The end of 2012

Wow, I haven't blogged in 6 whole months. In truth, I really haven't felt like it - when I've had the occasional good day I've thought about things I might like to post about, but before I would get a chance to I'd be back to feeling miserable, which was how I felt for the majority of the last 6 months. But with pretty much every blog I follow doing New Year-related posts, I decided I would quite like to round off this New Year's Eve by writing one too. Plus, it was interesting to recap on last year's posts, in particular my list of 5 hopes for this year. Aside from number 1 (to get a good degree classification, which I suppose I did, although I'm now disappointed that my 2:1 means I'm basically the same as the majority and have nothing to make me stand out) and possibly number 4 (to keep my relationship going, but ore on this later...) none of them materialised. I didn't travel more, I didn't make more friends, and although my job pays well I'm basically a cleaner, so not really where I pictured myself being.

I should point out at this point that this post will probably have a fairly down-in-the-dumps tone, which is fair as it accurately depicts my feelings this year. I also figure that no one reads this anyway, so I can write what I want without having to paint this perfect life blogger image that is projected in almost all of the blogs I follow (aside from those which are craft related, and thus have very little to do with lifestyle). However, on the very slim chance that someone does happen to read this, I'll end the post by talking about things that happened this year that did make me feel (albeit temporarily) happier within myself.

So, in a brief summary, what's happened this year?

January saw me spend 2 weeks in South Africa, and I have posted my diary in several instalments during the year (but I still really need to get round to finishing it...).

Most of February (and March, too) was spent writing up my research project (equivalent of a dissertation).

March saw my last lectures and the end of uni, and the end of my time as a student (possibly forever...)

April was an endless round of revision for exams.

In May I sat my exams.

In June I finished my exams, and found out my results and that I achieved a 2:1 for my degree.

In July I moved back to the homeland of Surrey/London, but went back to Cornwall a couple of weeks later for my graduation ceremony. I also went to Legoland twice - once with Steve, then once with my mum and brother.

August was spent doing... not a lot really. Went up to visit Steve for a few days, and did the long summer stint at my brother's school.

In September I had 2 weeks work experience at the Animal Reception Centre at Heathrow Airport, and got a casual/part-time job at the end of it.

I saw Steve again in October for a few days when we went to Bath as a delayed birthday thing for me. Oh yeah, and I turned 22. I also joined a new SJA division, so I am now part of the South East Region/Surrey County and in a proper adult unit instead of LINKS.

In November Steve came to visit again and we did Runnymede, Windsor Castle and Hampton Court, and I settled into being at work (albeit only a couple of days a week).

And finally, in December, I carried on working, and Alan came home for his annual 5-day Christmas visit (which was extended by an extra half day this year due to a combination of having to pick up 2 extra students before they got to Alan, awful weather and torrential rain, and horrific traffic everywhere - they normally arrive to pick him up at around 1pm on the 27th, this year they weren't here until 9pm...). I also, finally, got myself a pet Syrian hamster named Boris. He's a lovely honey colour with a white semi-band across his back (that was a really awkward way to write it but I coudn't think of a better way - basically the white band doesn't join in the middle of his back, so it kinda looks like he's got 2 white stripes on each side that meet his white belly).


Aaaand there goes the clocks (and hundreds of fireworks, and Jules Holland) signalling the new year, so it's now officially 2013.

In summary 2012 doesn't sound too bad of a year, but I had a lot of desperately low moments and worked myself into a complete sobbing mess more times than I'd like to remember.

I thought I would feel overjoyed, an amazing sense of freedom and a renewed enthusiasm for life upon completing uni, but it was shortlived and as soon as I started thinking about jobs and where I was going to live and my relationship with Steve and my future in general, I got really stressed and anxious and upset and everything felt horrible and overwhelming.

I thought I would feel relieved about getting a job, especially one that pays well and esentially allows me to pick whichever hours I want (as I'm only casual staff, so I only go in to cover shifts when they're short of people). However, on the first day of my work experience placement there I found that I would be with another girl, and she seemed to know loads more than me about all the animals that came in, she was doing an animal management qualification (which was a lot more relevant than my Zoology degree), and she had much better people skills than my non-existant-and-massively-awkward ones. I went home that evening and spent the entire night in floods of tears and feeling absolutely awful about myself and how shit I am. Turns out that this other girl was all talk and wasn't as good as she put herself across - hopefully I've learnt a lesson from this. But even when I started as a paid member of staff, I still couldn't (and still can't) shake the feeling that I'm not good enough - I'm basically a cleaner, I'm not trusted to do anything more advanced than that, and I still don't even have a damn key fob to let myself into and around the building. I don't feel valued at all, which really isn't helping my self esteem, and just adds to the giant pile of worthlessness that I feel I am at the moment. But I need to stay in this job, as it's good money and no one's going to want me for any other job, and anything I may possibly be vaguely qualified for is likely to pay at most 2/3rds of what this job is paying me.

