hahahahaaaaaa

Was crying. No idea why. Haven't really stopped. Haven't really slept.

OK, so here's what I need to get sorted:

1. Finish my exams.

Tomorrow's exam is destined to be a failure because I haven't been able to revise because I haven't been able to concentrate. It sucks. I've got no hope of doing well in this exam, as it would take a miracle of memory for me to be able to recall anything other than roughly what happens in two out of the eight books I have studied. I'm not looking forward to it, I just want it to go away so I can be in peace. That's all I want, seriously. I just want them to fuck off. This semester has been so awful in every single way. Nothing has gone the way I wanted it to, and everything has gone against that which I wanted. I've had some good marks so far - but I've just stopped caring. People put all this great emphasis on fucking university, but then forget that you're meant to have fun as well. I haven't had fun in what feels like weeks. I've had some good nights, but that's mainly down to the fact I've gotten so plastered on those nights that I've forgotten everything else which is annoying me. So I need to get this cunt of an exam out of the way so I can go home and see my friends (hopefully) and just see something normal again. Just 6 days not having to worry about doing an essay, or prepping for an exam, or staying up half the night revising, or sitting in my room not having anything to do because I can't focus but all my friends can. That's what is making this even worse. With the exception of one of my housemates, everyone has their noses to the grindstone and are working their little socks off. This is making me feel quite guilty. Not guilty enough to do anything about it, evidently, as I am about to go back to bed and watch a film. Not sure whether or not I want to burn my bed or attack it with an axe. It's comfortable, but reminds me of the fact I never sleep anymore. Once I get my exam out of the way and go home then I can go back to my bed. Then again, what with some things I'm not sure I'm going to want to sleep in that one either. But at least I'll be able to have a bath, that'll be great. I might go back to work as well for a few days. I miss the shop. How sad is that? Quite sad. Yeah. There's all these things that I want to do, but they all hinge on tomorrow afternoon arriving quicker than it is already. Oh. Look at the time. It's officially 24-hours until I will be free. That should give me a feeling of goodness, but it... doesn't. Also... goodness? Yeah I'm gonna fail.

2. Go home.

I'm not sure what it is about university, but there's so little to do during the days when you don't have lectures that time crawls by agonisingly slowly. As I mentioned above everyone is busy cramming, or has already finished and gone home. The only people I want to talk to are so "blah blah" that I feel bad for intruding, especially given that I should be too busy revising. Here's hoping that when I go home I can just forget all this shit; spend the days reading and the nights with my friends. Might even see my mum. Who is ill, and has developed further arthritis. I'm not sure that she's going to be OK this time... I mean, she should be, but that's a bad sign. She's had it almost her whole life, but it's getting much worse at the moment. Her blood pressure was 176/96 the other day - which is criminally frightening. That's above heart-attack level. The problem is that if I go home, when I see her, I'm going to feel obliged to look after her - and I know that I don't have the mental stability to care for her and myself. Obviously she comes first, but that's going to put me in a worse mental-frame when I come back to start semester two. Also, there's not really a lot that my home has to offer in terms of cheerfulness. I don't have any hugely good memories of that house, in fact I hate that house. I wish we could have moved. I wish my mum had sold it and moved to London. Then I'd live in London. Which I hate. But I'd prefer the house. Maybe I should just move into my dad's empty house. Then again, I'd probably end up killing myself because I'd be alone all the time, not just most of it. So we've a double-edged sword here: home offers some kind of cut-off from the hatred I have towards university at the moment, but it also reminds me of a bunch of things I don't want to remember. Stuff I don't think I'll go into because I don't want to remember them particularly. Then again, I already can because that's where this took me.

3. Sleep.

This is the most important one of the three. I have to sleep. It's getting to a dangerous point. I've only gone this long without proper sleep once before, and that was last year. I don't remember a lot about the last time, but I do recall collapsing at one point, and shaking quite a lot. That was just before they proscribed me the first round of sleep-meds, which worked. Now they won't give me anymore because of the fear of addiction. Unfortunately, I'd take addiction to heroin if it would mean I could pass out and just... sleep. For hours. Not minutes. I've been averaging one to three hours a night for the past... 8 or so days or something. I just lie there for hours on end until all I can think about is how tired I am. If you've been following my recent updates you will see that it has lead me to be an incredibly awful person. That's what I hate most about this: it makes me into someone I don't like. I'm clingy, dependant, lonely, and snappish. Loads of 'qualities' which I'd rather not be associated with. I'm never usually clingy, but I just want someone to hug me and tell me everything's going to be ok. Haha. That's so fucking lame. I'm becoming dependant because when I'm around people I forget all of these fucking stupid bits of shit that are fucking pissing me off. I'm lonely because I feel cunting lonely. I'm snappish because I have no patience whatsoever. This isn't meant to be how I feel or how I act. I'm meant to be liberal, and dependable, and gregarious, and patient. Those are the things I like to be, and they make me happy - and I've been trying to force myself into those roles, but I'm really struggling. Especially with the 'rest your head on my shoulder' ones. All I see when I do that is people whining about their boyfriends, or their girlfriends, and it just makes me want to punch people in the head. Repeatedly. I like to be supportive of people, but because of the whole sleep-addled brain I can't think anything other than "at least you've fucking got someone you selfish prick." It's only writing it down now that I can see the hilarious irony of criticising other people for being selfish. That's exactly what I'm doing. My failings mean that I can't do anything for other people, which makes me selfish, and a shit friend to boot. Nothing anyone can say can fix my ruined brain, but things I can say or do could help these people. But no. Too fucking tired. Too blah blah blah. God. This lack of sleep is completely ruining my giving up smoking, too - along with everything else that's going wrong at the moment. I am meant to be down to 7 a day this week (6 from tomorrow), and I'm still hovering around the 10-12 mark. Yeah, that's much better than 20 a day, everyday; but it also means that the preceding 4 weeks have been completely pointless. I tried really hard when I felt good to just... cut out as many as possible. Since then... yeah, not so much. The main bulk of my smoking, however, seems to be once I've gone to bed. I know that nicotine stimulates the brain, but I also know that not smoking will stimulate my brain with rage. It's a lose-lose coin-toss, unfortunately: I either lie there raging, or I lie there stimulated. Neither of those is conducive to sleep - so I choose the one that makes me feel better for five-minutes.

4. Give up smoking.

It's feeble. My attempts have been absolutely woeful. It's embarrassing. There's so many things that are harder than this that I can do, but this just seems like an impassable mountain - and I'm equipped only with one snow-shoe. I've got nothing. I need to go to that smoke-cessation clinic and talk to some professionals. If my mental-state was slightly less fragile then perhaps I wouldn't be doing such a laughable job, but because I'm being such a self-pitying fucktard I feel ok with blaming the smoking on the problems. The fact of the matter is that there's no one to blame other than myself, and that slays me. That reality that I can palm this off on loads of other things, but that when I actually think about it I realise it's my fault entirely - that reality is horrid. I hate failing. I hate failing myself almost as much as I hate failing other people. Unfortunately, even with the foresight to acknowledge that I'm a fucking idiot, it is still proving to be incredibly difficult. Here, at least, it seems that knowledge is not the solution. For me that thus proves irritating and futile. Because I know what the problem is - me - but have a scapegoat - everything else - I'm going to wait until the scapegoat is no longer around (he'll probably have escaped) and then I shall be able to go forward with the 'quit or die' programme. I definitely think I need some better incentives, however, because the two that I was banking on have kind of been proved too fallible. One was a possibility, and that seems farther away every day, and the other was health concerns: alas, I realised that I genuinely couldn't give a crap what happens to the inside of my lungs. I've never cared about the money side, because I've always had more money that I deserve, and I've never cared about the effects on other people - because I think people are too selfish to realise that they're as damaging to themselves as I am to them. Obviously, if my housemates literally couldn't live with me because of the smell I would give up, but I'm not going to stop smoking just because the ban is in place. I need something tangible and incentivizing. That's not a word but I don't care. I do want to give up, but only in the sense that when I have stopped smoking I'll be happy with my efforts, and a tiny bit proud of myself. The giving up, however, needs something behind it with a whip. I need like a fucking horse-team behind me lashing up a storm before I'm going to really get down to a level I should be at. I'm meant to be clear by March 22. I decided that date, however, a few weeks ago - before all of these things came crashing around. I think June is a more reasonable estimate. Either way: giving up makes me angry because... well, it's inherently irritating; and my failure to give up angers me further because it's so damn pathetic. We shall see how that goes.

