1. Current Mission 101 list

2. 2012 Challenges List

3. 2012 read/watched/seen/been list

4. List of TV Shows I Need to Watch

5. List of Places I Want to Visit

6. 2011 Challenges list

7. 2011 Things watched/read/seen/been list

8. Old Mission 101 list

So, today I left my car keys hanging in the door of my car. At my very public work base. And then went upstairs to the office. FOR TWO HOURS.

Please note that whilst nothing was stolen, my purse, iPod, and countless work supplies (no patient identifiable information, thankfully) were in that car. And of course, the fact that someone could have just put the key in the ignition and, you know, DRIVEN AWAY. Thank you, good people of Burton, for not punishing me for my utter stupidity.

You know, the government pays me to look after other people's health and well being. No, really.

For those of you who often wonder what daily life is like in Burton-on-Trent (who doesn't?) allow me to paint a brief picture.

Today there was like, an ACTUAL American in Tesco. Like, she had an accent and everything! It was amazeballs people, everyone turned round and stared. She may as well been a flamingo wondering around buying milk, for all her exoticness. She was asking the (English) teenage boy she was with if he was getting "Spaghetti, or what do you call it over here? Bolognese." I am now fascinated by this comment. Are 'spaghetti' and 'bolognese' not two separate enterties (though admittedly, often paired) in America, like they are over here? WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?

Also, I saw a guy in a van spray painting half the drains on the road bright blue, and leaving the others. Theories?

I'm 22. It's morning, and I'm lying on a top bunk in a room of 12 other people, and I feel very exposed, like everyone can see me sleep. I don't like people watching me sleep. I can see the sun peeping around the edges of the blinds I'm staring at. The guy in the bunk next to me snores like you wouldn't believe, and outside all I can here is sirens, sirens that sound so familiar and completely different all at the same time. I'm in New York.

I keep repeating this fact over and over in my head. My whole life I've been pretty much convinced that America isn't real: it's a make believe place that exists only on television. I am as astonished by people saying 'cell phone' and school buses as I would be by UFOs and cattle mutilations. But here I am, in a place that doesn't-does exist. The sense of grown-upness is overwhelming, that I actually did this thing where you get on a plane, and you travel for hours, and you get off in a new place that is completely unfamiliar. Look at me! I'm TRAVELLING. That big, epic thing I was gonna do as an adult. I'm doing it. Therefore logic dictates I'm an adult. How does that work again?

(Gimme a couple of years, self. A couple of years to final finish working through these problems we had with the whole concept of grown-upness. Then we're off again, to more blinking awake in hostels, with different sirens signalling our arrival. Just you wait.)

I go through this cycle with Glee. It's ridiculous, and twee, and the song choices are getting worse and worse, and I don't really like any of the characters, and I don't know why I'm watching. And then I bitch about why I'm still watching when I don't know why. And then the next week? I watch all over again.

But this week I was reminded of why I watch. Because, you know, Glee ain't perfect with the way it approaches things sometimes, not nearly, but at least it tries. Each week, it tries. And this week, it put domestic violence in the limelight, in a way that impressionable teenagers can understand, and it stated that it doesn't matter who you are or what you look like, or who you think you know, it can happen anywhere at any time. Half the Western World's teenage girls think Bella and Edward are a representation of the perfect couple. I hope every single one watches this ep, and gains a little perspective.

(Puck doing School's Out was still pretty fucking awful, though, right?)

My BBF from my school days just sent me an email with the following in it:

I always imagine you sat at home eating chocolate watching something sci-fi-y in your pyjamas with your hamsters running around your feet...

This is so hilariously, unbelievably accurate that I may have to make it my profile description for everything ever.

I'm around 5 or 6. I'm at Nanny and Grandad's, in their back room, which is where they are all the time. It smells yummy, because Nanny's cooking always smells good. She makes Sunday dinners, and bramble pie with the brambles from the garden, and my favourite, chips from the chip pan (Mummy won't have a chip pan because she burnt herself badly once, so they're a special treat). The food is always better than the drinks, because Nanny buys Vimto and Dandelion and Burdock from the milkman for the kids, and I don't like them, so I drink milky tea in a little plasticy cup instead.

Nan is sat in her chair next to the kitchen, and Grandad is in his next to the cabinet where our money boxes are, where I put my pound pocket money in my silver teddy once a week. They never swap chairs, and normally I sit on Grandads knee, but he tickled me and told me I had a bony bum, so I'm sat on the floor next to Nanny instead. I want to know what happens when you die. Nanny says you go to Heaven, but what is Heaven like? And Nanny says that Heaven is whatever you want to be, for every person, and so what is your Heaven like, Sammy-antha? And I say my Heaven is a giant fun fair, where everything is free, because normal fairs cost a lot of money and you only get a few tokens each. And Mummy lets me have a whole stick of candyfloss to myself, all the time, and I don't have to share with the twins. And there is no queue for the bumper cars, or the waltzers! You just walk straight on. There is a big wheel, but it's not a scary big wheel, it feels really safe, so that's okay. And it's always sunny, but not too hot because I don't like that because my skin gets burnt. And all my family and my friends are there, and we just play on the funfair, all day everyday. My Heaven is better than EVERYONE else's.


(Twenty-odd years later, Supernatural told me that Heaven was made up of your happiest memories. I thought of Nan, and my heart ached for the whole day. This seemed like an appropriate place to start thinking about 100 memories. They won't all be happy, but they will all be me.)

It is no secret that I love the internet. Like, really really love it. I made my best friends here. Being online is the first thing I do in the morning, and the last thing I do at night. I would be interested to add up how many hours my laptop is on in an average week, but I fear the results would terrify me. The concept of not being online daily makes me wonder what on Earth other people do with their lives.

So yeah. I'm a fan of all the social networking, all the time. But LiveJournal, LiveJournal is my home. It's where I belong. Facebook is tolerated mostly because I have to. Twitter I adore but I'm failing at spectacularly at the moment, as I appear to have run out of interesting/sarcastic things to say about my everyday life. And tumblr...well, tumblr probably zaps most of my time sheer quantity wise, but I pretty much don't understand it. I mostly joined for the reblogging of the pretty pictures, but apparently other stuff happens there, some of it actual, serious blogging. But I have no idea how to find this or make it work or how to separate it from the OMG JENSEN ACKLES AND HIS FACE mainstream. It's all highly confusing.

I belong to lj. I appreciate I haven't been doing it justice lately (and that lately = well over a year), and I appreciate that everything has it's heyday, and that LiveJournal's has probably passed. But this is where I want to be. I understand how to communicate properly here. I learn stuff on a daily basis. It's fun, and it's serious, and I get to understand my friends here in a way I never could elsewhere. LJ is personal in a way that a bunch of gifs or 140 characters can never be. So I will proudly do my bit in taking part in the 100 Things challenge, in the hope that we can all keep this little corner of internet heaven alive. My chosen subject is 100 Memories. I'm sure even my absent mind can pull 100 of those out of the recesses of my brain.




{Take the 100 Things challenge!}

FUCKING SHITTY PIECE OF SHIT WHY WON'T YOU WORK JUST DO AS I FUCKING SAY HOURS AND HOURS OF WORK OMFG HELP ME.

A translation: Does anyone know an alternative program to use with my iPod, other than iTunes? Or alternatively, does anyone know how to make iTunes put songs in a sensible folder pattern, like, say, the one I spent hours organising on my computer? Everytime I plug my iPod into my car's USB port the file ordering makes no sense whatsoever, and half of the tracks don't even come up with a title, so I have no idea what I'm playing or how to get to what I want to play. It's driving me crazy. Any suggestions or solutions gratefully received.