In Preparation For Hellfest

I promised myself some time ago - probably around last new year to be honest - that I'd relearn some basic French in order to get by easier when I went to Hellfest.
Well, now Hellfest is almost upon us and until this afternoon, I hadn't even entertained the idea of looking over any french work. A few hours ago, I picked up a couple of good quality (but cheap) books to kickstart my french relearning. After studying the language for five years in school, I'm hoping that it'll trigger my memory and that it'll be easier to learn, within reason, than learning everything from scratch.
In a way, I wish that I'd never stopped learning languages - I feel that if I'd stuck with them all as I picked them up, I could be halfway to fluent in French, German, Spanish, Japanese and Korean as well as moving in the right direction with Greek, Cantonese and Mandarin. When I really think about it, there are so many things that I'm capable of doing and all that's standing in the way is my own mental health issues. It's more disabling than I could ever have imagined.
Like I said though, I'm trying to get back on the horse, and I think that I'm sort of getting there. This interaction overload did set me back but I feel like I can spring forward again, now that I've had a short time to lose myself in the anonymity that the city centre provides.

As for learning French, or relearning or whatever, I'll try to keep this updated and things. Hopefully soon I'll be able to hold actual conversations with people! It's strange, the way they teach foreign languages in British schools - parrot phrases and jigsaw paragraphs. If I went to France, being able to talk at length about my family or what I did during the summer holidays would be so wildly unhelpful that it's almost comedic. And slightly sad too. It's a shame that we aren't taught with immersion although I can see why it'd be impractical. I just feel that the benefits outweigh the drawbacks.

In regards to Hellfest, I can't tell whether I'm most excited to see the bands, go on holiday to France, or to be reviewing the bands for GetYourRockOut.co.uk. I think it's pretty much an equal measure of all three things along with a whole bunch of other stuff too. Hopefully everything will go better with GYRO this time - it's pretty worrying how my emails keep getting 'lost'. They appear in my sent folder and I'm pretty certain that wouldn't happen if they weren't definitely 'sent'. My email hasn't changed, their email hasn't changed and they're not in their junk folder so lord knows where they're actually going. Of course there's always the possibility that they GYRO people either aren't seeing them because they're getting so many emails from everyone. Or there's the possibility that they're ignoring my emails as a way to subtly remove me from their team. Hopefully that's just me being paranoid though...
With that in mind however, I have wanted to start putting out feelers to find other reviewing sites and other companies that need photographers. I know there's a few local ones but the level of professionalism there is always a bit of a worry. I've seen some companies get really successful very quickly, only to find out they'd been built on a whim and folded within a year. It's scary to put work into something that feels so transient. But then I suppose that's all life is. At the end of the day, nothing is forever.

I Keep Saying I'll Do This Bumf More Regularly...

I do really mean it, each and every time. I will do this more. I can blog more regularly. I do have things worth writing about sort of. Also, I can never remember, but is 'bumf' one f or two?
I realise that four days isn't exactly a long break for me but I still feel like this blogging should be a daily thing - it's not as if I think less about things now than I did a few years ago when I did #postaday on Wordpress! If anything I think more and thus, I shall post more often than I currently do.
Realistically, I think I should aim for two or three posts a week maybe even five posts then I can have two responsibility free days where I can just veg out and play lots of Pokemon X or something... That sounds fairly reasonable but I know I'm going to have to set some sort of phone reminder for this kind of thing - much like I need one for taking my meds, eating, working et cetera. That said, I should probably take my meds now - it's far later than I realised and if I don't take them now, I won't wake up in time for work in the morning.

The other day, Matt got a cold. He was really ill and pretty much couldn't function. He remained steadfast in his opinion that, if I wasn't careful, I'd get his cold/flu/virus or whatever it was. It's been going around so I pretty much expected I would get it sooner or later. I just wish that it hadn't been the day after my gym induction.
Yesterday was my much anticipated induction at Goldstar Gym across the road. Writing it like that makes it cooler because then it's like a Pokemon gym. Because of my meds, I had to go to the doctor's to get a note saying that I was fit to join the gym. When I got my appointment (the first time) it wasn't with my GP or the Dr who sorts my meds, but just with one of the others. He was nice enough but then wanted to charge me £20 for a line and a quarter saying that, yes, I could indeed go to the gym. As it happened, I didn't have my card on me at the time so couldn't pay so couldn't get a note. However, all wasn't lost as I had an appointment with my therapist the next day anyway and she's a certified doctor so I reasoned that she might be able to do it herself. When I mentioned it, she agreed that it'd likely be amazing for me but as she wasn't a medical doctor, she couldn't advise on my ability to go to the gym in regards to my medication. She did however, advise that I either go to one of the doctors at the surgery that I was familiar with and one who was familiar with me and my situation or, at least, get a second opinion as someone else might only charge me £10 or indeed do it for free. I arranged an appointment with the Dr who sorts my medication but missed it (due to my medication, ironically) and ended up having to wait nearly two more weeks to get another appointment. This one, I got through luck and good timing rather than being able to pre-book appointments. It's ridiculous how hard it is to get a doctor's appointment these days! If I want to pre-book, I have to wait over a month sometimes - it's horrendous! Anyway, I'm sure most of you have the same problem so I'm going to stop whining and get on with it. I decided, since it's so hard to get appointments, that with this one, I was going to kill three birds with one stone.
The long and short of it is, I got my note for the gym.
It took about 3 minutes for the 'assessment' from start to finish and the note (a photo of which can be found on my Instagram for which there is a link on the top right of this post). He took my pulse and blood pressure and was like: 'Well, all that seems in order, I think the gym would do you good. Here you go.'
So that was Tuesday morning. I dropped the note off at the gym straightaway, thinking that I'd likely lose it if I took it home, and arranged an induction for the following Friday (which was yesterday).

The induction itself was longer than I expected - nearly 90 minutes from start to finish - but included a set of reps of every exercise (apart from leg raises) and a diet/nutrition plan. I was pretty nervous when I got there but managed the whole thing without making a twat out of myself so I was pretty proud by the end of it. The guy doing it didn't seem overly impressed that I was vegetarian and told me repeatedly (jokingly) that I should get some chicken fillets in me or, at the very least, some cans of tuna. I said that I would try and if I couldn't digest it, I'd stick to tofu, egg whites and cottage cheese. I think I'll stick to the veggie stuff anyway unless I absolutely have to (and I can't see that ever being a thing...)
I'll write more about the gym and fitness et cetera in another post, I'm going to have to draw this one to a close soon - the Mirtazapine's hit me slightly harder and somewhat faster than I anticipated! (Notice: I took my meds, like I have to and said I would but forget to occasionally from time to time yay!) Where was I going with this..? I've completely forgotten... Oh, yes!
So this morning, I woke up with a head full of cold. It was horrendous. And the weather was really grim too - sort of not too cold but rainy and weird.
By the time I got to work, my legs were so stiff from yesterday that I could barely walk and my head was so sore it was difficult to speak. Over the course of the day I haven't really gotten much better. I've taken some cold medication and some paracetamol but it doesn't seem to have helped. My nose is all bunged up and runny as hell and now it's also really sore from wiping it all the time. I've sneezed a few times which clears my head for a few minutes at a time but never longer. Even sinus massages aren't helping - now my eye sockets just feel slightly bruised...

Anyway, it's off to sleep for me now. Hopefully I'll write tomorrow. Maybe it'll be a lament for poor old Trillians...
Nighty night folks!