Though I lack your power, I will still persist.

Things I have done since last updating:

( 11 March - 31 March, in about 800 words )

I've just realised that I haven't updated in a while (mainly because I haven't felt up to it), so here's a quick rundown of things that have happened.

• Finished queuing all the posts for my Secret September Tumblr Project (titled 30 Days of Femslash).
• Made a Lush bubble bar, which I gave to someone who had the same birthday as me.
• Turned 24.
• Bought a box set (20 episodes, 3 discs) of Chip 'n' Dale's Rescue Rangers, then watched the whole thing within three days.
• Went to volunteering and survived.
• Wrote 3 ficlets (all femslash, one of which involved bloodplay, which I've never written before/done at all, so it's probably rubbish) - posted all three at angelikittentreats.
• Realised that angelikittentreats is an awful name for my fic/creative community.
• Listened to a lot of 80's music. And I mean a lot.

Also, having just received a Christmas catalogue through the door, I've realised that I have no idea what holidays/anniversaries you all celebrate. So, time for a poll!

[Note: "religious/cultural holidays" refers to the sort of thing that is celebrated by larger amounts of people at around the same time (i.e: Christmas, Winter Solstice). "Personal anniversaries" are days that are special to you (like birthdays, relationship anniversaries, etc.). If you can't answer this poll, you can always email me at angelikitten[at]dreamwidth.org]

[Note #2: If you want me to send you a card or an email or something on any of your personal anniversaries, I'll need to know the relevant date(s) - I can google the dates for the cultural/religious ones if I don't know them, so don't worry about that.]

I actually did stuff today! Like volunteering! And paying my credit card bill!

Who am I kidding? I just want to show you my new hat:


Me, in a black "fisherman"-style hat.
It turns out that I have a really big head, because that was the only hat in the whole shop that fitted.

On a completely unrelated topic, have a meme (from dingsi:

Reply to this post, and I will tell you my favourite icon of yours. Then post this to your own journal using your own favourite icon.

(Yes, that is my favourite - I adore Quina, xe is awesome.)

I've been volunteering for a local charity now for nearly a year (since 2 June 2009!) and I have to say that I love it. It's not just because it gets me out of the house (for once) or because I'm doing something that I like (mostly admin work), but because the people there are just so accommodating.

I have some hearing loss in my left ear, which affects my general ability to hear things, and also my directional hearing (i.e. working out which direction a sound is coming from). This can be a bit of a problem if you're trying to answer phone calls in an office where there are 15 phones (I think) spread across three departments. Even though I only actually have to worry about two of them, I often can't tell which one of the 15 is ringing. Once I've worked out that it's my phone ringing, I have to hope that I can actually hear the person on the other end.

My boss and the main administrator are okay with this. They'll nudge me if the phone next to me is ringing and I haven't heard it. They'll take phone calls for me if they think it's too noisy in the office for me to be able to hear the person on the phone. They both have no problem with me passing the phone to them if I can't hear the other person due to a bad line, or if they speak too quietly.

They accommodate me in other areas too: my boss is very good at calming me down when I start panicking, which means I get to avoid having panic attacks, and the main administrator is massively patient with me when I forget how to do things, which ends up being most of the time due to my memory problems.

I can't help but feel that I was extremely lucky to get this voluntary position - not just volunteering in this office, but with these particular people. If it wasn't for the fact that I work with these particular people, I would quite likely be (to put it bluntly) completely stuffed.

That might seem melodramatic, I know. But the thing is I'm not the first person they've dealt with who has problems like these, because they deal with some of these things in their own lives. The main administrator uses hearing aids, and has been working with my boss for years. My boss has a child who has anxiety, and knows what that looks like. Because of their experiences, the two of them had actually thought about what accommodations they themselves were able to make for volunteers before I came along, which I'm thankful for.

The problem is that I'm looking for paid work, as I can't afford not to. But I'm scared that no-one will ever give me a chance once they find out that I need help like this. Or that they'll give me a job but not give me the accommodations I need, meaning that I will eventually have to quit (or end up getting fired) because I'm not able to cope.

The thing is, if more places were like the office that I volunteer at, then I wouldn't need to worry - and I wouldn't need to write posts like this either.

The first of April:
Sun shining through my window -
Has to be a trick.


I should never have agreed to a therapy session today, I have far too much to do - with tomorrow being Good Friday, I have to remember to get the basics in for the long weekend. It's not that I think that all the shops will be shut tomorrow, it's just that there will probably be a lot of people who've taken the day off and decided to go shopping, and I don't like crowds. At all.

