Category: Interface

Danni

GroupCamp @ SuperMondays, and Stuff

College, Computing, Danni, Interface, Physical Disability, SuperMondays

On Monday evening, after college, Johan and I went to GroupCamp at SuperMondays. This was the first time we’d been to SuperMondays for months, and it was very enjoyable. The GroupCamp format worked really well, and I went to discussions on the Tyneside Linux User Group (I likes Linux), about automatic learning of RSS feeds and Twitter for filtering purposes (I think), and one that ended up being about pretty much everything (the “kitchen sink”). The great thing about SuperMondays is although I’m not from the same group of people as the others (they’re mostly IT professionals or businessmen (and a couple of women), I’m a college student) I feel quite comfortable in the group, and normally have a good understanding of what they’re talking about.

The downside to SuperMondays is I stayed up past my bedtime (it finishes at around 9pm, we get home around 10pm), and the next morning I couldn’t wake up. This meant I missed my morning lessons at college, and finally got in just after 1pm.

The first thing I did was to sort out my personal emergency evacuation plan, as at the moment I’m having to use my chair a lot at college and I can’t manage stairs. Then we had Problem Solving, where we discovered a big problem- the 1861 Club (formerly the Martec), the student’s club/bar at the college, is going to be closed during the day to extend the evening hours for the Marine students. Most of the students in the college aren’t in on an evening, and use it as a common room/quiet eating place during the day. The Interface students use it quite a bit for dinner, as it’s a lot quieter than the refectory and doesn’t come with the 30 minute queues.

As a class, we are currently trying to protest the closure of the club during the day. We’ve got a petition going, we’ll be talking to people who can help us let the rest of the students know (none of us have been consulted or even told- we found out from Pat, who runs it) and basically letting the college know we’re not happy. This is the first time I’ve been involved in something like this for college, and it’s quite exciting. I’m already one of the class representatives for Interface, and I’m thinking of also getting involved in the student’s union.

In Computing, I think I did okay on the logic gates test we had on Monday. Wednesday our lecturer wasn’t in, so I got the work and did it back in Interface. It was binary and hexadecimal, and none of it was hard, just time consuming. Today we have a test on binary, and I’m not too worried about it. The one thing I am a little worried about is that I’ve not done the homework set on Monday yet, as I’ve been so tired. I will have to do it before I leave for college today.

Danni

Life is like a Video Game

College, Danni, Interface, Mental Health, Physical Disability, Real Life

My conversations have routines.
– Martin David Matzk

Yesterday was a very mixed day, which included my first panic attack of the academic year (woo). It also meant I missed my last lesson (it took 15 minutes from getting in the chill-out room for my heart-rate to get back to Danni-in-college-normal, then about another 15 minutes to calm down completely, and then I was exhausted). Hopefully today I’ll be able to sort out some of the problems that caused it with my lecturer. Louise the awesome made me feel a lot better though 🙂 My first lesson at Interface was yesterday morning, and it was good for something that was on a boring subject (the lesson is called Problem Solving, but since we’re doing Edexcel Workskills it was to do with problem solving in the workplace…). I also drew a purple penguin on Louise’s board, but I’m not sure if she’s noticed yet 😛

On the way home from college we accidentally met up with my brother Martin, and he decided to come home with us since he had nothing better to do. We had all sorts of random conversations, including one on life being like a video game (and if we had energy bars, how mine would be around 3 when Johan’s is around 100 :P). He played a lot on the Wii Fit, and I managed 3 minutes before having to sit down. It was nice seeing him, and while he was here my landlord brought us pizza and a bottle of wine. The pizza was demolished, and the bottle of wine will wait for a day where I fancy it.

On the subject of food, I’m currently on a diet. It’s the “record everything you eat so you don’t overeat” diet, which just involves noting down what I’m eating, and then the site I’m using calculates the calories. I also enter my exercise (or in my case, how long I spent sitting rather than lying down :P) and it works out roughly how many calories I’ve used. It appears to be inaccurate, but that may be because the medication I’m on slows down my metabolism a bit (along with making me tired and hungry…). I’m aiming for a very rough daily average of between 1200 and 2000 calories a day, but I don’t mind going over. Some days though I struggle to eat my minimum, which I’m a little concerned about because I don’t want my body to go into starvation mode. I’ll figure it out though.

