So, it turned out that my doctor wanted me to have an MRI. And it was urgent. But I didn't quite realise that when she sent me to the hospital to make the appointment I would be admitted. Cue the madness of trying to get in touch with someone to be there for me.

I rang mammy from the payphone, and amidst her panicking and multiple blurtings of "why do you need an MRI, an MRI is for life-and-death things?!" I got her to call Michael cos his number was the only one I knew off by heart. I was so scared, and mammy's panicking didn't do anything to help me.

I sat in the waiting room for 2 hours before the orthopaedic people came to get me at about 6pm. I got taken to a ward full of old ladies and sat there until I got seen by the doctor. It would be the second time in a day that I had a doctor's finger up a certain place. Eeewww. See, what they wanted to test me for was some condition to do with nerves around the spinal cord, that makes you lose control of toilet related things. Not nice at all. They wanted to make sure I wasn't in the early stages of that sort of thing.

Then, when the nurse was taking down my details to be officially admitted, Michael showed up around 8pm. He left band practise early just to come be with me. I nearly cried. Because my phone was at the house, I couldn't contact anyone. He was the only one, and he actually wanted to be there for me. He even went to the house and gathered up some stuff for me. He brought jammies, fresh underwear, sudoku books, a novel, and even my uni work.

He sat with me until he could sit not longer. The old ladies were annoyed that he was there, and even didn't like me being there. One of them said to me "you better get your shoes on and go home". And she even had the nerve to say "are you having an abortion"!!!!! Stupid old bat. Michael was getting so pissed off, I thought he was gonna go for her. When he got kicked out about 11pm, I really didn't want him to go. I felt so uncomfortable being in a room with wheezy old ladies.

Throughout the night I couldn't sleep. They were supposed to give me a sedative cos I can't sleep well at the best of times, never mind in a room full of beeping and oul weemin usin the call button every 10 minutes needin a piss. I didn't get the sedative until 1am, it started kicking in around 2am, but the nurses woke the room up at 6am when I had just managed to get to sleep. I complained to them that the night nurses ignored my pleas for extra sedative throughout the night cos the half a tablet didn't work, and they said they couldn't give sedatives after midnight. And what time did I get my half a tablet at?

I tried to sleep a few times on Wednesday, but I got wakened every now and again by nurses wanting my blood pressure, giving me tablets, telling me something, or asking me something. Oh yeah, I got a blood test done too, only my vein collapsed causing me lots and lots of pain, and the only way the could get blood was from the back of my hand. How painful was that?!?! Never again.

I had visitors in the evening, after my pitiful lunch and miserable dinner. I was absolutely starving. I have a reasonbly sized appetite, and I had my tuna sandwich snarfed in like 30 seconds, while the old ladies were still eating their dinner half an hour later. Tina and Dan came first, bearing gifts of chocolate. Yummy! And some lovely juice. That was well needed, as it was so hot in that room I had cotton mouth. I was so glad to see friendly faces, I could have cried. They sat and kept me company until the cavalry arrived in the form of Sarah and Kelly. They brought me a sudoku book, yay! And Kelly took on Mamma-bear mode and went hunting for more food for me. She came back with a sandwich, 4 bags of crisps and two chocolate bars. They both gave me lovely hugs before they left. I didn't want any of them to go at all. I didn't want to be left with the mad old bags another night.

This time, I got a whole sedative tablet. They told me it'd take an hour to work. Nope, it didn't work. I took it at half 9, by 11pm I was wide awake when Lianne and Chris surprised me with a visit. I sat with them in the corridor for a while cos visiting hours were over at 8. I was glad to be out of that room! When I got back, they'd switched off my overhead lamp cos the old lady who asked if I was having an abortion wanted it off. So I had to use the light from the overhead tv screen to read for the next couple of hours until the tablet took effect.

So, I'd got about 3 and a half hours sleep when the nurses woke the room up at 6am again. I got ratty this time and asked if they really needed to make so much noise, since they were only supposed to be waking them up and not me. They didn't like that. So I put my head under the pillows and went back to sleep. Did I mention that the room was like an oven the entire time I was there? I must have sweated off half a stone. In fact, I did. I was about 139lb when I went in on Tuesday and now I'm 132lb. They never paid attention to me when I complained about it being so hot I though I was going to pass out. But any time the old ladies said something, they jumped through the hoop. Typical.

