I, Four Eyes

I've just about started to get used to my glasses. After leaving them at home a few times and repeatedly misplacing the case, they're starting to take hold. I only need them for reading- years of crap lighting and small print resulted in killer head aches solved only be the specs- so they really did take a bit of adjusting.

And I'm not going to lie, I was mortified when it turned out I needed them. Mainly because I've got a small, round face that doesn't entirely suit specs, but also because the only ones that do suit me make me look shockingly like my friend Barney.

Still, I've been assured they make me look, and I quote, 'well more intelligent' so maybe they'll come in handy when I start teaching, I can fool the students into thinking I'm respectable. I'm telling myself my needing glasses is an accession into adulthood and the academic world I'm set to enter.

At, least, that's what it'll make me look like. Last week I went to get an essay back from one of the Processors I know pretty well know and we were talking about the fact that I'm finally taking things seriously. He's always been telling me I could get a First if I only put a bit more in, and this year I'm finally doing it. His words, as I left, were along the lines of this:

'See, I knew you could do it, you're good when you put your mind to it. But sometimes I do worry, some of the things you come out with, I just think- she's completely mad.'

Disclaimer- I'd like to point out that suggesting the benefits of life as a Moomin does not make a person crazy.

The Present Curse

There's been a fair few twenty first birthday's lately, most recently one of my closest friends, April. We've been friends since Year 9, when my moody self plonked down next to her science, so buying her a 21st gift made me feel pretty old.

But it also took over my life. Literally.

I decided I would buy her a book of quotes from her favourite writer, a penguin because of our jaunt to South Africa and a scrap book covering our eight year friendship. It turns out that I was unable to just stick in the pictures and be done with it, I had to cover everything with tissue paper, decorate it, make it beautiful and write witty comments under every photo.

It took my five days. Considering I can't cut in a straight line it was challenging to say the least, but she loved it. So we sat there, with our other long term bestie Natalie cooing over the past, and they pointed out that always give great presents.

Fantastic, right?

No, it's a CURSE. Because I have gotten myself a reputation for great presents, never ever will I be able to present a bath set or some chocolates on a birthday. I am doomed for the rest of my life to give well thought, meaningful and unique gifts.

WHAT HAVE I CREATED?

Oh, JJ Field...

Not only did you play Fred in Ruby in the Smoke and The Shadow in the North (I cried my eyes out when he died) but you are you're oh so lovely voice will never fail to please me as Mr Henry Tilney.

I would like to just have him sit and read to me. He's voice is half the attraction, I'll just have him follow me around talking to me in his deep voice. It'll be beautiful.

'Twas the Night Before Christmas'

So it's Christmas Eve- and there is in fact snow outside my window. Being as I am not the biggest fan of Christmas, the fact that it's rather festive outside does make the whole thing a little more enjoyable. I have to admit, this is the first Christmas in eight years that I've had a sprinkling of excitement about.

Now, there is one things I adore about Christmas: the cooking. And I actually am a little excited to eat my Christmas dinner- I think the fact that this is also the first year in ages I haven't spent the run up to the 25th serving so many roast dinners it made me sick just to look at mine on Christmas day. But it also means I get to do lots, and lots of cooking.

I love cooking, and Christmas is by far the most gluttonous day of the year, so I get to cook ridiculous amounts and not feel bad about it! I've made a chocolate and lime cake so far, and I'm waiting to see if my meringue comes out successfully enough to make a pavlova. I'm blogging because I needed something to occupy me while my tomatoes cooled down enough for me to peel them- I just burnt my hand on one, I'm not a patient chef you see!

So there we go, slight Christmas cheer for once! Maybe I'm coming full circle, so long teenage angst!

Happy Birthday, Jane dear

Happy 235th Birthday Miss Austen!

Sacrilige, I'm a day late. However, look, here's a picture of me looking thoughtful in front of Marlborough Buildings all Regency'd up. Plus it was completely acceptable as yesterday marked my last assignment before the end of term. Of course this meant I was required to go to Indie night, get drunk and twist my ankle.

