Girl About Town

It is a beautiful, warm, sunny, summers day in England. I know, but it's true.


I have spent the last couple of days hanging out in central London, which is a beautiful place to be in the sun. Not as beautiful as, say, being on a beach, but you have to take what you can get really. It has been so warm that I'm just wearing a vest top today (and trousers - I'm not indecent), and this is me, who wears 47 layers in the mildest of winters, plus legwarmers, plus gloves and a hat. It is properly warm. Lush.

Clearly my Britishness is coming out here - we do love talking about and marvelling at the weather. We're constantly surprised by it, especially when it is anything other than rain. Which it mostly is - it doesn't actually rain all that much. Honest. British people think 'Sun? In summer? Whatever next!'. Ditto snow/cold in winter. I don't think we'll ever be used to these things people like to call 'seasons'. The only guaruntee is that if you go camping, or to Cornwall, or worst of all, both, it will rain. A lot. But that's all part of the fun.

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So I just forgot about this blog for several hours while me and two of my housemates had a barbeque, then got cold and came inside and I made cakes. I <3 being a student.

Peace out.

Yo Momma...Harry Potter!

Me and a friend are massive Harry Potter geeks, and spent the afteroon recently coming up with these:

Yo Momma's so fat, her Patronus is a cake.

Yo Momma's so fat, the sorting hat put her in all four houses.

Yo Momma's so fat, she ate Cornelius Fudge.

Yo Momma's so fat, she splinched herself and no one noticed.

Yo Momma's so fat, Hagrid hit on her.

Yo Momma's so fat, she thought Hagrid was a skinny bitch, and actually went out with Grawp.

Yo Momma's so fat, she has to turn her knickers into a Portkey to get out of a chair.

Yo Momma's so fat, her version of the Philosopher's Stone is the Philosopher's Scone.

Yo Momma's so fat, she got stuck in the Floo network.

Yo Momma's so fat,she went for a swim in the Great Lake and squashed all the Mermaids.

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Screw you, Time, screw you.

Time is screwing up my life. Not only is there not enough time in the day, not only did 'adulthood' creep up on me and then try to take over - it's OK, I'm resisting and, I think, winning - but the actual 24-hour clock is ruining my life. I will explain:

This is nearly four o'clock: 15:58 - right?

This is nearly twelve: 11:53

So why isn't this: 1356 nearly one thousand four hundred words of my essay done??

Every time I look at the wordcount and it's something fifty-something, I think 'Great! Nearly a hundred' or whatever. I am wrong. Or rather, the Babylonians* are wrong. Or perhaps decimalisation is. Whichever, someone or something out there is screwing with my mind! GO AWAY NUMBERS AND WORDS.


* The Babylonians had a counting system which went up in blocks of 60, which is where we get our time keeping system from. Losers. Don't believe me? I read it in 'Taming the Infinite' by...someone. A maths writer I guess. Look it up, I'm busy writing an essay.

You Know You're Over-tired When...

I am writing an essay at the moment. (Well, clearly I'm actually procrastinating. It comes to much the same thing.) It is the fourth essay due in the last two weeks. This is not good. Especially for a dyslexic eejit like myself - no siree, this is hard work. I so far have 1000 words out of 3000. I have one more day. One day more. It's not looking good.

So, yesterday I decided to get up early and work all night if necessary, just to get to my target of 1000 for the day. This did not go as planned. After a day of sitting at my computer I had read about a hundred blog posts, stumbled several thousand times and been on facebook innumerable times. I had written a measly 500-odd words. And odd they were. So I basically continued the drudge of sitting in my computer chair, but now with the computer on my lap and me (and the chair) facing the other way. I thought a change of scenery might help. I proceeded to write another few words before my legs got really hot (maybe I should buy a laptray?) and my head started falling off. Ok, that's en exaggeration, I just kept nearly falling asleep. I shook myself awake and tried again. Nope, more sleepy tired head nodding. I forced myself awake for a bit more time and assumed it was ridiculously late - hence the drooping. It was 11.30.

11.30 and 600 words in, I gave up for the night. I began to get ready for bed...and then the scary things happened:

I picked up my top pillow to fluff it, basically punch it into submission. This I did on one side. And then I turned it over. To my HORROR there was an EVIL SNAKE curled around the other side, clearly a tough snake as is had not been disturbed by my pillow-punching. My heart rate shot up and what little adrenaline I had (I have Addison's Disease - my body doesn't produce adrenaline) shot around my body like a ferret on speed. This happened in a matter of seconds And then my eyes focussed. The 'snake' was a crease in my pillow, which instantly straightened and disappeared when I dropped it in shock. Embarrassed isn't a strong enough word.

Having begun to calm down after this escapade, I turned to put my pyjamas on. As I looked down at the floor to put my legs into my trousers, the floor became THE SEA, waving and swaying in front of me. At this point I realised just what a good idea going to bed at this point was. If that's what happens to me physically when I'm tired and stressed, imagine the rubbish I might write in the essay! I was saving myself, and my grades. Probably.

Anyhow, it is now 6 o'clock the next day and I have written only 1000 words. Better get back to it.

Stupid essay.

On The Ninth Day of Christmas My True Love Sent to Me...

Nothing. Unfortunately.

However I did just make myself a delicious chicken stew, possibly the best I've ever made. Mmm. I saw another blog with a lovely-looking chicken stew but I didn't have any of the ingredients, so I went to the shop for some fresh food, as all I had was frozen, and came back with a bag of stew in the making. I might blend it tomorrow to make it into soup.

This is a basic recipe for it, in case you're interested:

4 Chicken thighs and drums (altogether)
1 onion
2 medium potatoes
1/3 butternut squash
1 clove garlic
3/4 pint chicken stock
2 tbsp plain flour
1 tsp turmeric
1 tsp paprika
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper

1. Combine the dry ingredients and dip the chicken pieces into it and coat. Brown the coated chicken in a medium hot pan, then remove and put aside.
2. Fry the chopped onions and potatoes in the now flavoured oil, before adding the chopped butternut squash and garlic. (I chopped the butternut squash really small because I secretly don't especially like it, but it works in this!)
3. Add the stock and cook for a few minutes, then add the chicken pieces and leave for 30-40 minutes.
At this point I also used the remaining flour/spice combo and added the same amount of suet and then enough water to make a dumpling dough, and dropped them into the liquid. Mmm.
When it was all cooked I took the meat off the bones and removed the bones, putting the chicken back in the pot.

It was yummy.

Today, apart from making delicious stew, I have done lots of brilliantly productive and helpful things. No, really. Just not anything towards my essays. In fact, I have spent the day putting obstacles in the way of me ever writing my essays. Brill. So far I have: tuned the radio to Radio 4 (hey, I didn't say I was cool), written a long list of plot points of my favourite story I'm writing - and thought about actually writing it, done some washing(ok, this isn't an obstacle to working, it just had to be done), and set up my TV to show TV, not just DVDs. So basically my room is now full of things to do, that are not writing essays. Damn.

I have done one useful thing - though I actually did it yesterday. I wrote a schedule for this week's essay writing. So I might really get them done! That'd be great.

I am usually a list writer. I have written two or three just today, between everything else. This is a great way of not actually getting anything done, but feeling like you have. And if you put uber-simple tasks on them, they make you feel good because you can tick them off really quickly. I sometimes put 'Have a shower', 'Get dressed', and then I've done two before I've even started trying! But tomorrow I will truly attempt to do some proper work. Promise.

Oh, and Happy New Year btw. :)