A Blog from Another World

Those of us who are differently abled have known for some time that the government has been planning to make changes to the benefits system and indeed already has. Thanks mostly to the headlines of the Daily Mail and other tabloids, the working propulation of this country thinks that there is a small army of people who are claiming benefits because they are ‘sick’ and could quite easily get out there and get a job. This is could not be further from the truth, within the last 5 years things have been made much tougher. The last Labour government introduced Employment and Support allowance as a replacement to Incapacity Benefit and they and the current government have made this harder to get. No lo-longer will the DWP listen to the words of your GP, “Healthcare Professionals” – some doctors, some not, are guided by a computer to ask certain questions in an interview referred to as a “Work Capacity Assessment” and everyone who had been claiming Incapacity Benefit will have been subject to one by the end of this year. Get enough points and you get to be in the “support group” and get more money and more or less left alone, however if you don’t get enough points you end up in the “work related activity” group, which gives you less money and you are forced to look for work and get a job – much like being on JSA.

These Assessments are carried out by a French company called ATOS who wrote the decision making software and employs the “Healthcare Professionals” to administer the assessments. Essentially ATOS carrys out the government’s dirty work for them. Many people who are clearly incapable of work have been told following the WCA that they are in fact, able to work – often despite their GP’s and consultants telling them this is not the case. People with terminal cancer, heart disease and lung problems – who clearly cannot work have been told then can. Approximately 40% of decisions based on the WCA are overturned at appeal.

However, that is really old news – a process that has been going on since 2008. In the last few months, government has made clear its decision to get tough with disabled people even more – Disability Living Allowance will be discontinued, in favour of a new system called PIP – Personal Independence Payment, this would be administered in a similar way to ESA – assessments would be carried out in which the claimant is required to get a certain number of points and benefit will be withdrawn if they do not. Also it seems that you must be disabled for at 6 months before you can even get any money…

Debates in the Commons and Lords this week have included:

• Should people claiming the Contributory part of ESA (i.e. have paid enough National Insurance credits whilst working) get it for more than 12 months?
• How terminally ill should you need to be to get ESA/PIP?
• Should adults in residential care get DLA/PIP?

and various other non-sensical ideas about saving money by penalising the poorest members of society.

I applaud the work of Sue Marsh and others who have authored a report called “Responsible Reform” aka “The Sparticus Report“, you can also see the easy read version here. This has caused quite a storm on Twitter, with many celebrities and professionals coming out in support of he report.

 oOo

In the past week I have been through my own turmoil and I suspect a lot of it is about my fears for the future and how the government is treating disabled people like myself and my friends. Last Thursday I did not turn up for work – a job which I had been doing for almost 3 months. On Friday I officially told them that I would not be in again. Many will say to me “why did you give up so easily” or  “why not get a sick note and take some time off”; the reality is that I was working as a contractor for a company which although fairly large has been going through some difficult times lately – a considerable number of people were laid off in December and it has been clear that they are struggling to pay bills for things that we as a department relied on. I made the decision to stop working mostly in support of my colleagues on the helpdesk, as we struggled to cover the workload as it was and the company has no money for personnel for cover/etc.

Following this decision and with the government’s attitude fresh in my mind, I had strong thoughts about climbing the gates of Downing Street and going after David Cameron myself; however there are a set of barriers at waist level in front of the main gates and I didn’t have the nerve to jump that and then start climbing… The next day I went off on a trip, common in times of despair like these – I did this not to seek attention, more as a way of trying to get away from myself, perhaps in a way akin to ‘Self Harm’. I am not brave enough to try to kill myself – but the travel often makes me think hard about what has happened. I got as far as Cologne before my lovely girlfriend Hannah convinced me it would be better to come back to the UK. I spent about £250 on travelling.

I really did try hard to keep this job, the people I worked with were on the whole reasonable, fair and a good laugh – despite the circumstances we were in. Perhaps it was a lack of sleep or just the general things that were worrying me, but I started to get to the point of waking up and thinking “I really really don’t want to get up”. I know everyone does this, but my ability to stop myself from ignoring my responsibilities is limited. At least in this case the job lasted 3 months, in previous cases I have done jobs for 1 day or 1 week and then not returned.