Anyway, after a number of failed attempts at sleeping, I finally got the MRI. It turned out not to be as scary as I thought. I imagined it to be a trap with no way out, but the hole went all the way through, so I didn't get claustrophobic when I went in head first. I was in it about half an hour. Later in the afternoon I got told I could go home cos it was provisionally clear. I would know more details in two weeks when I'll have an appointment with the consultant.

I went home in an ambulance car, where I had some fantastic news waiting on me about my money situation. Yay for Travel Bursary and the Access to Learning Fund! I'm not poor anymore! When I rang my mammy to tell her about it, she told me that my granda went into hospital today with heart failure. If I hadn't got out of hospital today, I think she would have lost it. Having a parent and a child in hospital in two different countries is enough to send anyone doolally. At least I had good news to settle her a bit.

Anyway, I came home with the best painkillers ever, dihydrocodeine. They actually work. I feel a difference when I take those, and I've only ever take two in my life. They're going everywhere with me now! I had my mammy call up the uni this morning to tell them I wouldn't be in cos I was in hospital, and that I wouldn't be in tomorrow either. I get to wake up whenever I want to tomorrow. :)

Whoever said that hospital stays enable you to get the rest you need were lying. I got no rest whatsoever. In fact, I was more zombied than I'd been in a very long time. It was like I had the worst ever hangover without throwing up. And, I came home with a bad cold. If yer really sick, for goodness sake stay at home. You'll recover better at home! It certainly didn't do me any good lying in a bed for 48 hours. I was too hot, incredibly stiff, exhausted, and crabbit as hell.

Don't ever make me go to hospital.

The only good thing was, I didn't think about AssFace at all. Not even once. His name only popped into my head when I got home and realised he'd not been in my head. Result.

Now I go bed. It's late. And I need to pick up a rather heavy parcel from the post office. It's 6kg. Gonna need a taxi...

I SOLD ASSFACE'S WATCH ON EBAY FOR £34!!!!!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THAT'S WHAT HE GETS FOR BEIN A STINKIN LIAR!!!!!!!!!! TELLING ME HE GOT POSTED TO LINCOLNSHIRE ON 21st SEPTEMBER WHEN HE'S STILL IN FECKIN NORTHERN IRELAND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

*cough*

Yeah.

In other words, I saw AssFace's sister on Wednesday night. She says he doesn't move to his new barracks for another month. And she also thinks he's an ass face. As it happened, I still had possession of the watch he gave me. I stuck it on eBay. I posted it off today, and made a nice little profit of £28.67 after postage and eBay & PayPal fees. How's that for revenge?

But nothing ever works out the way its planned! Grr!

My main reason to come in to UCB (my old campus) today was to work on my 3d stuff, seeing as I can't operate it at home and all... I tried to open up my files, but their version of 3ds Max 9 doesn't have a license. And as files are not backwards compatibile, I wasn't able to work on them in 8. Dammit. So I decided to model a biped and practice animating it. But it decided that it didn't want to put a key frame at the beginning where it was supposed to so that my man wouldn't look like it starts with its legs in the air. It's supposed to start with the feet on the ground, then the knee rises up, but noooooo it doesn't want to do that...

So I move on. I decided to carry on with the little project I was doing last night. I was trying to attach wings to myself, but I didn't know how to cut things out and move them. Pretty simple thing, right? Joff showed me a better way today, and I was able to continue. My profile picture is what I did today. :)

I really need to be doing these many assignments, like the Flash stuff. I don't want to do any at home cos I get distracted by all the mess. If I could live in this room, it would be great. I'll be back here tomorrow. Maybe I'll get Joff to give me a hand with the stupid 3d stuff, and maybe it can be organised enough to have 3ds Max 9 up and running so he can help me with the different projects I have to do.

Maybe tonight I should write down all the things I need to do in each assignment. That way I know exactly what's going on and I'll be able to scratch them off one by one as they're done, which is always fun. It'll also mean I'll be away from the computer and can sit in front of the telly for a change. Wheee!

