You see WordPress 3 came out and I wasn’t that fussed but obviously upgraded. You may or may not know that the default WordPress theme has now changed with this new release and I thought ‘what the heck, might as well use it and have a site that looks identical to a million others.’

OK, that’s not what I thought at all but I wouldn’t blame you for making that assumption! No, I thought that if I used the new Twenty Ten theme (as it’s so-called) I would be using a theme that was the most up to date and most reliable to work with the new version of WordPress. I hate it when themes break from upgrades. It’s frustrating to no end.

The theme I used before, Bold, worked fine with WP 3, but, there’s always a chance it won’t with future upgrades and I’m going on blind faith that this won’t happen with Twenty Ten because… well, the WordPress peeps themselves coded it.

So I very randomly, a week ago today actually, sat down in front of a local WordPress installation on my laptop and started tweaking Twenty Ten to my liking. Now I haven’t done any sort of web designing/coding/fondling for… probably the best part of two years at least. Where the idea came from to just start doing it again still remains a mystery to me.

Any who, I did said tweaking with some very important ‘rules’ so to speak, in my head. These were:

• Any customizations that could be done through the WP admin panel should only be done through this route, and not through editing the core CSS etc. (E.g. the header image and the main background colour in this theme’s case).
• All editing to be done through my own child theme, so that when things go ‘SGRISHGIRUOS – T’EME NOW DED. KTHXBYE’ I could start all over again. Thankfully this didn’t happen and I named this theme Twenty TEmz. A lot of thought went into that. Clearly.
• Keep editing only to the CSS as much as possible. I didn’t want to mess with the code much. I’ve taken bits out (none that will cause damage by being gone) and slightly changed some (nothing that can affect any upgrades) but most importantly I didn’t add any code. OK, OK, I added one tiny little snippet. From previous experiences it’s the addition of random coding tidbits that causes issues with updates.

And there you have it. This theme ain’t much, I’ll admit, and there are some parts I haven’t even looked at yet that need a lil’ bit of work but on the whole it works and it ain’t too shabby. The CSS file could do with a little tidying up, and I’ll get round to that eventually. Maybe.

I’ve been using other people’s themes for over two years now, and it feels a little nicer now using something I put a little bit of time into making my own.

Posted from Norwich, England, United Kingdom.

I have no idea why I signed up to Twitter, and to this day I’m not really sure why I’m still using it. Don’t get me wrong, I quite enjoy spewing out little crap nuggets online, but I’m not so sure I should be doing it! I have gone through stages of not using it for months, and other stages of posting daily, even multiple times daily.

Of course the other side to Twitter is following other people, I follow few, but those I do, I love reading their 140 character or less messages.

I would like to say I’m going to try to post better to Twitter in the future, to post less often than I do now and to say more meaningful messages. But let’s face it that’s not going to happen! So here’s to another three years of spewing crap to Twitter!

Here’s some (not so) specially selected tweets from my 700+ archive:

Drunk. And oh so oh so oh so oh so tired….. please give me sleeeeeep!!! PLEASE!!! Falling asleep at my iBook at the moment! 10:54 PM Jun 29th, 2007 via Twitter Tools

I have written to Twitter  whilst drunk many, many times. I would do well to learn not to! Wish my iBook hadn’t broken a little while after this.

Watching six million balloons fly past my window. Very random if you ask me. 1:53 PM Sep 3rd, 2007 via web

Six million is a number I always use if I don’t actually know what the number is. Eg, if you asked me how many JD & cokes I’ve drunk in my life I’d say six million. Unfortunately, I probably have drunk six million JD & cokes!

Bet you can’t guess where I am! Empire State Building! Hell yeah! 12:04 AM Nov 6th, 2007 via txt

Yup. I’m that sad – standing at the top of the Empire State Building and posting to Twitter of all bloody things!

Want to see how small Pumpkin Princess really is? Just look: http://flickr.com/photos/hooofooey/2474605302/ 10:00 PM May 7th, 2008 via web

Gorgeous kitty eventually got to a fairly normal size. I was not happy. She’s  still gorgeous though!

YES! 27 days straight at work are over! Day off tomorrow, yippee! 11:20 PM Aug 28th, 2008 via web

I would never be stupid enough to work that many days ever again.

