mogwai_do

And to be fair this isn't an update; this is a rant.

Last week was a week off for me - using up annual leave before Christmas. It has been possibly the most futile attempt at time off. I'm back at work tomorrow and today has been a definite downer-day, segueing into diffuse anger. After stewing all day, I think I've worked out where it's come from.

We'll start by saying the last couple of months have been hectic on many fronts - a lot of travelling - including weekends. A lot of work stress. Stuff like that.

So, the Friday I stopped for the week I had to work late for reasons, then just as I was about to go I got a phone call that presaged a whole shitstorm of academic ego - I've got that to look forward to on my return. Anyway I ended up leaving with a splitting headache - stress reaction to a long day. Saturday I felt utterly wiped - part of it was the lingering headache, part of it probably my body going 'right, you don't *have* to do anything, stop now'. Sunday was a bit improved, but not fabulous.

Monday I visited my favourite cousin - this was actually the sole highlight of the week. *However*, I inquired if my mum wanted to come along too and see that side of the family before Christmas - she did and somehow that turned into her deciding to stay the Monday night with me so we could go Christmas shopping on Tuesday. I didn't buy anything and wasn't really interested; she bought most of her presents and it took most of the day.

Wednesday, I wanted a breather as I still felt very tired. Started getting emails from work from the minion who will be leaving in the New Year, but has yet to hand her notice in. I had told them they could contact me if there was anything urgent/important of which 2 things were on my radar as possibles. In the space of 3 days, she emailed me multiple times, only 1 of which was important - 1 was whining about an 'unfair' system (which is equally unfair to everyone I should point out, my urge to respond with 'get over it' was strong), several asking for annual leave that I've been trying to get her to take for weeks as at this stage it makes things complicated and again complaining that the system is unfair (she's welcome to take it up with central HR if she feels like it), another 1 about the unfair system, there were others that I've mostly blanked from my memory now, the last one was saying an editor wants a presentation, she's emailed him this one, she supposes I wasn't aware that he needed it - no I wasn't because a) he didn't tell me and b) one of her ongoing tasks is to be checking with them for these kind of things because they sometimes forget to tell us. She sent the wrong presentation - I have no idea why she sent it to him first *then* asked me - surely common sense says check first and have a time by which if you haven't had a response send your best guess. By Friday and that last email I just had to get out the flat - which I'd been planning to do anyway, but because I was in such a state, I forgot to pick up the one thing I actually needed to accomplish the errand I'd planned to run. So accomplished approximately nada. I still haven't managed to do any of the errands I'd originally planned to sort in the time off.

Today my brothers, their partners and children all had a get-together at one of their houses - I found out about it second hand. It's not so much that I wasn't invited, I suspect that was because it would be a 6hr round trip for me as opposed to only a 3hr round trip for each of them, but they made that decision for me.

And that pretty much sums up the whole thing - I'd have been better off staying at work. My mum, without even thinking about it, took away my control at the start of the week. The work person took away my control in the latter part. I was too exhausted to resist the steamrollering or to shrug off and ignore the work person - she really got under my skin (part of this is compounded by the fact I have bent over backwards to try and accommodate her requests regarding leaving and nothing is good enough and she just keeps messing me around), to the point of me wanting to smash something - hence fleeing the flat.

I'm left feeling depressed, stressed, excluded and frustrated and ranting here because Facebook has too many people who might be offended and/or horrified. At the current rate, the first person to ask me tomorrow if I had a nice break will be likely to get punched in the face - that's how wound up I am right now. I hate everything and everyone and they can all just piss off.

So, how has your day been?

I have *finally* got the new contract for my job - it's really not all I'd hoped for salary-wise, but I'm willing to accept it as a transitional stage to stepping up again (implication being next year), when I've satisfied their tickbox requirements for line management experience.