So I reckon the only purpose of goin to the computer this evening will be to put stuff on eBay. I have a pile of stuff sitting waiting, but I just hadn't been arsed to do it. I need to do it cos I've had to dip into December's rent to pay for trains and food. I'm just glad I've got an interview next week for a job. It's in UCB's library. £7.31 an hour, SCORE! Just imagine... if I only worked 5 hours a week, I'd get £36.55! That'll pay for a week's worth of trains and some extra food! I gotta be on my best behaviour at that interview then...

Send me some positive thinking vibes please! Need to stay happy in order to get everything done that I need done! And no more late-night thinking sessions. We all know how dangerous it is for me to be thinking...

*wanders off singing Dude Looks Like a Lady*

I hate them because all my classes are feckin lectures. I don't want a lecture, I want workshops! I have a short concentration span, I can't sit through any lecture WHATSOEVER without falling asleep. No matter if it's on a really interesting topic, I still fall asleep because I can't focus on anything for that length of time without having some sort of input. That's why I have to be doing something while watching TV, like knitting or eating. My brain always has split focus. I can't fix it.

My brain hasn't got the capacity to switch off from other things. Even if I'm in the situation where my attention really HAS to be on what's going on, I'm still always thinking about something else! Maybe I should get lessons on how to focus on one thing...

Aside from that, I got all my stuff from the dead hard drive. I got that picture I was looking for and started manipulating it like I had been waiting to do. But I couldn't do what I wanted! I wanted to cut something out and move it, but it wouldn't go! And of course this gets me thinking, well if I can't do something simple like that then what the flef am I doing on this course!? Especially as we're being encouraged to use software I've never even SEEN before, and being among people who are miles ahead skills wise, not to mention the fact that our assignments require short spaces of time which are not enough for me to get caught up. It really doesn't help that I'm the only one without a PC and 3ds Max.

I wanna cry. Every day I'm in that place I'm gonna be hitting a new roadblock. I've already almost gone home. How long will it take before I really do pack it in. I don't want to, I want As and Bs for the first time in my life. This is my only chance. I just feel right now that it's gonna be too hard. I need support from someone. I need encouragement to show me I'm on the right course. That person used to be Michael, he was always around to help if I got stuck with Photoshop as well keeping me calm, but I haven't seen him in over 3 weeks. Then there was a promise made in the summer, a promise that I would have a little leaning post if I felt the pressure building. Yes, that was AssFace, and we all know what happened there.

I need the best tutorial books ever. The easiest ones possible. On Photoshop (CS), Illustrator (CS2), Flash (8), and 3ds Max (9).

Don't wanna be on my own through this. I might not survive. :(

Against my better judgement, I went out. My back and legs were hurting like mad, but I still got dressed up in my corset and tight satin skirt, and went out. What a fool I am.

I spent the first part of the night with a sour puss cos I was in pain but didn't want to say anything. I got a stabbing pain in my head too, said nothing about it either.

Then I get a random message from Michael telling me that he's away to Scotland for a week with a big group of friends. It's nice that he told me he wouldn't be around (going to a very remote part of Scotland with no signal), but I was still annoyed. Probably because I'm not in that circle of friends anymore. It always seems to be the boys and whatever girlfriends they have at the time. Those boys don't seem to have any female friends, apart from potential lays. I don't have the honour of being in their company anymore because I'm not really anything to do with them except being Michael's ex.

Am I right to be annoyed that I haven't seen him since he took me to look at houses in Huddersfield 3 weeks ago? Apart from me being at home, that's the longest time we've ever spent apart. It's WEIRD!

But everything's weird at the moment. Uni sucks cos I can't do anything like what the rest can. My money situation is dire (another reason I shouldn't have gone out). And, my spine is causing some serious problems, ones that I have to see the doc about on 23rd. With all this going on, I decide to go out, but instead of having fun I end up sitting thinking about it all. Alcohol (I had 3 drinks in 5 hours) and thinking, never good.

Remind me never to think again.

It's AssFace's birthday today. I thought it would be a suitable time to inform him that, yes, I do know, and that I am above him and always will be. And incidentally, according to his FaceBook he's 28 today. He told me he'd be 30...

So this is what I sent to him.


It's yer birthday today. But are you 30 or 28, yer profile is just a tad confusing...