Ultimately I know that this will affect my ability to get jobs in the future, it had taken me a year to get that job and I found myself in many interviews struggling to answer questions about why I left my previous job and weather I was going to keep the job that I was being interviewed for. All I know now is that I really don’t want to go back to the endless highs and lows of the job market.

It is clear to me and others that I have certain skills in computing that are marketable, working for my last employer extended these by gaining knowledge about Lotus Notes and supporting people remotely rather than in person. However this is all for naught if I can’t find an employer who is willing to take the ‘risk’ of my problems and disability. I have found no-way to fix my penchant for self destruction, despite medication and of course a realisation that in future there will be little financial help for those seen to be able to work.

So now I am on the road to ESA, on Monday I phoned and put in my claim, so within the next few weeks I expect to be asked to fill in an ESA50 form in which I have to go into infinite detail about why I can’t work and then of course the WCA. I feel I have little chance of being placed in the support group – at least on the first go, so will probably have to go through a stressful appeals process. In the mean time how much money will I have? Will I be able to pay my rent? Will I be able to feed myself? At the moment I am really just hiding from the world, I don’t want to talk about what has happened or what will happen next. I haven’t really explained what has happened to anyone, even my family.

I hope that the media attention that the Spartacus Report has been given will make the general public realise that the government cannot be trusted, that these are the acts of people who have no morals to speak of. In fact it could be compared to the work of Adolf Hitler during WW2, killing off all those who were not blond haired, blue eyed and capable of fighting for the Third Reich.

As some of you might know I have recently been offered medication as treatment for my ADHD. This is kinda the answer to the requests for help that have often dominated this blog, sometimes in a rather graphic way, including this post, this post, this post and this post.

I was originally diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome and ADHD aged 17, nearly every time I have asked for help from mental healthcare professionals the Asperger’s Syndrome has dominated the conversations with little attention paid to the ADHD. When I was at school this wasn’t picked up because (a) it was the early 1990′s and nothing much was known about Asperger’s other than classical Autism and (b) I was rowdy, but generally a good student. You could often describe me as “the class clown”, I had my good days and bad days, but in the subjects I was good at I did want to learn.

In the UK and especially within the NHS, the idea that ADHD can exist in adults is often considered as nonsense. ADHD is a childhood disorder and ends when children grow up, Ritalin the main drug used to treat it, isn’t even officially licensed for use in adults; so the idea that someone could go through their childhood without being diagnosed with ADHD and then expect treatment as an adult is preposterous! I have seen at least 5 psychiatrists, probably more who have told me this and therefore refused to even consider treating me or referring me to someone who could help – despite there being a specialist clinic at the Maudsley Hospital in South London.

So last week I was amazed when I went to see Dr Trevor Turner a psychiatrist with East London NHS Trust who within a 30 minute appointment confirmed the ADHD diagnosis and then agreed to write to my GP asking him to prescribe Ritalin to me. I had to pinch myself to make sure I wasn’t dreaming, I never thought it would be so easy. At present I am waiting for Dr Turner’s letter to get to my GP, so I haven’t taken the medication yet.

The question is, after 17 years of dropping out of courses, jobs and generally being depressed and thinking things would never get better, if the Ritalin works and I get my concentration back, what do I do? The worst times started when I realised I couldn’t finish the university course I started in 2005, and although I tried again twice after that it never quite worked out, mostly because I couldn’t concentrate to get the work done.

So, do I go back to University? I am thinking that if things have improved by September then I might enrol on an Access to HE course (which I did try once before, but gave up on) at a local college in East London. If that works out at least I will have completed something since I was 16!

Of course I could be completely wrong – even with the drugs I might be not able to do it. I dunno, the trouble is that I am 31 now and not getting any younger. Do I want to loose another 4 years of my life?! I wish I had a time machine…

So things are getting better and I hope they will continue to do so, even if no-one wants to give me a job at the moment!

So for a while now I have had this problem that whenever I go to my blog’s home page the browser tries to download the PHP file rather than the server turning that PHP code into the blog. I was thinking that it must be something wrong with a content-type setting, but everything seemed fine. Then I discovered this in /etc/apache2/mods-available/php5.conf:

<IfModule mod_userdir.c>
<Directory /home/*/public_html>
php_admin_value engine Off
</Directory>
</IfModule>

What that actually means is that if the user home directory module is loaded and the page is being loaded from the user’s home directory (that’s the ~seth bit), then TURN OFF PHP!

