It's not a cry you can hear at night, it's not somebody who's seen the light...

I don't think it's fair that I am having major allergy issues/a cold while I am trying to fix my anxiety issues but oh well.

( Cut for anxiety issue chat. Could be triggering for fellow phobic-anxiety sufferers )

So you see this aftershock report yes?

Leah and I had just gone to see Sream 4 (which I will talk about in a different entry so people can comment and not fear spoilers) and the movie had just finished. We just left the theatre and we were in the hall when this weird noise started happening and the floor shook and I was like "oh my god, are there people running around in...oh the vending machines are shaking...oh. OH." And then the fire door started to close. The really big fire door that locks people in to lock fire out and keep it contained? Yeah. And the evacuation alarm went off and we see this tiny girl who worked at the cinema trying to keep the door open so Leah grabbed it and leaned against it and I pushed higher up (I am way tall but this door was like three times as tall as me...) to hold it open so the hundreds of people still in the cinema could get out.

The poor girl was freaking out. She said, "I just got here!" Poor thing. So yes, Leah and I held the door for about five minutes until it finally stopped trying to shut. It was so heavy, my word.

Everything at home is fine! My cupboard doors were open though and I was like "Dammit, Ariadne!" until I realised the earth had opened my doors, not my poor kitten without opposable thumbs.

I am so glad the movie had just finished not a minute before that. The credits had just started to roll (I just realised I missed the picture credits but you know...whatevers...)

So now I am eating roast. Good day!

My classes are going back tomorrow (AT EIGHT IN THE MORNING OMG) and after that I have a flu shot appointment at 9:48 (yes) and after THAT I have to go yell at people because I STILL haven't heard about my loan and it's like...April. So...yeah. If I have to like...not be studying, I'd like to KNOW THAT. My first assignment is due tomorrow too. And switching from writing prose to writing academic crap is kind of wigging me, but that's okay. I'll get there. This assignment is just worth part of 15 percent.

My hands, they are shaking. Oh blood sugar, you fickle bitch.

Not everything is doom and gloom here in the State of Emergency. The cordon has been reduced by another block, though it's still half a block away from my work and probably that part won't be reduced any time soon, due to the seventeen story building on the brink of collapse a few blocks away. (right...stop doom and gloom) My placement is going awesomely which is totally a word. I love it.

Also, the LFoD has been entirely made out of hilarity. This was chronicled expertly by Alison who collected quotes and stories from the last few days here. It makes me happy. The other day I came home around 6 and we basically spent the next five hours laughing so much my stomach muscles hurt the next day.

This house is <3

I had a dream that I had this great idea and I was going to write a book with pages marked A, B, C, D or E. All the A pages were a novella for one character, and all the B pages a novella for another character and so on. Since novellas are novels with one main idea and novels have several main ideas coming together, the book could be read for any of the five novellas or as a whole. There were unmarked pages too, meant only to be read if the book was read all together, as the blank pages tied all the separate novellas together.

It sounds like an awesome idea but yeah, I'm not that clever.

I did, however, get to the bank today. This pleases me greatly. And I bought two more pairs of fingerless gloves because apparently I need enough to make a giant pile I can dive into. And I had dumplings at Riccarton.

I did worry that while I was eating, the shopping centre would fall in on me. But it did not. Which was kind of it.

One day I will be able to dye my hair again. I don't want to while we are still having water shortages, since my hair is so thick it takes about 45 minutes to wash out. But I miss my roots being red!

My family friends and acquaintances in Japan are fine, as far as I know. My friend in Hawaii is fine too. He lives very close to the beach, but when he went to stay at his grandmother's in the middle of the island to keep away from the surge.

Now I just hope my California/Washington/Oregon people are okay.

I haven't slept. I boiled water and watched Most Haunted and read news reports and panicked.

I'm just so exhausted. The earthquake hasn't stopped affecting us here, and the damage was pretty localised. It's been quite a long time and things are nowhere near back to normal and won't be for ages. But when I look at what's happening in Japan...

Just. Fuck.

