Render Render Render

It's 02.06 and I'm still up having just 4 hours sleep last night. I've been having trouble sleeping anyway due to the (lack of) routine in my life recently, and after getting an early night last night, I slept for 2 hours before waking up at 12 and staying awake until ridiculous o clock.

Today, myself, Andy and Ray had agreed to present a Blue Peter style show at college. That was amusing, and to be honest a pretty good experience. TV presenting is a lot harder than you think. Part of you has to concentrate on the people talking in your ear telling you how long you have to talk for, one part has to keep an eye on the floor manager and autoque and then you have to concentrate on actually presenting. Not easy at all, and I think that came across in our somewhat amateur performance. But never mind, it was a good day! I'll hopefully get a copy of it to post on here soon.

Now, you may be wondering the reason I'm still up at this time. Especially after having little sleep last night followed by an action packed day. Well upon arriving home we realised that we have an edit due in tomorrow, which none of us had started really. So since 5pm I've been working to get it done ready for submission tomorrow. Fun times.

Did I mention the fact that it's the worst project ever, documenting the history of the internet with comments from some of the most boring people on earth? (Excluding Steven Fry).

It has probably been the least enjoyable edit I've ever done, the cut aways arn't even relevant to the subject, and as I just said to Ray; if it were a live project, I'd tell them to go and shoot some relevant cut aways before I would touch it. How has people walking round a Ghanian town got ANYTHING to do with people abusing Wikipedia?

Now I'm just waiting for the thing to render, which will take 25 mins, yay. And then I plan to colour correct it. I would go to bed, but I've learnt that the body works in 4 hour cycles, meaning that if I sleep now I'll get 6 hours before getting up. At 6 hours the body is at its heaviest sleep and its bad to wake up then. You can get away with waking up after 4 hours and feeling ok to go and do what I have to do tomorrow.

Oh, did I not tell you that?

Yes, I've got to go in and have a meeting about risk assessments, and other boring paperwork ready for our shoot over the weekend.

To tell you the truth, at this stage of the term I am no longer grateful that it is 2 weeks shorter that usual.

Write soon, if I ever get out of bed ever again!

Flan x

A Sigh of Relief...

...and back to face the fallout.

It's been a tough week, to say the least, but at last I feel slightly relieved and ready to put pen to paper, or fingers to keys as the case may be.

As mentioned in my previous post, Chloe was due to come down to the Evelina again to be admitted. It didn't happen for sometime, but on Monday she was brought down.

Now usually when I go to see Chloe in hospital, I'm quite prepared; I think it's fair to say I've seen her in an array of conditions, from being tube fed for months on end, right through to her running away from me.

For some reason, this visit was different. For the past few months Chloe's been getting better and better and better. Almost too good to be true, and I'm sure my happiness has come through in my writing at each milestone.

To see her, only a month or so ago walk up a flight of stairs, to seeing her on Monday was a shock to the system. It was like looking back in time, back to 2008 before she had DBS.

This time, I felt I needed to be with her as much as possible, to monitor her progress, and also make her, and my mums long stay in hospital a little bit more entertaining. I'm not saying I danced around balancing chairs on my head, but you know what I mean. Tuesday wasn't much better, and the worry continued; talks of the probes in her brain moving, or her stimulator breaking were bouncing around our heads. It wasn't nice.

She had also turned her stimulator around for the second time! Mad how she managed to do such a thing...

They turned that back over, x-rays and all that palaver. So, what had caused her to 'go wrong'?keeping with the theme of bionic sister..

Was it the probes in her brain moving? Mechanical Failure? Condition Progression? Meds Withdrawal? We just didn't know.

Today was a different story. I arrived at the hospital in the afternoon, and Chlo wasn't uncontrollably flailing about the bed, she was still; relaxed. From the first second I saw her I knew my faith in Dr. Lins team had been boosted once again. They'd changed her settings again, back to what they were over the summer, and increased her dose of diazepam. 'Normality' is in sight once again.

So it's all very well being at the hospital all the time, but my room was a tip and my work slipping slightly. I kind of forgot about that part of my life! However, I've sorted my room and my work is due to be back on track very soon. Epic win.

So I'll stop bumbling on and tell you some anecdotes of the week, some actual shenanigans.

Last week saw the bubble wrap party! Picture a room covered in bubble wrap, as well as everyone in it. Thats a recipe for a fun night, and it was indeed!

Of course there's the topic of the week, snow, to talk about. We didn't get as much as everyone else down here in London, however it was enough...