I see you got yer life together then, enough to have entered into a "relationship". That was quick. Nice of you to let me know that little fact, you absolute coward. You could have had the decency to tell me you only said those things to get rid of me. You could have told me you had absolutely no intention of ever getting in touch with me again, I would have respected you for that. Gaining respect from me is hard, and you just lost it all.

I hope she runs. I hope she realises what yer like sooner than I did, soon enough that she can escape and leave YOU hanging on a thread. It's about time somebody did. And I hope yer birthday is actually a turning point for you, in the sense that you grow up and admit yer just a player. You talk the talk, but when it comes down to it, yer simply a teenage boy who's only just realised he's got a willy.

I'm not a vengeful person. I'm not nasty. In fact, I'm one of the nicest people you could ever meet. So nice that I cannot for the life of me understand why you did what you did. You said you were the nice one who was tired of getting shit on. So why did you shit on me? I didn't do a thing wrong to you. If I did, I'm certainly unaware of it. Plus, I don't deserve any level of bitching, and you know it, so don't even think about badmouthing me to yer new lady.

So there you have it. You probably thought I would never find out, probably thought I would never try finding you to see if you were even alive. See, I actually cared. Do you understand the concept? That's how I found you, I was actually worried that something had happened to you. After all, you DID promise you would see me before leaving Aldergrove. How was I to know that upon discovering you on Mouse's friend list, that the first thing on yer profile I would see would be "in a relationship with Rachel Walton". Can't keep it in yer pants, can ye.

I won't apologise for this, you don't deserve it. In fact, I waited until yer birthday to say this. That's how much you belittled me. I'm the one who deserves the apology. You said no matter what would happen between us romantically, we both would end up with a brilliant friend. Well, you lost the best one you could ever have had, and you know it simply because I did NOT rip yer bollocks off that day. I gained two potentially excellent friends, and neither of them are you. Why bother trying to be friends with someone who has no backbone, who is too chicken-shit scared of a tiny little Nothern Irish girl? I'll tell you who you SHOULD be scared of... Kelly.

I deserve better than you. Someone who doesn't need to make promises, because they always deliver. You never delivered, you were simply all mouth. You left me high and dry, and you had no right to do that. I choose the quiet one, the one who doesn't hide behind smiles and laughter, the one who doesn't try to conceal the fact that he knows deep inside he's just a loser who doesn't know what a real relationship is.

I hope you feel sorry for yourself, causing this sweet girl to be bitter against you. I hope you have a good birthday, whatever age you are (why lie?), because either way you are still gonna turn 40 one day and wonder where you pissed your life away to. I'll turn 40 one day and think back to when I learned to spot an AssFace. And I'll be happy. Will you?

I decided to pack it all in and go home. Quit the course. I was clear that I'd made a mistake by going to Huddersfield and do a final year, all that pressure amidst the hassle of being in yet another new place. I've already got a foundation degree, surely that would be enough? I could get a job, right? I'd just go home and not be a disappointment to the folks cos they'd just be happy to have me back again.

Well, isn't it lucky that I'm only spoofin. Isn't it lucky that I had a change of heart. As I was standing outside the course co-ordinator's office, I came across John, who's been in my class since last year. We got talking, went to lunch, went shopping. My mind was taken away from the fact that I was just seconds away from ruining my career.

He talked me down, without even knowing where I was. I think I was lonely. It's dangerous for me to be alone with my thoughts, there are so many of them it's so easy to get lost. I tend to dwell on things as well. Hmm, not so useful... So I went to my last class of the week in relatively high spirits.

And I left that class with even higher spirits. Visual Design is awesome. It's the class where I will be pushed past my comfort zone, which is exactly what I need. The first assignment is exactly the same as the 3D project, and instead of nearly crying like I did on Monday, I was scribbling down ideas on the brief. My brain was churning them out much faster than I could write them! The second one involves creating a self-portrait using only typography - scary stuff, but I know what I want to do, just don't know how to do it. The third is designing a series of stamps, and the fourth is anything we want it to be. Free reign! How fantastic is that! And, there's opportunities to improve our work after it's been handed in so we can get better marks. Never mind the fact that we can be entered into national and international design competitions if our work is good enough! How inspiring!

