Post-op/Pre-op

There is alot made of these terms and they carry an awful lot of emotional and psychological baggage which is likely not entirely evident to someone who isn't going through this process. Thankfully I am now in the "post-op" camp and feel slightly more able to discuss, at least some, details at a highish level which is a great improvement over the time immediately before where the very idea of discussing things with all but my closest friends was abhorent.

I think I'd like to go through a list of "things that scared me" and hopefully this might give an idea of how someone approaching the same surgery might feel:

Stopping Hormones

All hormone treatment has top be stopped 6 weeks before surgery. As I understand it this is mainly for safetys sake as estrogen increases the risk of blood clots and I guess any medication in your system can potentially interfere with anesthetic or other drugs you may be given during or immediately after surgery.

You'd think that stopping taking pills or sticking patches on your body would in some way be a relief (I can't say I miss Spiro pills - they are huge) but the implication is that your hormone levels return to a point they were at before. This was a horrifying prospect for me as I it was so important to me to have the 'right' hormones in my system, it made me feel like "me" and I hated the thought of giving them up.

I'm not sure of the chemistry/biology involved but just stopping medication didn't actually have an immediate affect (apart from me not liking the thought of it), it did take a few days, possibly a week for me to start to feel any different. I know some people have said the increase in testosterone makes them feel irritable or angry, given my pre-HRT level was barely into the normal range I wasn't too worried about that and certainly it didn't seem to happen. I did feel quite frantic, and kind of paranoid. Also I really withdrew alot and found it harder to talk to people, kind of like a loss in confidence.

Also my sleeping pattern got completely wrecked; normally I'm fairly consistent with sleep and can easily feel when I'm too tired and go to bed early and get up early for work. I kept waking up and not being able to settle again, or if I slept through I didn't feel rested and was way more tired then I've ever felt. That and possibly other things really affected my concentration and my attention span. I remember one odd implication of that when I was trying to pick a film to watch and couldn't decide on anything, just nothing felt right and when I finally picked something I stopped watching it after a few mins and just couldn't settle on doing anything. All very weird and disconcerting.

Sexuality

I'm not sure how true this is but I read/was told that testosterone affects libido in both men and women so one of the things that actually did scare me is that suddenly I'd have an uncontrollable sex drive which I would find extremely distressing. I'm sure many people won't understand this or even find it quite funny, but it's not, it's something that makes you question who you are and made me feel very uncomfortable and upset.

Control

I've never had an operation with general anesthetic before, and the thought of being forced asleep did really upset me for quite a while. When attending the GIC and talking to my the specialist there he commented that I was a bit of a control freak (he is right) and I definitely saw being anesthetised as a huge lack of control. I was really worried about being allergic to the anesthetic to or having a reaction or not waking up, etc, etc.

As it turned out it didn't even hurt when they put the needle in and I just drifted off quite quickly and came round afterwards reasonably fast too. Several people, my Mum in particular, commented that they work out the amount of anesthesia so accurately these days and the whole process is so precise that there isn't much in the way of feeling groggy or half-asleep anymore.

Death

I've never had major surgery before so have no idea what to expect; so I started imagining the worst possible scenarios! I definitely worried that I wouldn't wake up afterwards or have something serious happen like a blood clot that affected my brain! My imagination did run riot for a while and there were times that I was very scared but strangely I didn't worry about this worst case as much as I thought I would. I think I was more concerned about surviving but having complications.

Complications

Knowing about certain potential complications just made me worry about them. Some aren't particularly serious in the grand scheme of things but they are things I just didn't want to go through. I had a few nightmare scenarios in my head and it's always easier to worry these will happen rather think about it rationally.

It's very easy from this side of the surgery to see that I was worrying about nothing and that's maybe how other people see it. But I really was very scared, worried, pre-occupied and apprehensive about the whole thing. The affect of stopping hormones was very definitely real and not pleasant at all (and my ability to write about all of this in a quite open and honest way is testament to the fact I'm back on hormones and this has started to level my thinking out, even if it's just psychological rather that phisiological at the moment).

As I was told before I left hospital, this is major surgery, it does take time to heal and recover and it is a big deal for many reasons. Anyone going through this is going through a major change in their life (for the better) and it isn't easy at all. And all of this is something very hard to explain to anyone else who isn't close to you, very few people have a frame of reference in which they can understand what you are going through.