Considering last year I slipped in someone's spilt drink, split my elbow open and spent the whole night in A and E, a twisted ankle is really nothing.

However, it's all done for now and I'm free to devote all my time to dear Jane and the wonderful Mr Peake. It's possible that I should be excited about seeing my family and friends, but considering that right now my entire life revolves around dead writers, you'll understand my glee.

It's two days until the end of term.

I have one last assignment.

I have no motivation whatsoever to do it.

God. Damn

Take me to the Hermitage

Due to my incapability to be at all organised or forward thinking in the basic aspects of life, I had to sleep on an opened out sleeping bag in lieu of a clean bed sheet. However, this was in some ways quite the discovery as, with some help from my new My Neighbour Totoro hot water bottle, the sleeping created some kind of heat/comfort cocoon that made it very difficult to get up this morning.

I believe that my dismay at having to leave this cocoon is what caused me to find all of humanity generally frustrating today. I'd like to point out that usually I have little issue with the human race, it's just that every now and then I suddenly feel like someone is running sandpaper down my back whenever somebody speaks to me, sits next to me or even looks in my general direction.

Sadly, I have through all my own fault broken my huge headphones, which tended to indicate to the rest of society that I am not to be spoken too. True, this has resulted in my being unaware of cars, puddles, lamp posts and other hazards, but at least no body had the audacity to talk to me. I have to say that my people avoiding was made far more difficult with only little Ipod headphones to provide me with the voice of the only man I can stand on such days: the beautiful Jesse Lacey.

Is it possible that my sulking about listening to Brand New mean that at 21 I am still a closet, moody emo kid? Possibly. However being just old enough to be a preprocessor of the Emo teen scene and my long standing adoration of Brand New makes it okay. Just.

I dream that Jesse and I will have a beautiful love affair. We will come together as two creative people, who understand each others souls. He will tell me all his deep and intelligent thoughts, and I will nod meaningfully and ponder them as I write my equally deep novels. We will live together in artistic, semi-solitary bliss. On days like this he will sing me his beautiful songs and I will dedicate my under-appreciated novels to him. We will produce children who will at the world with wise eyes and we will all live happily ever after.

Life Choices

Today I shipped off the last of my teacher training applications- scary times indeed. Though I do still want to teach, the more I write and such the more I want to do something more. I know I definitely want to get my Ph.D., but considering it's a pretty expensive goal I figure teaching is a worth while way to make the money up.

It's all a bit daunting though, all this growing up and forward planning. Sometimes I think I should just take a totally random leap into something entirely different.

I think I'd quite like to be a Moomin.

I could move to Moominvalley and live in their lighthouse. They're not really bothered about clothes, the Moomin's so I figure I'd never have to worry about fashion and they're not very career orientated either.

Yes, I think I would like to be a Moomin.

A Lament O'er a Worm of Gummy

I'm supposed to be writing my Gothic Review. It's only 1500 words, which should be a piece of cake considering my remarkable output the other week when I managed to write an article for the Regency World magazine and a third of my book, but is proving to be labour-some. Not because I don't know what I'm doing but that I lack motivation when it comes to uni, mostly thanks to my inability to feel pressure about things that are actually important.

So in attempt to spur me on, I treated myself to some sour gummy worms, hoping that the sugar rush and the way sour things make my mouth feel weird would help perk me up.

It seems that I have been horribly deceived. Two things are horribly wrong with my so called sour gummy worms.

They are not sour. At all. There is no way that you could class them as sour- they barely have any flavour at all, and there not half as coated in sugar as I would generally require them to be.

But that is not it. Not only are the not sour, they are not worms.

No. They are in fact NON SOUR GUMMY SPERM.

SPERM.

THEY LOOK LIKE SPERM.

I have just eaten a bag of flavourless non gummy sperm. My disappointment and revulsion can know no bounds.

