So... change of plan. Today I go to Plymouth Cathedral for the rite of election. I wasn't going to, and I feel I must apologize to everyone at the chaplaincy for not strumming at them this morning like I was going to, also to Fr. Paul for not being round to meet a person he thought I should speak to, and to whoever might miss me on the walk to the Double Locks. Sorry.

I think they might forgive me given that my reason is that last night I decided to throw my lot in with the Catholic Church. That's slightly misleading actually - it wasn't like a decision at all. For a very long time I've been thinking and occasionally saying, to whoever seemed to want to hear, that the decision to join the Church really seems too big for me. How would I know what criteria to apply? How could I go against the principle of the authority of private judgement and yet commit myself to an organization that claimed to mediate that responsibility?

Actually, I still don't know. What I do know is that I was reading, and then I was praying, and after that I was sort of past the decision. That's probably the best way of describing it. It was there in my mind that the natural thing to do was to become a Catholic, and it stuck, and I was bewildered. I sat there for a long time on the floor in my sleeping bag (it seemed like a good place to pray at the time), critiquing myself, thinking things like "Well, I do feel a little feverish.", "Perhaps it's only because I like the idea of authority* - that's no reason to attribute it to the first body arrogant enough to make that claim." and other such things. And they seemed less real than the decision which I believe God brought about.

Upon stepping outside my door it still seemed to be there, and it also survived the rather prosaic spectacle of seeing Norris playing Nightfire in the front room, occasionally muttering things about skags and floozies.

For the rite I need a sponsor, something I hadn't arranged because I hadn't intended to go, so I roped James into it. It means that I need to do other things to, like get hold of a copy of my baptismal certificate, and probably re-arrange how I spend my Easter, though I'm going to try my best to be at home for it if possible. I should also point out that I won't, um, officially speaking, if that's an adequate way of phrasing it, come out of Plymouth Cathedral a Catholic this afternoon. Assuming things run according to their ordinary usages, I would be received into the Church at Easter, hence the bother about whether I'm at home or not.

So, yeah. A more dramatic evening than most, I thought.

* That argument had a good airing today as well. We had spent most of a day doing a personality test which suggested the following; that I desire security above many things, that I doubt and fear greatly, that I desire a trustworthy authority, that I tend towards obedience and conformism, that I desire to know where I am located within a hierarchy, and, last but not least, that I am happiest in acting with the backing of "dogma", or an analogous rule-book. In short, that I tend towards being a sheep, which should be okay so long as I have a Good Shepherd.

Good afternoon. Well here I am at work, trying to think how best to summarize the week. It would be a start to say that Ella was here, which seemed to involve the watching of many films. Perhaps more exciting things happened during the day, but I was not around to see. They flew kites I believe, and I went to the Ram quiz for some reason. Joint second we were, I think.

Stayed up till one playing Scrabble on Thursday/Friday night, which made Friday a little weaing, but fortunately there wasn't an insurmountable amount of work to do.

Now the weekend was rather fun. Ella left on Saturday, but before she did, we watched Police Story, and shortly afterwards decided to make a kung-fu movie. But not kung fu. And probably not much of a movie. We shot some of the scene on Saturday and some yesterday. Cushions were piled, head-scratching was engaged in, about a million poorly-executed flying kicks were, well, executed and my forearms came in for a prolonged bruising by Norris while James pondered why it was that Jackie Chan looks cooler than Norris and I put together. Naturally in respect to myself, I have no idea, but the principal difficulty with Norris is that after a maximum of half a second's quasi-seriousness, he tends to turn as camp as Christmas and gyrate worryingly. Still, all good fun, even if you can tell that James doesn't really have a vision other than it being "dead good."

I also wrote a song on Saturday. It has chords and words, and I can't remember it now, but I wrote it down.

Sunday was good. I got a bit emotional in mass thinking about the theophanies of Isaiah and Ezekiel in contrast to Jesus as a child and on the cross. Guitar playing was a little ropey, but I sang my responsorial psalm okay. A clarinetist(?) joined us, but I think she may have been a little disheartened after finding herself overwhelmed by transposition issues, which I was of no help with. I meant to have a word afterwards, but she went off while I was suggesting to Irene that we check whether the double locks would be open next week. We had an idea we should walk there after mass.