The best birthday present – being added on Facebook by my two cousins I wasn’t ‘allowed’ to be in contact with for over 13 years! 9:32 PM Mar 22nd, 2009 via web

It’s been lovely having contact with them. Facebook isn’t all bad I guess!

Something ab-sah-tootley awesome has just occurred! Effin’ hell I can hardly believe it! 5:52 PM Jun 11th, 2009 via txt

The tweet after this one showed my unconditional offer to go to uni. A very happy day for me.

http://twitpic.com/92noz – My short hair! Had 6 inches chopped off :-O not had it this length for about 5/6 years. Will take some getting used to. 9:09 PM Jul 2nd, 2009 via TwitPic

I had it cut again a little while after and it still didn’t look short!

Spent the evening painting donuts! Hands are covered in paint! 9:28 PM Jul 23rd, 2009 via Twitter for iPhone

Hell yes I’m that cool! (Painting decorations for  a Donut Eating Nerds party – dress as nerds, eat donuts, not the other way round!).

Had a fun evening titled ‘Four Cheesestrings & Energy Nuts’ 10:51 PM Aug 25th, 2009 via Twitter for iPhone

Went longboarding (not the surfing type) with my sister. I ate four (four!) Cheesestrings and she eat a bag of energy nuts. I told you, I’m cool (longboarding, not eating like a pig!).

Walking to work for my last ever shift! Unemployment here I come @ 5pm! 7:40 AM Sep 12th, 2009 via Twitter for iPhone

And I’m still unemployed today. Lazy ass student instead!

Rather enjoyed being Action Barbie at an Action Man vs Barbie event last night! Uni has some random themes sometimes… 11:18 AM Oct 21st, 2009 via Echofon

That was just the beginning of all the random fancy dress nights out I’d have!

I’ve been back in England less than 24 hours and I already miss #surfing in #Morocco. #Taghazout is an amazing village! 12:08 PM Mar 29th via mobile web

Went surfing in Morocco for my 21st birthday – the BEST week of my life. Ever.

Just got off the phone to my sister, we were chatting/laughing for over 2 & 1/2 hours and could have continued. I love her SO much! 9:00 PM Apr 29th via Twitter for iPhone from here

Just reading this tweet makes me smile. Sister cried when I told her that I’d written this!

Gotta <3 uni. Spent over 2hrs chatting with male best friend about the future (pretty deeply) WHILST playing with a balloon! Awesome stuff. 12:41 AM May 4th via Twitter for iPhone from here

Seriously, a balloon! Uni has given me many random yet beautiful moments like this one.

I wonder what I’ll be chirping about for the next three years?

Posted from Norwich, England, United Kingdom.

I wonder what will happen between now and then?

Admittedly I haven’t posted as often as I hoped but I’ve only just finished my exam/assessment period at uni therefore I’ve been so incredibly busy. I’ve literally been restricting my time spent online because of it! (May have grown out of Facebook now?!).

Currently, I have all the time on my hands I’ll be posting more and trying to really establish an online presence again.

‘Course, I could start now but I’m running on three hours sleep and I’m pretty sure I’m about to crash…

P.S. Oceanus-Anima.com is technically four years old now, as of today. Bloody hell.

Posted from Norwich, England, United Kingdom.

The simple thing is this website has always been tied to my Twitter account. Offline friends (etc) follow me on Twitter and do not know of my web-escapades. I have always wanted to keep it that way but there are less than a handful of offline people I want to keep far far away from this website. However they aren’t worth not using this website so…

I know you’ll find me, but I don’t care anymore. This is my site. Take it however you want.

Posted from Colney, England, United Kingdom.

Anyway as you can nicely see through my bare archives I’m terrible at keeping up with this blogging malarkey. I always have been, ever since I first starting doing it however many years ago. In fact many times I’ve started up a blog, written some crapola about crapola and then deleted it. Rinse and repeat as necessary. I’ve lost count how many times I’ve done that because I would look back at it and think ‘yuck! What the hell am I writing? DELETE AND FORGET!’.

That was until, well the first entry on here (that you can actually see). I don’t really know what changed. Suddenly I could read through my ramblings and not cringe enough to want to delete it. (Oh, I always cringe after I’ve written something. Always.)

However no amount of less-cringe-worthy moments were ever enough to keep me  regular at posting not-so-crapola crapola. I don’t know why.