5. Attack Valentine's Day with a gun.

There was a mild possibility that this year I wasn't going to have to spend this day alone. Unfortunately, due to unforeseen circumstances - including multiple and repeated failures on my part - this date is a tad optimistic. To just give a vague update on my love life, and to perhaps explain some of the more laconic and cryptic posts you've been reading recently: guy I like, reciprocated, some stuff has happened in his life, I handled it atrociously, hiatus. Basically. I've managed the situation like a small boy just given his first bike. I can't wait to rip those fucking stabilisers off and zoom off up the road without a care for what my actions are doing to my parents. They're probably watching and waiting for me to fall underneath a car as I slip on a patch of mud that I'm unable to deal with. I should have left the cunting stabilisers on; taken things gently, and let the wise old man place his hand gently on the base of my spine, to push me along up the gentle incline. Alas, hindsight is a wonderful thing, and to get lost in my awful metaphor would be a great piece of escapism - it does not achieve anything, though, so I am going to leave my conceit behind. The reason I'm speaking in riddles, incidentally, is because if I spell out how I fucked up then I'll realise how shit I am at this whole courting thing. I mean, I've never been good: tact was never my forte, nor was patience - however, in a normal situation I think people take these qualities to be kind of endearing in a childish way. Bugger for me if I didn't realise that life calls for adapting. I made it about me, which was the dumbest thing anyone could ever do. Had I a time-machine I would go back and do pretty much everything differently. There is no point in resting on the past, however, so I guess I should just work on being less moronic in future. Should have been a darn chameleon. That's a hard word to spell. There is still some hope, but I'm not to rest too long on that because this is in its infancy. I will keep you mysteriously updated with non-committal rhetoric. As Eliot says, "signs are small, measurable things but interpretations are illimitable". She may not write the most interesting of novels, but you cannot deny that she's a smart one. So yeah, in the meantime, I shall be shooting Cupid in the throat. Might make me smile. Holiday of red etc..

5. Write more on here.

Not sure what it is, but I find writing here incredibly therapeutic. I'm aware that the reality is much less pleasant than the ideal I have in my mind: all this is is a post-adolescent bucket of weeping performed to an audience of leering 65-year-old men who fuck themselves on the angst of others. Keeping a public diary is a terrible idea. That's why when I've sorted my face out (sorry, head) I'm going to go back and purge those melancholic ramblings, and transfer them to a personal diary. Had I the wherewithal I would go out and buy one, but I don't want to, so that will have to wait. Now, at least, I have kept some anonymity and the fact that I'm a feeble 20-something-year-old shouldn't actually matter. I like writing on here. I was reading my first lot of updates, however, and they were much more interesting. These have become like... life-updates. Before they were just grumbles about how much I hate everything. That's a shame, because I do hate everything, and I think it's an injustice to leave so many things free of my vitriol. I will have to get back into that frame of mind where I can rant and rave for hours on end. That's also another reason I enjoy writing this. Even though some of my vents aren't particularly long, they still kill a good portion of the day. This, for instance, has taken about 45-minutes. Which seems like a long time given that I've only said a heap of nothing. I'm going to take a smoke-break. I finally remembered to put my glasses on. I knew there was a reason I was getting a headache. Stupid hangover, sleep-deprived brain. Yes, so I want to get back to writing more on here, and updates with actual substance, not just mindless drivel spouted for catharsis. Catharsis is great, don't get me wrong, it's my favourite sis, but it's also about as useful as punching myself over and over again in the temple. Brilliant whilst it lasts, but ultimately pointless.

6. Get some perspective.

I definitely need to get some perspective. Nothing that I have to deal with at the moment is as bad as things I have dealt with previously. Not sure why they're affecting me quite so much, to be honest, I guess it must just be because I'm so tired all the time. I've dealt with much larger self-failings before: when I cheated, when people I know died, when I failed exams, blah blah blah. Loads of things have happened which are a bajillion times worse than this, but I guess you never really get that sense when you're in the middle of the worst days ever. Lawl. I'm going to be incredibly tired by tomorrow, but that's just something I can get over. This is what I'm struggling to understand. Even though my sleep is appalling, it's not as bad as it was last year: then I was going days at a time without ever falling asleep. I was nodding off in lectures, and falling asleep on buses. Pretty sure those like... micro-sleeps (even though they weren't technically) were the only things keeping me going. Until I found caffeine, that is. I know that my doctor's viewpoint makes significantly more sense: "it's the caffeine that's keeping you awake", but that fails to explain why I was awake in the first place. I challenged her to go two days without sleeping and then function normally within society, without help. I think she thought I was being facetious. I wasn't. I know that coffee hinders my going to sleep, but it's also the only thing that keeps me running during the days that I have to be awake. I can't just take weeks off until I'm sleeping properly. That would ruin any hope of well... most things. I also can't just keep taking one more sleeping pill than the previous night - in the hope that the more I take, the more chance there is of them working. I can't keep doing that, because I'm already well above the proscribed dosage, and I really don't want to fall into a coma that I don't wake up from. I'm not suicidal, honestly. Suicide is kind of pointless because I'm well aware that things will get better in the future; but due to my human-programming I need to stay like this for as long as I can, so I can gain as much ego-stroking as is possible. That's all it is. We are fundamentally flawed: craving attention even when we see the issue for what it really is. I'm undermined by my own incompetence. Sigh. *Self-sympathy*. That just sounds like a really childish - and thus disturbing - metaphor for masturbation. Perhaps masturbation is the key. Maybe I can wank myself into an orgasm-induced coma. That'd be an alright cure for insomnia. I could live with that. In a weird sort of way. In a painful sort of way. So yeah. I need to get perspective. That starts as of Monday afternoon when I get my train home. I like trains. In a sadomasochistic way: I fucking hate them, but I also enjoy hating them because it fuels my angst. Which is great. Also, one thing about Brandon Sanderson's writing of the antepenultimate Wheel of Time book: he varies between capitalising after a colon, and then not capitalising. I find this incredibly infuriating. I'm not sure if it's an American thing to capitalise, like this: You see? or whether it's just an individual style thing. I used to do it myself. I do know, however, that whichever you choose you should stick to it. Like the whole 'comma before and' thing. I know Americans love the whole third-comma, because so do I. I understand that. I don't apply it consistently, but then I don't ask people to pay for my work.