So you can see why it wasn’t working. I assume that in some recent update to Apache or PHP there is some security concern that has caused a paranoid code maintainer to put in this draconian setting. Once I had commented that out, it was fine.

Then I needed to update to WordPress 3.1, that went fine as I have done it many times before. But then when I tried to load the homepage again, it was blank – the so called “White Screen of Death”!

I fiddled around with a few things that people had suggested – turning off plugins, changing themes, but none of them worked. What I decided to do was to start from scratch and not use my old wp-config.php. Once I opened up the new version of wp-config-sample.php I realised that there were a lot of things my old file (probably from WP 1.x) didn’t have in it. So I changed my database password and then put in my settings. Once I had done this, everything worked fine!

So the feeling of the week is frustration and I have been getting rather too much of it lately. Its very difficult for me to function like this because I want to do is escape the frustration in someway, which is near-enough impossible. Of course the ultimate way would be to tackle and disarm the armed Police at Downing St, climb over the gates, grab one of their guns, break down the door of Number 10 and then threaten David Cameron, at gunpoint to make it right. In my mind have the power to do this, in reality I do not.

So here are some of the things that frustrate me:

• Successful People – there I said it, they make me so mad that they can seem to get things done that I can’t, that nothing seems to be a problem for them, etc, etc.

• Crowds – this one is especially a problem in London, and even more so now its Christmas. What do people really expect that London has that everywhere else doesn’t have at Christmas? Other places have lights, shops, Christmas trees, Carol Concerts, etc. There is no reason to come to London for Christmas – its crowded, hot, smelly and dirty. Also while we’re at it, can we ban the ‘non-Christian’ celebration of Christmas. Today in ASDA I had no choice but to by Christmas Toilet Paper, what the fuck is that about?

• Things I have done in my past and how they seem to effect me now – or maybe this should be ‘the overreaction of the Police and the Public to anyone who might in some way pose a threat to children’. Get a life – stop dressing your children like strippers and maybe they wouldn’t be in danger. I am sure I could have been of help to many people, maybe I could have worked in the NHS – at one point I considered training as a radiographer – fat chance of that now. Same with the Coastguard – I’d like to think that I have a fairly good knowledge of geography and the sea, but can’t help anyone with it now.

• Here’s a big one – Money – and why some people seem to have it all and others (including myself) don’t have any. So yesterday I went out and brought a HD TV, it wasn’t a big one – I didn’t spend a huge amount of money, but now if I am going to return to work I will probably struggle to buy a travelcard and have to survive on the bear minimum for the rest of the month. Note to people with money – there is more to life than ivory back-scratchers.

• Jobs and how other people seem to cope with jobs they don’t particularly like and I can’t. Yes perhaps a few weeks ago I was happy with the job I am doing, now there isn’t enough work because there are too many people and I never seem to get involved in stuff that is actually going to be useful.  It also filled with petty dictators who seem to think it is their personal goal to get in the way of what you are trying to do and generally make you job even harder than it should be.

• Public transport – and how we can’t seem to understand that if we want a better service then we have to spend money. That cramming huge numbers of people into the tube is damn-right dangerous and that pretty soon someone is going to get killed.

• Relationships and Friendships and why everyone else seem to have no trouble and yet I always seem to fail. I do not want to hear that “there are plenty more fish in the sea” because quite clearly from where I am sitting, all women hate me and none of them would want to take their clothes off for me, unless I paid them.

• Health problems – Diabetes and my issues controlling it – which are mostly down to my depression and “can’t be bothered” attitude. Bowel problems and always looking for a toilet, not to mention the fact that no store or restaurant ant seem to keep clean, functioning toilets with sufficient paper.

• 2012 and the stupid Olympics - why did we sign up for this? This is just an excuse to waste money left right and centre – how is it going to make any difference to the people visiting that local streets have new paving stones and new street lights. Can we not focus on the real problem – that London has enough traffic problems as it is without digging up the roads to make them worse.

• I am sure there are many other things, but then I can’t really think straight at the moment.

