Adeste Fideles

What is the point in having a blog if I seldom write in it?

Meh. For all my readers (none) a quick update: Since the beginning of the month I have been temping at the Scottish Government, a role which will last just into the new year. I don't have much to do. I have to assume that the job normally does, otherwise why would they bother having such a position at all, perhaps it's just particularly quiet at this time of year. Who knows. Either way I basically spend all day surfing the internet (with the exception of Facebook, Twitter, Youtube etc. as these sites are classed as restricted content).

It is 3 days til Christmas now I think, and I'm working every day that isn't a public holiday. Joy. I'm just hoping that the weather isn't so horrendous on Friday (we've had snow dontcha know...) as to stop the train home! If all else failed I'd be welcome to spend Christmas at K's, but I'd rather not, I want to go hoooooome. At the moment though I'm alone in the flat cos my sister went home on Monday. Bah.

Oh, and I do still intend on doing that other blog - I even thought of a theme: Celebrity Impressions, in the form of make-up/hair etc. As inspired by my Big Brother and X Factor photos where I dressed up as contestants and apparently made some people laugh. I even managed to get my Wagner photo used in the F Factor (official online X Factor fan show). Go me and my superior chameleon-like skills of disguise.

For now, though, I leave you.

Night.

Here kitty...

http://www.hellokittycostume.org/kitty-costume-cat/

Cute or weird? I can't quite make up my mind.

No-one reads this blog. I mean, of course they don't, I seldom post and I certainly don't advertise that it exists.

I've been swithering over starting another blog, possibly fashion based. I shan't get rid of this one, but the other will have a focus, a theme, that I shall try my best to adhere to.

Something to think about.

De temps en temps

Job hunting is possibly my least favourite thing ever.

Granted I'm not someone who's been sending out 50 CVs a day, but I have been trying, honest. It's so disheartening when a company can't be bothered to get back to you though. I'm particularly angry about one that asked you to fill out a really detailed application form, and hand it in in person. Which I did. Did I hear anything? No. Not even when I emailed them asking when they'd be getting back to me. And for another role I had an interview last week. They said they'd get back at the beginning of this week - well, it's Thursday now and I've heard nothing.

Thankfully a complaint I made about a certain temping agency's receptionist being rude to me on the phone, and them not contacting me after I registered, has been taken seriously and I'm meeting with them tomorrow. Finally!

I just really want a job! :(

Theoretically...

Hello, this is me not studying for my car theory test. Which is on Thursday. Baws.

I took the above picture one morning at around 6am a week or so ago. I got up to get a glass of water and the sky was completely pink outside. It was beautiful. Unfortunately it didn't translate so well on camera. Even just looking through the digital viewfinder it had lost a lot of its appeal. I took the picture regardless.

Back to the theory...

xxx

Raindrops on roses

This is the outfit with which I won More Magazine's 'Facebook Fan of the Week'. For a second time I might add. Last time I won cos I'm awesome, but this time they had a challenge to style an outfit for the changeable weather we've got at the moment. Much thanks to my brother for taking the photo.

The jacket is Topshop (petite I think) from a couple of years ago. The dress I got in the ASOS sale earlier this year. I love it, but it's my dead mouse dress cos unfortunately I found a dead, shrivelled up mouse in my room a couple of months ago and it was lying on this dress. Ew. It has been washed since then I assure you. The socks I found in a drawer, and the boots are New Look teen. I only just discovered that NL's teen section does shoes right up to a size 6 (I'm a 3) which is pretty great, as these boots in the exact same style and size cos £4.99 more in the adult section! Pity the teen bit in the Edinburgh store is so small (actually the Edinburgh store is just badly stocked in general). The umbrella is good old Boots Pharmacy.

I haven't updated this blog since June. Soz and all that. Since then I've graduated, I left one job, got another, got 'let go' after a week (I don't know why and was too shocked to ask) and have completed an internship. Same internship as I did last year, but it's all good experience. And now I'm unemployed. Oh how wonderful. I'm so ridiculously bored, why else would I be updating? Really need to get a job. It's so incredibly frustrating having applied to near perfect jobs which I am more than qualified for and fit all the criteria, and then they don't get back to you. If I haven't heard by this week I'm going to cry.

