Yes… I suppose you have to wonder when I wake up to this sometimes.

So… yeah I dunno what the point of this entry was, I just wanted to whine… anyone wanna come and hold my hand while I play Dead Space?

So today, we did Person-Centred skills practice and I plucked up the courage to take up the role of counsellor. Today there was only one opportunity to do it and I felt i haven’t really written enough about how far I’ve come since starting (in terms of skills practice) so I felt the need to voulenteer. I noted within myself it was again another move I wouldn’t have taken before, I am becoming braver it seems. This was with people I don’t usually work with too so it was braver in quite a real sense.

It was a 15 minute session and I have to say that the more I do person-centred the more I know this is for me; this is definitely the route I will be taking. I just feel it in me when I’m in that counsellor’s chair. This is my place in the world.
15minutes was a big step up from what we’re used to with CBT CPLR and yet I wasn’t daunted in the slighested, I felt very at ease speaking to Wendy and trying to get into her world and understand her feelings. I actually had a moment of advanced empathy where I became very aware of her feelings–feelings she wasn’t quite ready to accept or wasn’t fully aware of and I reflected that back to her which she initially denied. But then later said, actually… if I’m honest with myself I would say you’re right.

The situation was that she’d felt very down trodded by her family’s needs and lack of help (in terms of housework etc) while no one really paid attention to her needs. She was clearly a very loving and giving mother but didn’t seem to realise that her actions reinforced their laziness. So I said, ‘I’m feeling that there is some resentment towards your son’. Which, like I said, she denied, but I suppose over the course of the session came to realise that was actually true.

Now that’s the good part, the bad was that I asked way too many questions rather than reflecting what Wendy was saying. I was observed by our tutor Ani for a brief period and I was very aware of it, she caught me at a part where I completely stuffed up and she asked me why I did what I did, and I couldn’t really answer her…

I do feel the need to ask questions because I feel there is an expectation to be inquisitive–to want to know about a person. I do genuinely want to understand people and I do that through asking them things, which I think are probably not entirely relevant some of the time, it just fills up the space and allows me to escape the uncomfortableness of silence. I think I want to experiment with that in my next session, see if I can accept the silence instead of avoiding it, allow the client to continue on from what they were saying before without any prompting from me. The silence terrifies me if I’m completely honest, it’s like a no mans land of incompetence that I don’t want to get stuck in. Yet I know, and I really do KNOW that silence is a tool in the person-centred approach. I need to learn to be comfortable with the silence and use it rather than let it overwhelm and frighten me.

Triads have been interesting, I feel like I’m finally getting to grips with CBT CPLR. In earlier triads (and pair work) I had just floundered around the person centered approach and even that wasn’t quite right. I was out of practice and it showed. I somehow didn’t quite “get” the CBT aspects of the course straight away like everyone else appeared to–I’m sure that isn’t the case and I should slap myself for submitting to a “congnitive error” but I often felt completely out of place in the CBT lessons, like I had missed something and everyone was way out ahead of me–more skilled and knew exactly what to say.

Carlie is really amazing in the lessons, she knows her stuff even when she says she’s struggling she is still impossibly good at such an early level. I chalk it up to her previous studies on person centred counselling to diploma level; but she could simply be that good! I sometimes wonder if working with her does me any good because even though its great to observe someone who so clearly “gets it”, I think I might flourish better amongst others who demonstrate the same struggles as me? That might not make any sense, come to think of it.

In the last CBT CPLR session I felt I did get quite a lot out of working with Carlie and Mike. Carlie, like I mentioned is very good, while Mike–like me–struggles with similar aspects. When to interject, when to direct, what to ask, how to structure. I found I struggled quite a bit without the script of questions in front of me and it was difficult to remember “this is what I should ask now” with the ABC model. I think it might have something to do with missing a week on the ABC model, so maybe I didn’t have quite the experience with it that others clearly had.

I try not to worry about CBT practice too much since I know I am not going in that direction already, and I will be specialising in person centred in the second year. But I would like to have a good grasp of it, because I do feel aspects of CBT are quite beneficial.

