::strange little girl::

Good lord, The Lake House is a bad film. If only time were their only foe, but they also have to overcome the fact that they're both total dumbasses. Also, why anybody puts their leading man in a polo neck, ever, is completely beyond me. Besides, I probably shouldn't watch things which romanticise non-verbal relationships. It only encourages me.

Tomorrow I go for a re-enactment of last week's English department party. This is the party which saw me tell one tutor to get over his problems because he was clearly just clinging on to them as a flimsy excuse for his misogyny, screamed to another 'DON'T GOOOOOOOOO' in the middle of the road as he tried to catch the last bus home, and revealed at length my list of grievances with the department to all present. I'm not entirely sure how we're going to top that one, but we thought the occasion merited some kind of one week anniversary re-enactment. Plus, any excuse for a piss up.

It does, in fact, look like this will be a week of piss ups. Lastnight was the radio wrap party, for which my flatmate was responsible, and so took it upon herself to make it her responsibility to ensure the bar took enough money to break even. Hence the not one, but TWO bottles of £48 rose champagne we ploughed through, as well as the most hideous cosmopolitan I think I've ever wasted a fiver on, a lot of Lidl plonk and some good ole g&t's. We still didn't make our money back. Cheap arse djs. I did enjoy doing the decorating though - it's been a while since I've pitched in with anything much, and I'd forgotten how nice and smug you feel once you've done somebody a favour. Somehow, I don't think I'm as gracious as I used to be...

Also, Saturday is May Ball night. Colin Murray is DJing, and the bands look reasonable. Importantly, the bar is free. I'm refusing to acknowledge my excitement, as by the laws of irony it'll be a total let down if I do, but secretly I think there may be fun to be had. For my personal having, hopefully.

Revision really isn't happening.

As of yesterday at 5, they no longer have anything to teach me. This is the first time since I was 4 that I've had no classes to go to. I feel so utterly lost, but in a nice way. Bizarrely, the most disconcerting thing is that nobody's structuring my reading. I had to stave off the terror by just doing some revision. Maybe I'm destined for a life of academia after all.

My first day of freedom was pretty anticlimactic though. I spent it cutting out cardboard stars which I will no doubt be working out how to string up tomorrow. I hate being a trooper.

Best thing about today was:

I cannot believe it's been sitting in cellophane for about 3 months on my shelf. It was a favourite waiting to happen.

These two are getting me through the evening better than all the cups of tea in the world. And I can go more than an hour without peeing.

I am so sick of lesbians.

...which at the moment is less than conducive to the writing of my final essay ever. This is my last piece of homework after 11 years. And I'm trying to slip in a reference to aural sex. No, I did spell that properly. It's that kind of sex. It's that kind of course...we're so bored of men-dressing-as-women-dressing-as-men-attracted-to-women-dressed-as-men-but-really-women-though-masculine relations that we almost asked a boy and girl snogging next to the lecture theatre (who DOES that at our age?!...yes, I have become an old woman) for a demonstration of straight, no fuss, heterosexual sex. Layers are for losers.

Other than the looming end of my academic career (what will I DOOOOO?) there is very little going on at the moment. Trips to the library (beige palace of despair that I will strangely miss), chocolate I didn't need to eat considering I will be shoehorning myself into a bikini to go to Spain with 4 of the blondest skinniest girls I know in 2 months (but have a cunning plan to hire myself out as a zeppelin to unsuspecting tourists), and making friends I should have about 2 years ago because it's all a bit late in the day now, are featuring heavily in this week's activities.

Oooh, it's rainbow weather. I love having a skylight when it rains. Although not when I check the weather and find myself looking directly into the heart of the sun. Win some, lose some.

Re: the music. It's ok. I don't like Lily Allan either, but this song is still officially great. Power to the brass band.

( A year in 12 sentences )

Another nail in the coffin of this thing. Well, I never said it would be interesting. Having had a quick flick through the 5 and a half years (a terrifying thought) of my livejournal, I have to say 2003-4's probably the best of a bad bunch...just the right balance of amount of shit to say, and having convinced myself people were interested.

