That Girl from Derwent dwells on the value of religion this Christmas.
That Girl from Derwent has learned a few more things about prejudice since moving up North.
That Girl From Derwent reckons if you're going to be offensive, you should find a better reason.
That Girl from Derwent considers why it is that some words have wider implications than others.
Basically, I am back in York. And while my heart will always reside, of course, in Derwent, I love my new house to pieces. I feel grown-up, mature, responsible… That is until I discovered that I have absolutely no idea how to work the heating (it comes on, but I don’t know when or why), can’t get any response out of the DVD player apart from “hello” (which while terribly polite, isn’t exactly helpful) and have yet to purchase a TV license (and I’d hate to break the law).
But the most significant issue in this relationship is my estrangement from the Internet. Of course, this article is up on this website, so we’re not totally estranged, the Internet and me… More like, temporarily separated. But it’s hard.
When a fellow housemate of mine informed me that when I moved into the house I would be devoid of interwebs of any kind, I shrugged and told him that would be fine. And it would, I believed, right up until I’d been living here a few days.
I thought it would be wonderful. I’d take a week or two out. I’d learn to de-clutter my life, remove my Facebook addiction, force myself to slow down, relax, and meet people face-to-face instead of over Facebook chat.
Needless to say, it hasn’t exactly worked out that way.
I am more anxious than ever.
I still worry about what I’m going to cook, days before I have to, I worry about when I should next clean the house, I worry that I’ll miss out on something organised over Facebook or an important email that I know I haven’t got but obviously it will arrive when I can’t check them. But most of all I worry about when I’ll next get online.
Having no Internet has distinctly not helped me to de-stress. It has certainly increased my neurotic personality and made me long for the comforts of home where everything was easy and readily available.
But it has had some positive effects.
I am forced to get out of the house. I can easily imagine what my life would be like at the moment, had I the Internet in my house. I’d be hard pressed to leave my room. The whole world would be at my fingertips again; surely there’d be no reason to leave my room, let alone the house? Instead, I have to go out and walk somewhere if I want to get online. And it has been good for my social life, in a way, because it forces me to get in touch with those people that I really want to talk to – not just whoever’s on Facebook chat and bored at the same time as me. I had a moment last night when I realised that because of my removal from cyberspace, I hadn’t spoken to one of my friends in a while – and I missed him.
Maybe I needed this to know who it is that I really want to talk to and stay in touch with this year.
Maybe I have learned something about myself after all.
I’m still off into York today to buy speakers for my computer though. Without the bastard DVD player I need something to watch films on if I can’t be online.
I can really empathise here, having just moved house. I planned to get all sorts sorted out in the time off. Instead I've found myself alternately checking stuff on my crappy phone Internet, piggybacking on the neighbour's Wi-Fi (what I'm doing currently) and watching episodes of The Simpsons I downloaded ages ago. And they're not gonna connect us till Tuesday!
I'm eternally greatful for those stalwart few who still don't know how to secure their wireless network/can't be bothered 
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