So! I need to study the question structure of CBT CPLR and I need to practice more on focusing on the client rather than on the paper in front of me.

Within myself I think I have issues with embarrasment in the triads. I do feel the creeping fingers of my social anxiety on me when I am in the session, or at least when I start it. Once things get into a swing I feel better but otherwise I do have this overwhelming feeling of ridiculousness and feeling that people are laughing at me. I need to look at this in myself and ask myself why I feel this way when clearly no one is laughing. Everyone is struggling and trying to learn this stuff.

The other big thing that happened for me this week was today, and that was deciding to step up and take up the role of the class representative. As the rep I am asked to attend 2 meetings each semester to discuss issues that the students have and also to feedback the positive aspects of the course, tutors and college thus far. When this was first mentioned to the group–that we would need a class rep–I probably visibly shrunk in my seat. I didn’t want to do it at all and when the issue of distance came into it I felt that there was pressure on me to step up because 1. I don’t have nearly as busy a life as the other students, 2. I live a stone throw away from the college and 3. No one, and I mean NO ONE else wanted to do it. It was a communual reaction of “oh my God please don’t make me, I don’t wanna do it!” It was strange because I thought there would be some people who would be interested in doing this kind of thing. The first person that came to mind was Wendy. She is a Havering counsellor (the political kind) and formal meetings seemed right up her street. She did say she would do it if no one else wanted to, but she felt it was a positive experience that she already had in her life and she felt like someone else should experience that.

Now, that can easily be construed as someone trying to redirect the attention that was so obviously placed on her, but it did get my thinking. This was a positive experience? I could gain something out of this?
I maintained my unwillingness to take up the role however, and still felt quite averse to it. I really really didn’t want to have to speak for the class.

But then for some reason, something clicked. We were sitting in class listening to Mike tell us that it was absolutely essential to have a rep because our voice wouldn’t be heard if we didn’t have one, and still the climate in the room was that of complete refusal. No one at all had even the slightest inkling of wanting to do it. I’m not sure why, but at this point I was reminded of Sohma Yuki in Fruits Basket. A boy who is incredibly popular and loved by everyone but inside himself he is shy and self-critical. He doesn’t have the slightest clue why people like him because he doesn’t even like himself. But he was prepared to learn how to be a better person, someone who could express their feelings and be true to themselves in front of others, and to gain confidence in themsleves and make real, honest friends who knew the real him. To be liked for who he really was. So he threw himself into social situation that terrified him–things he didn’t even want to do just to experience them, and one of the things he did was voulenteer to be class rep.

I had always identified with Yuki, I really saw myself in him and even though I’m not popular I do know what it is to not like what you see when you look in the mirror and I know exactly what it is like to feel that the person everyone sees isn’t who you really are. So I had this overwhelming urge to do it, to voulenteer and step up. I was terrified of doing it, and that’s exactly why I did it. I wanted to challenge myself because people can say again and again that they want to change, but at the end of the day the only one who can do it is you. So I took the risk and put myself out there and I was glad I did it. Something like relief washed over me when I took the role, I had been feeling all day that I wanted to do it and when the opportunity came up, I took it and I couldn’t stop smiling. People seemed so proud of me, especially Jo because I think she understands quite a bit about how tough it is to step out of your comfort zone and challenge yourself.

It feels almost silly to say that I am proud of myself, I saw something terrifiying and I didn’t run away and hide from it, I ran straight at it and I do feel a little nervous but not nearly as much as I thought I would. I can see it happening, feel it happening–I’m changing as a person I’m not as afraid of myself as I have been pretty much all my life. Those 3 days a week, those short hours before walking down that awfully knackering hill back home again–I’m absolutely free to be me. It’s a good feeling.

From my own personal perspective I feel quite “out at sea” in terms of practical practice with both Person Centered and CBT. I feel I don’t have much of a grasp on the fundamentals and end up being quite lofty in the traid, asking random questions and not really focussing enough on how I am doing what I am doing rather than doing it. I need to read up more on the specifics of CBT triads more than Person Centered. I enjoy PCT CPLR much more than CBT CPLR which I think has quite an impact.

