Surgery

Tomorrow I go for day surgery, the start of the treatment for cancer. The surgery scares me less than anticipating chemotherapy making me unable to do things, like not being able to prepare for my viva, not being able to get the new job I want now I've finished my thesis. I want to travel abroad, but chemo makes insurance difficult I read. I have read loads of leaflets on breast cancer and its treatment and the side effects of the treatment, and it sounds a horror story that I don't want to know.

• Lymphodema in the affected arm because they take out your lymph nodes and your arms swells,
• Travel insurance companies turning you down because you're on chemo and might pick up any infection.

Pretty miserable really.

Competitions

Funny that competition thing.

On Thursday I found myself in the company of seventy high-flying women, courtesy of an invitation from Mrs Moneypenny to a shooting day. The beginners were grouped together - I'm a beginner - to learn to shoot clay pigeons, and while one of us shot, the other four chatted, or 'networked'. These were lovely women who knew how to talk, who wanted to know about each other, how we knew Mrs Moneypenny and if we'd shot before. It was quite a contrast to my experience on Monday at a London School of Economics workshop on Information Systems and the Financial Crisis, where people just did not mingle and talk. Yet most of these women were in finance or investment banking. We cheered each other when we managed to hit our target, and perhaps we gradually improved.

After coffee we were rearranged into teams to shoot a flush as a competition for the highest scoring team, and to my delight I began to hit the clays, including hitting two at once! Wey-hey! Go me! I think I was just as competitive as all the other women, even though I don't have a high-flying job.

Competitions and competing

I am not competitive.

Around 18 months ago, anticipating my viva when I'll have to talk coherently about my research, I joined our local Toastmasters, a speech making club. I enjoy it because I meet pleasant people, listen to speeches about topics I know nothing about and learn from, and I only have a few minutes walk on a Monday night to get there. It's not competitive; it is supportive. We're all there to learn to speak better in public. The format of the evening is usually:

• introductions to club, visitors and procedures
• table topics
• prepared speeches
• break
• evaluation of table topics and speeches
• wind up

Occasionally club members compete with other clubs, but I don't do that. I don't want to compete, and that was what yesterday's table topics session was about - competing.

Table topics is where a member stands up, introduces a topic and then calls on other members to speak ad hoc for up to two minutes on a question of the table topics master's choice. Yesterday's questions were:

1. "Why do we compete?"
2. "It's the taking part that counts"
3. "You have taken part in"
4. "How competitive are you you?"
5. "What does taking part in competitions do for us?"

Paul said we compete because it's fun - but I think that's a man's approach. Sue said that the taking part counts and argued for a competitive spirit to win the team business or the whatever you're after. I kind of agree with her there, because when I play tae kwon do, if I have a soppy partner, it's no fun, and I'm not doing much. But then I drew the third question.

"Tell us about a competition that you have taken part in, or won"

Now I don't want to do tae kwo do competitions, but I'll take part. I'll have a go, like I'll have a go at table topics, but there's no way I'm going to win in tae kwon do because I'm too slow, too old and too weak and the only people I can beat up are the youngsters with a namby-pamby character. But I might make a decent attempt at a pattern, even though I dislike the sparring and apologise if I hit someone! So that's what I said at Toastmasters yesterday, and they liked my speech enough to vote me the best table topics speaker of the evening!

Am I competitive?

No hugs - I'm a big girl

Have you ever noticed that when you tell some people your personal bad news, they want to hug you? Why do they hug you? Does it make them feel better, or you? Or does it just make you cry more?

I like cuddles and hugs in the right place, at the right time.

My mother tells me I was a very cuddly baby, but when I was a toddler I started to refuse cuddles and she couldn't understand why, but I remember crying and an adult telling me,

"Big girls don't cry"

If big girls don't cry, then if I'm being cuddled, I must be crying and so I'm not a big girl, but being a big girl is something I want to be, so don't cuddle me because I'm not crying, (even if I am). So I used to struggle out of the cuddle!

I don't react like that now, but I still don't always need the cuddle that someone else needs to give away.

Stress coped with

What a stressful week that was.

On the same day that my supervisor gave me back the final comments for my thesis at one o'clock, I went to hospital for the results of the x-rays, ultra-sound and biopsy.

"Unfortunately, ..."

started the doctor as she told me that the lump is cancerous, just a tiny 7 millimetre crab-like lump, creeping round my breast, a silent uninvited invader despite my excellent diet, and exercise regime. I spent the next three days desperately writing the final parts of my thesis, getting up at four in the morning to write because I couldn't sleep for thinking of my thesis and my cancer, and

I have to rewrite that bit, but I've got cancer so now what do I do?

The thesis is in. I win.

PhD work

I've submitted my PhD thesis, here, and that's taken some stress off me. Of course, life comes up and hits you with other things, but I've written the thesis and am strong enough to cope with the rest of life, even when it's out of control.

I'm going to do lots of tae kwon do over the next three weeks and get really fit. I'm going on my first black belt patterns tae kwo do session on Sunday, and kinda looking forward to it. The hesitation is because if we spar, I don't like getting hit! I'm going to relax a bit for a few weeks even if I still also have to

• catch up assignment marking
• write a paper for a conference
• follow an electronic seminar on tutoring with elluminate
• work through a Higher Education teaching skills workshop
• and oh yes! Prepare for the viva
  

LPA & banks agin

A very nice bank assistant now rings me and tells me that it is not possible to have two cards on a single named account, so if I have a card, then aunty can't have a card. Now that I've put the phone down, I think

"but we've had two cards for a year so why not now?"

Lloyds-TSB does not seem to have co-ordinated systems.

Theatrical digs

We've got lodgers now and again. This is a new venture we've only started since the new Aylesbury Waterside Theatre opened, and the old town residents learned that casts and crews would need temporary lodgings for the few days or weeks that they were here. We have a house big enough for all our children, and are keeping it - who knows when a child is going to rebound? We r-at-tle in its empty rooms, so we do theatrical digs.

We had some cool lodgers last week - Miguel Angel and Steve Dorsett alias Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper from the Buddy Holly Story, reviewed here. I went with a friend to watch the show. The cast are musicians as well as actors. I was fascinated by the audience, mainly women in their sixties and a few men, who got up to dance in their seats, to the annoyance of my height challenged friend. Like her I couldn't see past these dancers and eventually we changed seats so we could stand to see without bothering anyone behind us. We both enjoyed ourselves - it was well worth seeing.