Being back at work is getting in the way of lounging around

[prepare4trouble]

 Last week was busy.  It always is they few days after a bank holiday, but this seems to have gone on all week.  That coupled with the fact that we were running the branch on two for two days, once with me in charge, made for stress.  On the plus side, I had my half yearly appraisal and I appear to be doing better than I thought.  On the negative side, I'm running the branch for three days next week, and one of those days I;ll only have one other member of staff again.  But then I have a day off, before being moved to the far quieter branch of Whitefriargate from Friday.  That is a bit of a mixed blessing really.  On the one hand, there will be far less stress, but on the other it is incredibly quiet there, quiet enough that I could probably sit and read a book and nobody would notice.  It's also in town, which is good for travel when the weather is okay, but if it is raining parking is super expensive and the bus station is miles away.  Never mind though, I'm sure I'll work something out.

I've been thinking about my hair recently.  A few months ago, I stopped having it cut.  I were it really short normally, a little longer at the front with bangs that sweep in from one side, but really short at the back, and shaved at the neckline.  But I had an appointment for a cut back in January, and I had to cancel it because I had been asked to work.  Then I just never bothered making it again.  Four months later, I just have this mess, still way too short to tie back, but too long to look neat.  It doesn't help that it's curly, which you don;t even notice when it's short but now it has a bit of length, I pump of mouse and drying it with a diffuser result in something that looks like a 1980s perm.  I know this because I tried it for a laugh yesterday.  So my dilemma is this: do I make an appointment and have it cut again, or do I continue to grow it and see what happens?  I would like to try something new, but I'm getting a little sick of looking like a mess all this time.  I've been thinking for a month or so that any day now it'll reach a length that is more manageable, but it keeps not doing.  What normally happens is you make an appointment to get it cut then the next day you realize it looks not too bad now.  Maybe I should book in so that that happens!

I got my Esther the Wonder Pig book on Friday (along with my helmet cam, but I don't have a memory card for that yet) so I've been reading that over the weekend.  I love Esther.  She's a pig that was adopted by a couple in Canada a few years ago, they thought she was a mini pig, but she turned out to be a full sized commercial pig, who just kept growing to around 650lbs.  She is enormous, but she lives in the house with them and plays with the dogs and is just one of the family.  It's amazing.  They changed their whole lives because of there, moved out of the city to the countryside, went vegan, opened an animal sanctuary, all because they had this pig and the couldn't bear to give her up.  The book is about their whole journey, and although I know it because I've followed Esther on Facebook for a year or so, I'm really enjoying it.

I've also started rewatching Lillyhammer on Netflix, it's been a while since I've seen it, it;s just as good as I remember,

Comments

[stardreamed]

They make you pay for parking? Yuck. Congrats on your review!

I've always been told by my hairdressers that you need to get your hair cut to grow it out. (Sounds like they're trying to sell me on more haircuts!) But, I guess the rational is that any split ends have to be cut off to have healthy hair. (I'm probably more prone to split ends than most because I use a hair dryer and a curling iron every morning.) You could do what I do - (I'm horrible at describing what I want) so I usually tell them I'd like to grow my hair out, but I don't want to look mousy. Most of the time it turns out for the best. Occasionally, I get a few surprises, though. LOL.

I think I've heard of Ester. I'd heard about the teacup pigs that were actually regular pigs - that's got to be hard if you can't do what these guys did.

Think Matt would consent to Mike going to class for him? Or does Mike just go and bring by chicken noodle soup when Foggy's not around. LOL (Eh, maybe the latter would be funnier. :) Matt being all confused because Foggy yelled at him for going to class when he's clearly not ok... Oh, and Mike avoiding him because of how they left things last time.)

[prepare4trouble]

The paying for parking is because its in the city centre and we don't have our own carpark, so we just need to use the council ones, or park miles away and walk. Cycling will be better, but only when it's not raining.

I've heard the cutting your hair to grow it thing before too, but I don't seem to be having any trouble making it grow so far, just making it not look a mess. I think cutting it now would just mean putting it back how it was. My sister grew her hair by just not getting it cut, and someone I know who got it cut regularly found frustrating that it didn't grow (probably because she just kept having it cut!) I haven't noticed split ends, but I do straighten my hair every day, sometimes more than once, so that might become a thing. I dunno, I think I'll just leave it a bit longer and see what happens.

Yeah, must be pretty awful to think you have this tiny pig, and it grows so big you have to give it up after you already love it :-( Esther was very lucky to land with the people that she did, because not many people would be able to do what they did, and most of those that could probably wouldn't.

Not sure. Matt's pretty mad with Mike, so I can't imagine him agreeing something like that. Before their row, he might have wanted Mike to do it in the hopes that he got a taste for it. They must talk at some point though, or how would Mike know Matt's sick? Well, he could have been listening I suppose.. Maybe Foggy completely messes up the note taking, the dictaphone doesn't work and his notes make no sense to anyone but himself, then Mike, having been listening in, comes by with a set of comprehensive notes in Braille, and maybe some soup or something too, as an apology.