Gerald pointed out to me that I ask quite a lot of closed questions which allowed him to simply say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answers to my questions which would run me into a dead stop. I need to focus on learning how to reform closed questions into open questions on the fly during sessions–this is something I have particular difficulty with.

Gerald had a useful method for teaching people how to stop using closed questions, which involved the student in the ‘client’ role in the triad simply using ‘yes’ or ‘no’ as a response to closed questions in a triad. This, I would imagine, effectively teach counselling students to avoid using them since it puts a roadblock in the middle of the triad causing unease.

During CBT practice, I noticed I struggled in being directive and failed to steer the conversation back to the main issue. I need to learn to focus on specific incidents, ask for evidence that backs up the client’s issues and ask the client for a worst case scenario to enable me to establish which CBT model the client falls under.

Ah yes, I know I am biased. He’s British and I love it when Brits take the piss out of Americans (because let’s face it–they make it too easy!) but I was actually completely unaware of the whole MTV shadoodle!

If you are wondering to which shadoodle I am referring, then cast your eyes here.

Ah Russell… the good old Essex bloke who doesn’t understand that while we over here are very good at taking the piss out of ourselves and everyone else (See: Have I Got News For You), some people just can’t take a joke. Now I know the few people who read this are American so I don’t want this to seem like I’m taking a shot at you–I like Americans generally–but I do have to admit to finding the country completely bizarre a lot of the time.

What Brand said was hilarious, I haven’t even seen clips of it but just reading what he said is enough to make him a legend. Calling Bush a “retarded cowboy”?! Comon, admit it–you were thinking it too.

To be honest I can understand the shock Americans suffered at the hands of Brand’s err… brand of humor; Americans are patriotic to the point of being nationalistic and a great majority still support Bush after everything he and his administration are responsible for. Voting him in the first time around knowing who’s loins he sprung from is somewhat forgivable; voting him in again after he pissed on American civil liberty followed by wiping his arse on his ‘Habeas Corpus tissue paper’ is–let’s face it–completely irredeemable. But since (and yes, I’m generalizing here) there is this great ignorance amongst a lot of Americans regarding world politics and how not only Bush, but America itself is percieved by the rest of the world, then it is understandable they would scream bloody Mary at Brand’s cowboy canoodling. Yee-haw.

The backlash Brand has suffered since hosting the MTV Video Music Awards has been staggering, and generally rather amusing! Many crazed Americans are calling for him to be banned from the country and of course out came the obligatory “you wouldn’t have won the war without us!”-type comments. It’s gone up a notch now with the numerous wars the US have started world over, it’s all about how if we want America to come save us from Iranian nukes we better shut the hell up and get back to wallowing in our jealousy of America and it’s people! You know, personally, I’m just waiting for the USA to implode and then break down into smaller insignificant countries USSR-stylee.

I kinda got this vibe that Americans think they are the only developed nation in the world (and I use the term developed loosely). More than a few times I came across this notion that Americans feel the rest of the world is jealous of their power and stature. This is a prime example of how little international news makes it into the American consciousness. There are a whole bunch of other countries I would take qualities from before I even sniffed at the USA. Mostly European countries, but Canada is certainly up there too. Doesn’t that just get ya in the nuts eh? “No sorry we’re not jealous of you, but hey those Canadians! Now they have nice clean cities!” Though I’m not sure about the frogs…

Anyway back to Russell… he is a legend over here in the UK. He says what he wants and that’s what we love him for, we don’t hold back over here we tell it like it is and that’s our way of doing things. Like I was saying before, shows like Have I Got News For You and Mock the Week are highly indicative of the type of nation we are–we’re very happy to point out our own faults and laugh at them. It’s probably worth mentioning that Russell Brand is a common fixture in Have I Got News For You.
It just seems we’re a bit more street smart than Americans overall, a tad more cynical about the world and that’s just simply realistic. We are patriotic of course, but we will come down like a ton of bricks on our leaders if they put a foot out of line. I’d like to think we were a bit more aware of world affairs too, and we have the BBC to thank for that. We don’t hide from the world in Britain–especially England. Go to London, you’ll see what I mean.