You're the Voice, Lexie

00:29

literally, sometimes i think we're more like each other than we are mum and dad

maybe you weren't born they just cloned me

hahhhh

ahah, and threw a few extras in just so it wasn't too obvious

This conversation just took place between me and my sister. Yes, I may be wiser and infinitely cooler, but she and me are scarily similar most of the time. There's the obvious things of course- we share the same mannerisms, we speak the same, we share some genetics (though she's taller and slimmer, cow). We're obviously sisters.

However, I have recently begun to realise that she is more like me than either of my parents. I suspect that, realising that their first born daughter was simply the best thing that their combined genes could create, they decided to clone me rather than run the risk of producing and inferior child. Of course they added some minor differences, so it wasn't too obvious.

I've posted her so many youtube video's the last few days it's untrue and I can't watch most of my favourite films or shows without texting her. We share many (and I mean many) obsessions, one of which is a mutual adoration for BBC's Merlin. Lexie found a video of Merlin and Arthur lip syncing the chorus to 80's power ballad, You're The Voice, which starts with Merlin aka Colin Morgan repeatedly forgetting who sings the song.

Question at the pub quiz tonight- who sings 80's power ballad, You're the Voice.

I actually screamed. I was the only person in THE WHOLE PUB who knew the answer. Seriously, it was a beautiful moment of sisterly obsession becoming pointless quiz victory .( Apart from the fact we didn't win)

Here is the video. It made me wet myself laughing but I know cannot get this song out of my head. It's going on our repertoire, along with our fine rendition of multiple Jonas Brothers songs and the theme tunes to anime shows.

'Me gusta mucho la musica de Shakira, porque tengo un obsesion con ella'

So, in an attempt not smash my laptop because BBC Iplayer has not yet uploaded today's episode of Merlin, I am going to discuss my weird obsession.

With Shakira

(I realise I could have talked of my obsession with Arthurian legend, but that would take too long. Also, though you may not believe, probably make me sound a lot stranger than this post. Seriously. )

I love Shakira. Yes, when I first heard Wherever, Whenever for the first time I shared the mild bemusement that the everyone in Britain did. However when I discovered that not only is she hella clever and an ambassador for education in Colombia, BUT her songs make more sense in Spanish. Wherever, Whenever might sound totally ridiculous but Suerte makes total sense. I always prefer the versions that she realises in Spanish to the English ones, they just have so much more to them.

(Seriously, it's something about the language)

I used to listen to Shakira albums and pass it off as Spanish revision, though I think it probably helped more than I thought it would- I also once watched Pan's Labyrinth and told my mum it was homework.

Honestly, I can listen to her over and over. If I wasn't totally sure of my sexuality I would be very worried by the amount of times I have seen her music videos. Especially the one for La Tortura- though in my defence Alejandro Sanz is a GOD of a man, so it's slightly more acceptable. Youtube it- you don't need to speak Spanish to get the point, trust me.

At the moment I'm well obsessed with this song. It actually came out last year but still, it's amazing.

You Bring the Drama, I'll Bring the Kleenex

Oh Baz Luhrman, you never fail to make me weep. I just watched Australia for the first time- I would have watched it sooner but it's so long that no one would watch it with me- and I cried at least three different times. Even the happy bits made me cry, no word of a lie.

I mean, it is just beautiful.

When I say it, I of course mean, that Hugh Jackman is gorgeous. Look at him, all rugged and Indiana Jones sexy.

There is just something about the way Luhrman makes films that makes me want to watch them over and over- which generally means I sob my eyes out to Romeo + Juliet and Moulin Rouge! then put Strictly Ballroom on so I don't sink into a pit of despair.

Generally I don't do films with sad endings- I had a mild breakdown at the end of Gallipoli, I can't handle Braveheart or Gladiator. Then again I balled at some point of most Disney films- even Lilo and Stitch made me cry. I also famously cried at the end of Final Fantasy X.

I thought once that when I got older, I would stop finding films so sad. Apparently not.

