Torque's Talk

Methinks I have to start this journal off by saying how much I love this fandom/community/whatever you wanna call it. I’ve loved it since the day I became part of it, though this past couple of weeks have shown me just how awesome it can be. <3

This past few weeks have been preeeetty hard on me financially. I’ve been waiting on a loan coming through which will cover my masters degree and living expenses for the next year, but for various stupid little reasons it’s been pushed back again and again (It’s about a month late now). As a result, whilst waiting all this extra time, I’ve basically just run out of money. I’m way too deep into my overdraft, and my parents are unfortunately broke as well, so they have been unable to support me for most expenses (They they have helped me out with some food money, at least :) ). 

After a particularly bad day/night (won’t go into depth, but everything that could go wrong went wrong. I even got beaten up by some random angry guy for doing absolutely nothing) I came home to find out the loan had been delayed for the third time. As a result I ended up posting a few rather panicked messages on twitter, just to vent really, I didn’t expect anything to come of them.

Within just three hours, I had three people offering to help me out with rent money, and so many well wishers I lost count! One close friend (Ya know who you are!) also surprised me by paypalling some money to me to cover food n’ stuff for a while. Within just a few days, another close friend (You also know who you are!) had sent me all the money I needed to cover my rent for the month (Little under £200)! 

I was honestly taken back by how quickly people were willing to lend a hand. I’m truly grateful, and actually rather touched by it all. :)

On top of this, a group of local furs who I’ve gotten to know over the past few months have been providing good company, and a lot of support. I’ve been managing to go to the cinema with them pretty often, and since a few of them are at my University we’ve made a point to meet up for lunch between lectures each week. It’s been nice!  

To everyone that’s helped me out, or just provided support recently, I really can’t thank you enough! <3 

It might have been a hard time, but it’s helped me to appreciate this fandom a whole lot more than I already did, and I’m proud to be a part of it. :D

Unfortunately my loan -still- hasn’t come through yet, but it -should- be here by Monday. Since it’s been delayed 3-4 times already I’m not holding out too much hope for it coming through by then, but I think I should be alright!

Once again, thank you all! <3

I’m gonna head to bed now though, it’s nearly 5:00am. X3 See ya later, Take care!

Once again I’ve taken waaaay too long updating this thing apart from random memestuffs and friend pimping. X3

As the subject says: Birthday today! =D

Not really got much planned for today apart from a meal with the parents later, though most of the day will be spent tidying the house, ready for a little house party/gathering/gaming night on Saturday. :) Should be a good laugh methinks! 

Not a huuuuge amount has been happening around here lately! Since passing my degree I’ve had about 3 1/2 months of freedom, which was pretty awesome and full of social stuffs to begin with, but then once everyone started running low on funds it’s got a lot quieter and more boring lately. :P

Managed to go to the cinema a LOT this year though! Probably more than I have in the last 3 years combined. X3 So far I’ve seen:

- Inception (Awesomeness)

- Toy Story 3 

- Alice In Wonderland 

- Four Lions (Filmed in my city (Sheffield)! Though they keep trying to say it’s London XP )

- Lebanon

- Knight and Day 

- The A-Team

- The Expendables

- Scott Pilgrim Vs The World (Awesomeness)

And i’m still planning on seeing quite a few more before the end of the year. ;) 

A couple of weeks ago I got accepted to do a Masters degree in Biomedical Basis of Disease, so I’ll be heading back to university on the 20th to start on that! =D 

I’ve only got my timetable for the first week so far, and it’s EVIL, so it’s already looking kinda daunting. XD Think I’ll be saying goodbye to free time and any form of social life for a year from the look of things. :P

The only worrying thing is that I’m still waiting to hear whether or not I’m eligible for a loan I REALLY need to cover the course costs and living expenses for the year. If I don’t get this, I’m kinda screwed, so yeah… Eep! X_x

If I can get the loan, all will be well! I’ll be able to live a little mroe comfortably this year, aaaand I’m taking out a little extra so I can get this: 

http://www.guitarampkeyboard.com/photo.php?id=71458 <3

I’ve been wanting a drum kit for YEARS now but never had the money or space for one. I thought Rock Band would at least calm my drum cravings but instead it only proved that I actually could play, and therefore made me want a kit even more!

Since I’m just in a little terrace house with lots of people living near me (The neighbour’s kid’s room is right next to mine X3 ), a proper kit would make me pretty unpopular quickly, so I thought I’d take the electronic route for now since I can use headphones. I should also be able to hook it up to the computer so I can play DTXmania as well. <3

Oh, one other worry is that I need to have dental surgery on monday. X_x Gotta get two teeth removed, but one of them is awkward and has stupidly deep roots, so rather than just pulling it out they need to cut it out. D: It’s gotta be a bad sign when even the dentist says I’m not going to like them for quite a while afterwards. X_x

Aah well, other than money and teeth, all is well! :)

See you all later, take care! 

Torque

Well, after three pretty stressy years of Uni I just got my final results.

I somehow managed to pass everything!