The problem that I found was that the last thing I wanted to do was explain any of this to anyone. Talking about it before surgery meant to me that I would be labelled as "pre-op" and I absolutely hated the idea of anyone knowing that. This is again maybe something hard to understand if you've not gone through it but it just became a real concern of mine that my surgical status be kept absolutely private.

Now, I am much more relaxed about so many things, I commented to my partner just today that a whole load of my inhibitions have just disappear and, aside from the fact that I really need to get a load of exercise and tone up, I don't have any hang-ups about my body anymore. I might not be the most attractive person in the world, but I'm really me now and that is all that matters.

I would have been early, but ...

... I was busy taking pictures of the balloons!

On my cycle route to work I pass the York Race Course and I'd seen one balloon lift off from there earlier in the week but just hadn't got close enough to get any decent pictures.

When I had a second chance I made sure I got really close and took as many pictures as I could! It really was a quite amazing sight and the glorious sunshine and clear blue sky just made for, hopefully, fantastic photographs.

I'll process the rest of the photos soon and put them up on my deviantArt page.

Exercise!

This is the reason that I'm currently a bit behind with all my blogging; I've been cycling to/from work for the past few weeks and I'm shattered by the time I get home!

In fairness my lack of blogs updates is also due to a rather hectic time at work and the fact that I really haven't got into a good routine of early nights to match the pre 6am mornings which I need to be able to get up, cycle, shower, make-up and breakfast in time.

Anyway, I'm sure it's doing me good and I do feel a little bit fitter. Hopefully I'll be into the swing of things very soon.

SeeSaw Launched

In previous companies it's been the usual policy (or at least accepted practice) not to link blogs and any other public, non-work, sites (forums and the like) back to my employer. Given the publicity around SeeSaw and the fact that they have no problem with their brand being spread far and wide around Twitter for example, I find myself in unfamiliar territory.

So now, given the evidence on my Twitter, it wouldn't take a genius to work out that I'm employed by Ioko and since October I've been working on the SeeSaw project! I'm obviously biased but it has been one of the most fun projects I've ever worked on and the team, client, and everyone has been so nice and fab to work with!

The project has been espescially fun when when you get to see something that looks so impressive - again, yes, I'm biased but I've thought all along that it looks fantastic and the web developers that pulled that together are amazing. I've been working on the Java side of things, along with many others, and while no-one outside the project sees that code I would still say it's pretty elegant and impressive in itself (sorry, it's a geek thing).

So, after the official launch this morning we're all busy working away on further development and just getting on with normal activities ... though we have got a big TV screen showing all the stats from the site and it's interesting to see it ramping up now.

Anyway, back to work for me.

Christmas Party

It was the works Christmas party last night, held in the York Railway Museum! It was fantastic, really amazing setting, great food, drink (though didn't have much of this as I was driving), good fun and most importantly wonderful people. As I said to Rachel last night, this is the best place I have ever worked, I love it!

Rachel an I took quite a few pictures, I'm being shamelessly vain in just showing (mainly) the ones of her and me (mainly me) here on my website. Rachel did get some pictures of other people which look fab but I'll leave them in her more capable hands for processing.

We had a fantastic time, sadly all too brief as we needed to get home and to bed, which first required us to walk through the freezing night to the snow covered car and then for me to negotiate roads already starting to slush/ice/freeze over. This morning arrived rather too quickly (must catch up sleep over the weekend) but with fantastic wintery scenes for a trip to work.

Random Acts

I am obviously biased in my opinion of Rachel and her photography but the picture above hopefully captures the 'real' and dedicated person that she is when engrossed in what she does. The main reason for mentioning this is essentially a shameless plug for Rachel's website, Random Acts, and photography services she provides.

Alot of the photoshoots (I've mentioned some here before) are done essentially for free or mutual benefit, however it would of course be good to have this generate some money for Random Acts so that things can develop ("Develop Nurture and Inspire" being the motto) and progress, as well of course so that the tedious things like bills for hosting, equipment etc get paid.

So, if you are interested in having any photographs taken for whatever reason, do drop Rachel and e-mail (rachel at random acts dot biz) to discuss what services she provides. I'd also recommend you look at the pictures on her site as well as the multitude of images on her Deviant Art account also.

[ Oh, and it all also helps me too as I get to come along to the photo-shoots as Rachel's assistant which I thoroughly enjoy doing as I find the whole thing so fascinating and exciting ]

I spoke too soon ....

