in the bleak midwinter

[raven]

I am so ridiculously falling-over tired that I can't sleep. It's times like this that I hate the world, naturally. I am being productive, I am refusing to be cowed by my own sleep cycle, there is stuff to catch up on here, I think.

First of all, to get it out of the way, the mental-health-related wank. Actually, it's not wank so much as a distinct lack of reaching any conclusions. For those playing along at home and that, there were three, maybe four possible explanations for my current state of ennui. They were: glandular fever, anaemia, unnamed viral scourge and an atypical form of clinical depression. Various medical professionals, including my own parents, were trying to sort out this tangle of diagnosis. The plan was for me to go on Friday and find out my blood test results, so with some difficulty, I went.

Claire and Ben came with me. I don't know; there's some benefit to moral support for things like this, but also a benefit to your friends not bearing witness to you falling apart like soggy paper. Sadly, this had already happened on Wednesday night. It started out okay, and I had the evening set aside for a bit of ethics reading and going to bed early, but instead Claire and Sam arrived home complaining that Narcissists had been rubbishy, and they and I and Claire's friend David lurked in her room and bitched about our relationships and lack thereof.

And I don't know what happened, really. It sort of ended up with my being drunk and miserably unhappy - as opposed to everyone else, who seemed to be in giddy drunk mode - and I'd been so very low for a while, that it all sort of happened at once. Jesus fuck, I don't know. I barely remember it. But it wasn't good. Thankfully everyone else was, as said before, utterly pissed, so there wasn't any awkwardness, and I made it to bed and woke up feeling rubbish, but better.

So then comes Friday, and I slept all day and I'd more or less been nursing the same headache all week, and I managed to get myself across to Beaumont Street to see the GP the nurse had referred me to. And Claire and Ben, perhaps mindful of what else had happened that week, came along with me. It was easier to have them come than not, so they did come with me, and sat in the waiting room with me and leafed through centuries-old newspapers, and I was glad they were there. Ben sat doing the G2 crossword, and Claire complained, "This music is much too ominous for a doctor's waiting room."

After a bit I got to agreeing with her that it sounded an awful lot like, of all things, Peer Gynt.

So I went in, and they hadn't even processed my blood tests. URGH. What's more, the doctor I saw had the world's worst bedside manner. He was so bloody awful - he yelled a lot, grabbed at me when I wasn't expecting it and changed his mind mid-sentence - that he actually started to grow on me, and by the time I got to telling Claire and Ben about it, I was starting to find the whole thing hilariously funny.

I now have to ring them up early tomorrow morning and ask them politely if they have anything important to tell me. Hopefully they won't.

I don't know what to think about this whole affair now, to be honest. What I do know is that since, yes, about Wednesday, I have started to find some things fun and other things irritating, much in the manner that I would call normal. So, these are the small things I am finding make me happy, that weren't making me happy before:

-Christmas music. I raided lunatunes and have a beautiful version of the Chieftains singing "O Come All Ye Faithful" with an accompaniment of bells. I also have a deliciously camp cover of "Last Christmas" by Savage Garden (yay!) and, implausibly, the Eurythmics doing "Winter Wonderland".

In fact, speaking of Christmas, the city seems to be revelling in it. Oxford terms are eight weeks long - we're here for nine, because of noughth week - and so Michaelmas actually ends this Saturday, December 2nd. This has never stopped anyone from celebrating Christmas a full month early, and so the big tree is up on Broad Street, there's tinsel everywhere and Balliol's carol service was tonight.

And speaking of the big tree, it was a gift from the King of Norway. Claire came home to say she'd met the King of Norway, who went to Balliol and failed his degree, but endowed a lot of money so the JCR's real name is "The Norway Room." I found this terribly surreal.

Also, someone else - Ben, I think - mentioned that they'd seen the bodyguards around Nicole Kidman doing her scenes for Northern Lights, again on Broad Street. Makes me wish I still lived in college so I could hang out of upstairs windows and peer at the various goings-on.

-Sainsbury's blackberry yoghurts, 50p for four. Low-fat, at that. Wonderful things.

-Feminist theory. I had the political theory tute with Chris and two tute-partners and got through it without my brain exploding. I never, ever want to hear a tutor say the word "penetration" again in my life.

