've signed up to be part of the fandom_helps group blog.  So if you fancy doing some fandom-related blogathoning and/or you don't think you can manage the entire 24-hours yourself, come join us!  The more the merrier!!


3. I've signed up for the brit_knits Stash Swap, and SP11 - yay yarn (and other knitting related stuuuuuff) swapping!  Although, I haven't had my stash swap details from miss_bell yet, and I think I should have... unless she's just running a bit behind.  Don't want to pester her, but I think I'll drop her a mail if I haven't heard anything in the next few days.  I really do want to clear a few things out of my stash that I'm never going to use - nice yarn, but stuff that I bought in a fit of "ooo, on sale!" with no real idea of what I was going to do with it.  D'oh!


4. I've rejoined the gym, and paid for a year in advance.  This works out cheaper overall, and means that... I have a year's membership!  So now I can go to all the classes I want (with Ally, or on my own) and I also plan to start swimming again, and go back to working out in the gym proper.  Because I'm feeling a lot better in my head, so I want to feel better in my bod as well.


5. In the same vein, I joined Slimming World last week.  I've sort of tried to do the healthy eating thing, but I've been utterly rubbish at it without any outside motivation and structure.  I asked the doctor for help, but they just gave me the sort of advice that I already knew, and just wasn't acting on.  So, I shall now be going to this weekly group, and I have a target and everything.  Plus, I really like their food optimising thingy.  I've been doing well on it so far, and I think I can stick to it: already, I don't fancy the sort of food I was scoffing randomly beforehand.  No more crisps and chocolate and Pepsi all the time.  Except, I can have that stuff if I really want, only I have to record and count it... and that's seeming to make the difference for me.  Well, we shall see tomorrow if I've lost any weight.  Fingers crossed!  I think I'm either going to have a weight / fitness stuff filter, or I'm going to use another LJ I have for all those things.  Not quite decided yet.  *ponders*  Is anyone actually interested in following along?


6. And finally, since my head is doing better, my doctor has told me I can start doing wrrk again!  Part time, and taking it carefully so I don't over-do things and knock myself back again (*sigh*).  So I called Fiona, and it looks like she might have something for me.  Yay!  This means I have to arrange stuff with the Incapacity Benefits people (there's this thing called Permitted Work you sign up to) and with Housing Benefit and so on.  Which is a pain in the arse of a procedure, but necessary.  Still, work = good! :-)

Aaaaaaaaaaaand that's about it.  For now.

Well thank feck for that: I seem to be sleeping again.  Only about four hours on Wed/Thurs and Thurs/Fri nights, and it's been a bit all over the place since then, but I feel like I've slept rather than just having dozed.  Plus, I woke up about half an hour before my alarm was due to go off on Thursday, so I got to my Creative Writing course with no problems.  And wheeee, it was excellent!  I'm all enthused.  So much so that I've been poking around the Sussex uni website and looking at the related degree course(s).  I do want to get mine finished one day, after all, and this course can count towards degree study.  So there's something to possibly aim for.  I also started a digital photography class yesterday - this one is purely for fun.  And fun it was, so that works out well.  If I can manage to get into a routine with sleeping properly at night, getting up and going to either one of those two courses or to the gym (or pilates class) in the morning most days, I'll be very happy.  The idea being that that gets me going and motivated, and I'll get other stuff done in the afternoon.

However, I do still need to ring the clinic ( blah bipolar blah )

Anyway, I might be offline for a few days now - hopefully not, but I always say that, and then I always am. *g*  More upgrades to be done.  This time it should be simple enough - I'm just reformatting the C:\ drive and reinstalling Windows.  Actually, I'm installing a newer version, because I forgot to get the upgrade along with all the hardware upgrades, and now it refuses to update and I'm getting the blue screen of DETHHHH at least twice a day.  Argh!  Oh, and copying CDs is like pulling teeth, so sorry you guys who I said I'd send some stuff.  Luckily burning from my harddrive is not so much of a problem, so I can at least back up everything.  And it bloody well will be everything this time.  Just in case.  Because 'should be simple' and real life don't always meet ;-)

And finally, since I'm sort of back doing studying things, and I'm just too impatient to wait (How incredibly appropriate it is too.  Bwahah!):

