I clearly remember writing a while ago that I'd finish the large post of general updateyness, oh well.
I think I'll have another go at it now. I suppose this'll count as a state of the nation type of thingy but seeing as this is going to be pretty big I'll stick a contents thingy at the top so you can see if there’s anything actually worth reading. Hmm, I used 'thingy' a lot I must be in that frame of mind.
So, yes, contents:
Christmas - way, way overdue I know
New Year - slightly less overdue
Work - the current state of play
P - warning: soppiness alert
All interspersed with random stuff about me
So Christmas. This year saw the continuation of the recently started (last year) trend of us not going to someone’s house/having everyone over for Christmas day. Personally I prefer it, the stress levels in the house when we have the family over (that’s the local family about 9 relatives, making about 14 of us in total) is ridiculous. Of course everyone for no clear reason ends up in the kitchen at the same time in everyone’s way. The way Christmas used to work is that everyone should arrive at which ever part of the family is holding at about 12:30 to 1pm, where we would eventually start eating at about 3pm and either have spent the morning rushing around getting everything prepared, or rushing to get everyone up, ready, and have opened presents in time to leave invariably half an hour late. In my family it’s been traditional for none of the presents to be opened until everyone is up and dressed. So having gotten up at about 10:30 I spent most of morning and some of the start of the afternoon waiting for everyone else to get out of the bath *grumble*. Of course this year I was had presents from P to open and got to open something in the morning of Christmas Day for the first time in years. They were good presents a cool LCD alarm clock and a calendar which is absolutely brilliant (well for my sense of humour anyway). The bulk of the stuff this year was as expected money, another Sandman graphic novel, books, etc. Now I said the bulk of the stuff this was as expected. There was one thing that took me completely by surprise, a drum kit, a really really nice, quality drum kit. The thing is I've wanted to learn to play the drums for as long as I can remember. Something often testified by my incessant tendency to tap subconsciously on anything to hand. It took till about Boxing Day for it to really sink in that it my drum kit. Yes so I am the proud owner of a gorgeous drum kit, which I have yet to properly use *sigh*. Vaguely complicated room decorations have been planned to allow my drum kit to go into my room, and I'm still trying to work out exactly where it can be set up temporarily so I can use it. To be honest I didn't expect to have too much time to use it considering how I normally spend my time when I'm not at work, but I have higher hopes for this weekend.
So yeah Christmas good, lack of being single related blues was a bonus, relaxing, missed girlfriend, had childhood dream partially fulfilled.
New Years should be a lot simpler. New Years Eve I began as I began most of the days that holiday by waking up very late. I like that, I'm a firm believer in the concept that not doing very much is valid way to spend your holiday. Went over to![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
elmyra New Year's Eve Pancake party, though I also had a New Years Eve D&D session being run a little later on. It was good, there were pancakes all very well done and a small tonne of ice cream and apple strudel. I learnt an important, if obvious, lesson if your going to have ice cream in pancakes eat quickly so the ice cream doesn't melt too much and drip out the bottom. The fruit salad was good and the apple strudels were really really good, I even had one in a pancake, partly to be random and partly because I couldn't work out how to make a pancake pouch to hold melted chocolate ice cream goo. After a good couple of hours of talking, or probably my case listening, and having Joe tell several Sainsbury's related stories having said that he didn't really want to I headed over to the HoL for the D&D session.
As expected that they hadn't got organised yet, and Almost Honest arrived late I settled down to that most difficult of tasks - character names. The party consisted of in the end an ogre barbarian (almosthonest), a half dragon half centaur unclassed (Ryan), a half celestial Druid (alexrothis), a blue order human thing (Carina) and my pixie sorcerer. It was a fun game even if it finished at about 4am. I definitely like my character, who was eventually named Bramble, and look forward to any chance to use it again. Stats wise it was Str 8 Dex 24 Con 16 Int 20 Wis 16 Chr 25 (yay for good stat rolls), with all the pixie abilities (except the irrestable dance) the most fun being permanent greater invisibility which I could turn on and off at will, all on a 4th level sorcerer with a phase wasp as the familiar. Ok so its a little sick and but then again I was offered the phase wasp as a familiar. A permanent source of magic missiles is useful. The actual changing of the year was marked by the TV being turned on a few seconds before New Year's Day and being turned off shortly afterwards, and lots of text messages from assorted places. Definitely a change from the usual glass of champagne with family, and watching of the fireworks from around the valley. The lack of the hitherto guaranteed start of a new year massive low was noticed and appreciated. I hoped this year would be as good as the last few months of the last one had been, and so far it looks to be off to a good start.