---------

There's my list, then, and it's going to be easy I am sure. I quite missing living in halls of residence. There was that whole collegial atmosphere which living in private accommodation just can't replicate. It was a complete illusion of camaraderie, but it was soothing even if its manifest qualities were noise and irritation. Living with 700 fewer people means 700 fewer opportunities for interaction. My housemates, especially, have their own lives: two have long-term boyfriends that take up most of their time; one isn't from our friendship group and is a bit of an outsider and thus has his own friends; and the other is incredibly introverted and closed-off. We've yet to have a meaningful conversation - in 15 months. That doesn't bother me, because I like her a lot. I like them all. It just... yeah, I mean, that's fairly superficial however you look at it. That's why I miss halls, I guess. Incidentally, if you don't know what they are, they're just where most of the first-year university students live. Huge blocks of flats (apartments) divided up into smaller bits where you live. Communal living, basically. I miss it because even though it was superficial and shallow, there was always an opportunity for interacting with someone you'd never met before. Yeah I hated most of the people and never wanted to see them again in my life, but at least the chance to realise this was there. Now it's like you have to throw your lot in with what you have from the previous year. That's fine: I've got some great friends, but it also makes it much harder to branch out and speak with people you don't normally associate with. I know I have this whole "haha I hate people" thing, and that's not a lie, but that doesn't mean that I don't want to meet new people. I don't dislike everyone - otherwise I wouldn't like any of my friends, etc.. So yeah, I miss the whole socialising thing where you could always find someone new to force into a conversation. God I hated it, though. It was truly one of the worst years of my life. I loathed almost every minute of it. It gave me insomnia, for God's sake. But it was... easy. It meant that I didn't have to focus on maintaining relationships, because the close proximity of said relationships negated the need for effort. Not that I'm saying I begrudge having to keep up with friendships, but everything is much easier when geography prevents necessity: the fact you were all there just meant you know you were all friends. It was either that or kill everyone, and that's not really a choice for most people. They were shallow days, but they were nice days too. I have perhaps the most manic-depressive viewpoint of halls. Ever. In the whole world. WHOLE WORLD.

I also miss the sun. It feels like it has been a long time since we've seen him. He's not come out of hiding in a long, long while. This winter is becoming increasingly depressing. I know it's winter - and thus I appreciate that I shouldn't be expecting unseasonable tropical heat-waves; but I also don't remember a winter that was this stolid. Every single day is overcast and cloudy. It never breaks for rain, and since it snowed a few weeks ago, it has just been a blanket of grey. The only change is in the shade of grey - and to be honest, charting chrome-shift isn't exactly what you want to do when deciding what you need to wear out for the day. Monochrome is a fun setting on a digital camera, or GIMP, but it's not a fun setting on 'the weather'. Which is definitely a concept which you can speak of like that. Yeah, I miss the sun a lot. I don't even like the warmth, really, it messes with my sleep even more, and it also makes me sweat constantly - but at least when you look out the window and see that opalescent glow surrounding your garden, casting a shadowed halo on the bench; at least when you see that your spirits are uplifted. Admittedly, it's not that comfortable to be sitting at your window completely naked praying for a breeze; but it's better than sitting at your window shaking uncontrollably from the cold and wishing, just wishing, that the sky would stop looking so vastly depressing. Even nature is more enjoyable in the summer months. I have hayfever, and I can say that. Across the garden, and over the decaying fence, winding around the child's ephemera, and between the spoils of the adults - in my neighbour's garden, you can see that they've hung some washing up. I have absolutely no idea why, because it's about 3'C outside, and cold wind is unlikely to dry something. At least there's no chance of rain. There's never going to be a chance of precipitation again, I swear. We were predicted a wet and mild winter: so far we have had weeks of snow, and then weeks of bone-dry depression. According to the forecast for this week, it is sunny at the moment, but soon it will rain. I can promise you that it is not sunny at the moment.

Here is the sky.

See. It's really not sunny at the moment. That picture doesn't even begin to do it justice. That looks significantly more blue than the world does. Maybe I should start looking through my camera everywhere I go: it seems as though it casts an optimist's view across the planet. That'd be awesome if inanimate objects suddenly imbibed human characteristics. Not like robots. But like... depressed toasters and stuff. Ha. I should totally write a screenplay on that. Not sure where I'd go with the story, but it would be hilarious for me to watch an espresso machine weep openly, or a car suddenly break into song, or a chair start tap-dancing, or a window that won't open because it's angry. Wow. That's the greatest idea anyone has ever had - and it's copyright of me! No stealies. Honest I will chase you down. In hindsight, I think that's actually the worst idea anyone has ever had, and you're welcome to it. If it does well at the box office, however, I will come back and edit this and then sue you for copyright infringement. I am learned at defamation law, so bring it on: I will be all over the legal-slandering of your company until you go bankrupt because everyone will refuse to see a film made by a philandering, whore-mongering, child-raping wife-beater. Admittedly I couldn't say any of those things unless I had incredible substantiating evidence, or if everyone already hated you, but it's fun to imagine a time when I would need to call someone that. I might just call someone that in my exam tomorrow, just to see the reaction. Even better, I could call Will Ladislaw something like that: "the licentious, philandering, marriage-ruining..." - granted that's basically just a sentence demonstrating how to fall into a tautological trap (there's a mouthful), but it would be fun regardless. Or irregardless as one of my friends said. I refused to believe it was a word, so I googled it - hilariously it came up with "Adj. irregular". I thought that was hilarious. I told him that it was "iriregular". He didn't seem to find that funny, but I did, so that's all that matters.

OK, I've been rambling for way too long now. No one is going to be paying attention anymore. Hell, I'm not even paying attention anymore. I'm just riffing with the air, which is nice, and because I'm just that obstreperous, I'm tempted to keep writing and pretend there's something interesting at the end. There's not.

Falafel.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.

So instead of doing any revision I've just sat here all day and read my book. Oh, and I took time out to be a fucking retard as well. As was expected of me, recently. Christ knows what's wrong with me. I need to take time out, or something, and I need to sleep. Badly. I'm struggling to do anything at the moment, because I'm just so tired. And it's so frustrating because when I do try things and I try to be nice, or helpful, I still fuck anyway because my body is so exhausted it can't figure out what it should be doing and why. Fucking irritating, I tell you. I need to sleep. A lot. For days. I wish I could sleep for days. I'm going to go home on Monday and sleep for a week. Except I should probably go back to work. This sucks, I swear. It's meant to be Bookfest in like a fortnight, and I'm meant to be doing some press liaising for some lady from Oxfam, except I haven't been able to get in contact with her. I guess that's another job for when I go home. Great. Get that sorted. Screw sleep. I'll just keep running until I give out, I guess. Not much else to do about it :).

Oops.

Probably took too many.

Today...

... is a marginally better day. Marginally. Been out. Out tonight. Going to drink myself into a stupor. Stupor is a nice mental-state, I feel. Then I might sleep. Maybe. Probably not, though. I'll just. Hmm. Not sure. I'll come up with something. Then all I have to do is fix my life. Excellent.

Now or never...

... it's time to take the plunge.

Steel yourself, Jack.

"I swear to God I won't stop until your shaking. And let me slide into you, please, baby."

