THE MEGA (PRE-) CHRISTMAS POST (featuring what I want for Christmas really)

So, it's getting to that time of year where there's that feeling in the air (or maybe they've put something in the water) that Christmas is coming up. Yes, I know it's nearly two months away. No, I don't think it's too early to be talking about it. Why? Because. Shops (well, some of them, anyway) have started putting up Christmas displays; the "present-perfect" products are being rolled, shipped, bounced, played and thrown in (much to the chagrin of any parents who now make the mighty mistake of taking their children shopping, I'm sure). These kids, they know no bounds. They'll point out stuff- "Mummy, daddy! I want that! It's so cool!"/"omigawdomigawdomigawd mummm can I have this for Christmas?!"... You know it's happening. I've seen it already. Parents the country, the world over, saying things like, "Well, if you're really REALLY good, Santa might get it for you".

Two quick things about the Santa deal, folks. One, it means children don't thank you for presents you worked hard to earn money to buy. You don't get any credit. Two, it means they think they'll always be rewarded for being good. Life ain't like that for real. Just remember that.

Shitty shoot-downs ASIDE, Santa, I've been completely unangelic this year, so please please please, get me some of these!

(note to all, I doubt I will receive any of this stuff but it's the cool additions I wish I deserved!)

My Wish List...

Item one: A self-stirring mug.

I want this for  number of reasons, the main ones being that I can't be bothered to go on a spoon-hunt every time I want coffee (or hot chocolate, or festive eggnog- homemade!) and it is also freaking awesome just because it exists. Link here. (DRAWBACK: I'll forget how to stir and then lose the mug, resorting in dependence upon others every time I want a drink with more than one ingredient.)

Item two: Whistle-activated key finder(s).

Now these, for reasons I'm sure I've handily neglected to make clear, I positively need. I am terrible with my keys. I mean it. I go to sleep, they're on the shelf in my room. I wake up, they've decided to go on holiday, take a nice stroll down the hall or go and check out another room for the fun of it. Point being, these would be really useful if nothing else. (DRAWBACK: I may somehow lose the ability to whistle. Then I'm completely screwed. At the moment when I lose my keys it takes around three to five days to find them- imagine how much time this gadget could save me!)

Item three: The MorphSuit. With the ninja detailing.

Somehow it doesn't need justification. See this awesome thing.

Item four: A non-cordless telephone.

Strange how we have to say these are weird nowadays, but I love the telephone that has its own holder and has a cord that you can twizzle around and around your finger while having difficult conversations with someone you like on the other end of the line. phones you can't walk away with, put down, and then have to press that button on the "main" base that signals you've lost- the "phonefinder" button, or whatever you want to call it. This button shows you are inept at even keeping a hold on something without legs. On the other hand, a phone with a cord can't run away. Genius, eh?

Item five: A Selk.

Now, of course you'll be wondering what this is. Unless you're amazing enough to know already, a selk is a sleeping bag, except there are separate legs and arms. And a hood. The ends of the arms unzip so you can even do stuff (like homework eating stuff and changing channels, typing and gaming) wihtout having to get out of your sleeping bag. I've got an idea that I could buy some big shoes and wear them over it so I could wear it to school and work. Winter = sorted..  Also no having to "caterpillar jump" everywhere (hilarious as it is)!

Item six: An "on this day" calendar.

Basically, you need a calendar every year. If you're like me, you also need silly facts and tidbits to tell your friends when they ask what's new (or in this case, old). It's heat sensitive too! Hot.

Item seven: Now this took me a while to find again. And it does truly make me wish (though not for long) that I were a little smaller. I give you the Razor Riprider 360. This is my toy. My mum and I went to Toys R Us (I don't know if they exist in the US and other countries, but it's a MASSIVE toystore) and tried these out. They're fun. They're easy to get the hang of. But, most unfortunately, they're not available in adult size. Bastard manufacturers.

Item eight: The skate Spinner.

A very important piece of kit that I will buy if not given, this allows figure skaters (and anyone else who wants to get dizzy) to learn to spin without travelling on the ice. Everything is explained on the (German) site here. If you can't read German, either translate it using Google or get a German-speaking friend/ stranger to help you. These help us practice and improve our spins on the ice.