It's Not a Film, It's a Lifestyle Choice

Because of my all round general geekiness, I occasionally watch the History channel. Usually there's something now and then on my particular interests or just something that's just pretty intriguing. However, today there was something unexpectedly awesome on- 'Star Wars: Legacy Revealed'

Granted I will watch, listen and read ANYTHING to do with Star Wars but this show was all about how Star Wars uses themes from mythology, which I also enjoy geeking out about. So obviously, this show was a must see.

I recently had a conversation with a friend of mine who told me that the moment he knew he wanted to break up with his girlfriend was when they watched Star Wars and she found it boring. I have to bite my tongue whenever someone tells me they have never seen them.

Considering that I spent my 18th birthday dressed like this, I wonder sometimes how I got to this point.

Seriously, sometimes I think that if my children don't like Star Wars, I will have to disown them.

I can resist anything but Final Fantasy-Disney hybrid

I had writers block, okay? Don't judge me. I just thought, oh hey, I'll pay Kingdom Hearts again, just for a while.

That was two hours ago. My thumb aches.

I Are Plumber.

So, a lot of things go wrong in our house. For example Hannah once tried and failed three times to bake a cake, and we have been twice infested with both slugs and mice. In a house full of girls, that is a code red. So apart from that, we tend to draw blanks when something breaks- for example, the latch on my door once broke while I was in the room, locking the only claustrophobic girl in the house in her own room. It got to the point where we considered putting a mattress below my window and I could jump out before I realised the key would fit under the door (just) and after much jimmying and banging on the door, we got in.

(I have problems with my door, for example prior to my first meeting with my publisher I locked my self out after my shower and had to go ask the man next door to call me a very expensive locksmith. In pj's. Dripping wet.)

ANYWAY. Today, the toilet broke. For some reason, it just will not stop flushing. Me being the clever kid I am, I realised it was because this thing had fallen down, so I fixed it.


That's right, I tied a piece of string to it and hooked it over the window. I am a genius.

All Roads Lead to Gormenghast

Oh Mervyn, you wonderful remarkable man.

Why do the critics refuse to write about your brilliance? It would make my life so much easier. Clearly the academics don't love Peake as much as I do because there is hardly anything out there.

I have just trawled the Internet for at least an hour, looking for books for my dissertation. Nearly every book of critical merit on Mervyn Peake is between forty and sixty pounds. Clearly, I do not have this kind of money to spend on them so I'm praying to the walls of Gormenghast that the library will be able to get them for me, otherwise I'm going to cry.

I managed to find one critical book, two biographies and another ambiguous text. Yes, ambiguous- it's around twenty years old so I couldn't really find a description but the listings on the Peake Papers website assures me it is both a critical exploration and a biography. I am honestly that desperate. I refuse to give up on Mervyn.

Gormenghast will be mine!

Things I Thought I Knew

Yes, this is me approximately nineteen years ago. Apart from the sickening feeling in my stomach that arises when I consider that fact there there was a point in my life that I can say was more than nineteen years ago, this is I think quite a sweet image.

That is until I think of all the completely insane things I believed as a child. I blame my mother partially for this, since she let me read far too many stories as well as watching some pretty tripped out fairy tale videos. (I honestly think that the makers of children's television must be totally tripped. Have you seen In the Night Garden? I rest my case.)

Anyway, here are some of the things that a considerably smaller, impossible as that may same, me once held as verbatim, believed necessary or somehow grasped far too young.

1) The troll from the Billy Goats Gruff did not in fact live under a bridge. Instead, he lurked somewhere in my back garden and will attack me when he thinks I was alone. One such time would be when I was in the bathroom, as this backs onto the garden. The solution to this then was for me to talk to inanimate objects in the bathroom, such as the sink, toilet and bath to cunningly trick him into thinking I wasn't on my own and therefore prevent him from eating me.

2) Wee Willie Winkie was not in fact a kind little fellow that was going to come send me to sleep, but an evil creature possibly in allegiance with David Bowie's character from Labyrinth. Instead of slipping comfortably to sleep, I hid under my bed clothes with my eyes pressed shut praying that he wouldn't steal me.

