Hello to all of my new Dreamwidth friends, and of course to my LiveJournal friends who have put up with me over the years! I have some pictures for you...

( Lookie here! )

We got rid of the malware. All it took was to run the computer in safe mode with networking, then have both BitDefender and Malwarebytes run a complete scan of the computer. Basically it was the exact same process that got rid of ThinkPoint and Security Shield.

Anyway, today we went back to our normal routine at the Prince's Trust. For me, that meant waking up at 7am, getting the 34 into St Helens, the 32/32A to North Road and then walking through Victoria Park to Windlehurst Community Centre. It was bloody freezing, this morning - apparently meteorologists are predicting more snow, which we clearly need. Still, it was sunny all day. Frosty in the morning and bitterly cold, but I noticed that crocuses were starting to burst into life here and there. Towards the end of the day, it was mild - almost pleasantly warm; one of those rare Goldilocks days that never fail to make me high.

We started with a team-building task, today; while we'd all been working independently for two weeks, we needed to get back into the swing of working together. A guy from the army called Doug came in to do a task with us that involved the group being split up into two teams, each with a stack of five tyres. The tyres were numbered and stacked in order - 5 at the bottom, 1 on top. We had to work together to get these tyres from one side of the basketball ground to the other. The rules...

1. The tyres could only be dropped in three places - either end of the ground and on the white line in the middle.
2. We could only carry one tyre at once.
3. Tyres could not be stacked on top of a tyre with a lesser number (so you couldn't put 3 on 2 or 1, for instance).
4. Wherever you placed the tyre, it had to go on top of the stack. You couldn't slot it on the bottom, for example.

I think that covers the rules. I hope you lot get it, because I was clueless. Only towards the end when things were getting a little more organised did I click on and come up with a strategy - after everyone else had already thought the same thing. This is what happens when you give me a problem solving task before noon!

( Anyway... )

In a twist of fate most cruel, I posted a reply to a comment regarding anti-virus (in response to my entry about the recent ThinkPoint conundrum), and immediately afterwards, something popped up.

Damn you, ThinkPoint! Isn't it obvious that you aren't wanted, you pitiful, greasy little bastard? Get off my shiny new computer and perish in a thousand burning rubbish heaps! Then rub salt into your eyes whilst singing the French national anthem in Anglo-Norwegian! Then gamble away your life's savings (which you've no doubt pilfered off the good, honest and slightly more idiotic members of the Internet) betting on whether a guinea pig will explode on command! You are a pointless use of space! A waste of megabites! I detest you! Go away!

And choose somewhere quiet and remote to go away to. Like Svalbard, for example. No doubt they'll have use for you there.

So. To those of you who are slightly baffled by my sudden reversion to public blogging, I have decided to emerge from beneath my rock. It was difficult; with the weather being as it is I was frozen to the ground. I panicked for a bit, hoping my raw emotion would ionise the air or generate enough heat to set me free, but alas, no luck. I then made like an utter prat and used hot water. Which froze me even more.

Slightly defrosted a million years later, I realised what happened and bought without paying a crowbar from a passing lunatic, chiselled my legs free and then prised my arms off the ground, thus defying the laws of, frankly, everything and breaking reality as a result. My characters scoffed at me saying 'you're as bad as the rest of us!' and then I had them all perish in a fire. The fire was perfectly harmless, you understand, being made of words... to people, anyway. Huzzah!

I am now in the process of figuring out how to unperish all of my characters because without them, my career as a writer will go in the general direction of down the pan. And I hear the pan isn't a very nice place. Cholera, Mafia shootings and the like. It also vaguely resembles a toilet.

( There's a lion behind this cut. And it's hungry. Happily, it's a vegetarian. Unfortunately for you, you're a leek. Happily, it doesn't like leek. Unfortunately for you, it's got naff eyesight and it thinks you're a carrot. And it loves carrots. )

Can it really be that the last days of summer are upon us? Outside, it's overcast and raining, and sitting in my room, I actually feel cold. My feet are freezing. In twenty days, it'll be September. Autumn's just around the corner.

This time last year, I had a pretty good idea of what I'd e doing in the upcoming September. I'd be going back to Sixth Form, regardless of grades; I just didn't know whether I'd be moving on to A2s or resitting it all. This year, I don't even know if i'll be returning to Sixth Form; if I'll even be allowed to, whether I fail or not. I could be in a different college - not that fresh starts are entirely new to me. Or I could be gap yearring, with the grades I need, raising a bit of cash for uni. Maybe I'll even have been abducted by aliens by then. I simply don't know.

Not knowing what lies ahead is scary. It's like having to walk around a blind corner on the street, only you know that on the other side you'll find either a slap in the face, an axe murderer or a piece of delicious cake. Or even alien abduction. But you can't turn around; the only way is forward. You can only go on and hope it's the cake, because cake is better than being slapped, murdered and abducted.

I had a good night's writing last night, though Dad would probably disagree - I woke him up by moving my chair. This is precisely why I need a carpet, Dad! Chairs don't scrape noisily on carpet! They do on wood! And with a bookshelf to keep anything non-essential out of the way, I'd make less noise tidying up before bed.

Ergh. Rain, rain, sod the hell off or I'll smash your face in. Seriously. You annoy me. I want the sun!