Arg. So I'm sitting here, not achieving anything with my day. This is so pointless. I've got another three days and a bit of just sitting here listlessly doing fuck all and being angry with myself for that - and a whole multiplicity of other reasons. I'm developing a kind of angry schizophrenia, I swear: socially incapable, dominating, needy, pathetic, weak, enfeebled. It's really start to get on my nerves, and it's affecting my ability to... function on an everyday playing field. I'm finding it really hard to concentrate on anything for more than about five minutes, I'm getting bored by things which previously wouldn't have bored me, I'm missing people I shouldn't be missing, I'm feeling lonely even though I'm surrounded by people, I'm feeling useless because so many of my friends are in spirals and I can't do anything to help, my mum's blood pressure is 176/96, my dad has been ill for months, my friend's dad just got diagnosed with a malignant, inoperable brain tumour, my other friend is in a depressive state which it is impossible to help him out of, it's Valentine's day soon and I fucking hate Valentine's day, it's almost February and January has been shit, it's cold, I haven't properly slept in over a week, I'm tired, angry, and always thirsty. I'm smoking too much because any incentive to give up is slowly drifting away, I'm drinking more than I should because it seems to be the only thing which is making me feel... well, no, making me feel less than I do right now, I'm lying on my bed for hours at a time, in the dark, doing nothing - just sitting there tirelessly for hour after hour, I'm wearing hairspray for no reason whatsoever, I'm getting good news and not caring, I'm getting a house and not being excited, I'm almost finished with my exams and all I can think about is the fact that a week later it will be straight back into it, I'm dreading my week off because I'm not going to have anything to do and everyone's going to be busy with their boyfriend or girlfriend, and I'm just going to be sitting around on my elbows not doing anything because that's what seems to be going on right now. Earlier this week I went 2 1/2 days without eating, and that didn't bother me, I'm losing weight and that makes me more tired, I'm trying to do everything and not managing a single thing, I'm desperately trying to do some work but my diet, sleep, mood, mental state is ruining any possibility of completing even the simplest of revision tasks that I set myself. In short I'm falling apart, and I need a break, but I don't want a break because it'll just be me - alone - for a week, not doing anything, not seeing anyone because their timetables are so different to mine and they're all still at university and I'm just sitting at home twiddling my thumbs. Music is boring me, and TV has always bored me, my games aren't entertaining and the world looks bleak. It has just been grey cloud since it stopped snowing, I can't honestly remember the last time I saw some proper sun: just cloud and then rain, then white cloud, then rain, then grey cloud, then rain, then just grey cloud. It's just a chrome sky non-stop, each and every day. Perhaps I've got S.A.D. or something. Someone thinks I'm depressed, but I don't agree because when you have depression you don't want to talk about anything, and it's not that you don't eat but it's that you don't have an appetite; I've always got an appetite, it's just that the thought of food is making me nauseous. I'm on new medication for my insomnia and when I do fall asleep it gives me horrible dreams which I can't wake up from, they're almost lucid, but the alternative is just that I go three days without sleeping at all and then every waking moment is a living-nightmare and time gets blurred and I've got no idea where I am, what I'm suppose to be doing, and why I should be doing it. I guess nightmares are better than that? I really just wish there was someone here to hug me to sleep, and hold my hand, and let me know everything was going to be ok - because I'm really trying to be everyone's support, and everyone's shoulder, but once you get into that position it's kinda impossible to get out of it, and no one realises that you need a shoulder to lean on sometimes. It's just been 15 straight months of support-networking, and now when I have a couple of down weeks everyone just assumes I'm trying out a new form of misanthropy. No one really realises I haven't been happy in weeks, not really in months apart from briefly over Christmas. It's just been a difference between utterly devastated and at peace with my self-loathing. I think that's what it boils down to. That I just don't like who I am, or how I act, or how I speak, or what I say, or how I look, or how what I do effects other people. I wrote a letter to myself and ended up so angry with it that I tore it up and threw it in my memory box. Hopefully one day it might remind me why I'm such an intolerable douche. I also wrote another letter but I don't think I'm going to send this one because I don't think it would do anything to salvage the situation. I'm hating the world right now, I'm hating what it has done to people I care for, and even for people I don't know. Day after day it just seems to get more and more bleak until you can't separate the fantasy from the reality, or the real from the fictional; everything is just one mass of congealing agony and torment, and nothing anyone can do can stop it. Whilst thousands die, Apple releases their new product and the world goes on, and there's nothing that can be done. There's nothing that should be done. I'm just melancholy, and it gives the world that horrible greyish hue that seems to suck the life out of you until you just want to sit quietly on a chair and rock yourself to sleep, except you can't because sleep would be a temporary respite from the crushing monotony. Everything just looks the same, feels the same, is the same; there's no fucking happiness here and it's horrible. I know that no one who this matters to is going to read this, but I just wanted to say to them that I'm trying my best and I'm giving it my all, it's just that my all isn't very good. I wanted to apologise for not being a better friend, a better lover, a better son, or a better person. I'm sorry.

