If it stops raining

One of my friends back home sent me a message yesterday, asking how things were going "in the multi-cultural wonderland of Leicester".

I only got around to replying a short while ago, about 24 hours later. Luckily -- for me, and certainly for him -- I'm not banging on today about hating my life right now. I looked out the window of the classroom at the rain and sent him a reply reading simply "Life is very entertaining, and I might just have some fun if it stops raining". He said that it sounds like Wales.

This week I was ready to quit. I figured if I quit before I paid my tuition fees, or before I had paid them all, I might not have to pay at all -- and then I could just say that it wasn't for me, that a job in the media isn't all it's cracked up to be. I would keep my flat here and just get some random job, I thought, maybe earning enough to to go snowboarding or something fun in my spare time. There'd be none of the pressures and I wouldn't be broke.

But for now, at least, here I stay. I don't think I was right about the tuition fees, and since I've paid I might as well stay here now. If I can pass the course then a job in the media would surely be no worse than random temporary work.

I'm still broke, and hungry. And because I have no money I don't go out, and because I don't go out I don't ever go out I don't make any friends. So I'm broke, hungry and lonely. At least this time last year I had money and my friends around me -- even if I did hate my menial job by the time I quit.

However, if I can just keep it together it will work out. I can't say everything will be wonderful when I graduate -- again -- but it has to be better than the alternative. And maybe then if I still feel that my life needs meaning I can do something about that, too. That's the idea, anyway.

I don't want to be buried in the Pet Semetary

It's been a busy few days, considering that a week ago I was relying on regular doses of painkillers to keep me sane while the flu raged through me.

Friday the parents came here and so me and San went home with them. As ever, it was a strange feeling being at home -- strangest because my parents have gone on a crazed redecorating trip and just seem to be plastering and painting everything. So Friday was spent in classes, then in traffic on the way home. Friday night was feeling weird being back and talking to the cat.

Then Saturday night San and I were going to a gig in central London, so decided to head into the city earlier in the day and catch a movie, like old times. And again it was weird, precisely because it was like old times -- and I wished we were back in our jobs and back at home, rather than broke and in Leicester. Not least because neither of us is happy with where we are right now.

San's Mum was on holiday while her sister is at university herself now, so we went back to her empty flat in the time between the movie and the gig. Of course we behaved ourselves, and I guess San felt much the same way I did being home -- suddenly lost, and desperate for someone to say that she didn't have to leave again.

Saturday night was the gig, Laika Dog, who are extremely good but it's anyone's guess if they will amount to anything. We watched, we cheered and applauded from a short distance in front of the stage, then we went home again -- only to come back to Leicester on Sunday.

And now it's Monday and I don't want to be here any more. I'm hungry and I'm completely broke. I am failing my shorthand class so badly it would be funny if it wasn't for the fact that I have to be writing at something like 110 words per minute by June, and over 50 by this Christmas -- considering that now I am probably writing quicker in longhand.

Why did I think that going back to school was ever a good idea? I am having real problems keeping my head straight right now, and I know that this is the cause of it all.

I'm out of bed, and made it to the keyboard

Winter is drawing in this week, as the mornings have become frosty and the days have become cold, grey and wet.

My flu is finally on its way out -- at least, I hope that it is. Yesterday it probably peaked, with my constant sneezing and fever, but that could also be related to being in class and not at home, dosed up on pain killers.

Today, on the other hand, the sneezing has stopped, I haven't touched any painkillers all day but despite this the fever seems to be keeping a distance (touch wood), and the only trouble is my coughing fits, and as a result often my throat is too sore to swallow. But I'm working on it.

And tonight, my landlord has told me, they are taking away my old oven and putting in a replacement. I hesitate to say they are replacing it with a new one, since it will most likely be old and decrepit like the old one -- but if it works then that's good enough for me.

Now, sadly, I need to pass on updating details of what's happening in my life and instead go home and try and write six paragraphs about a coroner's inquest I had the misfortune of sitting in on last week.

Sneak-attack

What started out as a headache the other night has quickly escalated into a fine dose of the 'flu. It has its benefits -- like when I'm feverish and my flat feels warm -- but for the most part? Yeah, it bites.

