Good for the Soul, Bad for the Conscience...

That would be, Shopping. Whether it's money matters playing on your mind, or the fact that you're out browsing the rails when you should be writing three essays. For me it's a bit of both, but mainly the latter. So the plan today was to take care of some business chez le banque et then pick up a couple of essentials, but this then turned into a four hour meander through Hartlepool town centre (which is a pretty grim experience these days!).
What did cheer me up though, was bagging myself some rather beautiful shirts in the Next sale (albeit a little late!) that where actually in my size! Ahhh! unheard of! £56 well spent :) And instead of paying £4.99 to replenish my supply of foundation, I opted to pay £2.99 and give Collection 2000's Sheer Loose Powder a try - I remain unconvinced that their No.1 Ivory is as light as they say. I shall keep you posted. Oh and the boots, I just threw in their for good measure (thank you to Fen for telling my how to use Polyvore!). VIVIENNE WESTWOOD, AHHHHHH!! I actually dream about those delicious specimines footwear!

On the subject of clothes etc. I would just like to say three words right now: Mark St. James! If there is one reason why I tune in for Ugly Betty it's to see what fabulous eccentricities our favourite whipping boy has been stitched into.

Sigh. If my bank balance wasn't weeping at the thought alone, I would dress like Mark all the time!! Anyway, I'm off to munch some chocolate and watch Ab Fab :)

But oh, what beautiful things I'll wear...

So here it is, less than a week and a half until my essay deadlines and I have yet to make a recognisable start to any of it! Today was supposed to be spent writing my Science Fiction Research Group report, but alas! I wound up sitting in my sister's room drinking hot chocolate, eating crackers and cheese, chuntering babble, watching post-Christmas TV and trawling through LookBook.
And still, the work remains undone. We then turned our thoughts to what we could possibly wear to a highly anticipated Emilie Autumn gig in March (observant Muffins among you, notice the fitting title). Ensue: stripey tights, corsets & bloomers (for some!) and other Victorian inspired eccentricities. Not forgetting the all-important rat tails!! Ahhhhhh excitement!!

I can't wait to get crafty and creative closer to the date!

Tomorrow I will start work. ARGH!

Tokyo, it's in our blood...

Come join us; dance in the d-d-dust.

I love Kill Hannah. And I love Sushi Fridays just as much! Three blogs in one day though, wow, making up for lost time.

Yes, Friday afternoons in Yo!Sushi with my girlies cheers me up so much and the green tea is so refreshing!

Today's gossip topics included: the hotties in Prête à Manger, the sweet gay couple at the end of our row, whiskey/margaritas with The Gillis, our rage at how some essay pro-forma deadlines were extended where others were not, gay erotic fiction and hot-man-lovings, surrogacy, breast/penis augmentations, various sexual exploits, dumb boys who don't text back, A Very Vegetarian Christmas, upcoming house parties and the opportune man-cany attending.

On the Yo!menu today:

• Green tea (x2)
• Miso soup (mmmm!)
• Chicken yakisoba
• Chicken katsu rolls

Nom :)

A coat, a stroll and a snoop round the Waterstones sci-fi section later, we found ourselves in Starbucks for cinnamon lattes and dark cherry mochas (thank you, Fen!). Very festive!! There was also a resounding 5/5 from all three judges for the cute boy with the glasses behind the counter. Kawaii! I hope Fridays next semester will be just as cheery. The penultimate Renaissance & Revolution seminar and there were chocolate buttons to be had alongside discussions on Paradise Lost. Huge fun! This 4-5pm slot will be sorely missed.

Looking forward to going home this weekend :) It's been a while since I was back. Hopefully, I'll be able to start reading Altered Carbon on the train back to 'sunny' Hartlepool! (Bob would be proud!). I feel that my sister is in need of annoying/hugging also.

Tonight however! (after I've made some sweet and sour stir-fry --late I know) I will be settling down with Alien:Resurrection, since I've been making my way through the box set over the past couple of nights, vainly attempting to convince myself that it constitutes as 'work' towards my Sci-Fi essay (which it isn't!) But, it's Friday. And I'm having a night off :)

Construction in progress..

Updating/reworking my blog layout; check back soon!!

How We Became Posthuman

• Currently reading: Paradise Lost - Milton; Myths of the Underworld Journey - Radcliffe Edmonds; Medieval Visions of Heaven and Hell - Ernest Becker.
• Soon to be reading!: Altered Carbon - Richard Morgan (hopefully!!)

Lord, oh Lord, I cannot believe it's been nearly 4months since I last blogged! The joys of university, behold. Winter is definitely coming in, brrr! -- woolly mammoths and lemon curd on the horizon -- and this also means that essay season is well and truly come :( I feel like I don't even have the time to be writing this blog, time that I should be spending to do more research for my essays!

Bah, throw caution to the day's icy wind, since I successfully uploaded my second piece of assessed work for this semester last night/this morning. Hoorah! Hopefully the feedback for this will return pretty speedily, as with my first piece (feedback for this today at 4??? fingers crossed) and I can then busy myself with a calculator while I furiously try to work out my average. "My average! My average! What's my average?!"