-Frangipani, a book I read seven weeks ago when I first got here and adored, and on the re-read, I am just as charmed as I was the first time. It's serving as my comfort reading because my bookshelf is sadly denuded at the moment. This is for a good reason - I'm lending a lot of books out, for some reason. I have discovered that Pat seems to invariably like the books I lend her - on my recommendation she's now read Northern Lights, Gaudy Night, Brideshead Revisited, and she just finished Night Watch and loved it. I was ridiculously happy, because it's probably my favourite book of all time, and she was happily going about the place shouting about "Truth! Justice! Freedom! Reasonably Priced Love! And A Hard Boiled Egg!"

I've just finished The Secret History, which Claire lent to me, and I loved it even if I did find it tremendously unsettling.

-I caved and got season 1 of The West Wing on DVD. Argh, I have no MONEY, never mind. It makes me happy. And Pedar rang me last week to complain I had got him hooked, he'd been watching it every week without me, could I hurry up and come home so he'd have someone to talk to about how great it was? For the win, yes!

-Cherwell. Yes, I am rarely delighted with them, but they have actually published my short piece on the geek quiz so I am pleased. And have already received angry email telling me that the Enterprise does not run on dilithium crystals, call yourself a geek? And I have graciously stood corrected, so there.

And three slightly bigger things to make me happy:

-Rowland, my diffident current philosophy tutor, telling me that he thinks I could get a first in my Ethics paper. As I've spent the whole of the term knowing I'm getting through it on miminal reading, this makes me very happy. If I sit down over Christmas and do some real work on the subject, I could do well in it. It's my very first Finals paper, so, yay!

(Unfortunately, my Tutors' Handshaking is tomorrow afternoon. This may not be fun. It is never fun. And for PPE particularly. My last Tutors' Handshaking, I had seven tutors, and I had to sit in the middle of the circle and feel very intimidated.)

-My mum came to visit me! Not because I felt rubbish - I hadn't told her; she has waaaaay too much to worry about already - but just because she wanted to see me. She finished her nights on call, bought a ticket on a whim and came down, and it was wonderful. I didn't feel remotely rubbish. We went shopping, and we ate a lot, and we went to see a play at the OFS, and then we got a pizza and a bottle of wine and sat on my bed and talked for hours and it was just so lovely to see her. This morning she woke me up, shoved me at the shower and when I came out she'd started tidying my room. I love my mum.

I took her down to the train station this afternoon only to find that there are no trains going north from Oxford today at all. (Blatant prejudice against northerners, clearly!) She took six hours to reach Liverpool. Urgh. In a week I'll be back in Liverpool myself. I think this is a good thing.

-Lastly. Lastly. I need to take a deep breath, but chiasmata and I are GOING TO SEE THE INDIGO GIRLS, OMG! In February, at Shepherd's Bush Empire, and we have tickets and just OMG OMG! It is the best thing EVER. I am insanely excited.

On the topic, I uploaded a bunch of their songs for chiasmata and anyone else who wants them:

Rock Me On The Water
Fugitive
Language Or The Kiss
Dead Man's Hill
Three County Highway
Mrs Robinson (fabulous, bouncy cover)
All The Way
In The Bleak Midwinter (lovely version of the Rossetti carol)

Enjoy, all. Tell me if you like them.

So there is much good stuff on the horizon, and I don't know, I don't think these blood test results are going to change anything. If I've got something, I've got something; if, on the other hand, it all comes up blank, that doesn't mean I have depression. I feel better. I feel better tonight than I have for weeks. I fully appreciate I have been being thoroughly rubbish, and have not replied to comments, emails, texts, even letters, and I apologise. If I'm meant to do something for you - like, for example, burning you things - it will get done, I promise.

I guess I'll leave you with something that amused me tonight. It is a neologism that I believe should be adopted into common usage as soon as possible.

One of the things I had to do tonight was finish off an application for section editor of Cherwell. One of the questions was what I would change about the section I was applying for. Garnering opinions over the kitchen table, I said tentatively, "I'd like to say I'd make it less wanky-pretentions. But how do you put that into formal language?"

Claire suggested I address the tone, the flippancy of it. I think some of the features are geared to address a very particular sense of humour, and I'd like to expand that. So I scribbled a note to that effect, and was about to go back to my laptop when Ben stood up from getting something out the fridge to ask, "You know how you can wax lyrical?"

"Yes," I said. Claire concurred.

He picked up a bottle of milk and said, "You can wax lyrical. I think you can wank pretentious."

Amen.

Comments

[calapine.livejournal.com]

I steal all your music. I have not mentioned it, but I love the Indigo Girls. This is your fault. They played a cover of Tangled Up In Blue and I did not cringe, win!

