Is it the Flu?

Right, I’m feeling very ill. It started late last night and I couldn’t sleep. I was in pain everywhere and I couldn’t breath properly, so I couldn’t get any rest. I don’t know where I would have got it from, because no one I saw was ill. I think maybe someone on the bus might have given me something. Anyway, I don’t know if it’s the flu or just a bad cold. I called the doctor’s today and they asked me to describe my symptoms. When I did they told me not to go in but to monitor my condition. If it turns out to be the flu they said they would issue some medicine that a flu buddy can pick up for me. So I’m monitoring.

Now many of you might be asking themselves why I’m telling you all of this. If you are then you clearly don’t understand the concept of a blog and I think you should leave now, we will not have dim people around here. Also, it would mean you are a newbie to this particular blog and do not know that I kind of like to moan on it. I keep saying I will stop moaning but then I do it anyway. That’s kind of a dance I have with myself. Everyday, I tell myself that this is the last moany post. However, usually very quickly, a few days at best, I find myself moaning again. It’s like I’ve concentrated the process of new year’s resolutions and their inevitable breaking over a few days and then decided to repeat it ad nauseam.

Anyway, so far my symptoms seem to be consistent with a bad cold or a mild flu. I clearly need more observation. The problem is that I need to go to university tomorrow. There are a series of events that I need to go to. I need to for many reasons. Mainly because I’m really interested in them. I know that this sounds silly, but it’s a good enough reason to brave going out, I think, unless I’m literally unable to move. Another very important reason is that I’ve missed a couple of similar and important events, and I really need to be seen around the department. I feel like I’ve fallen behind and I need to show my face more often.

Anyway, I was telling you all of this in order to apologise for a short post, but it ended up being a decent size. It’s nice when these things work out. I really hate writing short posts. Every time it makes me feel like I’m a little bit of a slacker. I know I’m a lazy bum, but I feel that this blog really helps me keep my mind working, especially when I’m unable to work on my thesis. So whenever I write a short post I feel really bad. The only time I feel okay about it, and that hasn’t happened in a while or possibly yet, is when I can’t write a long post because I’m working so hard. I need one of those days very soon. I have a deadline in a bit over a week. Anyway, that’s enough semi-feverish ramblings from me. See you all tomorrow if I’m still alive.

Staying Awake

Right new blog post. I need to figure out what to write. I’m not sure. What could I write about? I’m not sure. This is most regular (I know it should be irregular, but this happens to me everyday so it is regular. It’s a joke, stop being phrase nazis). As you might tell I’m slightly high on caffein and sugar. Can you tell? Can you tell? Huh? huh? You bunch of Punks! Wanna take it outside? I’ll kick all your arses. That’s right I will. Well I just hope I don’t hit the downer while I’m writing this, otherwise it would turn out to be quite an inconsistent post. And we can’t have that, can we my precious? No we can’t. That’s what I thought.

Anyway, seriously. Why am I so high on caffein and sugar? Well you’ll have to wait until tomorrow to read about it. I’m not going to tell you and there’s no way you’ll find out by yourselves. It’s such a mystery. But so Thursday. What happened on Thursday? Well as I said yesterday, I was planning to stay up until a normal time. That way, I thought I could get to wake up at a normal time on Friday. So I was up from around 19:00 on Wednesday. I spent the night playing Uncharted 2, and watching Back to the future 2. I thought after watching the first one, I had to see Marty McFly go to the dizzying future of 2015. I discovered that in 5 years, the internet will have disappeared. But we’ll have flying cars and hover-boards. Also, we’ll have clothes that automatically fit, and dry you if you get wet.

I was surprised that the internet disappeared. Because as we all know Back to the Future is a documentary. I thought the internet would have become sentient and order all of our machines to enslave us. Although, we have the ultimate weapon, and that is tea. All we need is to drop the contents of a cup of tea, it could also be coffee, or water, or juice, or soda, or alcohol, in fact any liquid, onto them and we would render them useless. Maybe that’s what happened in 2012. Who knows, that might be what the Mayans were on about. I also thought it was odd that with all these advances, future Marty’s broken hand that doesn’t let him play guitar anymore couldn’t be fixed. Anyway, who am I to question the veracity of that documentary.

