| Time management Fail |
[20 Nov 2009|03:33pm] |
Dear friends,
I'm really sorry. I never see you. I know I live with my boyfriend but we both work so much that believe it or not we hardly see each other either. I want to see ALL of you!
I haven't seen any GIRLS for ages. I want to see people I used to be able to see lots like ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) araispoetry and readingthegirl and totalprovidence (bewildered_muse is in France so that can't really be helped). Also I massively missed Corissa last year and since she's been back I've only seen her once! I haven't been clubbing since summer! My November's totally booked up and so is a largish portion of my December...
Must prioritise in January!
*sigh*
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| (School) Rules for Life |
[13 Nov 2009|04:59pm] |
WARNING: SENTIMENTAL MUSHINESS AHEAD
I don't know why but I just thought I'd google my school for a bit of nostalgia and noticed that they had the legendary Statement of Care and Consideration on the website. I re-read it and felt all fuzzy. I've always loved it, and now actually I can see that it pretty much sums up my morals, and the fact that it was generally adhered to is what made my school experience (by sixth form anyway, and we were mature enough not to have massive catfights over the stealing of scented gel pens (long story...)) so unually pleasant and key to developing so many of the qualities I value in myself:
St Albans High School Statement of Care And Consideration for Others The code of conduct here at the High School is enshrined in our Statement of Care and Consideration for Others, drawn up by the girls themselves. At St Albans High School we feel that it is important... - to respect others regardless of age, race, background, ability or appearance,
- to treat others as we would like to be treated ourselves,
- to act positively against all bullying, to recognise when a joke ceases to be funny and becomes hurtful,
- to rejoice in the successes of others and give encouragement and support in times of success and disappointment,
- to provide a caring environment where the relationship between pupils and staff is open, fair and friendly,
- to value extra-curricular achievement as much as academic success,
- to have conviction in our own beliefs and to appreciate those of others
… and that every girl leaves having had the opportunity to achieve personal fulfilment, looking forward to the future with confidence, humour and compassion. The line "to recognise when a joke ceases to be funny and becomes hurtful" has always meant a lot to me. It's beautifully worded and tactful, I feel. All of this left me TOTALLY unprepared for university, mixed company and the ruthless world of "banter" but I really don't care. Most people are thrust straight into that without ever knowing what it's like to enjoy life, however temporarily, in a place where people are quite simply nice to each other. It's not suprising that Dr Sophie Kain (a past Apprentice contestant and my maths teacher's daughter) was fired by Alan Sugar for not being greedy enough! ;-) She went to my school too. I still miss the single sex enviroment. I live with a boy now. Loads of my friends are boys (at least 50% of the ones I see regularly). And girls act like boys around boys, it's just what happens. My school was awesome, basically. Anyway I really like that statement of care and consideration. My morals can be summed up by a mixture of 'what would they tell me at school' and 'what would Buffy do' - which I think is pretty sound...
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| Being Organised... |
[06 Nov 2009|03:21pm] |
Just done some sums and my personal council tax payments should come to £22.01 per month. NICE. Yay for Wandsworth Band B!
I know it's quite sad but I am eagerly anticipating my first round of bills so I can finish my budgeting calculations and calculate my average monthly disposable income with the help of Microsoft Excel...
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[26 Oct 2009|01:36pm] |
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Watching HIGNFY on iPlayer |
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This week I have been continuing to move in to my flat. I refuse to consider myself fully moved in until it's totally tidy and there are no boxes at all and everything is in its eventual place. I have got a wardrobe now which was a big thing, but I still need a few more things. I've dragged Mark around zillions oof shops this weekend and we have loooooooads of staple foods stashed to last many months.
We also set about trying to clean the OUTSIDE of our windows which were covered in the grime of years of passing London buses by amsuingly poking a mop round the side of the window and trying not to get water over passers-by underneath. It didn't go badly either.
It's really nice to see people who live nearby, even bumping into them on the tube :-). Got our phone number today so one step closer to braodband, hurrah! Which is just as well as I have 11 episodes of shows to catch up on at this particular moment and they mount up faster than I can watch them atm as I only have my lunch hours to see them atm :-S.
