Do you still think that way about me now?

Tagged by buttercup87:

If you had $1500 to spend just on fun stuff, (nothing logical like paying bills), what would you buy?

I would spend it all on my friends list road trip. Every last cent/penny.

I got nothing else to report on around here. Met up with Ashley (Renaissance girl) to talk about tutoring and thesis-writing; ran into Julie (one of the other teaching assistants) who was on her way to her tutor group and talked with her; came home and worked (worked!); Mark called round for a minute cos he'd run into some friends and was staying in Belfast to have dinner with them; talked with Maggie, Mary, Sveta (Russian archaeologist) and Laura (pharmacist) in Guthrie; watched Mastermind, The Closer (yay, new US cop show!) and something of The Unteachables (punctuation kung-fu!). It was a good day, so consequently there's not a lot to talk about :)

Haiku by rhondacrockett

americans who think football is something you play with your hands

Username: Haiku! by Hutta.

Well, shopping yesterday turned into a book-buying spree!!! Hey, I couldn't help it; Waterstones had a 3 for 2 sale on, how was I supposed to resist?!?

Pamela went swimming last night :/ Which means that Janet will not be here tonight to distract them with endless chatter so I can watch CSI and Criminal Intent without feeling like I'm hogging the TV. Not that there's anything which they would want to watch on at that time anyway; I've checked, and CSI and CI are the only decent programmes on. Maybe they'll just go to bed early instead *looks hopeful* They did that last week, and I watched my shows in blissful peace. Aaaaahhh.

Filled out a form for Queen's accommodation. I'm not totally keen on the idea of moving into halls, especially Elms, even if they do have that spanking new village complex thang going on.

Mark phoned me last night. He knows a girl who is looking for a house; she's a nurse so she'd be looking at the same area I would be interested in - Lisburn Road, Malone Road, maybe Stranmillis at a stretch. He said he would pass her my number.

8 Ulsterville Drive is gone. Our landlord already has a settlement made with a bunch of new tenants. How quick was that?!? I suppose that one of the new tenants being his GP's daughter helps. One of their dads is supposed to be coming round to see the house himself this evening. I should be there to let him in.

And now I should go back to the house for lunch, cos our freezer needs defrosting but is too full of stuff which needs to be eaten.

Oh! I got invited to Lesley's baptism! Yay! She's going to brave the Big Dip! (This is important, cos she doesn't like getting water up her nose, and if she does, she'll start kicking the minister >XD.)

And all I got was a T-shirt and a neon yellow coat with a pointless compartment at the ass, which none of us could work out what it was for.

Before you ask if I ran the Marathon: ROFLAMO NO!!!! And if you thought that, clearly you don't know me that well. :)

No, I was a Race Official. And I have the coat and T-shirt to prove it! I handed out cups of water to the runners/relayers/walkers, and I was pretty damn good at it, if I do say so myself. If it wasn't a voluntary position, I might consider making a career out of it. Belfast Council called Joanna in on a favour; they gave her money for her football competition (soccer, that is, to you Americans, who think football is something you play with your hands), and in turn they wanted her to get a team together for a water station. So yesterday I was up at a quarter-to-eight (soooo early! *dies off*) and off to the Winemark on Stockman's Lane (unfortunately shut for most of our stint there), to enjoy the delights of orange buckets, green gloves, and the sight of some 6000 people all running at me at once (ahhhhh!!!).

Och, it was fun, a great laugh. It took me a while to get used to the hand-over technique; I screwed up several times near the beginning (which means I screwed up with the "serious athletes", oh crap O.o) and the cups just spilled all over the ground, but then I started getting really rather good. Several of my hand-offs were so smooth, the water barely juddered in the cups *looks smug*. The weather was good, thankfully. We did have two rain showers, one before the race and one during. The first shower, we sat in the cars and let it blow over, and the second was over pretty quickly, besides which we were all too busy with the mass of runners coming past us to pay much attention. I also roped in two random children to help - well, they volunteered and I told them to go ahead. I was posted at the last table so I had a pretty easy time of it. Poor Joanna and Jennifer get everyone coming at them at once.