I feel so much better now. That class was enough to convince me to stay. One hour-and-ten-minute session out of a whole week was enough. I don't need to be scared anymore. Well, I can be scared, I just don't have to be ruled by it anymore. :)

Last night I spent about an hour spinning around on my office chair while singing, just to stop myself going crazy. It worked. Then I went out to karaoke with Sarah (sang new songs!), and later got asked out by a guy I've known for ages. I didn't get to give an answer because he was incredibly drunk so didn't realise I hadn't given one and wandered off. I would've said no. I'm not used to getting asked out! The last time that happened, where I was actually asked "will you go out with me", was about 5 years ago. He said "where's your bloke", I said "I don't have a bloke", he said "well in that case I think yer very pretty". And later he said "theoretically what would you say if I asked you out". I was very flattered, but he's just kicked a long-term hard drug habit, so he's just a tad high-maintenance for me. Says I, who needs a weeny bit of maintaining every so often...

Anyway, I got home at 3am, drifted off to sleep about 4, got wakened at 5:15 by the Polish having a conversation outside my door while opening and closing their own doors almost simultaneously, didn't get back to sleep again until about 20 minutes before my alarm went off at 7:45. I somehow managed to travel an hour on the train without being sick.

I only had one class today, but I've stayed in the room with the awesome computers. I'm terribly excited because every other computer in the university appears to be from the dark ages, with USB ports that are set too deep into the casing of the hard drive so ye can't actually get the flash drives in without scraping off some plastic, keyboards that rattle, and stupidly tiny monitors. These computers have 25 inch monitors! And ergonomic wavy-type keyboards! And the keys barely make a sound! There's even a drawer for the keyboard and a see-through panel on the desk surface! The only bad thing is that they put the hard drives on the floor, and being that the headphone socket is at the bottom of the hard drive, it is extremely difficult to find headphones that have a wire long enough to reach. I bought 1.2m headphones earlier, and they get pulled off my head, so I'll be taking them back shortly.

I'm hanging around so I can go to the photography group at 6pm. I have one class that finishes at 11am, so every Thursday I'll have 7 bloody hours to kill. I wish I could just go home and do other things until I come back, but no, I have to mooch about here for ages. I know there's the union bar, but the alcohol from last night has only just left my system so that would not be a good idea. I don't want to go to the library cos it's scary and I don't even know where their computers are never mind where the Macs are. I'm having withdrawal symptoms from the lack of G5 action...

I so tired..

My hard drive wiped itself. That's right, my external hard drive, which has caused me problems before, has apparently wiped all 50Gb of photos, UNIVERSITY WORK, and original Laura Rose Pro Tools files from itself. How wonderful is that?!?! The guy at the shop said he'll try one more data recovery program tomorrow, and if it doesn't work, I'll have to pay big bucks for a specialist company to do it. How the hell am I gonna pay for it?

This really doesn't help the stress factor here. I am about to explode if things don't start going right for me for a change. I went to the doctor today to see about my on-off sickness over the last week, and she said I have a water infection, lavly. She said if it doesn't clear up and stop a certain thing from happening (not saying what it is cos it's embarrassing), I apparently have to go back immediately cos it's a red flag symptom and would need a back scan. DeLIGHTful.

I'm going mad, I'm going mad, and it's only the second day of week one of my third year. The stress is going to kill me. I can feel my back muscles tense up as I type this, so I think I'll stop now before I turn to stone. SOMEONE PLEASE HELP ME.

I'm sick of this place, literally sick. I've only been back here 10 days, I've been eating healthily, and still I get sick. I know that in those cases I only get sick if I worried about something or just run down. I'm guessing both.

I discovered today that I have no choice but to spend £25.60 a week on train fares, as I have classes 4 days a week. But if I join the Wing Chun class, which I do want to, I have to spend a total of £30.80 on the train. We were told last week that it was gonna be a 3 day week, and we would definitely have Fridays off. Nope, 4 days, and one of them is Friday - that happens to be my busiest day class wise. Feck.

In 3D class today, we discovered that the other 3rd (only guessing here) years are much more advanced on 3ds Max than we are. I only guess their year because some of our units are mixed in with other levels/years, not just our own, which is confusing. In Authoring class, I started crying because I hadn't a clue what all the crap about ActionScript was. Yes I have used Flash for two projects over two years, but I did not to much scripting - all my scripting experience was Lingo in Director. And we're not using Director at all this year. PIFFLE.