I'm still in my relationship with Steve, although I'm not entirely sure how it's going to play out as he's now got a fancy grown-up job and lives in North Wales. I've seen him a grand total of 4 times since finishing uni, and it seems to be increasingly harder to find the time (or his willingness?) to schedule a visit. I'm going up to Wales this weekend, but that's only because I got really upset one night which in turn made him upset (or guilty?) so he decided that this weekend was free after all. Long distance is hard - it doesn't feel like I'm in a relationship at all as I see him once a month, if that, and I don't know what sort of future we have (whether we'll ever see each other regularly, as this will involve me getting a job and moving up to Wales, and I doubt the job part is likely. I also have no idea what sort of timescale we're talking about before this happens - 3 months, 6 months, a year, longer than that...?).

I think the long-distance aspect of my relationship feels worse than it otherwise would do as I have no friends anymore. The very few friends I did have at uni now live hundreds of miles away, and my friends from home aren't really my friends anymore - case in point being that they all decided to go to Bath, where one of them is at uni, for New Year, plans which they decided to talk about in front of me while Steve was down and we all went out for dinner, and I clearly wasn't invited. Bath plans then got cancelled so they arranged to go to someone else's house, to which I was then invited, but not until obviously after they'd all made plans so I was clearly an afterthought, so declined and decided to stay at home and spend the evening doing something I enjoy instead, even if it did mean being alone for yet another New Year. I've tried so hard to make friends, and I'm sure I've posted about my problems on this front before, but for some reason I seem incapable of making and keeping friends. This has been a major contributor to me feeling so low (I'm hesitant to say depressed as I know how much people can suffer with depression, but maybe I am depressed to a lesser extent?). My mum is out at work most days, and when she isn't working she's busy doing her own thing, so I spend pretty much all of my time alone. I'm used to going places and doing things alone, so that isn't really a problem, but it would be so lovely to have at least one person to share my interests with, tell funny anecdotes to or share my problems with. I'm somewhat resigning myself to the fact that I won't ever have friends again, as after 4 years of trying every method I can think of to make and keep friends I'm still without any, and if anything I have even less than I did at this point 4 years ago. But I do have an irrational fear that I'm going to die and be the subject of one of these desperately sad news articles you hear about people who have died alone and lain undiscovered for weeks as there is simply no one to notice or care that they've effectively disappeared...


And on that very grim note I think it's time I wrapped up this post with a list of things that I feel went right for me in 2012, and a list of resolutions/hopes for 2013.

Things that went right for me this year?

• I finally got a pet! After 22 years of waiting and being an avid animal lover, I finally have a pet of my own. Granted he's only a hamster, but I thought that was the most sensible choice given where I am in life at the moment. Plus he's really cute :)
• I got a 2:1 in my degree, which I know I've said I'm not particularly happy with, but it could have been a lot worse - with a 2:2 it basically wouldn't have been worth going to uni at all, so at least now I'm more employable than I would have been otherwise.
• I went to South Africa, which was amazing.
• I managed to keep my relationship with Steve going for another year.
• I got a job that pays well and allows me a lot of flexibility with hours, so I can keep up with St John and have time for myself while still getting money in.
• I got a job working with animals, which was the main goal.
• I started taking driving lessons. I've only had 2 so far, but I've driven on a main road and my instructor seems pleased with my progress, which is good to know :).

So what about resolutions/hopes for the coming year?

• Make at least one friend that I talk to regularly. I'm going to keep plodding away with this one forever I think...
• Finish my Day Zero/101 Things in 1001 Days list
• Find a job in which I feel satisfied and like I'm actually useful
• Do a bit of travelling. Even if it's only within this country, I feel like I'm really stuck at the moment, so need to spread my wings a bit.
• Keep my relationship going with Steve for another year. Hopefully move in together, but if not I want to at least get to a place where I'm comfortable with the long-distance-ness
• Get my room organised. I know this is a bit contradictory towards my last point as I said I want to move in with Steve, but I can't imagine that will be for at least another 3 months (more likely 6) so I've got plenty of time to get this room sorted first!
• Attempt the 52 craft projects in 52 weeks challenge again. I failed miserably at this the last time I tried a couple of years ago - I think I went about it all wrong (I wrote a list of the projects I wanted to do, and the pressure of trying to fit in those projects, which were all fairly long and time-consuming, was enough to put me off so much that I gave up on the whole thing), so I'm going to try and take a more relaxed attitude to it this year.
• Keep writing in my 5 year diary. I've got a very slack on this for the past couple of months, so need to spend the next few days catching up.

If anyone does happen to be reading this, happy new year to you :) (it would also be lovely if you left a comment or suchlike :)  )

Cool or cruel?

