Instructions Not Included

Back in December, I was lucky enough to learn a bit of poi juggling at work, for part of the Christmas carol service at York Minster. For those of you not familiar with poi, think juggling balls, but with long strings attached, which you fit to your fingers. It's great fun, and looks beautiful when you do it right. But if you don't? Well, you'll end up whacking yourself all over the place. Especially when you're learning. Which hurts a lot of the time. 

At the moment, things really aren't that dissimilar. I've been somewhat distant from a lot of things that I'm normally so engaged with. Forums, twitter, blogging here, and it's not because I don't love being invovled with social media - if it were up to me, I'd be able to devote a lot more time to it - thoughts of whether I could actually find work doing diabetes advocacy has crossed my mind more than once, believe me. But the problem is that I'm torn between all my commitments. I know that I'm not the only one - we all lead unbelievably hectic lives these days, and I know we'd appreciate the chance to just press the pause button for a few days, and slow the pace down. 

I work full time. I study part time for a Master's degree, which means time on campus, as well as all the work outside of classroom time that goes with it. I'm part of the university's Dancesport society, which means I have lessons, and team practice for competitions. And of course, D always has to have its say on everything.

I'm extremely lucky, in that my work are very understanding about my MA. I've been allowed to rearrange my hours to allow me time to take my lectures, which all fall within the working day. Of course, when I'm not there, I'm in the office. Which means that time to use the library, etc, is all in the evenings. Despite the ridiculous price of it, I do own a  bus pass, so I can get the bus to and from university. On foot, it would take me about an hour to walk between my flat and campus, and then obviously another hour back. So I get the bus. But because buses stop being frequent after a certain time, if I miss one, I have to wait another half hour. And they only go into town, which means I still have to walk half an hour back to my flat, usually with a stack of books. 

So what's a girl to do? If I go to the library after work, the earliest I'll get home is about 20:30, but it's usually more like 22:00 or later. Trust me, by that point, I'm hungry! I've still not really got the hang of reducing my basal rates, and since I'm high an awful lot of the time, I'm not 100% comfortable with reducing them anyway, as I'd probably carry on being even higher.

I knew that when I signed up for the MA it was going to be a lot of work. I'm not complaining about that, because I knew it was part and parcel. Trading off things in order to not completely burn out though? That's a bit more difficult. I'm glad I chose to do this part time, because there's no way I could manage it full time. 

I'll be completely honest. My control has not been great at the moment. My 14 day average on my meter is way higher than I would like it. I'm probably not paying as much attention to things at the moment as I should be, and that is unsettling me a little bit. I don't like taking my eye off the ball, but giving myself some slack in one place is the only way I can think of handling things at the moment. At the end of April, all my assignments for the year will be handed in, and I can think of other things as well. 

Until then, I guess I'm just going to have to try and avoid hitting myself with the various balls in the air.

I don't like February. I really don't. It seems somewhat odd to have negative feelings towards a month, but I do. It's not because I'm some screaming anti-Valentine's Day sort. I generally couldn't give a toss about Valentine's Day, but that's mostly because I find the idea that we shouldn't show our love to others on the remaining 364 days of the year slightly abhorrent. No, that's not my problem. So what is it? What could I possibly have against February?

It's beige. It really is. It's such a blah month, which I generally find nothing happens in. Nothing good, at any rate. When I say beige, I mean beige in the paint term, when you paint a room beige (or magnolia, to shake things up) to keep it plain and inoffensive. But I tell you for nothing, it's dull. 

I can get on board with January. It's the first month of the year, and all that jazz, and I can usually find cheap presents in the sale at Boots (yes, I am that person). I also like March - it has my birthday, and usually the first signs of spring making an appearance. But I find the shortest month of the year generally has very little going for it. 

I tell a lie to some extent - I did compete in my first ballroom competition this month, i went down to London to see a friend I've not seen in a couple of years, and I had a very nice night out having dinner with friends this weekend. But all the same, I will be very happy when this month is over and done with.

Anneka and I have been having something of a tumultuous relationship over the past couple of weeks. I've changed my insulin:carb ratios, and that seems to have made something of a difference, but I'm still running far too high for my liking for most of the time. Changed my site out this morning, and found I had a kink in my cannula as well. Fun times. I'm not complaining, mind you - I still love my girl, and I've had some interesting times figuring out where to hide her as of late, but it's not all peaches and cream. As with everything D related, I'm certain it never will be. As always, it's all a learning curve.

In other, non-beige related news, I was thrilled to receive my copy of my lovely friend Ginger's new book - Your Diabetes Science Experiment. I'm in the midst of reading it at the moment, and I'm planning to have a review of it up for you all soon. So far, I highly suggest getting your hands on a copy if you haven't already!