I HAVE A JOB!

OMG!

I can't believe it, I am so unbelievably happy, emotional, .... just crying with joy and emotion (damn hormones!).

WOW!

THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!

Beginning to wonder ...

... whether my naive view that people would consider me on my skills and experience rather than the fact that I'm transgendered and look like some weird, ugly, freak, was just too optimistic.

I've had several rejections after face-to-face interviews now and, while there was only one incident where someone clearly could not hide their shock at seeing me, the lack of any feedback at all, or fairly lack-lustre reasoning, is making me think that I'm at a disadvantage because of my appearance and gender (well the trans nature of it).

While I can understand that companies are sifting through lots of CVs and conducting many interviews, I do think it is extremely rude and unhelpful to not provide any feedback at all, particularly as, in my case, I have travelled a great distance to get to some of the locations (and done it several times). I personally would obviously benefit a great deal from feedback as it has been a long time since I interviewed and my situation then was alot different.

As I said, I do recognise that the bad manners approach of not providing feedback, or even giving someone a definitive "no" and simple reason why they haven't been successful, is something that seems to apply in alot of cases, but I really can't help thinking that there may be that extra reason for me; "Frankly we think you're a weirdo and you'd upset/confuse/frighten too many people here so we don't want to hire you". Sounds extreme but given the number of looks I get from the general populace it's hardly an unsurprising view to suspect.

I'm not asking for special treatment or any amount of positive discrimination here, I'm very much against that as it's simply patronising and self-defeating. But some consideration for what I've gone through over the past few years would be appreciated, as well as allowances made for that fact that my self-confidence has taken a hammering would also be most helpful.

Being trans does not affect my ability to do my job, in some ways quite the contrary. However, I'm beginning to suspect that it does quite significantly affect my ability to get a job in the first place.

[ Update: Two points to make here. The comments above in no way apply to my current employer, and I should also state that one of the companies that I was indirectly criticising were not being rude but simply slow, they have actually returned with feedback. One final point as well; I don't name companies I've had dealings with here, that would be unfair, and I certainly don't publish who I work for! Also see the disclaimer at the top - my opinions here remember ]

Note to self ...

... don't do interviews in London and Edinburgh back to back, it's insane and you just end up very tired and running on adrenaline! I have certainly covered some miles over the past few days and I'm looking forward to having maybe a day or so to relax!

Things have been kind of manic since the weekend in actual fact and I have crammed so much into this time that I really do need to catch my breath!

I guess the mania started on Friday when I spent about 5hrs chatting online to someone I'd met briefly at Manchester Pride. I asked her to come along to a birthday party I was going to in Manchester but since she lives in York it makes the logistics a little complicated and costly particularly coming so soon after Pride weekend - in fact I was considering not going for the same reasons. Anyway, we got on so well and had so much in common that it got to the point where 'no' was not an acceptable response, she HAD to come along.

So she did. And we did get on really well and just, as we both agreed, 'clicked'.

It's early days so I'm not going to go into vast amounts of detail about her and our relationship, I personally think intimate information is best kept private and not something I ever want to publish to the world at large (I've put more details on FaceBook for friends but even there a line must be drawn). I think some the recent experiences might be worth discussion though.

For example we walked into Manchester city centre to see a film (a suitably sedentary activity with which to sober up) and we were walking along holding hands. Strangely this didn't seem in any way odd or 'wrong' too me and I was really rather too hung-over and tried to notice peoples reactions. It did occur to me that it might generate some stares though. In Vancouver I saw many gay men and women holding hands and being affectionate in public but it's not something I've seen alot in the UK, even for straight couples I think there is a distinctly more reserved attitude than in other parts of the world.

One of the things that I did struggle with in my head was how I would feel when dating someone female. I've always said that I am now technically a lesbian, I don't have any attraction to men at all. But the problem is how I would feel about my gender and sexuality when all my previous memories would put me in a very 'male' role in a relationship with someone female. This doesn't seem to be what I feel now, if anything I feel more feminine, not less, and definitely see this as what it is, a lesbian relationship.

So my tour of the UK also included a trip from Edinburgh to York to see the new woman in my life for one brief evening before she had to go to work and I had to return home to sort out the piles of washing and mess in the flat that accumulated due to all the rushing around! The train journey from York back to Preston was quite long but very beautiful. The slightly less beautiful picture to the left is me looking tired and the one below was of one of the many pretty train stations on the way back.

