Stressed.

I am stressed.
Why are you stressed, Rachel? You might very validly ask.
I am stressed because a) I've had three weeks of holidays and then within two days of being back seem to have run myself into the ground, although I ought to be able to deal.

b) I feel like a fail, because I am a disorganised leader in a disorganised cub group, who don't tell me where they need me to be except in vague notes, and who aren't there when I turn up (late, although I arrived the first time this evening at the hall early... but had to rearrange my plans).

c) Every time I think I have a handle on something, some serious shit goes down.

d) At which point my father takes it upon himself to point out how shit I am at organisation, how I should be working and how I don't really have any right to not be able to deal.

e) I haven't got the balls (or the physical stamina and motivation) to walk over to the town hall and have a face-to-face discussion with Mike about wanting to drop scouts and just do cubs, even though I know doing both is too much for me, and I am knackered. I am going to take the cowards way out and write him an upstanding formal British e-mail relaying my reasons.

f) I wish hibernation was a human deal, and not just for chubby animals.

e) My bedroom is a festering pile of shit. As is every piece of technology I own. I cannot afford anything new at all.

ARGH.

The emptiness of revision.

It is not working.
I have tried, I have failed, and now my head is little more than a sieve with holes just big enough for anything useful to slip through into the land of the infuriatingly forgotten.
Philosophy and Ethics is impossible. There are too many names. There are too many topics. There is too little clarity and distinction between them.

I have tried explaining aloud, reading, making charts, making posters, typing things up, typing things at Alison in MSN, but none of it is going through.

Anyone have any ideas how to make names and ideas stick coherently, or do I need to get down to B&Q for some superglue?

Built from the wine up...

This week has been absurd. In a bad way. The bad sort of absurd which makes you want to ram your face into a wall untill it bleeds.

First off, I was pretty darned ill. By this I mean I was forced to take more than one day out of sixth form because I could not think straight or breathe. The middle day was spent trying to navigate my drugged up and unsightly way around Birmingham city and university alone, getting quite flustered but being too proud to show it. Things I saw on that little adventure:

• Razor points in the train toilets. Bloody ridiculous: anyone attempting some facial topiary on a train is asking for trouble and is lucky to leave with their nose still attached.
• A full grown man reading Eclipse ashamedly on the train. He was not remotely young. He was on Eclipse which sickeningly means he'd endured the first two books (and probably in an equally public manner) - shocking.
• Smiling at dashing sandwich dispensory staff gets you a sandwich - at standard price.
• Nobody at Birmingham knows where the English department is; apart from myself, and I found it as a fluke.

The morning was (as I attempted to text my dad) 'a hotbed of disaster', until I orientated myself, was given a cup of tea for free, and drowned my sorrows with a bit of shopping (new coloured pencils - score!)

The afternoon was lovely however, with a spicy-spicy mexican burrito and an outline of a gorgeous and enticing looking course. Also having somehow found time to chat to the Head of Admissions and encouraged him to reconsider the A-Level I already have, which he'd overlooked. Score Two!

Came home and went straight from the station to another station: the Fire Station. Learned about weapons of torture hitherto undescribable. Anything that fires iron filings and water so fast they can cut through a man is something to be avoided I say. Came home, crashed out, wept a little, dragged myself into the next day.

Was ill until I decided I couldn't afford to miss today so went into school to find myself faced with a number of prospects:

• Interview at Warwick which I still have yet to have any real feelings either dreadful or delighted about. Later discovered today was the deadline for the coursework and faced the pressure by churning out a commentary in two hours, sending Mr Anderson a mildly freaked out e-mail entitled 'PAINFULLY URGENT' and posting the bloody thing.
• Art that is 'unmarkable' because frankly there's not enough of it.
• The need to summon up some form of title and inspiration for History Coursework.
• Chasing the world about changing the date of my exams because of aforementioned interview which, for some reason involved talking to no less than 5 people about it.
• Nobody seeming to know anything about an essay we were most definitely set.
• Latin certificate - yay!

This evening was a delerious haze of writing frantically, arranging, posting and drinking a nice amount of wine. Decisory factor here: wine makes my life.  ALSO, acquired Radiohead's new album and was grateful to be able to zone out to it after sending off the portfolio from hell. Every cloud, eh?

As to the situation now, I am sitting slightly drunk in full-body bunnyrabbit pajamas, lazing about and listening to Radiohead. Awesome.

The moment you find out you have to write a commentary for Warwick in 2 hours...