I suppose the thing that frustrates me the most is that I can’t change my outlook on things: I can’t stop thinking about how the government is fucking up this country, I can’t stop thinking about how things would be different if…, I can’t stop thinking about how messed up everything is and how messed up I am. So this endless rumination about everything just goes on and it makes me more and most frustated and more and more depressed and so I end up logically thinking, “I can’t fix this, I can’t deal with this all the time – so I may as well kill myself”.

Clearly someone out there can help me, but I suspect that I would have to want to be helped, well I do, except everything seems so hard at the moment. Why should I have to be the one who has to seek out treatments and drugs, etc. I am the one with the problem, I am disabled for fuck sake! Come to me and fix me, this is all I ask.

So I am now living in London with my old friend Ben A’Lee in a nice flat in Hackney, which isn’t the murders and rapist playground that people imagine. Hackney is a pretty up and coming place these days, just at the end of our road is the north-west corner of the Olympic Park and we can see the media/press centre being built from our window! I have gotten to know the area quite well and apart from free cash machines being a 20 minute walk away, all is good.

Last week I was quite shocked when someone actually offered me a job! Its been so long (15 months or so) since I have worked that I had really forgotten what it was like to be able to get work! I shall be working for a company called “Samvo” who provide online gambling services. They are very big in the Far East apparently, but most things are run from London. It will be a combination of Windows and Linux Systems Administration and I am quite looking forward to starting on 23/08/2010. My only issue is that my commute (the job is in West London) is about 1hr each way, although I guess that is London for you! Formerly prospective employers in the North West didn’t want to know if I told them I had no car or that it would take me an hour on the train to get to their office, so just shows you how things are different here.

I have just spent about 2hrs trying to migrate my lighttpd configuration back to apache, mostly because there are quite a few things you can’t do with lighttpd… If you are trying to get things working, make sure that your browsers cache isn’t caching your fails, otherwise things will take you twice as long – including firefox caching the fact that its being sent php before its been processed and therefore trying to download it!

Well I think I should try to sleep for a bit, got to get up in 2hrs to go to Royal London Hospital and hopefully have the rest of my tooth removed!

So tonight a friend of mine brought over 2 Dell Servers that weren’t working. Although they turned on, there was no video and just the flashing amber “something is wrong” light!

Click on pics to show larger version…

(Stripped down Server)

After stripping both down to the motherboard I find that both had a mis-seated CPU, with the CPU coming out with the heatsink (even though the retention mechanism was locked!). So I clean the gunk off the CPU’s, re-gunk, put it all back together et voila 2 working servers.

(Intel Xenon CPU Stuck to Heatsink!)

(YAY! It boots!)

The thing is, even though I started doing this at 11:00pm and didn’t finish until 3am, even though the noise of them running (still installing operating systems) is so loud I can hear it in the next room, even though I knew there was going to be no payment for this job… I still loved it and put my best into it.

(My desk piled with servers!)

So working with hardware is what I love, I just need to find a job where there isn’t too much pressure and I don’t have too much responsibility. Any offers?

On the afternoon of Monday 11th January 2010 (local time in Calgary) I was deemed inadmissible to Canada and sent back to London, this is what I scrawled on the back of 6 pages of paper which was originally my receipt and itinerary from Air Canada. If it sounds like a suicide note, that’s because it

I hereby voluntarily withdraw my application to enter Canada and agree to leave Canada without delay.

is or it was, I don’t know what the correct term should be. Some names have been blocked out to protect people. You’re probably going to ask that question everyone asks in times like these, do you still feel the same? The answer is yes, I do.

So this is the third time I’ve been denied entry or as they euphemistically call it “withdrawing your application for entry”. I doubt, given the information which Interpol clearly holds on me (although I am unable to see) that I have no chance of entering any countries which I don’t have an automatic right to travel to – i.e. countries within the EEA.

I really hoped that I could pull this off – for a start it seemed that the Canadian Government wanted a lot less information from me on entry and none before leaving (See new US rules requiring incoming passengers to notify CBP/TSA of details before leaving their home airport). However I really think that the biggest problem is that I am the worst liar, clearly I would be no good at poker, for that is what it is like when you are travelling to foreign countries.

My plan was to get to Vancouver and then after checking out the city, to make my way south towards the border. Then either find a secluded enough place to walk across the border or maybe try my luck at the truck stops, see if the drivers could be bribed to get me across.