This is, for now, my definitive list, minus ski socks (which "Santa" gave me last year, and were my best-loved present by far. I have no idea why, but I love ski socks.

Happy reading, folks!

Finally!

Well, three things have finally happened in the last week that I have been waiting for/ waiting to do for AGES.

Timesheets
I finally got my timesheets in, so it looks like I might actually get paid. Which is, clearly and obviously, a good thing. Not because I will die without the money; because I have worked a lot of hours and getting nothing for it would suck now. Anyway! It took me an hour to fill them in, you have to be pretty meticulous and quite neat- no mean feat for me on a Friday.

Holidaa-aa-aay
It is FINALLY half term. I expect to see students and children running amok on the streets, going AWOL (although in this case I suppose they DO have leave)... Generally doing crazy stuff. A2 is difficult! We do, contrary to popular belief, study rather a lot of the time. I'm not complaining about the studying, don't get me wrong. But... You know, six or seven weeks in a row feels like a really long time. Too long, almost. It is fun, it is interesting, indeed.I do enjoy it just a little bit (alright, alright, a lot). But it's tiring, truly tiring. I'm tired a lot of the time. Not exhausted, but tired enough to fall asleep in the middle of a class. Oops. And apologies to my friend Aggie, on whom I fell asleep. Sorry!
I plan to do a lot of work this holiday. Yes. And have a lot of fun too. Now I work at the ice rink I don't have to pay for ice time, so it's much easier to practice without running myself into the ground financially, so to speak. I love this. There's a lot more freedom to spend money on other things, like winter clothes (I don't actually own a scarf, hat or gloves, or any warm shoes) and crazy capitalist things such as STARBUCKS EGGNOG LATTES. 'Tis (almost) the season!

Is anybody else getting that Christmas feeling yet? Oh man, I've had it for about a week now. I reckon you might see a post soon about my Christmas wish list (I don't actually ask for all the things on it, nor do I have the space for them, it's just my fantasy presents list, within reason). It's gonna be a bit out there. I already have ideas!

Third "awesome sauce" thing that's happening is that I should be able to start my tutoring of younger pupils soon. We conduct Cognitive ability tests in year seven, and this year quite a few of the younger pupils aren't so hot on their reading skills. Evidently this is a problem for them because it means they'll struggle in their work, so I'm going to go and help them. Our first lesson is going to be a little off-topic, but it's all good, it's just an ice breaker.

I'm going to ask the students three questions. The first is,

"A bat and ball cost £1.10. The bat costs £1 more than the ball. How much does the bat cost?"

I hope they'll find it either a really silly question, or a bit difficult. Bearing in mind, this is a little bit to do with reading, and a little bit to do with logical cognitive thinking. I just want to see how they deal with it. There are other questions and activities I want to set them as well, just to find out how they work things through and how they see tasks. It should prove to be quite interesting, I think, as I have to find out how best to help them and to do that I need to know how each student feels about, and approaches, learning.

Right, lesson plans!

P.S. Congratulate me, I just broke my phone. Wonderful.

The Pig Tales, Episode One

Today, I hopped in the back of my friend Ruth's car, for more than one reason. Firstly, I hadn't seen her in AGES (she's the year above me and has therefore left school) and secondly, there was the promise of meeting Pip, who I was told was rather cute and certainly a sight to behold.

Now, you may have guessed by this point that Pip would have to be pretty interesting for me to take an afternoon away from work and revision. You'd be correct.
Pip is in fact a pig. A tiny pig. However, Pip (known to my friend as Bacon) isn't a micropig, he's merely very small because he was the runt of his litter and he's not very old. I think she said he's four days old today. I shall, at some point, have to get a picture of Pip to show you.

For clarity's sake, from now on, Pip shall be known as Bacon. Or Sausage. But probably Bacon.