[stardreamed]

If you're not noticing the split ends, you're probably fine. Mine, I can tell when my hair gets harder to comb that it's time for a trim. (With the celiac, I'm beginning to suspect I have some nutritional deficiencies. A month ago, I went to the doctor's complaining about how much trouble I have getting out of bed... so he has me get my blood drawn and it turns out I have a severe vitamin D deficiency - makes me wonder what else is off. Anyway, my hair issues could be celiac related. *shrugs* I wouldn't count it as the norm, since I'm not sure what the norm is.)

Yeah, I don't think Matt would either, unless he was trying to tempt Mike to come to school the proper way. I bet Mike is snooping, because he can. lol. Maybe he has a routine of hanging outside the classroom taking notes for himself - trying to get what education he can before Stick gets back? Maybe he sits under a window or in an adjacent empty classroom. I could see the dictaphone messing up. I use them and know how easy it is to move the switch the wrong way and accidentally record over things if you're not careful. LOL. (It's too bad they don't let you use them in school without a disability, generally, where I go. My mom used one back in the 90's and would playback the class during her commute - I bet it was wicked helpful.)

[prepare4trouble]

They don't let you? How come? Also, how would they know? it'd be easy to conceal one, or even record on your phone, I bet plenty of people do. I'm an auditory learner, I can stare at a page for hours and not take it in, listen to it once or twice and it's stuck in there. When I was revising for my exams in secondary school, I actually recorded myself reading out chunks of the text books and listened to them while I was doing my paper route. :-)

Maybe because Mike knows Matt and Foggy's class schedule, he goes to the dorm room while they're meant to be out, but finds Matt in bed, that's how he knows Matt's not going to be in class. He could even tell Matt what he's going to do, he's too sick to do anything about it.
Heh, he could even affect a few coughs and sniffles while he's there just so Foggy thinks it's definitely him, and maybe sneak out a few minutes before the end, so it's plausible that he got back to the room and into bed again before Foggy got there.

[stardreamed]

I was pretty baffled by it, too. I'm wondering if it's because it's so much easier for recordings to get uploaded to the internet these days. Yeah, even though it'd probably be easy to conceal, I wouldn't want to get caught doing it without permission, either so, I'll just have to deal. At least my classes for next semester appear to have good synergy - they're both database related. (Same prof, too.) That was a pretty clever idea with the paper route! lol :)

LOL I like that idea. It could be swine flu, remember that? When it was going around, I was in school at the time. I came down with something that really knocked me on my ass. I've never been sick like that before or again since. I didn't have health insurance, so I didn't go to the doctors when I should've - my Dad almost made me go to the emergency room. Anyway, that scared me into buying health insurance when I started my first part-time paralegal job - but by then, the horse was already out the barn door. My doctor thought it was either swine flu or a thyroid storm. Apparently I wrote about it in my journal when it happened back in Fall of '09 - apparently, my dad thought it was food poisoning because of the rapid onset. Oh, wait, flu doesn't have a cough. Hmm..

[prepare4trouble]

Flu can have all kinds of symptoms depending on which specific virus you have. NHS describes a dry, chesty cough as a symptom, which is weird, because to be a cough is either dry or chesty, but maybe I just describe them wrong. But we can just scrap the references to a cough if that makes it easier.

Not sure if I've ever had flu. I try to get the injection every year, didn't last winter as I was a potential stem cell donor, and I never got around to ringing and asking if it was okay to have, then I got this ridiculous thing that left me in bed for a week (right around the time season 2 of Daredevil came out, guess what I did with my time!). Don't know if it was a flu thing or just a cold that got lucky, but I'm definitely getting the jab next year just in case!

Was it swine flu that you had, or was it something else?

The health insurance thing is kind of alien to me, so if you don't have insurance, does that mean you can't see a doctor, or you have to pay a lot of money? How much would a trip to the GP set you back? It works very differently here, so most people don't have private health insurance. Do you think Matt would have insurance? Or would it be different again with him being in college? (Showing complete ignorance here, it's something I've always found confusing!)

[stardreamed]

I know I've had the flu growing up, quite a few times, but I don't get it every year. If it was swine flu that I had, that would actually be a lucky thing because, apparently, it was so different than other flu's the body responded by making you extraordinarily super-immune to the flu. http://www.bbc.com/news/health-12152500 We're not really sure what it was.

But, we wanted to know because... Three months later more than half my hair fell out. (Totally scared the crap out of me. The hair-loss was very noticeable. But, it began growing back immediately after it fell out.) There's no question that whatever it that I came down with was definitely what caused it. The timing was right for swine flu, but I also have Hashimoto's disease, and my doctor thinks it could have been a thyroid storm. (Thing is, my Hashimoto's hasn't gotten far enough for me to even need thyroid hormone. I take zero medication for it. They just monitor me to make sure everything's normal.) Anyway - there's no way to know without a time machine. If I'd gone to the doctor's, I think they'd know with a swap to the mouth and a blood draw, but after the fact... ?? (The funny thing is, I didn't know it at the time, but I could've had decent health insurance through a program I found after the fact.)