I would then make my way to Seattle and then travel to Denver by either train, bus or air. Whilst air travel would be the quickest method, must trust in the TSA not to run my details through some database is not high and it seems too risky. Airports are like prisons, difficult to escape from. The train would have been a nice, albeit expensive trip, changing in Sacramento and then via Salt Lake City to Denver, I have never been on Amtrak or seen the Pacific ocean.

I really thought I could help XXXXX, if I could get to Denver. I was concerned that despite her detox, she had started drinking again. I don’t like to preach to people (especially when I’ve never been an alcoholic) but if you are a recovering alcoholic then its no booze for life. I was prepared to help XXXXX by going to AA/NA meetings, therapy/education to get her driving license back and generally being there as someone who understands what it is to be different. I also hoped that perhaps in way of return for staying I could help in her Dad’s franchise businesses.

So what next, well apart from a flight back from Calgary to London? I don’t know what to do. I had basically given up on my life in England. Locked myself out of my apartment, sent bills etc. to my folks and only taken what I really needed with me. I had even emailed a friend asking him to change my passwords on social networking and email sites so that I could not slip back into my old life and potentially be tracked by the US Government.

Before I went to University in Plymouth in 2005 I had spent quite some time thinking that this would be the ultimate next step. That if I could get through 4 years of education and get that magical piece of paper at the end, then all my problems would be solved – job, social and financial. In my mind, my college experience may as well been written by Walt Disney. When I actually got there I found that I was good at some things but really bad at the things that mattered – maths and generally getting stuff done. At heart I guess I am a quitter with a strong sense of ‘self preservation’.

After I dropped out of Plymouth in 2006 I tried to change, but so far I can’t seem to change the flaws in my character that make sustaining things difficult. Jobs, ideas, education, they never seem to last long. Sometimes I make great strategies that I will do whatever it takes to get through and get back on track, but these days the plans rarely last 24hrs before I wake up tired and disillusioned, thinking – ‘can I really be bothered to do this?’, roll over and go back to sleep. Sometimes I wish I was 18 again, amongst all the beautiful people I see today; but I doubt it would make it any better, I still wouldn’t have anything in common with them.

It has never really been my intention to be useless, I really wanted to be of some use to some one; hence wanting to go to Denver, by fair means or foul.

So I really want people to know how sorry I am that it came to this; my body has too many issues that I can’t really fix. My brain – well I have tried taking pills, many different doctors and mental health professionals, but I can’t seem to fix the issues that lurk up there, and that is before we mix in Asperger’s, ADHD, etc.

XXXXX told me not long ago that I was the person keeping her from killing herself. I wanted so much to help, but there is not much I can do from 4,000 miles away for a person who lives in a country I may as well be banned from. I guess its the old mantra “do what I say, don’t do what I do”.

So, it always seems a shame to me when I get to this stage. 2hrs ago I was resigned to my fate, that I would drift gently into a coma somewhere around 20,000ft on re-entry into UK airspace. Now I feel like shit, it isn’t working and I don’t know what to do now.

Sometimes I am inclined to believe in L. Ron Hubbard’s immortal words – that psychiatry doesn’t work. Most of it is an affront by Lilly et al to make money from SSRI’s – which isn’t working so well for them any more since the patents have run out. Even if I “turned myself in” – went to casualty at a hospital on landing, they wouldn’t be inclined to help much since I don’t live in London.

Other ideas:
Fall from heights – Out of the question since I am too scared to actually jump.
In front of a train/car – again too scared and have too much respect for train drivers.
Suicide by cop – Heathrow’s armed Police, maybe an option – but how much do you need to piss them off before they would shoot you?

I don’t want to go home, since then I would have to face people just to get back into my flat. In my mind failure was not an option. Damn you Asperger’s Syndrome and the Canadian Government.

I always know what people think when I do this, that I am too pragmatic about it. I talk about death the way old folks talk about taking a cruise of the Mediterranean. Resigned to the fate but not angry, verbal or aggravated. Maybe this is why I have never really been taken seriously or sectioned; Doctors simply don’t believe I will do it.

I could inject more insulin, but would it work or would the physical effects of low blood sugar be too much to bare – my kingdom for a cookie and a soda!