The thing is, because Bacon was the runt, he was shunned by his mum, and he wasn't being fed. So Ruth adopted him, so to speak. He lives in the family's house. You can all laugh at this point, because as I said, Bacon's not a micropig, and by next week he should be double the size he is now. If I were to give a reference for you, today he was about twenty to thirty centimetres long, fifteen centimetres wide, and twenty centimetres high. And adorable. Adorable on a surprisingly large scale considering how small he is.

Drawbacks...
There are four drawbacks with owning a pig that I can see. Firstly, it's in the house, and that means paying for its food and getting it housetrained (making it wee in the right place, or rather preventing toilet sessions on furniture and such). Secondly, it's going to grow. Squee pig becomes Big Pig. And then, only if you sell it to the circus or something, will it become Big Pig in Wig. Problematic to say the least. Thirdly, once you're attached to te pig, it's hard to eat it. From an adult pig of average size, you can get up to three hundred sausages. However, once the seven-year old and eight-year old of the household have named it, it's more of a pet than a meal. To quote Russell Howard, "Aww, he's cute... But he looks tasty". Cute and delicious doesn't bode well in that order for children. They will be horrified to find their precious family pet has been turned into bangers and mash. Or rashers. Or anything with pork.
Fourthly, that thing ain't gonna be light. And it certainly won't be obedient. What about those teeth? Bacon bit me today, and as a result was nearly turned into his namesake. However, if he does bite one of us badly, at least we can say it's fair and square to eat him.

I shall report back in around a week's time to give word of new swine developments!

Question: is it wrong to feed a pig sausages if you explain (in PigSpeak first, of course) that it's in fact that pig's friend or family?

Question number two: what's the best name for a pig you may one day eat? Bacon? Sausages? Buttie? Porky Delicious? Spiderpig? Harry Plopper? If there are any others, you name them.

Feedback is useful!

So on the terrors post below, a commenter told me I'm chatting a great deal of rubbish (I won't quote the actual commenter, you can all go and have a look). It got me thinking, truly. Am I being too harsh on other people? I mean, I only inflict my views on you (not particularly sorry but there's always going to be someone out there who makes me feel a small element of shame for what I once found perfectly reasonable). So, I pose a few questions, and I want genuine answers.

Does it matter if everyone speaks the Queen's English or not? I mean, should it (or can it) be seen as okay to speak using other phrases and words, perhaps created by whatever subculture...? Surely as long as people are still understandable without too much hassle, that's verifiable conversation? Or should society remain as it is, biased towards those who speak a certain way and act a certain way? Should we all be taught a uniform way of speaking, after which we can deviate or use any different dialects as we please?

I do find it confusing to fully work out what some people mean when they say things, sometimes. Should I just be trying harder, or am I perfect;y justified in holding my own opinions? What do you think?

My hope is that Mr. or Mrs. Anonimous from the comment below will see what I mean. If you're not reading this, Mr. or Mrs. Anonimous, then darn it, bloody check this blog! I want to know what you truly think! Let's have a dignified debate. Please. (plz?)

On another note, I STILL haven't finished The Vampire Lestat! It's a good book but hard to get through when there's so much else to do at the same time. Education is taking a priority seat at the moment.

Happy reading (and replying), folks!

teeny tiny terrors (should grow the hell up)

So recently I've been going up to main school to talk to some of the teachers there (various endeavours require student-teacher conversations, it's unfortunate). Anyway, I've heard tiny tiny children (the year sevens, they'd be cute if they weren't so vicious and rude) yelling all manner of insults at each other. What is this? Why do young people not know how to argue properly any more? It's truly ridiculous, nobody ever seems to sit down and calmly talk through anything, instead it's all yelling and throwinf various things- insults, punches, chairs, and so on.

This miniscule scrap of a kid the other day yelled the words "Oi, get off me bruv, you gayboy!" I fail to see why being gay is a bad thing, something to be used as an insult, and as for all this "bruv" business, you merely sound like you can't pronounce the word broth properly. Year sevens, in short, are idiots. Anybody who can run into me at top speed (not that fast, they only have short legs, remember) and bounce off my chiseled abs (ha!) without so much as a sorry... Deserves to be shot. In the kneecaps. Hopefully with some sort of gun that sports exploding bullets, or something.