So now it's three hours later or something and I still haven't moved. The farthest I have ventured is outside to smoke my 85th cigarette of the hour. It's fucking cold outside. I just did a mini-catwalk for myself, trying on a bunch of clothes - this was my attempt at cheering myself up. It went horrendously wrong because I tried to combine a brown jumper with grey slacks. It was so obscene parts of me actually died. Which felt a little better, to be honest. I'm meant to be doing something with the housemates in a few hours. Drinking. Or something. It was my idea. It's probably an atrocious idea, because drinking when you feel like crap makes you feel more crap than you did before you started; it also makes you do all the things you shouldn't do: like tell your mum you hate that she prioritises work before you, or telling your brother he's a self-centred, egomaniacal prick, or telling that you guy you miss him horribly and that you wish you could be there and fix things, or calling that person you hate just to tell them you hate them, or putting your hand through the wall, or breaking your things just because they're there and so are you. And yet, because I feel that whole macabre, self-pitying, self-sacrificing, self-hating thing I'm going to get really drunk and really upset and really angry, and it'll still be better than the alternative which is taking 3x more than the prescribed dosage of my pills and passing out in a coma just so I don't have to wake up until tomorrow evening where I'll be one step closer to February. No, I'll opt for the lucid stupor, please. Thanks. Great. Bill in the post. I'm not suicidal or anything. I'd just love cryogenesis or something brilliant like that. Something that would just knock me the fuck out until all of this shit passes. I can't even blame puberty or hormones or any of that crap. I'm like an old man now, this is just because I'm fucking angry and fucking upset. Or "angad" as one of my friends suggested ('angry' + 'sad'). I thought it sounded more like a LoTR character that never quite made the final draft, which should have made me laugh - but didn't. I can't even amuse myself at the moment, and that fucking sucks. Someone asked me the other day why I'm happy to tell jokes I know no-one will laugh at, and I said it's because I don't tell them for other people; I tell them so that I am amused. Jewish guy calls his mother, his mother answers, he says "How are you?", she says "Terrible. I haven't eaten in 38 days", he says "Why haven't you eaten in 38 days!?", she replies "I didn't want my mouth full in case you should call." Normally would have me creased up because it's so stupid. Or that excellent one from Studio 60: Guy goes into a doctor's office with a duck on his head, doctor says, "what's the problem?", duck replies, "I got a guy on my ass". Ha. But not so much. More just vacant, glistening apathy. Reminds me of that Family Guy parody of The New York Times: "I'd be more apathetic, if I weren't so lethargic." That always cracks me up too. Someone needs to make me laugh. I need to go out with a friend and watch them fall over and smack their head on a lamppost or something. That would entertain me, surely? But I don't want to go outside because if I go outside then it'll provide me a brief respite from this torturing rubbish, and that would be wanton stupidity for a brain starved for attention. Even if the only attention is from itself, at least it can keep itself in the spotlight. It's like I've been talking dopamine inhibitors or something; has someone been sneaking Percocet into my fucking drinks or what? There's got to be a reason I'm almost constantly feeling like a big sack of crap. I had such a good day yesterday, and then I went and pissed it up the wall just by waking up this morning and realising that the week was still going, and I was still exactly where I was the day before, and I hadn't fixed anything, and nothing had improved, and no-one had invented a miracle cure, and no-one suddenly realised that they didn't need to rely on me; and the people I want to rely on me realised that they did want to rely on me. The person. Not people. No, I woke up and it was dark, and wet, and like 4.35 in the morning. I'm so bored of counting the shitty, poorly-plastered dimples on my artex ceiling. We can all see that it was artex - stop trying to hide who you are. My ceiling is like a mirror of my soul, man. I swear to you. Speaking of which. There's this cunty restaurant near to where I live that's so pretentious it has a projection running against the ceiling, which you watch by staring into the tabled mirror which sits beneath; surrounded by chez-lounges or something. I don't fucking know. It looked like an elitist paradise for people with more money than sense; like a hedonists materialist-palace by the lake of Ocarina. Totally vacuous and devoid of meaning, but pleasing on your fucking eyes. I need to discover some new music. I've not found anything reasonably worth listening to this week, and that's pissing me off even further. I hate not finding new music because I have that fucking compulsion to find everything out about everything which entertains me for more than eight minutes. Perhaps that's why I consistently sabotage relationships. Maybe it's because it's such a fucking rarity to find someone who is actually engaging enough to keep me interested for more than 8 minutes that I cling to the belief that they're not going to to like me for who I am so I change who I am to suit their needs, and then they realise that I'm actually not that person, and that I'm actually incredibly insecure and pathetic and then they get their epiphany that perhaps I'm not that great. If I didn't become so attached so easily. Not that I'm saying I fall in love easily, far from it - I'm saying that when I find someone I like, as a person, I find it hard to detach reality and my ideals. I have this mental image of fucking candy-drop romance and dances in the moonlight, and meals out which cost more than the fucking lunar-lander, and candle-light drives, and walks on the beach at 3am in the rain, and kissing underneath a spotlight rhododendron, and a whole host of other impossible wishes. That's what I see in my head, and then I explore it further and further until my head just explodes from the stupidity of it - then I crash back to reality and realise that life gets in the way of making people happy, and that life does its best to crush each and every thing you could ever hope to try to make any of these things come true. Just so you know, I don't really imagine the majority of these stupid scenarios; they were just meant as an analogy. I think I'm running out of things to complain about, and you can discount the bulk of them as things I've made up just because I'm enjoying writing things down and I don't want to stop typing. To be fucking honest, I'll be really impressed if anyone other than me managed to get this far because I haven't put a paragraph in for the last like 2,000 words or something awful. It's just going to look like someone munched a dictionary and then spewed it up all over your screen. Not even a good dictionary. That's something else as well. My diction is degenerating. It's getting really amateurish. The thing I clung to has become this hazy kind of mist which I can't grasp when I go for it. I'm struggling with basic words, and even more basic concepts. Maybe that's my underlying problem. Though I sincerely doubt that. In fact, it's not. Why did I even say that? I have absolutely no idea why I said that. I think I need to do some journalism. I need to get out there and get amongst the people and talk to them and see what they're feeling about some stuff; I need some interaction with strangers; I want to dance anonymously, and play with no regrets, and speak like I've only got a day to live, and do things I've not done before, and go places I've never been, and talk to people I'd never normally talk to, and get a cat, and raise a child, and put the fucking heating on 'cause it's really shitting cold in this fucking house, oh yeah and I'd like to go and live in my new house with the girl who looks after me when I'm feeling like this - the one who the last time I crashed saved me from doing anything stupid. She's great. I seriously don't know what I'd do without her. Not that I'm dependant, or that it's a one-way street; we just have an adult relationship where we can rely upon each other at any time, for any thing, and there is mutual respect and adoration for the other person. I love her to pieces, and she's important. Very important. I wonder if she realises just how important she is. When I went for a walk with her the other week she spoke when I wanted her to, and she was silent when I wanted her to; she bought me a drink when I was thirsty, and made me eat. I know it sounds pathetic but I didn't ask her to do any of this, and she just kind of... knew. I'm not really sure how. She must be much better at reading people than I am, or perhaps I just have the most expressive face which fails to hide anything. It's probably that because people always seem to know what I'm thinking. I don't care to mince words, so why the fuck should I bother hiding my emotions? Especially if you just look angry when you're actually upset, that way no one bothers doing the whole trite sympathy rubbish which means nothing. Wow, I'm really quite enjoying this now. I just like... opened my Spotify and suddenly felt a bit better. For no reason whatsoever. Perhaps there's not really anything wrong and my brain just thinks there is. I think I have a hormonal imbalance, that would explain the fucking health problems and the mental fluctuations as well. If that were to be... say... fixed, then perhaps I wouldn't be acting like a cunting manic-depressant. Who feels happier just because they've clicked on something? Some kind of cunt. No, I'm sure this is fleeting. Awk, who knows. And don't be all like 'healthy mind', or 'tidy house', or 'Sheep among wolves' or any other kind of stupid phrase which doesn't make any sense. Reminds me of an Eddie Izzard sketch where he says "Let bygones be bygones... Wait. Why are they call bygones? Oh look, there's a thing that's just... well, oh, wait, I see, it's a thing that's gone by isn't it? Duh!" Haha. Man I miss my Eddie Izzard collector's edition boxset of DVD's. I should bring that back to UoP with me. It has been too long. I've only got a handful of things to watch with me here, and they're all things I've seen a hundred-million times. The only thing I think I can bear to watch this evening will be one of the Die Hard's because my mind can just wander off somewhere else, but my whatever-brain-zone-that-likes-shit-like-this will be kept appeased for a few hours. Then it's time to load up on suppressants and drift off into a hazy coma. That should be nice.

Good grief I'm depressingly obsessed with this song. Judge me if you want, but we all have guilty pleasures. Also, someone thank God for me for giving us Promethazine Hydrochloride. All I need now is some Oxycontin.

That is so...

... nice! Anyway. It's 7.20 am, which is quite awful, and I was thinking about something last night which I wanted to tell you about... but I've forgotten. Hmm. I had best phone Katie. She always knows what I was going to say. Then again, it's pretty early. Then again, I don't care.

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OK, so the other day I read a story. I'm not sure if this is true or not, but I've no reason to not believe the person telling me. It was possibly the sweetest thing I've ever read, and has inspired me to do something similar. Anyway, there is a man and he is married to a woman. The woman's parents are dead. Every time they go to visit her parent's graves, they walk through the graveyard which seems to be over-populated by the graves of children. Because they take more flowers than is necessary every time they he gets rid of the old flowers and lays new ones, and then gives the grave a wash and a clean. Not sweet enough? One visit he was bent down giving a gravestone a wipe, when a woman walks up and says, "Who are you?". He replies, "No one you know", before his wife walks up and says, "He does this every time we visit. He just picks a child and leaves a couple of flowers. This just happened to be your turn."

The next day there is a message in the local newspaper from the woman from the grave, it reads something like, "A heartfelt thank you to the kind stranger at the cemetery."

Absolutely gorgeous, and about time we did something similar. I feel tired from thinking about myself, and it's about time we give something back. Going to try to get something organised at some point later this week. Not sure what, because I can't just do that idea, but I want to do something that brightens one person's day. As long as it doesn't cost £hundreds because I've already spent that on acquiring my new house.

Nah, I'm kidding. That'd be incredible tu quoque - and you know me, I'd hate to violate fallacy laws. Time to exam! Enjoy the story as much as I did.