Last week it was duck-feeding, this time Irene, Rachel and myself went for a little walk in Sidmouth, which was kinda cold and windy, but nice. And the sea looks really cool and more analagous to infinity the higher you are. Chatted in a pub called the Black Horse after this. Talked about various things. Rather "weirded out" to discover that Rachel is younger than me. That's just not right. Foreign students are meant to be older than me - it's the law. It came out that I never dated anyone at uni and Irene said she was shocked and jokingly suggested that I might like to meet her daughter who apparently shares my birthday.

And that's about it broadly-speaking I think.

Gosh, what a flurry of blogging. I'm feeling all left out, not having written here for quite a while. Now I just need to think of something intelligent to write.

Erm.............

Hi!

Erm............

We just got a DVD player. It plays DVDs. Many a happy hour will be spent watching Count Duckula. Quality. I expect Rosy will be round to force me to watch Spaced. He's got it on DVD, despite not having anything to play it on, and periodically lends it to someone at gunpoint. I like Spaced, so this isn't a problem. Why haven't you brought it round yet Rosy? Oh why? I want to watch Spaced now.

Oh well, I'll just have to watch Duckula instead.

Good afternoon people. Yesterday I said to Zosia that I'd blog, so... I am.

Yesterday then. Should probably start with CTaCH wherein it was decided that we would offer to make intercessory prayers for all and sundry in County Hall throughout Lent. Coincidentally, this was about the same time I decided what I was going to do this lent. So Karen (Silcox) and I should be doing a lot of praying soon. At the beginning there was a lot of talk about Melchizedek. Someone thought that Jesus was descended from him apparently, which rather negates the point of the passage.

Oh, and that morning Ella had a stomach-ache, so I got James to make her some ginger tea and apparently it hit the spot.

After work I went over to Nina's. Nina is a genial hostess and not averse to feeding me. Thank you Nina. I had some veggie lasagne, mange tout and lettuce, a banana soy milk-shake and another drink which I can't recall. It was lovely. Just sat and chatted really, as ever; apparently Nina thinks this is not good enough, but I would differ.

I was a bit late leaving Nina's and just got to RCIA on time. I found myself instantly bewildered by the fact that whereas it's usually a local group, today every candidate and their kid brother was there. And I walked straight into the middle of it, which is an architectural necessity. I'm now borrowing a book by Cardinal Hume off of one of the catechists. I shall have to see if I can't finish it off before I forget what Newman's on about. Mike gave me a lift home, and I popped into the house to drop my stuff off before heading over to CathSoc, where drinking games were being played, but without drink. I dread to think how much more slowly the whole thing would have gone if they had been drinking. Then we played Taboo, which I was expecting to not find fun, but it was rather good. And after that, Bible Challenge. That got a bit personal; I was playing to beat Lisa basically. She was far too nice about it, and kept on giving me answers and things. I did beat her, but she helped, so... hang on - I see what she's done, the cunning minx! Well, perhaps not. It's possible she was just being nice. Zosia related her stress and I made soothing ocean noises but it got old a bit quickly. And I made too much noise crushing cans, and got KAren's e-mail to apologise remotely, which I haven't actually done yet, so I better had now. Blogging in the space of half an hour sucks. I could have said a lot more.

I've met several members of David's family in the course of working at his shop, his parents and his sister, Lynda, the latter of whom works in the shop some of the time. She seemed impressed by my houseworking skills, however since I was brought up to do my own housework it's hardly surprising.

Working for David has been a sometimes exasperating experience, the amount of cleaning up I've had to do over the past few weeks has been a little aggravating. It seems that David's shop is a magnet for people who make a mess, I've cleaned takeaway remnants from the front, someones kitchen waste where they had left it by the telephone exchange box in nothing but a black plastic sack, where the local wildlife had torn it open. Most aggravating was someone who has repeated left birdseed, lots of the blessed stuff outside the back door, undoubtedly attracting both rats and feathered rats. The first time the bin was half full of the stuff, the next two times the birdseed was actually collected for Trevor's mother's chickens. Trevor who works in the workshop part of the shop told me that the last person to do something like this died recently, so I'm keeping an eye out for the culprit. I left a couple of polite notes out the back asking the mess makers to reconsider.

