I cut myself last night. After it I thought "That's it, I'm making an appointment with my GP about counselling or the Beating the Blues therapy online. But now, in the cold light of day, I can't bring myself to make the appointment.

Happy New Year

My first post of 2009! Nothing really to report on any front. Christmas passed fairly well other than a bad cold which I have since kindly passed on to the parents. I ate, drank and slept! A bit like most people in that way though.

I was at a friend's house warming on Saturday night: one of those evenings that I didn't want to go to, which then turned out surprisingly well. The first hour was hell as various members of the law school came in (my friend is a PhD student there so staff present was very surprising!). Then things got better. One of my law colleagues asked me where all the new people went after the Christmas lunch. I said back to the law school. She told me they were all in Bar X and were wondering why we didn't join them. I said we didn't know about it. She apologised and said that she had told Sally, one of the other new people. Now Sally is super confident and makes me feel really inadequate and wonder how I got the job, which is silly of me as she was way down the list of candidates and only got the job because other candidates never took up the job offer. But Sally never told any of the rest of us. I think it was deliberate. Sally seems to have been the one of all the new people who has settled in the most and is invited to the most nights out and things and now it could be that we're all invited but Sally isn't passing on messages? I really can't be bothered with such crap.

Today was meant to be my first day back in the office but when I got back on Sat night my flatmate told me she thought the freezer needed to be made colder. At the time I did nothing about it, but yesterday I made a huge chicken curry and froze three portions for again. Got up this morning, curry still not frozen solid. Looked out the freezer book and discovered that if a red light is on then it's not cold enough. Yes, you've got it, the red light was on. Defrosted the freezer in case that was the problem, threw out a load of food that was thawing nicely. wrapped some in a blanket to try and keep it. Chunks of ice that could have sunk a liner were removed, freezer switched on again, waited a few hours and the light was still on. So phoned the estate agent and a new freezer is being delivered tomorrow (such a shock: no engineer is calling to try and fix it!). In the meantime, my sister and brother in law have been provided with their dinners for the week!

Last few days

R.A.E results were released. We did well. So lots of smug faces, pats on the back and champagne: while people were dying from lack of clean water. So now we get lots more funding to carry out more research that will be read by a very small minority of people. It really does make me wonder why I'm in this business.

Christmas lunch was today: I won't be going back next year. When the school is altogether I do not feel a member of it at all. I feel like an observer. I look around and I have nothing in common with the majority of the people and don't even really want to get to know them. I'm not unhappy there but I'm not sure that's a good way to be. I just get so tired of so much shit in the place and people thinking it's great and the double standards and the 'in crowd' and the fact that I don't feel particularly welcome by the majority of people: I don't feel as if anyone has got to know me, asked about me or made any real effort with me. But then again I don't believe I'm good enough to be there (not that I think the school is as good as the results seem to imply), I think I'm a fraud and not worthwhile enough to be bothered with.

I've also been thinking about the CBT; with my mood plummeting and the urge to cut myself stronger than ever I think I am going to go back to my GP in January and talk to her properly about it. I feel as if my life has changed but that it's stayed in the same place. I know that doesn't make sense and I'm not sure how to make sense of it but my hip has been replaced and the pain is largely gone, I can lead a different life. Yet nothing has changed. I still get upset over the hip, I still think about the operation and get scared as to what will happen in the future and I am so angry and upset that it had to happen to me.

I don't know what to do.

I don't know what to do. I was back with my GP getting repeat prescriptions and she asked me again about CBT. Apparently there is a new online programme called Beat the Blues which she can refer me to that I will do by myself or else go back to the psychologist in the flesh. I'm a bit reluctant to do either right now and yet part of me does realise that I do need to start tackling how I'm feeling before I sink further. I have cut myself again and in an attempt to stop myself I'm contemplating starting smoking again, which, even to my irrational way of thinking, seems bloody stupid. I suppose I should see how Christmas goes and maybe bite the bullet then: a new year, a time to become a new me?

On other things, I've finished teaching: I rescheduled this week's tutorials for last week so that both me and the student would finish the module up early. The students didn't mind as they have two pieces of coursework due at the end of the week. My research group also had a Christmas lunch last week which was really nice. And then we have the school lunch this Friday.

This week is actually a huge week in universities: the RAE results come out. The RAE is the Research Assessment Exercise and it's run every so many years and essentially it assesses the research outputs of every department in every university. The results determine how much money each university will get from the government. I think people are running round thinking about this but to be honest, and terrible as this may sound, I couldn't care less what my department scores. I wasn't part of the RAE because I only started in September so my work isn't being judged. And, to be really honest, and to utter something that would probably get me sacked(!), I'm not convinced any research should take place other than medically-related research. I look at my own work, which is purely doctrinal and I think what use is that to anyone. It won't save lives, it won't change the lives of anyone and it won't be read by very many people other than a handful of other equally useless researchers.