So yes, a note to the year sevens: Go away. You are deceptively small, fast, and apart from being completely cuturally unaware ("What you doing man?! That's so gay! Oi battyboy! Fuck you!"), you are ruining our precious language. You are also required to not get in the goddamn way. I have to say please more than twice and your name goes in the black book, you little bastards. I don't care that your mummy thinks you're special. Learn something. Read a book, "y'all". If you can't read, then it's no problem, not for me anyway, because then you can't read my insults. Har har har. LEARN TO READ. Learn some respect. Then, keep to yourselves. Wow.

happy reading folks!

Jobbing tendencies

I've recently found that, no matter how much you love your job, if it's on a Sunday, it can be hard to get up. How many people want to work on a Sunday? The pope and pretty much all ordained ministers aside, I can't think of many people who jump with joy at the prospect of effectively cutting their weekend short, even if it is for money.

On the subject of jobs, I've been offered another one (I really hope I get it. Though it doesn't pay incredibly well, it will actually save me money, which is excellent). I'm hoping to start turoring at school soon as well. It should be fun; I'm having to do a lot of lesson plans, as I did in the summer holidays in France, so it would be nice to put them to use instead of merely having them sitting around in a drawer.

Secondly! I'm into training season now, which means going to the gym and skating more than ever. I need a new pair of wheel for my rollerblades, as during the summer I used them all the time, and it wears the wheels out. They're not particularly safe anymore. So yes, gym training and no white bread or pasta from now on. Brown pasta and bread has a lot more fibre in it, which is great for your digestive system. The easiest way to put it is "it makes your tummy happy" (I should advertise more).

Thirdly, Christmas is on its way (I know it's about two months away but you can stick it until you've got that festive feeling!), which means I start looking for silly things to wear to entertain my friends. At the moment my favourite candidate for this purpose can be seen here. I think those things are bloody expensive for what they are, though. But fun, oho, so fun. If I were to wear them and stretch I'd not get a cold stomach! Always a good thing.

Fourthly, it's half term soon, and I'm relieved because there's a lot I want to do, like finish painting my room (it's been half purple, half white for a while now, and I'm trying to paint over all the purple and then cover it in a very light blue so it looks a bit better). Hopefully I'll be doing that next weekend. Next week is our last week in school before the week-long holiday. I plan to do a lot of work in that holiday, as I use holidays to revise a lot. I find it easy to memorise books and subject matter if I just sit and read it so holidays are fun (also ice skating and gym time, whoop!)

Hopefully some of you will click this link (below). Go to the site, at the top it says "authors", click on Nathan DeGraaf; the guy's a genius. Cheers!

http://www.pointsincase.com/

Have fun, and happy reading, folks!

In which my life is still a volatile bundle of WTF.

I found this on a piece of paper in a file in my room. I've typed it up so you can see the difference between me now and me about two years ago, when it was written.

OCD is short for obsessive compulsive disorder (which is confusing because people with it like things to be very much IN order) and though it's a sort of mental illness, though not especially classified as one, I think it's rude to treat it as an illness even if it is one in your minds, because it's bad enough knowing that there's something wrong with your mind and the way you think... but for people to spot that you have OCD or when you are told you are "wired" incorrectly, it really hurts your feelings, it feels awful.

I didn't know that I had OCD until about two years ago. It has been getting worse lately because I am tired and stressed. It started with panic attacks, then I always felt the need to change my handwriting or type things because it wasn't ever neat enough no matter how much I practised, and I also colour code things like my planner and my school files so that I feel safer somewhat. It's maddening, sometimes you can tell you're doing it and you don't mind, sometimes you can tell you're doing it and it's embarrassing and you can't stop, and sometimes you don't realise and this would be okay except that other people point it out instead of you noticing it and you want to hit them, but in my case I'd have to hit them twice.

Today I was having a bit of an OCD moment in Maths and I closed my eyes and broke my favourite pen by accident on the table and then I was mad because it was my only colour coded pen, and then I opened my eyes and I was angry. Then I closed them again. I suddenly felt sick, because I was thinking, are all the tables straight? Oh god, they're not, and when I open my eyes I will see this and it will make me cry.