With Russell I think it was simply a case of a Brit being too used to taking the piss out of everything–especially politics, that’s practically what he’s known for over here, so he thought he could swan about and take the piss abroad as well. Russell probably hasn’t learnt his lesson though, and will continue to exercise his freedom of speech in a country that prides itself on being the “home of freedom”. Funny how freedom of speech is ok just as long as you’re not saying something against the masses.

Hypocrisy at it’s best!

It’s been a funny old week, as people who frequent my Facebook profile might have seen I have changed my image in time for college. Cut my almost-waist length brunette hair up to above my shoulders and coloured it bright red. Uh huh… bright red!

I’ve had long hair most of my life, I used to cut it every summer in school but it would grow back again by winter (yes, it really grows that fast) so I never had short hair for very long. I don’t expect that has changed much, I guess I will see… But guess what, I have pictures!

This picture makes me look a bit err… well… “ginger.” My hair isn’t ginger, seriously the camera on my LG Shine is useless and can’t pick up the colour properly. Although you do get a little peek at my lovely new TV and the MUSE boys in the background, although slightly decapitated! The best the phone camera could do was with the picture on the right here.

Even that one is a little odd because I look so white! This is another dodgy consequence of having a dreaded daylight bulb in your bedroom. Those things turn night into day! So you can just imagine how bright it is when it’s on in the daytime! Well, you don’t have to imagine just look at the picture on the right.

This picture came out best for showing that 1. I’m not an albino and 2. the real colour of my hair. It’s a bit dark sadly so you still don’t get how truly “red” it is but it’s better than the other two. This one also shows how the colour is darker red at the top and brighter red at the bottom, which was the intended effect. Working as intended!

So yeah, big style change for me. I don’t intend to stop there either, I’m shopping for a new pair of glasses next week and I spotted some lovely designer ones in Tesco (no laughing, thank you.) that I will be taking a closer look at. They have red rims but a black frame so they should be quite cool. Can’t wait to get down there and give them a whirl.

On a slightly irritating note I have fallen ill. I’ve managed to pick up some sort of cold just 2 days before returning to college. Awesomeness in a can that is, isn’t it? Really… I’ve been lumped at home doing nothing for months and now some twatty cold decides to run up my nose so close to the 8th! Gah!

Now on a completely unrelated note, I am reading Russell Brand’s book My Booky Wook which is absolutely brilliant and I recommend to everyone who would find making fun of sex addicts amusing. Ok ok, not just that. It’s a great read because he is so frank and no nonsense about his life and the bizarre events of his childhood. He also doesn’t mind taking the mick out of himself along the way, as well as everyone else he mentions! I get a little extra enjoyment out of reading it since he grew up in the same area as me–good old Essex… ha! But err… I also bought another book simply because I couldn’t resist after the literal propaganda that appears everywhere for it! I saw it on the shelf at Waterstones and it called to me. Might of been because it was on sale? Hmm… but anyway, err… don’t hurt me Mandy but I bought Twilight. *runs and hides*

Here’s something a bit different for you all.

While I was writing my V Festival entry I seriously considered that my audio depth/pitch perception was damaged after standing in front of the bass speakers at the main stage. Because it was almost painfully bassy! I could feel my brains rattling around my vibrating skull! So I found this website which has all these tests to check how good your hearing is… well it turns out I had nothing to worry about, or maybe I should worry that I missed my bloody calling!

Associative Musical Visual Intelligence
I got 90% accuracy rate on the AMVI test. This test is to do with being able to correctly associate shapes with sound. 90% is exceptional and their highest scoring bracket for the test. The average is 72%.

Tone Deafness Test
I got 91.7% accuracy rate on the Tone Deafness test. Clearly am not tone deaf! The test says that skilled musicians rarely get above 80%. What the–?!