Other than that, I started getting sleepy around 10:00, that was always a hard time. But I survived it. I then got sleepy again around 12:00. And I survived again. I was quite pleased with myself. The came the dreadful 15:00. But I managed to stay up then as well. I thought that was it. I was going to sleep at a normal time, catch up on some sleep, and wake up on Friday all refreshed and ready to face the world. At 18:00, I thought that’s a good time to sleep, because I have had such bad sleep that I am bound to sleep for more that 8 hours. I crawled into bed and just like that I was out. Out like a light. Out like I’ve passed out. Out like someone knocked me out.

Now you’re all asking yourselves, did I actually wake up at a normal hour? Does the fact that I am so high on caffein and sugar have anything to do with it? And if so, what exactly? Did I go insane, and I’m now using this blog as a last plea for help? Or am I just being humorous? If so, am I successful in this endeavour? Or have I just alienated my core readership? Are the voices in my head real or not? The answers to these questions and many more will be revealed in tomorrow’s post. See you then. Well not exactly see you. I guess the right thing to say would be write you tomorrow. And you would reply, yeah read you tomorrow. Or maybe, no I’m away from my computer tomorrow, but read you in a couple of days, all at once. Or something like that. Bye.

Sleepless in Nottingham

Right so I’m having trouble sleeping. It’s getting ridiculous. I’m staying up until well into the morning and then sleeping through the day. I’m going to try and reset my body clock by staying up for more then 24 hours and then sleeping at a normal time. I hope it works as this is really getting annoying.

Saturday was really strange because of that. I didn’t know what day it was, what time it was, and I was confused the whole time. It’s something I’ve suffered from for as long as I can remember. The last time I had a proper normal healthy sleeping pattern was when I was a child I think. This started when I went to college. Experimenting with things I shouldn’t experiment with (Wink wink, nude nude, know what I mean). But also because I used to find working at night more productive then working during the day. I used to love to overnight. The problem is I think that since then my body clock was thrown out of whack and I’m still suffering for it. So for all the young people who read my blog (there are none, I’m just pretending), you shouldn’t mess with your body clock, it’ll bite you when you’re old and trying to have a normal sleeping pattern.

The main problem as well is that I’m very tired while I’m awake and my sleep is very troubled. Because if I was full of energy and capable of doing stuff while I’m awake, then I wouldn’t mind that much. But because my sleep is choppy and does not provide me with rest, I end up being in a bit of haze throughout my waking hours. This is very annoying at any time, but even more so when you have a chapter to write and you need to read a lot of Deleuze for evidence of incorporation of the discourse on molecular biology. I know, it’s very hard. I find myself reading the same sentence a million times and not being able to focus my mind on it sharply enough. I hope this isn’t early onset dementia, because that would suck. I’m sure it’s not but I’m in a moany mood so sue me.

I’ve also been having very strange dreams while asleep. I can’t remember what they’re about, so don’t worry I won’t bore you with details of them as I know that’s quite annoying. All I can remember when I wake up from them, which is many times in one sleep, is that they were strange and slightly disturbing. Not nightmares exactly, but some kind of weird uncomfortable and somehow troubling and perturbing set of events. I’m not sure if it’s the narrative of my dreams, or the imagery, or something else, because I can’t remember. All I know it’s that when I wake up from them, I’m all disturbed and uncomfortable and getting back to sleep isn’t easy.

I have realised though, that I’ve been having those dreams for a very long time. The thing is, I haven’t properly remembered my dreams in a very long time. I remember when I dream that I woke up and got my day started, but that’s about it. I’ve realised that all those dreamless sleeps I’ve had, probably for years, have been peppered with those dreams. I really need to figure out a way to remember what they are. Maybe if I can, then I can sleep again properly. Anyway, that’s about all the moaning I have in me for the moment. I will now go on with my ‘day’ and try to reset my body clock if possible. Cheers.