A while ago I came across this post on someone else's blog. The post was showing off the taxidermied giraffe head and neck that the blogger's hunter husband had shot, and they are now displaying in their house.

I want to add in at this point that I have never read this blog before, so my impressions are simply going on the content of this post and the comments people have left on it.

The blogger stated that she had been told that the giraffe had had a long life and was "on its last leg", and that its meat was donated to some tribespeople. Fair enough that the meat had been given to people who would make use of it once the animal had died, which is entirely what I think should be done as it shouldn't go to waste if someone else can make use of it. What I can't understand is how saying "oh it was old so it was probably going to die soon anyway" is justification for it being hunted and killed. How did the hunter know when it was going to die? And why did he think he had the right to decide when the poor creature should die, and that he should be the one who takes its life? It should have been allowed to live out its life to full term and die naturally. I'd be interested to find out what he does with the bits that he doesn't want from the rest of his kills.

However, what shocked me the most was not the content of the post itself, but the comments left on it. Some were along the lines of "wow, that's awesome, I want one" but there were a lot that said something like "that's cruel, but it's soooo cute!!!" There were also a lot of comments saying "my husband is a hunter too and I've told him we're never having deer heads on display in our house, but now I really want a giraffe head!".

Erm... is it just me that thinks when you find something cruel that kind of rules out any chance of it also being cute? If you think it's cruel, why would you want it on display in your home? And what's the difference between the head of a deer and the head of a giraffe?! They're both animals, and they're both in the same order (Artiodactyla), so they're not completely separate from each other. If anything, isn't hunting a giraffe worse? Their population numbers are much lower than population numbers of deer, they're longer-lived and they aren't as widespread.

Regardless, why should a human be allowed to take the life of an animal purely for enjoyment? Fair enough if people are hunting for food that they need to survive, or to control population numbers for conservation, or to protect themselves from animals that are endangering their lives, but simply going out and shooting animals for fun and for a trophy to take home is something I can never agree with. Surely the animal was much more beautiful alive and out in its natural habitat than it is dead, stuffed and eternally static. Or is it because it's unusual and you can say that hardly anyone else has one that makes it an attractive item to have?

I know there are private reserves where animals are bred purely to be hunted, but I still don't think that makes it right. Yes, it's better than illegal poaching and/or killing an animal that's "in the wild", but it's still taking the life of an animal for the sake of it and simply for the hunter's own pleasure. And there's a whole debate about whether having a legal element to otherwise illegal activities (e.g. hunting on reserves where the animals are bred for hunting, allowing trade in legally harvested products brings down the amount of illegal hunting that occurs, or whether it actually increases it... (see here (elephants and rhinos), here (tigers), here (rhinos) and here (a variety of species, and a brief explanation of CITES) for examples, but there's hundreds more brought up through a quick Google search).

I don't know, maybe I'm just overreacting. And maybe it's because I'm doing a degree in Zoology that I have a lot more respect for and understanding of animals, and can see the reasons why killing one animal often has further repercussions that aren't obvious to people that don't have a knowledge of animal science. Or maybe I'm not in the minority and there are a lot of other people that feel the same was I do...?

I'd be very interested in hearing other people's thoughts on the issue, so please leave a comment!

Ill.

So even though I said I don't want to whinge on this blog and that I want to keep it positive, there are times when I need to have a good rant and let it all out otherwise I start to go slightly mad. Plus I'm pretty sure no one reads this anyway, so what does it matter? And I guess I don't feel happy all the time, so having a moan once in a while is an accurate representation of my life, right?

For the past week I've been stuck in bed and haven't left the house because I've got glandular fever. I have no idea where I got it from (no, I haven't been going round kissing random people...), but I think I probably got it somewhere in Cyprus or from the nasty recycled air on the flights there/back. Eww.

About a week after I got back from Cyprus I noticed a weird inch-or-so long lump in my neck, which I thought was just a swollen gland but it was kind of odd as it was only on one side, and I felt completely fine. I started to feel gradually more and more run down and emotional and just plain blah as the weeks went on, but it wasn't bad enough for me to bother with the hassle of having to register as a temporary patient to see a doctor at home so I decided to just wait it out.

After a couple of weeks, I managed to make it back to Falmouth and have about a day here feeling fine, with only a sore throat... then last Sunday night I woke up in absolute agony every time I tried to swallow. I had a look at my tonsils and they were a bit swollen and had had white bits on, so my first thought was "Crap, I've got tonsillitis... meh, it'll go away in a couple of days". Boy, how wrong I was.

I spent all day Monday in bed falling asleep at random times because I felt awful and couldn't keep myself awake. My mum kept pestering me to see a doctor, but being a bank holiday meant the surgery was closed.