I really do love my flat though. I'm actually hot at night and we haven't even touched the central heating yet. It's awesome!
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| All moved in!!! |
[19 Oct 2009|01:03pm] |
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Radio 1 at work |
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This weekend has bought both stress and happiness, but mainly happiness!
I love my new flat. It is wonderful. It is spacious. I panicked on coming in at first because my imagination had expanded the front room somewhat and suddenly because the armchairs were in the middle of the room not the sides and it was dark and gloomy it suddenly looked smaller and I'd been declaring its size and suitability for parties... but once it was arranged and the amount of boxes and crap all over the floor had been minimised and re-arranged it looks huge again. Hurrah! Even the bedroom is bigger than I remembered now it is more nicely laid out.
We even managed to defrost the freezer and fridge to spotless levels after melting, steaming and hacking away blocks of ice 5 inches thick. It was a bit nasty but incredibly satisfying once finished. I made the kitchen spotless and moved everything in (it's the only room that's finished, essentially, apart from we haven't bought a microwave yet (but turns out you can haggle for them from the shop opposite so yay). Bathroom is fine (tested the bath, it's lovely :-)) and basically everything is wonderful. I'm also incredibly impressed by how well-insulated it is. I mean there's a shop below, a flat above and top-notch double glazing so it's well set up but we don't even have the heating on and I'm WARM in there. That is saying a LOT. I am a cold person.
Went to Ikea on Sunday. We have a half assembled chest of drawers and bookcase in our living room due to not having a hammer last night :-S. But ZOMG when we're all unpacked it's going to be AMAZING. Photos to come :-)
Also. I can get to work in 15 minutes. WIN!
(Although I did get berated for coming it at 8.50 not 8.45, which I thought was highly unfair as my phone said 8.46, so that put me in an utterly foul mood for a few hours as I am NOT a late person, but I've cheered up again now because I love my flat too much to sustain a bad mood).
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| This is beyond a joke. |
[13 Oct 2009|09:51am] |
I have a cold.
I have had this cold for I think coming up to about 2 months now. I am sick and tired of it in all literal and non-literal senses of that phrase. I actually don't remember what it's like to be able to breathe normally through my nostrils. I sound like some kind of sniffy mumble monster and I have to answer the phone all day like it which feels increasingly silly.
Could we try some kind of tacky online magic experiment where everyone sends me happy healing thoughts of some kind to try some kind of psychic banishing on these blasted rhinoviruses for say, ooh, the rest of the year. Come on, there's not much left of the year.
Healthy thoughts anyone?
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[08 Oct 2009|09:27am] |
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MGMT - Time to Pretend |
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I had a bag stolen off the bus I was on yesterday.
Containing my geeksoc t-shirt and all the Magic: The Gathering cards I owned. And some shampoo. Nothing of any value to anyone but me basically. AND my game of Fluxx (which no one ever wants to play with me but was nevertheless a beloved present from Rob), and my awesome pack of cards with sex positons on.
I suppose it's financial. Nothing really in there that can't be replaced with new versions (after a delay and at great financial inconvenience) but it still makes you feel fucking glum when you lose possessions. Especially my Geeksoc t-shirt which has great sentimental value. I don't know when they'll get a new batch made although they are due.
The Magic Cards were probably worth a total of about £30/40 maybe? I suppose I can get new ones, my old decks weren't amazing anyway apart from the two most recent ones I'd bought. A new game of Fluxx is about £7/8. That deck of cards was £4. T-shirt was £8 but replacement will likely cost more than that. Lame.
SADFACE.
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| TV |
[28 Sep 2009|02:13pm] |
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Xfm |
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Argh, TV shows are back. Now I love TV. I love it so much I keep up with a very large number of shows on a very very very regular basis. If I watch a show, I watch every single episode, online, streaming, the same week as it airs on its American network. This is now a matter of dread as all the uploads flood in at the same time and I have no time to watch them! I am also now going to be living with Mark who does not watch them (or at least is not up to date with them).