And now San who has spent the last few days looking after me has come down with it herself. There are few things in this life worse than a princess with the 'flu, but if I can just kick my own illness first I will look after her.

No reason

It's probably just as well that I didn't start asking San deep and meaningful questions about our relationship, since it seems that I was wrong.

I stayed in the library until about 8, I had nothing to go home for but in the end had nothing to stay here for -- and I needed to eat something. On way out of the library though I noticed the video library and thought I may as well rent something to watch. Eventually I found something, and figured I'd ask San if she would like to watch it with me.

Somehow, in inviting her over, we managed to talk about why it seemed she didn't want to see me. For once, it really isn't me, but her. She doesn't want to be isolated from other people from seeing me too much, for one reason or another, and most of all she doesn't want to be dependent on me. It's not right to rely on other people to make you happy, because that gives the power to make you unhappy, too.

I talked her into coming over to watch the video, but because my flat is so cold she climbed into bed to watch it and I talked her into staying the night so we wouldn't have to get up and walk her home.

Things are good. I like little more than sleeping with someone, to wake up in the middle of the night and talk about what I was dreaming about. But most of all I like the closeness.

This morning we woke up late and I went to my law class and she went back to her room -- hoping not to see any of her flatmates and avoid admitting being out all night. Her first class was starting when my class finished, so as I walked over to the union building with some guys from class I passed her in the street. She has classes for the rest of the day now, and I need to take a shower and do my jobs for the day.

Yesterday should stand as a good example of my insecurities, and luckily this time I was insecure for no reason at all. What I could do with now is the lecturer I emailed to tell me that I am being insecure for no reason over my work.

I don't want to be right.

As for cooking dinner for San last night; it didn't happen. I went shopping as planned and we even had a discussion in text about if she was coming to me, or me to her. But then she asked how long it was going to take, because she wanted to go out later. I felt there was little point in her coming over only for dinner, especially since I had work to do first.

Sure, she invited me along -- but since I had to go to a coroner's inquest today, I figured I would be better off getting to bed at a reasonable hour. Whether she was disappointed or if she had wanted to see me or not I couldn't get out of her. So we said I'd cook on Friday night and maybe see her today. But I'm not seeing her today. She asked earlier if it was tonight or Friday I was going to be cooking, when I told her Friday she just said she would see me then. I asked if she wanted to do anything tonight, but she just said she would see me Friday. What was she doing tonight? She had no plans, but thought "we shouldn't see each other every single day".

This annoyed me. We don't see each other every single day, and never have. I have seen her once this week, on Tuesday -- but when I ask her why she is against seeing me today she makes excuses. She asks if I'm mad at her. I tell her I'm not -- which is true, I'm more irritated and offended than I am mad at her, and ask why she seems mad at me and determined not to see me. She falls back on we shouldn't see too much of each other.

This feels familiar.

I think we might be heading back to where this diary began -- with the conflict between me being in love with her and wanting to see her, and her not being in love and not much caring one way or the other about seeing me. I'm fairly sure that if I was to ask her now like I did then the questions about if she misses me when I'm not around, or looks forward to just talking to me each day, if she tries to remember things that happen or are said to tell me about later, then what it would come back to -- like before -- is no.

I can't bring myself to ask her though. I don't want to put ideas in her head, I don't want to annoy her with my insecurities or make her feel bad. But most of all, I don't want to be right.

I suck, it's that simple.

It is beginning to appear to me that I might not make a journalist, let alone make a very good one. The reason for this is simple: I suck.

I'm not sure quite why I suck, since I know that I can write and I actually do enjoy journalism. Maybe I just can't get the writing style right, thinking back I can't recall anyone telling me at any point that I couldn't write. I just don't seem able to write news. I seem completely unable to write intros, or to be able to identify the outstanding element in a press release or list of facts. I end up writing about the 3-hour operation to reattach a postman's ear, rather than about how he was attacked by two Alsations to begin with.

I've sent one of my lecturers an epic-length email telling him that I'm beginning to wonder if I am just wasting everyone's time, since I seem incapable of learning anything. He might not get the email, since according to the staff lists he doesn't exist, but we shall see.

