Well my kittens i'm off on holiday, i'm a little nervous because of my weight and relative lack of fitness. And of course i'm worried about the cold...

Wish me luck, and i hope to see you all again in one piece next week.

grr. i had a filling done yesterday and it's too big. I can't bite properly now and my jaw and head ache because of that. I'm having to go to the dental hosptial and pay more money to get it filed down. It could be along night tonight.

Also, the blooming ford centre rang up today the day before i get my MOT done to say that now they can't do it, because they have no certificates. So i'm going to have to get it done on a week day and msis some work. So frustrating, since i booked it deliberately on a Saturday over a month ago.

I wrote a little more for my music essay, and finished watching the TV programme about sonnets (which did not help with getting me to finish my sonnet essay), and started the one about music.

I'm off to a ski meeting tonight. Hopefully all the people on the trip will be getting together, so we can meet, and i guess i can find out who i sharing a room with!

So far i'm managing with not eating so much. Only one choccy bar today, and no crisps. But i am sooo hungry now. I definately need some tea when i get home.

Well, my furst tutorial went well, and it confirmed that i had basically started off on the right track with tma01. This convinced me to go back to tma02 and start wiritng again. I had forgotten that my rough draft for the third, musical section was not finished. I am up to 260 words, so i have 40 left. I should be able to finish it soon. Then i need to do some finishing touches to the one of the painting, and then really do some hard thinking about the sonnet one. But i may leave that until we have discussed it at the tutorial. The tutor also suggest that we should start reading "wide sargasso sea", which i felt pleased with, since ihave already read it thorugh once.

Now, if i can just stop spending money....life would be grand(ish)

So, i need to decide what i can do to stop spending. Well, i do have some things that i need to pay for this month that i cannot get out of; moting/servicing and taxing my car. No getting out of that i'm afraid, and that's what will push my over my 1k comfort zone. But that'll be it. I also need to get some spending money for my holiday. Then Feb i need to stop spending.

Saturdays instead of painting, i'm going to strip wallpaper. I already have the materials to do that, and don't need to buy anything else. I have plenty of CD's and DVD's and some games to play...i don't NEED to buy any more. And since it is my birthday, i should be able to get my mum and sister to buy me a couple of new books to read that i haven't been able to borrow from the library.

I need to stop going to the Fort and buying crap, basically. I seem to have so little self-control at the moment...

I also need to save again. but i think that i need to pay off my credit cards first...

So, i went to help out at the Villa ground. I was shocked at Ms Dynamite's racist remarks about Whites. Oddly enough, these remarks were not reported in the press and since i was there i did not see any television coverage of the event (i don't think it went out live, but felt sure that there woudl have been clips), but i do wonder if those remarks were broadcast...

Still, i turned up and was there in case anyone needed to talk...and the Bish was very funky drumming away!

I was chatting to James, it's frightening how much money i have spent this month...and i still have two weeks to go. I won't hit my target of leaving around 1.5k in my account, it'll be closer to 800. I don't like that. As i've mentioned before, i like a nice grand as my buffer. But then again, i suppose i need the buffer for months like these when i just spend...

It feels like i have nothing to show for spending nearly two grand. But i have bought a chair, and a LOT of paint.

I have my first tutorial tonight. I'm a little scared...

I'm supposed to be helping out with this on Sunday.

I would like to thank my friend James for cheering me up, and my friend Steve for putting up with my blather.

Nearly a month until my next birthday. Not much has changed since last year, although i am a homeowner now!

Still single and still overweight. Christmas did nothing for me, and i tried to by a pair of ski trousers and embrassingly had to by XL men's...i was nearly in tears trying on the women's ones...

On a plus note, i wrote up the first part of TMA02, an analysis of a painting, and discovered that i have 340 words, with a limit of 400, and still have a teeny bit more to write. Excellent. Now i just have to hope that i can do the same for the sonnet essay and the music essay (i started that one last night). Tomorrow i'll write up the sonnet one. And monday i have my first tutorial and should be able to completely finish off TMA01. I like being a few weeks ahead, i think it'll stand me in good stead for being away on holiday/ill or if work gets in the way.