I am reminded at this time by the Meat Loaf song “Life is a Lemon (and I want my money back)” except its not my money, very little of it ever was – now of course Student Loans will catch up with the fact that I have effectively dropped out of Bolton and send the boys round for the grant part of the money. Why not just add to the bill – it’s never going to get paid back, the chances of me keeping a job with a salary of over £15,000 a year before I am 55 are very very slim.

Well Ben A’Lee has the magical list of passwords so no doubt you can contact him to get the word out about my demise, since its unlikely to make news in the UK, US or anywhere else I might know someone on Facebook, et al.

I was trying to be productive and watch a movie just now; the selection is pretty bad compared to Continental and Virgin whom I have flown with before – probably to save room for Canadian content in the hope of placating those Frenchmen in Montreal.

Memento – seen it before and to be honest its kinda boring. For those of you who don’t know the protagonist who is searching for his wife’s murderer is his wife’s murderer.

The Horse Boy – ‘tragic’ autism story – get a grip, so maybe your kid can’t speak, but its not as if you had any control in the matter and horses ain’t gonna cure him.

Post Grad – Annoying, mainly for the reasons that other people having that magical piece of paper are difficult to deal with for me.

Finally saw “District 9” (not great), Bandslam (Good), Some initial episodes of “Bored Stupid” (HBO) – Quite good. Also saw some episodes of Showtime’s Californication with David Duchovny, however its overtly sexual content always annoys me because it just reminds me of the fact that it seems everyone is having sex but me.

I suppose that my boredom and ranting may have reached new levels, the captive audience at 37,000 feet eh?

Other people’s words – Chris Slater-Walker once said that he “didn’t know how he could be any good to society”, this is pretty much how I feel. Folks often say “what a waste” when people kill themselves. But is it, really? I am probably more of a drain on society than anything else – perhaps I should offer myself as sacrifice to those militant tax payers who think of me as “Dole Scum”. Not only am I a drain on the public purse, but that of my parents as well – ideas that I would one day repay them for all the debts I have racked up are long gone now. They are the ones who ulitmately have to pay and I don’t think they should. Genetics and mental health is not really anyone’s “fault”.

There has to be some way I can make this suicide work today. I can’t run away, mainly because I am no good at that anyway – both physically and on-line. I guess I long for home comforts too much and space to do what I want, even when my flat seems to become a prison cell.<Photo 1>

In my last post I talked about how I was struggling with assignments and had difficulty accessing the JANET UK Univesrsity Roaming Service. I am glad to say that I have now finished the assignment I was struggling with and that I have resolved the issues I was having with Roaming.

I think the main issue with the Assignment – which was to write a report about a Engineer/Technologist who had made a significant impact on society, was that I had tried to go too deep. No word limit was specified and although pointers were specified about the sort of information required I didn’t really know how much detail to write about each bit.

Anyway, its all over now and I just have to get an assignment done for a module called “Product Realisation” which is about how the electronics industry actually works. I have 2 circuit diagrams and I have to copy them into a SPICE simulation package called Multisim, then do the PCB layout in Ultiboard (which is part of the same package as Multisim).

This is a fairly easy task, but unfortunately Multisim/Ultiboard are not available off campus due to licensing restrictions and the licenses are a bit difficult to bypass. But I have until 17th December to do that, so I expect it will be OK in the end. Incidentally Multisim is a very bad package and my tutor says he was once given a spec for a military project which specifically said “DO NOT USE MULTISIM!”

The issue with the Roaming Service was that I had my wireless driver set to verify the certificate provided, clearly something dodgy is going on at Bolton, because there instructions specifically say to turn off certificate verification! Again this is another example of how bad a University it is and how it has become too big for its boots! Never enough computers available for use, very small library and a general penny pinching attitude – we’ll try and get as many students on a course as we can, never mind if its booked for a room where there aren’t enough computers or we don’t have enough licenses for the software they are using!

I will try to decide in a few months time what to do next, weather to stick around or take my credits and go somewhere else…

So, I guess we all (Students) have this problem, assignment x is due on date y, Time is now y-4 and it isn’t done! Like I said back in “Hello from Newcastle“, these things are difficult for me.

