I'm not actually dead.

Life has been interesting lately...Started this DBT therapy group and have a new individual therapist (who I'm not sure I like), so that's been keeping me busy. The group is at a nearby (mental) hospital that deals with both in- and outpatients, which is, mercifully, within walking distance of my house, so I'm not going to complain about that too much. This lovely fun stuff happens on Tuesdays, 9:30-2:30, and then I trek out to Bondi (yes, home of the famous beach) to see this inordinately expensive woman ($220 per hour!). She's really not bad at all when it comes to her practice -- clearly she knows what she's doing and she comes very highly recommended -- but she looks uncannily like my ex-stepmother and that really throws me. I mean, the woman was a nut...Still is...and unabashedly so, so seeing someone who looks remarkably like her in a therapeutic context is more than a little unsettling.

As for the situation with my meds, my Psychiatrist and I are both comfortable with how things are going so far. No horrible side-effects (aside from tremours and the driest dry-mouth ever), so I'm not unhappy with that, and the moodstabilisers are doing just fine, so I can't complain about that either. It's a nice change, I must admit, to not be horribly suicidal or wishing to do terrible damage to myself. I'd forgotten what a little bit of stability is like...It also made me acutely aware of how bad things have been and for how long. I'm not sure when the last time I've felt like this was. I mean, don't get me wrong, things aren't perfect and I'm not about to pretend that they are, but things are settling down and I have the room to be a lot more objective when it comes to my moods and behaviours. I'm much more firmly in the driver's seat here. Most pleased.

I'm on break from uni which ends July 30th. Fortunately my classes don't start until the 1st, so I have a little time beforehand to get my book together. My classes this semester fall mostly on one day, Wednesday, which is cool, since I don't have to do much running around the place. Originally I was in the Wednesday DBT group because it clashed with last semester's timetable, but I asked if I could be moved to the Tuesday group to avoid clashing with classes for this semester. I was surprised at how easy it was and how easy-going the people who run the program are...They just slotted me right in with no problem at all. There was a vacancy in that group for that day, so it all worked in my favour. So, aside from doing these various and sundry therapy-type things, I really haven't been up to much. Lots of staying in bed until 2pm, not a lot of set routine lately, which is making me a bit stir crazy. Today, for example, I went to my appointment in Bondi and got home to be greeted by an empty house...I knew that sitting around doing more of nothing would make me a little nuts, so I -- and no one is more shocked than I am -- did a load of washing, dealt with the dishwasher, put the rubbish out and cleaned my room. And I mean, really cleaned it...My desk actually looks like a desk, now, rather than a precariously piled book mountain topped with my Mac. It has a flat surface and everything. Had to Tetris some of my books onto my shelves (definitely out of shelf space now), but all in all, not too shabby. Must say, though, it's a weird feeling to be sitting at a desk...I'm also aware of how strange that feeling is...Heaps of people sit at desks all the time and do so with very little to do...

There's really not much else that requires a mention at this point. My life is fairly unremarkable...Even I find me boring.

I trust you are all well xx

I've been seriously tripping about my exams and essays and stuff lately...Always about four seconds away from a panic attack (there's only so much stress one person can handle, lol)...And I got on the train home from uni tonight and picked up a copy of this newspaper that's handed out at train stations. It's called the mX (which probably stands for something, though I don't know what) and it just has topical news in it, you know, just something to look at during your commute. My favourite sections are "Vent Your Spleen", where people text in and bitch about whatever their issues are for the day -- usually hilarious and/or infuriating -- and "Overheard", where people text in things they overhear on trains or wherever. Often times people send in stuff that's laugh out loud funny, which is always interesting on a packed train, lol. 

But anyways, today I read the paper and got to "Overheard" and I felt all tense and irritated until I got to the third entry which kind of put it into perspective...Yes, like sucks arse sometimes and everyone has shit to be doing, but some people out there really have it down, you know? One tends to forget how beautiful the world can be.

Today's mX:

Child whispering: "Dad, those boys are holding hands like girls do."
Father: "Yup."
Child: "That's so silly, Why are they doing that?"
Father: Because they like each other. When you like someone, you hold their hand."
Child: "Even boys?"
Father: "Even boys."

There's a dad who's doing it right.

Don't cry. 

 What-ho, all!

Monday was my first day back at university - back to learning! - and so far so good. I think I've made some pretty good decisions about my classes and I'm liking them so far (though it's still way too early to tell, lol). I think I've gotten especially lucky with English...My thoughts so far are leaning towards majoring in Linguistics (yay) and I was a little worried about English this semester, since I didn't do as well as I had hoped I would in my last exams, but goodness and hurray are on my side it seems. This semester's English course is Language, Text and Time, which is fortunate, because as it turns out, it's basically more Linguistics!!! So, it's almost like I'm doing two Linguistics courses, which is stupidly enjoyable, lol. The only downer is that my English lecturer is....Dry. Arid. Without the healthy moisture of a well-modulated voice. He seems very intelligent and knowledgeable and all that - humourous, even, from time to time - but wow...Not interesting.

Linguistics this semester is all about sociolinguistics, which is where I hope to be some day (either something like that or functional grammar - don't laugh!), and the lecturer is awesome. She's really funny and likes to lighten the mood up by getting us to watch or listen to different things (Snoop Dogg in the first lecture and the Catherine Tate Show featuring David Tennant in the second). At the moment the focus is on dialect and looking at the different kinds of Englishes out there. Much fun.

I had my History lecture yesterday (two hours!!!) and that was cool too. Again, cool lecturer, but what was even better was that she spent a bunch of time going through the upcoming primary source essay, explaining the sorts of things that we'd really need to check out and how we could get this thing done. Better still, she got the Faculty Liason Librarian (whatever the sweet, frilly heck that is) to show us how to use the electronic source search engine on the USyd site, which was immensely helpful and cool...I didn't even know that particular page existed!

This leaves us with JCTC (Jewish Studies, for short). Because I - yet again - have a clash in my timetable, I'd have to make a decision about going to either the JCTC tutorial (which is compulsory) or going to the Linguistics lecture (which is not compulsory). Ordinarily, I'd go to the tute and not worry about the lecture because I could catch it up online...Except that this particular lecturer doesn't record them. So I spoke to Suzanne, my JCTC lecturer, about it and she said that she'd might be able to actually move the tutorial to another time so I'd be able to go....How about that?! It's pretty fortunate that there are, oh, ten people in this entire course, lol, or else I wouldn't have been able to work out that clash.

Also, I have a pretty sweet timetable this semester (clashes aside)...Monday and Tuesday are pretty easy, Wednesday is busy but not awful and on Thursdays I only have to go in for an hour, which means.....THREE DAY WEEKENDS!!!!! The learning gods are smiling on me.

So that's the uni stuff done with. The life stuff hasn't been anywhere near as interesting, seriously. It's been raining like a bitch here lately which is making my knee play up. I'm on top of uni stuff so far, so there's no extra stress going on. There are no irritating people I have to deal with lately, I feel pretty decent, everyone seems to be in pretty good humour - more or less - so I really can't complain, which is awesome. Even if it does make for a dull journal entry.

Major love xoxo