I called the college office and left a message just after 9am for both my tutors T & L2 to advise them I was not going to be in today as I was sick, just before I did this I got a text from a college friend telling me she wasn’t going in she had an eye infection she called in left a message but could I duplicate this and pass along a message to the tutor, ermmm yes I could if I was there… I’m not. Obviously I relayed this back in a text back to her.

The paranoid side of my personality worked overtime thinking if people see we are both not in they’ll think we’re off out together, god I’m 32 and my brain still dream ups these wild ideas! On top of that I was panicking about my UCAS application and didn’t want to miss what I figured could be an important tutorial so looking half dead like something that should have only been out on 31st October I dragged myself to the train station and made my way over the college. I must have been crazy, not only was I dosed up on every flu medication available in Boots, I’d not eaten anything properly in 48 hours but this was my UCAS application it was my future I had to see where it stood.

Arriving at Manchester Victoria I took a taxi over to the college, walking to the bus stop and onto college when I could barely breathe was not an option! I made it for the final 45 minutes of the morning’s Psychology class much to the surprise of some people. One person remarked ‘We thought you and F were wagging it with you both not being in’ I know it’s a joke… I love a joke like the next person… but can you see why I get paranoid so easily… you get friendly with someone and then they are off, your off… people start to put two and two together, doesn’t matter that you both live at opposite ends of Greater Manchester!

Anyway I managed to have a chat with L2 and sort out a few UCAS things so am feeling more relieved about it now, I’m still waiting for the UCAS application to come back to me but at least I know what needs to be added now. Having a chat to her today has meant I’ve been able to tell her about the new voluntary job which she can mention in my reference that she is writing, so I’m somewhat calmer over the whole UCAS application thing now, I just wish whoever has the job of sending this UCAS application back to me would hurry up and get on with it!

I may have felt like I was dying but glad I dragged myself in to sort that out now otherwise I’d been wondering and worrying about it till next week’s tutorial! Now I’m resigning myself to bed till I’m 110% fit again, I’m emailing tomorrow’s tutor to tell him I won’t be in!

I’m on Tamiflu day three… and somewhere I read nightmares were a side effect, they were not wrong, I have had the most weirdest nightmares, freaky panicking waking up wondering where the hell you are dreams! I question whether this flu is flu or a side effect of the swine flu vaccine, since typical symptoms recorded include flu like symptoms that can last for two to three days, I’m confused, does the fact I had a cough on Friday rule that out? I woke up feeling okay on Saturday morning, had one swine flu vaccine returned to bed because I was cold and tired and woke up with flu like symptoms early Saturday evening which gradually took over my entire body, the rest they say is history… Anyway I’ve done my bit for UK research just in case and reported it here!

This is the first time I have crawled out of bed in over 24 hours and I shall be shortly crawling back. I have been hit with the flu, ironic considering I had the normally flu vaccine on Thursday and the swine flu vaccine on Saturday morning but obviously this virus was already in my system to start with. The symptoms started on Friday but I made it through the day at college. I got the swine flu vaccine on Saturday which was a little like being on a conveyor belt at the airport with people going in every two minutes, mine was done by Dr W. There were no adverse reactions to it, a little stiffness in the arm afterwards but that’s gone now.

I returned back to bed when I got back from the surgery and by the time I woke up come 5pm I was awful, I felt like I’d been kicked by a horse, everything ached in my entire body. I don’t recall ever having flu before, chest infections yes but never flu I think I can now tell the difference between the two! Gradually I’ve got worse and since Saturday evening I am reluctantly taking Tamiflu, drinking large amounts of lemsip but am not eating my appetite is null so I am hoping the extra sugar in the lemsip will keep my blood sugars stable for now.

Is it flu or swine flu, I have no idea and frankly I don’t give a pigs trotter… I just know I hate feeling sick and even worse is the fact I’m not going to be able to get to college tomorrow and possibly for the next few days, that annoys me more than anything because it delays my UCAS application which I really wanted to go off last week but it couldn’t for one reason, I’m waiting for it to be returned back to me to add the grades I’ve got on the course already to aid my application, someone was suppose to return my application back to me to allow me to add my grades but they have not… I only went in on Friday to sort out this UCAS application because one of my tutors T was going to show me how to add the results I’d got now on the application and then it could go off, them not sending it back means they are delaying things for me, me getting sick = delaying it even more and that really pisses me off especially since the universities I am applying to are already offering interviews to people… I feel utterly disappointed, why did I have to get sick this week…

This week at college I got my assignment grades back for the Borderline Personality Disorder presentation and assignment work I did in Psychology last month, I got TWO DISTINICTIONS for the work I did! For the written exam we took in the class before the half term I got three passes, so no resit on that score! Needless to say I am very pleased especially with the two distinctions since it seems I am so far the only one in the class to get any distinctions which needless to say makes me very happy!