Many things are tormenting my brain right now. I'm scared of moving. Calling up landlords yesterday made me feel sick, and it didn't help that most of them were rude, saying "NO ROOMS!" and hanging up without letting me respond. Moving is stressful, I'm easily stressed, so why should I even bother?

I'm finding the whole being at a proper university terrifying. I'm 25 years old, why the hell am I so scared of this? The place is huge, there's 1,000 students in our subject area alone, not even our school (computing & engineering) let alone the entire university... there's like 16,000 students in total I think. People are so rude, they'd rather walk through you as past you, no one has any manners like holding a door for someone who's carrying three bags and trying to open the door with her foot. The sheer size of the place makes it difficult to stay in the one place - my classrooms are in Canal Side West, which is nearly a 10 minute walk from the library, where I would like to be a fair bit cos of, ye know, all the books and stuff that I would need to read to be able to have a shot at getting somewhere in this flamin course. And, the geographical position of the university means a large distance to travel in order to transport books to and from university. A 20 minute walk from campus to train, an hour on the train, another 20 minute walk home, all while carrying books/bags/external hard drives that refuse to work at home so there's no choice but to try and make it work in the university (which of course it didn't so it's broken and needs fixed... all my work's on it along with alllll my photography). Today my back nearly packed in completely, along with my legs, I took 2 Ibuprofen for the pain and nearly passed out cos I forgot that Ibuprofen makes me sleepy, and mixed with existing drowsiness does not help one bit.

Right now I want to pack it all in and go home. I want to just get on a plane with only my guitar in hand (maybe not a thing), and just go home. I don't want to be a failure, but if I can't catch up with the others, I may have to be. And if my back causes me trouble, I'll end up missing classes and opportunities to catch up. But if I have trouble catching up when I'm in class, it'll cause my back to go into spasm (stress induced), so it's just a stupid vicious circle.

I'm worried. Seriously worried. And I have no one here to calm me down and reassure me, cos everyone's got their own problems. I try to have time for them, and most of the time I'm successful, but I feel like I can't ask them to have time for me. I need someone to be here to give me a hug. I have one person I can always rely on for a hug, but he's having mad work stress right now and doesn't even have time to pee really. I want a hug, a real hug, otherwise I may go very quietly insane...

So I've been all trying to forget about Dale and other stupid boys, but here I go and have a nice dream about him last night, when all I've had lately are bad dreams.

In this dream, Dale came and found me. Before I left for Barnsley. He swooped me up in a private plane and took me to this amazing house. He bought it for the two of us. The front doors were solid mahogany, carved, and swung open onto the massive openplan living room/dining room with antique furniture, and it appeared it could be used as the 4th bedroom as well cos there was a double bed there too. Moving on, there was a reasonably sized kitchen, and a wee shower room off to the right of it. Going through the kitchen to the outside, there was a wee veranda that closed off from the massive garden by a lockable gate. Back through the other side of the kitchen was another living room, smaller, with leather sofas. The other three bedrooms were upstairs, along with the big bathroom that I never got to see in the dream.

I remember running round the house in amazement cos it was mine. And Dale saying "I found you". How confused am I right now?!

I know it's only a dream, but they're subconscious thoughts brought to the surface. Does this mean I actually do want him to come find me? I consciously know that I want someone to come find me. I want romance, I want sweeping... I want to be truly loved. :(

Copy and paste your LiveJournal friends list into an entry, and then bold everyone you've met. Italicise the ones you've spoken with on the phone. Bold AND italicise the folks you hang out with on a regular basis.


lonely_hermit, minuial_82, nathan_calloway, salt__lick, sigsauer40, slightlywrong, thehig, uko_chan, unaspenser


That was a weird one. I have spoke to both lonely_hermit and minuial_82 on the phone, but I don't hang out with them on a regular basis (last spoke in person to l_h nearly a year ago, last saw min about 6 years ago).