The only bad result is that my left shoulder blade doesn't like me now.

*

Buying The Well of Lost Plots has reawakened my book-buying compulsion. I've just been to Waterstones, and purchased:

Sunshine Robin McKinley
Only Forward Michael Marshall Smith
One of Us as above
The War of the Flowers Tad Williams
Perdido Street Station China Mieville (first e has an accent on it)
also The Blue Day Book Bradley Trevor Greive

I have no idea where I'm going to put them. My book drawer is full.

I've been feeling really creative recently, like the storytelling in me is bursting out at the seams. Delaying it and putting it aside only makes it more impatient. The flood gates opened last week when I indulged myself in a little media res writing before going to bed. I didn't get to bed until 5am. And for a piece of writing that wasn't supposed to be anything but a snippet, coming from nothing and leading nowhere, I now have so many ideas for continuing it into almost a proper story, and am constantly revising one scene which I've already written. Gah! I need more hours in the day!

::Edit:: What the heck is going on with LJ's typeface? It keeps changing to Helvetia. O.O

::Edit 2:: WHY WON'T LJ PUT IN MY PARAGRAPH BREAKS ARRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH????????

::Edit 3:: *Discovers that, for some reason, LJ thinks she doesn't want auto-formatting and corrects that mistake*

::Edit 4:: That's better now!

( Yeah, those answers I was going to give... )

After talking with mum over the weekend, I'm seriously considering moving out come June/July. James is leaving end of March, so I will effectively be living with people I don't really know. Pamela has already decided she's moving home-home once summer's here, and Joanna wants to move away from the Lisburn Road cos she hates living on the doorstep of her work, and is terrified of the kids finally figuring out what house she lives in. Besides, after the way she treated me on Thursday night, I don't WANT to live with her any more. Yes, dear, I know we don't have the same taste in TV, but if I can sit through your shit and keep my opinions to myself and even appear mildly entertained, then so can you! Quit whinging at me!

It snowed overnight, and this time, it did lie. I went out this morning and built a miniature snowman. He's so cute! He's still surviving (minus one eye, which fell out), but only because I was able to move him about and get him out of the sun. It is supposed to snow more tonight, so maybe that'll save him for another day.

This week has been... bad. Not "bad" as in "I've had a terrible time," but "bad" as in "I didn't do things the way I was supposed to." Namely, I have slept in every day this week, stayed away from the university library, started work late, gave it up early, and tended to want to avoid company and get pissed off when people interrupted my stuff. (I wish someone would invent remote headphone for the tv. Then you could just put the headphones on and listen to your programme in peace, while everyone around you jabbers on.) I mean, even right now? I should probably be doing work, writing more of my PhD piece, I mean Leon wants over 25 pages for the middle of March; but here I am, on LJ again, cos I'm not gonna go out to the university in the snow and cold, and it's too late to go now anyway, and the disc I have my work on won't run on James' computer here at home, and I've got bored with the work which I was doing.

On an up side, however: ponies have FINALLY landed locally. When I say "ponies," I mean the 03 Rainbow ponies and season ponies, as well as some of the new 04 ponies (up till now, the only 03 ponies I could find were the Glitter sets and the castle/salon/shop playsets), and when I say "locally," I mean at the toyshop which is closest to my home-home, that toyshop being Walkers in Ballymoney. And on an upper side: Philip has a dentist's appointment in Ballymoney tomorrow, so I'll be taking the train to Ballymoney rather than Ballymena, and might just get the chance to go see what I want :DDDDDD

James had his visa interview on Tuesday. He says it was the shortest interview he has ever had. They asked two questions:

1. Do you intend to come home again?
2. Do you plan to deal in drugs while in America?

...They expect people to ever answer, "yes," to that last question?