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Nailed the exam. Great mood. Challenge for anyone still reading: name the nicest act you can think of, and if I can manage it I will go through with it.

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So I am seeing Avatar 3D in a few hours, and I'm so happy. I cannot wait. Imlyksprsrs here. I've been wanting to see it for weeks, and everyone had seen it, or was going home, or didn't want to see it. I was so tempted to go by myself, but fortunately one of my housemates is coming with me ;D! Hoorah. So that's good news. I've been contemplating my above challenge and have yet to come up with anything other than 'volunteer more'. I really want to go somewhere like a soup kitchen, but I think most of them are run by the religious right -- and I'm really not sure that I and the organisers would see eye-to-eye. So to speak. Not sure. Help?

I've just had a bud of an idea, hopefully I can water it with brain and it will sprout into a delightful, fully-formed idea-plant. I'm going to take 7 of my friends, and dedicate a day to each of them. Do anything they want to do, take them anywhere they want to go; do whatever they want. Basically. Just dedicate the day to making them happy. There's not enough happiness at university; and it's about time someone started to do something. I'm giddy on my mindless optimism and cheesy joy. It will never work, but I'm'a give it my best shot ;D!

Oh that was horrible.

I had a dream that our locks broke, and that we were burgled. For some reason in the dream I couldn't yell out, or even get out of bed. I was just stuck there whilst our house got ransacked and then... I woke up. I dunno. I seem to recall it getting... darker, but I seem to have repressed that into my subconscious which is good. Woke up in a cold sweat at like 6.05 am, which was awful because my alarm was set to go off at 7am. Turns out that if you hook an iPod up to speakers, and set the alarm noise to 'alarm, it will go off quite loudly. What is quiet at night, is not so quiet in the very early hours. It was horrible.

Really need a hug, and now off to do an exam.

Because I can...

... I'm going to be incommunicado (or at least very rare/shit in my communication) as of Monday through Wednesday; and then Friday through Monday. I loathe exams, but they have to be done. Bring on Monday's laughably easy 80 words-per-minute shorthand exam. Given my 90%+ attainment of 100wpm, this shouldn't be too troubling. Then bring on Wednesday's pointless regurgitation exam, amply demonstrating my memory but not my aptitude nor intelligence. Then bring on the following Monday's impossibly difficult 'Writing the 19th Century' exam -- that's going to be an absolute killer. To reward myself, I will do something fun.

Wish me luck.

Incidentally, one of my friends told me that I'm terrible with words, and I realised how right he was. Sigh. It's like a fucking need to say the wrong thing, even to the people I care for the most. Someone should cut my tongue out or something.

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Whoever thought drinking copious amounts of alcohol at that time of night was an idiot. I'm an idiot. Feel like utter death and have to revise for exam in 22 hours. Good lord that was foolish.

The greater good...

... is a concept which Dumbledore grew disenfranchised from, but one I feel that I should capitulate to for our satisfaction. If we are to take this house, it looks as though I will have to take the smallest room, and this room is small; the other two are obstinate and won't be happy to wile away their lives in there. It's not ideal for me, but we won't find a house this great anywhere else in this God-forsaken city fit only for transients. It looks as though I shall have to acquiesce to that annoying streak of pseudo-altruism which dominates my subconscious - even though if we were to analyse the motives behind said selfless act we would find a patchwork quilt of guilt, obsequiousness, and an inability to let people down. My indulgent agreement would merely be to satiate my own desire. Not at all generous or for the greater good. For my own happiness.

Sigh.

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So because I have exams starting Monday, and thus won't have enough spare brain faculty for uploading anything even vaguely intelligible or interesting, I am going to be parroting some fairly hackneyed quasi-thoughts about the different types of humans - and their behaviours. Owing to my inability to concentrate for more than eighteen seconds on any one topic, I am going to try my utmost to link what I'm going to say with how I am going to act in the above section. That way it will seem like a seamless segue; even if explaining my rationale - how forethinking of me - means that my link seem convoluted and contrived. I guess there are probably two reasons I have been thinking about human behaviour: I have been watching more House than is healthy for one human, and I will do anything which even semi-resembles procrastination from revision. I started too early on the latter, and have peaked way too soon - visual sigh. You see, I make the fact that I am sighing clear because you can't hear and/or see me.

It has often been colloquially assumed that there are two types of person: rational, and emotional. These two divisions are capable of assuming the role of the other, but are - by and large - reserved solely for their one premise. We often divide these two further into the appeasing binaries of scientific and religious. We argue that if you're religious it is because you aren't scientific; but we also try to suggest that to be emotional one doesn't need to be religious, nor does one need to be scientific. In terms of superficial criticisms then, suggesting that to be religious is to be emotional has the one glaring error: emotion being a product of an internal process not necessarily linked with either of the above categories, cannot thusly be inextricably linked. It can, as fallacy tells us, be a result, but emotion does not then in turn cause belief in one of the above. Obviously, anyone with an eighth of a brain would see this suggestion for the transparent belligerence that it is - so we can safely assume that no one is doing that seriously, or at least if they are they aren't attempting to actually convince anyone. Simply because I feel uneducated in both of the above, I'm reticent to engage the nexus of emotion and rationality using the criteria of science and religion; instead I will concentrate on the product, rather than the cause. You could suggest that this is superficial and slight, and you'd be right, but puzzling out a reason can sometimes give us the cause too. There is one aspect I want to address but briefly, however: natural disasters and their impact on the superawesomebeing:

"Humanity chose knowledge of good and evil instead of an eternally good world. This is argued to be why earthquakes, volcanoes etc [sic] came to be, as a consequence of this choice. However the question remains: "Why does God allow this to happen now, leaving us to deal with the consequences of an event that supposedly happened at the dawn of time?" To my mind, God has to let the consequences of this choice stand. Otherwise what choice is there if there is no consequence?"

An incredibly interesting argument, undeniably. The man seems to be suggesting that cause and effect are inseparable; which has been accepted as a given for aeons as far as I am concerned. If our decisions do not have ramifications then they are irrelevant and true free-will is impossible. My issue is taken with i) the fact that free will is impossible under this scenario, ii) if we pay eternally for consequences we cannot technically make an informed decision, and iii) if we pay immemorially for other people's actions then cause is irrelevant because nothing is free and everything is pre-determined. Letting the consequences of the first decision stand negates the possibility of their being choice in the future -- but only in the religious reading of this. If a consequence had immortal ramifications - like the big bang - then we can still affect outcomes and results; if, however, the first consequence is pre-determined by a vengeful or merely bystander superbeing then we are entirely adrift in a see of pre-determination and theistic determinism. That is an unsettling thought to me, at least. This argument is still more convincing than the one which alleges natural disasters are merely products of God's 'test'. For starters, that means that religion isn't a choice because to be permissible as a test it would have to be for all. That disturbs me greatly. Secondly, this is way too subjective to be possible: arbitrary testing - which has only been associated with hardship because it acts as a brilliant validation for atrocities, and assuages a person's guilt in situations where they feel they could have helped - this arbitrary testing cannot possibly be indicative of a person's value, nor their qualities. You'd also struggle to parrot that pathetic argument that humanity has "corrupted" the "perfect creation", and that the world has now lost its "original beauty". Well, yes, but surely given that the world is directly corrupted by the first two people's idiocy - in the image of God - we are merely pawns in a game where God has failed? Surely we would be legitimised in blaming a deity because it is his creation which has corrupted his creation?