Edinburgh

I had a nice day out in Edinburgh yesterday as I had to go up there for an interview. I've been to the city a few times before but too be honest I'd forgotten just how beautiful it was.

I guess, too be fair, I did catch it on a good day, the sun was shining, there was blue sky and I had a lovely journey up there. Add to that I think I did my best in the interview and felt relatively relaxed and calm about it all. Of course that is no indication of success but it's better to try your hardest and fail than feel you let yourself down.

There was plenty of time to wander around a little bit of Edinburgh before and after the interview, though I was constrained somewhat by the choice of interview footwear, smart heels are hardly conducive to extensive exploration over rough (cobbled) terrain so I think most of the serious admiring of architecture, scenery and life was done in a sedentary fashion.

[ I seem to have got lots of long and convoluted words into that sentence - I'm not sure how, they just came to me, maybe I was hit by some 'inspiration particles' - cf the Discworld books by Terry Pratchett ]

On interesting experience was going to get some food from M&S (I'm sorry, I'm a snob, I can't help it - it's just I always head for M&S because they have nice clean toilets, friendly staff and lovely food - at a reasonable price). I expected the usual selection of sandwiches in the café but the Edinburgh store is different; it serves hot food only and looks smilar to a McDonalds in some ways (though more up-market of course).

So in the end I had singapore noodles and they came in a little cardboard box similar to those I've seen used for Chinese fast food in the US. It was quite cute!

I also had such a lovely train ride back as well, talking non-stop between Edinburgh and Carlisle to a totally fascinating woman and her sister about all sorts of things like mountain biking, camping, Bavaria, furniture making, Canal St, and many other topics. There are some people you meet who are just so wonderfully nice and interesting that they can't help but brighten your day!

So, overall a very fun, interesting, hopefully productive, but definitely tiring day - went to bed early and had a really good long sleep last night!

This was the very first interview I've done as 'me' and while I am never going to be happy with how I look or sound I at least can try to gain a small amount of confidence from the experience since I went out and did it and tried the best that I could. I would say that, for any other trans people out there who are, understandably, scared of doing such a thing; if I can do it anyone can, just be yourself.

Which only leaves one final question: just what on earth is going on with my hair! Seriously it's a curly nightmare! I think I'm going to attack it with the straightners this weekend and see if I can get it to behave any better!

Testing time (update)

94%

Testing time

As part of my job hunting I had to take an online Java test which is meant to adapt to the answers you give and adjust the difficulty accordingly. Since I've been in permanent employment for the past four and a half years and before that not really having to do any serious job hunting, it's been a while since I've done anything like this.

So, how did I do? Well, I don't get to find out yet, the results are sent only to the company who wanted me to take the test. I did remember some of the questions and so I've checked my thoughts on these and I did catch at least one or two of the sneaky tricks they had, though equally there are a few I think they tripped me up on.

One of the big features of these tests is code that no competent person would right; it's legal according to the language specification (or at least parts of it are) but it would immediately get thrown out by even the most cursory peer review. This is why I always valued working as a trainer or mentoring, essentially those with less experience generally do 'think the unthinkable' and ask questions that you just never dreamed of!

Anyway, just have to wait and see how I did and hope it was enough.

Aside: I was looking into Java generics, trying to understand how it worked from the JCP book I have. The book spent pages and pages with examples and comments intended to put the reader at their ease by admitting that this was all a little confusing and didn't really work how you would expect.

Too be honest this rambling list of the differences, exceptions and important notes concerning rules you MUST remember for the exam was confusing me and I really just wanted to know how it all worked, how did all this functionality get represented at a low-level. So I ran javad and decompiled java.util.List to see how the magic worked.

What I discovered was that all the generics functionality is simply a compiler 'trick' and there is no under-lying implementation. The information that pertains to the generics syntax is stored in attributes which are an extensible feature of the classfile format. This article gives a pretty good description of the mechanism, which is admittedly quite neat.

Now why couldn't the book have explained all this? Armed with this knowledge all the complicated rules and exceptions make perfect sense! Why burden the reader with a multitude of disparate facts when knowing the how and why of something makes it so much clearer?!

Erm, rant over I think.