Spangly-new

Somewhere along the lines today -- in between my shorthand lecturer not turning up (I would have thought she would be desperate for any excuse to leave Birmingham every day, but it seems not) and finally getting this new diary template sorted out, I agreed to cook San dinner this evening.

To be honest, that's not quite true. I offered to cook her dinner. I'd sent her a few text messages today and yesterday and she was being temperamental about replying. I ask her if she has decided if she is going to her friends birthday in Leeds (I can't be bothered to link to there, if you are that interested look it up on google) or if she is coming to the gig I bought us tickets to in August. I ask her how her day was. She doesn't answer. I mention to her that a theatre in Leicester is showing "The Importance of Being Earnest" and she answers me.

I guess what it comes down to is I want to be a "good boyfriend" to her, but sometimes my insecurities just get in the way. I wanted to talk to her, and maybe see her, but didn't want to bug her too much. So I offered her dinner, and she accepted. I haven't yet decided if I will cook dinner at her place or mine. If I cook at hers we have an oven that works and a table to eat on, but if we cook at mine I don't have to go home at the end of the night.

But anyway, lookit my new layout, kids! I can't take any credit for making it myself, and I wasn't even looking for a new layout today, but somehow I started looking at some and I liked the simplicity of this one. Especially since I couldn't imagine what I wanted from a template of my own design to tell any of the incredibly nice people that have offered to help in the past.

So yeah. Up until this week we had to lectures on a Wednesday -- shorthand until 12, and then law from 1. But the university has a stupid rule that if even only one person on a course wants to play sport we aren't allowed lectures on Wednesday afternoon, so law got shifted to a Friday morning, ruining our day off. I just feel sorry for the people who commuted in this morning especially for shorthand, only to find it didn't happen. I should really practice some on my own -- I am still truly awful at it.

And that's today. Not a whole lot happening, but I wanted to comment on the new layout, and express my thanks to Comatised for the use of her template, and to Karen for helping me with substitutions when I was being retarded.

I don't get what this society wants

And so it goes.

Another weekend passes, another lesson of shorthand that prompts me to wonder if I should take some kind of test for learning difficulties, and so it goes.

Things aren't so bad. My flat is the same as ever, and I still need to call my landlord and ask him if he will ever actually replace my oven with one that works properly. San went home for a logn weekend, so I haven't seen her since Friday when she was grumpy, but refusing to admit anything was wrong, though she later apologised in a text message so I will probably see her tomorrow.

I spent the weekend in Derby, which was a very strange feeling. Having been away from there for about 18 months all sorts of things had changed, the indie record shop had moved to the high street, the streetwear shops that once were doing so well have vanished altogether -- which makes me wonder if there's a connection between them and the university's financial troubles -- and the appearance of subway sandwich. But it was still all so familiar I felt as if I was visiting the city in a dream.

The purpose of the visit was to see Rie, who I'm aware hasn't been given any real kind of space here before, and that reminds me I need to pull my finger out and complete the cast list entries. But don't bank on it. Very quickly, Rie was Matt's wife, Matt was a friend from Derby -- and still is a friend, from Derby. Their relationship has always been rocky and now it seems it is finally all over, but that also wouldn't be the first time -- so I can't say for certain. Either way, I saw Matt a couple of weeks back, and so I went to See Rie this weekend.

Rie is living the ghettos of Derby, an area of beautiful architecture and Britain's oldest park, but also full of drug addicts. She's staying with and dating this one guy, and together they seem to do little besides smoking a lot of pot. Of course, Rie is feeling lost in the world -- since she married Matt in Salt Lake City, when he was on an exchange from Derby, just like I was a year later. So she's trying to work out where she wants to be, and what she stands to lose by choosing one place over another. It's all very sad.

But the world keeps turning, and I have faith that things will work out for her, in the end -- it's just how long that will take is the question at hand.

And as for me I once again need to write an off-diary story, practice writing in shorthand, and maybe even go home and make something to eat.

Some day you will ache like I ache

It's 1.30 on a Saturday afternoon. I only came here to email my bank and yell at them because they didn't close my old bank's account and haven't taken my standing order payments over from my old bank and so some -- if not all -- are being paid by both accounts, but one account has no money in. Confused yet?

