Category: Real Life

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.

Danni

A Quick Recap

Autism, Danni, Gaming, Mental Health, Oceanside Elementary, Physical Disability, Real Life, Second Life, World of Warcraft

I was going to write long posts about some of the below, but they’re not getting done so I’ll do a quick post with everything in.

I got married on 13th August to Johan. It was quiet and nice.

We went on our honeymoon to Durham for a couple of nights. It was quiet and nice.

I got enrolled at South Tyneside College to do AS Computing and Interface stuff. This was not quiet and nice (the enrolling process), as it involved arguments over funding, worrying about not being let onto the course, and similar. Luckily, my key worker Louise can work miracles, and it’s pretty much all sorted now. She argued to get me onto the course, to get the funding, she enrolled me so I didn’t have to travel to college for that, she’s sorting out my support, and she made me laugh lots while sorting things out today. Louise, thank you.

I start college on Monday. I’m in three times a week, probably Monday, Wednesday and Thursday. The days suit me, especially since Wednesday is morning and Thursday is afternoon/evening (4.45pm-6.15pm). It means I can do Enrichment with Interface, which is bowling on Wednesday 😀

I’m genuinely happy, and have been for several months. It’s been over a decade since I was last as happy as this for as long 😀 I’m still crazy anxious though, and some days I can’t walk I’m that exhausted, but I’m adapting. Johan’s going to get muscles from pushing me 😛

I’m playing in Second Life again. Danni Ohara is at school at Oceanside Elementary. It’s fun. She’s also on trial with an adoptive family, who are brilliant and I like a lot 🙂

I’m not really playing WoW much at the moment, but will be doing so again soon, once I’m settled at college. I’m still looking forward to Cataclysm, and have decided to buy an online Blizzcon ticket 🙂

I play a lot of Audiosurf. It fits with my lack of concentration at the moment 🙂 I also play a lot of Facebook games 😛

Danni

Swim for Mencap

Important Stuff, Real Life

I will be blogging about normal stuff soon, but first a public service announcement.

My good friend Vicky is planning on swimming across Windermere to raise money for Mencap’s Getting it Right campaign. She’s mad, but this is a very important cause so I encourage you to donate at http://www.justgiving.com/gettingitright. As I am not feeling wordy here’s some stolen stuff about why you should give.

As a result of receiving unequal healthcare, people with a learning disability are dying when their lives could be saved.

The Death by indifference campaign began after six people with a learning disability died in NHS care. Their families were not getting answers about why their loved ones had died, or why they were treated so badly because they had a learning disability. They approached Mencap for help.

As a result of Death by indifference an independent inquiry was carried out, which makes strong recommendations for change to give people with a learning disability equal healthcare. The Health Ombudsman also reported on the six cases.

Mencap wanted a judicial review to challenge some of the ombudsman’s findings, but this was denied in the High Court in December 2009. However Mencap was granted a judicial review in the Court of Appeal on a narrower point of law in July 2010.

In her findings from the six Death by indifference cases, the ombudsman did not find ‘service failure’ when reasonable adjustments were not made as required by the Disability Discrimination Act. She still found that the doctors acted within a range of reasonable practice.

However, Mencap believes the ombudsman should have concluded there had been service failure.

The judicial review is based on a narrow but important point of law, so even if we win the judicial review the six original Death by Indifference cases will not be affected. However, it would have significant implications for the ombudsman when she makes decisions on future cases, involving healthcare professionals making reasonable adjustments to comply with the Disability Discrimination Act.

(From Mencap – Death by indifference).

Also, some links to find out more:
Going Against The Flow (Vicky’s swimming blog).
Mencap – Getting it Right (Mencap’s campaign page)
Just Giving Page (because you can never have too many donate links).

Danni

A New Start

Real Life

Hello, and welcome to Dannilion.com!

I have decided to start a new blog, and since I already have this domain, and the nickname Dannilion, I thought this would be a good place for it. Previously I only had 3 posts, so removing them wasn’t too big a problem.

My previous blog is now read only, at http://dannimatzk.co.uk.

So, why the big change? The main reason is that yesterday (Friday 13th August 2010), I got married to my beloved husband, John Brennand. As I disliked my surname, I have decided to take his, and that means I am no longer Danni Matzk. Instead I am Danni Brennand. This meant the URL of my previous blog was inaccurate. Also, in honour of my new name and new marital status, I thought it would be a good idea to start a fresh blog.

So, for people who are new here, who am I? My name’s Danni. I’m 24 years old, and I live in North East England with my husband, in a flat next to a pub (so it gets pretty noisy). I am autistic (Asperger’s Syndrome) so I’ll occasionally blog about autism. I have mental health problems so I’ll also be blogging about how that affects me. I’m a student currently attempting to go back to college in September (after having to leave last November due to a relapse in my mental illness). I also am currently physically disabled (hopefully temporarily), and am a part time wheelchair user, so disability issues in general will be talked about. Due to the combination of the above, I require a lot of help, which my husband has provided over the last year (he’s my full time carer).

Apart from my real life stuff, I am an avid gamer, and enjoy World of Warcraft especially. I will be blogging about WoW and games in general, as that’s what I spend most of my time doing 🙂 I also spend a lot of time on social networking sites (Facebook, Plurk, Twitter) and talking in IRC and using various instant messengers. I will have a page with the details of how to contact me. I don’t mind too much being cyber-stalked, so long as it’s not intrusive 🙂

I can’t think of much else to say now, but thanks for reading my blog 🙂