Stop the world, I want to get off.

Anyone remember that when I got back from Collectormania, I said it was totally worth it even though most of my waitressing money was gone?

Well, I was wrong about that. Not because C5 wasn't worth it - it was, that's not the issue - but because there never was any waitressing money. Not a single penny. I've just realised that I was never paid. Not once. And this makes me feel varying degrees of stupid, because it took me three months to realise there's two hundred quid missing from my account.

Which sums everything up, I think. I don't feel so good (should be adverb, I know). Thankfully, it's not the highly specialised level of self-loathing that arises out of not doing any revision - I finished organic today - but more a sort of urgh, urgh, I hate being female and also a sort of vague resentment directed against my family and my mother in particular. My parents are flying out to America on Friday. My mother is a little bit stressed sorting stuff out before she leaves, and she has this ongoing need for my sympathy.

Which I have precious little of. The way I see it, she's going to Indianapolis, Las Vegas, San Francisco and Washington DC (not in that order), all of which are places I want to go to and in the case of San Francisco, move to, and I'm not. I know I said I didn't mind, and I really don't (how unbelievably selfish would it have been to stop them going just because I can't go?) but I resent the implication I'm not being helpful. No, I'm not. In case it's escaped anyone's notice, I have six AS modules in less than two weeks.

And why does she have to clean the house from top to bottom? The conversation went as follows:

"Why do you have to clean the house from top to bottom?"

"Because it hasn't been cleaned since before I went away!"

"So? It's not the end of the world!"

"Yes it is!"

"Excuse me?"

"Just because you don't see the dirt..."

"You're not going to be here to see it! I am!"

"That doesn't matter! Look at the carpet!"

"Are you going to spend all your time in the States worrying about bloody carpets and milk and doorkeys?"

"You never close the door! Lock all the doors!"

"If I lock all the doors, how am I going to get out?"

"You can't go out! You have to revise!"

"I need milk for coffee!"

All my conversations with my mother are similarly illogical. I don't know why this always happens. Anyway, I just know she's not going to enjoy herself, she's going to worry about stupid things. Not about my exams, or stuff that's, like, important, but the fact I prop my feet up on the kitchen table.

Talking of which (my feet, not the stone table), I am in pain. Seeing as I howled and yelled at the minor poking and prodding my little visit to orthopaedics entailed, I don't think I'm going to enjoy physiotherapy. It doesn't start for a couple of weeks, and I won't be walking round much before then, but I do not like the idea that I'm never going to be able to walk normally.

Huh. Life could be worse. I could be going to school, for instance. Although it did dawn on me that my parents are going on Friday and they're not going to be back for ten days, and in that time I have no school, no exams, no particular plans, aching ankles and feet and a lot of revision. If I fall over again, there's no-one to find me and no-one to call; last time I managed to drag myself to the phone and ring Pedar, but that won't be possible this time.

Great. Fabulous. Stop the world, I want to get off.