Today was my first day of 'freedom'. So obviously i went into school again. It looked at first like i was going to have one of those marvellous days where everything goes wrong but at least you get a lot to blog about. No such luck. Despite my alarm not going off, leaving me to wake up two hours late, despite my bus driver deciding he no longer stopped at my stop and drivng practically to the city centre before he let me off, i still got into school almost an hour before the book group meeting. I made my way straight to the library office, to see the librarian again. The first thing she commented on was my grin. Irrefutable evidence that i have a cheery disposition. (I'm sorry, it's just a wonderful phrase.) I do like my grin. It might not be particularly attractive (J did once tell me, though, that i have a beautful smile. I don't forget compliments. Even L said she remembered it from primary school (Yes, obviously that's a compliment.)) but it does its job. Really what i like about it is that its so often there. It's the expression i use most, i think, and the one i'm most comfortable with. There are surprisingly few things more fun than just walking along in bright sunlight, listening to good music and grinning. Especially if the walk leads into a bookshop.

The book group has quite a few of my friends in. J, S and G (I'm not sure i've mentioned him before. He's one of my fellow librarians.) are all in it, as is I. I isn't actually all that bad, theoretically. It's just that i can no longer speak to him without ending up being rude (But at least that's better than throttling him, which i sometimes wish so dearly to do.). So i was very pleased by his absence from today's meeting. Also absent, though, were J and S. J didn't turn up till halfway and J not until the end. So i hardly got to see anything of the Ace Crew. Didn't even get to speak more than about ten words to them. But it waqs good just to see J, as i hadn't in ages. Even when i went in for my exams he was off school with tonsillitis.

I'm still obsessed by this idea that i have low self-esteem. I really don't think i have got low self-esteem, but i have got related issues. I refuse to let myself have too high an opinion of myself. I like getting compliments, obviously, but i try to ignore half of them, in case i start believing them. I used to be horribly arrogant and big-headed and i'm just desparate not to be like that again. I still am, to an extent, but i'm not as bad. Take for example, D's comments on my blog earlier. He told me i had a real talent, and compared my writing style to Nabokov .(Nabokov wrote Lolita. I haven't read any of him, but i may have to now.) I suspect this to be nonsense, but i'm still very flattered. He even asked if i'd considered writing a book. I'm on more solid ground to defend myself on this one, as i have tried this, in a vague sort of way (I started a story imagining that i had sent that letter to J a while ago and had cut him out of my life. I've pretty much given up after two pages.), so i can easily ignore that bit. But i have unfortunately started to believe the rest of it, so if i get more pretentious and self-conscious, it's all his fault.

Incidentally, i would like to point out that i am now a computer genius. I now have links tto the blogs of three people mentioned here. Two of these blogs are rather dead, but i was too caught up in my technical wizardry to care about that. And L's blog, at least, is very witty and well-written. J's has me in. I'm 'A'. I'm actually rather desparate for him to write another entry, because every time i check it i see "OK the A thing is resolved now" as the first line of the top entry. I don't like being 'the A thing' and i don't likebeing reminded of it constantly. And, yes, i realise the logical thing would be to just not look at it, but i should have thought it quite obvious by now that logic holds little sway over my decisions.