On the upside, I've got the new Kate Atkinson book - Started Early, Took The Dog - to get through and she's one of my favourite authors so I'm looking forward to it. A wee trip to Costa this afternoon me thinks.

Being the lazy, unemployed graduate cliche that I am I am in fact still wearing my pyjamas. At almost quarter to 4, so I should really get up and do something with my day... eventually.

Bye for now.

Sur le pont d'Avignon

On y danse!

I got back from France at lunchtime today after having gone to le Provence to visit Kirsti. Saw a lot of stuff, including a Roman theatre - one of only 3 with still existing complete stage walls in the whole Empire, and the only one in Europe - and I fulfilled my childhood dream of dancing on the bridge of Avignon (round and round).
This is me at the theatre in Orange, once we'd climbed alllllllll the seats/steps to the very top.

And this is me on the pont d'Avignon! With the Palais des Papes in the background.

Also, I did get my 2:1! Yay. Just :P

In a dark, dark town...

I haven't written on here in ages, oops. Bad blogger.

On Friday, at approximately noon, I get my degree classification. I am not looking forward to this. Yes it will mean the end of my university career - something I have mixed feelings about - and it also means I will finally have a degree, but I am scared about the result. I did not study enough for my exams (what's new?) and there is absolutely nothing I can do about this now. In particular I'm concerned about the effect that my awful Media Law exam will have on my overall results. The exam was partly okay and partly horrendous and I am petrified that this will have a devestating effect on my classification. I have tried out various scenarios on my calculator, and I think I won't be getting a 3rd (thank goodness) because I'd need to really fuck up and get a 37% average from this year for that to have happened (and I really hope Media wasn't so bad that that has happened!). But in order to get a 2:1 (minimum of 60% average over both years) I need 58.666% average from fourth year. Now, I think Gender & Justice went alright, and I hope my dissertation's good, but I have no idea about Media! I really want a 2:1!

Thinking about it actually makes me feel sick. So I should stop thinking about it, right?

Red sky at night

This damn volcano! It has stranded my sister, J, in Amsterdam. She was over there visiting her boyfriend, but now can't get back. Originally her flight was meant to be on Friday morning, so upon logging onto the BBC's site on Thursday morning before my driving lesson and discovering that UK airspace was completely closed panic stations began to kick in. It's intensely frustrating that travel information is only update a few hours in advance, as this makes it so much more difficult to plan ahead. Currently she's rebooked onto a flight on Monday night, but of course the ash cloud may very well still be an issue then - in fact it most probably will be - so my dad's been looking at alternative travel arrangements for her, namely a ferry from the Netherlands to the south of England. She's meant to start back at uni on Tuesday, has an essay due for Friday and an exam on the 5th May.

As for my own exams? Oh deary me. I am awful at everything. Well, not everything, but at actually settling down and doing any bloody revision! Woe.

Not to mention the fact that I'm working way too much this week. Cry!

Best get back to actually studying.

The sun's a ball of butter

I've realised I haven't written in this for a couple of weeks. Bad blogger.

Doctor Who was really good. I am in love with Matt Smith. I actually think he is perfect for me. Thankfully the likelihood of us ever meeting is slim, so K needn't worry just yet. I haven't seen tonight's episode yet. Might watch it in bed (where I no doubt should be already).

My dissertation got handed in, a whole 3 hours before it was due. Hurrah! I'm happy with it - I think. I'm really not sure what else I could have done to improve it to be honest, and I think it's interesting. Just have to hope the marker feels the same way!

Oh and those pesky exams are looming. 28th April and 3rd May! Really not too long to go. And am I knuckling down with revision? Am I heck! I am such an awful reviser. This stems, I have concluded, from finding school very easy and thus never learning the necessary studying skills required for university. Bit late now.