I did an induction for a new editor today and in terms of logistics, etc. I think it went well, my only niggle was that I included my colleague in it and I felt sometimes that she was being too... familiar? Excitable maybe? And not as professional as I would like. I don't know how much, if any of that reflected on me. It would have been difficult to keep her out of it, but in retrospect I probably would have been better off not including her in most of it. I don't know. Is that harsh?

In aikido... well I don't know that I've made any appreciable progress in much of anything, which is depressing. No further news on my sensei's move, which I guess is a no news is good news kind of scenario.

Self-confidence remains the biggest problem on all fronts :(

I still can't get my head around another case of, for want of a better term, attracting sensei - and I'm not talking about the young-ish guys who have the title because they started a club, but the time-served ones. I just don't see whatever it is that seems to inspire this. On the upside, I've been told if I make it out to the Rotterdam dojo, they'll take me to the best Indonesian restaurant in the city. Since I'll probably have to go to Rotterdam for work - I think I can make this work somehow...

Title: Picking Up The Pieces

Pairing: Sherlock/John

Rating: NC-17

Warnings: BDSM, consensual violence

Wordcount: ~1,500

Summary: In the aftermath of a case gone a bit wrong, John does what he has to to help Sherlock get past it. Could be classified as hurt/comfort...if maybe they're the same thing...

On A03 here

I was going to open with 'I read this fic', but actually I didn't really get that far into it before I was properly creeped out.

Perhaps my reading is wrong, but the whole premise appeared to be X is a virgin, this needs to be fixed then many other characters, who then proceed to objectify them, then for want of a better word gang up and sexually assault X. Of course character X then loves it in the sluttiest manner... All this is presented as being good, right, logical and/or even desirable. And we're not even going into the OOC-ness of it all.

I... Is it just me? Or are there really so many things wrong with that it's hard to know where to begin? Am I being oversensitive?

I've read fic that upset me, I've read fic that offended me, this is the first time I've read fic that really made my skin crawl - it was topped off with a whole bunch of comments about how very hot it was.

DO. NOT. WANT.

When you are reading a slashfic (as you do), set in a modern world AU, and come across something that by implication says that anyone (nevermind a young male in a bar) who has a condom must be a prostitute?

Seriously? I'm not sure whether I should be more dismayed or disgusted.

Gave up on it, skimmed a bit further into the story, but saw a couple of similar things along the lines of 'should have known he was a prostitute because only a prostitute would...'.

Ugh.

I think I'll stop reading for now and go kill things in computer games instead.

Also, I do hope that if anyone spots anything like that in one of my fics please slap me upside the head.

Dear author

I am prepared to overlook some grammatical/spelling issues for the sake of a decent fic, but you started to lose me as soon as Sherlock turned all teenage girl about romantic, perfect first times and twu wuv, but when you got to the anal sex with a virgin receiving with no prep at all.... no.

I can understand that you may not want to do research, but surely a little common sense?

Am I just being bitchy or is the ratio of crap fic to good or merely decent increasing?

you'd come up with a cure for the common cold.

Failing that, I will settle for: a good dhansak, the Hobbit movie, those nice balm tissues, more ginger for my ginger and honey drinks, and speaking of ginger, Benedict Cumberbatch for warming purposes and maybe a few updates on certain fic. My evening would be much more tolerable then.

In short, for those that don't know or haven't guessed. I have a *stinking* sinus cold. I've not had one this bad in a while; it completely flattened me on Sunday with very little warning on Saturday and while I am improving daily, it's not as quick as it usually is and this cold has actually made it onto my chest, which is very unusual for me.

To a certain extent, while I didn't actually expect it and don't know where it came from (but if I find out then there will be smiting); I'm actually a bit surprised it's taken this long to happen all things considered. Oh well.

I'm trying to look after myself a bit better. Bedtimes have been early for me and I've been trying to listen to what my body's telling me about rest and stuff. We'll see how it goes; I've missed one aikido class, there's another tomorrow, I may go, but I may not actually practice and maybe only stick around for an hour instead of the 2hrs... I don't know.

So, my sensei has just been awarded 6th dan by Hombu. This will mean very little to 99% of you, but take it from me this is a good thing.