Lovely Sunday Lunch

I had a lot to write about in this post, but unfortunately I’m very ill today. I will hopefully write more about that tomorrow. But this means that I am not able to write a very long post today. I’m just too ill to concentrate for too long. But I do feel that yesterday’s monster post allows me a little leeway on the matter, I hope you agree. I’m still going to try and write a good post, but I can’t promise anything.

So Sunday started quite lazily. Saturday was full of excitement and adventure. Sunday was going to be a nice lazy day. We had planned to have a Sunday lunch all together, but that wasn’t going to happen until around 14:00. I was awake by about 8:00. I’m very happy that I seem to have gotten my body clock almost normal again. So I had a long wait before I made my way to Sunday lunch. I did a little work during the morning, but I wasn’t able to concentrate too much on it. I listened to some radio and enjoyed a lazy morning.

Around 13:30 I made my way to have Sunday lunch. It was going to be the usual suspects there, plus someone I hadn’t met yet. I got there and enjoyed playing with a science museum bubble helicopter that Z had bought. It’s a fun little gadget. Anyway, we had a very nice time chatting and being silly. We then sat around for our Sunday lunch.

The food was glorious. It was roast beef, red cabbage, roast potatoes, roast parsnips, roast carrots, roast fennel, Brussels sprouts, mushrooms, and onion gravy. Everything was absolutely delicious. We ate and ate and then ate some more. Drink was flowing liberally as well, so by the end of the meal, we were all very happily satiated and a little drowsy. I knew that I wasn’t going to eat again that day.

We had planned to go to the cinema later to watch the new Harry Potter film. However, after going back home I couldn’t bring myself to go out again. I was tired and feeling lazy. I also needed to do some work, so I decided to stay home instead. I just couldn’t face sitting in a darkened room that’s not in my own home.

So my day ended lazily, just like its beginning. It was a lovely Sunday. I felt good and happy. I went to sleep on the early side and was hoping to wake up early on Monday and go to uni to work all day. That wasn’t going to happen, but I didn’t know that at the time. What started as a very nice sleep was soon to be disturbed with my body being a real arsehole to me, but that’s for tomorrow.

Teaching and Nice Conversations

So I was supposed to wake up early and go to uni today. However, I ended up turning off my alarm in the morning, I slept quite late, and woke up properly around 10 or 11. I stayed home until it was time for me to go to class. So I left around 13:20 and made my way to uni.

My first class was excellent. The kids had clearly read the text and were very eager to discuss it. I had a lot of fun fun with them and came up with a few funny jokes. It’s nice to have such a smart and talkative group. We made a lot of progress and were able to do a lot of deep analysis. It was a good start for my teaching day.

The second section was a lot quieter. In fact I asked them a question very early on and no one answered. It was a very straight forward question that would be easy to answer for anyone who’s read the first few pages of the book we’re studying. I know that most of them did the reading, yet they weren’t answering. I decided to pull my trick of waiting in silence until someone answered. It’s a cruel trick, but it works. It tells them that I don’t mind staying silent until I get something out of them. Also, I have showed them time and time again that I do not dismiss their answers even if they’re not that accurate. So they shouldn’t be afraid to answer. So I waited for about five minutes just looking at them in silence until one of them answered. It felt like ten minutes, but as a friend noted later, it probably felt longer to them. That person answered the question well and the class went okay. I had to talk a lot more than what I was planning to, but I got them to engage a little bit.

The final section was a lot better. They didn’t talk as much as the first section, but were still quite engaged. We had a few nice points made and I enjoyed not talking as much as I had to in the previous section. This last section is quite late in the day and everyone, including me, is very tired by the time it starts. I don’t blame them for not being that energetic. I have to make up for it though by being quite enthusiastic.

It turns out that my enthusiasm while I teach is the major reason for the students enjoying my classes. I, it seems, am very enthusiastic and contagious in my enthusiasm. I don’t do it on purpose but it seems that my students enjoy it a lot. I don’t know how else to do it. It seems to be working so I’m not going to change my style.