3) That before being born, my younger sister had used her psychic fetus powers to find out that not only did I love Thomas the Tank Engine, but that I lacked a Percy toy. She had then gone to the special fetus shop, purchased it for me, and brought it with when she came out of my mother. (The stalk/cabbage patch story was useless on me since I spotted the umbilical cord). I was baffled for quite sometime as to how she managed to do all this, especially when I learned how babies were really made.

As I got older, I started to move away from these weird and wonderful accusations and somehow managed to learn some startling vocabulary. For example, when my Dad had to have our dog put down when I was five, I failed to grasp why this had to be done. Instead I told him I hated him and he was an evil murderer. Around this age I also once told a school dinner lady that her attempting to force me to eat food I didn't like made her a Nazi- which I had thus far understood as someone that made people do things they didn't want to.

My finest hour though, I believe, was aged 10, when I informed my Head Teacher that I would not sing the hymn she has insisted that we all learnt. When she demanded that I did, I told her that on the census I was not listed as Christian and therefore she could not make me sing a Christian song. Our school, I insisted, was not a religious school and it was against the law for her to make me sing about a God I didn't believe in.

It turns out I had overheard a conversation between my parents about what we should be listed as on the census, and the rather over zealous Christianity of the new head teacher. After I then remembered my mothers pin number, my parents stopped having important conversations while I was in earshot.

Clearly in moments of difficulty or dilema, I should begin to challenge my no nonsense ten year old former self. She suffers no fools, yo.

And I shall call him Cuthbert

My housemates had the ingenious idea of buying a load of pumpkins.


They were to carve, of course. I did suggest that I could make some form of pumpkin baked goods, but they were all far more interested in carving faces into them and lighting them up with tealights. Our kitchen is not that large, so we did manage to commit mass carnage. By the time we were all done it looked like we'd murdered some aliens or something. However, the results were AWESOME.

Considering that I haven't carved a pumpkin since I was about thirteen, this whole affair made me very, very excited. You can see this by the fact that my pumpkin looks really ridiculously happy. In case you hadn't worked it out, mine is the one on the far right.

I love him. I have called him Cuthbert, and he is by far the least scary Jac-o-lantern I have ever seen in my life. I kind of forgot the point was to make them look menacing to ward off evil spirits and what nots. After, I made heart shaped biscuits with pink icing on which were nom-alicious.

Clearly this was such a good idea that all the very important work I had to do can wait until tomorrow.

'With the mention of Derbyshire, there were many ideas connected. It was impossible for her to see the word without thinking of Pemberley, and it's owner'.

I am for Derbyshire, on yet another Miss Austen related mission. Despite my general dislike for the 2005 film version of Pride and Prejudice I did think they were rather wise in using Chatsworth as Pemberley, so thats where I'm headed.

When you live near Derbyshire, every spare Sunday or Bank Holiday Monday is generally spent visiting the huge number of houses that the county has to offer. Chatsworth, aside from Hardwick Hall, has always been one of my favourites. The house also has a connection with Cavendish family, and in Jane's day that would have meant the infamous Duchess of Devonshire, Georgiana. Though Jane herself may never have gotten so far as Derbyshire, I'm headed over to see what I can scout out a la Pemberley. After all, there must be a reason she chose to situate Mr Darcy's stately home in Derbyshire.

That and it means I get to go home for a few days.

Ode to a Keyboard

I got a new keyboard. I have a laptop, but I very cleverly spilt nail varnish remover on it and now half the keys don't work out.

It turns out that proper keyboard keys have make an extremely fufilling click sound. I always wanted a type writer because something about the click of a typewriter key and watching the words appear on the page made me feel very motivated to write.

Apparently, so does this keyboard. At 12.26 am, when I have work in the morning. And a new memeber of staff. That I'm probably meant to be training. And I have to go on a research trip on Monday.


The click is far to alluring. Look how creative I am. See how much I look like I should be in a movie montage when I click away determindley at my keyboard like a real writer. Which you know, is funny, because instead of writing a short story I've been attempting to finish for almost a year, I should probably be working on the thing that I'm actually going to be having published.

Or you know, asleep.