This is not a "niche" blog. This is everything that makes me, me - or at least the bits I write down. There's no such thing as a "niche" person.

Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Half-truths: the drugs don't work, they just make things worse

Specifically in the case of caffeine, which at the moment is working very well, in that I'd be asleep at my desk if I weren't on my second cup of strong filter coffee. Being seen to be awake at my desk rather than asleep may be an example of the drugs making things better, but balanced against the lightheadedness, irritated stomach, headache and general irritability from being awake when I'd much rather be asleep, not to mention the whole addiction/dependency thing, I'd concede the point that while the drug in question may in fact work by enabling socially normative behaviour, it does indeed make things worse when a broad range of factors are considered.

So there we are then: a post that isn't about things I've done for Conversation. I'm at work, avoiding either reading best practice guidelines for autism or entering outcome measures from the National Service Framework for Children, Young People and Families into a database. I dicovered myself reading this (thank you Dave) and thought that if I was clearly not going to be doing anything useful for the next few minutes I might as well write something here.

Umm. So what's been happening? I gave up tea and coffee for Lent (more difficult than I thought it would be) and also had a couple of glasses of wine (very easy; I won't do it again for a while I think). Took Katrina to Beaulieu for the day with the family and then for a night here by ourselves, both of which were a surprise for her birthday. I'll try and add some pictures at some point in the near future. Rachel got a high enough mark in her Modern solo at Portsmouth festival to qualify for the Southern Regional Finals. We went to see Peter play his violin as part of the school orchestra. Daniel has got a college place. Reuben went to a celebrity launch party for a new ride at the London Dungeon which was a bit rubbish (the party, not the ride), but also went to the Tower of London which was not rubbish at all. Benjamin hasn't got any work experience sorted out because the Junior School took so long to tell him he couldn't do it there that it was then too late to sort out anything else.

In short, life goes on. And I need to do something tangible so that when I see my boss tomorrow morning I can show her and say "Look at all the constructive work I have been doing", so I'll post this and get on.

Tuesday, April 03, 2007

I've been busy

I did this



and made these





which I was quite pleased with. At least I was pleased with the video and fairly pleased with the flyer, except that I faded the praying hands too much and they didn't come out on the photocopied one they gave out at church.

I've also been planning things for Katrina's birthday tomorrow - hopefully it won't be too long before I can get back on here and say how it went.