After classes we went out to dinner at a Thai restaurant and had a lot of fun. The tiny bathroom did not have a working light in it though. This made the simple act of peeing and washing one’s hands a very difficult affair, that’s right I wash my hands when I pee. I am clean. We had a nice conversation on the extraordinary power of game reviewers and their biasses. I have realised that a lot of the leading reviewing sites like a specific kind of genre, or at least a small number of genres. They dislike JRPGs and always give them low marks. Also, they dislike the stuff that a JRPG fan likes, which is strange to me. Why ask someone who doesn’t like a genre to review  product in that genre? You wouldn’t ask a movie reviewer who likes art-house films to review the latest block buster. Yet somehow it seems okay to ask people who like first person shooters to review JRPGs.

Anyway, that’s a rant for another time. I am feeling tired and I’m actually looking forward to laying in bed and catching up on the programs I missed tonight. So I bid you all good night and hope this post begins to make up for the poor quality of posts of the last couple of days.

Slow Day, Tennis, and God of War 3

So I had a very slow day. I woke up naturally with the sun rising up. And by naturally, I don’t mean it is natural for me to wake up with the sun, but that I woke up without any external stimuli. I thought fuck that I’m not getting out of bed this early, it’s Sunday for fuck’s sake. I actually said those words… out loud… to the universe… from my bed. Then I stayed in bed in a half sleep state until about 10:30 when the pain in my bladder forced me to get out of bed. I had a slow lazy morning and then went to tennis.

It was the first time I’ve been in three weeks. Actually I missed three sessions, so it was the first time in four weeks. I was a little rusty at first but by the end I was getting all my serves in and was having a lot of fun playing. I am looking forward to playing more tennis. I hope my health doesn’t get in the way, as it’s been for the past month. It was fun to move around and do something that requires physical energy expenditure. After tennis I went back home to see that while I enjoyed playing tennis my intestines didn’t. So I ended up staying home even though I had plans to see friends. I stayed home and did what I had to do, I played God of War 3. And I am ashamed to say, not really I’m very proud of it, I finished my first playthrough.

What follows is what I hope to be a spoiler free review of the game. I know some of the readers of this blog don’t know the story and haven’t played the first two (I’m talking about the ones who care not the ones who don’t. You know who you are!). So in an effort to not spoil their soon to come enjoyment of the series I will try not to spoil anything.

The first God of War came to the PS2 a few years ago (it’s this kind of accurate and thorough reporting that will no doubt get me a job as a newspaper editor). It took the world of gaming by storm. It is an action RPG that delivers on every level. It was epic and grandiose. The sets, the music, the story, everything set the game to be a classic. It was one of the first games, at least the first I’ve seen, to incorporate quick time events in the gameplay. In fact, almost everything was done by the player. Opening doors involved pressing buttons and doing things, rather than just pressing a button and watching the character do everything. It was very effective in immersing you in the game.

The gameplay in general was great. The combat was ruthless and, while it was possible to go a long way with button mashing, one had to master the combos and think about what button to press in order to win the game. The battles are huge and epic. The character Kratos is a great character. All in all, it was one of the best games ever made.

The thing is though, it was supposed to be the only god of war game. But sony felt they could make tons more money and so made a second one. Now the second one is a fantastic game as well. But it lacks the genius of the first one. It felt a little bit laboured, especially with the story. While the first one comes to a natural and fitting end, the second one, while having a great story, does seem to try too hard. But anyway, this is only a minor complaint. The second one was in many ways even more pretty than the first one. Also, it involved very minor changes to the gameplay, which was a good surprise. Sequels in games sometimes are ruined by designers breaking a system that works very well by introducing new gameplay mechanics.

Anyway, the third one starts where the second one ends. Literally, it begins at the moment the second one ends. And it is epic from the first second. Everything is beautiful, grand, and just eye popping smack you round the face pretty. Also, like all God of War games, it starts with an epic battle. That’s a trademark of the series. But this one, unlike the previous two, has so many of these epic battles in that it is dizzying at points. Clearly the fact that this game is on the PS3 shows. It has used the machine’s, if not full then damn near-full potential. I mean the other two games, being on the PS2, could not support so much stuff happening.

