Positive chi, man

I didn't get a lot of sleep after writing my last blog post. The next morning I felt terrible, so after some deliberation I decided to stay at home. For some reason we can carry over sick days from one year to the next, so I've still got 46½ of them up my sleeve.

Mum thinks I should move out of my hermit pad. She's right. Spending so much time alone isn't good for me so I'm now seriously thinking of flatting. A lot of our shop windows here are covered in ads, some of them were for flatmates so I jotted down some details, but I was distracted by the number of ads for tarot card readings. Personally I think all that stuff is a load of baloney, but so many people here are into tarot (isn't the hermit one of the cards?), astrology, numerology, palmistry, feng shui, you name it. And what's more, go into any bookstore now and you'll find a whole aisle devoted to "mind, body, spirit" with titles along the lines of "Seven Steps to Eternal Happiness". Do people really think it's that simple? And why is seven always the magic number?

I got quite a bit done on Friday, far more than I would have at work. But that didn't stop me from being depressed. Yesterday was also fairly productive (I found ten recruitment agencies that I hope to contact over the next week), but again I was on my own all day. Today on the other hand was one of the most sociable days I've had for some time. I spoke to my gran first thing, then went to the French club. At lunchtime I saw Brendan who's certainly an interesting character. He even offered me a room at his place to rent. I won't take him up on that offer for a variety of reasons. He's a bit older than me for a start - I need to find people of my own age. Secondly, though I really like his house, living in that area with all its cul de sacs and funny little roundabouts and streets all named after birds would do my head in after a while. Thirdly, Brendan is big on his communications equipment and he likes putting up signs all over his house. I'd feel I was being watched.

This afternoon I played tennis, or tried to. It was a lovely day for it, but for me it wasn't much fun at all. They had seven games of doubles going on at once; all that sunlight and noise and all those flying fuzzy yellow objects were more than I could cope with. We played sudden death deuce - I lost nine of those deciding points in a row, but really I didn't care. I just wanted to get off the court and go home. It wasn't that long ago that I used to enjoy tennis; now it's as enjoyable as going to the dentist.

I've got tomorrow night's Italian class to look forward to, but Tuesday is a potentially scary day at work. I'll find out who's being restructured, streamlined and downsized, so I'll be on full tsunami alert.