Tuesday morning I woke up nice and early to get myself a doctors appointment, dragged myself up to uni to hand some work in, then walked down to Penryn to go to my appointment. The doctor prodded around at the lumps in my neck a bit (which by this point had swollen even further, but they were only swollen glands), had a look at my disgusting tonsils (which now had black bits on as well as white bits. Yeah, gross.) and took a blood sample to test for glandular fever. I was quite shocked as I hadn't even considered having it, but he said it wasn't too likely and was just a possibility. He gave me a course of antibiotics to clear up the tonsillitis, then I headed home (nearly passing out at the bus stop and again on the top deck of the bus, which was an interesting experience...).

Thursday afternoon I got a phonecall from the doctor saying my blood results were back... and that I've got glandular fever. Yay for me :|. Because it's viral there's nothing that can be done to treat it, so I just have to wait it out and it could be weeks before I feel back to normal. Then it hit me that there's no way I'd be able to do my essay due in on the 10th and my exams on the 16th and 19th if all I wanted to do was sleep, and I couldn't even sleep anyway because my tonsils were so swollen that I could barely breathe (and every time my tongue fell back in my mouth while I was asleep it completely cut my air off and I woke up, which happened 3 or 4 times a night). Eating was stupidly difficult too because there was just no space for food to get through when I swallowed, ergh. So anyway, I emailed one of my lecturers and explained the problem, so I've got a two-week extension on my essay and I've deferred my exams until the end of August.

(Here's where the rant starts. If by any slim chance anyone happens to be reading this, I apologise in advance for coming off as a moany bitch because I'm not really like this, honestly! I'm just feeling uber crap due to being ill)

I'm missing out on attending Helston Flora day with St John today which I've been looking forward to for literally a year. I'm beyond gutted, and it really doesn't help that Steve keeps phoning me to tell me how the preparations are going as it unintentionally rubs it in my face that they're all going to be there having a good time while I'm stuck in what's effectively solitary confinement. It was also a bit of a kick in the face this morning, when I'd wanted to have a nice long lie-in and forget what day it is, to be woken up by Steve asking me to find out if Matt was ready to go (which of course he wasn't), then I couldn't get back to sleep so I've been dwelling on it all day. I'm really really hoping I'll be better by Royal Cornwall Show now, because if I'm not I'm going to be so upset it'll be unreal.
I'm kind of beginning to wonder whether I should even bother going back to St John, because I've been there a year and a half now and I've basically done fuck all. I haven't treated anything more serious than a small cut, I've done over 100 hours on duty since I joined but most of those I've spent sitting on my fat arse, I don't do anything in my role as "treasurer" other than count loose change and pay it into the bank every now and again, I'm going to be an absolutely shit trainer (when I eventually finish 7303), and yet somehow I've been made out to be amazing when actually I'm pretty much completely useless. I feel like a fraud, so I'm really considering packing it all in and letting Frankie take over from me as vice chair/trainer next year, because in all honestly she'll be much better at both of those things than I would be, and after the extremely close vote between Steve and Frankie for who gets to be president next year it makes sense for Frankie to be vice chair as people actually wanted to vote for her and people only voted for me because I was the only person who went for that position. And none of the people I meet in different divisions remember who I am anyway even after they've met me several times,showing that there's basically no point in me being part of St John because I'm not good for anything other than occasionally being a dogsbody.

I'm also really wishing I hadn't deferred my exams now. Realistically I know it was the right thing to do, because I've lost out on so much revision time now that I would perform terribly if I sat the exams in a week and a half's time, but now everyone else is revision while I'm stuck here ill and needing some company, and then while they get to celebrate finishing exams and having a nice long summer free from having to worry about work I'm going to have exams and revision lingering in the back of my mind and spoiling everything. I'd been so looking forward to the summer too and being able to be carefree and do whatever I want, but now I know I'm going to have to spend weeks revising, thus spending yet more time by myself.

I feel like life's permanently letting me down. Every time I think I'm picking myself back up something comes along and brutally shoves me back down again. Like when I came back after Easter, I thought things were starting to look up and I only had a few weeks until I was free until October... and now I'm alone (yet again), ill and bed-bound with a nice long summer of revision and bad feeling to look forward to.

I feel so let down by university and everything it promised to be... "You'll make loads of new friends!" "You'll do so many fun things!" "You'll learn so much!" "You'll have the time of your life!"... NONE of those things have been true for me, and it's a huge slap in the face when everyone else I know says how much of an amazing time they're having at uni and I'm literally the only person I know who hates the damn place and wishes I hadn't bothered due to the massive debt it's lumbering me with so what is basically 3 years of misery (and that's not including the masters I'll probably have to do to make this degree worth anything, urgh.)

I just want the whole damn experience to be over, and I want my life to work out the way I want it to for once in fucking while.


If you read all the way through this, I salute you.