Then I went to break. I just lost control of my tear ducts for a while, to be honest. It wasn't fun to cry in front of everyone but I had to because friends try to help and that was what I needed.

An example of colour coding is that *with the pen I broke* I will colour in my planner timetable on child development the colour light brown. After that, all the homework I write in my planner for CD has to be light brown too, and when I make a slip for it in my file, that's coloured in the same light brown.
So, there you have it. OCD. It's so funny for those people who don't have it, really. I'm nowhere near that bad now. I still have little things. When I'm stressed I clean my room a lot. I throw a lot of things out. My timetables are colour coded, still, as is the colour I write in my planner in. I like things to be neat. I like writing essays because they're formuleic and once you have the right shell every essay's easy.
I like to make jokes that I have CDO, like OCD but in it's proper order- as it should be. It humanizes the condition somewhat.

Most of the time I'm pretty laidback, but stress and illness still bring out weird tendencies. I tend to become very clinical. I overanalyse things, searching for meanings. No matter if I'm ill or tired or stressed or not, I always wonder what other people are thinking. Not necessarily what they think of me, but just how their minds work in general. Some things I find very upsetting or moving or important, others think are completely trivial. The attributes and qualities that I search for in people (number one being that they're educated enough to hold a good, long, detailed conversation or argument) are basically shields for how finicky I am.

Now I'm older I live by very different rules to the rest of my family. If I want to eat a lot, I work it off. I sleep in the pitch black (the rest of the family are scared of the dark). I'm awfully critical of people, especially my friends. I apparently give this impression that if someone touches me, I'll hurt them. I don't mean to; it just happens. My personal space and my room are things, places, that I protect. They're mine. My domain. My terrain. My hiding place. I like being able to come home after sixth form and be silent for hours on end. I love being able to go for an impromptu walk that lasts for hours. I love havign time to think for myself and to mull things over. I consider myself a wholewheat person. Of course I have my off-days. Even robots and computers and saints must not be brilliant or good or even positive all the time.

Sometimes I feel like there are two people in my head- the functional one who gets me through the daytime, and the deranged and dangerous one who seems to take over in times of tiredness, anger, depression or confusion. The dangerous one is terrifying. That one makes me fly off the handle. The Hyde part of my consciousness, so to speak. The Jekyll part hides away late at night and I'm left as a bit of a strange version of myself. My mum notices it; "you're not right this evening, are you?"

Nope. No. I'm stressed and frustrated and there's all this shit at the back of my mind like graffiti, it's pinned to my brain and it won't come off. I want to get rid of it. Annoying circles of thought. Confusion. Darkness. Hours of bad memories that I dream through sometimes. There's nothing like jolting awake in the dark at three or four in the morning. There's not one experience I can think of that's quite as unsettling as being able to remember my nightmares. The worst thing is they're set in this house. When I'm walking around they play over the normal background, they seem real. Like the weird body thing that's covered in blood that lives behind my bathroom door. That is alive, suiposedly. It has no skin. It creeps me out. But more than the thing creeping me out, is the fact that my mind created it. My mind has created an image, a character so much worse than anything I've read about, any horror movie or book, any scary story, any bad memory (and some of them aren't nice, I mean it). I wake up sometimes, and I'm freezing.

The days where I'm cold are the bad days. They mean I have to put on three or four layers just to walk about. Sometimes I spend all day in bed, reading. Not because I can, but because it's necessary, as the warmest place I know of.

Right now I'm alright, but ill and tired, and that means I need to sleep before I go a bit doolallytap.

Crime statistics are sexist...

In Sociology we are into a new topic: Gender and Crime. Here, we will be discussing why in 2000 (yes, the statistics are that out of date) 80% of recorded indictable crimes were committed by men. We will also be discussing why more girls aged 15-25 commit crimes than girls/women of any other age.

