Another Pair Of Eyes

Wimbledon

I just finished watching the Murray/Gasquet match on TV, and I think it’s safe to say that I’ve never been so inspired by watching sport in my life. It was incredible tennis from both players, a lot of nail-biting moments, beautifully played rallies and edge-of-your-seat points. Just phenomenal, and Murray had a phenomenal comeback to go with it from two sets down to winning 3-2. I’ll admit I felt a bit for Gasquet – he was totally on his game for the first two sets and played very well indeed, but the crowd and the length of the game began to get on top of him and I don’t envy his position playing the villain. Despite a few complaints to the umpire he took it well enough and was graceful ( or as graceful as it is possible to be in the face of such disappointment) at the end of the match – I have a great deal of respect for the man.

Fantastic, both of them. A gripping match, and one I’m very glad the referee didn’t call off because of the fading light – to end the game there and resume the next day would have been criminal. Murray seems to have matured a bit from the last time I watched a game of his, aside from his vaguely primal yelling, and I wish him all the best in his next match against Nadal, as hard as it may appear from the here and now.

!

This, of all the sad PC news stories of the past, is probably the saddest I’ve yet seen.

I thought the Swedish were sensible!

Halls

Today I moved out of halls for good, with a lot more stuff than I arrived with (although I have no idea how considering I don’t remember buying/borrowing/making that much!). I left a note for next years resident and my spare key – they massively overcharge for them if you lose them so hopefully I’ll save that person some grief. It’s…weird being gone: I feel kind of cut loose. Bizarre, but on the plus side I feel more at home at home again, so hopefully that’ll stick.

I’ll miss them, but life moves on, and I’m looking forward to having a sofa. Roll on the good days…

Imperfections

Nobody is perfect, but all my life I’ve been fairly healthy: not had any major incidents (save maybe breaking my wrist at ten), had normal vision, normal fitness, no terrible illnesses or scars etc. I’ve never even had the flu (and that’s a distinction I can still claim!).

But all this is changing, and the more I learn about myself the more I find out the little problems which afflict me. I have a high intraocular pressure, not pathological, just high. I have a vulnerability to bronchitus, and this recently surfaced in a long-term chest infection which only now shows signs of clearing up. I’ve got a few scars now, nothing too drastic but the one on my little finger still aches now and again.

And now, for the last 5 days, cluster headache. It’s actually really interesting – not fully understood, comes on at the same time of day and lasts the same amount of time every day. It’s most common in January and July, when the days are shortest and longest respectively, and is untouched by normal painkillers. It’s strictly one-sided, and it makes one eye tear (not rip-tear, buyt crying-tear) and the teeth on that side feel like they are going to explode. The daily rhythm and the yearly rhythm are fascinating – why? What is it about those times of year?

Still, interesting as it may be, I’d prefer to read about it. It’s not much fun to have, and I feel kind of crap that I’m endlessly having to go to the doctors with a variety of problems. I feel like I’m wasting their time, that I’m somewhat helpless and stuck, and I hate that,. I’ve spent my whole life rarely having to go to the doctors, and now I seem to be in there at least once a fortnight. Despite the fact that I actually have all these problems, I still feel like I’m just being a crybaby and it riles.

I guess the longer we go on for, the more we discover about ourselves which doesn’t work as well as it should, or the more things which did work cease to do so properly. As a newborn skin heals flawlessly with no scars, but this is no longer true as we grow and the more we do the further from a perfect picture of health we become.

Sigh. I’m not sure what the point of this is really.

Primark

People in the past have asked me many times why I don’t shop in Primark.

This is why I don’t shop in Primark.

Piano

Piano music is beautiful, I think, and I feel it’s one of the few instruments which can play a piece alone and really create something. My sister plays both the flute and the piano, but it’s the piano which creates a full-sounding piece of music without needing company. I would love to be able to be able to sit down and play something more than the remanant of my year 4 keyboard skills. I’ve been thinking on an off about piano since Hannah’s internet pianist debut, and now with a lot of spare time on my hands and a spare piano sitting not two metres from me, I’ve picked up an ancient book of my sister’s back from when she was a beginner and started going through it.

It’s frustrating. What little knowledge I had is gone and the snippets I can play from the book now are all boring, unfamiliar and simplistic. The past knowledge is a help and a hinderance – I’ve got some co-ordination from ye olden days left over but it also means that I know the pieces I’m playing are really easy, even for me back then, but I can’t play anything harder because the knowledge base itself is gone. Combing this with the fact that I’m normally quite quick on the uptake (and this doesn’t appear to apply to music) and it results in me getting annoyed with myself startlingly quickly. Who knows whether I’ll actually stick with this long enough to kick into something recognisable that isn’t jingle bells, I certainly don’t, but I really hope I continue. I’m not by nature a patient person when it comes to learning, but perhaps the glimmer of familiarity and the dream of actually being able to play will make piano the exception.

Maybe in a few years I’ll be able to put my own internet debut up. Maybe not. It’ll be a long haul if I do. Plenty of beautiful music to keep me inspired though. We’ll see how it goes.

Spam

As I’m sure you’ve noticed, there’s been a lot of spam about recently. I’ve modified the filter restrictions so hopefully this will reduce, but the downside is that if you want to write a comment about drugs, animal sex or online pharmacies you might well have your comment taken down as spam before I even see it. Still, if you steer clear of those topics you should be alright!

Finally, any comments including a hyperlink will be left for moderation – if it doesn’t appear right away then give it 24 hours and I’ll have likely checked it by then. If anyone has any ideas as to why the sudden influx of spam has occurred (bearing in mind it’s probably not to do with the medical jazz site as its got no spam whatsoever and I’ve mentioned the word medicine plenty of times) and how to stop it, then that’d be grand.

Spam is annoying. Who clicks on links which are so obviously spam, exactly? How on earth do they get their hits, or money, or whatever it is they are chasing? Does anyone else get spammed on a regular basis or am I just unlucky?

Grrr.