Am waiting on the Biology and Sociology results now, in the mean time have new work to continue working on! I’m keeping the post short, I have a feeling I’m coming down with something, how typical. Had my normal flu jab yesterday and tomorrow I am due to have the swine flu vaccine, although if this cough I have get’s any worse they may not do it at the surgery – I guess time will tell.

This week seems to have been full of activity but in a good way, I have at last got a voluntary job. I start in a couple of weeks for a local charity counselling service in the town. I really like the service and how it operates, it was established 10 years ago and runs from a church hall in the town although it’s not a religious counselling service the church hall is used for various things including blood donor sessions! My role is that of the greeter and receptionist working one evening a week to start, but they hope if they can get extra funding they may extend their evening services! They open Monday to Friday all day and currently two evenings a week but they hope to extend to three evenings a week, the service is very popular but there is also a long waiting list for people who are waiting for their services. I had previously heard of them before going for the interview and upon meeting the manager yesterday I was pleased with finding the job and he sounded like he liked me! I’d been looking since June for something voluntary and had sent off quite a few letters but had just one reply, most can’t be troubled because of the CRB check procedures involved, not actually knowing the college will do that for them anyway! Anyway this job is ideal, it’s local and it in the kind of subject area I am really interested in as well so I’m pleased! I am sure I don’t need to fill you extensively in but obviously greeting clients, telling the counsellor they have arrived, answering the phone, admin work, plus holding the responsibility to put the alarm on and lock up at night. It’s going to give an ideal amount of work experience for university!

I finally got around to getting my eyes tested on Tuesday, we got an unexpected day off college as the tutor was sick. I knew about it on Monday as I’d heard on the grapevine has was sick from another class, so I enquired if he was in on Tuesday as I didn’t want to traipse in for two hours on a bus just to traipse home again come 9.30am and it seemed he wouldn’t be in on Tuesday so I decided to finally chase up getting my eyes tested something I’d been meaning to do for a while. I suspected my prescription had changed as I was getting headaches and was struggling to see the board in class when wearing my glasses plus getting what I could only describe as the odd floater in my left eye which had been happening for a number of months. I knew that Topiramate could make changes to your eye sight and since I’d been on it since March I figured I felt better to get it checked out now. Topiramate can cause glaucoma. I missed my diabetic retinal screening in May, my appointment was the day I went into hospital, obviously having my eyes checked was the last thing on my mind the day I was being admitted to the local psychiatric ward. I never miss those appointments and since changes were picked up back in 2008 it should have been more important to have gone this year!

Anyway I was right, I went to Boots for a change since I was really pleased with how they treated mum when she went there plus they also picked up mum’s cataract’s after Specsavers missed it! My prescription had changed, my right eye the short-sighted one had got slightly worse and my left eye the long-sighted one has somewhat improved – make of that what you will! So it’s new glasses all round which I am collecting later this morning, and new contact lenses which I am still wearing but just for occasions when I am out since I find they dry my eyes and so am just buying them as and when I need them! Thumbs up for the optician in Boots, I had a partial retinal screening done there and there are still slight changes to the back of my eyes and she’ll write to my GP to ensure I get another appointment for a full retinal screening soon. I had to smile to myself, the optician was the spitting image of L1, and I mean spitting image, I had to look twice – I almost asked her if she had a sister, but she didn’t have a Scottish accent! We all know how close opticians get as well… so much for trying to forget about a certain someone!

Tuesday evening I went to the theatre to see the musical Chicago in Manchester, it’s on tour and I booked a last minute ticket on Monday evening, I was just browsing ticketmaster and was bored I fancied an evening out and since I can get a student discount and there was a ticket on the front row I took it! I was not disappointed, it was absolutely fantastic. Sadly well actually cross out the SADLY we won’t (will) talk about the three bottles of wine I enjoyed, the one in pizza hut before the theatre, the glasses of wine in the theatre bar plus the two bottles I bought in Sainsbury’s on the way home and drank watching my new Gessle’s DVD whilst singing along at some strange hour of the morning. You could say I fell well and truly off the wagon after 7 months of being sober and I can slightly recall passing out and waking up at 4.30am with the cat asleep next to me on the sofa, the cat I don’t own! It sneaked in when I got back from the theatre. I did MAKE IT to college, how is anyone’s guess but I did, thankfully I’d finished by 11am since most of the class were heading to the Salford University Open Day but I and some others went to the last one weeks ago so I headed home… and I still made it to the interview for the voluntary job! Still my night out was fun, not clever drinking three bottles of wine but we all have our crazy moments, I’d been craving alcohol for a while, I think it’s been a combination of a few things and maybe it’s partially out of my system but maybe it’s another blog post that needs to be written soon…