I have however decided that since this is the last year of Lost I am going to take on Flash Forward because it seems like a good concept. Also, it's on Channel 5 without being about a year behind, so I am going to do the incredibly novel thing of watching something live on terrestrial television for the first time in years! There's a Ross Noble series right after it too. And I've always wondered what it would be like to come home from work on a weeknight and watch something on TV, like, on a weekly basis. It sounds really cute and domestic as an arrangement :-)
But yeah, this is going to be tough to fit into my schedule, that every week this autumn I am going to be keeping up with:
House
Heroes
Californication
Dollhouse
Desperate Housewives
Brothers and Sisters
Flash Forward
Peep Show (shorter run)
Soon at some point - Nip/Tuck, The Tudors, Ugly Betty, Lost.
Possibly more, I might have forgotten. AND I plan to start on Battlestar Gallactica sometime. Eek. I'm thinking catch up marathons during my several days off at Xmas. Actually that sounds amazingly fun. And tbh I wouldn't mind checking out the gratuitous tacky Twilighty sounding things that have come out of late, like True Blood and The Vampire Diaries... this isn't fair, I can't fit stuff in! I consider myself a geek precisely because of this TV show category and I betray this side when I do all my you know... getting out of the house and having a life malarkey. :-S Boo!
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| Clapham Common |
[18 Sep 2009|01:45pm] |
I think I am becoming extremely enamoured with Clapham Common, my new place of work.
I've been having a bit of a walk in different directions in my lunch hours to see what's about (reviews to come, I'm sure - I may take it upon myself to become some kind of Clapham Common tourist board blogger) and today I discovered ICE CREAM.
Walking up the North East bit of the common ("The Pavement" is the road name) there are a few pointless-but-pretty gift shops, some very poncy organic food type places, including a very swish looking butcher's, but also, at number 22 there is a Boulangerie Pattiserie with ice cream, mostly uninteresting flavours except Banana Chocolate. At the holiday price of £1.85 I nevertheless sampled it and it was very delicious indeed. Thick, creamy, with a large amount of real banana mashed up in there. I was most impressed. I then went further up that road and found a proper Gelateria!!! With a few non-standard flavour including fig and cardamom, which I was allowed to sample. £2 a generous small pot is something I am prepared to pay for my #1 food vice, so I was happy, AND he let me have half a pot of 2 different flavours (after eight and nutella). I will totally be returning. There is also an amazing cake shop open till 8 on the High Street called Esca.
Seriously though, proper reviews to come :-)
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| Life Plannage. |
[01 Sep 2009|03:29pm] |
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It's September, and I'm no longer in Education. I now longer cleave to the cycle of the academic year, which is exciting for me, but I have just realised my birthday cleaves to it for me, so in a way it is still the start of a new year.
So anyway, seems like a good time to say that I do have a plan, unfocussed as I seem. The state of the economy however wrenches a lot of it more out of my control than is fortunate, but it consists of these things I suppose:
1. Continue criminally underpaid part-time job from parental home for the time being. It may be criminally underpaid (no, literally, if they don't give me a pay rise next week when I turn 22 they will be breaking the law) but I do get a lot of hours of shifts so it tides me over fine in my current rent-free situation.
2. Obviously, the biggest task: Find Proper Job. I've been applying at 100mph, like all the other graduates, but obviously, only been going a few days and my number of sent applications is still in the double digits, so it'll be a while before I even get so much as a polite acknowledgement email, which I accept. If I still have absolutely zero joy in a month or two I'll lower my sights and try to get something low-paid but in retail (to add that dimension to my CV) or maybe higher paid but temporary temp work, possibly.
Much of this point leads me to my fond wish which has been recently concluded and decided upon:
3. Move in with my lovely boyfriend. thesetite and I wish to relocate to the beautiful environs of the Tooting area, where a large number of our mutual friends enjoy close proximity to each other already, and it's close enough to where he works. We're ridiculously in love and hate being apart. It doesn't make sense to be apart. I want to live somewhere I want to live, even if it isn't the most financially efficient way to be. I shouldn't sacrifice my happiness age 22 by continuing living with my parents slightly too far from a tube station for anyone to come to dinner in order to aid savings which I might notice being helpful at about 30. I'm young and I want to party where a night bus can get me home to, and I want my own home, complete with live-in lover :-), and live happily-ever-the-forseeable-future.
