A Curious Girl: In a foul mood, I think of superiors and personality

Hello again. How's it going?

Life is weird. At first people tell you you're normal and sane, then all of a sudden everything you believe in is just 'rationalising' and 'delusional'.

Life sux.

I'm still p*d off about this, so I'm going to tell you about it. Enjoy.

I went to the hospital as usual today, although I was late as I'd overslept. So I went off to find a nurse to give me the keys into the locker room, and found some woman whose name I can't remember. Might be Trudy. Could be something else. She told me to go to Tina, and I saw a nurse in the end side-room, no. 29 I think, so I thought, that might be her.

It was a woman I recall as being rather scary, and she has a strict look about her face. Trudy (?) says, "Oh, is she in there?" Trudy pushes open the door and says, "Can Helen have the keys to our room?"

Tina gets them out, and chucks them at my feet. She was standing only about a metre away from me, well within reach, but she doesn't even attempt to toss them at me. She throws them *at my feet*. Who does she think I am? I might be a dog's body but I'm not a dog.

It was possibly the most insulting thing someone's done to me for ages.

Anyway, reason is butting in and telling me that she might have just dropped them, (shades of Robert Frost - "with all her matter of fact about the ice storm") but she didn't even say sorry, so it seems she at least didn't think I was worth apologising to. Later on I'm pushing the trolley around to replace rubbish bags, and she comes up to me, right in the middle of my job, and asks me to take stuff to pharmacy. I show a little reluctance, as it's obvious that I'm still doing something else. She says "Oh you'll *have* to do it, none have us have got time."

Excuse me? I'm not getting paid for this job. I don't *have* to do anything. I say weakly my favourite catchphrase "That's what I'm here for", but all the same, I don't feel that bright, sunny, resilient person I'm meant to sound like as I say that.

I suppose I shouldn't be too hard on her, but I still feel like she's turning her nose up at me, because I want to be a doctor not a nurse and I don't have to work all hours of the day etc etc. I know she has hard work, but that's her choice and she shouldn't take it out on me.

Oddly enough, I still managed my impossibly wide smile to all the patients, and it's an odd feeling. I read in my psychology book that people don't take things as badly if they're smiling, and I suppose this was why I felt so odd, dying to run her toes over with the tea-trolley, yet smiling like an ad-girl.

They actually let me out early, but I didn't insist on staying. I may have been late, but I'd hardly had a break.

I don't mind it so much, but today really was a drag. For some reason the drugs from pharmacy weighed a ton and the woman who repeatedly calls me 'love' and needs dentures kept going on about yoghurt and orange juice and a thousand things besides! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

Bright sunny smile or no, I still don't have the patience of a saint.

(Or maybe I do, because Saint means Christian, so I do by default)

'Love' is my least favourite form of address. It's so disgustingly insincere. I don't mind when Mum says it, or Clive, but (im)perfect strangers saying such a term of endearment drives me round the bend. It's something that Chris has taken to saying and she's driving me nutty with it. She sounds so... common?

I don't mean to sound like a snob, so you must realise that by common I don't mean lower class or the 'wrong sort of person', I just mean that they have a narrowness of mind. I get so fed up with people who have to use cliches they don't even know the meaning of, and take their whole world for granted, then moan about prices and make casserole. Is there anyone in the entire world who likes casserole? Genuinely? It must be the most boring dish in the entire universe. Take some perfectly nice tasting foods and stick 'em all together so they taste exactly the same and are all soft and squidgy.

Ooh, it feels nice to have a rant :-)

Nickie found my diary, which is a bitch, because I can't find hers. How the hell did she find it anyway? I suspect she has spies.

This is an appeal to Nicola's spies - please please please tell me where my sister's diary is :-)

I really am in a foul mood, aren't I? I was going to moan about my psychology tutor, but I'll let the poor woman off, after all, she worked past her due, not that I wanted her to.

