Harry Potter and the ADHD girl

Ah, I finished an essay today. BOOM. Feels good. Yes! Just have to hand it in tomorrow. Before I finished that one, I had to start aNOTHER one for my Education class which I'm doing about ADHD/Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. I'm really quite interested in this topic, as I've seen some kids with it in its different forms while on placement in primary schools at home in Australia (alas, no placement involved while over here in England) and I gotta tell ya, I've been making some interesting observations the more I study ADHD.

My observation? I totally have it. There's 2 types of ADHD, there's the "OMG I'm sitting here but I want to be over there so I'm just going to go over there regardless that you told me to sit here and sit STILL here cos quite frankly, that's a bit of a joke, see my fingers tapping the table like that? I'm totally not doing that. My fingers are oh look at that, there's a bird out the window I'm going to climb out the window to look at the bird and okay ow that branch was actually really scratchy when I hit it and fell down and probably I shouldn't have done that and the teacher wants me back inside but I've done it now. Oops" type of ADHD, which is called Hyperactive-impulsive, where the person who has it, is quite hyperactive, and impulsive (among other things).

And then there's the 'inattentive' type of ADHD, which is basically where you have trouble with instructions and your mind wanders and your working memory is effected, so you can't remember what you did yesterday but boy it was SO funny that time 15 years ago when you were running down the hill to get a bucket of water and had so much momentum that you kept running straight into the lake and fell smack on your face in the water. (Actual story. This is who I am.)

I get in trouble with my family a lot for forgetting stuff, and my sister tells me I have made up half of my childhood memories because she doesn't remember them, even though half the time they are about her.

Also with ADHD, your grades are generally effected because of the whole having trouble paying attention thing, but I've mostly done okay in the grades area my whole life. I never failed a class (though there was this one maths test in high school which if I remember correctly I failed the first one and did a make up test and never found out the score so I will NEVER KNOW if I failed that test too...oooooh....) but I came close once last year. I thought I would try Sociology because I thought I would be interested in Sociology. Turns out I'm not. At least not the way THEY were teaching it.

Anyhoo, if I AM little miss ADHD girl, it explains a lot about me. Like why my mother was compelled to buy me a fridge magnet that said "Yes I'm in my own world, but it's okay, they like me there" because it made her think of me. Nice.

Okay, and now onto Harry Potter! I have just finished my essay on demons and the Devil in Medieval literature for my English Literature class: Narratives of Witchcraft and Magic (can I hear a WOOT!), and have found out the essay topics for the second essay, which I will start about a week after I finish the one about ADHD (I'm a little burnt out, essay wise right now.)

One of the topic questions? Way cool.

"Compare and contrast J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series with at least one other 20^th- or 21^st-century fictional treatment of witchcraft and magic."

So I'm thinking my ACADEMIC ESSAY is going to be about Harry Potter and oh, Willow from Buffy, she's pretty different to Harry Potter. Or Charmed. Or Bewitched. This is going to be way more fun than my usual essays. Mind you, it's still an ESSAY.

I'm not sure about book type witches. Any other suggestions that I should be going 'oh, DUH' about?

Twice in a week? Really?

Well this year's Nanowrimo could be going better for me.

I am at 7500 words. Whilst, erm, other people are at around the 20k mark.

But I have my reasons! And fairly good ones, I swear!

Firstly I sent my computer away to have the dust and gunk cleaned out, which would take a half hour, and 5 days later after they locked in the shop over the weekend and then LOST IT on Monday, I got the computer back. And it wasn't fixed.

So yeah, I lost 5 days.

Also, I've been to the emergency room twice in the past week. If I was at home in Australia, the first time would have been to a doctor's office, but considering that costs me money here (I think) I went to the emergency room when I thought I maybe might just have deep vein thrombosis by the week long muscle cramps and turning-to-rockness of my left leg.

And then at 3am 2 nights ago I was taken by ambulance to the A&E because I had been vomiting for SEVEN HOURS for no reason. To me, nausea is the worst kind of sickness. I absolutely hate hate hate it. Turns out I have gastro, a fever and a touch of dehydration and every muscle in my body has been sore so needless to say I've been sleeping a lot and ignoring the world and oh yeah, forgot to eat for 2 days until I realised that might just be aNOTHER cause of nausea should I let it go on too long.

So yeah. NaNo's not going so well this year, there have been a few more trials than last year. It doesn't mean the book won't EVER be finished. It just probably might not be finished by the end of November.

Stopping vomiting (check) remembering to eat and finishing essays with, you know, actual immediate deadlines is of more imminent importance to me right now. Or is that weird?

Sairz