I really am doing this applying thing as keenly as I can. Procrastination doesn't come into it anymore. There are things I desperately want and I am the only thing standing between me and getting them. There ain't much bigger motivation than that.
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| Milkshake |
[27 Aug 2009|10:47pm] |
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I love Shaketastic in Radlett.
Mark and I went the other night and got a great combination out of their massive combo 'Pimp my Shake' option - Maltesers, Ferrero Rocher and Fruit 'n' Fibre, with Honey Nut Cornflakes and Popcorn as toppings, and the whipped cream. It really worked! That is all. Milkshake is important and must be discussed.
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| Rambling about what I have done in the past week and such. |
[01 Aug 2009|01:02pm] |
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Last week I went to an Edgar Allan Poe poetry reading, where I met some cool people who I promptly linked to the Geeksoc website because they were roleplayers. On Saturday went to my friend Natale's house for a pre-Cyprus watching of My Big Fat Greek Wedding. I like Greek Salad far too much. I think I shall be eating it on a daily basis in Cyprus... mmmm feta.
Monday night went to the pub for much needed catching up with SAHS girls, and on Tuesday I went to the Royal Academy of Arts to see the John William Waterhouse exhibition. I really do love that guy. Ellie and I played spot the hermetic magic references and squeed about scary Goddesses portrayed as not to be messed with. Then I went to see the house she is living in when she cleans it up. It belonged to a batty old west end actress who she is linked to via family friends, who died two years ago and whose house has been deserted ever since. It was fucking spooky. We cleared out all the food left in her cupboards and made a start putting her stuff into boxes. It was very bizarre. She had a giant stuffed pheasant in a glass case and loads of mad vintage clothes.
Wednesday night Mark had a dinner party and I was in charge of dessert, so I attempted a lemon meringue pie, which was tricky but actually came out remarkably well. I was so paranoid about it being rubbish I made a backup crumble which ironically was the one which went a bit wrong as half the topping sank into the overly juicy fruit, but still tasted nice.
Thursday went to a preview of Tom Rosenthal's Edinburgh show at Tutu's, which was not bad (the best stuff though imo was by an 18 year old support act of theirs called Amir Shah, he was very good).
On Friday I finally got to go on a date to Ikea and bought a cool looking gothicy pair of shelves/cabinet thing. Win!
Going to Majorca Monday, woo.
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| Graduation |
[23 Jul 2009|11:05am] |
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This was a very long and boring ceremony with many unnecessary speeches and the life story of each of the four random people being made fellows. I don't really like the principal of KCL that much. He's American and made a really patronising speech about how graduates were somehow better people than those without conventional degrees. It's just a terrible attitude to have. So grumble grumble there. But it was certainly an event worth doing :-) Seeing your friends go up and being able to clap all of them felt very worthwhile. And I quite liked hearing the thesis titles of the people getting doctorates! Graduation gowns and mortarboards are very very annoying garments may I just say. But oh well, I had to cough up £38 to hire them, so:
It was very nicely organised event. The Barbican was a lovely place to have it and the posh sandwiches and Pimms were most welcome ;-)
So there. That's all my formal education type stuff done now. Eep. I went and got my feedback too. It was a little underwhelming, it's like a paragraph on each essay. The only thing of interest is Ann Thompson giving me a high 2:1 for my Shakespeare and my seminar leader Nadia who is very nice being the second marker and asking for it to be externally marked and bumped up to a first (it was :-)). I think she could tell from what I had written about that I actually attended the lectures/seminars and was listening...
It was actually Clare Brant who was my dissertation first marker, and I've never actually been taught by her so apparently she must have liked what I wrote! Neil was the second marker and left no comment. Ah, ever mysterious...
I get my official diploma certificate thing in the post in a few weeks I think. Oh, and my mother went mad with pride at the merchandise stall and bought me KCL Monopoly which I have been yearning after since Freshers' Week so YAY.