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

I accept the blame wholeheartedly. Yay, Indigo Girls love! I must admit to liking that version better than the original. *shame*

[the-acrobat.livejournal.com]

I can't remember where I read it. It was a blog somewhere, a 'friend said to me' sort of thing: "One isn't expected to be physically healthy all the time. Why should one always be expected to be in perfect mental health?" I thought it was genius. I thought, "Why didn't I think of that before?" I don't know if that helps, but I do wish I'd thought of it sooner, as concerns my own life.
I'm glad you're feeling better. I've been thinking of you!
And I'm very curious about Frangipani.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

That is brilliant. I don't know why I never thought of that before. It's so true.

*loves you lots* I think you'll love Frangipani, it's just lovely. It's supposedly about a Tahtian family and their traditions and culture, but really it's all about these strong feminist women who take no crap and are always singing and dancing and having a good time. I really think you'll like it. If you can't get hold of it, I'll send you mine! *g*

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Er, Tahitian. I cannot spell.

[ressie-noldo.livejournal.com]

I am very glad that this is now and not, say, fifteen years ago, because any doctor with terrible bedside manner makes me think of my own dad (and, er, he was in Oxford fifteen years ago, which is vaguely hilarious. I'm not sure what the point of this paragraph is, actually.)

Anyhow. Glad you're feeling better, and hopefully the blood tests will give you a clean bill of health (which is a particularly annoying phrase, come to think of it). And I am nicking a large amount of that music, for the simple reason that I fangirl 'Mrs. Robinson' like mad, and therefore...eh. Yes.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

*laughs* That paragraph made me giggle. Does your dad make random grabs at people? If not, he isn't worse than this guy.

And thank you. I think I will get that clean bill of health. And, eee, I fangirl it too! I have about a million versions and they are all great.

[pinkdormouse.livejournal.com]

Glad to hear you're feeling better. (I show off my new icon as a reason for everyone to watch F1 next season)

(Unfortunately, my Tutors' Handshaking is tomorrow afternoon. This may not be fun. It is never fun. And for PPE particularly. My last Tutors' Handshaking, I had seven tutors, and I had to sit in the middle of the circle and feel very intimidated.)

Something I hadn't heard of. Can you elaborate, please?

And very early Carol Services! I was shocked at how early I'd have to make the one in the novel.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

It varies from college to college, but generally speaking, Tutors' Handshaking is a fifteen-minute meeting with your tutors, usually scheduled in eighth week. For PPEists at Balliol, it's in the Master's Lodgings, and you go in the room, sit in your big chair, and one by one your tutors deliver reports on you from their notes. You're supposed to listen and nod, basically. I had mine this afternoon with two subject tutors and my personal tutor, and they discussed where I was fab, where I was less fab and what reading I should do between now and Finals. It was all very civilised. At the end you can ask questions, everyone tells you to have a nice Christmas, and it's over.

There is also such a thing as a Master's Handshaking, which is more pastoral than academic, but that's a rarer thing - I've only had the one in my four terms here.

[pinkdormouse.livejournal.com]

How utterly civilised indeed. Thanks for the explanation.

[chiasmata]

Oh, fabulous music. Thank you. I'll listen to them properly today on my iPod, hurrah.

Was Land of Canaan not live that you are missing? Because I do have that. And do you have Love Will Come To You?

I'm glad you're feeling more you, and less dire, and I do hope it lasts. xx

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Oh, thank you dear. I hope it lasts as well!

Love Will Come To You (http://www.yousendit.com/download/BUhMtQa2Qa95TA%3D%3D), and the live version (http://www.yousendit.com/download/BUhMtcNLwLh5TA%3D%3D). Yep, it's the not-live version I'm missing. Thank you kindly.

[eternalwings.livejournal.com]

*hidesunderduvet* ITS NOT CHRISTMAS YET NOOOO I'M NOT TEMPTED TO LISTEN TO THE SAVAGE- oh fuck it the cds going in the computer. LOOK WHAT YOU HAVE REDUCED ME TO. Hope you're okay, I'm kinda currently going through a similar malaise so if you're bored im on msn, a LOT.

Btw. Are you coming back for Christmas? Cause I don't know whether to get you a proper, real life present or a livejournal one aka more userpics etc.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

I am indeed coming back for Christmas! College are chucking me out this week, the bastards. Should be in to visit first week of December.

