Spent most of the morning:
destabilising the military-industrial complex at the university careers fair with this happy lot

(Faces obscured to protect the irretrievably guilty)
The indymedia article puts it better than I could:

Two bed sheets - £5
photocopied anti-recrutment leaflets - £7
clipboard and pens - £3
Stall at Sheffield University Job Fair courtesy of Barclays Bank - £1020

Blockading an army recruitment stall and being rewarded with a free platform to openly propagate your anti-militarist, classist ideas - priceless

Signed:
the Google Maps "Bike There" Feature Request Petition here.

Thought about baking:
brownie roll-out cookies from Smitten Kitchen, but didn't really have time or for that matter any eggs.


Became insanely frustrated by:


Was very impressed by:
this picture that is far too large to put here.

And then I made an LJ entry. The end. Night all.

Well, it's not a photo but it is something I've been working on, so there ya go. Today, my day has mainly been about Zeppelins - not for any good reason, I just think they're neat. Hoping for a resurgence when the airlines start being all "oops, we destroyed the planet, here's a dirigible." Which I assume they won't, but it would be awesome.

My brother has promised to build me one if he ever gets bored of astrophysics and goes into engineering.

And yes, the next time I get hold of a long helium balloon for some reason, I will be attaching cardboard fins and a small , elastic-band-driven propellor to it. Even if it is one I've stolen from a small child.

(Oh, and I can't remember where I got this doll base from, so if someone knows, please tell me...

Oh, I'm still here. It's holiday time for me, so I'm enjoying my Easter break with gusto and much chocolate. I've been a bit busy doing some webby stuff I might talk about later when it's finished, and completing much of my very important lying-around-watching-TV which I have been slacking off with so appallingly recently, due to the fact I don't have a TV.

My lovely laptop Cecil, who decided wilfully to break at some point during last term - leaving me with my brother's laptop and a sense of angry futility - has now been restored to my loving arms, much chastened, with new outsides, and is just as wonderful as I remembered. All my programs! My rainbow background! Donkey Kong Country! Since this happened, on a recommendation from Etsy for Everyone, I've installed Mozyhome Free, which I so far am cautiously happy with. It's a backup utility, free for up to 2gb, which runs automatically and has a nice sort of integrated thing going on, where it comes up as an extra drive in "My Computer". Like I said, like it so far. While I'm here recommending programs (and, let's be honest, making a record of them so I'll remember them the next time I do something egregious to my computer), I might as well make a list of all the things I missed while I was Cecil-less.

• Rainlendar, a cute little desktop calendar (mine's see-through!)
• Snes9x, a SNES emulator, for which you can find Donkey Kong Country, Super Mario World and many other ridiculously awesome roms.
• Feedreader, an RSS reader which lets you read feeds offline.

And a couple of online things that saved me during this time: del.icio.us and Google Docs. Although I'm sure you already knew that.

As for the rest of my holiday, I've mainly been enjoying the chance to have a break without feeling I have to be working or activisting. Don't get me wrong, I love my course and my causes but sometimes one just has to lie back and think of England spend time on other things. Like climbing on giant trees that have for some reason fallen over in East Court (yes, that was my morning), doing web design and reading.

Also: a bit of writing. I've missed fanfic. I finally got around to writing chapter three of my Cutler Beckett/Jack Sparrow piratefic, The Price, and I'm reasonably happy with how this little story is going so far - if anyone can read it for me and give some concrit (Smithy, I'm lookin' at you, all pretty in your fancy dress) Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Rating G, PG-13 and R respectively. And yes, I do plan to make Chapter 4 NC-17 if I'm not too embarrassed.

I was intending to take some photos to embellish this particular entry in my life's chronicles, but sadly my phone (and thus my camera) is running low on batteries and my charger, alas, is in Sheffield (of all places). But there you go.

I just went to a party which consisted of a room full of people who all knew my dad. That sort of thing isn't actually supposed to happen be fun, but it did was. I also spent approximately half of it talking about Colin.

Chris is currently playing thirty-three simultaneous games of online Risk. Some things just should not be allowed.