At least I got a nice dinner at the hospital. I had a BLT Mayonnaise and lemon Lucozade, and two chocolate bars. I was going to have just the sandwich but the lady at the till pressurized me, as I had a voucher for Ł2.80. One chocolate bar is still in the fridge.

I was also going to go out with Chelle et al tonight (fireworks then Oast House), but Mum said no. Now they're out at the Red House. I didn't want to go, because I wanted to write about the hospital instead.

I'm going to read through the Volunteer Handbook one day and then if Tina is rude again I'll see what I can do about it.

All the church lot went round John Hobbs' to watch the fireworks in his field, so I'm just left out really. Maybe that's why I stayed in - because hearing fireworks is better than nothing.

I'm depressed.

Things could be worse I suppose.

I read through all 46 A4 pages of the Lu'sha story today. It's the beginning of a novel, in Times New Roman 10 so I've got masses done. It's a fantasy, actually about the first fantasy country I ever created, and Lu'sha is a farmer's daughter training to be an enchantress. I think it's differnt from anything else I've ever written. There are so many hints, deep thoughts, ponderings, character studies, images, symbols. Usually I just tell the story straight, but I save up facts for the future, and merely hint about them, and I leave the reader (only me, sadly) wondering about the true meanings of certain bits. F'rinstance, there's a bit when Lu'sha's at home, madly practising magic, and getting nowhere, and then she seems to save her cousin's life from a falling dish by magic, and then she still can't do magic. And there's another bit: hold on, I'll quote it, because I'm bored.

Hannarius is a sexist magician who grudgingly takes on Lu'sha as a pupil on the insistence of his superior. He sends her on an 'errand' to deliver packages to three other magcians: Felorius, an equally sexist magician of about the same age, Tarchius, a more liberal, vain magician, former pupil of Hannarius, and Ardirion Laffel, a married foreign magician with rather conservative viewpoints.

On the way, Lu'sha is pursued, and barely makes it to the house of Tarchius. Tarchius sends someone else to deliver Ardirion Laffel's package, and sends her back to Hannarius. On return, she discovered that the magicians are already there. Hannarius informs the head housemaid, Lu'sha's adversary, that Lu'sha would be eating with him and the guest, and not with the upper servants as usual.

And here's the quote:

"She returned a few minutes later, dressed in the finest robe Hannarius had given her. She went to open the door, but then heard her own name spoken within.

“... And I honestly believed that it was a mistake. Lord Peleras once said that you would disown your own mother, Hannarius.”

“That is an exaggeration, Felorius. I don’t hate women so much as believe that they have an entirely different place in society.”

“It’s a shame you never had a sister, Hannarius,” Tarchius remarked.

“And what, precisely, is so remarkable about this pupil? I never got meet her, as a giant of a man delivered my piece. And why was that?”

“Not because of cowardliness,” Tarchius said, “but rather the opposite. That girl would have killed herself running to deliver if Nysius and Gargas hadn’t murdered her first. I myself ordered for the change of courier. It is rather unwise to send a girl of sixteen completely weaponless to deliver an important message when you know full well it is dangerous.”

“As to that, Tarchius, I believe it is none of your business,” Hannarius said, pettishly

“Possibly so, but it was an observation, not a criticism.”

“I believed that no-one would suspect her.”

“You obviously believed wrong,” said Laffel. “And as to you, Tarchius, I don’t believe it is particularly brave to run from one’s enemies. More like the usual plan of the weak, the cowardly and the ordinary.”

“Not running from, Ardirion, running to. I felt her mind as soon as I saw her, and she was running to as much as she was running from. She needed to find an escape route, and I sensed that, had she not the trust to fulfill, she would have surely chosen my house as a last resort. She could have easily lied and gained the sympathy of the owner of a more kindly-looking house. Coming to that, there’s absolutely no reason why she should have directed her travels to my house at all. She knew that Gargas and Nysius had an idea of her trail and she could have sought refuge away from that route completely.”

“Very true,” said Felorius. “What do you think of that, Hannarius?”

