My boots were wrong.

Vet's pessism was misplaced. Dog doesn't have cancer. Bleeding mole was benign.

Dog now owes me £209.

I'm fed up with you all

You never phone, you never write.

Start communicatin' people 'cause I feel like I am talking to myself.

If you don't I'll go on strike.

I mean it!

So. Running.

Well along with the New Year and my roller derby (which I honest to god love) I've decided to start running.

This is for a lot of reasons.

1. I used to run many years ago and I missed it. Its hard to describe the high that you get from running, its different from any other form of exercise. I've never had a step class high, or a cross trainer high. A sense of accomplishment sure, but it wasn't the same.

2. I need to get my stamina up for derby bouts.

3. I don't need to rely on anyone else to run. MP3 player in and away I go.

4. I'm horrendously overweight again.

So bearing all that in mind I've started the couch to 5k running plan. It aims to have you running 5K nonstop, in 9 weeks. Or in simpler, scarier terms in 27 sessions. So far I'm, 2/27 down.

Day 1 was really hard going, Day 2 hard but easier than day 1 and I'm already itching to get out there again for day 3, but you need to have a rest day in between.

Have to say I'm loving it. My thighs are a bit sore, but so far the old knees are holding up and not suffering too much under the weight of me pounding them on pavement.

The stage of training I'm at just now is;

• 5 minute warm up
• 60 seconds running
• 90 seconds brisk walking
• repeat for 20 minutes
• 5 minutes cool down

I'll keep you updated as to how I'm going. What about you guys? Any new things for the New Year?

Ah 2010, let the soul crushing shit begin

I had high hopes for 2010. I really did. I've started a new hobby, I've even started running to increase my general fitness and stamina. Worrying about weight later.

Studies are looking good and I was actually feeling rather optimistic.

Until my dog got a mole.
The mole was fine
The mole started bleeding.

Take her to the vets. Vet is not optimistic. I am not optimistic. I'm hoping in a perverse way the vet knows the dog has full insurance and is taking me for an insurance scam ride in which she orders lots of tests and tells me the dog is fine after a hefty bill.

I know in my boots the dog has cancer. Bleeding mole plus a lump on her shoulder. The biopsy of the mole should tell us if its the same cells as on the face, if the cells that are found in her face/mole and not face cells, but say womb cells that tells us that the dog had womb cancer but the cancer is now in her system and is spreading beyond control.

My dog is the one constant in my life, no matter how shit everything gets, stupid face is there to greet me when I get home demaning walks, dinner and petting. She sleeps with me at night, at some point ninjaing up on the bed in the early hours of the morning. Dribbling on my feet when I eat dinner, and depending how close she gets, sometimes dribbling in my dinner.

She's stupid. I've never met a dog so stupid. She's greedy and she farts like somethings died up there. But she's constant.

I know she's just a dog. I can always get another dog. Dogs are replaceable. I know all this but I'm still upset.

So 2010 is - in addition to all the family drama shit that kicked off early January - looking to be yet another year in the grand old blueprint of "shit that goes wrong"

Final Countdown

And thats the end of second year. I am now in my third year.

In 3 placements I will be qualified.

This year I have:

A written exam
A literature review and proposal
Presentation of 12 patients with in depth questioning about them
and a parctical management of a patient in the uni labs.

Plus placement stuff, but aye. Nearly there. Scary stuff.

Post migraine, battered, bruised and melancholy

Busted knee, swollen and cut open. Sore left arse cheek, tender right hip. Bruised tail bone. Skint hands. Muscles hurt and I'm post migraine so feeling decidedly... foggy... Oh World! Why do you attack me so?

Louis MacNeice - Prayer before Birth

I am not yet born; O hear me.
Let not the bloodsucking bat or the rat or the stoat or the
    club-footed ghoul come near me.

I am not yet born, console me.
I fear that the human race may with tall walls wall me,
    with strong drugs dope me, with wise lies lure me,
       on black racks rack me, in blood-baths roll me.