(If I'd have thought about it, I would have done it yesterday, but I didn't remember that it was Good Friday tomorrow until last night, and that my usual getting of basics before volunteering would be disrupted because the volunteering place will be closed. Yeah.)

Also, I think that today's therapy session is the one that's meant to involve someone observing it or something? Do not want. But then, people have to learn how to do things somehow, and I felt that saying no wouldn't be fair, you know? I have decided though that, if I start getting uncomfortable with it during the session, I will say something about it then.

Saying that, knowing me I'll have got the dates wrong - it could be that the observer person is observing at a later date, or they were meant to observe on that day when we had to cancel the session at the last minute. But I know I'll feel better having worried + come up with a plan now, than being surprised later and probably having a panic attack. Because panic attacks are just not fun.

Here, have a quick summary of my week.

( Monday: Jobcentre )

( Tuesday: Therapy )

( Wednesday: Survival )

( Thursday: Shopping )

( Friday: Volunteering )

And that was my week.

So, yesterday I had this big List of Things To Be Done. Only I tripped and my foot started hurting again (from that accident thing back on February 12th, where it turned out it was just a ligament? Yeah, that.), and then my back did something (I'm not sure what happened, but I woke up one day at the end of October, and my lower back hurt, like I'd done something to the nerve, and since then it's been painful on and off - the pain also affects the top of my left leg, making walking much harder), so I didn't even leave the house. No, not even for the Christmas party that that place I volunteer at was having.

Anyway, woke up this morning at 4am-ish. About 6am-ish I gave up on the idea of sleep and continued catching up on YU+ME: dream (managed pages 181 to 493 - if anyone else is reading it, talk to me if there's any chance you could do me a favour), and about 9am-ish I decided that, not having been in any pain up until that point, going into town and getting things done would be okay.

Word to the wise: Buses - do not trust them. I probably would have been okay if I hadn't have ended up sat awkwardly on an overpacked bus. And I wouldn't be so annoyed about it if people hadn't have been giving me those looks that say "You should give someone else your seat because you're young", especially when I ended up falling off the bus instead of walking off it. Luckily, I have very little pride about the whole staying upright thing, otherwise I might have bruised it.

You know what was top of my List of Things To Do yesterday? Buy painkillers.



(None of this really matters, because I'm slightly in love with my icon.)

So, finally, a rundown of the last few days \o/

Anyway, after a long night of worrying about the psychological evaluation (that I thought was on Thursday and isn't actually until next month, because I'm that clever), I ended up going into town to apply for that job at Lush. What I actually did was applied for the job and then flirted like hell with the only member of staff in the shop, which lead to me buying a bar of Vanilla in the Mist soap. The flirting was probably a bad idea, but I love the soap. Especially since it was really warm, and VitM is surprisingly refreshing.

Friday meant volunteering, and it was a little hectic. I loved it like you wouldn't believe. I've missed being that busy and still have people trust me that I'll get things done, even if I was working right up until closing and nearly made everyone late leaving. I also left my hat there, and broke my sunglasses on the way home, just to add a little bit of fail to the day.

Today I... fixed the sunglasses. What normal person fixes a pair of £1 sunglasses anyway? Anyway, I did that and then went out in search of lipstick, because I have to "make an effort" for my brother-in-law's 30th at the beginning of next month. I'm pretty sure what this actually means is "try to look pretty and girly, and don't make a damn fool of yourself". Not something I'm actually any good at, and not something that I'm exactly comfortable with, but it's his party and why make a fuss when I won't be seeing most of the people there for a few months afterwards? Besides, I've been acting like a girl when I haven't felt like one for most of my life, I can do it for one night, right?

So, now I now own an actual lipstick. A shade of brown, because every other lipstick shade in Boots made me look horribly pale - I have huge permanent bags under my eyes, so pale is a bad look for me. 7 years, and I still have no idea how to make them less obvious. Oh well.

Anyway, not done much, obviously.

I know, I know... You don't really want to hear me whining. I don't want to hear me whining right now.

I don't have the slightest clue why this is happening. My money came into my account today, I get to volunteer tomorrow, I get to see James and Patrick at the weekend. I'm even voting today, although I'm not telling anyone who for. Well, other than to say that I'm most definitely not voting for the BNP. Or UKIP, because their campaign people annoyed the living daylights out of me earlier by making fun of the fact that I couldn't hear them properly, which I should be more annoyed about, but I can't even muster up that much emotion right now.

Stuff it. I'm going to vote, and then I'm going to drown my sorrows (that I shouldn't even have!) in ice-cream.