I think it's fair to say that, as there are an almost equal number of males and females the world over (yes, I'm generalising. Yes, I'm only taking humans into account. Yes, I'm only talking about those who are alive), the chances are less than 4/5 of all bad crime is committed by men. Women tend to look innocent, therefore rerducing their chances of being convicted with an offence. Plus, psychologically speaking, I'm sure women get mad about stuff just as much as men do. Stereotyping a bit here, but I reckon while men are yelling at TV screens the world over, women are pissed because they didn't get that last sandwich quite perfect. Could this drive them to murder? Probably. Could this drive them to GBH? Probably. Crime stats seem to be a bit sexist... Judges and juries bias the results at thier discretion (within reason, but still). Just because a man is heavy-built, with a lot of muscle or a "hardened" face, it doesn't mean he's any more capable of a dnagerous act than his five-foot tall, slim, gentle-looking wife. Or his friends. Or his parents.

My point is, women can be evil too. Everyone can do bad things if you put them in the right situation, regardless of who they are as a person. Some people, even if they try to avoid trouble at all costs, do not succeed in that endeavour. I think this needs to be realised; that we are sometimes dangerous, and not in a joking way. I've been wondering about this. If you try and annoy a woman and a man of the same temperament in the same way, which one snaps first? Well, this depends on a number of factors- stress, PMT, the kids (haha, I have none!). Work life. School life. Thug life (which I hear can be a little bit violent at times). What am I trying to say? I guess it's the argument that you shouldn't bit e the hand that feeds you. Or the hand that irons your clothes. Or the hand that cooks your meals/ remembers birthdays and important events/ cleans the house.

There's a joke I can use to illustrate stereotyping and pseudo-unfairness. "Why shouldn't you chain a woman into the kitchen? Because then she can't clean the rest of the house."

And one for the strange sex culture we seem to have nowadays. "If a key opens many [different] locks, then it is a Master Key. But if a lock is opened by many [different] keys, then it is a bad lock."

Women and men should be treated equally- not in a feminist way, in a fair way. If a girl hits (even jokingly) one of my mates, is it fair that they don't hit her back? No. Give her a taste of her own medicine, and show her that it is bitter. It's so stupid to let people off all the time! What are you doing if you let people make snide comments, if you let them take advantage? Unless you tell them what you think, they just keep doing it. Tell people what you really think. Do it eloquently. Speak up and tell 'em to shove off, or something. Never, ever do anything for free. If it's not going to help you (even good deeds are sometimes done to make you feel better) then why take it upon yourself to do it? Doing thigns for no reward is a chore. A boring chore. Like cleaning a building site right before the builders begin.

Message for all of you: males! Please take it upon yourselves to be responsible for your own actions. Females! The same goes for you!

Oh yes. Another thing. Stop acting like you're stupid if you're not. If I hear one more girl do that horrible, obviously fake laugh I will go insane. Dear posers, chavs, try-hards, liars and oompa loompa girls. You're not hot. You're not cool. You don't have a temperature. How does it feel?

there's one paragraph in this that kind of makes sense. The rest is... Well, I find it funny but it is a serious subject. No hating on me. http://www.pointsincase.com/columns/nick/12-3-06.htm

Happy reading, folks!

blunt-force trauma

So.
I have reasons for not doing things.
For instance, I don't really drink, and I don't go to many parties. The former is because I'm a depressive drunk and I just cry all the time (not worth it); the latter is because I inevitably wake up the next day sporting some sort of injury that could only have possible happened during the night when I was asleep, as I never remember.

Example: Today. Yesterday I had my very belated seventeenth birthday party (which was lovely, not much went wrong really) and then today I went ice skating. I've also done the majority of my homework. I consider making an effort to be good enough. Anyway, I brushed my hair when I came back from ice skating, only to find that a great deal of my head hurts under any form of pressure. I don't remember doing anything to it, but five minutes ago I touched my scalp and actually went blind from the pain. Forgive me if this seems a little dramatic, but surely that's not good? Why would my body make a part of me hurt for no reason? I don't understand this thing, truly. It feels like I've got some sort of blunt-force trauma going on up there.