( middle name meme )


Was planning on seeing Taxi Driver tonight but for some reason the showing was cancelled. Woe. Instead, I'll see if I can find a working computer somewhere to watch Torchwood on (which I still haven't seen, which is driving me mad). Revision is going ploddingly - still, my exams only last until Friday; and I do, after all, only have to pass. And then I can go back to sleeping through lectures and spending my weekends baking sticky things. That said, I did make roast potatoes today, for the first time ever. They were AWESOME. <3 Next week: yorkshire puddings. Watch this space.

Yesterday I went down to Barnsley for some anti-BNP leafleting and standing-around-in-the-freezing-cold-ing. The BNP hold a stall in the town centre every Saturday (scary-looking burly men in high-visibility jackets), with copies of The Voice of Freedom and, amusingly, The Daily Express. Yay nationalism, indeed. I had a look at their website when I got home - they seem to have removed the bit about harsher penalties for women whose rape allegations are overturned and the part saying that homosexuality should be kept behind closed doors. Interesting.

Places I want to live during my life:

• above a shop
• in the middle of the countryside
• way up high at the top of a tower block
• in London
• in Brighton
• in Paris
• in Germany
• in the USA
• alone
• with a boyfriend/girlfriend
• with lots and lots of friends

Whee! Happy new year (and also Christmas), one and all.

I saw in the new year in the appropriate way - eating a doughnut and watching PotC AWE, that is. Mmm. (I forgot the getting drunk aspect to new year's eve celebrations when faced with lots and lots of food. Which is as it should be). Christmas was celebrated in a similar fashion, i.e. with more food than the human body can handle. And also presents, which was nice. I recieved many books and also some reindeer socks.

Resolutions:
1. Spend more time on the internet. I miss the internet.
2. Bake more. By which I mean, bake more things that aren't brownies.
3. Write more. Even though my fanfiction is appalling.
4. Knit something exciting and impressive. Like a jumper. Or a woman.
5. Gain some kind of rudimentary grasp of world a) history b) geography and c) politics.
6. Spend more time naked. I mean, my door has a lock on it and everything, I really should be making the most of this opportunity.
7. I know I say this every year, but learn to crochet.

Have a good 2008, everyone ^_^

This panel in a Buffy Season 8 comic:



Heh.

Recently I have been mainly watching the episodes of Heroes, House and Pushing Daisies that my brother sent to me for my birthday, eating bread pudding, petitioning against the BNP, learning about bacteria, giving a presentation about tuberculosis (the fact that I had a cough at this point served to make the whole thing bitterly ironic), baking orange and chocolate sponge which seems to have gone slightly wrong, contemplating having something for lunch which isn't made primarily of sugar, reading Buffy comics (obviously) and Of Human Bondage (which I highly recommend).

And now for the rest of the day I've got a choir rehearsal, a Socialist Students meeting on the lessons of the Russian revolution, and a People and Planet meeting which will probably be about our campaign to kick Coke out of the Student's Union. Then I might do some work when I get home, who knows?

Today I made lasagne, discovered that I like asparagus, worked out molar solutions of things, got cranky when trying to explain maths to people, fell asleep promptly as soon as I got home, talked to my parents on MSN, contemplated re-installing windows, listened to Kate Nash, ironed a couple of t-shirts (note-worthy because ironing is new to me), spent a lazy morning in bed with Arkady, learnt about endosymbiosis theory, bought a remarkable amount of vegetables, got a ticket for Last Laughs comedy club on Sunday, sent an email to my tutor because I forgot to hand in some work on time, drew a small diagram of my bedroom for demonstration purposes in my letter to Laura, forgot to take my lunch with me to uni (so I had to come back and have a cheese toastie instead. Mmm, feta) and drank hot orange squash.

(because I've run out of proper jazz titles to make Nush squee)

University continues to be awesome. I had my first lectures today, which was fun. I missed learning! It's been at least six months since I actually learnt anything, rather than just revising stuff. It's awesome. Also, for the record, science pwns. Especially biochemistry! I was having my doubts about my course (mainly because any time someone asks me why I chose it, my default answer is "because I look cute in a lab coat"), but having a few sort of introductory lectures has definitely reminded me that I'm interested in lots of aspects of my subject. So yay.

