h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I am officially not liked by the people whose house I was going to move into. Or at least, as far as I can tell. .. .. *sigh*.. more information to come. Maybe. (Or maybe I'll just sleep)

Going to give blood this afternoon, and considering going home on friday evening (and then coming back on monday to pick up all of the stuff from my flat), since it's cheaper to go home on the train than spend the weekend here (which would necessitate my spending of yet more money).

What the hell is wrong with people today? Can they not just be NICE?





Don't worry.

Oh njan... Stupid people. I wish I could help out!

feh. They ignored me when I went up to talk to them before our philosophical approaches to science lecture this afternoon. *sigh*.. guess that's conclusive, then.

On the bright side, I've found myself a nice random seminar to lose myself (one on Bob Dylan), which I'm going to go to, and after that I'm going to read for a bit and then go to bed.

I think that I will go home friday evening.. it'll be both more economic and funner going home for the weekend and coming back on monday with my dad (since he was going to be driving down to pick me up anyway)

And I did give blood. .. I perhaps shouldn't have leapt up off the bed, had a glass of water, and run to my lecture straight after that - I was a leetle light-headed (nor left my shirt rolled up so that the world in general could stare at my bandaged arm).. .. but still. ..

Thankyou for the concern, lovely people. ..

So, how is everyone. ? ?

*has some instead*

I dislike hypodermic needles. So I could never give blood.

*has gone all squeamish*

Bleh.

*thinks tattooing instead*

Mmmmm...

*hugs* Well, I hope something starts going better for you soon.

Getting around the needley bit was the worst. When the nurse took a sample of my blood from my fingertip, I warned her about this, to which her response was "It's not a needle. It's a little stabby thing".

But.. yeah.. it took a colossal amount of willpower not to jump out of the bed on wheels and run around (that and the thought that my blood would end up all over a church hall floor)..

I think that my fear of them stems from the time the school nurse chased me around the school art department at age 8 trying to get me to have an innoculation, and then proceeded to sit on me whilst it was administered. .. (to top it off, they had the cheek to give me a smartie for my pains. ). That or it could be the time I was under general anaesthetic and I couldn't move, but for almost a minute (when they thought I was under), I could still see..

It really isn't /that/ scary. And all of the nurses were really really nice.

but.. yeah.. *smiles*

thankyou, saturn girl!

Poor Njan... Nice story, though.

Good luck with life hon'... Sorry I've not been keeping up. But, yeah.

Tattooing is the friedly side of needles.

Injections? EVIL!

*squeamish*

*doth wave frantically at the shee*.. thankyou.

.. see, for me, being injected with something that may save my life (or having fluid taken out of me that will almost certainly help to save someone else's) is acceptible - at least some good's coming from it, however psychosomatically unbearable I find the prospect (and believe me, I really DO absolutely ABHORE having injections given.. don't even make me go into detail about having been under general anaesthetic but still seeing them sticking IV leads and syringes of orange goop stuck into me when I was in hospital.. I did not like that.. ), I think tattoos terrify me even more. ...I mean, lots of needle peircings sticking nasty stuff under my skin that I can't ever remove? eep! .. As cool as I think tattoos are (and truthfully, I do, in part), something about the prospect seems unnaturally petrifying..

It's not sticking, it's like having skin scraped away. Dig your nail as hard as you can bear into your arm, and that's as much as it hurts. Whereas needles...injecting fluid into my veins... *grimace* ...no thanks. Although I am willing to get the smallpox injection if necessary...I'll never give blood

You see, the thing is, I don't feel nails being stuck into my arms. (I proved this point when a flautist who refused to believe my having asserted the same managed to draw blood before I looked down - not having felt any pain at all, per se - and got a little irritated after it got onto my trousers, which - whilst black - were justwashed) I can't imagine what that feels like, really. ...

(whilst many males claim 'not to feel pain', I actually quite seriously /don't/ feel certain sorts of pain in my (especially lower) arms, nailsticking being one of the sorts in particular which I just.. uh.. don't feel. .. there is a reason for it, but still. .. )

*has forgotten how tattooing works, exactly*

I feel pain, but I get this weird zoning out mentality that kicks in, so that I'm all inside my head and switched off to the world.