To elaborate, I am still alive and well. Thought that if I were going to return to this, which is dubious, then I should at least put in an appearance of more than one line. Sadly, the only thing I have to gripe about (obviously the only point of anybody's online anything is to bitch) is Leona off X Factor. Why God gives talent to annoying people is a mystery to me.

Life this term - I still think completely in academic years - has been surprisingly full of work considering it counts just as much as last year, and all I did then was sit around getting drunk. I have, however, found time to see Karl Kennedy, go to some balls, make my first ever visit to Disneyland and rediscover my love of parsnips. By next month, I will only be 12 weeks of lectures and 2 exams away from being given a degree. I will have finished my dissertation on Elizabeth (not Emily) Bishop which at the moment is barely even started, but as with all my shoddily finished pieces of work, will probably turn out just fine. I will probably not have a plan for post-graduation, although I'm working on it. If any of you are influential in the publishing world and just chose not to tell me, now would be the time to reveal yourselves.

That, I believe, is that. Until next time I have something to moan about.

I thank you for the praise of my mental montages. While I'm not sure it's justified, it's appreciated. I'll work you into one of them as some kind of cake weilding ninja, with eclair numchucks. Tasty.

Hello. I am still alive.

Being in town on your own is weird. Or maybe it's just me. But I always feel a little more like a crazy bag lady when I buy a coffee on my own and read a book. Which is basically all I wanted to do today - get out of the house without actually having to spend too much money. And Oklahoma seems rather welcoming of the bag lady type, providing they're under 25 and reasonably well dressed. They also sell good coffee in buckets. Being on my own, I was also completely unable to decide on making a purchase, apart from some random books of poetry that I'm already regretting( . )

Although I will be sick of it within 4 days, I need to go back to St. Andrews. Or really, I need to create some kind of time machine, go back to when I was 6 and learn to BMX. Yeah.

I feel very short changed if this is the company my face is supposed to be keeping. Apart from the last one. I'm just insulted by that.

http://www.warrenellis.com/?p=3007

Stolen from Matt, this is entirely worth doing.

Hello world.

In a nutshell, the last 3 months:

Work was dull with nice people. I should have stayed longer, because I've been spending rather than making money.

Italy was enjoyable, although short and peppered with see-through hand luggage and long queues. Don Francesco said I'm 'sempre sorridere' although in a grammatically correct way which I can't be bothered working out. The point is it's a nice sentiment, and so a keeper. I also got to launch fireworks off the top of a 15th century church. Score.

Going out has been repetative, and rather damaging to the liver, but massively fun.

Tomb Raider Legend was an improvement on Angel of Darkness.

Not as many people are launching themselves into the real world as I'd thought. Reassuring.

Facebook is totally taking Livejournal's place. FEAR IT.

Well, that was worth the wait, wasn't it.

The sun is shining, the weather is sweet, so lord knows why I'm doing ( this pointless poll )

I might go sit outside and try to find all the hidden treasures on the Pop Up Pirate Ship book that tax got me now. It's the acest thing, possibly ever, containing a board game, a treasure hunt, a compelling story, first class illustrations, a selection of over 50 movable parts and the greatest panoramic pop up you've ever seen. YEAH!

Ugh. I'm trying to find a laptop now because I have a bit of money and some 21st birthday presentage to spend, and dear lord you have to trawl through a lot of words I don't understand. And also apparently spend a lot of money if I want one I can actually play games on. Which I do. Who'dve thought it?

Anyway, the point is if you, yes you, know of any nice laptop shops, or indeed websites, which will sell me a laptop that I can play games on and won't be outdated 2 days after I buy it, for not too much money, please tell me.

That is all.

Kate Fox (21). This is what it'd look like in the newspaper if I were commended for saving a puppy from a tree or got stabbed by scallies for my Solero. If I were reading about somebody called Kate Fox (21), I'm fairly sure I'd expect them not to wear My Little Pony t-shirts and plastic jewellery, and get sentimental about the 3 bin bags of cuddly toys she had to throw away yesterday to make room for her disney DVD collection and purple fluffy cushions. She ought to be wearing pinstripe pencil skirts and kick ass boots and have pencils in her hair and be high-flying somewhere. But nope, I'm a fully fledged proper grown up, and it's still My Little Pony-o-rama. I can't say I'm massively disappointed.

