Well it's been almost a whole year I wrote one of these, the last time was during my first week in Japan 11 months ago. Sadly now, I am writing having just got back to England and I've only just noticed that in my last post dA failed to cope with the Kanji input and a series of characters was represented only by an ampersand - oh well....anyway, if there are any mistakes in this journal its most likely going to be my fault this time since I'm typing very awkwardly avoiding using my thumb since its a lovely deep shade of purple and swollen to the size of a toilet roll tube. This also means no drawing for a while for me and has also halted my nostalgic GameBoy sessions - on the plus side though at least I'm not mowing the grass this week ^^

anyway - I was tagged and this provides ample distraction from my other chores so here we go:

Write 10 things about yourself (sounds simple enough) >

1). I'm vegetarian - always have been and to my knowledge have never eaten meat (although twice having accidentally put it in my mouth before spitting it out in convulsions...my body obviously has good instincts)

2). In October I'm off to Oxford Uni to study Geography (....please no jokes about colouring in)

3). I'm adverse to taking drugs of any sort - from caffeine to painkillers - honestly I'd rather feel the pain

4). I'm a very reserved person

5). I can't swallow capsules or pills or anything like that. I have a strangely powerful gag reflex - when I did my achilles tendon I had to take an anti-inflammatory pill and I simply put couldn't....we even tried jamming it in a wadge of food like you do with animals - but somehow i managed to swallow the bread but not the pill....

6). I have vaso-vagal syncope - which forced me to give up the flute and moderate my exercise whilst controlling various aspects of diet and routine (the alternative was steroids)

7). I've never really had a serious accident (touch wood) - no broken bones or anything - despite being seriously accident prone around the ages of 10-13 - so much so my parents banned the word 'ow' and any of its variants - I guess the worst by a long way way tearing my Achilles Ligament although i was walking again (if tentatively) within the week

8). I like to get on with everyone

9). I conquer most of my problems through hard work and determination - as demonstrated by me somehow passing my grade 8 piano without actually having any musical knowledge or natural ability in the slightest - similarly I passed my Japanese level 3 proficiency test in 2 months with hardly any Japanese to start with at all - hard work ...or miracles....you decide

10). My spiritual home is Japan

aaaaaaaaand anyone who reads this is hereby tagged