thursday is always before friday

Advice is something i have been thinking about a lot recently. it confuses me because you have to trust someone's judgment on your own life, when they are judging it from an outsiders perspective. in some ways another person can have a more objective view of your problem you are seeking advice about. but ultimately it is you that has to live with the problem and deal with whatever actions you take to alleviate the problem (with or without the secondary person's advice). Someone else will never completely understand your predicament, obviously. but you yourself areso emotionally attached to a problem you may have and this may obscure your ability to gauge what is the right thing to do. but at the same time, perhaps only YOU know what is the right thing to do. but what if you don't (and that is probably why you are seeking advice). it is such a catch-22. sometimes there is no clear answer and talking to someone about a problem may make you feel a bit better but not ever help form a clear-cut solution to an issue. I don't know.

One thing I do know is i really should of finished the book Catch-22, considering how often I seem to encounter/ talk about them. I borrowed it during a period of time when I wasn't very able to read that much, and I ended up having the book for so long its owner wanted it returned. And considering she is from the Czech Republic, and is currently in Sheffield, I think I may need to locate my own copy if i ever want to finish it.

in other news the postal strike has meant LOVEFILM have extended my 1 month free trial by 2 weeks. I watched The Science of Sleep earlier in the week which is about a boy called Stephan who gets his dreams confused with his reality. I really liked it, but it had some subtitles and i was really tired, so probably didn't enjoy it to its full extent. I am able to watch films on my own now though, I never used to be able to do that, partially due to having a terrible attention span (linked to why i was unable to read books for a while) and feeling lonely.

Also Jess is home this weekend, Pete is home the weekend after that and Kirsty is home the weekend after that (i think) which means good people are around to break up a mad November of working and living at home. hopefully I will be able to book Scandinavia soon as well as I get paid on the 5th of November.

ALSO, why is Ferne Cotton so annoying and also everywhere.

not good today

but it could be worse
it could be worse
it could be worse
it could be worse
it could be worse
it could be worse
it could be worse
it could be worse
it could be worse
it could be worse
it could be worse

Get inside their heads, love their loves

i like it when people write songs where the line follows on so uses a word twice for two different sentences.

Here are two examples; Green Gloves by The National:

"Falling out of touch with all my
friends are somewhere getting wasted,
hope they're staying glued together,
I have arms for them"

And Soco Amaretto Lime by Brand New:

"i'm gonna stay eighteen forever
So we can stay like this forever
And we'll never miss a party
cause we keep them going constantly
And we'll never have to listen
to anyone about anything
cause it's all been done and it's all been said
we're the coolest kids and we take what we can get

The hell out of this town
Find some conversation
The low fuel lights been on for days
It doesn't mean anything
I've got another 500, 'nother 500 miles
before we shut this engine down,
we shut it down"

I love both of those songs.

this week went really fast but also really slow

things i am hopefully getting for my birthday:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Fuji-Polaroid-instax-mini-7s-instant-camera-30-films_W0QQitemZ170377025694QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUK_Photography_Film_Cameras_ET?hash=item27ab43189e#shId

and
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sigh-No-More-Mumford-Sons/dp/B002PHYNRM/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1256378763&sr=1-2

the policy is you bring in cakes if it is your birthday at work, which is a strange arrangement, but there have been a lot of birthdays already and i have only been there 2 and a half weeks. October is definitely the month to be born in.

last night i went to worcester with rich, sophie, owen and laura. we played jenga and frustration in the Firefly and also went to Heroes. It was really good to see them cos i hadn't seen anyone apart from work people and my family for a week. i got really tired by about half 12 though, working a 40 hour week is so tiring. i am thinking about the money though, and thinking about Scandinavia.

I am wondering whether i want to work as a special needs assistant or teacher. I have applied for some work experience in January at some schools in Worcester, and at an organisation that helps young people with autism and at at the mental health and special needs place near the link station. as i think if i do decide to go back to university to do a masters i definitely need some work experience, especially if i want to do anything related to clinical psychology. i really am tired of all the rejection from jobs. so i think i need work experience and maybe more qualifications. also applying in a recession when there are not that many jobs hasn't helped.

i woke up really early this morning dreaming about sorting mouse mats! my first work related dream!! oh dear. but i wrote my work experience letter and looked at special needs training courses and ordered a prospectus. i am feeling a bit more positive at the moment, i just need to pick something to do and do it, and get through the next 7 weeks of a monotimous job to get out of my overdraft and go to Scandinavia. One of the good thing about working in a school is the holidays, my brother and sister have half term this week, so my sister has no school and my brother gets paid full pay for only working 9 hours. i woudl love a week off!! especially a paid week off! its X factor tonight, i really love it. shamelessly, its brilliant. I listen to the radio at work and there are quite a lot of good pop songs around at the moment. i need o get into some new music actually. i listen to Sigur Ros sometimes when i am sorting and i think if the people i work with listened to what i was listening to they would be like 'what on EARTH' is that. but it is one of the most beautiful things i have ever heard. only i understand a lot of people don't understand that.

seeing Sigur Ros was one of the most surreal moments of my life. it was completely unlike anything i have ever seen, the whole room was so full of people totally absorbed in the music, and they played behind a white sheet, which dropped in the final song at a dramatic point in the music, and a quartet of Icelandic girls who were the support act played with them, and afterwards we were all just jumping around on the way to the train station because the experience was just so incredible. those words i have used in that description sound so cliche and inadequate. maybe i am out of practice with writing, or the vague hangover is obscuring the good words from my memory. but it was the best live show i have ever seen, apart from Muse at Reading in 2006, but that was partially because i was intoxicated and had gone more than a bit manic anyway, telling everyone how happy i was all the time and just generally when i went a bit weird for a few months and musically Sigur Ros are more inspiring. so Sigur Ros win.