Enjoy Darren Hayes! *ducks*

[eternalwings.livejournal.com]

If you come back then COME SEE ME, I'm off school and quite literally dyinnggg on my own from boredom and stuffyness cause no-ones off to come jump round town with me.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

I will! How come you're off school?

[eternalwings.livejournal.com]

Long story XD panic attacks and so forth. S'okay im fine!

[dopeydora-67.livejournal.com]

Ohh thanks for the Lunatunes journal rec; I have been looking for some different Xmas music for a while now.

Is it too early for a Xmas icon....nah ;-)

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Definitely not. :) And you're welcome! I adore lunatunes.

[amchau.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you're feeling more normal. And will be happy, I suspect, when you're back in Liverpool; I have things I would like to discuss with you (there is angst, I bet you can guess the cause, though it's not the same one as the one before, or at least not in the same way, though in the same category, if that's sufficently cryptic), and I'd like to call you, but I don't want to add to your problems. (But if you were free tonight, and wanted to talk-- I'm very happy to listen to you rant or complain or giggle or whatever-- it's an option.)

This comment is too long. {{hugs}}

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

*hugs* Thanks.

[tau_sigma]

If I'm meant to do something for you - like, for example, burning you things - it will get done, I promise.

For a second I read this and thought, there must be a typo, clearly you mean 'burning your things'. And then I realised, why on Earth would you be burning other people's things? I think I am not terribly awake this morning.

I'm so glad you're feeling better. *hugs* It sounds like you have a lot of good things going on, and only a week left of term which can't be a bad thing. I hope the last week is good.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

*laughs* Syntax not my strong point is.

Thanks, dear. I did notice the post you made addressed to me - I'll get back to you on that, but I am paying attention, honest! Hope you're having a good week. x

[parrot-knight.livejournal.com]

All the Indigo Girls tracks I have I got from loneraven...

Sorry to read about the health worries coming to a head. Beaumont Street can be very sceptical about student ailments, despite Oxford clearly being an international convention for viruses, bacteria, sundry microorganisms as well as general ennui. I once had the most painful ear infection which was rubbished by the doctor until she took a look and almost leapt backwards out of the window in horror...

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Heeee! I'm glad you like!

Beaumont Street are being decidedly unhelpful, I quite agree. I'm off to tackle them again tomorrow, woe is me.

[pinkishmew.livejournal.com]

[hugs] I had a trainee nurse take my blood. She missed - twice. [facepalm] I have a large and interesting bruise on my left arm now.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Ah, but you can make up interesting stories as to where you got it! "Oh, that? I got that fighting off angry natives in the depths of the Amazon..."

[selenay]

< comment from random person >

I'm boomarking this to download the music when I get home from work, but I wanted to say thank you for the link to lunatunes because I've never heard of it before and it looks highly useful and express my deep, abiding jealousy for you getting to see Indigo Girls live :-)

Hope your blood-tests don't show anything scary, but random icky viruses could explain how you've been feeling lately. I'm getting over a virus that had me breaking into tears randomly for several days before it appeared, in bed for two weeks and now just feeling tired and drained despite being 'better' for three weeks. But it's just a random, nothing to worry about virusy thing that will get out of my system eventually, I'm told. Doctors can be much too quick to declare you depressed when in fact you're just really tired and the fact that you're starting to feel more lively and happy is a good sign.

</ comment from random person >

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

It is a wonderful comm, I love it. And eeeee, Indigo Girls I am SO EXCITED.

My parents are doctors, which does lead me to expect the worse. *sighs* I think you're right and it does make sense to go with the virus theory at this point.

[foreverdirt.livejournal.com]

*squish* The Mrs Robinson cover is delightfully charming -- it has me bouncing round my room in a most undignified manner. Thank you.

Did you ever decide if it's the role of feminism to deconstruct the myth of heterosexuality?

I'm glad you're feeling more now.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Eeee, yay! I love that version, it's just so happy-making.

I did, I did! I may in fact post the result, if people are interested. Hmmm...

[leiascully.livejournal.com]

Amen indeed.

I do not understand your British school system very well, but that's all right. I like hearing about it! Reminds me of my childhood devouring books about British schoolchildren. The youth of Britain are so clear eyed and noble, with their short trousers and their pigtails!

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

*grins* I went to a quintessentially British public school, full of eccentricities, so I got used to them - but it took coming to Oxford before I really experienced the epitome of eccentric.

[leiascully.livejournal.com]

I would imagine! I am just boggled.