Pissed off

I have yet another cold. My immune system must be shot to pieces. That's not what's annoying me though. In a way it's silly, but in September a friend moved in with me after I'd been living alone for over a year. I live in a city centre apartment and the car parking space is £90 extra a month so as she has a car and would take me places I pay £45 towards it. She has a boyfriend though who lives about 20 miles away and she would stay with him quite a lot. It never really bothered me but recently she's been spending more and more time in his company. He would only stay over for one night and she would spend the rest of the time in his place. Since last Thursday they have not been apart for one night. She's off down to his now as she's going to do an hour in the gym. And the gym has only started since I've been going to boxercise. I don't know why she doesn't just move in with him. And yet I don't want her to move in with him. Her parents are completely against the relationship, as am I. He's separated from his wife, is not interested in getting divorced from her and has 2 children, one of whom he didn't tell my friend about until they'd been going out for over a year. And he's 13 years older than her. She has a very uneasy truce with her parents over him (they just don't discuss him) and I think she's on a road to nowhere with him. If she moves in with him then he will never get divorced and her certainly will never marry her. I don't believe that he wants anymore children and I think she's just blinded by him. Quite frankly I couldn't see him far enough. And I'm tired of telling her that and watching her throw her life away on a loser.

On other things, my lectures went well, hurrah. Haven't heard any complaints so far about them and one of my friends (student) from sign language turned up and signed at me at the start and finish of them. I could have killled him, but it was good feedback as well as he was able to tell me that his mates thought I was grand, that I didn't speak too fast and that my handouts were good. All good.

I'm really down and a bit weepy right now. Fell asleep last night thinking about cutting myself and now I'm alone all evening. I'm hoping the fact that I'm tired will kick in and I'll go to bed early and fall asleep without too much sniffling and coughing.

As expected

As expected, the tutorials were bloody awful. One of the students apologised to me before saying that she couldn't understand a word the lecturer said and another said the only notes he had were the extra ones on the topic that the subject leader had put online. I spent the tutorials going through the topic rather than actually discussing the topic. It's my turn to lecture in just over a week and I'm going to be asking the subject leader to tell me if there are complaints about the lectures (there were loads about the last lecturer). I want to know so that I can actually build on them and improve upon them. Needless to say comments like she's crap without actually telling me why I'm crap is not enough. And I know it will be discouraging but hopefully I will get past that.

Tomorrow I will be going to a dinner dance with my parents: I'm hoping that my dress still fits from last year as I've put on a bit of weight since then, unfortunately given my hip replacement. I've been trying to lose it but to no avail and all in all I'm really discouraged by it as I want to and need to lose the weight to help the replacement last as long as possible. For the dance I've been St Tropezed fake baked: the turkey in the oven belief in that it always looks more appetising when golden brown! I've just noticed though that the tan appears to have brought up all the places I've cut myself including those cuts that are months old and gone to the naked eye.

I went to boxercise last night: good fun so hopefully I'll go once a week to it now as well as swimming and salsa and pilates: I should be a size 8! Some of it I did sit out off because of the hip: there's always some reminder that I'm not quite the same as anyone else in these classes.

hectic

Things have been hectic this week: the tutorial topic for next week is confusing to say the least and the guy who gave the lectures hasn't appeared to have conveyed the knowledge that well to the students. So I spent most of the week attempting to get to grips with it so that I can do the job of the lecturer on Monday and explain the material from scratch to the students rather than guide discussion on it.
I've also had more meeting about various things, mostly induction things still! As well as a meeting to open a savings account. I had no idea it would be so difficult. I want to save nearly a third of my salary each month, quite simple I thought, but no I had an hour long meeting on Tuesday with a financial advisor and still don't have the account open. A meeting next Tuesday with someone different but this time I'm telling her at the outset that if she can't open me an account then and there then to forget about it and I'm going somewhere different.
I've also been keeping active on the exercise front and went to Pilates on Monday for the first time ever. I enjoyed it, but he had us doing sit up type things to use or stomach muscles. I had none! Or so I thought until the gradual ache developed in that area on Tuesday and Wednesday! Clearly muscles reacting to having been used for the first time in 31 years! Went for a swim after pilates and also on Tuesday. On Monday evening I headed to my second salsa class, great fun! Am so crap it would be embarrassing except for the fact I'm doing it for fun and nothing else. After the class though, things went downhill. There's a travelling amusement park in town right now and we went to go on one ride after salsa. paid my money, walked up the gangway to discover that I would somehow have to hoist myself into a seat sitting at waist height with sticky out thing that sits between your legs. Couldn't manage it because of the hip. My friend ended up going alone and I had to get my money back. It was just another reminder that the hip is never going to be like my friends' hips. Of course the first thing I thought of doing was going home and cutting myself but so far I haven't done that. It still upsets me though when I think about it. And then I look at where I cut myself the last time and that upsets me too. And then you read about what other people have to cope with in their lives and that makes me feel so much worse as well as they are so much worse off than me and yet aren't sinking like I am at times.