I am not yet born; provide me
With water to dandle me, grass to grow for me, trees to talk
    to me, sky to sing to me, birds and a white light
       in the back of my mind to guide me.

I am not yet born; forgive me
For the sins that in me the world shall commit, my words
    when they speak me, my thoughts when they think me,
       my treason engendered by traitors beyond me,
          my life when they murder by means of my
             hands, my death when they live me.

I am not yet born; rehearse me
In the parts I must play and the cues I must take when
    old men lecture me, bureaucrats hector me, mountains
       frown at me, lovers laugh at me, the white
           waves call me to folly and the desert calls
             me to doom and the beggar refuses
                my gift and my children curse me.

I am not yet born; O hear me,
Let not the man who is beast or who thinks he is God
    come near me.

I am not yet born; O fill me
With strength against those who would freeze my
    humanity, would dragoon me into a lethal automaton,
       would make me a cog in a machine, a thing with
          one face, a thing, and against all those
             who would dissipate my entirety, would
                blow me like thistledown hither and
                   thither or hither and thither
                      like water held in the
                         hands would spill me.

Let them not make me a stone and let them not spill me.
Otherwise kill me.

So far

Weight: Out of control weighing in at a hefty 14st 3lbs. I knew it would be bad after Christmas, but Christ! Didn't want to face Cambridge again but I might have to.

This week: Been out for dinner a few times which is not helping the old waistline.

Also tried Belly dancing, Bollywood dancing and Burlesque. All the B's.

I did okay at Bollywood, then burleque but sucked at the bellydancing. Felt horribly self conscious due to weight and general stiffness. Felt really awkward. Feel much more at home in derby. Roll on Tuesday.

Other than that not much to report really.

2009 - the shortlist

I've been mulling over things recently and wondered if, in addition to looking towards the New Year, it would be an idea to take stock of the past year 2009 and see how its treated me.

This year has been, I feel, overall positive.

Yes, alright some aspects of my life haven't panned out exactly as planned. My personal life has been subject to some more bumps than would have been strictly desirable, with my husband and I discovering that "for better or worse" is a very trying time.

All the weight I lost, I regained. Mostly because I'm a pie of highest magnitude.

My family at times have made me want to run away and join the circus.

And recently its been suggested that due to childhood experiences I may want to visit a counsellor. This is not in my nature. I detest misery memoirs and I have no desire to start verbalising one of my own. Much as I'm an in-your-face kinda person, prone to TMI with most aspects of my life including things other people would rather die than admit, I have no desire to explore all the dark twisty corners of my pschye. Some of those dark twisty things are what drive me, in a sense running away from certain things and towards others. In a very real sense they serve as a carrot/stick combination for someone who at times, is very much an ass. They are private and they are mine.

But I'm trying to be more upbeat. So in examining this year I'm looking at the positives.

I can drive!

I've passed all my exams and hitting 3rd year with a clean slate. This amazed me, I quite frankly didn't think I had it in me.

I passed all my placements. Well. This also astounded me, as I thought at one point, particulrly the end of 1st year that I had made a huge mistake and was questioning "what the actual fuck am I doing here?".

I've built a good group of friends at uni.

I've started a sport that I really like. I have a new interest, expanding my social circle again.

I feel that I understand me more. I feel... older. Apart from finding the odd grey eyebrow and lady garden weed, I feel -at times- more at ease with myself. I'm not saying its all the time, but its more often than not. That for me is a good thing. This is progress.

So 2009, it is with a grateful embrace I send you away to keep all my other previous years company. You have overall been kind to me, and not sent me more than I can bear. You have at times caused me concern but you have taught me a lot in that time.

2010. I welcome you with open arms and hope that you are a great year, which enables me to achieve the high targets necessary this year to help me qualify. I look forward to expanding my knowledge and confidence whilst hopefully decreasing my waistline. I look forward to embracing more of life and worrying less about what I cannot change and focusing more on what I can.

Thank you for reading.