vendiagrams and minus the bear

if i achieve nothing else this weekend at least I remembered those two things. which have been driving me mad

potential return to university and a christmas trip to Scandinavia triumph over tedious job and a dull weekend

I am not sure whether to go back to university. I did some research yesterday and i think what i'd want to do is an M.Sc in foundations for clinical psychology. I did a bit of research and the places that do this sort of course are:

Sussex - Foundations of Clinical Psychology and mental health M.Sc

Bangor - Foundations of Clinical Psychology M.Sc

Swansea - Abnormal and Clinical Psychology M.Sc

Glasgow (too far away and too many knives so definitely not)

Bournemouth - Foundations of Clinical Psychology

Newman's Birmingham - Clinical applications of Psychology leading to a doctorate if you are good.
(i could commute but another year at home might actually drive ME mad let alone trying to understand other people's madness)

And there is one at Kings College London. (But I am excluding that one considering how that has links with the Institute of Psychiatry so is probably the best one in the country apart from Cambridge which i am not even going to put on this list), and i am not sure how i am even going to pay the tutution fees let alone accommodation/living anywhere let alone London i can pretty much rule that one out too).

Sussex, Swansea and Bournemouth are all quite appealing. Its just the advanced statistics modules that are putting me off. But if I ever want to get into research I am going to have have to somehow master statistics... I am just not sure at the moment. The sort of jobs I have been applying for I am just so under qualified, and Psychology graduates are so numerous. I think without a masters and a lot of voluntary work experience I don't stand a chance. Also the good thing about a clinical M.Sc is that there are placements which would be such good experience and things to write about in a covering letter, rather than trying to stretch out the volunteering i did at Sheffield for the Saturday playgroup for children with special needs and my job at the children's after school maths club.

its just an idea. the application process is a bit daunting though, and i need references from my Sheffield tutors times a large number. Getting into more debt for studying means that I have to be absolutely sure i want to do this and can do this. so i need to think about it more...

I am really looking forward to going to Scandinavia when my job at Coaster House finishes though. I was looking at the Atlas, and my dad recommended getting the ferry from Stockholm to Helsinki, so if the flights are ok, i want to fly to Sweden, then get the ferry to Finland and then fly back from Finland. I am going to buy a Polaroid camera and Laura is going to take some special film for her Holga. We are going to buy really warm winter hats and stay in a youth hostel.

today

- i cycled to work which was really good, but cycled home which was ridiculously hard cos its all up hill and i had to walk a lot of the way

- bought a chinese for tea, satay chicken and noodles (my favourite).

- transfered about 50 23o09578 children's drawings onto bags and various sizes of t-shirts

sea of clouds

like the nice news story right at the end of the program after of the awful main news headlines. ........ walking to work listening to The National when it is a nice day is quite good. i get to see a part of the day i never would normally see. even though it is hard to think about it like that when i wake up still really tired and have to get up. but early in the morning sometimes the clouds lie really low across the countryside, and because i live on a hill, and there are lots of smaller hills that stretch out across Worcester, it makes it look like there is a sea surrounding Malvern and all the other small hills stick out from the cloud sea like small islands. it really is quite beautiful.

step forwards and backwards

I started a factory job two days ago so i can try and save and get out of my overdraft. it is at a coaster company and it is very monotonous but the people are really nice which is good. and sometimes i get to make t-shirts and bags with a transfer machine. hopefully this will help me try to get out of here, and i need to move out so terribly badly. also hopefully it will motivate me to try and get a good job. even though at the moment there are not very many jobs around. apparently for one job at Argos there were 400 applicants. typical to be the first year to pay 3 thousand pound tutuion fees then graduate into a recession! argh.

laura and rich are keeping me sane. we watched 'son of rambow' the other night, which was really good. and last night we went to ollies and priors. though there wasn't really anyone we knew.

last week i went to Norwich to see ruth and she made me soup and fish pie and i took her a cake. and i went to Sheffield and we went to DQ on the Friday night and it was jess and jack's birthday party on the Saturday. they live next door and it was between the two houses. there were so many people and drugs and dancing and it went on all night.

It was quite an eventful week and I had fun but i still feel a bit lost, and missing student life after coming home from Sheffield

synthetic Vs. authentic

i went though this phase of writing down odd phrases i thought of, since i finished my quote of the day book at the end of university. (that seemed fitting since i started it almost the day after i went).

and one of them was 'synthetic love and synthetic happiness'.

people pretend and have meaningless encounters with people in bars and parties and clubs that they don't know, and people also drink and take drugs. They are trying to cover or hide the lack of authentic love or happiness with an act and pretend emotions or with a drug that elicits synthetic feelings. its like that Radiohead song "it looks like the real thing, it tastes like the real thing, my fake plastic love". I think that is what that song is about, drugs and inadequate or empty relationships can make you feel happy , the feeling can even be the same as genuine or authentic happiness, but it is ultimately and unfortunately fake and synthetically orchestrated and ultimately meaningless. There are two levels, with acting you don't believe you actually have the feeling, but with drugs you genuinely believe that the feeling is real. the act and the drug induced feeling are often intertwined though, due to the main places to take drugs being clubs and bars and parties where these meaningless encounters with strangers tend to occur.

You end up feeling lower when the drug wears off than you did from the outset due to the behaviour taking drugs encourages. and its a shame. but that isn't going to stop people because the 'fake happiness' MAY BE FAKE BUT STILL FEELS REALLY GOOD! but who wants the fake version of the real thing, however close it seems to resemble the authentic version.

I suppose there can be no substitute for authentic love and authentic happiness. But in the pursuit of happiness the synthetic will sometimes have to do.