The Good, The Bad & The Ugly

I think Badger pioneered the Good, Bad and Ugly post, and I thought it'd make a nice change from Random Bullets of Crap, so here goes...

The Good

• Where I live... Actually, this should really be The Awesome, not just The Good. Yes, I know I bore on about it quite a bit, but it really hit home last Thursday, when we had the best weather of the year so far. Oh. My. Word. I only had to walk less than a minute from my door to stroll along the beach and sit in a beachside cafe sipping coffee. Simply wonderful. Of course, some would say that such a holiday atmosphere isn't exactly conducive to dissertation writing, but I'm fantasizing about ways of working at the beach. Yes, maybe the sun has gone to my head!
• Again, where I live...Actually this wasn't going to be my next point, but Mr Cupcake's sitting next to me reading a review of a local cafe. The cafe serves 30 different flavours of hot chocolate! I mean, what's not to love about a city with such a cafe???!!
• Also, where I live (noticing a theme yet??)...I will never tire of visiting this place, especially when I can do so after a sunny Sunday stroll along the seafront, and a wonderful lunch sitting outside an local Italian restaurant with Mr Cupcake. The building's exterior is breathtaking, but pales in comparison to the interior. There is just nowhere else quite like it. If you're ever in the South of England, you should totally take the time out to visit it and some of the other delights of Trendy Seaside City* (which is less than an hour from London).
• And, yes, where I live (I promise, this'll be the last one for now)...Trendy Seasisde City holds an amazing arts/music/literature festival every May. In fact, outside of the Edinburgh Festival, it's the largest in the UK. On Saturday evening, we went to a reading/discussion with Irvine Welsh and Chuck Palahniuk, which was surreal, intelligent, thought-provoking, troubling, vomit-inducing and side-splittingly funny, all at the same time. (I'm actually going to write a whole post about it as it was so fascinating and impossible to summarize quickly.) We've also got a pretty hectic week coming up with two classical concerts, a theatrical adaptation of Paradise Lost, a firework and light display, and a discussion event with Richard E. Grant. We'll definitely be in a state of culture overload by the end of the month...
• My internet support group. As some of you may know, a while ago the wonderful Shrinky asked whether any fellow grad student bloggers might want to start a virtual support group, so that we could help each other meet our academic goals and maybe even finish our PhDs some day! Several of us joined in, and I have to say that I cannot believe how helpful it has been so far. I'd never really imagined that it would be possible to feel so supported and motivated by people I've never met in real life, and how useful we can be to each other, despite our varied academic disciplines. Anyway, you all know who you are, and you rock!
• Oh, yeah, my Gilmore Girls 4th Season DVDs arrived yesterday. Hoooooray! :)

The Bad

• I'm having a couple of medical issues again. Most likely nothing particularly serious, just frustrating, especially as I've been feeling a lot better this past month or so. I don't think it would bother me so much were it not for all of the medical stuff I've been through in the past twelve months. I'm just at the end of my tether with it all and don't want to have to think about it any longer. I can't believe how stressed out I've been getting about arranging simple appointments and going for tests recently. It's not as if I haven't been through far worse, but I think it's just that I'm worn out by it all. I need to see a light at the end of the tunnel with all of this, and whenever it looks as though I'm about to, there's some kind of setback. I'm seeing my consultant again tomorrow, so hopefully we can make some headway then...
• Even more than the medical issues themselves, I dislike the effect that they have on me mentally. For the past month or two, as a result of feeling much better physically, I've been so much more productive and upbeat about everything. I've begun to get into my research again, and I've been trying to get out and about a lot more. Yet, although I don't actually feel less well physically, I'm now really battling with myself to not get down. I don't like myself when I am, but it's so hard to fight it right now.
• I also hate the fact that when I'm down I tend to just hide away, even from my blog. This is why I haven't blogged much lately, which is of course my prerogative, but it's not what I want. I want to keep writing, even if it's just a fairly meaningless, waffly post. The continuity is very important to me, so is the community. So, I'm setting myself the goal of posting daily.

The Ugly

• My new haircut. Actually, it's not seriously ugly now, although it was when I left the hairdressers last Friday. I haven't had a fringe since I was 11, and have no idea quite why I let my hairdresser cut one in last week. I think it was a combination of hairspray fumes and the way she persuaded me that my hair could look so much better with one. It was that kind of brainwashing persuasion that hairdressers seem to be so skilled at. I didn't (and still don't) believe her, but I was having a low self esteem day, and managed to convince myself that a fringe would be the answer to all my troubles. Clearly, it wasn't. It isn't a very heavy fringe, so I've managed to sweep it off to the sides and when it grows a bit more, it'll be possible to tuck it completely away. The main problem is that I have to painstakingly blow-dry and straighten it every single morning to stop it looking like the sperm scene in There's Something About Mary. Not good and way too time consuming. (And, no, I'm not going to photoblog it!!)
• On the subject of photoblogging, I've lost count of the amount of times in recent weeks that I've berated myself for failing to take the digital camera out with me. So, I'll add to my resolution of daily blogging, a resolution to get some photos up on the blog again soon.
• My feet after a winter stuck in shoes and boots! I totally need a pedicure before I let them loose on sandals too often! My quick nailpolish job isn't masking their pale ickiness too well right now. ;)

* I realize that quite a few of the details in this post make it fairly easy to identify Trendy Seaside City. I've decided that I'm not too bothered about that, as I'd like to be able to talk about where I live and the things that go on here. However, I'd rather not mention the city by name, so it's not too easily googleable. So, if you know where it is, that's just fine, but I'd rather you didn't mention the name in comments. Thanks.