“I agree it is down to the girl’s honour of spirit that she carried on. I do believe I know her better than any of you, and it should show why I chose her, as well as why she is invited to our table tonight.”

They all hesitated, and Tarchius remarked, in an amused voice, “I believe you enjoyed telling that smug little girl to serve Lu’sha at your table. Anyone can see they’re arch-enemies.”

“I see nothing of the sort,” Hannarius said stubbornly.

“Well honour of spirit is all very well, I suppose,” Felorius said after a moment’s thought, ignoring Tarchius’s remarks completely. “But what of her magical ability?”

“Surprisingly average.”

“You expected more?” Tarchius queried.

“Well Lord Peleras seemed to, but no, on the contrary I expected less. Magic is a man’s art.”

“Then how very fitting that your first female pupil was a Sedrian,” Tarchius remarked, and Laffel said, “Well if she doesn’t make a fine magician, she’ll make a fine magician’s wife.”

“Magician’s wife?” Felorius snorted. “Wife? Only you could say that, Ardirion.”

“A marriage of power,” Tarchius said. “An idea that might actually be dangerous. Imagine!”

“Most magicians are celibate to prevent that sort of thing,” Felorius responded, distastefully.

“I don’t know what you mean by ‘that sort of thing’, but I do believe that magicians occasionally accidentally use magic and the thought of two such magicians being over-excited...”

“You have said enough.”

A silence ensued, and Lu’sha took it as an opportunity to knock on the door. “Come in,” Hannarius called, and she did.

They had seated her at the end of the table, and as there was no-one at the other end, she had the eerie and uncomfortable feeling of being put at the head of it. She felt as if she had suddenly grown whilst she had been away, and without her noticing herself, had come back a woman of power, like her mother. The magicians talked of magic, about chants and spells, and gestures, and the power of the mind, and occasionally stopped to pose questions to her. At first she stumbled over her answers, and then she gained confidence, but with that, the questions became harder.

Felorius’s final question was, “What do you think the consequences of a storm brought on by magic would be?” and Hannarius snapped, “Don’t be ridiculous. She has only learned magic for a few months.”

“She’ll never learn anything if you keep sending her on errands,” Laffel remarked. “You have messenger boys and house servants for that sort of thing.”

“I believe it is my own business what I do with my pupils.”

They stared at each other coldly, but obviously did not wish to start arguing.

“It is your business,” Laffel conceded. “But bad business. Let us discuss something else.”

For a few seconds, Lu’sha could hear nothing but the scraping of cutlery. They appeared to enjoy the food, but it was hard to tell, as they wouldn’t indulge in small talk, like Tarchius’s family or like the kitchen servants.

“How competent is your telepathy, Tarchius?” Hannarius suddenly asked, and Tarchius said, “Fairly good, on a line of sight. A spirit has to have something to aim for.”

“I don’t practise it,” Laffel said. “It’s a messy, inaccurate art, and for the most part not particularly useful.”

“A matter of opinion,” Hannarius said, with a smirk.

Felorius said, “It’s not so much for reading a spirit as sensing a spirit. If someone is invisible to our eyes, and close by, that is.”

“How close by?”

“Next to us, I suppose. Not farther than the length of this table. You were always good at telepathy, Hannarius.”

“Yes,” Hannarius said mildly. “I believe I could sense someone standing right outside the door.”

Tarchius looked amused. “Well? Is anyone?”

“Of course not.”

Lu’sha said little more for the rest of the dinner. She felt cold inside; he must have known she had been eavesdropping, and he was telling her so. Was it a warning?

He didn’t look at her, so he may have just been boasting, and her worries merely down to guilty conscience. But then, he had carefully set up the conversation so that he could make that claim, and said not ‘all around this house’ or ‘this room and all the surrounding rooms’ but ‘right outside the door’. He knew. And he wanted her to know that he knew."

It's an odd bit. I can't quite decide whether Hannarius did know, or not, or whether it was a warning or an encouragement. So if I don't know, who would?

Random word for today:

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