This week is 'Proud to be Postgraduate' week ... so there are seminars, events and outings geared specifically for us doddering PGs.

Two anxiety/panic attacks in the span of two weeks is NOT good. I haven't slept all night. Literally. Considering I've been up tonight, hopefully I should get sleep tomorrow night!

So today everyone on my course suggested going out in the evening ... there's a huge pub culture here so that's what the plan was. I decided, what the heck, let me see if I like it...and if I don't, well I never have to go again!

Met up with them at this pub near my place and that was fine... had a Coca-Cola and ended up talking to friends for a while. Then (because apparently this is how things work), they moved on to another pub. I went along as well.

Then after a while there, they decided to go to this place, kind of like a club... where there's a DJ and music etc. I again thought, well, let's see if this is something I'd like (never really done it before so I wouldn't know). So I bought the entrance ticket and then after standing in the damn queue, when I reached the entrance... I was denied entry because I didn't have ID on me that showed my DOB. I'm 22 but obviously they had to check. They said: get something with DOB on it or you can't get in. Fair enough.

My problem was this: they refused to give me a refund. They just kept parroting the same line about my ID with DOB and I was like, why the hell am I going to walk all the way back to my flat, get a passport copy and THEN walk back and then walk back later? That's just insane! They kept saying they couldn't do anything about it and so on and so forth. One of my friends said she'd walk me home (coz she knew I'm not used to walking home alone or being out at night).

I'm glad my friend walked me home though ... ppl are thoroughly drunk in the streets and doing WEIRD things, let me tell ya. I don't think I have the stomach or rather, I have some shame to not even repeat what they were doing.

I'm just so annoyed about the loss of the ticket money, as opposed to not being able to go in. Definitely not going to go again. I'm just turned off by the whole idea now, so not even interested in trying it out.

Okay so warning about the post ahead: it's depressing. So you can come back another day to read!!!

The library here is so amazing as you have such a wide variety of books, sometimes not completely academic but kept for background reading on whatever your topic might be. I did a quick search on the available titles and saw oodles of books on autism. I have a heavy workload of my own at the moment, so I just borrowed two books till now, both real-life accounts of the lives of autistic people. One was 'Growing Up Severely Autistic: They Call me Gabriel' by Gabriel's mother Kate Rankin, and the second was 'Nobody, Nowhere', an autobiography by Donna Williams (which I finished today).

Today after 4 hours of studying hard for my assessed law test next week, topics which include juvenile crime and sexual offences, I was exhausted. And you could say emotionally drained, as the cases we read up on aren't mild or censored for content. Anyway I came home and opened up 'Nobody, Nowhere' ... and found that I couldn't stop reading. I finished the entire book in about 1.5 hours.

After finishing it, I was so low. The subject of the book, the author herself, had to go through so much before finding out what was 'wrong' with her ... physical and mental abuse being the least of her problems. And she was the lucky one as she could talk. Gabriel, the subject of the first book I read, is possibly equal to or slightly worse in some respects to my brother.

I know so many people with autism and their families, I thought I'd built up a resistance of sorts to reacting adversely to stories. Apparently not. Perhaps the general condition of my mind today added to being away from home...all together just snowballed into an intense emotional reaction.

After finishing today, I just lay down on my bed, curled into my side and started crying. Then turned to the other side, kept crying, looking at my brother's photographs on my noticeboard. I thought of putting a call to Stained, but changed my mind after one or two rings and cut the call and continued my stupid crying for quite some time.

Then a friend called and asked if I wanted to go to a coffee shop; he had vouchers. I grabbed at the chance to get out of my flat and went.

I guess many might say it's pointless to cry, but I couldn't help it today. I always feel angry that *something*, whether it be genes or the MMR vaccine (personally I think it's in your genes and something in the MMR vaccine - thimerosal is my bet - acts as a catalyst), has robbed my brother of the ability to effectively communicate. It's worse than being mute I think; at least a mute person can communicate in some other way to you. Writing, sign language ... my brother can't do any of those. From what I can tell of accounts by autistic people, they understand most things...they just don't know how to let it out. He's cut off from everyone ... and it hurts me everytime I think of it because no one deserves that.

I miss him ... I hope he misses me too ...

Read a cool and evocative piece on another blog (I Open Up) and decided to have a stab at writing on the same topic. Mine isn't as good though. Read on anyway!!!

The sun shined down on them. The heat wasn't oppressive, yet enough to let them feel uncomfortable. Oddly enough, they weren't. As they approached the beachfront, she took off her boots and enjoyed the feel of the sand grains through her toes, while at the same time feeling her stomach clenched in tension and apprehension.

They kept walking. Silently. Unsure. Towards the edge ... where sand met water... what were they going to do? Would a decision on their future be made today?

She kept walking and he kept following. Oblivious to his surroundings, wondering what she was going to say. She finally stopped, knowing that she could put this off no longer.

"Well?" he asked tentatively.

She said nothing.

He said her name, adding a question mark to the end of it, unsure if he should ask again or forget this forever.

She closed her eyes, took a deep breath and nodded.

It was done. She decided to commit herself to him.

He smiled, bursting through the seams with the uncontrollable happiness now spreading through him. He held out his hand and she took it. They walked a little way and he stopped and stood in front of her. She was feeling shy and couldn't understand it. His hands came on her shoulders and he asked her to look at him. She couldn't. Some unimaginable force kept her eyes fixed firmly at her feet.

Coaxing didn't work. Even though much taller than her, he dropped his head lower and planted his lips on hers. That seemed to work. She did look up but closed her eyes again. And when he finally parted from her, she opened her eyes, fixed it on the beautiful expanse of water behind them and said in a surprised tone: "Okay."

Her first kiss.

See what inspired me to write one of my own! Although mine isn't as cool as the way she's writter her piece!!!