The bosses are wonderful and the puzzles are just, for lack of a better word, epic. I have to say some of the puzzles were proper crazy. They involve brain power, and crazy platforming, and some quick thinking. The final battle is everything you want it to be. The game ends in an expected way, though still satisfying. There is however, one loose end that I don’t understand properly. I hate to admit it, but I think they left it in in order to give themselves the possibility of making another one. The last scene of the game seems to indicate as much. I mean I’d be very happy to play another God of War, but I’m sick of this trend in games. Why can’t a game just end? Why do we always have to have an open ended ending.

Anyway, apart from that minor complaint, the game was fantastic. I highly recommend it. Although it is incredibly gory. The God of War series has always been gory, but this one takes it to new levels. Some of the finishing moves of the bosses are very hard to watch. In the end this game is my second favourite of the series. The first one still reigns supreme. Not for its graphics or anything like that, but because it was so original and its story was so well told.

Lazy Sunday

So this Sunday was more or less alright. I had a very nice Sunday lunch with my friends at a pub. We had a nice time and nice food. I like my friends. Anyway, I had fun but also kept thinking about work all the time. You see the problem is I’m really very late on my writing. I know I keep moaning about it but I kind of need to, and you choose to read my ramblings so don’t complain. I know you don’t but I’m pre-empting it. Oh and no talking to virtual people is not like talking to the voices in my head. I am not mentally ill.

So anyway, I keep being filled with dread about this whole situation. I need to read an awful lot of books and articles, I have to write an awful lot, and I have to find the time to do other stuff. I did a little bit of work when I got back home from lunch. It was good but not good enough. I really need to work out a better way to do these things. I’m glad I’ve got friends that care and are ready to listen to me feel sorry for myself, which is a definite plus. The worst bit is that I know I can do it, but I just feel like I’ve waited way too long to actually figure it out. I really just want to be done with it.

I’ve also started re-watching a series I really like today. It’s called Being Human. It’s on BBC3, but is still good. I know it’s shocking. I mean when you see the kind of crap that this channel produces, you can’t help but be surprised by the few excellent programs it does as well. Mongrels was such a wonderful exception. But anyway, I watched the first season of Being Human when it first came out. But I missed the second season. I am now catching up on it. The thing is the first season was really good. It also felt a little bit strange watching this when no one knew about it. It was like my little secret. Well mine and the few hundred thousand people who’ve seen it.

The basic plot of the series sounds ridiculous and childish, but somehow ends up being incredibly thoughtful and interesting. Basically there’s a ghost, a werewolf, and a vampire who live together in a house. They all are having trouble with their supernatural, and evil for at least two of them, identities. The series basically follows their lives as they come to terms with who they are and their place in the world. It is about their struggle to remain human even though they have become something else, hence the title. Put like this it sounds properly idiotic. But it somehow pulls it off and ends up being a very engaging and powerful work on identity, choice, and difference. Also, it’s set in Bristol, which is cool.

So as I was saying the first season was really good. But the second season is even better. The characters are having to deal with a host of new issues and dangers. There seems to be a sort of religious sect who is hunting them as well. I mean the whole thing is really well done. The characters are tortured and complex. The writing is witty and bold in certain places. The performances are generally very good. I mean there is little bad to say about it. I really enjoy it. So watch it everyone and tell me what you think. Oh also there is a little bit of nudity and some gore. Nothing compared to other recent series, I’m thinking of Rome, Spartacus, the Tudors, Diary of a Call Girl, etc, but some none the less. I just thought you might want to know.

Anyway, that’s about it from me. I’m going to try to do a little bit of work now, before going to bed. I’m thinking of working at uni tomorrow. I need to wake up early for that. So anyway, that was my Sunday. It was mainly lazy and also filled with angst. I am going to try to be positive about this and think that this is when everything changes. I will start telling myself that from now on I will be a good little PhD student and do all the work I need to do. Hopefully that’ll fool my brain into thinking that all of that is true. It’s not of course but who knows it might be a self-fulfilling prophecy and I might just fool myself into thinking it’s true. I am not mentally ill.