OK so that was no shorter but at least it's in the diary now.
Work, let me see. Well I think the best thing I can say is I finally understand what’s happening properly. The key is all the work I've being doing over the past few months has been speculative (programming in Tcl/Tk and now PythonTk) with the fact that it may or may not be used. As of the 21st of this month the development of the GUI for this geometry generator I'm working on will kick off properly. This means the work should apparently get simpler (sticking buttons on screen) but will actually be definitely important and part of a larger development. There will be development meeting etcs. Its just since all this has been confirmed it just feels like there has been very little point to the work I've been doing, the last few months I've almost been paid to mess around with some programming languages rather than proper work. I like working here, its a nice company though I realise now how comparatively underpaid this placement is (not that’s really an issue for me with the whole no out goings other than petrol thing), but I really need to get more out of this placement. So I think my aim for the next few weeks is to try on any useful training programs and find some excuse to visit one of the other European sites.
Me and P, I'll think I'll let everyone know whats happening with this. First and foremost let me warn you this is going to be soppy, probably extremely soppy.
I think it’s probably best to start with a little about what I'm like and go from there. The thing about me I've always been a romantic (and not in the bad 80's fashion sense) I've happily accepted and held on to the (often Hollywoodised) notions of true love, soul mates and love at first sight, etc. Though in the face of my own massive cynism I'm occasionally surprised how much I've held on to the ideas. I'm the kind of person who wonders if a single rose or 12 dozen roses is more romantic, who enjoys complimenting women and doing things like buying random gifts of chocolate. So all I've ever really wanted was to meet someone and fall in love and spend the rest of my life with them. Not a lot really. I suppose I had convinced myself to certain extent that it doesn't happen like that, but I could never let go of the ideas.
Now to put it simply I've found everything I've ever wanted and couldn't imagine it being better. I love P, absolutely and what really makes it so unbelievably great (damn my lack of vocabulary) is she feels the same way about me. It’s amazing how perfect for me she is. In terms of personalities we match really well, we both have very similar views with regards to love and relationships and what we want out of them, so there’s no conflict there. Our interests are similar enough that there are things we can happily do together while at the same time allowing us to do things separately occasionally. If I think of any of the qualities, etc., that I'd ever considered, however casually, would be nice for a girl to have and P has them all, and some I'd never even thought of. I get to hold the girl of my dreams in my arms and she’s better than anything I could have imagined. We can talk to each other about anything and everything, and regularly do. Then of course there’s the fact that she never doubts my sincerity, doesn't, wouldn't (and probably couldn't without telling me and apologising for it afterwards) play any kind of head games. I never have to second-guess what she actually means or worry she hiding anything from me. She's beautiful but does a very good job of hiding from those who don't really look at people.
I could go on forever though I wouldn't want to say everything that’s great about her in a public place on the web. The important thing is that I love her, that she loves me. I know she’s perfect for me, and she knows the same (that I’m perfect for her). We’ve been going out now for about 11 ½ weeks, and I’ve been consciously aware that I love her and that she loves me since about day 4. I think thats as close as you can get to love at first sight, you can't love someone you don't know, though you can definitely think there "interesting" at first sight. I can no longer imagine my life without her in it, and I feel like I've known her forever. Being with her makes me feel strangely complete as if someone has given me back something I was never aware I was missing. She’s my soul mate my true love and I’m never letting her go.
I will say that this is the first time I’ve been in love, that either of us has been in love, so I might be being naïve. Maybe its like this for everyone, maybe it isn’t. Maybe it’ll last forever maybe it won’t. Whatever happens I’m going to enjoy and savour every last second of it.
Oh and mini I might be developing an ego statement: Current evidence suggests I’m great, possibly better than that even.