I'm finding it quite hard, i never was one to ramble on...

It seemed very cold at my house last night, so hopefulyl ti might get serviced over the weekend. It definately seems colder upstairs now. Or is it because i hav a cold comng on. I don't know.
After going to the gym last night i tried again to do this critical analysis of the sonnet..and failed...

And today i was told that people have been mentioning that i look at the web too much, fortunately my team lead recognised the fact that whilst it's just me who was reported, i look at it no more than anyone else!

To stop this from being too depressing, he said that he did feel i was the most professional to the clients.

I completely finished working my way through the unit on sonnets, i enjoyed reading them and learning a little more about a form of poetry that i had never been taught before. Now "all" i need to do is write the part of the TMA that relates to sonnets. This is the part that i find hard, but fortunately (unlike with the painting section) i actually quite like the sonnet.

i feel that i finalyl made soem progress in my psych sessions. I hate noise because i am hypersensitive to it after a childhood when i felt that i had to be accutely aware of noise and atmosphere.

I had a rather cold weekend.

It was a hard, bright day in early January.

and my fire broke. It stopped worked, so i upscrewed the plug (thinking that i needed to replce the fuse) and found that part of the plug was burned, as was the live wire. But the 10amp(!) fuse was fine.

I bought a new plug, with a 13 amp fuse. And my Uncle bob (nto really, my uncle) came aroudn to have a look at that and my warm air heater. He took teh filter out, which was filthy with dust, and that made a difference of about 4 degrees in the temperature of the downstairs. I was very pleased.

I also listened to most of "northern lights" on R4, which ended an hour after it was advertised to end! I didn't feel that i really sympathised with any of the characters, so i'm not sure whether i will listen to the subtle knife next week (by far the best of the three)...

I also finished off the first quarterof my first proper tma, and started studying sonnets. Because of the lack of heating i didn't get much studying done on Sunday, so i'm going to work hard and make up for that tonight and wednesday. I want to keep ahead, especialyl since i have this weeks skiing holiday coming up...although i might just use that for reading my set texts. Nothing like getting those firmly entrenched. Or maybe i could buy or borrow a small walkman and take my tapes with me? Still, it will be good to get away.

I also need to think about geting my essays typed up properly. It'll be easier to make changes that way.

At the moment i'm onto sonnets, which i am enjoying more; but i haven't really got into the deep discussions of them yet...we'll see. I suddnely remember how rubbish i truly was at this sort of thing at school, and i how i realyl did earn my appalling as-level grade (d or an e). But this will make up for it. I don't know what i will get, but anything above 40% (which i guess is what d or e is) will make me proud.

I think i also need to buy a wallplanner (or see if mum has one going spare) so that i can mark out quite clearly when my tma's are due in, so that i can plan my work well. I will probably be keeping a lower social profile, but what with trying to do up the house, i think it will be ok.

I'm clearly going to have to update the rest of my site at some point, since i discovered that Chris Lilley no longer has Lou content on his site. I hope that Lou is still making music, i haven't heard anything from her mailing list in about a year... heck i keep trying to update the whole site, but things get in the way...like buying and decorating a house, studying with the OU, attempting to get fit!

In doing some tidying up of adorable, i have discovered that all the main smallkat entries have gone (presumably, i forgot to transfer thenm when i got rid of smallkat). oops; about 3 years worth of entires there, some of them were classics too...oh well.

Happy New year to all my adorable kittens! I spent a quiet New Year by myself. But i sat in the chair i bought from Ikea that i spent 4 hours putting together. I have continued painting and am now getting to the stage where i might need to buy one of those long handled brushes because there are bits on the walls buy the stairs that i just can't reach (and no way am i putting stepladders onto stairs!)

"God is at work in your life - even when you do not recognize it or understand it."

I really don't understand it, but i know that He has a plan.