... enough to have a midnight snowball fight much to the disgust of the residents on Heathwood Gardens, and also to make a tasteful snow sculpture in the garden. Fun times! So I'll leave you with my picture of the week, and grab some shut eye for tomorrow!

Write soon!

Flan x

Is that a grey hair?

Stress is a weird thing; there's good stress, and bad stress. An example of good stress would be knowing you've got lots of stuff to do and an increasingly alarming lack of time to do it within. It's like a challenge; a game. Bad stress would be an essay you're trying to write at the last minute, whilst next door are seemingly attempting to hoover up their cat whilst a small imp is poking you repeatedly in the rib cage. I'm pleased to say I'm suffering from good stress at the moment. (although I would like an imp).

In answer to my blog title:

Yes. Yes it is, along with a load more. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank my Dad for this ridiculous gene that sends us grey at a stupidly premature age.

The reason I speak about these two irrelevant topics is that they're not irrelevant. (See what I did there?) If you're as incredibly intellectual and as near genius as I am*, you'd know that many believe that going grey can be a result of stress.

As I looked on my calendar yesterday evening, I realised that we have 4, going on 3 weeks left of this term, with 2 music videos to produce still, a documentary to edit and a presentation to.. well... present.

Luckily I finished my DVD game and got that one out the way. I've never known a project to be so time consuming. Ridiculous.

Not to worry though, it will get done and we'll all live happily ever after. (maybe.).

Speaking of stress, work hasn't been the only thing on my mind. Chloe's pretty bad again and she's coming back down to London yet again to stay. I have a lot of faith in the team at the Evelina, however it's always a worry, especially when I'm away from home. Of course it's the positives in every situation that matter the most; this one being the fact I get to see her again on Friday. Win.

On a slightly more fun, amusing and generally stupid note; socially, uni is going good! (The social life I do have at the moment anyway!) On Friday we had a house party which was alright. Not as many people as we'd hoped came, but it was still a fun night.

I'll leave you with my new thing which I've literally just decided to make a feature of.... my photo of the week! Which I took about half an hour ago. All my housemates have gone to sleep, and as you may have guessed from the odd way I'm structuring my sentences, and the aberrant choice of lexemes within this blog, I am in a slightly odd mood. I decided to make the most out of the vacated shared spaces. This is the outcome of said situation:

Write soon!

Flan x

*this entire sentence, if spoken out loud as an utterance would be littered with sarcastic intonation.

Apologies

Apologies for that awful last post, in all honesty I don't even remember writing it. I've been pretty ill in the last week, but the way I look at it, illness is like any other challenge in life. I don't just back down and let it take it's course, (which to be honest is probably the better option) I power on regardless if I can. Life's too short. However this attitude has meant a few days at college feeling like I was about to drop off the planet whilst coughing my lungs up. Nice.

Besides the illness, last week was a pretty good week,

contrary to how it came across in my last anomalous post. On Tuesday I was at Riverside Studios, watching the recording of Russell Howard's Good News for BBC 3. Proof:

It was a really good show and I really enjoyed it, especially as I watch it religiously every week on TV anyway! You'd think that would be enough good fun for one night; you'd be wrong.

I went to see Russell with 2 friends from Rawlins; Morena and Duncan. Morena lives in London anyway, but Duncan came down from Leicester. It was great to see them both again, and after the show we went out to a club called The Roxy. It was a pretty nice club and I had a wicked night, a little like old times again!

I got home at around 7 on Wednesday morning, and pretty much slept most of the day (luckily it was my day off!). In the evening I went back to my old house for one of the new tenants and my ex housemates birthday, which also tripled up as a belated Firework night. It was a good night as well, but after all that and my infection coming on I was ready to keel over.

It didn't stop there. The following day I had a meeting with a band in Bromley for our music video. It took about 2 hours to get there and was ridiculous! It was great meeting the band though and getting some creative juices flowing.

I feel like since then I've been pretty much working on my DVD game, which is coming along nicely. The graphical view showing all of the buttons and links looks really complicated though, and it;s not even finished yet!

Tomorrow Chloe is coming down to London to have her stimulator tweaked again. She's not doing well at the moment by the sounds of it. Not surprising really when she's come of a substantial amount of drugs in the last month. I hope to finish college early and go over to visit quickly. That'll be nice, I really miss Chlo!

Well, that's about it, I've filled in a few of the gaps that my last atrocious post failed to fill!

Write Soon,

Flan x

Nothing much to write.

I honestly have nothing much to write after this week. I've just been cracking on with work, and today I made quite a lot of progress with my DVD game.