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[11 Jun 2009|11:26pm] |
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I had the weirdest revelation today - in a conversation about our names and parents etc., Ellie mentioned that her mum is called Zoe. "Really?" I asked, and she said, "Yes, Zoe Penn." I recognised this name, because a few years ago Zoe Penn was on TV explaining something on the news about breast-feeding, and my mum had pointed her out and said that she was her obstetrician and was the doctor who had delivered me and after whom I am named.
"Ellie, is your mum an obstetrician?"
"Yes"
"She delievered me, I'm named after her..."
After ringing her to confirm that she did indeed work at Barnet General in 1987, Ellie put me on the phone to her and she went, 'Ooh, you're one of my babies!'
How awesome is that? Ellie and I are clearly destined to be friends in some fantastic cosmologically aligned kind of way! Hee!!!
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| Tintern Abbey |
[02 Jun 2009|02:40pm] |
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Yesterday my friend Ellie and I went on a road trip to Wales, to Tintern, just the other side of the Severn Bridge, where the abbey is, in the bit of the Wye Valley that Wordsworth wrote about and that I since have written about twice, including in my dissertation. To be honest I wanted to see what the fuss was about ;-) ( And so I did! )   
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| Pagan Pride |
[26 May 2009|07:37pm] |
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Had a pretty good weekend. Been back working at the Golf Club, grabbing shifts where I can, and Saturday Night went to the awesome Elephant and Castle Superbowl with a bunch of people. Bowling was quite good (was out of practice but will go back sometime soon) and we also played some other games there (table football etc.). I suck at pool but rule at Air Hockey, so it's OK really ;-)
Sunday morning went to the Pagan Pride Parade! Mark came too and I met Ellie there. She made me an amazing wreath of ivy and roses and we looked like nymphs frolicing in Russell Square fountain and the British Museum forecourt :-)    
Then we went to the Tate Britain because Mark had never been and it's my favourite UK Art Gallery :-)
Last night went to see Angels and Demons which I quite liked. I like a Hans Zimmer-scored treasure hunt :-) and today went to see Coraline in 3D with Natalie. 3D made it very pretty :-)
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| Off to Munich! |
[15 May 2009|08:18am] |
Wednesday I did a photoshoot as a Student Ambassador with some other people where we had to swan around the campuses standing about on stairs and looking over each others' shoulders at books and stuff, so look out for me in future KCL promotional material :-P!
However, in the name of wearing brightly coloured tops I wore these really loud blue and orange numbers from H&M that I'd bought for £3 and never worn yet, and they bloody gave me a rash all over my torso! Mark said it was like someone had scratched me in swirly patterns all over my back! Bloody weird. I'm really healthy, I never usually have allergic reactions to things. This reinforces my profound hatred and suspicion of any product with the word 'organic' in front of it (screw you 'organic cotton'). I'm a big fan of efficiently made things which do NOT make my skin all red and blotchy for a day. I'll wash them and wear them again and see if it was just because they were new and potentially bearing factory chemicals...
Anyway, I'm going to Munich today, EEEEEP! Very excited to see Corissa (I go to her bearing the Pro Plus she asked for, they don't have it in Germany!) and generally embark on trip #1 of Zoe's awesome summer of travels. I also get to continue with my joyous 'reading for pleasure' escapades on the plane. I'm very pleased because yesterday I finished a short story in French (Sans Nom by Amelie Nothomb), and only needed to look up a few words (I actually did, rather than just leaving it and letting my shrunken vocabulary remain so). I'm building up to one day getting maximum pretentiousness points by reading Proust in the original language, hee hee. I also impulse bought some Virginia Woolf from a bookshop the other day, on account of I quite like her and it doesn't take a reading list and an exam to make me want to read her writing.
Argh I had so much fear that my degree would put me OFF that kind of thing that I am clinging to the idea that it hasn't in case it wears off or something and I turn into some pleb who only reads Heat magazine and the back of cereal boxes.
Also very excited for Eurovision tomorrow night! I'm very much rooting for Greece. I love Azerbaijan's song still but I caught the semi-final yesterday and their live performance let them down a bit. Turkey's my back-up I guess but it's not as glorious as Sakis Rouvas <3.
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