Busy week

As I mentioned before, I have had a very busy week since returning from the holidays and it's probably worth a quick mention of everything that I've been up to in order to catch up:

• Met up for shopping and cakes (well Tiramasu) with a fab person from blog-land
  
• Continued that night out by having a a few drinks on Canal Street as well!
• Met up with for lunch an ex-work colleague, followed by
  
• Meeting with an out placement service (help me with CV etc)
• Having my son stay for another night after we saw G-Force at the cinema (it's silly but entertaining if you like that kind of thing)
• Playing football (badly - and not just letting him win) with my son in this lovely weather - really tired me out!
  

All this was interspersed with general bits and pieces and obviously job hunting, sending CVs, and trying to sort my life out.

Saturday was a totally lazy day when I didn't get out of PJs until well into the afternoon - I think I needed that wind down time but I got bored towards the end which was why Sunday had a little bit more activity in it.

Curriculum Vitae

It just occurred to me that I have a means with which to advertise myself for a job, rather than the usual way these things are done, i.e. by looking for existing vacancies. So here, for the consumption of the internet at large is an extract from my CV:

Education/Qualifications

• RedHat Training (2001): Red Hat Certified Engineer RHCE

• UMIST: 2:1 (Hons) Master of Engineering (MEng) in Microelectronics Systems Engineering.

• School: A-levels in maths (A), physics (B), chemistry (A), general studies (B) and AS computing (A). GCSEs in Maths, Physics, Chemistry, Technology, Geography, Latin, English, Graphics.

Key Skills

• Programming

• Java – from JDK 1.0.1 through to J2SE 1.6, Java EE 5

• UNIX shell scripts (sed, awk, perl, etc)

• XSLT 1.0 and 2.0

• Jython/Python

• C/C++ - on UNIX, Linux and Windows environments

• Tcl/Tk

• Application Servers

• WebSphere 5.x, 6.x

• WebLogic 9

• Tomcat v5, Apache v2

• NetWeaver Java Application Server v7

• Databases

• DB2 UDB v8 and v9 (Windows, Linux, UNIX, some zOS experience also)

• Oracle 10g (Windows, Linux, UNIX)

• MySQL

• Operating Systems

• Linux - Ubuntu 7.04 – 9.04, RHEL/CentOS 4.x, 5.x, Debian, SLES v9

• UNIX - Solaris, HP-UX, AIX

• Some exposure to zOS and iSeries

• Windows

• Development Tools

• Eclipse v3 (Callisto to Ganymede)

• Subversion (including administration)

• Rational Rose

• Enterprise Architect v6

• ClearCase UCM v7 (including administration)

• Axure v5.x

• Cruise Control, Ant

• JUnit

• CVS, RCS, SCCS

So, if anyone has any current jobs going which my skills match, then let me know!

Redundant

Well, the title says it all really.

Nothing much more to say at the moment, usual roller-coaster of emotions and probably won't fully hit until later.

Facing redundancy

I guess this isn't surprising news given the current state of the economy or job market in general but I now find myself in the position of possibly being made redundant from my job next week (the final decision on who is going has not been made as yet, at least the company has given us all a chance to prepare).

The reasons behind all of this and the impacts from a practical point of view for anyone, and my specific situation, are obvious and there is no need to really labour the point here. Losing your job sucks no matter who you are the the affects and remedies are pretty much the same; get another job quickly or you are in serious financial trouble.

I've obviously been thinking of what has happened in terms of my transition and how that has added a different twist to things. For a start my current employer is the one who supported me when I started my transition last year and for that I am eternally grateful. In some ways part of the new me is linked to the company and more importantly to the office and people where I worked since it was mainly them that have been such a great help in getting me through the past months.

So it feels a little strange to be potentially no longer part of that environment and thus almost losing some of what made my life what it is (this is obviously true for everyone else that will be affected by the job losses but for more conventional reasons).

In some ways change, as my friends have said to me, can be a good thing. There is certainly nothing I can do about losing my job if it comes to that, I just have to face the challenges that presents and have to admit it isn't without a degree of anticipation, new things can be exciting as well as frightening.

Of course one of the issues I will face is being transsexual and looking for a job in my new identity, something I have not had to do so far. Legally there should be no prejudicial treatment of me based on gender or the fact that I am transsexual but the reality is there could well be. I think it would be stunningly naive not to think that people are routinely discriminated against in the basis of race, age, appearance, or gender to varying degrees. Certainly when you have a job already it is a much better position to fight that kind of thing then when you are trying to gain employment.