He can't be too tall... I'd like to hug chests, shoulders, necks -- not belly buttons or waistbands

He needs to be intelligent... but not so intelligent that he can't go round the corner for a fish supper, or he makes me feel like I'm a complete idiot

He needs to know things about cars, bikes, household requirements like painting and decorating -- he needs to be good in a practical sense with his hands

He needs to earn enough money to live, and not complain about my lack of cash in my pre-career days

He needs to be able to teach me important life lessons -- letting me go through hard times while being in the background for me in case I fall, while having faith that I won't

He needs to respect me for who I am, comfort me when I cry and not tell me to stop whining, celebrate with me when I've done something great and not make me feel like my achievements pale in comparision to something else

He needs to listen when I need to talk, and talk when he knows I'll always be there if he needs me

He needs to respect my heritage, which means understanding Irish Stew and that you DO NOT DIP YER FRICKIN BREAD IN IT!!! IT HAS POTATOES IN IT, YE STUPID ENGLISH PRATS, NOT FECKIN DUMPLINGS!!!!!!

He needs to appreciate my music, being that he can't play guitar to save his life, and he has the ability to serenade me with silly wee songs he makes up himself, as well as having the ability to fall in love with my poetry and photography because he shares those passions

And, he needs to know his place -- he is my equal, nothing more and nothing less


So there ye go. If you know a Northern Irish fella around my age who currently lives or something in the Barnsley or Huddersfield area, who rides a motorbike and has a car, who is either a plumber or a joiner, and is between 5'6 and 5'10, please point him my way. I'm lovely and deserve a good boy. No posers, no idiots, no stuck-up musicians, and definitely no fools who haven't a clue what Irish Stew is or how it should be consumed. *nod*


[P.S. This isn't actually supposed to be a Lonely Hearts type thing, and I'm not really that picky. Just appreciate me and my country, and don't pick fights about money or dipping bread in Irish Stew.]

I told Dale today that I wouldn't be waiting for him. It's not fair for him to expect me to wait. He wanted me to hang on just in case he decided he wanted to be with me again. What?! I think not...

I may have all these feelings for him, and he may have them for me too, but if he's talking about possibly not wanting me by the time he gets settled in this new place, then I don't want to be the one suffering again.

I told him that I want to see him at least once before we both disappear from Northern Ireland, and that there would be no contact from then. If he decides that he wants to be with me, he's to come find me. I'm not running after him, not anymore.

This year is my most important year for my education. My final year at university, the year I decide which career path to choose in the Multimedia industry. The year I spend travelling to a new city every day, meeting multitudes of new people. The year I make or break myself in the financial stakes, learning (finally) to budget well enough to put money aside for a deposit on my own place come July 2008. There is no way I'm gonna let anything get in my way, especially not stupid boys like Dale and Michael (he's the best of the two actually). Ye never know, I might meet a nice Northern Irish boy in Huddersfield, which would end the chain of sucky English boys!

Ahh, one can only hope. :)

That's not really how I feel, I just thought it would be funny to say.

Dale got his posting today. Or rather, he told me today. It's not far away from where I'll be from September, so yay for that. The bad news is he goes on 21st September, and he has leave from 2nd to 14th.

What does that mean for me? I'll not get to see him before he goes on leave because he'll be packing all his stuff to be sent over to the new base. I'll not get to see him when he comes back because he'll be tying up a lot of loose ends with the current posting. And, he won't be able to take me over to Barnsley like we originally planned, cos he gets taken over in a helicopter thing.

So I'm left to make alternate arrangements. It looks like me and mammy will be spending a fortune on the boat because I have too much stuff to take over on the plane, even with mammy coming with me. See, the luggage allowance is 18kg for one item. If you have another item, you have to pay more money, even if the total is under 18kg. That means I'll have to pay extra to get my guitar back over. Mammy would have to take the bodhran on as hand luggage cos I don't have a flight case for it. And who would pick us up at the airport anyway? It'd be much easier to go on the boat, even though it adds an extra 7 hours to the journey. If I had my own car, we'd go in the car sharing the driving, and mammy would go back on the plane. See, lots easier. But no. The RAF screws everything up.

Well, I have to be grateful that he'll be closer once I get over there. His other choice was to go to Cyprus in November. Farther away, but I would have been able to get a lift over in September! BAH!!!!!

I spent the majority of this evening downloading a demo of Autodesk's 3ds Max version 9 onto the folks' brand new Dell computer. It operates Vista Home Basic. It installed fine. I double-clicked the program's icon, and all that came up was a message saying "3ds Max has stopped working. A problem has caused the program to stop working correctly. Windows will close the program and notify you if a solution is available."