I've appear to have come down with some kind of chest infection etc... it's pretty bad but I'll live! Also, I think I should probably talk a little bit about the game of catch that got a little bit out of hand.

The other night we started a game of catch. Obviously, catching a ball is not as entertaining as it used to be, we needed to add another element to it, for example, the same concept as a water balloon - if you drop it, you get wet. However, due to the lack of water balloons, we went for the next best thing - empty glass bottles. By the end of the game our kitchen was a pretty dangerous environment, and it took about 7 hours to clear it all up. Probably shouldn't do that again.

I'd like to point you to my brand new blog! This one of course will continue as normal, however, I now have a new splinter blog, entirely dedicated to documenting my dreams. You can check it out here - 'The Dream Journals'

Hopefully I'll have some slightly more interesting news next week!

Flan x

Recovery.

Well what a week it has been! Over the course of the week I've met some awesome people and chatted complete rubbish to them... ahhh freshers!

So the first night was the night at the SU. Our SU is the first bar in the O2. It has a bar downstairs, a restaurant/pub upstairs and a dance floor at the top. It was a good night, apart from when Andy decided to jump on me whilst I was on the stage, and we both fell off.... spraining his ankle. Oh dear. Actually, come to think of it; that was quite amusing as well.

I'm with some people... mainly first year post I believe?

Tuesday was another brilliant night. A pub crawl around Greenwich, as mentioned in my previous post. I don't need to say much about it.. I covered it last time!

Me on the Rodeo... for about 3 seconds!

Wednesday was the night at Inc Club in the O2. It was a really nice club and I had an awesome time with everyone. I think this was the night the glueing obsession began when we got home each night. We had some superglue, and whilst inebriated we found it hilarious to glue things to other things. For example a glass jar to the table and a shower fitting to the boiler. Amusing times!

Me, Ray and Andy in Inc.

Thursday was probably my least favourite night, surprisingly. I usually love foam parties, but this one was manic! It was was also a UV night which was quite cool, however I didn't have any cash on me, and the minimum spend for a card was £15! UV robbery! I also became so disorientated and inhaled loads of foam. We left pretty early that night, we think we'd began to flag after the weeks events.

For some reason the only picture of me on this night is me in the background of this one..

Finally, it was Friday. The 1920's boat party. It was a REALLY nice boat, however the water was really choppy that night and everyone was stumbling about! (not from alcohol intake.. I promise.)

The night panned out really well and I had a really good time aboard the Dixie Queen.

Me and Andy on the deck!

Unfortunately, our beloved friend Chloe was taken pretty ill, just in time for the week, so she missed out on everything. We're throwing a Freshers party for her soon, to make up for it - that should be fun!

So now comes the major detox. I'm pretty much recovered now, but I still need to take it easy for a while. Having said that, I'm off out tomorrow night with some mates from Leicester to see Russell Howard at the BBC followed by a bar in town. It will be a good night, but I'll maybe take it easy this time!

Today is my day off, and upon finishing writing this, I intend to get some actual work done, I'm starting my DVD game. I have a concept, and hopefully I can put it into practice!

Write soon,

Dan x

Freshers.

Just a quick one to sandwich between my strange, funny and unhealthy shenanigans of the week. It is of course Freshers week, and what a week it's been so far!

I feel as if I'm making up for the fail of a freshers last year, which although was fun, was nothing special. This means I'm going all out, every night, and for the time being my budget for this week is spoken for.

I remember using my card to pay for things on monday night after I'd spent the cash that I had. Halifax is so far refusing to tell me how much I actually did spend. Hopefully the damage isn't too bad! Hey ho, you only live once.

Last night was amazing, a pub crawl with a twist. Each pub had it's own challenge, and despite my appalling performance at each task, our group won. With our previous win at the pub quiz last week, we're on top form and need to keep up this winning streak!

Still, Friday is going to be the best. Bowler hat, shirt and bow tie, trousers and cigars. That's right - 1920's night, on a boat.

I can think of nothing better than spending fireworks night on the Thames, with some awesome people dressed like a complete idiot. Amazing.

On a note which doesn't include boozey antics, my foot may actually be in the door.

I've got the opportunity to go and work for a cable TV station for a couple of days, with the chance of further work in the future. Get in! Maybe I'll be able to pay off my Freshers debt!

I'd also like to name drop Joel from the band Athlete. He's coming in tomorrow morning to give us a lecture. Man I love Ravensbourne!

Write soon!

Flan x