I think I'll have another go at it now. I suppose this'll count as a state of the nation type of thingy but seeing as this is going to be pretty big I'll stick a contents thingy at the top so you can see if there’s anything actually worth reading. Hmm, I used 'thingy' a lot I must be in that frame of mind.
So, yes, contents:
Christmas - way, way overdue I know
New Year - slightly less overdue
Work - the current state of play
P - warning: soppiness alert
All interspersed with random stuff about me
So Christmas. This year saw the continuation of the recently started (last year) trend of us not going to someone’s house/having everyone over for Christmas day. Personally I prefer it, the stress levels in the house when we have the family over (that’s the local family about 9 relatives, making about 14 of us in total) is ridiculous. Of course everyone for no clear reason ends up in the kitchen at the same time in everyone’s way. The way Christmas used to work is that everyone should arrive at which ever part of the family is holding at about 12:30 to 1pm, where we would eventually start eating at about 3pm and either have spent the morning rushing around getting everything prepared, or rushing to get everyone up, ready, and have opened presents in time to leave invariably half an hour late. In my family it’s been traditional for none of the presents to be opened until everyone is up and dressed. So having gotten up at about 10:30 I spent most of morning and some of the start of the afternoon waiting for everyone else to get out of the bath *grumble*. Of course this year I was had presents from P to open and got to open something in the morning of Christmas Day for the first time in years. They were good presents a cool LCD alarm clock and a calendar which is absolutely brilliant (well for my sense of humour anyway). The bulk of the stuff this year was as expected money, another Sandman graphic novel, books, etc. Now I said the bulk of the stuff this was as expected. There was one thing that took me completely by surprise, a drum kit, a really really nice, quality drum kit. The thing is I've wanted to learn to play the drums for as long as I can remember. Something often testified by my incessant tendency to tap subconsciously on anything to hand. It took till about Boxing Day for it to really sink in that it my drum kit. Yes so I am the proud owner of a gorgeous drum kit, which I have yet to properly use *sigh*. Vaguely complicated room decorations have been planned to allow my drum kit to go into my room, and I'm still trying to work out exactly where it can be set up temporarily so I can use it. To be honest I didn't expect to have too much time to use it considering how I normally spend my time when I'm not at work, but I have higher hopes for this weekend.
So yeah Christmas good, lack of being single related blues was a bonus, relaxing, missed girlfriend, had childhood dream partially fulfilled.
New Years should be a lot simpler. New Years Eve I began as I began most of the days that holiday by waking up very late. I like that, I'm a firm believer in the concept that not doing very much is valid way to spend your holiday. Went over to
elmyra New Year's Eve Pancake party, though I also had a New Years Eve D&D session being run a little later on. It was good, there were pancakes all very well done and a small tonne of ice cream and apple strudel. I learnt an important, if obvious, lesson if your going to have ice cream in pancakes eat quickly so the ice cream doesn't melt too much and drip out the bottom. The fruit salad was good and the apple strudels were really really good, I even had one in a pancake, partly to be random and partly because I couldn't work out how to make a pancake pouch to hold melted chocolate ice cream goo. After a good couple of hours of talking, or probably my case listening, and having Joe tell several Sainsbury's related stories having said that he didn't really want to I headed over to the HoL for the D&D session.As expected that they hadn't got organised yet, and Almost Honest arrived late I settled down to that most difficult of tasks - character names. The party consisted of in the end an ogre barbarian (
almosthonest), a half dragon half centaur unclassed (Ryan), a half celestial Druid (alexrothis), a blue order human thing (Carina) and my pixie sorcerer. It was a fun game even if it finished at about 4am. I definitely like my character, who was eventually named Bramble, and look forward to any chance to use it again. Stats wise it was Str 8 Dex 24 Con 16 Int 20 Wis 16 Chr 25 (yay for good stat rolls), with all the pixie abilities (except the irrestable dance) the most fun being permanent greater invisibility which I could turn on and off at will, all on a 4th level sorcerer with a phase wasp as the familiar. Ok so its a little sick and but then again I was offered the phase wasp as a familiar. A permanent source of magic missiles is useful. The actual changing of the year was marked by the TV being turned on a few seconds before New Year's Day and being turned off shortly afterwards, and lots of text messages from assorted places. Definitely a change from the usual glass of champagne with family, and watching of the fireworks from around the valley. The lack of the hitherto guaranteed start of a new year massive low was noticed and appreciated. I hoped this year would be as good as the last few months of the last one had been, and so far it looks to be off to a good start.OK so that was no shorter but at least it's in the diary now.