The University of Blogging Presents to soulstar An Honorary Bachelor of Emo Majoring in Self Portraiture Signed Dr. GoQuiz.com �

Username:

Blogging Degree
From Go-Quiz.com

It's funny how these unexpected LJ hiatuses sometimes end up soooo very long.  Summer of '06, where did you go to?  Oh, that's right: you disappeared under a mountain of Stargate Atlantis fanfic.  Mwahah.  Not that it's all been fun and fic - I haven't been well, so pretty much all I could do was read.  But things are looking up again now.  I'm mostly alright, the mog's alright (his kaputted leg seems fine again), and I might even start reading my Flist again at some point in the nearish future instead of occasionally skimming a page and then running away in fear ;-)

On the 'bah' side of things, I'm living in a building site (not fun, fecking noisy, dust not agreeing with allergies or asthma) as the house is being renovated, I'm going to have to move to the flat upstairs at a date as yet unspecified so that this one can be done (omg, packing), and it takes me a really long time to do anything because my grasp on the whole 'time' thing has gone kind of weird.  But I'm getting better with that.  I think.  Not nearly well enough to even think about trying to work again just yet, but I'm sure I'll get there.  Finally, I'm not going to be able to afford to keep my car for much longer, which sucks.  But I do have a plan to make the most of it while I can.

On the 'yay' side, SGA is especially shiny and fun (enjoying the new season, will probably babble more about this soon), and in other fannishness I've started re-poking the LoM fic that I abandoned when my head fell apart.  Oh, and I'm doing a big giant catchy-uppy thing for SG-1: I used to watch religiously back in the day, but then I didn't have Sky any more, so I'd seen seasons 1-4 when they were on Sky, then scattered eps from seasons 5 (inc. 48 Hours), 6, and possibly 7.  So anyway, I decided I wanted to watch it allllllllll again from the start, so I am.  Wheee.  I'm about half way through S3 right now, but I'm also thinking about jumping in and watching S9 so that I can watch S10 at the same time as I'm watching SGA S3.... but then I think, hmm, do I want to watch S8 first (after all, I already cheated and watched the season ender for that because hello, Rodney), and ooo, what about the end of S7 because that has relevance for SGA anyway, and, and.... ack!  What was I saying again?

Anyway, yes, 'yay' things.  I went to see Pirates of the Carribean 2 with Ally the other week... only it had sold out, so we ended up making much better use of a lovely summer evening, crunching along the beach and then meandering through the old town, topping off the night by playing the tuppeny arcades and (in my case) winning prizes of Tacky Badness.  Hee!  And then we actually made it to see PotC2 the next day, and it was fabulous.  Mmmmm, drunken, scruffy Norrington.  It made me very happy.  I've also been out and about to a few other places, and last week Char came down for a visit and dyed my hair for me - I now once again (near enough) match my icon.  Hoorah!  I had about 6" roots, and the rest had faded to coppery auberny red.  We also went to Battle Wool Shop, where we bought steel wool to knit chain mail and the like.  Well, no.  But Char got lots, and I got a couple of things, and we spent a long time along with another customer and under the amused and indulgent eye of the shop lady, stroking and drooling over some of the more expensive and tasty yarn they have there.  This has now reminded me of all the half-done projects that are lying around the flat, so I'm clicking sticks with a vengence once more.

Er, and I think that's about it, and since this is now reeeeeally long... I'll stop now.  STOP

Well, look at that: apparently those memes can be quite accurate at times.  Who'd'a thunk?

Disorder	Your Score
Major Depression:	Moderate
Dysthymia:	Slight
Bipolar Disorder:	Extremely High
Cyclothymia:	Very High
Seasonal Affective Disorder:	Extremely High
Postpartum Depression:	N/A
Take the Depression Test

Although, was surprised the SAD thing came out quite so high.  I had been wondering about it, though (as had Mum), considering the way my mood has gone extra-wonky from around October for the last four years at least.  I think it's been better this year, being in this flat with the enormous windows and great light - especially in the bedroom.  I know I was here last year too, but it can't really be counted because I sort of didn't open the curtains all winter.
It is sort of funny, mind you, that I've apparently got a need for sunlight, when I've been just about the most sun-avoiding person I know for my whole life.  It burrrrrrrrrrrns!