Also in the post on Tuesday I got a copy of the letter from the Psychotherapist H I was seeing, it was just a review of our sessions we did a copy of which will go to my GP and Dr G. It was strange reading the letter and brought tears to my eyes but I feel in a good way because it makes so much sense what we talked about. There is also mention of L1 in the letter a few times so seeing the optician on Tuesday morning that looked so much liked her and then coming home to the letter mentioning her name, she steps back into my life again or did she ever step out… I do find though since the therapy sessions I am not thinking of her as much as I was and that is a good thing. I went to the Huddersfield Open Day and I only realised the next day that not once did I think of her not even when there was mention of the hospital where she worked as being a placement place when I was talking to the admissions tutor, it seems talking to H really did help put some ghosts to rest.

Now I want to add some college news to this post, but I’ll do another post tomorrow or perhaps over the weekend when I get to the end of the week at college!

My half term has been superb, just the thing I needed to wind down a little and catch up on some things I needed to do. I managed to get the Biology assignment done before the first half of the week estimating I have spent around 80 hours on it, I am impressively proud of the amount of work and effort I have put into it and the fact everything I am learning is actually managing to stay inside my brain! The rest of the week has been spent catching up with some other bits and pieces and dare I say it but doing some Christmas shopping despite the fact I didn’t particularly want to, it’s for people I have to buy for and I guess the sooner it’s done the better.

I visited the University of Huddersfield for its open day in the middle of the week. I don’t really know how to express the experience of the day… The town was everything I expected and more, the university was so much better than I even imagined! The open day was organised thoroughly compared to Salford which in my own opinion was quite poor and disappointing. I managed to have a chat to the admissions tutor for mental health for quite some time and it was rather useful because it enabled me to ask questions and he was really accommodating and friendly. It was a nice campus as well whichwas just about a 10 minute walk from the train station through the main town centre which is really welcoming, kind of reminds me of places I’ve been on holiday to in others parts of the UK. Travelling there on the train as well the scenery was just breathtaking, it’s the kind of place I’ve always envisage moving to.

The actually training as well appeals more than Salford, but at the same time Salford appeals because of the fact I’m making friends at college who’ll go to Salford as well but I feel going to the University of Huddersfield just offers me more prospects, for instant, with them you can start on the Diploma like Salford so you get the Bursary which obviously equals more money to live on and swap to the Degree in the third year but at Huddersfield you graduate with a Honours Degree whereas at Salford you only graduate with an Ordinary Degree. I feel if you’re putting the effort in during the final year I’d rather graduate with an Honours Degree! Both programmes the Diploma and Degree run the same for two years they just change in the third year with the Degree focusing on critical thinking and a dissertation. Also Huddersfield’s have more opportunities for third year placements abroad than Salford do. You also have a wider option of placements, you can choose which town you want to stay in, i.e. Huddersfield, Wakefield, Halifax etc…

Dad’s agreed to take me down to Halifax soon to visit his old haunts since he grew up there plus he wants to take his new car for a run which he picks up on Friday, his new Red Renault Clio, he’s downsizing now he’s on his own! Actually we’re surprised he’s getting it so soon we were not expecting it till the end of November so was surprised they rang to say it would be in this week! Speaking of red, I treated myself to a new limited edition red iPod, the old iPod shuffle I was using which I bought when the old iPod died in the hospital just wasn’t really big enough! I bought the new one from Apple online since I wanted to get it engraved…

Of course it has a Roxette themed lyric on the back! Everything is Night of the Proms at the moment in my life since it started in Antwerp last week and will run till almost the end of December and of course Roxette are headlining the shows. I’ve finally booked my flight to Germany! I have tickets for four shows but I am definitely seeing the two shows in Cologne as always planned and I figure I can make the one in Hanover when I arrive if I take the train over there since I have a front row seat and don’t want to miss that one! It’s just a case of booking a train ticket and another night in a hotel! I figure I can dump my suitcase at the hotel in Cologne I am booked in and take the train to Hanover, check into a hotel, see the show, sleep over and come back in the morning! The hotel has been booked in Cologne for months. 

Years ago I’d crashed out in the train station and waited for the first train back the next day but gone are those days of sleeping in train stations after concerts – I still have nightmares of a place called Falun in Sweden, the last place I slept at the train station after a Gyllene Tider concert in 2004 and vowed never again! lol, still those where good times, happy memories!