Bitte entschuldigen Sie!!

One word to you all, dear readers, and that word is perseverance. I'm not afraid and not sorry to say that there have been good reasons for my not posting in a while!

Studying.
I have been sitting at my desk, and various other desks, and on my bed, and at the kitchen table, and I've been thinking and formulating and assimilating (to an extent) all this information we, as law students on the course, have been exposed to. Lectures are a welcome introduction to topics, believe me, but gosh are they fleeting. Oh, what a brief window of interest they open for us! And then the hard work begins. In lectures, I sit and I take notes and I assume I'm making sense of all the words and phrases and images I'm given to make sense of, but of course it's passive learning. And so I have to go away and read and commit myself to hours of thinking about the same things and working out how all those things fit together. It's wonderful, readers! I'm really enjoying myself learning things at university.
But of course the result of all this time-consuming studying is that I get good marks. I am getting good marks and I am very proud and because of that I can truly say that I feel I am spending my time well here. Of course I take time off! Of course I spend time procrastinating, and watching movies, and reading non-academic books, and sleeping and eating and just relishing being able to think. So far I've given in two essays. The first was a 2:1 (a high B) and the second was a 1st (an A). I am enjoying that. And then today we participated in a  test in class, multiple choice but quite difficult all the same, and I scored 35/36.

...Baking?
It was Patrick's birthday at the weekend and so I went home for four days. We baked a lovely chocolate cake on Friday, which we didn't finish until after his birthday dinner on Saturday, when I made the ganache and put it on. That word's a link because EVERYONE I told asked what ganache was and I couldn't define it well.

Here's a picture of the birthday boy exercising his self-control with said cake.

Pat, I gotta say, honey, you could probably fit that whole cake in your mouth in less than ten bites.

It's a pretty big cake, I tell you! It was/is lovely (I still have a slice keeping me company up in Oxford). I also bought Pat an Euler's disk, because he really loves physics and he specifically asked for one. Youtube it and see how they work, they're pretty cool (and heavy).

I got the recipe for the cake here, it is delicious, I recommend you all try it. I am having a lot of fun with the whole baking shebang now I'm older and able to do all that stuff I didn't understand when I was younger.

...Didn't stop me from melting a spatula when making the ganache, though. Moving on!


Coursework obligations
I have a piece of coursework due this Friday, which I am currently part of the way through writing, and two pieces due in three and a half weeks' time, so I'm likely to be quite busy between now and then! However, I will try to write after that, which shouldn't be too difficult as my Christmas holidays start once I've handed those in, so I should be back home for roughly December 15th. This is an exciting last month of my first semester at university, I must say! I'm being careful not to do so much work that I burn out and do terribly next year, but I also want to do well this year because I want a proper foundation year (looks good on CVs and also to any prospective employers to show that I'm trying hard even when it's not completely necessary!

I would put up some coursework extracts but we're not allowed for reasons such as cheating and plagiarism. Sorry folks! Don't hesitate to ask questions if you want to, though.

Happy reading, folks!

Victoria Jane

Purpose.

I'm not saying we're here for a specific purpose or that life is a wonderful miracle. I don't want to project an image of myself as someone very philosophical or anything like that. I like people to know I have thoughts, though. I find it somewhat satisfying that someone could be interested in the things in my head.

So, I've been going to Taekwon Do every day that I can (it only runs Thursdays and Fridays but some Fridays I go home to see my family) and I can feel myself getting stronger and faster. This is a good change, certainly. It feels like I am achieving something.
For years and years I felt pressure to be thin and to never lose my temper and to be helpful to people all the time, but then I realised that thin is not necessarily healthy and keeping your cool all the time is virtually inhuman, there have to be some things that annoy you, sometimes, and sometimes it's okay not to lend others a hand and to just have some time to yourself. I think everybody needs that.

I've been reading a lot recently, and I found this, which is interesting. I don't think being married is anything different than being in a relationship, but that's not the significance of it. I was particularly interested in point seven on that list, because quite frankly it's not a burden worrying about someone and being young and carefree doesn't go hand in hand, completely, with being alone. Again, I'm not trying to project an image of philosophy; nor am I saying that everybody simply must have someone to be with (come on! Nobody NEEDS a boyfriend, it's not a concept you should view in that way, in my opinion). My relationship does cause me some worry, of course; I care about Pat very much, and I do worry a bit sometimes. But he makes life a lot more bearable when I've had a terrible day (don't think, honey, that I merely use you to make myself feel better).