Lazy, Lazy, Lazy

Today was the laziest day I’ve had in a very long time. You see I’ve done a lot of work this week, so I didn’t feel bad about taking today off. I actually wok up around 8:00, more or less, but then refused to get out of bed. I just hung out in bed watching some tv programs I missed on my computer, and generally being lazy. I finally got out of bed around 13:00 in order to have some food. I really wanted to go back to bed, not to sleep just to hang out there, but decided against it. I sat on the couch and did nothing instead.

I spent all day watching tv programs and listening to radio shows and podcasts. It was fabulous to be able to be so lazy and unproductive without feeling guilty. It’s true that I could have worked, but I decided not to. I have now caught up with all the shows I’ve missed last week. I am now going to check out a couple of new seasons of series I like, which I think started again last week. I hope they did, because I’m starting to miss them.

In the early evening, around 19:30 or 20:00, I got dressed and went to town to hang out with C. It was a lot fun seeing her, and it was nice to get out of the house a little bit. However, Nottingham town centre on a Saturday night is really not a very nice place to be. It’s scary and sad at the same time. All of the people drunk out of their minds on the prowl for a fight or a shag is a really sad sight to behold. It is really sad I think that people confuse looking sexy with showing as much skin as possible. I mean seriously there’s nothing sexy about a drunk woman wearing a skirt that shows her bum and a top that exposes all of her breasts. It’s sad more than anything.

I know I’m sounding a little bit reactionary when I write these things. Maybe I am a little bit, but I don’t find that sexy or attractive. I mean if I was desperate for sex, then I might be happy to try and get off with one of them, but I’m sceptical. I like strong, intelligent, and independent women. They turn me on. I like women who are not desperate for any attention and whose liberation is a real liberation, and not one that involves them objectifying themselves in order to get some gratification. I don’t know, I’m thinking out loud. Actually, come to think of it, I’m not thinking out loud, I’m thinking as I type.

Well that’s about it from me tonight. Time to go to sleep. Tennis tomorrow. I’m looking forward to a little bit of tennis, it’s been two weeks since my last lesson. Good night.

Tennis Lesson Mark 2.0

So I went to my second tennis lesson today. It is getting interesting now. We learned how to serve today. Well I say learned, we were told how to serve and then made a series of unsuccessful attempts at it. The point is I now need to do this about a hundred times so that I can get the ball to fall where it should. I did make some progress throughout the hour and found that when I don’t think about it too much, I’m able to get it right… more or less. But it’s okay, Rome wasn’t built in a day, although being able to serve in tennis should take significantly less time than that.

The only problem I’m having with the classes is that they seem to finish very quickly. They are an hour long each, which is an appropriate length of time for a lesson. I find though that they end quite abruptly and I’m left wanting. I’m sure that if they went on for longer I would be complaining about them being too long. I guess the fact that I feel time to be flying is a testament to how much fun I’m having. I can’t wait for next week’s lesson.

While we were there there was a tiny child on the court adjacent to ours. He looked like he was 7, but we later found out that he was actually 12. The child was amazing and made us all feel completely inadequate, or at least made me feel inadequate. He was hitting every ball with the confidence of someone his age who is not bothered with self doubt or the angst that comes with the years. I think children are able to learn these complicated skills much better than us because they do as they’re told and don’t really bother with embarrassment like us adults. Our teacher told us that he’s been playing since he was 5, which again explains his lack of self doubt, this was natural to him.

It seems that today was some kind of showcase event where the best children in the East Midlands were here showing off their skills. Our teacher told us to go watch if we want, but after my inability to serve for a hour, I though I’d rather not damage my already low self esteem, with regards to tennis, any further. I did however feel a little sad that I hadn’t discovered this when I was younger.

When I was very young I remember wanting to learn piano. We didn’t have one and so I couldn’t practice. A friend of the famillly was getting rid of their piano and I remember begging my parents to get it. It was old and needed some repairs, but nothing impossible. But my parents are lazy and subscribe to the dictum why do something today when you can fuck it up tomorrow? So we didn’t get it. And I had to wait until I was about 11 to get a Casio keyboard and start taking lessons. Of course a keyboard is not a piano and after 6 months, in which I did the equivalent of 2 & 1/2 years at the Algerian conservatory, I found that not having a proper analogue, as it were, instrument was impairing my learning so I stopped.