Work, let me see. Well I think the best thing I can say is I finally understand what’s happening properly. The key is all the work I've being doing over the past few months has been speculative (programming in Tcl/Tk and now PythonTk) with the fact that it may or may not be used. As of the 21st of this month the development of the GUI for this geometry generator I'm working on will kick off properly. This means the work should apparently get simpler (sticking buttons on screen) but will actually be definitely important and part of a larger development. There will be development meeting etcs. Its just since all this has been confirmed it just feels like there has been very little point to the work I've been doing, the last few months I've almost been paid to mess around with some programming languages rather than proper work. I like working here, its a nice company though I realise now how comparatively underpaid this placement is (not that’s really an issue for me with the whole no out goings other than petrol thing), but I really need to get more out of this placement. So I think my aim for the next few weeks is to try on any useful training programs and find some excuse to visit one of the other European sites.
Me and P, I'll think I'll let everyone know whats happening with this. First and foremost let me warn you this is going to be soppy, probably extremely soppy.
I think it’s probably best to start with a little about what I'm like and go from there. The thing about me I've always been a romantic (and not in the bad 80's fashion sense) I've happily accepted and held on to the (often Hollywoodised) notions of true love, soul mates and love at first sight, etc. Though in the face of my own massive cynism I'm occasionally surprised how much I've held on to the ideas. I'm the kind of person who wonders if a single rose or 12 dozen roses is more romantic, who enjoys complimenting women and doing things like buying random gifts of chocolate. So all I've ever really wanted was to meet someone and fall in love and spend the rest of my life with them. Not a lot really. I suppose I had convinced myself to certain extent that it doesn't happen like that, but I could never let go of the ideas.
Now to put it simply I've found everything I've ever wanted and couldn't imagine it being better. I love P, absolutely and what really makes it so unbelievably great (damn my lack of vocabulary) is she feels the same way about me. It’s amazing how perfect for me she is. In terms of personalities we match really well, we both have very similar views with regards to love and relationships and what we want out of them, so there’s no conflict there. Our interests are similar enough that there are things we can happily do together while at the same time allowing us to do things separately occasionally. If I think of any of the qualities, etc., that I'd ever considered, however casually, would be nice for a girl to have and P has them all, and some I'd never even thought of. I get to hold the girl of my dreams in my arms and she’s better than anything I could have imagined. We can talk to each other about anything and everything, and regularly do. Then of course there’s the fact that she never doubts my sincerity, doesn't, wouldn't (and probably couldn't without telling me and apologising for it afterwards) play any kind of head games. I never have to second-guess what she actually means or worry she hiding anything from me. She's beautiful but does a very good job of hiding from those who don't really look at people.
I could go on forever though I wouldn't want to say everything that’s great about her in a public place on the web. The important thing is that I love her, that she loves me. I know she’s perfect for me, and she knows the same (that I’m perfect for her). We’ve been going out now for about 11 ½ weeks, and I’ve been consciously aware that I love her and that she loves me since about day 4. I think thats as close as you can get to love at first sight, you can't love someone you don't know, though you can definitely think there "interesting" at first sight. I can no longer imagine my life without her in it, and I feel like I've known her forever. Being with her makes me feel strangely complete as if someone has given me back something I was never aware I was missing. She’s my soul mate my true love and I’m never letting her go.
I will say that this is the first time I’ve been in love, that either of us has been in love, so I might be being naïve. Maybe its like this for everyone, maybe it isn’t. Maybe it’ll last forever maybe it won’t. Whatever happens I’m going to enjoy and savour every last second of it.
Oh and mini I might be developing an ego statement: Current evidence suggests I’m great, possibly better than that even.
