After sleeping on yesterday, I've woken up feeling a lot better. Maybe I was just having an off day - I think it was because I spent so much time thinking about being back in England, with the added stress that my Philosophy course has dumped on me.

I have an essay for Philosophy due in on November 11 and I don't know anything about the subject. Our tutor asked us to read a book called 'Free Will and Determinism' by A. Macdonald for next Friday but it isn't available in No Alibis or on Amazon, other online sites would take too long to ship it and there are limited copies in the library which you can only take out for two days at a time - and no doubt all the copies have been taken out. But I have to try - if I can't get hold of a copy from the library, then there's nothing I can do.

I hope I can get a library copy. If I can, I'll probably read it aloud into the voice recorder on my laptop so then at least I have some sort of copy I can study from. The tutor said we don't have to read it all but I'd honestly prefer to get down as much of it as I can in time for the tutorial.

In other news, it dawned on me yesterday that NaNoWriMo is a mere 22 days away, including today! As I was drifting into waking this morning I had the perfect idea for one of my two planned novels, 'Chaos at the Jazz Club', and I bolted out of bed to get my laptop and type the idea down. It's one that is crucial to the story. And now I can't wait for it to begin! I just need to keep on top of my university work while NaNoWriMo's on. Especially since that Philosophy essay is due in partway through the month.

I've been looking into giving blood again, and a quick poke around the Northern Ireland Blood Transfusion Service website tells me that there's a few sessions in Portadown Town Hall on November 2 and 3. When I donated the first time round, they told me I'd have to wait sixteen weeks before donating again, so I'll need to remember the date of my first donation and see if it's safe to pop along to one of the Town Hall sessions. I blogged about giving blood, so I'll be able to find the date on my journal somewhere!

If not, there's actually a big centre on Lisburn Road in Belfast - the NIBTS HQ, which holds drop-in sessions on weekdays. I walk past Lisburn Road on my way to university every day! So I could just pop in one day when I haven't got much in the way of lectures or tutorials.