June’s Challenges (by sarah)

Looking at what I have achieved since the New Year I have decided that June's challenges are going to be a Finishing Projects Month and a Game Design Month.

FiPoMo and GeDeMo - I did a GeDeMo last year which worked really well and I got a beta version of a card game I use for writing workshops out of it. I also got it a fair way towards the sellable version. It is part of a group of games that can fit together to make a bigger game and as it looks like I'm in the running workshops business now I really need the game completed.

I'm going to start of by making a large slightly altered version to use at children's writing workshops. Then I want to get the poetry card pack actually out there and selling - after that there is a lot of other things like making the next card packs and designing and testing the board which is going to be heavy on the graphics side of things I feel.

For the FiPoMo I am going to focus on getting the illustrations for the Little Books of Poetry sorted out and editing the poems - yes the first week of May I wrote 70 children's poems - mad, insane and it melted my brain!

I have a deadline for some of these. I think that will take up all of the time to be honest.

And this time an ambulance… (by sarah)

So I had stopped bleeding for about 2 weeks with just a little bit of 'marking' every few days and then I started what I again thought was a period and it was ok for a couple of days and then Mary had a hungry night and fed and fed and fed (breast). But I could feel the flow getting heavier and heavier and I started having to get up to change pads etc.. again and again and again and then it was time to get Jean up for school so I got up the last time and felt the bleeding become very heavy and was on everything - I made a right mess of everything.

And not quiet being with it I got into the bathroom and started to feel strange. I remember thinking this isn't good and Jean burst in her normal fashion and apparently I asked her to help me and tried to follow her out of the bathroom as she went to fetch my dad. He came up the stairs just in time to try and catch me as I passed out which was fortunate as I landed on the almost full length mirror I had propped up on the landing.

This mean I only busted the frame rather than shredding myself to pieces. But it also ment I was slumped on my knees laying sideways on a mirror. Jean apparently called my mum on my mobile phone (I think she just pressed the button she knows calls people and mum was the last person I'd phoned). Dad was trying to get me up to put me back in bed when mum arrived, I was trying to talk but unsuccessfully.

She called an ambulance, by the time they arrived the bleeding had slowed and I was trying to get up off the floor because as I kept repeatedly telling everyone I had to get Jean to school :/ I cried cos I was bleeding on the carpet and had ruined my favourite things and the baby was hungry and Jean had to go to school :/

It took both ambulance people to get me up off the floor and I screamed with pain 🙁 Mainly the pelvis. I was starting to feel more with it and embarrassed that I was causing a huge fuss and appeared to be half naked.

My sugar level was low but I hadn't had any breakfast so they spent time trying to get me to eat and drink. After three pints of water I started to feel a lot better - food had been hard as I felt so sick. As the bleeding had slowed down they called the Drs surgery and I went for an emergancy appointment.

And after an examination and a phone call to the hospital I have more antibiotics and hormone tablets to stop the bleeding. More bloods have been taken and I have a hospital appointment for Monday - by the time I got to the Dr I was just in pain and so very tired. I had lost lots of black jelly again though.

My womb is enlarged and the wound on the outside is even acting up again. I was barely able to walk with the crutches at the Drs surgery the pelvis was acted up so much. I think it extrememly lucky that I didn't pass out whilst using the crutches.

And then I should have just been going home to rest and take tablets but it didn't quiet work like that. Leaving the Drs we went to the Chemists to get the prescription or rather we stayed in the car whilst Dad went - none of us realised how late it was as I'd passed out at around 7 in the morning.

This meant that it was actually past lunchtime and Dad had not had his morning snack and had had lots of stress and so went hypo at the shop :/ They told him to stay put whilst his chocolate bar kicked in but he walked out and collapsed. He then got up and did it again. By this point people had stopped to help and he ended up sitting on someones steps with the pharmacists trying to find out where he lives. At this point me and mum were talking about how we should have made dad eat the banana he'd refused when we arrived as when there is stressfull stuff he tends to go hypo and then I saw the time and phoned him.

I ended up talking to the girl from the shop and they walked him down to the car - initially they'd asked if someone could come and get him not realising that we were in the car park. I had to explain that I'd been passing out, mum was a wheelchair user and we had the baby with us :/

They were concerned that he would try and drive but I assured them we'd wait and feed him the emergancy food.

So we got home just in time for the Jean pick up from school. I went to bed and slept as did everyone else except Jean who watched a film.

It was an adventure I hate living in Interesting Times :/

Nerves and Guitar (by sarah)

I live near Cheltenham and that town has some very good poetry nights etc... so Friday saw be going along to Slak Bar to an open mic at Earshot (probably my favourite poetry night). But this time it was opened up so that the open mic included acoustic so I thought I'd take my guitar and play one of the songs I worked on last month.

But though I was fine if a little upset as Jean refused to talk to me as I said she couldn't come in and watch, things got a little delayed and my anxiety and fretfullness mounted.

For a start I have a glittery nail vanish covered guitar, it is not one of those you can add pick ups too and I knew I wasn't getting the vocal range to be heard well over it in any case. (not an excuess but my glands where up due to hay fever and because of breast feeding I couldn't take anything for it - I find this heavily affects my singing)

Then one of the real acts got up (Horston Longsail) then one of my friends got up and using my guitar and his string clamp thing played a lovely haunting song.