Tattooing is just a needle breaking open the skin and pumping in ink. It's essentially an open wound, but it's not as painful as people think it is, and a well considered tattoo is worth ten times the money that's charged.

Can't wait to get my next one...

STILL couldn't donate blood

Right. I did something like that, to such a degree did I convince myself that I was going to give blood. The prospect of having a large needle LEFT IN my arm whilst stuff was REMOVED didn't exactly help. .. but I somehow managed to zone out whilst having it done.

Tattooing, at least, is deliberate. (I know some people for whom it's almost a form of self-harm.. ) Strangely, you'd think for someone who'd.. *thinks* ..indulged in similarly motivated japes as the abovementioned tattooing (I love my choice of vocabulary this evening), having someone else sticking sharp objects in your arm would be a piece of . Alas.. . The mind doth work in mysterious ways..

How many tattoos do you have?

There is a difference in self-harm and bloodletting. The latter being more controlled than the former. I've done both (the first degenerating down to the second) and that's probably why I enjoy tattooing. It's also a big accomplishment - walking into a tattoo parlour and choosing the design and going through with it and then paying for it and THEN the after care. Like a new addition to ones life.

I have one tattoo! Bob has two, but my first one is about 3 times bigger than his first one...and being drunk, I forgot to show it to him, so there's no confirmation on that I'm afraid! But I only got mine 5 months ago - for that was when my 18th birthday was, Keep it legal, respect the person jamming the needle into your back.

Well, arguably. It's easier to make yourself bleed than it is, quite deliberately, to selfharm whilst not bleeding. .. (god, this makes it sound like an artform, or even something about which you'd want to assemble a code of practice, which.. well, is an extremely debatable topic). Or at least, this is how I see (saw) it. Ditto, but I don't necessarily know that I like tattooing. It's still something about which I'm notably ambivolent, for numerous reasons.

What's your tattoo of, and where is it, pray tell?

.. I certainly agree with the latter. God forbid that the tattooing industry degenerates into anything akin to the piercing industry, which is /extremely/ dubious, at least as far as I can tell.

As to the last point, anyone who gets themselves pierced in any place but a tattoo studio deserves to be smacked about the head. Tattoo studios already have the hygiene. I suffered a bad piercing (my only piercing I may add) because I got it done in a jewellers. Served me right too. No piercing should ever cost under £20...

Actually, from experience, it is harder to make yourself bleed through self harm...*shows experience* As an art-form, it is just as valid as any other body modification practice. It's more the reasons for doing it that are suspect...I've seen some fantastic scarification...

My wonderful lovely tattoo (That I waited four hours in a studio on my birthday to get) is of a black and grey stone weathered/cracked/decayed crucifix wrapped in a thorn branch. It's between my shoulderblades - very awkward place to show people but it's part of a gradual back piece that I will build up!

*nod*.. another person like me who answers the last part of peoples' postings and E-Mails first.

.. hmm.. ok. As far as my experience (which is, ashamedly, pretty extensive, in the first and third persons) goes, I've found the reverse. But life is nothing but diverse. (unity in diversity, I say..)

oooooh! .. coolness! .. I'd spend the whole time standing in front of a mirror getting a bad (badder.. ) neck by staring at it if I had one like that..

Heehee. I got really upset in the first few days after I got it, because as far as I could see (through the scab) it looked really badly done...quite funny really *bless my little cotton socks* But then I devised a crafty mirrors positioning and it's really really good. I couldn't afford any bigger. But I've forgotten it's there now...every now and again after a bath I take a quick squiz. It's quite funny to see it still there...but it's a great first tattoo. My next one is going to be Jessica Rabbit from "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" over the length of my left calf/shin - on the fatty sde bit. But having no cash, I have to wait. I need to think it through anyway...

Get a tattoo!!! Just think, you could have anything, anywhere...