I have been thinking about my aikido lately. I'm not sure what the difference is or if it's just an artifact of a more positive outlook resulting from the (perhaps misplaced) sense that things at work are finally in the process of being resolved. Regardless, I've felt a bit more confident with it, or confident is the wrong word, but it has felt like it has been going better than it has for a while.

It's also made me conscious of several areas I do need to focus on. Last Monday's class was a bit different, with the weather there were only a few of us (me, M - another black belt, and T) and one is gearing up for his 1st kyu grading (the one below black belt for those that don't know), so it's pretty major. Obviously, we primarily focused on what he needed to do, which is fine, everyone's been there and no-one minds when it's someone else's turn. Anyway, so it wasn't so much of a class as a structured revision and basically after running through a few jo kata for warm-ups - possibly I shouldn't get so confident with those, he made me do the 13-count on my knees - which I did - Ha! He turned it into... not a mock-grading, but no demonstrations, just sensei calling out the techniques as per a grading and each of us taking it in turn as tori - me first as the ranking student.

Some of those techniques we haven't done in *ages*, so I was really pleased I actually remembered some of the trickier ones and without prompting. I did however get hit on the nose moderately hard which highlighted (painfully) one of my known existing weaknesses that I really need to work on. Basically it was an overhead strike and while I was fast enough and in the right place, instead of deflecting it as I should, instead my arm just collapsed and being a big heavy bloke the strike just carried on through. Ow.

So, I need to work on my extension, which is something I've always found difficult and as a female and therefore generally both smaller and weaker than most of the people I practice with, it is something I need to get right to avoid precisely this. It's not just evident here, but also in my breakfalls - part of my problem with them stems from prior injury, so a combination of out of practice and then instinctively trying to protect the injury even though it's better-ish. I think I need to speak to my sensei about it; I know some of the guys have asked for flexibility training recently because well, they don't have much. That seems easier to do on your own, I'm not sure what exercises, etc would help the extension issue, but it is something I need to address and I don't know where/how to start.

I'm also considering taking my weapons home from the dojo once the weather improves, to see if I can get the 50-count kata down - the bit between 33-40 keeps confusing me horribly.

I think the only solution is to win the lottery... it's a shame I don't actually play it.

Huh. It's funny that. I think about what I would do with a massive lottery win and the first things that come to mind are: donating money to my dojo because the building needs maintenance my sensei can't afford very easily; helping a friend and his wife who've been really struggling financially for the last 2 years through no fault of their own; getting my parents' house fixed up properly. I can't actually think of anything I actually want for myself. Strange. I'm sure I could think of something to spend it on, but nothing I would consider actually necessary.

In other news, I'm thinking of trying to get an AO3 account and uploading all my fic there. I think there's a long waiting list or something - not sure. I don't know, but it seems to be the new default location for a lot of fic given the tumblr/LJ split. Anyone have an account? Is it worth doing?

Well the festive depression has arrived sooner than anticipated, but there you go.

My brother (of the super-secret pregnancy) is a pillock. He told me off this morning for mentioning my upcoming auntihood on facebook yesterday. It hadn't occurred to him that he might not be the only one of my three brothers with a functioning penis. They're due January and June.

I don't feel the least bit festive and I haven't decorated at all, nor do I expect I will. There doesn't seem to be a lot of point to it. I just feel tired, which is probably comedown from work to a large extent, but it doesn't make it any less. It may be that I'll perk up again in a day or two, but we'll see.

I don't have any plans really. I'll spend Christmas Day with my parents and brother and his wife. I have an Aikido course on the 29th and then I'll spend New Year with my parents. That's about it really. No plans to go anywhere or see anyone or do anything. I want to get something sorted and booked for next year so I have something to look forward to, but I don't know what. I'm not in the best frame of mind to look at that kind of thing at the moment anyway.

Also if anyone has any good supernatural with a twist to the spooky/horror recs for Sherlock (no character death) that would be great.