After writing a snotty letter to the cable supplier telling them I wanted nothing to do with them ever again I ended up signing on the dotted line online just so I can have a phone line. I doubt they will notice. But true to form for them an engineer turned up on Friday morning to connect my TV and phone line, like they were originally meant to be doing except half the time when I called nobody knew who I was. He wasn't impressed, but as I stood at the door in my long thermal underwear and an old Green Day t-shirt I didn't give a damn and sent him away. Wanna place bets on if it will be this same engineer that will turn up next month to connect my phone?

Anyhow. My neck has been stiff and hurting for months, it seems like forever. I saw a doctor back home about it, but in true doctor style I felt he was -- at best -- only half listening, and not very interested. He wrote me a prescription. And maybe if I had applied the stuff he gave me the 7 or 8 times a day it said to until it ran out, maybe then it would have worked. But I didn't, and it didn't work. I saw another doctor a week or so back, and for whatever reason this doctor seemed to actually care. He moved my head about and prodded me and even checked the reflexes in my arms. Sadly though he said he had absolutely no idea what's wrong with me, but at the end of the month I get to see a chiropractor. Today my neck hurts and my back hurts and even my shoulders ache, and I don't know why.

But life goes on. I've emailed the bank and entered a competition to win a snowboarding holiday and now I really should be leaving before I spend so long in the library that I'm tempted to do some work...

Baby come back maybe next week

It's 5.30pm on a Tuesday.

Last Tuesday night I went to the pub to meet the snowboarding group -- a strange idea, since there aren't any mountains in England, let alone in Leicester. I think I stayed for all of about an hour. I got some cheap drinks for being part of the group and tried to talk to a first year chick with a pierced eyebrow just because she was hot, and I don't know anyone in this city.

I think I left after about an hour, shortly after she left -- although her presence wasn't really what kept me there, I just noticed that I didn't have to feel obliged to stay. After all, the music on the jukebox had been turned up so loud that you couldn't really talk to anyone, or anyone you didn't already know. Small talk with strangers can be hard at the best of times, especially if you aren't already outgoing -- small talk with strangers when it requires shouting over the jukebox is nearly impossible.

I wanted to join the group, I really did. I love snowboarding, but for me it's a very solitary activity. I liked the idea of a week long holiday at a resort in France, but wasn't appealed by the crazy drinking and clubbing in the evenings that seemed to be as much part of it as the powder.

I even wanted to have more lessons -- after all, when I last went snowboarding it was nearly three years ago and even then I had only just managed to make it off the very basic slope and still couldn't figure out how to get off a ski lift without falling on my head.

I guess the only reason I'm not going to be joining is the cost of it all. It's something like £20 to join to begin with, then paying out for going to a dry slope each week, probably equipment hire too, and then more still if I want the crazy booze-fuelled trip away. They seem like good people, even on the most basic level I talked to anyone. I just don't have the money for it all right now.

I could turn up tonight anyway for the cheap drink and try harder to talk to people, make connections, even if I don't necessarily join or do anything else with them. It's an idea.

What I should do is not go, and instead go home and practice writing shorthand since I am a terrible human being and haven't practised at all yet, not even on the past couple of days when there was no official class and I was meant to be learning the alphabet perfectly.

Will I even do that? It's doubtful. But my mood's pretty good, even if I'm not seeing San today. We see each other most days, if only for lunch, but are very wary of "spending too much time together" and so I won't see her tonight. Things are pretty good there, I'm certainly very glad to have her around.

Adventures in telephone suppliers

You know, I've been living in my flat for nearly a month now, and I have yet to get the telephone connected.

I thought it was all going to be so much plain sailing. I signed up online for a digital tv and telephone package before I even moved in.

But then I waited and waited and nobody would contact me. I spoke to a representative from NTL in the university who was touting for business and he said he would get someone to call me, which didn't happen.

Eventually I called them and they denied all knowledge of my existence and told me I couldn't have digital tv in my area, even though the first thing you do on the website is put in your postcode before they offer you the specific services. They scheduled an engineer to visit and said they would send me a contract to sign.

