I just burned 550 calories at the gym. I’m dead. Even before we got back the others were talking about getting chocolate :hmm: I just wanted to change into something more comfortable and less sweaty, and have lots of water. Swimming is the only thing that makes me hungry, and even that doesn’t seem to have the same effect on me anymore (mainly because I eat an hour or two before I go I think).

Last night was the first formal dinner at our hall. All I have to say about that is that the kitchen staff clearly can cook when they try – the food was absolutely amazing. Even though there were things I don’t really like, such as pumpkin soup, they were edible and even nice, the quality was so good. After that we went on to a bar called The Coco Lounge, which was very chilled. I talked to lots of new people, several of which came from my home city, and then hung out with the girls and a few guys until it closed. It was quite amusing because the bar staff came to tell the room they were closing, and no one at our table heard…then about 15 mins later, someone’s all, ‘Hey, where’s everybody gone?!’ Very funny lol. Lord only knows how about 50 people managed to walk downstairs, into the main room and out of the door without any of us noticing, but we didn’t lol. It was kinda creepy walking down into the main room, which had been fairly crowded all night, completely empty and silent. I got a taxi back with Nika and Richard. It was a black cab, so Richard sat on one of those pull-down seats with his bacvk to the driver. He was kinda drunk I think, and when we went around a sharp corner, he tried to keep his balance..fell off the seat, tried to grab the handle on the wall between the two seats, grabbed on to it, span around suprisingly elegantly for one so drunk, and fell on the floor. It was absolutely hilarious, I nearly pissed myself I’m laughing just typing this, but it was probably one of those ‘you had to be there’ situations.

Nika took pictures of the formal and uploaded them to her MSN space thing. You can view them here. I hav no idea why my eyes are red in practically all of them, I’m going to have to Photoshop them I think.

Tomorrow I have nothing planned, I’ll see what happens I’m going to try and get some work done I think, I have American Lit. coursework to do for 15th November, and I’ve not even planned it yet. Then Sunday I’m going swimming with Jenni in the morning, my family is coming to visit around lunchtime and we’re going to go shopping/to the castle (hopefully), then Nika and I are going to meet Tom at the train station in the evening. He’s staying until Tuesday, yay! It’s going to be so much fun, I really miss all my old friends

On a random note: you can’t beat good old-fashioned attraction. The suspense, the worry…it’s all good in the end

I found this on my travels, and it amused me greatly: Turnip Disambiguation Page. Who knew ‘disambiguation’ was even a word?? The Internet in general baffles me – what kind of place is it where you can get the entire transcript of ‘Trainspotting’ for free, but you can’t get a free copy of musical notation for ‘Peter and the Wolf’??

Anyway.

I forgot to mention the carrot parrot in my last entry, so when Tom emails me the pictures, you will be treated to that plus a picture of me dressed up as a witch/cat. Thrilling.

Yesterday I went swimming for the second time with Jenni. The pool is only a short walk away, and it’s generally quite quiet in the mornings, so I really enjoy going there. Plus the showers are a lot nicer than the one in my room
So anyway, yesterday morning was so quiet that I had a whole lane to myself. I should probably explain at this point that each lane is clearly labelled: ‘Slow, Clockwise’, ‘Medium, Anti-Clockwise’ etc., basic signs showing speed and direction of swimmers in that lane. So I’m minding my own business enjoying a leisurely swim in the ‘Slow, Clockwise’ lane, when Evil Woman gets in to the pool and starts swimming very fast, anti-clockwise. GRRRR. She clearly couldn’t handle the fact that I had a lane to myself (although the other lanes only had 2-3 people in anyway), and she ruined my swim with her thrashing and wrong-directioness for about ten minutes, until another girl got in. This girl started swimming slow and clockwise, and between us we thwarted Evil Woman’s evil swimming, and she moved into another lane. Yay! I hate entitlement bitches. Grrr.

My lecturer for English Lit. scares me. She forgot the plural of ‘poet’ yesterday and had to ask us. And so far, Shakespeare is boring, and Wordsworth and Hardy ramble. According to her. She irritates me quite a lot, especially with her long-winded questions. They are so long everyone loses the thread of what she’s saying and so we sit there, silent and confused, trying to work it out. Yesterday, this prompted a, ‘Has anyone actually read the poems?’ from her, which really pissed us off. Grrr.

