The Covenant or Why I'm annoyed at Blogger

I wrote a nice long post yesterday and I'm so sure it was posted - apparently not. I'm more than a little miffed, if only because now I have a black mark on my record for posting everyday - at least the other times: no internet, were valid reasons and now! *sigh*

So I did just watch the Covenant, it wasn't at all scary but it wasn't supposed to be. It was an interesting story but not as well explained as it could have been. They mentioned 'Darklings' a couple of times but there's no real explanation of what one is except that people who use magic can make them out of dead people. And that's all deduced. They seemed like a really cool idea for giving the good guys the idea that something odd was going on but there wasn't enough depth which kinda wasted it. There's some internal battles between the four members of the good gang, just your average jealous/over emotional/sparring type stuff but again it could have been explained better or just not been there. On the whole though it was interesting. Although I'm biased, any movie about paganism that isn't slanderous or crap I'm sure to like. And not only was it about paganism, it was also about Salem paganism. I love Salem, the witchcraft stuff always intrigued me, even before I became a pagan and it was there that I bought the book that put me on this path. I have a soft spot for Salem. So yeah, Salem and Massachusetts witchcraft is right up my street, as it were.

I want to go back there, I haven't been for, oh, only four years which given that I live in England isn't really that long a time. But I want to go back with money and possibly by myself or rather not with my mum's friend and her kids, lovely as they are. But then if I go with money I'd be tempted to buy far too many things! Bumper stickers for my non-existent car, cool throws for my non-existent sofa etc. etc. Money slips through my fingers like you wouldn't believe.

Speaking of money and ways to get it... I emailed one of my lecturers at uni a month or so ago, maybe longer, to ask if they had any jobs going - for my internship. They said no at the time but apparently he mentioned it to a company manager who was at their annual 'let's give the kids proper interview practice' outward bound weekend. The guy got back to them wanting to know if I still wanted a job so my supervisor called me up at work yesterday to see how I was doing. It sounds great but at first I wasn't sure, no reason why I wasn't sure but anyway. Now the more I think about it the more I want to go, I realised the only thing that I really care about in this country is my project and now that I've got it to a finish as it were - there's expansion and improvements that can happen but it's reached its first goal - I don't mind leaving it behind. We've got the lovely new intern who could theoretically pick up the ropes. I just feel bad 'cos Peter (my job supervisor) is my dad's friend and that by leaving I'll be failing him, and my dad to a certain extent. The other thing is that I'm not as unhappy as I was then, I've, I dunno, become used to the situation. I still don't much like it here and when you realise that aside from your project the things you're going to miss are the stationery shop, the fabric shop and the movie store perhaps you should start worrying. But does being able to tolerate the hole in which you live enough justification not to leave? I don't think so, and even if my flat is worse, even if my job is worse I'll still be closer to home, closer to my friends and closer to my boyfriend. I doubt the place I'd live would be worse - this place is a hole. And it's not so much my job that I hate, it's some of the people, so I guess the people could be as bad/worse but I have to believe they won't be. I used to be in two minds about leaving; I knew I couldn't leave to go back to uni, that'd be quitting but I wasn't sure what moving to another job might mean, on that side of things. I think I've said this before but I'm a quitter by nature and so I wanted to stick this out to prove to myself that I could. That's one of the reasons I didn't want to go back to uni - that and I had *no* idea what to do for my dissertation (I definitely need another eight months to figure that out) but moving on to another job? Is that quitting? I'm not sure. I'm sticking out the industrial year but I haven't put up with the job. But then when the job starts to make you feel like shit, is it worth sticking to? are you still a coward and a wimp if you run away? Tough questions.

Well in the light of those decisions plus the fact that I spent two hours distracting my brother trying to persuade him not to leave home on of which I also spent on the phone to my mother talking to her about my brother's issues. I didn't tell all of them, I'm not a taddle-tale, but when it comes to desperate situations I told them enough of what he was feeling. To be honest he's brought most of this upon himself and my parents couldn't *be* more supportive. More than that he knows he's brought it on himself. Which is why he wants to leave of course: it's not getting better and he's only hurting them by staying. It's only a couple of steps away from "maybe if I left completely, forever, they'd be happier" and other morbid thoughts, but luckily he's too lazy to jump off a bridge and I don't think he's nearly that depressed so we should be good. But I'm a fairly empathetic person I like to think, and I've been told, and Josh and I get on well, he always listens to me. Most of what I say goes in one ear and out the other, but he does listen. And I can get away with saying things simply because I'm not a parent - some things are just harder to take from parents, including piano lessons. But because I'm on the same level as him, family tree wise, we've a different bond and I get frustrated in a different way which means I can have some distance from the situation which improves perspective. So I can talk to my mum and be completely sympathetic all the while gaining clues as to what to tell my brother how he can improve the situation. He's completely unmotivated - about everything. And I think that's what's currently getting to my parents most. He's not working hard enough at school which is always irritating but he can't get off his arse to look for a saturday job either, it's almost like he's zombified from what I can tell. It's gotten to the point that if he even offered to do the washing up or feed the cats my mum would be overjoyed. I only learnt this last night and duly passed on the message in such a way that he wouldn't know I'd talked to her about him! I then talked to my dad on skype today, about unimportant things mostly and then I said I had to go and he said OK and then said "I'm sorry about the stress from Josh last night" and I said it was OK, he's my brother bla bla bla. But then he has a despairing moment, they're really at a loss with him. And I don't mind in the slightest, anything I can say or do to help, I will, but it just seemed amusing that this despair and need to talk about it came straight after he apologised about the stress I just endured from Josh! Parents eh? Who'd have 'em? I can't wait till I'm back for Christmas, I'm going to drag Josh round town and get him to apply to some jobs (I'll feed him Starbucks hot chocolate to make up for the dragging) and I'll talk to him and hope that some of it stays in his brain! And maybe things will get a tiny bit better.

I just realised I meant to start that paragraph with "In the light of those decisions and all the family stress, I gave up my chocolate veto and had ice cream at dinner" but instead I did my rambling thing. So yes, ice cream for tea, that doesn't mean the chocolate veto is off, oh no, back on again from, well, now. But as long as lapses are lapses and don't become the norm, then you know you're in control.

I got a card from my grandma today, she said she'd love to have a stocking, that it'd be good fun. Which is great only now I've realised that the colours of my current stocking are perfect for her but the pattern on the material for Josh's is also perfect for her. So I'm thinking that I will go to the fabric shop, buy that combined colour/pattern fabric (which they had when I was there) and probably buy myself so different fabric - 'cos I can't possibly have the same colour as my grandma. Josh and she will have different style stockings so it doesn't matter that the pattern is the same (hopefully).

So I'm going to make up Josh's stocking tomorrow and DO SOME WRITING! Oh and buy a book on PHP so that I'm vaguely knowledge 'ere I have an interview with that guy from the company.

Good night.