Actually that’s a lie. I have a theory.

You see most people who happen to own a blog, when things get crazy/hectic/out of whack in their lives they write about it. And so within said out-of-whackness they continue to post away. I however don’t do that. Ah no. When things start to get a little interesting I completely forget that this blog exists and never even think ‘oh, this might make for a decent post’. Nope. Nada. I tend to post when everything is all calm, rested… *cough* boring *cough*.

Between this post (The Hibernation - see? I already wasn’t blogging consistently) and this one (Firefox 3 – Download Day) in 2008, I lost a friend to suicide. Which happens to be my most recent post when I finally wrote about it one  year after she died. Now I wrote that post almost a year ago now and guess what? FUCK  LOADS (excuse my language) has happened since then! And I don’t mean just from that post, I mean from when my friend died. So where’s the bloody posts saying so?

Admittedly the months after her death were… weird. Not one of my greatest times but definitely not my darkest either. However my life took certain paths and eventually I got to place where I’d genuinely never been happier. That felt weird. But however weird it felt – it feels great now. This amazing happiness I’ve never quite experienced before is still going strong and I love it.

I just kind of wish I’d written about everything as it happened and could then actually see from my words how the happiness came to be. The things I should have written about include, but aren’t limited to:

• My exams – which went awful. Having a friend die two weeks before exams start isn’t exactly good timing. Especially attending her funeral rather than attending an exam (my choice entirely).
• My results – 3 months later the results of said exams came and they were poor. University was out of the picture for September which was gutting as I was already one year ‘behind’ everyone else.
• I spent the summer working my ass off at my job (simple shelf-stacker at a supermarket) and when September came around I was taken on as full-time staff (although they didn’t change my 13 hour contract to a 39 hour one – bastards!).
• I started an application for uni for September ’09 and then essentially had a ‘friend’ talk me out of it (that’s how it felt anyway) and was talked into moving in with her for sometime around the summer once we both had enough money.
• February came. As did a text message to my phone which said that this ‘friend’ had a place at uni for next September. Oh wow! Exciting stuff! WAIT ONE MINUTE… WTF? Why did she have a place when I hadn’t even applied for one and had since completely missed the deadline to get in to uni? As such our ‘friendship’ completely broke down. I felt very very stupid. (I should point out we are friends again now).
• At this time I got depressed (not as in full on depression) or more should I say frustrated at work. Here I was in a dead-end job I didn’t want for the rest of my life, yet no options for anything else, and feeling like I had no friends (so not true!).
• Then May/June time I started hanging out with a couple of people from work I had gone out and got drunk with once in February. Happiness starts here. Suddenly I had a group of friends I could open up to, who I enjoyed spending time with and we went through quite possibly the most accelerated friendship ever to happen in the history of mankind! Those two girls and that one guy are now some of the closest people to me. In a way they are a kind of family to me. They are all four years older than me but you wouldn’t tell from looking at the way we act together.
• Late June I decided ‘what the hell’ and sent off an application for uni. Understand it was very late and chances of getting a place where limited but not impossible. I had to go for a Science Foundation Year because of my crappy grades.
• Less than two weeks after applying I got an unconditional offer from the University of East Anglia. All I had to do was accept it and the place was mine – no questions asked, nothing more needed from me. So I took it.
• Work was much easier for the next three months as I knew I wasn’t staying there after September. All was merry and happy.
• As the crunch time came I was having more and more doubts about whether I really wanted to go to uni or not. I had a job (an asset in a time of recession), amazing friends and was happy. Did I really need anything more? Thankfully I saw sense and didn’t back out of my decision but, my, was it hard leaving. I had three leaving-dos the last of which was painfully emotional. I was moving from as far West as you can go in England to as far East as possible. I was dead scared of losing my friends (as it would feel like I was losing my family) but they assured me that would never happen.
• So as of the 20th of September 20o9, I have been a student of UEA, Norwich. I’m two years older than I ‘should’ be and when I start my ‘real’ degree this September I’ll be three years older than some of the students on it. But so what. I’m finally here. And guess what? I didn’t lose my friends from back West. Nope I now have them as well as some of the most amazing people I’ve ever met in my life. The friends I’ve made here at uni are most definitely going to be friends for life.
• Happiness grows exponentially here and continues.
• ‘Course now would be the time I list everything that’s happened at uni but blimey that would take six million pages to write and that still wouldn’t cover everything! No, that’ll be material for posts yet to come.