So my head is confusing me. My legs feel like lead (flu?) and I've had a sore throat for a good three or four days now. Urgh. I'm not doing well these days. At some point I'm supposed to be starting physiotherapy for, my back, as it seizes up every week or so (the cold weather is going to be rather un-fun this winter), as well as going down to the BRI (Bristol Royal Infirmary, our hospital) for some sort of dermatology appointment. Good news is my teeth are straightening quite nicely still! That's something to be happy about, isn't it? Yes. Yes it is.

I wish I could have a friend on-call for times like this; I'm not sleeping very well, and it'd be nice for me to have someone to talk to... Good night, good afternoon, good evening, good morning, good day...
I know it depends where you are and when you're reading this, really.

Happy reading, folks!

"How was your day?"

Being seventeen, I'm getting to that point where I look back at younger versions of myself and think, "Why did I do that? Why did I say that? What made me think like that?". I was very different two years ago to the way I am now. This is a strange feeling. It produces almost an alienated nostalgia, because I know it's my thoughts and actions I'm looking back on, but I don't understand them.
I've decided to write a book. I doubt it'll be hugely long, but it seems an interesting and fun thing to do. I'm entitling it, "How was your day?" because it's one of those questions that lots and lots of people ask, when in truth they really don't care a lto of the time. It's a cursory thing, like a nod or glance in the direction of someone you don't particularly like, but have to get on with for whatever reason.

Today I went to visit my cousin. She is much older than me, I think about forty or so. No, she's older than forty. She has three children, two of which are aged eight and ten, and one who is in her twenties. The one in her twenties has just had a baby (twelve weeks ago); it's a lovely baby, a boy called Alfie. He likes to stand up on people's laps, with help. I met him for the first time today, and fed him and changed him. He's a lovely baby, quite agreeable if you keep him entertained. He's chunking out at the moment.

Anyway, after having met baby Alfie, I went to the cousin's house. The younger children still live with her. They don't get on at all; they were fighting, yelling, and every time they got blamed for something, they'd burst into tears. They had no respect for their parents. This is difficult for me to watch. At one point, the ten year old was doing homework, and the eight year old came and broke it ( a paper chain with various words on, it was quite a clever exercise). Sam is the eight year old, Jessie is ten. Jessie yelled at Sam, understandably, but he just kept going. Eventually, in front of his father, I yelled at him. I tell you, it really gets the adrenaline going when you realise you're yelling at someone else's child in frant of that person. It was uncomfortable, but necessary. I think my words were something like, "Sam, I am nothing to do with your parents and I know that, but you can't go about ruining Jessie's work. It's nothing to do with you whatsoever. It's not your class, it's not your work, it's not your subject. Leave it alone."

Good job on my part? I think so. Jessie got her homework finished, Sam was told off again for trying to ruin it, (he did this twice) they both threw stuff and broke stuff, and cried. They are ten and eight. I agree with their father. I wouldn't be able to stand it for much longer either. They need to be separated, preferably by miles and miles, for a large number of years. Until they both grow up to the point where they can handle themselves, because right now, I'm not going back to that house again. For a long time.

So, I was being driven home by the family (all four of them arguing around me). I had this urge to speak up and say, "You know what? This is bullshit. This is bloody ridiculous. Why are you letting your children fight like this all the time? This is five-year old stuff. They're not growing up, they have no manners (If you've ever seen a child shew with his mouth open while talking, let the food fall out of his mouth, look down, laugh, pick it up and eat it again then you can begin to understand). Just be more firm."

I know it's difficult, parenting and all, but people need to put in more effort. Face it- if you want children, you're going to be quite poor. You'll not have a lot of free time. You'll always have to be there.

Both my parents work full-time jobs. They're not together. I barely see either of them. We don't really talk all that much. Please, if you're going to have children, spend time with them. I am so lonely at home, if I have a problem I never get to talk to my mum about it because she's not here. When she is here, there are others here too. I always try to ask her, "How was your day?"... The easiest way to make conversation with someone is to get them to talk about themself. The point I'm trying to make is, mum, I love you, but I'm fucking tired of being so far down your list of priorities.