Might I add that it was a pleasant surprise to notice a comment from a stranger on my last post. Hello Maggie May! I assume you ventured onto my profile after reading some comment I'd posted on Pacing The Panic Room (I saw you follow it on your profile, so it must be because of that). You probably won't ever read this, but thank you for taking the time to comment regardless.

I have nothing profound to say, except goodnight.

Sherry baby

I feel decadent when I drink my lovely fino sherry. Tastes so good.

I only ever seem to update this late at night (or very very early in the morning depending on your perspective). I think it's as much a procrastination thing as much as anything really. Though I really should go to bed.

Wednesday marked the end of my university education. Bar my dissertation deadline and my 2 exams I am finished. No more classes ever! Which is very strange to think, as I have been in education for 18 years. I'm not sure how I'll cope out of it! I'm going to have to be a proper adult, and I'm not sure I'm ready for that. For Heaven's sake, I even repeated 2nd year in an effort to put it off (that's not true. I wouldn't have repeated 2nd year if I could possibly have helped it). I'm going to have to get a proper job. I'm resigned to the fact that I'm probably not going to get a graduate traineeship this year like I'd hoped (when 900 other people applied to a job you didn't get you don't feel quite as bad), so it looks likely that I'll be spending this year working somewhere and doing various internships for the experience. Hopefully can get a job off the back of an internship. As for working, I mean like a part-time job. I already have one, but I'll have been there for 4 years come May and I think it's probably time for me to leave. No idea what I'll do instead, but I'll do something... And I will miss MKC. It's been a big part of my life. I think it's the site itself more than anything that I'll miss, and it will be really strange not working there. It's the only job I've ever had (because being a paper girl for about 3 months doesn't really count), I'm not someone who flits and changes jobs every few months (unlike my darling boyfriend). Ach weil, we'll see.

Doctor Who starts back on Easter Sunday. Can't bloody wait.

Automatic

No I won't learn in an automatic, got that Bill?

I thought my lesson had gone pretty well, til Bill did his usual annoying and upsetting thing of suggesting I learn in an automatic instead. Get to fuck Bill.

I'm going to console myself with a dry sherry and olives and Glee. Oh, and the dissertation. I really want to get it done by this weekend, so that I have next week to polish it up. So much to do.

Neon and chrome

I really need to go to bed.

I pretty much suck at getting this dissertation done. I wanted to get 20 pages done by Saturday. So that's....7 pages to do tomorrow and Friday...oops. And I have work tomorrow (well, today). Oh good. I just need to properly knuckle down and fucking write the damn thing!

Sunday is K's 21st birthday. So far I've bought him a few smaller things, but no 'main' present yet. And I have no idea what this should be.

But yes, bedtime is calling me.

Olympe de Gouge

Would it be terribly bad form of me to dedicate my dissertation to people? Can I have "This is dedicated to the memory of Christine de Pizan, Olympe de Gouge, Mary Wollstonecraft, Emmeline Pankhurst and all the other wonderful women who fought so hard for women's citizenship over the centuries" at the beginning? It's probably a bit pretentious.

Still, it will be dedicated to them, even if only in my head.

My dissertation is due by Friday 26th March. It is a maximum 25 page limit. I have about 12. So...a lot of work still to do. Crap. It is perfectly doable, although I have the added self-imposed pressure of wanting to get it done by the 19th (a week before) so that I can spent the last week fixing it. Which basically means I have less than 2 weeks to write the damn thing.

On top of the, this coming Sunday is K's 21st birthday. I know, he's a baby. I have no idea what to get him either, I used up my emergency ideas for Valentine's Day (and they were very successful). For my 21st, which was admittedly only a month after we'd started going out, he got me a lovely watch that he'd incased in a papier mache globe he'd made and painted - he'd even painted the words "I'd give you the world if I could" on it. Terribly sweet. And I love it. How do I top that incredibly romantic gesture 15 months later? I'm not sure I can! Any and all ideas welcome (do I actually have any readers? I doubt it, I don't think I've at all publicised this blog).