Rhythm Test
I got 88% accuracy rate on the Rhythm test. This test measures your ability to discern small differences in rhythm between almost identical pieces of music. I was one off the highest scoring bracket here, I was “outstanding” rather than “world class”–only 2% out! The average is 60%~70%.

Pitch Perception Test
The last test was on pitch perception… the one I was really wondering about! How well can I tell the difference between two similar pitches. Well it turns out very bloody well! I can consistently successfully hear the difference between two pitches with a variation as tiny as 0.4125Hz! The average is 3.98Hz which put me in the 94th percentile meaning only 6% of all people who took the test scored higher than me.

So it seems I had nothing to worry about. But it does bring up an amusing point; if my ears are so frickity awesome and my ears think that MUSE are teh bestest band in teh wurld, then surely my ears know what they are talking about. They must be awesome, my ears said so! Take that Wolfe!

All I can say is bring on more MUSE gigs! My ears are ready for it!

But first, rewind back to the 12th of August and there we are, me Stephanie and Jemma standing in Gatwick Airport waiting for our delayed plane to arrive. I was in such a state and completely devastated that the security dude took my deodorant and my facial wash because the bottles contained more than 100ml! What faf! I was really unimpressed with that because now, not only did I not have any deodorant but I just threw away a £5 bottle of facial! Bloody airports…

The flight itself was tolerable—just about. I was gripping the armrests the whole ascent since it was bumpy as hell! I really had a rough time on the way out it had been pretty scary; I just don’t like flying at all whatsoever! Steph happily mentioned that if you struggle with flights your doctor can prescribe you benzodiazepines; psychoactive drugs or “happy pills” that rewire your brain so that you just don’t give a monkey—Yeah thanks Steph, bit late to mention that now! I suspect I wouldn’t have been given them for our extremely short haul 1 hour 20 minute flight… but it’s something to keep in mind for the future. Either that or let one of my counseling buddies test some Cognitive Behavioral Therapy on me! Scary thought…

So once we got there and was happily installed in our swish hotel room at the Jury Christchurch, we ventured around the soggy streets of Dublin. It had been raining for two weeks straight prior to our arrival which was great to know… what a nightmare! But we managed to find a nice restaurant and then spent the rest of the evening in the Arlington Hotel Temple Bar which was half-traditional-looking and half-modern pub which had a homey, cosy feel about it. They had a live band playing traditional Irish music as well as Irish dancing. It was all very impressive stuff and it made for an enjoyable first night. Felt like we were really in Ireland and not just down some unrecognizable London street. Dublin doesn’t look or feel much different to London to be perfectly honest and I actually felt quite under-whelmed most of the time. I never really felt like the place lived up to the hype. Still! We had fun, it was interesting enough looking around and having the spectacular Christchurch Cathedral opposite us everyday. Dublin however was just a side attraction to the main event for me!

Come the 13th I was all over the place with excitement and was dying to get to Marlay Park! We arrived at around 5pm and joined the queue and managed to get our hands on the pitt passes! It was fantastic to get right in there, up close and personal with the band. I was a little surprised at how violent people get even when waiting for the band to come on! Is that the Irish or something? No, probably not… I got shoved and squished before MUSE even came on. First we had Glasvegas who were, let’s be honest, absolutely terrible. Sorry Glasvegas, but really? First they need a drummer who can actually drum and second, they need to write a song which doesn’t sound exact the same as all their others! I somewhat blame that on their terrible drummer who was only one step up talent-wise from a 5 year old sitting on the kitchen floor with upturned pans and a wooden spoon. Not joking either—she was hilariously bad!

Next up was Kasabian who did a much better job of riling up the crowd; by the time they played out with their universally recognised “Club Foot” we were more than ready for MUSE.

