NotDan’s blog
Non-Chavvved DVDs and a JAG
I left the house this morning to go onto campus for a swim, and discovered a parcel from Amazon on my doorstep – clearly, I’d been either asleep or in the shower when the postman knocked on the door (assuming he actually did knock, of course!) so he decided to leave it out on the street – I am extremely impressed that no-one chavved it while it was sitting there! Inside was the New Beginnings box set – three Doctor Who DVDs chronicling the end of the Tom Baker era, and the beginning of Peter Davison’s tenure. Two of these (Logopolis and Castrovalva) are among my very favourite Who stories, so I’m very happy to have the set – although its arrival does represent the fact that the last of my Christmas money has been spent, and I’ll be able to afford no more treats for quite a while. Ho hum. I went to a Remploy JAG yesterday. JAG ostensibly stands for Job Action Group, but “group” was pushing things slightly and “action” was a complete misnomer. There were a handful of jobs, though, one or two of which I’m going to put myself forward for. They’re admin-type work, which isn’t *really* what I want to be doing – but then again, neither is being unemployed for the rest of my life, so I really do need to widen my net somewhat at this point. Aside from that, there’s no real gossip in my life. I’m still getting decent amounts of role-playing, board games and swimming in, so all is good!
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Sushi and Sieges!
Last few days have been lots of fun. On Friday evening, I went to a sushi night at Ben and Claire’s. Lots of fanning rice, and later, squishing it up into nigiri blocks by hand! It was the first time I’ve properly eaten raw fish, and I’m in two minds about it. The flavour is nice, and quite delicate, but the slightly slimy texture is a little off-putting. I’m hoping I can cultivate my taste for it slightly more. I did discover, though, that mackerel grilled with a little soy is *amazing*, and the evening produced a great quote from Claire – “only because I was gutting fish at the time!”
Sunday, meanwhile saw the first Scarred Lands of term. I was monstering, and so got to lay siege to my own tent, which was tremendous fun. One of Peter’s favourite tricks, back when he ran small events for the Tuatha, was to lay siege to our hall of an evening, so I already knew from experience how terrifying LARP sieges could be – I think a lot of the player party found out the hard way 
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Job hunt & unplanned musings
I had my interview with the advisor from Remploy yesterday. It seemed fairly positive, though there didn’t seem to be a huge amount going on that he couldn’t have done just from looking over my CV. He was very positive about my CV, however, which is very reassuring. I have lots of good, exciting and diverse stuff on there, apparently – which sounds great, but makes me wonder which CV all those prospective employers have been looking at! Anyway, he’s going to have various conversations with various people, and I have a follow-up appointment booked in two weeks’ time. I’m glad I have someone looking into things on my behalf, because in spite of my desire to get a job, I’m finding it increasingly difficult to get motivated to actually find one. Partly, I think, the time of year is to blame – I suddenly have so many things to fill my time with – a big stack of DVDs to watch, audio plays to listen to, and a new Zelda game to slog through, as well as all the usual term-time stuff going on – that being distracted is easier than ever. Lack of motivation doesn’t mitigate the (mild) depression caused by joblessness, however. I’ve been thinking about something my Mother said over Christmas. She opined that I’ve achieved a lot for someone with autism, in terms of independent living. While this may or may not be true – I don’t really know enough autistic folks to start making patronising comparisons – the problem is that for me, that’s not enough; I don’t judge my life by “autistic peoples’ standards”, I judge my life by regular folks’ standards, I suppose. And most regular folks my age have a job, or a partner, or even their own home. The lack of all three makes me feel… I don’t know. I was going to type, “my life certainly isn’t unhappy, but I’m not sure it’s successful.” But then I started wondering, in terms of judging the success of a life, do I really need any more criteria than “not unhappy”? And if not, then why do I seem to be so hung-up on some? Answers on a postcard, please.