Then I got up - for a start I hadn't wanted to use the crutches but there was no way I was going to be able to get up onto the stage without them. So I was feeling a little flustered as well as nervous. I sat down and begain to play and stuffed it up! I was shaking which didn't help and also I was so nervous my hands were sweating and my fingers slipped of the strings - I'd never encountered that before. Stressing out also makes my voice even tighter and smaller and I couldn't check if I was in tune becuase of the ringing in my ears.

The neverous twitch I used to get where my lip curls up on the left hand side started. I was still attempting to play. I closed my eyes and sang the second verse of my song instead of the first but then managed to look up a bit and get more in the flow - though I changed to the wrong cord and had to alter the sequence slightly so that it would all still fit.

I got off the stage feeling I had really stuffed up - I was so annoyed at myself - how comes I can play the song through perfectly whilst Jean is doing things like licking the guitar to get my attention becuase its dinner time but I get infront of people and it all goes wrong?

It's nerves.

People were very nice about it and I got given tips in the fact the microphone needed to be nearer my mouth and told that it started out a bit hesitant but once I got into it it was good. I even got told the song was like my poetry full of the sweet and dark and that it sounded very PJ Harvey.

I also know that I wasn't really ready to 'perform' in public but that if I didn't start trying I never will be. The issue I have is playing infront of other people and like getting rid of the stutter there is only one way to cure this and that is - if I mess up an open mic I simply need to play more open mics. Now I haven't got a clue weather my songs are any good or even if I can still sing in tune I just have to hope that people aren't going to be too mean!

I am still annoyed with myself over getting so flustered though - and with being annoyed - it meant I didn't really click back into gear until latter in the evening so basically missed Avril Staples poetry as I was waiting for the ringing in my ears to stop!

But I did have a fantastic night - I really enjoyed the two headline poets Bohdan Piasecki and Michael Wilson.

Well done Britain :/ (by sarah)

As an expected but highly depressing result sorry but Britain but collectively we are thick as two short bricks or votes are tampered with either I concede is possible but I feel the first option is the most likely.

And so as always change is feared and people opt for a system that allows compound error via rounding up maintaining a two party system which has lead to MP's believing they can take the funny bone out of the population.

The worse bit is that those who actually think and reason are starting to think that they have been the stupid ones for voting - as if my generation wasn't stressed out and disillusioned enough as it is.

Interestingly I know to people who were vocal about voting NO and at least they did it because it was part of their politicial beliefs - I don't agree with them but I respect them. I feel that the voting has been done by panic and scare mongering and that most people have followed like sheep. But that's the thing isn't it - most people are sheep and that means those that aren't have to look out for the majority which is why I still went around reminding people to vote even when I knew they would vote against what I wanted.

I am getting that twinge again that makes me want to go into politics to sort things out - I'm not going to as it is extremely stressfull and I think it would be just too depressing.

p.s. (I really wonder if there is an age democratic here with how people voted after all don't the 'greys' heavily out way all the other democratics?)

Propaganda (by sarah)

I am starting to come to the opinion that propaganda material should be not banned but discouraged - people need to be informed of choices they do not need one opinion rammed so far down their throats that they can not think.

The way I would do this is by having a leaflet with the urls and library where abouts of the official material for each group/side/party. That way people can choose what to look at. There can bee a phone number for the house bound so that leaflets can be delivered for the parties they want to know more about.

Why do I feel this?

There were lots of leaflets and bill boards saying vote NO so much so that I struggled to keep the phrase out of my head - now I was prepared for this sort of thing but first time voters and much of the population probably didn't even notice the subliminal message sinking in. The YES campaign had similiar things I just didn't see as many. And to make it worse there was a vote NO leaflet in the polling booth which threw me so much I had to recheck I'd done the ballad correctly. Especially with having to put an x next to the choice you want - I always think eek I'm marking it wrong due to x being used to mark things as wrong on childrens homework.

Not everyone in the UK is literate and I've known people who assumed you put the x next to the one you don't want. But that is a differnet matter.

My point is that humans are highly suggestible creatures we are designed to live in groups with some sort of hirachy even if it is only in times of danger. Politicians like any leaders have to know how to tap into the getting people to do things systems it is part of their job. But the thing is with propaganda is that it becomes a game of money - which group can put out enough flyers, adverts and fuzzybugs.

Alaric asked me how having a website with all the information on it was different from a leaflet and I said the thing is you choose to look at the website with leaflets and TV they just sit there even if say they are on the scrap pile looking at you, getting their message to sink in.

Now the thing is I am looking for this sort of thing as just having a baby I know I am highly susceptable to being swayed (it's so you listen to the rest of the group on how to look after babies first time mothers are affected worse) this is why advitising is not supposed to target new mothers.

And yet all those little tricks Darren Brown knows for getting people to vote a certain way/pick a certain box are nothing compared to what the population receives with every election.

Of course the general issue here again is apathy and the fact that most people do not care or worse think they are not intelligent enough to understand or even worse that it doesn't matter what or how they vote everything will still continue to be crap for them. So the issue then is how to get the population motivated to vote without it being a war of money - ie those who can afford the most brain washing techniques win?

I don't really have an answer other than perhapse the leaflets should have been about using your right to vote rather than YES or NO.