But he's got his visa, so soon he shall be departing, and we shall be joined by Dee, which means we shall probably have Clive round here a lot. Now, I like Clive. He is a great guy; he knows a lot on some very esoteric subjects and he can be interesting. He just doesn't know when a topic is dead and done with. And he doesn't know when it's a good time to leave. And, to make it worse, Joanna and Pamela then have to moan about it. *rolls eyes*

[Edit: Hmm, SO not seeing how this icon means "apathetic." "Apathetic" does not conjure up images of palm beaches for me. It conjures up images of shoe-scuffing and shoulder-shrugging.]

[Edit 2: And the "bored" one is worse! People don't cry when they are bored; they're too bored to cry.]

[Edit 3: *Throws hands up at "listless"* I give up!]

I am in love with Sydney Carton.

Trust me to get a crush on a Dickens character.

*bangs head on desk*

But the bit where he's wandering through Paris at night, repeating, "I am the resurrection and the life," quieting himself, and strengthening his resolution to replace Darney at the guillotine and fulfil his promise to Lucie is just so so sweet! I just wanna hug him and hug him and hug him. Nuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu, no kill Carton!

*

Oh, and we found our wheelie bin (it had been stolen last week while I was absent). So we stole it back ;P

*

Ugh. Last night (probably more like this morning actually) a crowd of very shouty guys were on our street. Morons woke me up. Thing is, I could swear that they were shouting about prophecy. Over and over again, about prophecy. Which they couldn't have been. Their shouting must have got mixed up with my stressed out thoughts about my PhD.

*

Lesley got a job offer: yay! In order to accept Lesley needs to live in Belfast: hm. James won't be left here til the end of March, the room has been kinda half-promised to Dee, Pamela is planning on moving back home permanently in the summer, Joanna wants to leave Ulsterville altogether, upshot is that things here are in too much confusion and I don't know whether she can move in with us or not: boo!

Pamela knows some guy in work who is looking to rent out a room, probably just to fill up a contract he's signed. The room is in - guess - Meadowbank. Where Lesley and I used to live together oh so long ago when we were young and innocent, and where we had to put up with Becki for one long long year. I found that hilarious. Well, crooked-smile-inducing, anyway.

*

Had meeting with my supervisor on Tuesday.

Good news: he liked the stuff I did on Monday. Thought it had real potential as a chapter, or an article. He reckons I've got a good ground base of work done. He's moved the potential date of differentiation back to May instead of March, which is a kind of relief because I am in no way ready for March.

Bad news: my own opinion of my ground work is not as optimistic as his. And he was pressuring me to come up with a much more detailed plan for my PhD than I could give him. I think he was pissed off when I fumbled over my answer. Actually, I think he's just generally pissed off that I'm not ready for differentiation yet.

Of course, my impression about how the meeting went wasn't improved by the fact that he phoned me to tell me about it. Normally we communicate by e-mail, but there was one stage where we exchanged phone numbers. I'd e-mailed him on Sunday to ask for a meeting. And he called me on Tuesday, in the middle of my grocery shopping, to tell me to meet him at 12.30. Instant Panic! If I'd got the request for a meeting through e-mail, I would have been fine. But he called me! In the middle of my grocery shopping! *hyperventilates*

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!! Joanna got her fake baby thing yesterday for her sex education group. Good grief, that thing is ugly. It looks like it's got permanent trapped wind. And it's heavy. Alright, so I know babies are heavy. But they're not heavy in a big-square-brick-of-a-battery-unit-in-the-back way.

Joanna's threatening to make us babysit it. *shudders* I find baby dolls unnerving at the best of times, but the moving, talking ones are especially evil. I get the creeps every time a Zaphff Creations ad comes on. Baby Annabel is the spawn of Satan, I tell you!

Speaking of Satan, I think the bit of Hell on the Greenwich Meridian just froze over. It is soooo cold out there! Damn hunger for making me get out of bed!

American actors need to learn not to mumble. Or talk so fast.