Also today: I checked out the City View Cafe at the top of the student union building which has, as the name suggests, a pretty shibby view of the city. It's probably prettier when it's not so misty. And this evening I went to the Socialist Students meeting, which was sort of fun but some guy from the anarchist society turned up and was a bit of a jerk. He was asking awkward questions which, okay, fair enough, but he was trampling over everyone else's arguments and the first meeting with all the freshers is probably not the time to start getting into whether political power or bottom-up worker coalitions is the best way to go for the growth of the country. Especially since the first few questions were along the lines of "what is socialism, anyway?" Fucking splitter. It was quite interesting, though. There was a pretty good speech at the beginning from one of the guys running it, then at the end they did an overview of all the campaigns they're running. Mainly stuff about tuition fees and the catering contract for people in Tapton & Ranmoor halls of residence. I think I managed to sound pretty intelligent, although my question about where the middle classes fit in in the socialist future came off as a little more aggressive than I was hoping (seriously, though, everyone in university is middle class. It's fucking ridiculous).

Oh yeah, and one of the leaders is really hot (see footnote for why this is irrelevant).

But anyway. Today I also went to the instrumental auditions for the concert band and orchestra and so forth, which ostensibly started at 7.30, although my audition ended up being at 11. Damn disorganised music teachers. I had to miss debate club for that! I could have gone to the debate, then with everyone to Interval and then the pub after that, gotten drunk, sobered up and still had time for some scales before I played. Still, I met some nice people, a few flautists and a trumpeter, and a girl called Emma who I run into everywhere (she's in my tutor group, and I met her at games evening as well. I also forget her name every time, which is just the most retarded thing ever). Plus my audition went pretty well, or at least I think it did.

Last night I went to Last Laughs comedy club and saw Rob Rouse, who was damn good, and a couple of other blokes, one of whom was damn good, the other of whom was mehish. Sitting in the front row, holding hands* with a bloke who has long blond hair and a silly name is a brilliant way to get the piss taken out of you by comedians. It was pretty awesome.

Saturday night I learnt to play a card game called Mau, which works slightly like Blackjack or Uno, only with lots of odd rules, the contravention of which earns you a penalty card. One of the rules, sadly, is that you're not allowed to explain rules to the other players, nor are you allowed to ask questions. Good for beginners, that game. Plus, every round an experienced player can create his/her own rule. I got many penalty cards for unladylike language, but it was so worth it.

Oh, what else have I done? I made an onion quiche which is approximately half pastry. I've tried in vain to locate the source of the mysterious smell in my room. I bought a venus fly trap!!! (The number of exclamation marks is proportional to my excitement) and came up with the phrase "I'm not just a pretty face, you know... I also have great breasts!" which has undoubtably been said before.

* All those years at school of being a total leper and I pick up a boyfriend on my third day of university. Go figure. Also, yay! You'd like him, f-list, he's a geek like all of you.

Eight more days left at home before I ... leave home. I've been packing up my craft supplies, and I'll take photos of that as soon as possible, because it really is very pretty. Beads look so cool when they're organised. I've got a few things to make before I leave; a couple of parcels I'm sending to people, some tote bags for groceries and a roll-up case for my knitting needles, so I don't have to suffer the indignity of taking them to university taped up in an old gift bag. After a few weeks of relative inactivity, friends-wise, I now plan on seeing them as frequently as possible in the limited time I have left, just in case everyone in Sheffield is rubbish and I need lots of cool-people lovin' to last me the term.

I doubt everyone in Sheffield will be rubbish. Fortunately, I'll have stopped watching Hollyoaks by the time I go (since I'm pretty sure John Paul and Craig will have gone off to uni themselves by that point, and frankly the hot guys kissing each other is the only pull of that show), which means I won't have to make friends with other people who watch Hollyoaks. Because it's awful.

I've taken a peek at the events in fresher's week, and there are some nice-sounding things like ice skating and debating and so forth. Plus, yay, the LGBT people will be doing things. They know where all the pretty girls are.

So, I'm excited. That's a lie, I'm mainly scared. In a good way? I'm good scared.

Changing the channel during adverts for loans while the presenter is in the middle of saying "homeowner".