*scratches head* I’ve been rambling haven’t I? And I haven’t even covered anything that I wanted to.

Right, well here’s my point. I want to start keeping this thing up to date (again?). The way I use the Internet has changed a lot (another post to come) which I think adds to why I don’t blog anymore. Not only did I stop writing, but I also stopped reading the blogs I visited everyday. I want to change that.

So here’s to some awful rambling set to continue, and me stalking your site once again. Sound good to you?

Posted from Norwich, England, United Kingdom.

This rekindling of both of us feels so good. And as reading has always done for me, it’s made me want to start writing (creatively) again. But… should I?

I feel all the stories I’ve had in my head for the past two years (the last time I wrote anything!) screaming at me to just do it! So maybe I will.

Sunday 25th of May 2008 was a day I knew would eventually come, but dearly wished it not to. You see I was fortunate (in some respects, in others unfortunate) that the deaths of people around me all happened before I turned 3 years old. So I had no memory of what it was, what it felt like and really rather sadly, who the people were that died. (The latter actually used to get me upset as a child). Last year changed all of that.

I’d had a couple of beers Saturday night so woke up on Sunday morning pretty late (10am I think). I hadn’t checked my email since early Saturday evening and so when I checked some time around 11am I had a real shock.

A message from one of my friends who lives down London way (where I used to live) messaged me on Facebook to say that one of our friends had died on Saturday and she wanted me to know.

I’d been terrible at keeping in contact and no one had my mobile number or email address so Facebook was the only possible means of contact at the time. Something I’m not proud of but have changed since.

As anyone would I was… I don’t know, lost? Everyone was writing R.I.P. in their statuses so I did too but then it started to settle in my brain a bit more. That and I was desperate to talk to someone about it, to question it and there just wasn’t anyone there!

Late afternoon-ish time I couldn’t stand to be at home. I couldn’t listen to music. I couldn’t sit down. I couldn’t eat. Nothing felt right. So I went for a walk and looked for anywhere remote enough for me to be left alone. I eventually did find somewhere but it didn’t help. I honestly thought perhaps the whole thing was a joke, how could it be possible? Really?

Anyway I walked home and drank many many beers. When it was 11pm the only phone number I had been able to find on Facebook was rather cruelly, the one belonging to the friend who’d died. I didn’t hesitate. I thought if anyone can tell me the truth surely it’s the friend in question?

I rang but when the other end picked up there was silence. Calling out ‘hello? Hello’ repeatedly to no answer left me to hang up.

Then the number rang me. It was my friend’s mother asking me if I knew the number I was ringing and I said ‘yes… I’ve been told [name here] died… I just didn’t believe it.’ At which point she had to tell me it’s true, bursts out into tears which causes me to do the same. I stammered countless apologies because I felt like a complete and utter fool to make her go through doing that.

I somehow managed to sleep and the next morning the friend that messaged me originally rang me and we chatted for well over an hour. A strange conversation like I’ve never had.

Thankfully I wasn’t due in to go to college that Monday as (rather unthankfully) my final exams had started. At which point I didn’t care about my exams anymore. What did a piece of paper mean compared to the loss of a friend’s life? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Her funeral was two weeks later, on the day of one of my maths exams and I had to fight my college to let me off the exam and travel down to near London. I knew that if I was to have any chance of being able to get through this strangeness, it would have to start with the funeral.

The day of her funeral and wake was… unbelievable. Horrible. Terrifying. Just so effin’ wrong. Just seeing a wooden box being carried… in the hearse… at the crematorium. Uh. Really really awful.

Although technically yesterday was the 1st anniversary, I think today and for the next coming years will be the hardest because it was the day I found out and my feelings and thoughts towards so many things dramatically changed.

I realised that for the whole of my life I had always put education first, before anything. Including before friends. When you’ve had a childhood and teenagehood like mine it’s easily done. But for the past year I’ve switched my priorities. Putting all your efforts into education means nothing if you have no one to share your life with.

The next step for me is to waken up to the fact that her death was suicide. Currently in my head I view it that my friend was taken from this world and not that she took her own life. To think about just what she did do, is something I really can’t face. It would mean being so effin’ angry with her, and angry is not something I do. Especially not on my own.