But, as of 5.30pm on the 3rd of May, when my last exam finishes, I am a free woman! Free from the constraints of structured education! Hurrah. Graduation is on the 29th of June, I have registered already. Can not wait.

Adulthood here I come.

Help!

I need somebody...

To write my essays for me.

Kthxbye.

Squeak

There is a mouse in my room.

Not at the very moment, but one has started to frequent.

A few nights ago I thought I heard rustling about in the mess and phoned K, but it went away fairly quickly so I wasn't entirely sure if it had simply been a plastic bag popping up, as they sometimes do. But last night in bed with Kip we both heard what was definitely a mouse. It made noise as it scurried admist the uni papers lying on my floor and the occassional wrapper that I need to put in the bin. And did so for several minutes. That was definitely a mouse. I know this because in my previous flat I had the same problem. Now of course, I'm living in tenement flats that are well over 100 years old, mice come with the territory. And no doubt it would help if I kept my room tidier. But still, I fucking hate mice!

Tonight, however, has taken the (cheesey) biscuit. I'm sitting here on my bed watching Outnumbered on my laptop, I hear a very very very slight rustle, turn and there's a BIG dark brown mouse sitting just inside of my door. It must have knocked a paper next to my bed, or the pack of lemsip there. Needless to say I yelped loudly, it turned and went back out under the door. At least, I suppose, I now know in which direction the mouse is coming from. From the hallway, and under the good inch wide gap between the bottom of my door and the floor.

But mice aren't supposed to like the light! My light is on! It is dark in the hallway, which is no doubt why it ventured out, but couldn't it see the light peeking out from under my door? Maybe not; they don't have great eyesight.

A long and teary phone call to K about the mouse and how much I hate rodents followed. Before I go to sleep I am blocking the gap with something (probably books/newspapers. Not a towel as K suggested, I don't want mousey stuff all over my towel). And I'm leaving the light on.

Stupid horrible mice.

Bulletproof

Except I'm not.

I get sad when I'm lonely. Which is silly, I've lived by myself for a month or two before and could cope. But since living with J, my sister, and since being with K I get upset when I'm by myself for long periods of time. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm an introvert. I was at a meeting at my friend's house on Wednesday and there were maybe 25 people crammed into her tiny living room. I couldn't stand it. I was sat at the back of the room. The loud, exuberant, over-the-top types were doing my nut in. I wanted to leave. But I didn't because this meeting was important to her (she's running for student union president and we're her campaign team). I'm content being by myself on the whole, it works for me. I don't have many close friends at uni so I spend a lot of time there alone. But not completely, there are other people there, just not with me.

What I hate the most though is going to bed by myself. How I ever coped before I was with K I don't know. I have fears. Fears I don't especially like talking about. And being alone and going to sleep sometimes makes these worse. K is a wonderful distraction, plus he's like a big massive teddy for me to hug.

But now I must get on with writing my CV from scratch, fun!

Bread

There is bread on my bed.

It is wrapped up in clingfilm and is left over from a pub lunch I had yesterday. It should really be in the kitchen. Nevermind, it smells nice.

I'm pretty much a failure when it comes to getting work done. This could alternatively be viewed as being a winner at procrastination. YEAH. Sadly I think this accolade is not one to be celebrated. It is a massive problem when you consider that I have an 8 page dissertation draft due in now less than 2 weeks, and a max 8 page essay and a max 15 page essay due the week afer that. Hurrah. I did write a bit today, and when I say a bit I mean I wrote about half a page on Roman citizenship, if that. Woops. Better luck tomorrow? Yeah right.

Procrastination is a problem I have had for years. At school I did not have to study, I was naturally clever and seldom challenged by any work posed to us. And thus, I did not learn to revise or study. Which turned out to be a bit of a problem when it came to university. Admittedly I'm a little better than I was in the earlier years of my degree, but I'm still not very good. This is not aided by a boyfriend who will not get up early if he does not have to (he actually recommends his friends not to contact him before 3pm), but who is so damn cuddly and warm and cute when he sleeps. This results in me being unwilling to wrench myself out of bed to do any work. When I eventually do, and shower, and make-up and hair-dry and dress, and eat... before you know it it's mid/late afternoon. And then of course there's the lure of tv and the internet. When eventually I do get round to doing some work it's much later and I've wasted the best part of the day. I do find I'm better able to study in the library environment, but then there's the whole issue of getting ready to go to the library... goodness I sound like some awful lazy bastard. I'd assure you that I'm not, but I'm afraid that would be a lie. Guilty as charged. Like that? Guilty as charged, law student...haha? No really don't laugh, it was bad.