And my Lang. and Context seminar teacher is also very annoying…for geeky English reasons that I won’t go into (apart from to say ‘triplet’ vs ‘tripartite structure’). He’s very condescending…he explained to us what ‘personification’ was the other day, like none of us have done SATs English. Or GCSE English. Or A level English

Oh, and I don’t know if I mentioned this before, but this happened in the first week I started uni (I can’t believe it’s been a month now)…I was on the bus going into town. It was pretty crowded, there were probably around 50-60 people on it, including students, old people, parents with their kids, etc.
Suddenly….

American Girl: *in a high-pitched aww sweet bunny rabbit voice* OMG!! Look at that lamp post!!
*Everyone on the bus turns to look at said lamp post. Seeing just a normal lamp post, everyone looks at each other in confusion*
American Girl: It’s soooo cute!!
*Everyone on the bus starts grinning at each other*

5 mins later, we’re driving past a street of semi-detached houses…
American Girl: OMG!!! Is that a house?!?!?!? Do people live there?!?!?!?!

Seriously people, if you come to England, have been here at least a week and haven’t seen a lamp post or a house, you must have been living under a rock.

Okay I gotta go collect my washing and get ready for a lecture, so I’ll blog and return comments soon!

The Scene

Location: My room. I’m asleep in my bed.
Date: 22nd October
Time: 6:45 am…

*knock knock*

I half hear it in my sleep but decide it’s someone messing around in the corridor, and roll over.

*knock knock*

Half awake now, I realise it’s someone at my door so get up to open it.

On opening my door, using it to prop me up, I see a white lion.

Lion: *cheerfully* Morning! Are you ready to go?
Me: muerephhhsdsdveneedtogetdressedandpackmph.
Lion: Okay I’ll see you in 15 mins then!

Thus started my first ‘rag raid’ (i.e dressing up in fancy dress and collecting money for a charity in a random city). It was fun, especially as I got a free ride to Manchester, my home city, where Nika and I ended up staying for the rest of the weekend (in my house).

I learned a lot this weekend. Mainly that I don’t like asking people for money, which surprised me in a way because I have no trouble asking my dad for it But people are so rude. I won’t go into details about the stereotypes, the people who blank you, the people who glare at you, the people who give crap excuses or try to flirt or comment on your appearance (I was dressed as a witch and the jokes got boring after about 5 seconds). Although on entering a pub, one guy’s, ‘Clive! Your missus just walked in!’, was quite amusing.

To the guys who asked us for sex and then told me I sounded Scottish – I would hate to see you when you’re drunk. To the bitch who claimed she couldn’t donate because she ‘was eating’, I hope you choked on your greasy plateful that would’ve fed my whole family for a day. To all the young teenage girls who gave me dirty looks, excuse me for doing something for someone other than myself, and excuse me for not wearing huge gold hoop earrings, white trainers and 10 pounds of make up like your scally selves. To all the kids who wanted a sticker but whose parents were too stingy to donate even 1p, don’t listen to your parents ever, you do not want to turn into them – trust me. To all the workers at Subway who didn’t even blink when they saw a giant cat and witch buy subs, thanks for being the only people not to stare at us all day. To the woman doing surveys – I feel your pain, I would kill myself if I had to do that every day. It was a pleasure for me to fill out your questionnaire, despite the fact that it was a bit complicated as I’m living in two different cities at the moment. To all the people who commented on my costume/told me I could make a killing at Halloween with it/asked me whether I was cold/congratulated me on being brave for wearing it in Manchester city centre all day, I love you. Thanks for donating. To all the fellow charity workers from different unis and charity groups, thanks for stopping to talk to us, it was really nice to meet people from so many different cities.

In general it was a fun day, but I was glad to go home! Nika and I went out for a meal with my crazy family, and then went to the pub with Tom. On Sunday, we went to the huge Tesco Extra and stocked up on stuff for uni, had lunch at Nando’s, then went to the cinema to see ‘Pride and Prejudice’, which was better than I expected.

My dad dropped us off last night, and we played foosball with Tom, Ian and their friend Sam who we hadn’t met before. Then I went to bed, got up this morning and went to a lecture, and now I’m putting off working on my drama piece, doing MadEvil studies exercises, writing up my notes, and working on a Wordsworth presentation, all at the same time. I love multi-tasking
Lunch is in 15 mins, so I will either edit this entry later to talk about condesecnding lecturers and strange Americans on buses, or I will save it for my next entry, time willing.

Comments will be returned later today/earlyish tomorrow :love: