Was just sifting through the old texts on my phone, and came across one from my darling wee sis that I kept cos it was so sweet …

Hi! I’m arried just rite! I’m stand numb is 45.

(She had just arrived in Gla, and was staying the night with me, on 13th of October this year.)

My dad took me out for a couple of hours today. After we came home, he gave me his typed up account of our trip… so I thought I’d save myself the effort of doing it again, and virtually copy and paste. (So, just skip the details if you’re bored, but I just wanted to ‘keep the memory in the deep freeze until I need it next’.)

We hired a dual-control car for two hours. And, ok, I admit it, my Dad took full advantage of having a break and clutch under his control… not always when I wanted him too, but for the most part he got me out of far more scrapes than he got me into, so I guess I can’t blame him too much… :-$

We started at Inverness Caley Thistle carpark for some steering practice and clutch control, then went along the stadium seaside road for changing gear practice; we then turned round and came back to the Kessock Bridge roundabout and went south on the A9 to get some feel of the different steering with greater speed.

I overtook my first lorry on the hill going out of Inverness, and we turned off at Daviot East (to Aunty Myra’s now burnt-down house) for steering, gear-changing, hill-starts and stopping on a two-way road away from traffic.

We drove up to Moy on the old A9 and then did a controlled (??? where’d my Dad get that strange notion from ) U-turn and came back to Daviot using fourth gear.

We joined the A9 northwards and turned off right towards Croy (ie the turnoff for Ebenezer) for experience on single-track roads. We turned at the cross-moor road to the rear of Ebenezer, and called in at Ebenezer. (Just so’s Dad could grab his camera and get a pic of me :S, and just so’s James could come out and laugh at me cos he was jealous.)

We then drove into town and I negotiated (apparently) the traffic lights, the Inshes roundabout, the mini-roundabout and the Millburn Road roundabout.

We drove past Arnold Clark to turn right at the traffic lights into Seafield Road where I practised a reversing manoevre in the forecourt of one of the sites there. I came back through the traffic lights and turned right across the traffic into Arnold Clark.

Apparently, that covers all types of roads apart from motorways. And there was a touch of snow and rain about the place, so that ‘counts’ too. There were one or two manoevres that I did, and I supposedly learnt: gear-changing, clutch control and steering… no wonder I felt a bit tired afterwards! (Note: this paragraph has been very severely edited from my Dads original version. )

Just for the record: my top speed was around 50mph, and I only stalled about 4 times. (Or at least, Dad only pointed it out to me about 4 times :-$) Oh, and I *never* smashed a hole in the garage, tho’ I think I might have to give Dads-foot-on-the-break the credit for that one :-$.

And… we never even fell out I think that was the greatest achievement of all. “A painless experience” as Dad commented!

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Was going to say something, but the time seems to have passed, and I haven’t said anything yet….

Hello people,

Was going to update a few days ago, but unfortunatel my livejournal is stored on the “mad cow” server, which happened to be mad indeed at the time. Well, the server was down anyways, whatever the particular brand of “madness” it might have been.

Today was my Software Engineering placement interview. It seems there are more possibilities for placements in Glasgow than I realised, of which I am rather thankful. It will make things considerably easier if I am able to get a job in Gla. over the summer… accommodation for both the summer and next year will already be virtually sorted, and the greatest worry I may have will be getting transport to my particular placement location, which, though possibly awkward, is not impossible.

So, things might not be as bad as expected on that particular front.

As far as assignments go.. I should be working now, but needed a few moments of reflection. Or, to tell the truth, to record something really sweet, but more of that later.

Currently I am in the last week of “normal” lectures/assignment hand-ins of this term. Then we only have the C crash course in the last week. “Only” being the most inaccurate word in that last sentence. Given that about the sum and total of my current C work has been reading over a piece of C code written by nex over the summer…

Anyways, to get onto the real cause of this particular post…

Today I was actually feeling rather down, to tell the truth. The whole “being obliged to be sociable even when you don’t feel up to it” was getting to me a bit. Well, it was more that I felt under pressure to go to the Freeke’s for tea, when I was too tired to enjoy it/too much stress to properly appreciate it.

They kindof meant it for good though. Pressurising me into coming was, I guess, one way of making sure I came. And I think they’re a bit worried about me sometimes, what with being stressed and all that. I think they think I’m working too hard, or something… how wrong can you be! So, they thought they’d “force” me to take time out from my studies. It just wasn’t consistent with my own planning of work/breaks, which means I either cut out all my breaks (humanly impossible) or cut out some work (which I don’t like doing, and will have to be “carefully managed”)

I feel a bit bad about it too. I hardly see MJ at all anymore, after seeing her every day in class for the past two years. It’s really a consequence of our being in different subjects now, and all that, but I think MJ feels it a bit more than me, ‘cos I’m just so plain stressed all the time that I don’t notice “missing my lunch with her” or whatever. I got used to her not being around over the summer too. She’s used to having me around in maths, and discussing all her maths homework with me. Whereas I’ve never had that with computing… I’ve always been discussing it with people who I’ve only just met on my course.

Then with me being kept so busy all the time, and spending so much time with the same set of computing-people. Not that I mind that so much (it’s all part-and-parcel of this course), just I do miss my other friends a bit, and feel bad when they miss me too.

Jackie made me a cake (and Alison came round to help, I gather, too.) It was really sweet of them to make the effort and all… but that’s what made it so difficult. They tried their bestest, but it was really more time out than I could afford, and therefore means yet another stressful catching-up process. *sob* And I was just beginning to feel I might have half a chance of getting on top of things at some stage… Oh, well, they meant well and thats what really counts I guess.

But, and here’s the nice bit… MJ more than made up for it all by *the* most wonderfully precious present ever! Just as I was leaving she handed me a bag. A blue “FP Bookroom” bag. I said “Oh, thanks MJ!”, trusting it would be something thoughtful, and beneficial, whatever it was. And then she goes, “You can probably guess what it is.” It’s “Dear J” which has just been published!! I’m happy! And it so hadn’t crossed my mind I’d get it as a b’day prezzie… I love my friends! I love them so much! They proly are more right-er than me about everything… I’m just a silly wee girl after all