I am optimistic that this should not present too much of a problem though. For a start I work in IT which is, at least anecdotally, supposed to be one of the most tolerant professions in general when it comes to transsexuals (or any minority for that matter). Also, while some complain of problems finding work because they are transsexual, I have spoken to several friends who have not found it a barrier in the slightest.

On a lighter note I have looked at the two possibilities and come to a happy conclusion; 1) I lose my job, I need to attend interviews, I need a new suit, 2) I keep my job but will likely do more travelling to client sites, therefore I need a new suit. So I really do need to go shopping at the weekend!

Jogger from memory lane

Okay, I'm sorry but this is a bit geeky.

Just been testing something on an AIX server and I just happened to run the "smit" command which starts the admin tool, use to use this years and years ago when I did UNIX admin/development type stuff but haven't seen it since then. Anyway, I remembered the little running icon that it had from years ago, and guess what it's still there!

Running ...













... failed ...









.... success .... YAY!







I'm sorry, I just thought it was kinda funny!

Buzzing!

I know it is sad but I REALLY enjoy solving techie computer problems and getting things done! I'm happiest when there are loads of windows (xterms for preference) all running and doing useful things! Yes, very sad!

The problem with this level of nerdiness is that it kind of leaves your head a bit fuzzy and with your brain almost free-running and in desperate need of things to do and to figure out! It's a really bizarre feeling and almost like a drug because there is the downside when there is nothing to do and you almost get one of those downer-like feelings.

Anyway, I'm trying to counter-act the marathon typing/hacking/sorting-out session by drinking red wine, eating chicken, bacon and leek pie (more on this later) before going to bed! Need to get to bed early so I can be up first thing in the morning to get into work and get on with some serious coding!

Fizz, buzz, click, whir :D

Company Summer Party

I'm a bit behind with the blog posts so I'll try and catch up a bit and then keep on top of things next week ... erm, well hopefully anyway.

In the interests of brevity (word of the day) and avoiding any rambling here are the highlights of the night:

• Only too me two hours to get ready! Okay, sounds bad but that's shower, dry/straighten hair, make-up, get dressed all interspersed with worry and stress about how I was going to look! No pictures of me (well there are some but they have other work colleagues in them so no appropriate for public disemination) but the outfit was pretty simply; red satin top and black jeans (both from Dorothy Perkins), the multi-coloured shoes from Evans (see post from ages ago) and black & silver necklace and earrings from M&S.
• Food was at one of those Tepenyaki places - plenty to eat and drink and all very entertaining even when they fling food at you which is impossible to catch!
• Next was cocktails at Cloud 23 which is the bar on top of the Hilton Hotel on Deansgate in Manchester - amazing views across the city - I've always loved the sight of a city/town at night from a distance, the lights just look magical (cue Bette Midler singing "From a distance").
• Then taxi ride to Tiger Tiger where we were in the VIP area and able to drink vast amounts ... I don't think I was *that* bad but I seem to have managed to get nice and drunk anyway.
• Chatted to some really nice girls who had been quizzing one of my work colleagues about me. I was probably rambling at that point but it was fun nonetheless.
• Actually talked to a lovely girl outside Tiger Tiger who was handing out flyers and she was so nice and fun that I seriously regret not getting her number or something - not for any reason than just to talk to her again.
• Everyone was very drunk on leaving the club and heading back to the hotel and a few hurtful comments were said but we'll forget about that I think.

Woke up at 7am because B was trying to get hold of me to arrange me seeing my son this weekend. Couldn't get back to sleep so go up (slowly) and had a wander round Manchester, buying some more make-up and similar things. Also had a look at dresses in Monsoon in preparation for the Chirstmas Party shopping!

Didn't really have the heart (or money) to shop much so drove home, got a few things from Tesco's and then had a bit of a sleep before my son came over.

This pic is me AFTER having a sleep, hence the slightly dishevelled look!



Honest I looked alot better on the night out and MUCH better before having a sleep!

Hello

It seems that I have acquired some new readership.

I guess it was only a matter of time and this isn't entirely a secret blog after all, if it was meant to be a complete secret I could have made it private but I chose not to; what I'm going through is observable by anyone, the only thing that isn't is what I think/feel about it. I think it's valuable that this is recorded as it helps me, my friends and maybe other people going through the same thing.

So, to anyone who has just started reading this blog, please, leave comments, ask questions, in fact if you actually know me in real life talk to me, I'm happy to answer any sensible, honest, question if I can.