Look at the sunrise. Isn’t it beautiful and junk?

I don’t want to be up in time to see it though! Oh well. Day two at TMU went very well. I was planning to write a long and serious entry about it. But when I got to the playground I was greeted by this:

New lambs! 1…2…3…4…one million! Or well, 4. But that’s plenty. So instead of a long and serious entry I’m just going to go nuts and post a ton of pictures. I hope you don’t mind.

Ain’t they lovely?

And one the mamas is an old acquintance.

That is Fregne. “Freckles”. Here’s a picture of her from late 2005. I remember her. Very nice to see her again. This time around she has just one lamb.

A little cute boy.

I didn’t catch the name of the other sheep. She has two little girls and a boy.

It is easy to tell that she hasn’t been at the playground before. Fregne came straight up to me and let me cuddle her and give her some bread. The new sheep stayed back. Not even a handful of bread could tempt her to come to me. But she did eat the bread that I threw to her and she didn’t seem overly scared or anything. She’ll be fine when she gets used to the place.

Damn you Fregne for getting in the way of that picture. Four lambs all lined up.

Someone didn’t think the lambs were very cute. Can you guess who?

Pretty much the entire time I sat in the lambs’ booth Mads was either looking through that hole or poking his nose through it. I think he was a little offended that I spent so much time in there instead of with the goats, who are obviously the ones who deserve the most attention and treats. Naturally. If you’re wondering why Magnethe is up higher than Mads then wonder no more:

Standing up on top of a bucket, instead of inside one. Don’t feel bad for them though, I made sure to give them their fair share of Plumey-love.

What a pure injection of FeelGood.

I had a good talk with Kurt too. We talked about the lambs. And I asked how Vanilje was doing. Apparently the buck is starting to give off that buckish odour. If you have been around a buck in heat then I’m sure you know what I mean. So stuff should be happening. Kurt said that they were getting along great. The buck is around the same size as Vanilje. And apparently they are playing all the time, running around and jumping into each other and having fun. So that sounds very sweet. And some other good news: the playground will be getting two new pigs. Around the middle of March. It will be nice to have someone in there to fill up the space that Yvonne left. It’s so empty now. The two new ones will be “sortbrogede grise”. I’m not sure what that’s called in English. Black spotted pigs? A google image search brought up this. So a couple of small ones of those. Kurt saw them in the paper. There was an article about a woman who bred them, if I remember the story correctly. And Kurt called her up and asked if she happened to have any for sale. And she did. Lucky for us. Lambs and pigs, the playground will be all full again.

That’s all for today. The TMU day went fine, as I said. No mishaps. The first two weeks are INTRO weeks, nothing too serious going on yet. Peter greeted me with “I’m glad you could come Plume”. And everyone else seem quite nice as well. I’ll try to write a more detailed entry about TMU and what exactly the whole point of it is. Once I get tired of looking at those cute, little lambs.

Don’t hold your breath.

Phew. It done. First day is over. It did not go perfectly. And it left me with a tired and achy head. But it done.

Is there anything worse than that first morning? When you’re used to sleeping late. When you’re used to not being confronted by all the evils in your head? It is a rude awakening.

The first bus was overcrowded. The second bus didn’t come at all, I was so afraid of missing the bus that I didn’t stand in the shelter and waited, I stood out by the curb. In the cold rain. And waited and waited. Luckily an alternative bus did come. And I got to TMU in time. Got inside. Too many people in too little space. Sitting nervously. Eventually things got under way. Lots of introductions of different people. Talk about what we’ll be doing and so on and so forth. It wasn’t too bad once my nerves settled down.

The problem came after the break. Where we were going to do some “party games”. You know the kind, the kind of stuff you do to get to know each other. It was lead by the actress Anni Bjørn. Which is apparently a tradition they have at TMU. That she comes and does that on the first day. I was feeling really rather apprehensive about it. And placed myself close to the door. We all joined together in a circle and started playing some game where you have to be fast with the names or you’ll end up in the center of the circle. When I heard that I quickly slipped out of the door. Because you know, I’m social phobic. I’m not going to stand in a circle and have people look at me from all directions. I’m just not. It was too much for me.

I stood outside for a while. Calming myself. And thinking about what to do. There was more than an hour left of the day at that point. A long time to stand outside in the cold. So I went around the building. In through another entrance. And to Peter’s office. Peter is the guy in charge. He’s also the guy I talked to at the meeting the first time I visited TMU. He seems really nice and understanding. And knows about my phobia. So I wasn’t really afraid of talking to him. And I just basically told him that I couldn’t do that stuff. And it wasn’t a problem. It was totally okay. And since the others weren’t going to do anything else than play more of those social games and then go home he said that it was okay if I just went home instead of hanging around. So that was nice.

Now I could look at this in a negative or positive way. The negative way: I failed. The positive way: I knew my limitations and did not have a major panic attack or feel really horrible, I managed to deal with the situation and I came out with the positive feeling that they understand me and my needs and that I don’t have to worry about living up to any unreasonable expectations. Or something like that. I feel good about Peter. I have had some nice, kind people in my life who have helped me along the way and I think he could be another one of those.

So it’s not all bad. Fingers crossed for the future.

Afterwards I went downtown to get a bus subscription card. TMU will pay for that. Nice. Then I went to the playground and spoiled Mads and Magnethe with treats and hugs and scratches. My sweet goats. They always melt away my worries like a stick of butter on a hot pan.

Then I went home and had lovely soup. And then I took a nap. I know that’s not too smart, but I was exhausted and my head pounding. And that was just from what, an hour and a half of work. It’s going to be hard to be working longer and out and about people again. It’s going to be hard to get up in the morning. And it’s not just about being tired and wanting to sleep more, it’s the psychology of facing the world. Choosing to face your fears instead of hiding away under the blanket. It is not easy. But I do have a good feeling about TMU, it seems like a good place. If I can brave through the hardness then I will get results, I’m sure.

And after all that reading, how about some music? It occured to me that there might be people out there who have not heard the song Plume. The song I got my name from. I couldn’t find it on youtube, so I done it myself. http://youtube.com/watch?v=3d7HWPXjkhA. Along with a slideshow of some of my old pictures. It’s crappily filmed, but you can always minimize the window and listen to the song. It’s not the best song in the world, it’s an old b-side. It’s simple, not very fancy. Quoth Billy from the liner notes: ” i know i wrote some of these lyrics waiting for my dad to pick me up from the aeroport.my boredom has outshined the sun. sometimes you don’t spend as much time on the lyrics- and sometimes they’re better-more how you REALLY feel.”

Old old old times. Funny to think that if Obscured hadn’t been picked as a diaryland username by someone else then I might not have ended up as Plume. Today I am more Plume than the song is Plume. At least to me.

PS. If you feel like more music then this way go.