The actual work has been going quite well, part from a "flower pot" clock that has kept stopping for no apparent reason, but that's par for the course when working with French-style clocks. David seems to appreciate my computer skills, especially with his new internet connection. I help out Norman, the chap who mostly deals with customers when I can, especially when disposing of the packing material that comes with new stock.

Last week David asked me to move the replacement watch straps into their new stand, and he seemed surprised at the speed at which I was able to handle the changeover, especially as I was reorganising them as I went. Mum seemed to really appreciate the hyacinths I bought for her birthday present, which reminds me that "Birthday Season" is approaching rapidly.

I started my new job today as a Project Assistant. I had to report to the same office that I have been working in as a temp since last July (when it opened), to my manager Mal who is on holiday all this week, at 9am - no chance. So I just turned up for work as usual and got paid alot more than usual. Only difference so far is that I had to go to the town hall this afternoon for an induction which was so boring.

While I was there though we got handed our personal files for some reason and then had them taken back off of us. An excercise to show that they are not keeping stuff about you that you wouldn't like I think someone said. I was being nosy and found my references in the file and my tutor wrote me a really nice reference. I don't actually think that he could have wrote a nicer reference. It was really nice.

Oops, a quick update, I misrembered my new address, it's Flat 20B not 20A.

I'm back at home this weekend, having travelled back on Friday morning. It was a fairly good trip, especially as for the most part impatient drivers actually overtook me rather than inspecting my bumper for a change.

Wednesday was not a good day for me, I turned up at my new address to sign my rental agreement a day early having been caught out by my dyslexia, and felt very guilty about wasting my time at work.
Wednesday evening, I discovered that the college's procedure for finishing meant that I had to stay until Friday morning, rather than scooting off on Thursday night as I had planned. This understandably put me in a bad mood, so I went out to get some apple juice as a healthier treat than a chocolate bar. Big Mistake.
As soon as I got a fair way out of college the light rain and wind turned heavy. I was soon drenched and my umbrella required both hands to brace it, and then the struts bent out of shape so I gave up on it. The sequence of weather was heavy rain and strong wind, followed by sleet, half-melted hail, more rain then snow alternating with heavy rain, Yuck! I also discovered that I had worn through the soles of my shoes so I had wet feet. On returning to college I borrowed an iron to start drying off my trousers and jacket, and left them on the radiator to finish drying. Sigh.

Thursday turned out a little better, my clothes were dry and the shop was quiet and I was able to get on with work. However at the end of the day, David (my boss) asked why I hadn't put a "dog-leg" ("S"-shape so the pin can't slip out) on the taper pin that held the hands on a clock I was working on. He demonstrated and broke off one end and weakened the other so much that when I attempted to removed the broken taper pin the other end broke off leaving the middle bit firmly wedged in the hole. I was unable to remove it before I had to leave, so I'll probably have to try again when I'm next in.

On Friday I got off to an early start, waking up at 4:40 and being unable to fall asleep again, I waited until I couldn't stand to wait any longer and began loading the car at about 6:50. When I finished, I handed in my room keys and drove the car up from my room to the top car park, using one of the Visitors spaces, in order that I would be able to keep an eye on the car from the dining room. After breakfast at 7:30, all I could do was wait until reception and finance were open at 8:30 when I could collect my travel expenses and hand in my student and free drink card. I then had a brief interview with the person in charge of the training dept and then set out at 9:30.
On returning to Camberley, I unloaded the car since I couldn't lock the car in the garage to keep it secure and then headed down to Clarks in Camberley in order to see if I could get a refund, since I had only bought the shoes in September and they had only lasted until the end of January, I actually got a whole new pair of shoes, Woo-hoo.

Hey, Emma blogged! Great. I was just wandering through town after getting off work early, and I thought I could blog, but nothing much has happened today, so I'm not sure what to write. The more perceptive among you will have noticed that I must have left work a bit early today, and it's true. I just started my first month of police civilian processing today, and it's huuuuuge. But apparently it's mostly easy. Busy time of the moth this - everyone's phoning up to query their pay advices, so we do less work. I got quite tired. Don't know what to do this weekend. I've still got to work out what holiday to take. I've got to take 5 days before April, lest I lose them forever. Hmm.