Danni

2 Weeks

Autism, College, Computing, Danni, Gaming, Interface, Mental Health, Physical Disability, Real Life, Second Life, World of Warcraft

I could see it as you turned to stone
Still clearly I can hear you say
don’t, please don’t , give up on me
two weeks and you ran away
I remember don’t lie to me
you couldn’t see that it was not that way
swear I never gave up on you

It’s been two weeks since I started college. It’s going well. I’ve finally got what looks like my full timetable, and if Interface agree, I’ll be in college all day Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, and for 90 minutes on a Thursday. Included in the timetable are places to do my homework that I get from my Computing course, so I shouldn’t fall behind on them.

Computing has been good so far. We’re doing binary and logic gates (binary I’d done before, logic gates aren’t difficult), and so far the only trouble I’ve had is copying things down from the board correctly, and missing something from the question. I’m expecting it to get a bit harder as the year goes on, but I’m confident I’ll do okay.

Interface has been fun, but hectic. There are a lot of new students this year, and since I never got to know most of the students from last year I’ve got a lot of new people to get to know. I’ve put myself up for class representative this year, which should be interesting. It has been induction the last two weeks, and so I’ll know better from next week what the lessons are going to be like. I’m not expecting any huge surprises. The first week I only went in Monday, Wednesday and Thursday, but I found that the day off on a Tuesday made it harder to get up on a Wednesday, so I’m going to go in that day as well. Luckily the new timetable shows that there are interesting lessons on a Tuesday, so should be okay.

I’m still extremely tired, and so I’m using the wheelchair to get to and around college. It’s working well, as it means I can focus my energy on my lessons rather than on getting myself around. I’d much rather have the energy to walk, but there’s no point getting upset about something that at the moment I cannot change. On the good side, I’m still pretty happy, which is making everything much easier to cope with, even being in constant pain. I still have my off moments, but they’re bearable now.

Last Sunday I went to the Latin Mass in Gateshead with Vicky. It was interesting, though I couldn’t hear most of it so lost track of what was being said. Then we went to the MetroCentre to look for a swimsuit for Vicky, then for a meal at Wetherspoons. It was nice 🙂

On Wednesday I went bowling with Interface, and it was a lot of fun (plus a few people got a bit of exercise pushing me up the hill :P). After college, Johan and I went to the MetroCentre so I could get a new watch (mine had broken), and we met with Dean (he was at Interface until last year) and went with him. It was great meeting up with Dean, and I finally found a watch (though it is not what I wanted, it tells the time so it’ll do until I can find one that does what I want it to). We went to McDonalds and I had a Mint Chocolate Aero McFlurry, which was yummy 🙂

I’ve been on a diet since Tuesday, aiming to lose some of the weight that I’ve put on since going back on medication. It’s a very simple diet, just changing some of the stuff I eat to more healthy things and trying to keep the calorie intake down. I started monitoring my weight and food 10 days ago, and since then I’ve lost 3lbs. This is good for an initial start, as healthy weight loss is 1-2lbs a week. I’ve noticed that simply keeping track of what I’m eating has meant I’ve been eating less, and we’ve switched from white rice, pasta and bread to wholemeal so it’s meant I’ve been getting less hungry. I’m still eating everything I like (doughnuts, biscuits, chocolate, bananas, chicken), but in slightly smaller portions which is helping. I’m trying not to be overly fussy about it, just letting my weight guide a little how much I eat.

I’ve not been on my computer much the last couple of weeks, barely been in Second Life or World of Warcraft, or on social networking sites. This weekend I’m going to try and catch up a bit, as well as maybe going to Software Freedom Day tomorrow. Also, I have TV shows to catch up with before they all start up again next week.

It’s going to be busy, but I’m enjoying it.