But yes, purpose. My purpose in life has never been set, but rather quite loosely defined as what I find important at that moment. At this time I'm interested in learning about Law (good thing, that) and improving my Taekwon Do skills.

Recently, I have been reading this blog. It's written by a man whose younger son has autism, and it documents, to an extent, what effect this has had on family, and general, life. I have a cousin with autism and there is a whole huge area of grey in my knowledge about the condition, though I know the basics-  that it's lifelong, incurable, and prevents normal social interaction to an extent. But I must say that the man's child has high-functioning autism, which is not as severe at what my little cousin has. I say "has" and not "suffers from" because, as horrible as it may sound, I really think he doesn't care all that much, but we do, and it affects the lives of my mother's side of the family quite extensively. I have had to, in the past (and we're talking five years ago) literally pull other children off my cousin. Bullies can be cruel. He doesn't understand how awful they're being either.

But A (his name genuinely starts with that letter, I'm not initial-ing him autistic) isn't who I'm worried about, it's his older brother, T. I love T a huge amount, and the sadness I feel for his predicament is something I will never cease to bear. He not only has almost no support and praise from his parents but also must deal with, every day and night for the rest of his life, the fact his younger brother has autism. It will always be a part of his mind. I worry for him, this once promising and bright child, whose personality, aspirations and livelihood have dulled under the weight of his burden. At twelve (now) he is expected to fully understand his brother's condition and deal with it as well as his parents do (they don't, really). T was a very bright child, and I mean that; he learnt to read analogue clocks before I did, and I had six years on him. I was genuinely jealous at one point. But now? Now, I feel anger and pity. Anger that he was wasted, ignored, left to almost raise himself. He has to eat what his brother eats, which isn't much. He has to live around his brother. He has to work around the entire situation, and believe me, A is quite the situation.

I would never say it is A's fault, but he can be very challenging to deal with. Partly, he has autism. Partly, he's a complete bastard because his parents have let him grow to always get what he wants. As a result my favourite cousin (sorry all other cousins) has completely lost the light in his life. He did badly in school last year. He can't bring friends home. He has no escape. Secondary school is a car journey from his house and during that journey I can bet you anything there is either silence or lectures revolving around A. Or T's lack of performance. How do you expect him to do well if you won't help? He's not an adult, you control him as his parents, to some extent. You let his little brother break his things and ruin his stuff and you blame it on autism or on him, and you're going to have an unhappy child.

As a result, I've resolved to write him a little book. Of my thoughts. Of what I feel. Of how I want to help. Of how everything is unfair and I see that and how mum and I have secret plans to steal him away for a day and we'll do whatever the hell he wants all day and he can eat and sleep and just not give a care that his little brother is autistic, for one day. Removing the burden. And hopefully he'll see that there are people who think he's not getting as much individual time and love as he deserves.

I'd genuinely not mind if he went to live with my mum, although it would be difficult. I'd love to see him more. I want his mobile number so we can text without his mum knowing; it'd be difficult but I'm sure there's a way.  My purpose is to write my little cousin a book to make him a little bit less miserable this Christmas, because it quite literally (I think it's the stress of thinking of being in that situation) makes my heart hurt when I imagine him all bored and upset and alone in that house, every day.

If you have any comments, please send them to me here. I'd love to read them.

Happy reading, folks!!

Changes!!

Hello readers! A mighty quick update for you from the lovely me (ah, who am I kidding?) to say that I've changed the name of the blog (as you can clearly see!). Now, the domain name for this is already taken, so I won't be changing the website address just yet, but at least if I do I'll give a couple weeks notice, so don't worry about that.

I never thought I'd do this really. Not that I thought I wouldn't, as such, but it never really occurred to me before, as it has recently, that the old name of my blog (everything I own [now]) seems very materialistic and therein lies the problem. I'm not materialistic. Happiness, in my opinion, should not be based on material items and their value (never let it be said that I'll forgive you for buying a cheap coat, though. There is cost effective, where you get good value for money, and then there is downright cheap, where your clothing falls apart and you complain even though you only paid a fiver for it).

Hence, I declare this blog to now be called Wired Weird! The principal principle (oho!) behind this change is to reflect how very odd and convoluted a place my mind can be, and seeing as you delve into it on a somewhat regular and somewhat frequent basis, I consider it false advertising to call myself anything close to "wired normally".

Happy reading, folks! There will probably by another post soooooooooooooooooooooon (extra Os intentional, based on the fact it was Hallowe'en yesterday)!