Finally I reach the reason I brought this up: "I would like to say that even though Christianity has not come up with a sufficient answer to the problem of evil, nobody has." Well, of course they haven't: evil isn't a concept demarcated by criteria, or even by stability -- it is a subjective label that exists solely as an emotional reaction to an action. Nothing can come up with an answer to this, because there is no answer to this - not because either science or religion has failed to. Science, however, has explained why these phenomena exist; religion has not. Religion blithely palms these happenings off on an inexplicable and entirely unanswerable conception of 'evil'; religion, to my mind, is henceforth entirely unacceptable as an argument for why natural disasters happen. I am not saying that there is no deity, but I am saying that it's a syllogism to call a disaster 'evil' simply because you know it cannot be disproved.

So back to rational people. I've always considered myself fairly rational. I obviously make laughably stupid emotional decisions: I love, I sing, I run around naked, I dance in the rain, I laugh; I do everything expected of an emotionally recalcitrant human being. On the other hand, I also like to analyse what will be the result of my actions, why they will be such, and what could be achieved by behaving differently. It's probably one of the reasons I suffer from intermittent - though fairly consistent at the moment - insomnia: I simply cannot stop thinking about how a situation might be altered by the placing of one different word, or a flick of the wrist. It's not that I want all the answers, I really don't - life would negate its own interest if your only passion is knowing all the answers, because eventually you would run out of answers and will have bored yourself. I don't want all of them, I don't even care for most of them. I don't care about very much, to be brutally honest - I'm merely curious as to how people behave, and why, and how reactions are so superficial and changeable. People are easy to manipulate: guilt is a powerful tool, as is emotion. A simpering smile will gain you a free latte at an independent coffee house, a sycophantic gesture will win you the regard of your employer, and a nod to cultural patois will gain you friends. It's so fun to watch these things gyrating around a point of guilt. And oh so machiavellian attempting to see how far you can push a person's boundaries, as long as you are behaving within their accepted comfort zone. So to be rational, I would normally assume that emotion is entirely useless to reason -- I would be wrong.

Emotional people, mostly women in my life, tend to have better lives. They seem to be in decent, healthy relationships with nice, caring people. They hold down jobs and have families, then they get pets and switch careers. They drive cars and go to work, and laugh and sing and play. Then they get divorced, the kids get addicted to heroin and they suck on their own exhaust fumes from their own car merely to end their pain from their own decisions that were made all on their own.

Hahaha. Imagine had I tried to explain the emotional argument maturely. I might have made some kind of interesting conclusion. My lack of staying-power has lead me down a road, I'm afraid. I can't be bothered to try to puzzle out the emotional view because I don't understand it. I can be emotional, I like to cry when things go wrong - it's cathartic - but I'd rather understand why they went wrong, so I know they won't again in the future. Unless someone with a different emotional chemistry is on the receiving end. You can be an emotional rationalist, you cannot be a rational emotionalist.

Sorry kids.

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I just signed into my IM programme, and one of my friends has the tag on their name "Would you like the truth, or something beautiful?" How delightfully fitting. And that sums up why I like to be rational. Who'd choose the latter!? The solution is beautiful, the beautiful is not a solution.

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Moderately tipsy. Delightful. We're taking the house. Splitting the shit room three-ways and sharing it over the year. Go irritating and long ideas which sound great inchoate but are logistically impossible.

All round failings...

... make me fucking angry. Just sitting in a local café attempting to do some last-minute local government revision, but have been distracted by a social-services case study revolving around Doncaster Children's Services. Now, given that I have been studying journalism for a while, and have always been interested in newspapers and the media etc., I am fairly desensitised to most heinous crimes... this, however, has really hit me as truly despicable. I was genuinely moved by how atrocious the two kids behaved, and how the two victims were treated. It really does raise questions about our social services processes in this country. So the Local Safeguarding Children's Board says that there were multiple agency failings, and a lack of "leadership". Well, it is the LSCB's duty to act as superintendent, liaison and overseer of these agencies. That was their job as of 2003: they were charged with the responsibility of coordinating the police, health bodies, and Local Authority Children's services. What the hell kind of failures can there be?

This is the main story, but if you'd prefer my 'tl;dr/hugely biased' version then I will happily give it.

--2 brothers belong to a family which has been known by 9 agencies over 14 years.

--2 brothers taken into foster care.

--2 brothers moved to Edlington a month before the attack.

--2 brothers lure two children aged 9 and 11 out to an isolated wood and then assault them for a prolonged period of 90 or so minutes. During the attack - which they have plead guilty to (as grievous bodily harm with intent and robbery) - they burnt the children, made one of them strip naked and perform a "sexual act", threw bricks at them, and dropped a sink on one of the victim's head.

--The older brother films part of the attack on his mobile phone.

--They leave the children to die.

--The brothers have a history of assault: killing ducks, attacking teaching staff with baseball bats, arson on a café which had a person in it etc..

The worst bit of the story was the emotional-hook, however: the older victim said to the younger "I can't see and I can't move my body [...] You go and I'll just die here." Oh come the fuck on -- how the hell are you meant to be able to read that without feeling a pang of guilt and pain? You'd have to be heartless to overlook this as an agency mistake. What we have here is multiple, systematic, and entirely disgraceful failings of a multitude of governmental and departmental agencies whose sole responsibility is to promote and protect the welfare of children. The Labour Government even assumed full control of Doncaster Children's Services in March 2009.

The full report of this case will not be published for the public, under the defence of:

1) Protection of confidentiality and anonymity.

The opposition (the Conservatives/Tories) have asked for full transparency and are promising that in any further cases of this nature that the full report will be issued into the public domain.

So, this is where I'm going with this. Would that benefit us? Would full transparency reduce the likelihood of these things happen? Does hiding the failings from the public decrease the accountability? Does the fact that the 'executive summary' is entirely different from the full report mean that we're not being told everything? Does it make it, as the Baby P atrocity, "not worth the paper it is written on"? How can so many things have gone wrong? How can I stand to live in this country for another 3 years? How can anyone bear to live in Doncaster when 7 children have died because of agency failings since 2004?

Fuck this country.

The Labour Government is going to have to pull a miracle out of the back to prevent their losing the next General Election. I have always been a stalwart hater of the Conservatives, but even I am tempted to vote for them. Well, if I wasn't a Liberal. Which is pointless in and of itself. This kind of thing just reminds me why I want to move. I know these things happen in other countries, but when your Government claims that full details of these atrocities need not be published because they don't want Britain to be "defined by the appalling violence and irresponsbility that's been shown to the youngsters by two other youngsters". Well, too fucking late -- we're known as the defender of rapists and scum.

And if you're wondering why I'm so fucking angry today, it's because I feel like my life is spiralling out of control and I'm so fucking pissed off at my own failings that I don't want to even look at myself, let alone address that which is causing me all this self-induced agony. That's why I'm projecting my self-loathing onto this cretinous organisation staffed solely by an incompetent board of neanderthal, knuckle-dragging, failing-to-communicate, borderline-mental disabled rejects who spend too much time wiping up each other's drool and not enough time caring about the sanctifying of our children's safety. PLEASE WON'T SOMEONE THINK OF THE CHILDREN. Damn right, Helen. So, yeah, so fucking bitter because I'm so fucking pissed off generally. One of these days I'm going to snap and put my head through a wall, or someone else's. When that day comes, I will let you know whether it was my own or not. That'll be a fun day. Also I'm fucked off because these people are such CUNTS.

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So I think we're gonna get the house.

Cleaning: also known as...