What does that mean? It means I can't use the program on my Mac here or in Barnsley, and I can't use it here on the new pooter. Where can I use it? Only in class. Where is my class? Huddersfield, an hour's train journey from the Barnsley house.

I think I'm destined not to be able to use this stupid thing anywhere else but in class. I was the only one this past year who didn't have the use of it at home, but I came out top in its projects. So how damn good would I be if I got to use it all the time?!?!

Last night I looked absolutely stunning, if I say so myself. It was to be the Monsters of Rock do at the barracks but it was cancelled. I kept Dale company at the bar wearing the outfit I was going to wear anyway. Steel boned corset, satin corset skirt. He resisted my hourglass figure for an awfully long time, until he couldn't resist any more.

Things have changed. Someone brings a smile to my face as soon as I think of them. How long has it been since something like that happened? The last few months of being with Michael, every time I thought of him a sense of fear overcame me, because I was just waiting to be dumped. Now, I feel nothing when I think of him. When I think of Dale, my heart flutters, I get excited, and I smile. I smile so much when I'm near him. Laughter is a contagion, my facial muscles have never had so much exercise...

I'm feeling now what he's been wanting me to feel. And they are finally my own feelings. I say that because the end of our coupledom was the result of confusion. I felt frustration, but I was confused because I couldn't figure out what I was frustrated about. After heartfelt conversations, I discovered that what I was feeling was actually Dale's frustration. He's faced with a lot of uncertainty with the notification of his next posting being delayed, he doesn't know where he stands with anything. In fact, the only thing he really knows is me. But my point is, from being so close for the entire time we were coupley, I didn't know what feelings were my own. Now I do.

And because I do, I can wait. I can hold on until Dale gets his notice. I know it may sound silly. If he gets a posting far away, like somewhere stupid like the Falklands (a slim possibility), we can't be together, but we can be if he gets posted to the UK. The fate of our togetherness lies in the slimey hands of the higherups in the RAF. There's a huge possibility he'll be spending Christmas in Basra. That's not gonna be fun. But I can wait. Because I have certainty. Something I never had before. I don't have to worry about distance causing a rift. In fact, it would create the opposite.

I know things now. No inner panic. No wrong assumptions, and no need to be assuming in the first place. I trust my feelings because I know they're my own. I finally know what it is to be on my own, but not lonely. :)

It appears that what I really wanted came true after all.

I had a discussion with Dale on Wednesday night about us, and we came to the conclusion that we were moving too fast. We both said we didn't want it to end, so we decided to go back to proper dating. We were to be going on a date yesterday, and he was to think of something romantic to sweep me off my feet like he'd always promised to do.

Yesterday morning he rang to tell me he had a massive hangover and hadn't thought of anything, but he would think about it on his way to my house. He rang again 15 minutes later and started off by saying "Laura we need to talk about our relationship because I don't think I want to be in it anymore". This is coming from a man who claimed he loved me more than life itself not so long ago.

I told him it was very cowardly to dump me over the phone and so demanded he do it to my face. So he drove the 40 miles to my house and I commenced the sarcasm and avoidance of eye-contact thing I do when the males of the species try to cause me emotional harm. He explained to me that life in the RAF is hard enough, but right now he doesn't know where he'll next be posted and when he'll be detached to Basra, and said that he needs to sort himself out. He needs to decide whether or not he wants to stay in the RAF when he's finished the last two years of his 12 year contract, and if he does, he needs to work on getting promoted. He said he needs to do all that on his own. He said he needed to be selfish for the first time in his life.

I told him how 'appreciative' I was at being the first person to suffer for his selfishness, and how I've always been the first to suffer from people's confusion and self-unworth. Oh how I dripped with sarcasm yesterday. He wants to think of himself, Michael wanted to think of himself. Why does nobody ever want to think of me? I must have a failure in the fact I always think of other people, hence the reason I did NOT decide to end things with Dale on Wednesday.

Maybe I should have. Maybe I could have saved myself the embarrassment of being dumped by someone who claimed to be so in love with me, he was beginning to plan his whole life around me. Just my luck, eh?

Although, there is a silver lining to the incredibly thick black cloud. I no longer have to feel guilty about having a picture of me and Michael in my bedroom.