So, in the last 2 weeks, I polished off my exams, which went mediocrely, and I'm going to have to properly pull my finger out next year to get the first I know I ought to be able to manage. Moved my stuff out of the flat and am convinced I left the oven on for a month, and am now back home and trying to fit all the crap I've accumulated in the last 10 months into my already overflowing with crap room.

Had a birthday, which was very quiet and not 21-like at all, but to be honest by this stage I really couldn't be arsed putting any effort into it, so we just went and gorged ourselves on Tapas, which was fine by me. Sophie has bought me the greatest present ever - a QUINCY t-shirt in attractive poo-beige, and some hideously tasteless shoes that I fell in love with some time ago. And then today, a package came from Tom (who I feel like I've rather neglected lately), containing the most beautifully wrapped book of Margaret Atwood essays. Thoughtful enough, but then I opened it to find 'Happy 21st Birthday, to Kate from Margaret Atwood' inside. That boy. Left him a bleary tearful message this morning to say thank you, but it probably just sounds like the mutterings of a drunk tramp since I'm not particularly articulate before noon.

Margaret Atwood wished me a happy birthday. For just one second, she was actually thinking, however vaguely, about me. And that will be the massively egotistical thought keeping me fuzzy today.

Just for the record, being in the flat at the moment is great. Everybody gets on, nobody's stressed, the washing up doesn't get done but that doesn't seem to matter anymore, when it really did 2 months ago, and you go down for a cup of tea and get distracted for an hour. I mean, ok, it's 2 weeks until the end of term, but it's nice that we got there in the end.

                                          Dear, I know nothing of
Either, but when I try to imagine a faultless love
              Or the life to come, what I hear is the murmur
Of underground streams, what I see is a limestone landscape.

Reading poetry? I must have exams on novels. Really rather disappointed in myself for not doing any work again, but I only have myself to blame. Again. I do rather feel like I ought to have learned these lessons a long time ago.

Exam time means absolute social death in St. Andrews. It's a bit eerie. We went to Aik's pub quiz yesterday - only 4 teams because of examness, and we still lost. Even to a team of one person. Oh yes, we're that great. Despite the dirth of entertainments up here, however, I went to an old school house party on Friday. The fact that it was fancy dress only made it marginally better that Death apparently wanted to get in my pants. I'm half convinced that he thought I was a hallucination, but I'm willing to admit that although most of the time I elicit absolutely no comment, for some reason at parties at this particular house, people think I'm great for up to 25 minutes, before they realise it's not originality, it's just booze. I'm like a cross between Cinderella and Anneka Rice.

Got to do a walk of shame (not really shame, I just sat up having a hideously disturbing conversation with middle aged men and eating pistachios until Liz worked up the courage to kick them out) in the worst Minnie the Minx costume ever, and skipped all the way home. Well, not all the way. It's uphill. Anyway, the point is, it's not been all bad, but mostly things are rather monotonous, and even the gossip's got really old.

I have to get into shape. I have bingo wings and keep eating cauliflower cheese slices from Tescos (but man, they're good). I have mental montages of me working out at a gym, but that's probably never going to happen. I'd go swimming, but you'd be surprised how terrifying swimming pools are when you can't actually see further than 2 feet away from you. Like swimming in an impressionist painting. I dunno. I reckon I'll just sit around eating ice lollies and watch the pounds magically shed off through positive thought. Yeah.

There's no hot water so I have about 20 minutes to kill before the shower I've been looking forward to for an embarrassingly long time. Damn over-zealous energy saving flatmates. But that's my only gripe today. Tomorrow I'll be facing up to the fact that I have to have 2500 words peer assessed at 3, and have written 0. Over to you, Carol. That's 2500 - 0 = 2500!!! It's a shame that the 'it'll work out ok in the end, somehow, it always does' attitude prevails, but it's true. Besides, I had far more important things to do this weekend, like entertain Sophie. Admittedly, my brand of entertainment consists of sitting around watching an entire series of This Life (sorry Soph, you left it up here) and becoming terrified that the people in it are no longer far off tales of what it'll be like to be a 20-something, but us in 4 years time. Only with less direction, and not as good a bum as Andrew Lincoln. Also, going to the pub and drinking vast amounts of rum and wine counts, because I remembered to go out and buy a lime. That's service. So the weekend was a success, and Soph got to experience the slightly anti-climactic experience that is the May Dip - hundreds of drunk students crammed onto a beach at 4am while the tide's coming in. It worries me that these are supposed to be the formative experiences of my life.