I think that the latest batch of undergradates are probably members of the ADD generation – not that they have ADD, but more that life has too many distractions. Facebook, Myspace, IM, email, texts… we can now access these services anywhere at any time. Nearly everyone has a laptop or some kind of computer of their own and the temptation to go off and chat/social network is probably greatest when we are bored, but know whe have stuff to do: Procrastination. Workplaces have to block these sites because people would get no work done otherwise (not to mention the possibility of litigation).

Now I know I cannot blame anyone for this, no-one held a gun to my head and said “join Facebook” but sometimes it seems that way! I guess in these modern times our lives are bankrupt to the point where we just have to know what everyone else is doing to be happy!

Tonight I had a plan, thanks to agreements between North West Universities I am able to go to any University and use their library to study. I am also able (theoretically) to use Internet facilities of  any University in the UK that participates in the Eduroam Service. I made this choice because home is too distracting and Bolton has a very poor library with little space to study and never enough computers.

So I went to Lancaster University, because I know that there is no requirement there to show ID to get in, so no arguments with jobsworth security guards. I did do some work, approxmately 300 words about Alan Turing for an assignment due Friday, but sadly Eduroam failed. I could not logon to the system and I don’t know if this is the fault of Bolton or Lancaster, but according to JAnet their systems are supposedly up to scratch. I have emailed Bolton to ask what’s up.

Possibly this wasn’t the best of ideas, an hour’s travelling time or so each way to do 300 words, but I did do something and I suppose I should think about that rather than thinking “I can’t do this, there is no point in me remaining at University”.

it may be gray outside in Massachusetts — at least there are still rainbows in my soap bubbles – Star Simpson

I got back from a wet evening in Manchester and this quote made me smile. Its been been difficult lately…

For those of you who are new to the world of Seth, I have Diabetes and a messed up Pancreas, these health issues go back about 10 years now, before that I was skinny and had no problems. This is of course on top of my Asperger Syndrome and “additional mental health issues”…

The Pancreas issues started when I was 20, I suddenly got terrible pain in my abdomen and had to call an ambulance; this kinda thing went on for about 2 years, every few months or so. Removing my gall bladder didn’t help! The damage done to my pancreas by all these bouts of pancreatitis – basically the pancreas tries to digest itself – left me with a problem digesting fats… sometimes its better than others, sometimes I eat something with a minimal amount of fat in and minutes later (I kid you not) I am running for the bathroom.

When I was 24 I found out that not only had the enzyme producing part of my Pancreas messed up, but the Insulin producing part had as well and I now had diabetes. At first it was easy, I would ensure, no-matter what that I had my insulin pen and my glucometer with me and would always test and inject before meals. Then I got depressed, pissed off and I have never really gotten it right again for very long since about 2007.

Recently its been really getting me down, over the summer I had a blood test which seemed to suggest that I am making my own insulin and that my diabetes might be more like Type 2 than Type 1 – Type 2 diabetics produce insulin but can’t use it, Type 1 diabetics have no or very little insulin production. So I started taking tablets instead of insulin during the day and then I realised they weren’t working, so try a different tablet – last week I figure out this isn’t working either. Yesterday I realised I couldn’t bring my blood sugar down even by injecting an amount that would have been normal for me a few months ago.

So it seems for the past few weeks, my blood sugar has been sky high, I have spent the best part of my waking life on the toilet, but I am still alive I guess and not going blind, etc, yet…

The weirdest part is that you can have these problems with blood sugar, but not really feel any different. Granted I want to sleep a lot – which has kinda messed things up: On Thursday night I was supposed to take my Intermediate Amateur (HAM) Radio License exam. I got home from University and all I wanted to do was sleep, I could not contemplate getting on 2 buses, taking the exam and getting home… I turned my phone off and went to sleep. Now I have voicemails and emails to deal with – “where were you?!”. Today I wasn’t at my lectures – the most boring ‘crossover’ module on “The Engineering Environment” is shared with mechanical engineers and mostly seems to be about writing about your favourite dead engineer – I have chosen Alan Turing, although I haven’t started writing the essay yet.

So tomorrow I will go in, I will go to bed in a minute and I will try my hardest to get up at 7am, shower, do the things normal people do and sit for 3hrs soldering my function generator project together and hopefully have something I can test at the end of the lab session.

So I hope that explains “where I have been” these last few days…