... walking up the down escalator. If I didn't have to go out in like 8 minutes this would so awesomely brilliant. Alas, the fates have conspired against us, and I am caught betwixt a sharp piece of rock-like substance, and a place of moderate hardness. If I remember to, I shall return later and write that which I had intended since around 2am this morning. I hate that I always get ideas at silly-o'clock. During the writing of my last essay, I awoke suddenly at around 5am and had to get up to jot down the idea that had come to me. That was awful, even though the thought was truly inspirational - which it was, if you don't mind me saying; not that I care, I already said it. Anywho, yes, I decided that I want to wax-lyrical about cleaning & why I hate people who are housewives because I can't understand their mindset. Oh, and why cleaning is inherently futile. Then I'll probably wander vacantly off into terribly under-formed philosophical ramblings about inane futilities of life etc.. So that should be jolly.

I'd say 'stay tuned', but that would imply that:

I) I can carry a tune.

II) This is a tune.

III) This is the telly.

IV) This is radio.

V) This isn't stupid.

VI) This is worth returning for.

And I would hate to disappoint you, loyal man. Also, in case this goes too far down and we lose the post below which rambles on about your paper, Thomas, will you send me a copy when you've finished writing it? I don't want to critique it or anything - that's reserved solely for people who I think are idiots - I am just interested to see where you have taken the idea/why. :).

That's how. For now. Sorry. British children's television reference.

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Apparently "I got the time wrong", and so I do in fact have another 10 minutes until I have to leave. I'm assuming that when my friend told me that "I had the time wrong", what she really meant was "I only just got in from whatever I've been doing and thus will be late to our meeting, hence why I am pretending that you said we should meet later than you actually said. I'm doing this to cover up my own inadequacies even though I know you said 2.15, not 2.30, because I have the text message right here -- just like you do" or something. I love her to pieces, but my lord her time-keeping is an abortion of woefulness. I'm not a stickler for punctuality. And by 'I'm not', I mean 'I am'. So yes, I'm just going to ramble benignly until I have to leave. I don't want to crunch into my hot-topic just yet, because it would be awful for me to come prematurely to my nexus. No one wants an intellectually premature nexus ejaculation. That would be appalling. Imagine the horror. Wow, I didn't do too well at this whole 'harmless rambling'. OK, harmless. Yes. I was in a café this morning with my friend - I'm just Mr. Popular today - and there was this adorable little boy, called Noah. He was such a sweetheart and Heidi got all emotional and started getting her brood on. If low levels of bloody oestrogen cause that much maternal instinct then I'm fucking glad I'm not a chick. Damn, she almost broke down in fits of tears simply because he sat there banging his head against a chair and then saying "ow". He was at that annoying age where they're incredibly perceptive, too, and intuitive. I meant to say something like "if we're not ready for it", and accidentally said "if we're ready for it not" or something, and he just turned to me with this simpering (can a child simper? That's not the word I wanted. I wanted something that begins with 'c' but I can't remember what it is. Coy. Coquettish. Something like that, but not those. That would be disgusting) grin and said "NOT". I was like,... oh come on, my stupid lack of ability to speak is being scrutinised by a fucking four-year-old. That's not a good situation to be in. Not good at all. He was a darling though. Really nice café too. It's a great discovery when you realise there is a place you can get takeaway coffee on the way to university without having to go a step out of your way. That's awesome. She's such a sweetheart, the woman who owns it: keeps giving us free internet, and ludicrously over the top drinks just because we've been in there once or twice. She helped us house-hunt. With a giant magnifying glass.

Sorry. Good news is that I have to leave now. Normal service will be resumed later when I can be assed. Never fear that my blog is going to descend into the hormone-addled, emotional liturgy of an adolescent self-pitying moron. If it does get too stilted and self-degrading please step in and punch my repeatedly in the face. That would go nicely with my BROKEN HEART AND SOUL. Ha. Life.

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You know why I fucking hate cleaning? Because you can't achieve anything. Ever. Literally. And I mean literally in its literal sense. As in there is no possibility of achieving anything. You can spend fourteen-hundred-million hours dusting, only to find that three days later you've got dust on every single surface. Plus it means that when you tell people they spout that utter rubbish that "most dust is made up of human skin". Well, no, it's not. Try to back up your mindless claims with something other than "someone told me". Yeah, someone once told me that God created the world. Most dust is made up of crap. Dirt and shit that falls off every surface and object. Not skin. Get out. You don't deserve skin. I'm going to make a rug with your skin. And what's with these wipes that claim they can clean everything, and repel the dust from accumulating afterwards? Isn't that just a flagrant lie? Based on my case study of my room, over a period of a day it is clear that there is no such thing that repels dust. It just... lands, and sits. Then there's vacuuming, or hoovering -- whichever you prefer to call it. Even the fact that it has two names irritates me. I hate it. Go away. It's just. Grr. Especially because our vacuum cleaner is so ineffectual, it's like breathing gently on a kiln to heat it up. A puff of wind trying to move the Goliath of fluff which somehow seems to think it's allowable to fall off everything I own. Someone needs to make clothing capable of staying together. I can't help but feel we'd complain if other things we used fell apart after 8 uses. I know I'd get pretty annoyed if my roof caved in every time it rained. Also, tumble drying: fuck off. Stop shrinking everything. Who invented this? A mangle would have been much better. Someone invent an automated mangle, and then send me one. And make it foldable. But self-put-upable. I don't want to have to employ manual labour in order to dry my clothes. Oh and if anyone thinks I should use an airer, they can fuck off. I can't use an airer because I'm too lazy to put it up. They're like the Rubik's Cubes of household practicality: no one can use them, and they serve no purpose thusly. What a fucking horrible sentence. Sorry I'm swearing so much, but I seem to have spent the past three days constantly surrounded by kids - which sounds good - and have I have had to censor any kind of expletive that might escape from my lips. I did try replacing swear-words with nouns, like "what a walling bottle day" for "what a fucking shit day" or something. Turns out it's incredibly difficult. You end up replacing the nouns with other nouns, so you end up saying "what a fucking shit wall", which makes no sense: I don't have the training, nor qualifications, to judge masonry or the quality of a wall. I know that mortar is a useless weapon on most games made before 2004, and that it has something to do with sticking bricks together - but I don't think that qualifies me to make a judgement on the poor walls. Mother-lighter walls. So that can suck my towel. Also, other cleaning like polishing. Who even does that? Who has stuff to polish anymore? The only things that are worth polishing are things that you should touch as infrequently as is possible, because they're always priceless. Which is a stupid concept. 5000km of Britain's roads are worth roughly £65 billion, but we cannot value your chintzy little Toby Jug. Or Tobie. I don't know do I? I'm not some kind of 'expert'. That's a misuse of that word. You should only be allowed to call yourself an expert if your training is in a field which has some practical use. Antiques have absolutely no use. Except for increasing polishing. The stretched corollary to that being that anything qualifies as an 'antique' increases enslavement, and the hiring of slaves and servants. Your hoarding directly sets back the forward movement of human rights. How does that make you feel? Your whole profession undermines the advancement of fundamental human rights. Ha. You're a horrible person. Unless you're that orange guy who is on TV, although not so much anymore. He was great. It was like he glowed. I once caught radiation-poisoning simply from being in the same house as a TV which had him on once in a while. I almost died. Like that guy who got poisoned. Russian? Something like that. God knows. My general knowledge suffers when I'm just typing non-stop and not even bothering to put in paragraphs, or impose any kind of structure on things.

I'm done. Tired. Etc..