Sadly, today she went away and I got a bit emotional because I'm on some bizarre premenstrual not-stress-but-feeling-a-bit-funny. The odd things is that usually it manifests itself as a day long depression, but this month has decided to rear its head mainly in the form of me feeling really loved up for no reason, and only turned into mopiness when Sophie got on a bus and I had to go home and clean. My dreams have been absolutely amazing, plus I got totally carried away with this week's episode of Green Wing and would now actually sell all my limbs for a proper kiss. Goodness, hormones.

Oh dissertations. I never thought I'd see the day. I have to swan off to a preliminary meeting about them, so am trying desperately to figure out what it is I actually need to know, so there isn't that awkward silence when they ask if there are any questions, and then I leave and remember that there were about 48 of them I had to ask.

So far I'm not entirely sure I'll be able to do any of my ideas, because they seem to be focusing around Bulgakov or David Mitchell (a slightly bizarre duo to come up with), or possibly I'll cop out and do Margaret Atwood but I think that's a bit overdone and I would like to at least try to be original with this business. Is that just taking myself too seriously? I mean, I am just one of hundreds of undergrads submitting essentially a still quite small number of words, does it really matter what they're on anyway? Sadly, I get the impression this is the English department's take on the whole thing. They're so unmotivated to do anything except write their own poetry, it's infuriating.

Well, whatever, we'll see what they have to say. Outside of that, work is sucking, everything else is kind of dull but ok. Sophie's coming up next week and we're going to party like it's 1999. Again.

Update or delete. It's getting harder and harder to choose between them. But update or MORE Piers Plowman, it's no contest.

Have procrastinated this week more than anybody ever did in their lives. And spent a shitload of money the instant my loan came in on replacement mp3 players (because my life was too quiet) and meals and wine and after dinner mints and easter eggs. I'm now paying for it though, by being fat and busy. Although the discovery that a frozen Cream egg is by far preferable to a room temperature one, but a bit more of a challenge.

Despite such rewarding activities up here, I'm sick of pretty much everyone I know. Everybody's so involved in their own little incestuous groups that they don't actually seem to realise that in the grand scheme of things it doesn't actually matter and nobody cares. In fact, on a smaller scale than the grand sceme, I don't care. Stop telling me about stuff. Unless we're going to sit around making poo jokes and eating chick-pea based dips, leave me alone altogether. This might make for a slightly isolated existance, but it'd definitely cut out all the chaff, and then maybe I'd get on with something useful for a change.

I should dare myself to fuck working this summer and just go away. Anywhere, everywhere, I don't care. Except I know in my heart of hearts I'd just be doing a tourist trail of mini-dramas and well practiced quirks and chips-on-shoulders, so how different would it really be? A change of scenery, I guess. But really, this is me just passing the buck. Want a decent conversation? Start one, don't expect one to turn up. Want to engage, be engaging. Ultimately, it's not other people's fault if I'm so unsatisfied, it's entirely mine. Well, mostly mine, there are always just some horribly horribly dull people. Don't think I think I'm living on some higher plane of thought than everybody else, if anything it's the opposite. I'd just like to get on with somebody without any of that stupid conversational competition.

Ah well, off for Ice Age 2 this evening and NOT the pub. And Middlemarch. And the rest of Piers Plowman. All of which I'll be enjoying.

And I would like to add, that contrary to the hideously selfish sentiment above, I hope everyone that's still flitting round this cadaver of an lj is still alive and surviving, and looking after themselves properly. Three square meals, some time in front of the telly, good book, that sort of thing. Yes I do.