Will I ever face up to the reality of it? I’m tempted to say I doubt it, but who knows. I have huge difficulties in dealing and realising things that happen around me, as I’ve grown into just accepting whatever happens. I still have yet to face the fact that I moved out of my childhood home and my parents divorced which was some 7/8 years ago.

Maybe someday I’ll find the right guy to spend my life with who’ll be the one to help deal with all of the crap. And if no guy turns up I’ll be more than happy with a cat or two.

Twitter posts from a year ago:

Oh. My. God. Just found out one of my friends committed suicide. I don’t know how to think/feel/act.Should I be doing something?4:25 PM May 25th, 2008 from web

I’m drunk and a mess. I rang my friend’s phone to be told that she did indeed overdose yesterday. I can’t deal with this right now. :’(11:18 PM May 25th, 2008 from web

desperately wishing to be with my friends right now. Why do I live 75 miles away?4:51 PM May 26th, 2008 from web

I can’t do it. I can’t blog about how I’m feeling. This is just too hard.12:06 AM May 28th, 2008 from web

Huge kudos goes to Vixx & Sarah. And Pumpkin Princess of course! (Kitty, Dita).

Ah, you wonder. What’s that? Well, from their respective websites:

Comic Relief:

Our vision is ‘a just world free from poverty’.

Our mission, thanks to our comedy heritage and the fantastic relationship we enjoy with the BBC, is ‘positive change through the power of entertainment’.

And our biggest tool, in trying to achieve these two goals, is the ability to inspire people across the whole country especially those who don’t normally do charity – to do charity.

And Red Nose Day (RND):

Red Nose Day is, quite simply, a day like no other! We take some fantastic fundraising in schools, offices and homes across the land, mix it with the nation’s favourite celebrities getting up to all kinds of mischief, sprinkle a new Red Nose (or three!) across the entire UK and add a cracking night of comedy on BBC One to make Red Nose Day the phenomenon it is.

If you are intrigued further, I highly suggest going through the nifty flip-book style storyline of RND’s ‘Story So Far’.

One of the main goals (emphasised this year – there are many things Comic Relief as a charity help towards all year round) is to raise money towards putting a stop to the malaria crisis in Africa. You’ve only got to see a short clip of one of the many films made about parents who are watching their babies and children die from malaria, and you’ll feel just how serious this is.

The mind boggling thing about it all is that malaria is something easily preventable. Something we (the developed world) don’t even have to think about, yet is something that kills a child in Africa every 30 seconds. I don’t think I’m the only one who literally gets wet eyes even thinking about that for a moment.

I’m not writing this blog post to… well, bring sadness to your day. Red Nose Day has always been something I’ve always enjoyed being a part of since I was old enough to understand what it meant. I thought I would take this time to share what I’ve done for it today (admittedly, not much, but it’s better than nothing) and to also help spread the word just that little bit further.

So I first decided to follow one of Red Nose Day’s twitter accounts (they have a number of them for different things). This was to mainly follow  how the Red Nose Climb of Mount Kilimanjaro went.

Then tonight, via the very useful BBC iPlayer I managed to watch the documentary about the climb as a whole and it immediately made me want to donate.

And I did. £30. I know it’s not much, but the point is that if everyone gives then it amounts to quite a lot. I then gave another £1 for a red nose to be added to an uploaded photo of my choice. I believe this is the first year ‘digital noses’ have been available – usually you buy a physical round red nose to wear during the day.

I then ‘donated’ my Facebook status to RND, to be updated by their page as they choose.

All in all, small actions, by one (small?) person but still completely worthwhile.

One of the reasons Comic Relief and Red Nose Day is something I love is simply because it’s making a difference in the world by making ‘ordinary’ folk give through laughter. And I love laughter.

@ 23:06 Friday 13th the total money raised was standing at £32,802,411. Wow.

Update @ 21:53 Saturday 14th the total for Red Nose Day itself was £57,809,938. I’ve also given a bit more money by downloading £10 worth of singles from the top 40 on iTunes. (25p from a 79p song in the top 40 will be donated from iTunes to Comic Relief – amongst donations from other downloads as well).

Well I’ll tell ya. The clue lies within today. It’s the Chinese New Year! And the title of this blog post simply says ‘Happy New Year’. I think. So yes, happy New Year to you!

…

‘Um… I thought New Year’s was January 1st,’ you whisper quietly, so as to not disturb or offend my seemingly insane thoughts.

Yes that’s quite right but for me January 1st is no day to set as an example for the rest of the year. Oh no. You see because I do happen to get rather drunk on alcohol the day before, so Jan 1st is a sleep/rest/peaceful day. Not one for looking wistfully into the future and being proactive. And all that joy.

So, a first for me, I’m ‘choosing’ (if I can indeed do such a thing) is to count my New Year’s as today. That way I’m not sleeping off alcohol and I’ve had a good 4 weeks to actually think about the year ahead. Sounds good to me!

If you are wondering why I chose the Chinese New Year, rather simply I love all things Chinese. I hope to learn Mandarin when I can find the time and I want to spend a good deal of time visiting China. Cool beans.

Righty so let’s get to it. My main ideas/thoughts/goals for the year of the ox are (in no particular order):

• Put hell of a lot more effort into maintaining this site/blogging. It is something I actually enjoy, yet fail to put time into! Due to less time spent in front of a computer these days, I’m experimenting into others ways of blogging (i.e. via my mobile phone).
• Get damn well better at staying in contact with everyone. This includes my immediate family, my distant family. My immediate friends, my distant friends. Offline friends, online friends. And rather oddly, myself! I do this via writing in my journal with a good ol’ pen. I’ve not done it for a good few months and I should really do it every day!
• Get clear with myself just what the hell I’m doing with my time and essentially my life! It sounds deep, I guess it is. Towards the end of 2008 I realised my life is my own. So I want to start making decisions for myself and not other people and their own goals. With this I need to sort out what I want to be doing with my life!
• Read more. I was such a bookworm for so many years (if not the majority of my life) but the past three years has seen the time I spend reading dramatically decline. I’m not sure why, but I do miss it so I want to bring the comfort of a good smelling book back to my mornings.
• Save money. Simple. Put money into my savings account rather than letting it sit in my main account just waiting to be spent.
• Eat better. Mainly, less fat. I’m not trying to be a health nut but I want to eat just a little bit more consciously towards what I’m putting into my body. I’ve found a great tasting and healthy food in (fruity, not nutty) muesli. I know, I’m shocked too but it’s actually really good!
• Do more exercise. Really. During the summer I was pretty good but since then my exercise routine has quite literally diminished. But I like exercising. It feels gooood. Honestly! (And I have a little spare weight I’d like to shuffle).

Hmm beyond that I don’t think there’s much more I’m working towards this year. That I’ve thought about yet anyway! Some things are standard, others are… not so standard… *laughs*

Anyway, there is no point dragging this post out so I’ll leave you with that.

Happy Chinese New Year! Feel free to share your own goals for 2009.

Anyway, there is some point to this post before you start wondering just what the hell I’m on about. No, not an amazing point, but one worth mentioning. Or something.

So today, October 8th marks the anniversary of when I started working. My second anniversary because I have now been a working girl for three years! Shocking!

Yep, that’s right. I started working when I was sixteen and haven’t stopped since.

I’ve actually been with the same company for my entire working ‘life’ although I’m currently in a different division to the one I started in, and now live in a completely different part of the country. So I’m loyal, you see?

My only regret of starting work so young is that I am unlikely to stop working until I retire. Which is a shame really. Although I didn’t have to work when I was sixteen, when I moved out from my mother’s at the age of seventeen I did have to work to pay rent every week. It was a necessity!

So now that I haven’t (thankfully) moved back to living with mother dearest, I still have to pay rent, and still have to work in order to live!

Up until about a month ago I was part time, but for just this year (until next September) I’m now full time whilst I take a year out and get some – wait for it – money behind me!

My advice to you, the young, innocent teen websurfer is this: don’t start working until you truly, desperately have to. There is more worth in enjoying the time of your youth than earning cash just to blow on current trends you don’t actually like.

I do wish I’d waited to start working until I had a need to earn money, but it did mean that when I moved out I had a stable company to transfer jobs with at a time I did actually need money.

So young’ns. Think very carefully before taking up that Saturday job you’ve been tempted by. Do you really need the money that badly?

And there ain’t no time for a working girl.