I had to escape during their set however, since the crowd just got even more vicious and I had to save myself from a bunch of crazy moshers! I didn’t get to be right at the very front for MUSE because of them, but I was in the pitt which is insanely close even if you’re at the back so I had the best view. I loved it! I could see Matt closest and Dom and Chris a little ways back. Steph who promised to take photos had the perfect view to get some really good ones, but alas… when we got back to the hotel and asked to see her pictures she hadn’t taken any! Do’h…

Not too bothered about that however, there are legions of photos on Flickr as usual. The stage props were amazing, I wasn’t expecting the ominous HAARP satellites to be used as screens, I thought they would just be beaming out lasers and glowing like they did at Wembley, but MUSE surprised everyone by using them as giant projection screens. It was great stuff; they looked awesome.

The second surprise of the stage set up was use of the infamous green lasers from their MTV Awards performance of “Starlight”. I had read some time ago that they weren’t allowed to use those lasers in the UK because they were banned. Matt had humorously said “apparently it’s illegal to shoot lasers into peoples eyes!” Quite right, Matt! But it’s not illegal in Ireland so there they were shooting a crazy laser show into the crowd above our heads, looking absolutely amazing during the unusual opener choice of “Map of the Problematique.”

The set list was great too, I can now mark off “Dead Star” from the songs I need to see live. I was so happy when I realised what song it was! How exciting is that?! To get to hear a rare track reminded me of how thrilled I was when Fury started at the Royal Albert Hall. Although as any MUSE fan knows “Dead Star” is one of their “hardest” songs in terms of rocking out and I really did have to beware of the vicious moshers though that one. They were everywhere and seemed to like making the mosh pits bigger and bigger until the stewards came in the break it up! It was that bad… I didn’t let that spoil my fun though, being in the crowd for the first time I wanted to join in all the usual MUSE-like fun. Thrusting your arms in the air in time with the beat to tracks like “Stockholm Syndrome”, “Feeling Good” and “Knights of Cydonia”! I did my fair share of over-arm clapping during “Starlight” too—oh yes! I was getting right into it!

Another rarely played track that we were treated to was “Space Dementia”. Not on my list but it really should have been, it was amazing! I have started to listen to that song a bit more now, I think I focus way too much of the rare B-sides and Black Holes and Revelations. I need to go back and rediscover the awesomeness of Origin of Symmetry! I really do love that album… was pretty much the album that introduced me to MUSE.

There was plenty of riffage throughout the set too. I think there was a riff between almost every song! They did the riff to the “secret” collaboration track between The Streets front man Mike Skinner called “Who Knows Who”.
Another treat was a cover of Ennio Morricone’s “Man With A Harmonica”, which had Chris demonstrating his universal talent with just about any musical instrument put in front of him! He played the harmonica wonderfully, I was fooled into thinking we were hearing the intro to one of their new songs! But alas, the brilliantly played instrumental cover slipped into the intro of the closing number: “Knights of Cydonia”. Everyone realised then it was just another “Man of Mystery”-style cover. Still not to be disappointing in the least, MUSE played the 2007 song of the year with amazing gusto, it was the most energetic and crazy I’ve seen them play I think. KoC is always a crowd favourite when the riff kicks in and the crowd goes wild. Literally!

The rest of the Dublin stay was a bit of a blur, starting with our failed attempts at getting back to our hotel after the gig. I think it took us two and a half hours in the end. Most of that was spent deliriously giggling as we froze to death. We spotted where people were waiting for MUSE to appear on their way out and considered popping over and begging Bellamy and Co. to give us a lift home back to London! Finally we discovered a friendly bus driver who helped us back to Dublin free of charge. Unlike the evening before where we giggled half the night about Steph’s fiancée humping her leg in the night or me freaking Jemma out in the middle of the night with my sleep-talking, we went off to sleep pretty quickly and woke the next day just in time to get breakfast and then head to the airport for the trip home; which was much smoother, by the way! The flight back was much less stressful and we had some nice views of the English countryside through the lack of clouds. I think me and my mum might have ticked off Jemma and Steph a tad on our journey home playing through three MUSE albums almost full blast through an hour or two of traffic back on the M25. Sorry guys, me and mum can’t resist a bit of MUSE when we’re in the car!

But it wasn’t over for me and MUSE quite yet, we still had the V Festival to go…