It wasn’t until I was 16 that I picked up a guitar and started learning on that instead. Don’t get me wrong, I love the guitar, and I’m very happy that I learned that, but I still feel a little bit sad that I never continued my piano lessons. Well if I ever live in a house I will buy a piano and start taking lessons again. This is one of my regrets and I shouldn’t let it be so.

Well this post was quite a journey. It started with my tennis lesson and ended up with me blaming my parents for not playing piano, I’m not crazy. I need to go back to work now, I have a couple of things to do before I sleep.

Maybe Sick, Maybe Not, and Some Moaning

So I’ve been working today. I haven’t been as productive as I’d like lately. Well when I say lately, I haven’t been productive for 7 or 8 months now and it’s starting to become problematic. I fear I need a change of scenery in order to reset my default behaviours. I feel that I have acquired a set of bad behaviours over that period and I’m having trouble shaking them off. The problem I think is very much that I am in the same space at all times, and that space has been associated with these bad behaviours. It’s like I’m stuck in a rut and can’t get out of it. I have been able to change a few things, including going to the gym and watching what I eat, but this doesn’t seem to have changed much. I am not giving up on them, it’s just that I seem to need more. That is why I need to get that new desk space in Uni soon.

It’s not like I’m not working, but I need to be producing a lot more. Because I’m going to need to go to conferences and get some things published. I am behind on my thesis and so need to use all the time I can to write. So I’m a bit stuck. I know that I should focus on small tasks and get them done, but the gravity of the situation is still weighing on me. I need to write between 1500 and 2000 words a day for a couple of months if I am to get somewhere soon. The thing is if I write about 1000 words a day I’ll be fine finishing my thesis on time, but I need more then just my thesis, that’s the problem. Anyway that’s my moaning done with, now to other business.

I was supposed to go and watch the football at A’s today but then at some point in the afternoon I felt really ill. I started coughing and sneezing and my head felt like it weight about a ton. My muscles were hurting and frankly I felt like shit. So I took medicine and cancelled with A. I had a small power nap of about 20 minutes, but that didn’t help. I took a hot shower hoping to clear my sinuses but that didn’t help either. I was getting sick. But then quite suddenly I felt better. I don’t know if the medicine acted a bit late but I felt better. So I wasted a bit of time online and realised that the football wasn’t on freeview so we couldn’t have watched it anyway.

However, I did start to feel worse again. It’s like I’m constantly on the edge of sickness. I need to be taking vitamins and stuff like that on a daily basis. Also, I’ve realised that whenever I eat properly for a while I start getting ill. I don’t know but it seems that healthy food is bad for me. Or that my body is addicted to bad food and so simulates sickness as a withdrawal symptom. I had when my body tries to outsmart me. A month after I quite smoking, for example, I started feeling so bloated and uncomfortable that I couldn’t just sit. It felt like if I had a cigarette then I would feel better. My body was trying to get me to smoke by making me bloated.

Now before all you crazy rationalists get on my case. I am aware that my body didn’t intend to do anything. I am not assigning intentionality to it or anthropomorphising it. All I’m saying is that withdrawal can appear in many guises, one of them is making me bloated. Another one seems to make me ill so that I don’t feel like cooking my healthy food. But I have come a long way and will not go back to junk food and an ever expanding figure. I have decided to lose my weight and get rid of my significant belly. I need to get rid of my excess weight before it causes proper damage to my health. If that means feeling like shit a coupe of times then I say bring it.

Well that’s pretty much it from me. I don’t really have much more to say. I am going to probably watch  Moon before I go to bed. It’s the first film I receive from lovefilm.com. I hope it’s as nice as everyone says. Although I fear that it has been so over hyped that I am bound to be disappointed. I am of course saying this in order to lower my expectations so that I don’t actually get disappointed. However, by saying that I have raised them again. So on and so forth through a self conscious infinite regress. bye then