To steal a narrative device from Rhi, right now I am: wondering if I could find an excuse to send my punk-loving partner for the feminist swap a biscornu, reading The Long Way Home in cbz format, feeling comfy in my new hoodie, chewing on a stripy pen, loving Hello Kitty, regretting the danish I bought earlier (not because it was unhealthy and expensive, more because I really should have got a brownie instead. Mmm, brownies), prodding my new filling with my tongue, thinking about stroking my cat, writing (on and off) some Pirates fanfic, hoping that if I send some comic strips into Knitty they'll take them up, listening to Kate Nash and hiccuping enough to break my brain.

Every time I hiccup it makes me giggle. What's that all about?

Oh balls, I still haven't written up Edinburgh. I'll do it properly, eventually. Promise.

So, I got into Sheffield, yay! Two As for maths & further maths, and Bs for chemistry and biology. I was ONE MARK off an A in biology, so I'll get one of my papers remarked to see if I can bump that one up (bloody annoying). I was eleven marks off for chemistry, so I doubt a remark will help - it was my coursework that screwed me up, I got As in pretty much every exam and then an E for my investigation. This was my teacher's fault, as my experiment didn't yield any results and she told me it would be okay, and that I didn't have to pick another one. The write-up I did was definitely the best I could have done with the information available. That'll teach me to trust people in future. Honestly.

Yesterday I ended up getting substantially drunk and dancing the night away with what seemed like every eighteen-year-old in East Grinstead, in possibly the least sensible pair of shoes I could have chosen. I was then woken at 8am by my dad shredding things. He is a strange man.

So now I'm just waiting for a call from the hospital to see if they have any work for me next week, and trying to think what to put on my questionnaire for the Feminist Swap on Craftster. And my teeth feel fuzzy.

was AWESOME. More details at a later point, when I'm less sleepy.

Also, I passed grade 8.

Also, I am now the pround owner of a "the angels have the phone box" t-shirt.

Over and out.

1) List 5 celebrities you would have sex with without even asking questions
2) Put all of them IN ORDER of your lust for them. (5 - 1, 1 is the hottest.)
3) Say which movie/show/thing it was that hooked you.
4) Supply photos for said people.

( Bisexual version )

Well anyway, Malta. The restaurant was nice, they had a special vegetarian menu. Everyone else had to get their food from the buffet table, and I got mine delivered by the pretty waitresses. Win. To celebrate being on holiday, I switched to white bread. Total luxury.

There were several million swimming pools. For once I remembered to buy goggles before we left, so I could do what I love and get water up my nose whilst attempting to do forward rolls underwater. The beach was twenty seconds away, but even better than that was a ladder down into the water near the yachts. Beneath there were rocks covered in softly waving seaweed and shoals of fish. Sadly since I'm so bad at snorkelification I ended up swallowing bucketloads of seawater, which was violently unpleasant. Hopefully I didn't actually swallow any fish. It was a great experience, and sort of difficult to describe. Just read Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (skip the bits where he's just listing fish) and think that, but a bit shallower.

I also got bitten by insects.

And back I have returned from Malta, where I apparently managed to pick up a suntan, which was not intentional, and a sunburnt nose, which was in so many ways not intentional.

It's an interesting little country (or, as a tour guide put it, "a rock in the middle of the Mediterranean"), with a long and varied history of being invaded and besieged by various countries and peoples, the latest of which seems to be the British, although they don't particularly seem to mind. It's at a useful strategic point, and also has the world's largest natural harbour, which is why people from the Saracens to the Nazis have been attempting to take naughty, naughty advantage.

The story goes that St. Paul landed here when the ship that was taking him to be executed was shipwrecked, and he brought Christianity to the island, which before then was Pagan. He spent some time in a grotto, which both I and the last Pope visited. Not at the same time. It was violently unexciting.

During the Crusades, the Islands were given by the monarch that owned them at the time, Charles V of Spain, to the Order of Knights of the Hospital of St. John. They came from eight countries, spoke eight languages, and posessed the eight beatitudes, which included chastity and noblility. This is why the Maltese cross is eight-pointed. St. John's Co-Cathedral is in the capital city Valetta. It's gorgeous. The ceiling depicts the life of St. John, and eight sections on both sides of the altar are dedicated to the countries that make up the Order, with monuments to Grand Masters. The floor is composed of the tombstones of knights, inlaid in coloured marble.

Also, there were really nice rolls in the restaurant. Later I may add something about my snorkeling, because snorkeling is AWESOME.