But enough of such thoughts for now, at least. I'm dashing out to have a gossip-filled sushi lunch with my two favourite literature gals :) Be prepared for such conversation topics as: lesbian porn, dildos and (/or) strap-ons, hot guys accross the counter, eritic gay fiction, which cute lecturers where wearing what and many others.

Ciao!

Hoi iedereen!

En bedankt voor het bezoeken van mijn blog.

Yes, I've decided to learn Dutch. Pretty odd, you might think, but it makes a change from the usual French, German, Spanish and Italian routes people always seem to go down. Plus, I have family in Dordrecht so it'll be nice to be able to chat to them in Dutch too! Things are pretty slow going at the minute, and I will admit that Google translator has helped me just a little bit, but it's made fun by counting with Bert and Ernie off Seaseme St. along with a series of Youtube lessons courtesy of a (very cute!) boy named Eric and his friend Jill. Still trying to get my mouth round the pronunciation, encountering a few problems with the ij and the different y sounds. And let's not forget the g which seems to be the hardest of all so far. My Dutch For Dummies should be arriving soon. Cue, excitement.


ALSO, I've decided to post my favourite new Dutch words here as I learn them. Today's word is: sinaasappelsap (orange juice). Afstandsbediening was also a big contender for the spot, but the fruit outweighed the remot control.












I decided to break from mindnumbing conformity on Friday night and channel hopped for a while instead of watching the Big Brother eviction. I fell upon The Tudors on BBC2 and was a little sad to learn that I've missed so much because it was actually really quite good! So it looks like I've got two seasons of that to catch up on, which will give my dearly beloved Sex & the City box set some much needed rest. I absolutely adore Jayne Seymour and the incredible things she wears! This particular crown-collar combo caught my eye.



Anyway, I'm running out of things to say for now and my toes are getting a little cold; I'll get round to all those saucy Tudor men next time! I finally had my passport returned to me after 6 long months, horrah!


Tot zeins!!

Time goes by ...

... and I haven't been on here as often as I thought I would at the start of the summer. But anyway, clothes get worn and uni draws closer again, heated things get said, shit happens.

[still] Reading at the monent:

• Neuromancer by William Gibson (only a quarter left to go!)

Glad to see that the sunshine is back along with the glow in my cheeks. How long this lasts remains to be seen. Managed to catch about 15 minutes of Star Trek Voyager on Vigin this morning for the first time in years; the geek within me revels and eagerly awaits September.

I might get myself back on here soon.

À bientôt!

Autobots, assemble!

Or something to that end...

• Reading: The Queen of the Damned - Anne Rice, The Necronomicon - H. P. Lovecraft.

Yawn, yet again I'm up far too late and my plan to get back into a rhythm of early nights has been shot to shit. Despite the weather, which has been grim pretty much since sun-up, and feeling like a drawn out piece of elastic, I really enjoyed today.
So I spent another day with the guy on the receiving end of most of my flirtations, texts and msn smileys. An 11 o'clock screening of Transformers II followed by coffee and a trip to a thermostat-happy River Island. A few awkward silences aside (which I hope aren't bothering him!) I'm finding myself in that really nice second date frame of mind and constantly wanting to see more of him. His texts and emoticons seem to reflect something similar.
Caught off-guard by a girl handing out flyers on the street, I take one, she compliments me on my jeans I smile - thanking her, turn to walk away and I walk straight into an unhelpfully short old woman and her entourage, crushing her toe under my size 10 boots. I was mortified! Repeating how very sorry I was, me and handsome escaped for coffee. We joke about it for the rest of the afternoon. Not altogether that funny when you think about it, but it did help to sweep away the dark cloud of mega-cringe a little.

People with umberellas pose a real threat to people's eyes.

I went to the gym yesterday with my friend for the first time in a good while - the fitness feeling died out around about the same time as the exam depression took root. Once we'd moved past more awkwardness of having someone in the year below me give the obligatory, common sense induction, we actually had an enjoyable hour and a half of sweat.
I'm going to see how long our Monday/Friday plan lasts. "Cynic? Me? Noo!" We might just surprise ourselves. Being back home from uni for little more than a couple of weeks, adventure hasn't really been braying down the door.

And the drudgery of trying putting my room into some state of order continues. Which is depressing since there are things lying about now that I vowed to attend to last week - and maybe the week before ... Gah!

And pass-or-fail-day looms ever closer. 4 days now. Or is it 3?

There's a couple of other things which aren't really that important. Like how two copies of Daisy Miller arrived in the post for me the other day.

Dancing with myself.

And my sister also as I sit in her room, watching her make some sort of appliqué cupcake while I type my first, egotistical and pretentiously titled blog on here.

Ahhh, BILLY IDOL.

I could not even say in all honesty why I've joined this thing. Probably to tide my boredom over the summer.

"Don't you wish you had talent like me?" she pipes, waving the small muffin-like creation that isn't even a muffin. She commences to stuff it with cotton wool.

It's ten past ten, and this blog is on fire... Nothing left to do but find a muffiny-cupcake image to affix netherwards and proceed to haunt the pages of Facebook in the hope that someone will have left something on my wall.