I now have a BSc (Hons) in Biomedical Science! :D

Unfortunately I didn’t quite get the grade I was hoping for, which is meh, but I’m still really happy I managed to pass all my modules, since I really thought I’d be retaking at least 3 exams. X3

I’ll write a better journal soon since I’ve actually got quite a bit to talk about for a change, but since I’m typing this on my phone i’ll wait for now. :B

Well, this blog got off to a good start! One post about how I’m gonna update more often, then it got neglected. Go me!

Things have been insanely busy lately, both in and out of Uni. Fortunately social stuff has played a big part in that, which makes a nice change after a long period where my social life pretty much died. =P

I’ve finally finished my 6 week lab project! Unfortunately almost everything went wrong, including my supervisor getting stuck in Portugal during the last 2 weeks of the project, when I needed her most. :P As a result I was left with absolutely no positive results, and barely anything to write about, since I had no clue -why- anything went wrong. 

Fortunately! Since my tutor getting stuck held me back quite a bit, I managed to get a 3 day extension to run one more test… It worked! ^^ I still didn’t get all the results I needed (That would have taken at least an extra 2 weeks to regrow a load of cells), but I did get the single result I needed which proved my entire experiment worked! So huzzah!

Now that’s all over, I’m aaaalmost finished with University! I have no more labs, and no more lectures! Though on the downside I still have a 10,000 word lab report to write up for the 19th… And I’m only just starting on it tonight. Eep! X3

Other news:

Came out of the furry closet to the same girl I came out to a few weeks back. She was kinda terrified when I first asked her if she’d heard about furry stuff, though after telling her I’m one, and after about 3 hours of explanation, she actually thinks it’s all pretty awesome! :)

We also found out a couple of days ago that one of our friends is also a fellow fur (I suspected it for months, so it was more of a confirmation really), so that was kinda cool.

To top it off, I also found out one of her friends (who I’ve only known for the past week or so) happens to be best friends with another fur I’ve been talking to online for a couple of years. XD

Finally, I had a friend stay over last night who’s generally veeeery open about his hatred of furs, and who rants about them whenever possible. About 10 minutes after a long rant about them he saw my bedroom. He came in, sat at my desk,  looked around at the masses of artwork I have covering my furniture, then said in a very unimpressed voice “Oh… Furries…” The look on his face as he realized he’s been friends with a fur for about 2 years was priceless. XD 

I was tempted to confirm his thoughts by just saying “Yup, I’m one of em!” but instead just settled with agreeing that they were indeed furries. I’m pretty sure he figured out the rest himself. :P

I was amused :)

After following a link from a friend here, I thought this place seemed pretty interesting, so I thought I’d give it a go myself.

I’ve had blogs before, but I usually just ignore them for months, then update with a big random essay about any significant events in that time. Instead I’m wanting to use this place to write about all that kinda thing as it happens, rather than weeks/months later.

Prooobably gonna be starting with a bit of an essay though since it’s been at least a month since my last LJ update. =P

At the moment I’m currently in the middle of a 7 week long research/lab project at Uni, looking into treating SHSY5Y cells (Neuroblastomas (Brain cancer cells)) with Nerve Growth Factor, to essentially make them more like brain cells, then I’ll be testing the treated and untreated cells to work out what the differences are. I’m loving it so far!

For the past 2 1/2 years, all of our lab work has been strictly time tabled, under intense supervision, and just spent blindly following instructions. Now however, we are left entirely to our own devices! Our supervisors pop up now and again to guide us in roughly the right direction, but the rest is left up to us, from planning out the experiment, to booking equipment/chemicals we need, growing our own cells for testing, and carrying out the experiments ourselves. It feels good finally having more independence in labs.

Unfortunately, so far everything is going wrong. XD All my cells are dying on me, and I have no idea why. I’ve only managed to harvest enough cells for a couple of tests, which I worked on over the past couple of days, buuuut that messed up as well, leaving me three weeks into the project, with no results. Woo! ;D

Aah well, I’m still enjoying it so far, starting to feel like a proper scientist now. XD

Outside Uni, I just got myself a shiny new iPod touch… Oh god I love it with mouth… <3 Traded in an old phone and my DS for it last week, and so far it’s definitely been worth the trade! It’s just the 8gig one, since I got it pretty much purely for the apps and internet, but it’s definitely handy to have with me. I’ve already used in labs many times to email my supervisor or look up protocols for a couple of experiments.  The fact that there’s free wifi points all over the city helps as well. <3

Hmmm… What else is new… 

Oh yeah, I thought a female friend had a crush on me for a while, and eventually decided to randomly come out to her before an “I like you!” “Oh… I like men…” moment could happen (Already had that once, it’s awkward =P ).

As it was, she actually had a crush on someone else. XD Aah well, she actually thinks it’s pretty awesome that I have teh ghey, and it’s pretty cool having someone near by I can talk to about it whenever (Not even my housemates know yet, though it wouldn’t really surprise me if they’ve figured it out by now). I met up with her for lunch on tuesday and ended up sat in some nice gardens in town just talking and having a laugh, it was nice. :) It’s also the first time in months I’ve ended up laughing so much it -really- hurt, then laughed some more, then laughed over the fact it was hurting, then laughed at her for being in the same situation. XD

Aah well, that’s about all I can think of to talk about for now! Gonna try and update this thing more often than I have with previous blogs so we’ll see how it goes. :)