You can see a doctor if you don't have health insurance. It just means that you have to pay for it yourself. (And the rate is inflated because the insurance companies have negotiated discounts and medicaid and medicare patients also get a mandated low rate. So you're paying for like, 4 extra people when you go, minimum.) Generally, if you're low income, people have always gotten free healthcare or a reduced rate. Until 2008 or so, healthcare was pretty affordable and if you had health insurance you didn't worry about going to the doctor's or needing any sort of medical tests. (Now you do, even if you have insurance.) The Affordable Healthcare Act (aka Obama Care, though I don't like to use that term) is just making everything less affordable for everyone - especially the middle class. I get healthcare through my employer, but I have to pay a portion (insurance costs skyrocketed for everyone - this is new for the last couple years) and it's much more than what I paid through the Charter Oak Health Plan, which was a state level program for people who didn't get insurance through their employer and did not qualify for public programs like Husky or Medicare. (My original premium back in '09 was, like $88 a month... By the time I left the program, premiums were $350/month, still a good deal, comparatively. Now the state-level program doesn't exist, probably because we have this federal thing that doesn't seem to work. O.o)

Foggy would have health insurance through his parents because he's still young and a student. Matt would probably have a variety of government programs (due to blindness, low income, etc..) and so thus be insured. Matt would have less worries about going to the doctor. Foggy, depending on what kind of insurance his parents have, could potentially run up a large bill until they meet their deductible. (Though, if this is before 2014 or so, it probably wouldn't be a worry.) Anyway, yeah, American insurance is confusing these days. LOL.

[prepare4trouble]

$350 a month? Yeesh, that's more than a lot or people pay in rent around here.

I get health insurance through work as well, but I'd have no idea how to use it! I think it gives me access to private hospitals and stuff if needed, but I honestly have no idea. Medical treatment is free here, but BUPA membership mostly means you can get treatment faster and use their private hospitals. That confuses me as it is, what you've described has gone right over my head. If anything about that comes up in the story, you'll have to handle it! :-) not that it will, I don't think Matt has anything that a few days in bed won't cure.

According to the internet, untreated thyroid storm is fatal in 75% of cases, so if it was that, you were very lucky!

[stardreamed]

My rent is more than 3X that. lol. (Fortunately, I split with Nik.) In Connecticut, our cost of living is very high. Ten years ago, when I lived in Massachusetts, my rent was $450 a month. (Utilities not included.) It was a cute little place. But, yeah, under the "Affordable" Healthcare Act, premiums are huge. They make $350 look like a good deal. And, now, you pay all this money out, but the deductibles are also huge, so even if you have insurance, you can't afford to go. It's stupid. And, you can't choose to opt out. (Deductible is the amount you have to pay out of pocket for care before your insurance kicks in.)

Poor Matt, we're so evil... :)

Yeah, I probably was lucky. I ran a very, very high fever. I also lost, like 15 lbs in a week. (And people, afterwards, would tell me how good I looked... O.o LOL Though, to be fair, they usually didn't know that's how it happened.) I'm not normally hyperthyroid. In my normal state, I'm borderline hypothyroid (that means I'm on the low end), just on the cusp of needing to have thyroid hormone supplemented. But, not there yet, and it's been more than 12 years since I was diagnosed. It's been almost 7 years since it happened, so I think I'm in the clear, whatever it was. (That, and it's not like she was basing her opinion on any labs, just my description of the event and the fact that my hair was falling out. That, and my thyroid panel came back normal, like it always does, and that was a month or so later.)

It could've been food poisoning, like my Dad suggested - they symptoms look similar: http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/food-poisoning/basics/symptoms/con-20031705 (Though, that probably doesn't explain the weight loss. And the fact that for two weeks or so, I didn't feel the need for coffee. Maybe she's right.) Actually, swine flu has an overlap in symptoms, too: http://www.webmd.com/cold-and-flu/features/swine-flu-faq-1?page=2#symptoms *shrugs* (Also, yeah, guess flu can have a cough... LOL. Poor, poor Matt...)

[prepare4trouble]

That kind of rent wouldn't get you anywhere too nice though, but you can get a pretty decent place for not much more. Hull's cost of living is one of the lowest in the country. Unfortunately, that's because a lot of people here are on very low incomes and unemployment is high, so housing and stuff is much more affordable. It makes for quite a shock when you move away. I have a friend who is paying a mortgage on a house in Hull, about £500 a month. She got a job in London and is paying about £700 now just for a room in a shared flat. It's insane. Though she still has the house and rents it out, which pays for some of it.