Yesterday I woke up and it was hard to breathe. Why, say you? Because apparently my body decided what would add to the happiness of this traumatic event was getting sick. And because my nose was blocked and I was sleeping with my mouth open and my throat was sore, ...wait for it... my uvula swelled up to three times it's normal size. It was so big I couldn't talk. I am not exaggerating. It was so freakish I thought I was dreaming at first and had to convince myself I was awake.

It panicked me, but thankfully I seem to be resourceful even when being sure I was about to choke on my own mouth (and I kept imagining people would be like 'yeah she was fine after the earthquake, but then she choked on herself). I took anti-inflammatory pills and then looked up swollen uvulas online. Apparently they're not that rare, but I have never felt anything like it. It said to eat something cold so I ate a popsicle and then booked in a doctor's appointment. By the time I left the house the swelling was down, but my throat still hurt quite bad.

It took me two hours to get from my house to the campus health centre. It should only take about a half an hour, but the traffic and the waiting and augh. And then the doctor told me I was fine, I just had a cold and she told me to get anti-inflammatory spray from the chemist. I think I asked her 75 questions, including "how the hell does this even happen" and she was very patient and calmed me down.

I think it was best that I was forced to leave the house. Nothing bad happened. Now I know I can leave the house without the city falling down. I'm a little less traumatised. Of course, now I'm sick. :|

I had a dream that had boiling water and falling down houses and blarrrr. The aftershocks are still scary and big and yuck.

Large aftershock just knocked out the power. It was only out for like...five minutes, but that was five minutes of me panicking that it was starting all over again. And it seemed to last a lot longer. I checked the water and that was fine (thank Christ, I really didn't do well without the water), and then my fan came back on and I felt this ridiculous sense of relief.

I don't like this. This doomsday feeling that my life is on pause. Though I read that the area where my placement is might be opening back up, since it's in the inner city cordon now, but they're decreasing the cordon tomorrow. And I think they mentioned the area where my placement is. That's good because it means I might be able to go back to placement. But it's bad because it means I might be able to go back to placement and I don't know if I'm ready. On my first day all Hell broke loose. Kind of literally. Though I will probably feel this way until it happens, so maybe the sooner the better. I have to tell you, this is making my 'spend a few years in the UK after graduating and then come back to NZ' plan look all kinds of nice, even though I don't want to leave my people :(

When I do go back, I will be terrified the entire time, and it is no longer because I feel I will do a bad job. I am so beyond that now. It's because I don't want the world to fall in on me.

In other news though, I'm about to go have a sandwich. And that's a tick in the 'Good Things' column! And my head is feeling a little clearer. Maybe I can write something today that isn't historical fiction. This would please me greatly.

Also, my cat is an agent of chaos. Just so you know.

I don't know.

I posted a thingy on Tumblr last night which was metaphorical of how I'm feeling inside, even though I was talking about something else. It's here in case you feel like reading it. Behold how goddamn deep I am, you guys, omg.

I just feel really fragile. I managed to actually write something I didn't hate. In fact, I really love it. And that made me want to watch Michael Collins so I could Irish!historygasm. Yeah. If you're feeling fragile, watching Michael Collins WILL make you sob for two hours straight. Just, you know, FYI. But GOD that movie. I love it. It is so well done. And it amuses me to see Jonathan Rhys Meyers in one of his first film roles. Where he gets to use his actual accent!

I'm just worn out. And people keep asking me questions I have no way of answering and it pisses me off when it shouldn't. But I don't know when my course will start again and I don't know when my placement will start again and I don't know when real life will resume. We only just got water on at full strength and considering the way it's been going on and off for days at a time, who knows if it will stay that way. Some of the city is still without power and water at ALL, let alone the people who lost homes and families and lives. So yeah, I don't know when classes will resume again.

Stop asking.

All the dust in the air is wreaking havoc on my sinuses. I have had three nosebleeds in the past two days. One I WOKE UP TO which was quite a disgusting feeling, okay. AND NOW YOU ALL KNOW.

But it looks like we didn't have a broken pipe after all, just an hot water tank that fell over to some extent. It's been switched back on today so we might have hot water back by tonight. Which would be really nice.

I don't even know what day it is.

You can buy a shirt to donate to the Red Cross Earthquake appeal.

In other news, you can be a fan of Tim Minchin and continue to enjoy Most Haunted. God this show is hilarious. It's cheering me up to watch them all act like idiots.