Archive for the Social Category
It’s that time of year again, hay fever has once again risen it’s ugly head and I’m suffering. So what you may think, it’s only a bit of irritation.
I beg to differ. Let me run you through a typical day at present:
7:30am I wake up at the sound of my alarm, or more accurately I try to open my eyes. You see during the night my eyes have been running which then dried sticking my eye lashes together. Five minutes later I can open my eyes and so blow my nose. A while nights build up of snot is thus removed – eugh. Next step is to take my hay fever tablet.
Some time later I’m ready for work, only I don’t feel like work. The constant itching in my nose and mouth all night means deep sleep doesn’t quite happen. It’s currently warm at night as well, but I could open the windows right? Wrong, that lets more pollen into my bedroom and just makes it worse.
9am and I’m sat at my desk at work. But I have a problem, I can’t see anything and my nose is streaming. The morning commute brings me into more contact with pollen. I alternate between washing my face and blowing my nose for the next hour, and then by 10:30 I feel about normal and have some how managed to read my emails and catch up on the nights alerts.
The hay fever has abated by lunch time so I join the others from the office grabbing a sandwitch from the local shop. 20 minutes later heading back I can feel my nose staring to run and vision is starting to blur. The offer to sit in the sun on the grass is delined and I head back to my desk. Another few tissues appear in the bin.
Home time and half way home my eyes take it in turns to stream down my face. I make it back and amid sneezes find the time to blow my nose and wash my face. It’s a glorious warm evening but I spend it indoors with the windows closed. Only when it’s late do I open the windows to allow the air to circulate and my bedroom to cool, if I open it earlier the pollen is still in the air.
The constant sneezing and blowing my nose has tired me more than usual, while my eyes are sore with the near constant irriation. So I head to bed in hope it getting a good nights rest. Except I wont.
But you know what, for me it could be a whole lot worse. Sure my eyes are irritated enough that I can’t wear contact lenses and they stream most of the day, my nose does need blowing every five minutes and roof of my mouth itches like crazy. But I can at least still go about my day, I’m not stuck at home. The tablets get rid of about 60% of the symptions. And I know it will be over in a month.
So the next time you hear of someone with hay fever, please don’t think of it as being a minor problem to be ignored. For those of us that suffer from it it has a very real effect on our daily life. If we are grumpy and look a mess, give us a bit more space.
For the others with the Summer Flu, hang on in there.
I’ve updated my gallery with the pictures taken on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Boxing Day, New Year, and my Graduation.
That’s 101 pictures for your vieiwng pleasure! There two I particularly like:
I hadn’t realised it until just now but July has actually been a fairly busy month. Every weekend I’ve been doing something or going somewhere, and often during the week as well.
You can see what I’ve actually been doing by having a peek at the 135 pictures I’ve just uploaded to the gallery. Yes, 135! That’s what made me realise it had been a busy month.
It’s also the month that the picture counter on my camera passed one thousand. Over a thousand pictures since I got the camera on Christmas day, I hate to think what the cost would be if they were 35mm film pictures.
I feel that it’s time for an update.
For me it was back to York for the Christmas and New Year period. Christmas was once again full of enjoyment with santa delivering as requested, along with a few surprises! This year even more of my family were in York than in past years. My grandma from the Midlands and aunt with my cousins from Spain joined us and proved that the 2 houses can cope with a few more people. I’ve put the pictures up at http://www.tuxx.homelinux.org/gallery/christmas_2005. These were taken with my new digital camera (execpt those starting with a caption of P). Thanks to my Mum and Dad for the camera!
One of the highlights of winter for me is snow. Unfortunatly it didn’t snow on Christmas day but did a few days later. Got quite a bit of practice at driving on snow and ice that week!
For the New Year I was in a camping barn near Pickering. Unfortunatly my camera got lost on sone ones bag after the first day so there aren’t may pictures of the event its self. Pictures in the gallery as usuall.
I was pleased to learn in yesterdays news that the current Education Secretary Ruth Kelly is to ban junk food.
UK residents will remember Jamie Oliver’s attempt to remove junk food from all schools in one district in his hit show on Channel 4. It took quite a while but he did manage it, and in my mind it was a success.
Yesterdays news may be as a direct result of his efforts, and if it is then I would like to thank him. But regardless this has got to be good for just about everybody but the makers of the infamous “turky twislers”.
Yes, it’s that time of the year again. Countless first years pack their worldy possesions into all forms of transport from small cars to huge vans (and for the international students a single suitcase) and head for university. For many it’s the first time they have spent more than a few weeks away from home, and for most the first time they are away from home for a few months.
But at each uni there is a crew of ‘experienced’ students, otherwise known as the “Freshers Crew”, to help them with that first week. Wearing bright coloured tops and greeting people in load voices they will have by now helped freshers find their room, point them in the direction of the nearest bar, shopping centre and transport links. And then gather (or drag) them up in large groups to events run each night especially for their entertainment.
That’s what I spent the last week doing anyway. A week last Friday all freshers crew met and were divided into their groups and told what we should and should not be doing for the next week. Things we should be doing included being helpful, while things we should not do was based around not getting freshers drunk and taking advantage of them. 
Of course being a freshers crew isn’t without it’s perks, fast track free entry into all freshers events being the main one.
The freshers week at my uni is now over and our job is mostly complete, all that remains is to go to the evenings run during the first week of term and make sure we are seen and available if needed. A very busy week has now just ended, now rest of the term is upon us.
We actually went to the cinema to go and see the War of the Worlds, but we arrived late and the que were every long. The next choice on most people mind was Wedding Crashers and this turned out to be a good choice, certainly not a waste of money.
The first few minutes started out slow while you were introduced to the main characters in their day jobs, but once over this stage the comedy never stopped (with the exception of a few sloppy moments). I don’t want to ruin the plot but in their quest to crash weddings they get them selves some action. They then crash the wedding of the year, only to get them selves into more situations before finally being discovered and kicked out.
All ends well though and the characters get their wish, even if it has changed since the start of the film. Not completly a chick flick with plenty of laughs for the everyone.
