Up The Farway Tree

Karaoke Queen




Well tomorrow will be the start of week 2 back at work. Relatively speaking, the first week back wasn't too bad, but I did quickly notice that on the three mornings I went to work I felt quite unwell in the afternoon, and became incapable of moving from the sofa for the rest of the afternoon. I think this was even more noticeable after two weeks break, where I had felt reasonably well most of the time, and could just take everything at my own pace. I am not sure what this means for my future work plans yet; after all it could just be the normal 'first week back to work syndrome' that everyone experiences after a holiday, not to mention the fact the weather is so depressingly wet and miserable at the moment. January blues indeed. On the upside, I am changing placement in 3 weeks time and my new work place will only be about 15 minutes drive away, and since I've worked there before I already know all the staff, so I wont have to explain about CF and the transplant situation all over again. I am looking forward to the change, and am hoping it will be more suited to my health situation and, with any luck, I may even find it a little less tiring.

Due to the weather situation, myself and Andrew barely ventured out of the house this weekend. Even Seb didn't seem that keen to go outside, and being the strange dog that he is, he normally finds the rain and wind 'invigorating'. Lucky him. Anyhow, we managed to whittle away several hours on both Saturday and Sunday playing on the Singstar game I got for Christmas. To anyone who hasn't seen it before, it is essentially an elaborate karaoke game where you are given scores at the end of a song based on your performance. In a previous post, I believe Nicola did leave a comment warning me not to listen to the 'playback' mode. I should have taken heed. Having scored a 'Rising star' on my Tiffany performance (it is clear I grew up in the 80's) I decided to listen to the recording on playback. Oh my God. Bad, awful, tone deaf and utterly painful are words that barely capture the essence of my performance. I was so bemused by the fact I seemed to have been gaining points for all my correct notes with little comments like "cool" and "great" popping up on the screen. I then realised this was perhaps due to the fact we were playing it on easy mode where you are awarded points not for hitting the right note, but for being somewhere in the ballpark. On trying a song on the difficult mode, it became clear I was barely in the ballpark, never mind scoring any goals. The little "cools" were replaced with "awful" and "bad" on every line I sang. It became increasingly obvious that when Seb had been intently pawing my arm earlier in the game, he was not, as I had believed, 'attention seeking' but was probably just begging me to stop. However, I will not be defeated. They say practice makes perfect so I'm sure in another...err...year or two, I will have made some progress. In the meantime I will revert to playing it on the easy mode, where being in the ballpark is rewarded. Ignorance is, indeed, bliss.

On a less frivolous note, my friend Emily is still in ITU after receiving her transplant 10 days ago. Due to the development of some problems, she had to be put back onto the ventilator last Thursday and, from her blog, I gather all the doctors can say at the moment is that "she is not out of the woods". She has come through many rocky times in the past 2 years while waiting on her transplant, so I have every faith she can pull through this and make a full recovery. Something my mum always says is "Where there is life, there is hope" and I truly hope that Emily's new life is just about to begin.