I was trying to find a particular place behind the Pyramids swimming centre-type-place. I never did, but I did find a monument to a couple of 16th century protestants who "suffered" for a) denying the supremacy of the pope and b) denying the doctrine of transubstantiation.

I might be going back on the Choral Society committee again. Wendy PolishSurname didn't want to be the open-place rep last year, and neither does she now. I understand she's been doing it for five years now. In any case, the open place rep is there to represent the non-student members of the choir. I've provisionally volunteered, because it would be far better if the open place rep was older I think. I can in no wise claim to really represent the choir in chronological magnitude. We're singing Mendelsson's (sp? - can't be arsed to look it up) Elijah. There's a fairly ridiculous phrase:-

There came a fiery chariot, with fiery, fiery horses[...].

(that is to say, ridiculous as a phrase, not as a concept) which gets even more absurd as you mediate it through a Westcountry choir.

I just noticed the library computers have MSN. Wow!

It snowed, hurrah hurrah I love the snow! I walked to work today in the snow as it went crunch crunch under my feet. And me and Ade had a bit of a snowball fight last night. Its rather icy now though as most of it melted and went slushy and then refroze later as it got cold. Some of the roads are like a sheet of ice. So our new car is sitting in the car park until it gets warmer.

Hello everyone, I've finally found somewhere to live in Exeter and will be moved in on the 2nd of Feb this year, while working at David Copper's clock shop on Sidwell Street.
The Address will be
Room 20B (Oops, I put down 20A by mistake)
The Exeter Foyer
Commercial Road
Exeter
Devon
EX2 4AD

It's a fairly nice place, better than my St Loye's lodgings, especially since I'll be able to cook again, rather than stomach the low, low budgeted college food. It's well furnished and secure, and best of all cheap, (for Exeter).

The system is that in the beginning I share a kitchen, living room and bathroom with two other people and then I should be moving into a flatlet where I'm the only person there. Updates will follow when I know the next address.
There is a Internet facility nearby, however since it is due to be finished (and hopefully working in March, I will probably be off-line for a while.

With Dad changing his ISP (or rather him asking me to do it for him), I decided to set up a new e-mail account, hopefully less spam-able. This new e-mail address is (aspergerneil@yahoo.co.uk), is all set up and I should be able to check it using an Internet Booth, but for the mean time mobile phone or text is the best way to contact me.

I have to own up to a blunder, while clearing my desk at college, (since I'll be spending the rest of my time at St Loye's working at David Cooper's shop) I found a TV licence renewal reminder, telling me that my TV licence had expired over Christmas, and with all my frantic job searching I hadn't notice it. Oops. Thankfully the TV licence people didn't kick up a fuss when I renewed my licence, back-dated to when the licence expired.

Hello everyone, guess what! Not only have I now got a place on a pgce course for september at Manchester University but I've got a job as well!

I applyed for the Project Assistants job ages ago and out of 150 people for 11 jobs I came 12. Rather annoying but today I found out that not only has someone dropped out but they have found more finances for another post and so I will get a job. It was a bit complicated but Bernard my manager pushed for me to stay at the office I'm already at in Fallowfield, so I don't even have to move office, which is great as most of the other jobs are in north manchester miles away.

So all is going well on the Manchester front. And I'm rather happy which is why I did hardly any work today - oh well.

Good evening; I've just finished work, and I thought I'd let you know that my responsibilities have indeed changed. Now I have a weekly payroll to do for Plymouth College of Further Education and also some monthly Police Civilians, i.e. what Neil used to be, but naturally not for Devon & Cornwall Constabulary.

I've just downloaded one of the Pope's more recent encyclicals to read at home. This is because Christians Together at County Hall (still with the rubbish name...), well some members of the aforementioned, would like to have a monthly communion service, symbolical style. Both of the people to whom I have spoken about Catholicism there have been considerate and asked what I make of it all. Currently I don't mind but if I became a Catholic, I wondered what the Pope would make of it all, and that's sort of what the encyclical covers, at least in part, so there you go.

I should really go home. Bye.