I'm not sure what my point is in all of this. Basically I can't get my head in gear, in 'the zone', to study. A skill I'm sure I should have learnt by age 22. Let's bring on the job market and the lack of essays and exams in the future! Let's pretend that the work sphere isn't stressful and deadline obsessed. Yeah, denial. Works for me!

Goodnight.

Bills bills bills

The title of this post relates to two things.

Firstly, my driving instructor is called Bill. I had an awful lesson today. BSM has changed the car they use from the Vauxhall Corsa (though Bill had the Astra) to the 'iconic' Fiat 500. For one thing it's stupid to have someone learn to drive in a car as small as the Cinquecento, but it's also really difficult to adapt to driving a different type of car. I'm very small and the seat didn't move as far forward as I'd have liked, meaning I didn't have as much strength in my left leg to control the clutch. Also it requires so much gas! And because of this, is very sensitive to 'too little' gas and stalls easily. Was supposed to be a 2 hour lesson, but Bill could tell I wasn't enjoying it so I just had an hour lesson instead.

Bad

Secondly, the title of the post refers to the number of phone calls I have made today to various customer service hotlines trying to sort out the sorry mess that is our gas and electricity bills. Today we received a bill from Scottish Hydro for the electricity, when I'd already paid Scottish Power for it. After 3 phone calls (and doubtless a massive phone bill) I finally got it sorted out. Unfortunately our mammoth gas bill still stands. Oh goody. Also was on the phone to the Royal Mail trying to figure out why they have yet to deliver a package despite me arranging for it to be redelivered. Hopefully that has been sorted out now too.

I intended to go to the library almost 2 hours ago. Woops. Should probably head down now though, try and do some essaying and possibly a bit of dissertation. Not to mention the application forms for graduate schemes I want to take part in after uni, first one's due by Monday and I haven't started. Hate that they want me to write a creative piece about the industry, and want me to tell them how great I am and why they should hire me. Can't I just attach a pretty photo instead? I do a great little-girl-cute face!

A Fresh Start

I used to have 4 posts on this blog (a whole 4 I know), but I've deleted them. They were almost 2 years old and things have changed.

I started this blog originally as I missed blogging. I used to update my LiveJournal frequently, but tired of the scene. Not that I didn't enjoy writing, but more that I didn't feel appreciated and didn't like the utter cliquey nature of certain LJ groups I was involved in. Or the depressing fangirling as witnessed in the blogs of 'girls' in their mid-twenties. Not for me, thanks.

So here I am now, a clean slate. Ready to make my mark (or not) on the blogging world.

Let us start with an introduction.

I am R. I am 22. I am in my final year studying Law at a very prestigious university (no, not one of those two, a Scottish one. Yep, the one beginning with an E). It's been a long, hard slog but I'm finally approaching the finish line. And I can't bloody wait. I am in love with K. We have been together for 14 and a half months so far. He makes me deliriously happy, that is, when he's not acting the fool and annoying me. Most of all he makes my heart beat fast and grin hopelessly. I have a part-time job as a tour-guide at a famous (haunted!) attraction. Been there for almost 4 years, with no intention of staying past graduation. I have plans. Boring, proper grown-up life type plans, but fun, last-fling of youth before a full-time job drags me down type plans too. And I live with my sister in a beautiful flat.

But now, however, I am retiring to my bed. I have a driving lesson at 10am so should really have been in bed 2 hours ago. Not to mention a fun-filled day at the library essay-writing to look forward to, hurrah!

Goodnight,

R xxx