To their credit, at least they stuck to their word -- I did get the contract.

But then a few days later someone else from the company called me, making excuses for their delay in contacting me. I told him I'd already arranged everything with someone else over the phone. Once again, they had no record of this happening and said they would send someone round to talk to me about their packages and whatever else.

This person never arrived, although they called me that afternoon to apologise and tell me there had been a hiccup with the computer and hadn't been able to retrieve my details. I told him as politely as possible to stick it and I would find someone else to do business with, but he grovelled and asked for another chance.

Over the weekend I changed my mind about giving them another chance and posted a letter telling NTL I wanted nothing further to do with them, I was fed up with their customer service, and would take my business to one of their rivals.

It seems I was a little hasty.

I gave up on getting digital television more or less when I found out how little money I had, but when I called BT to ask if they could just give me a phone line I was told it would be £75 to connect me. This is money I don't have.

So wouldn't you know it, I now have to go grovel to the company I told I wanted nothing further to do with, or else I can't have a telephone.

You'd think there would be hundreds of companies willing to supply my phone for me, but you will be surprised just how many require you to already have an active line.

I'm thinking that maybe if I give it a day or two they might contact me again trying to grovel, and I might be able to get them to cut me a deal or something. But that's probably less likely than them just ignoring me completely. So maybe if I just sign up online then they might not realise who I am...

Off-diary

I need to find an off-diary story for tomorrow afternoon's 'Practical Journalism' class. Yeah, I should have done it a week ago, when I was actually more clear on what off-diary actually was, but I figured what I would do was take a look at what famous authors would be coming to this fair -- if very rainy -- city. That would be an off diary story, author comes to Leicester. But it seems none are. I am now trawling through the what's on guide to local libraries to see if I can dredge up anything from there -- I figure there has to be something in that, since I had to write up copy from so many local library press releases when I was working in the news room a few weeks back.

I must apologise to you kids for not keeping this as updated as it could be recently, I'm going to be trying to update just as regularly as I was before I left home. It just might take a little while before normal service is resumed.

Things here aren't all that great, but then again things at home weren't either so I can't say I'm all nostalgic for tending bar and living at home. However, I am having my doubts about if journalism is really what I want -- the questions raised in the interview last Spring, about how someone creative like myself would be content in journalism are now troubling me. Back then I defended myself saying art imitates life and there was a place for creative writing in journalism. Now I'm wondering if I really won't be earning a pittance, just writing stories about flower shows and local libraries from press releases.

But what else is there? I guess that's why I'm here. I figure that I need some job, that I can't just be filling supermarket freezers, mopping floors, pumping gas or waiting tables...

Ranting

What's going on around here? I disappear for nearly a month and not one person emails me or leaves a comment to see where I am?

Okay, so I wasn't writing because I didn't have internet access, but I was reading any email I got via my mobile phone so it wasn't like I was completely unreachable.

There's much to say, but right now I will try and stick to the basic rants.

I hate my flat. My flat is freezing cold constantly because it has no central heating. I realise it would probably be impossible to centrally heat five or six or however-many individual bedsits, but -- dammit -- one small gas fire does not do the job. Especially not given the size of the gap around the kitchen door. Any other damn bedsit in the whole building wouldn't have this problem, because only my flat has the back door. A back door that may as well be bricked over, since you can't open it. Oh, to have the room in the loft...

My oven also doesn't work. I got the landlord to take a look at it and he agreed, it's broken, and he would get me a new one. There's no sign of that new one yet. Until then I can grill things, but it doesn't seem possible to get the grill tray close enough to the heat in order to cook anything in any kind of reasonable time. Alternatively, I can microwave things or heat them on the burners. It's not the end of the world, but it is very limiting.

What's more, although I have a TV I can't get a reception on it because the aerial cable runs down the opposite side of the room. I was originally going to get digital tv, but they don't cover my part of the city. I don't have a phone line yet either, because the provider is useless and don't return my calls or turn up when they say that they will.

I am cold, broke, hungry, without television or a telephone and my classes in writing shorthand are leaving me thinking that I have learning difficulties.

I'll try to write again later, but with classes more or less all day every day and internet access only available to me in the library, I can't say it will be today.