C'est la vie

2008-03-26T23:13:00.002Z

Oh dear, I'm starting to worry about myself...I've just spent rather a long time reading ancient blog posts (on this blog), that's how bored I am! Actually that's how lazy I am, there are plenty of things I could be doing, just can't be bothered to move from the computer...
But it was fun reminiscing, and it made me want to blog more again!
Halfway through the Easter hols, and I've not done a lot so far! Apart from having two lovely weekends away, and earning a bit of money. I haven't done much uni work I mean but that's ok, I've done some and there's still next week... Ooh and we're going to paint the bathroom blue :)
I'm rambling now...
Today I had to make my first mystery customer call at work, I was so scared! Don't really know why. I ended up sounding really really thick cos I didn't have a clue what I was asking about! Oh dear...

2008-02-02T14:31:00.000Z

So here I am in my final semester of uni, scary stuff...
Last semester went ok, not too much work, although maybe that's because the essay for one of my units isn't due in until March so I'm still working on that (well just starting it really). Only had two exams in January, one went very badly and the other I have to retake... Not because I failed, in fact that one went fine (french listening) but the exam conditions weren't brilliant, we started really late cos there was a problem with the sound on the video (kind of crucial for a listening exam) and then people complained afterwards that the instructions weren't given clearly and they thought they had more time to finish the first section...in short, there was a huge fuss/debate between students and lecturers and now it has been decided that the most fair way to deal with the situation is to make us all take it again!! Hmm, really fair that. I didn't have a problem with it personally, ok we were a bit rushed for time but overall the exam was fine I thought, and so I am so not happy about having to do it again!
Right back to essay writing I think, maybe I'll try update this more often now...

2007-10-02T11:42:00.000+01:00

It's been absolutely ages since I posted and I have a few minutes spare before my next lecture so here goes!

In my second week back at uni now, it's kind of hard to adjust again after a year of doing not a lot! I am enjoying the routine and especially enjoying french classes and getting to speak the language again etc, but getting quite stressed with the amount of work.

It's great being back in Manchester, all is going well, I'm learning to cycle on roads and I haven't been hit yet so doing ok! My poor little legs are suffereing though, I am so unfit... It is also very strange being back, it feels like the whole of the last year never happened, like I've never been away at all... I have to keep looking at photos to reassure myself I didn't just dream it!

Ok that is all for now I have to run off to a fascinating 'language and gender' lecture where I shall try my best not to fall asleep...

2007-07-17T09:33:00.000+01:00

Hello from sunny Belgium!
So here I am, in a former monastry in the middle of nowhere for 4 weeks...
It's all good so far! Hot sunny weather, beautiful countryside and woods to walk in, not too much work, access to the swimming pool when I want...The only drawbacks being no public transport out of here, and mosquitos who like to bite.

Really enjoying the work, I have to lead grammar and language games workshops and take study and project groups. It's kind of hard explaining grammar rules though, have to read up on it lots before cos I am rubbish at grammar!

On sunday we went for a walk to the nearest small town (which has a supermarket, post office and a few cafes) it took an hour! But we found a really nice ice-cream place there so it was worth it!

Nearly break time which means food, yay!
A plus

2007-07-07T23:03:00.000+01:00

I'm currently feeling very ill from the amount of dust in my room, I have no idea where it all comes from! I've just spent hours sorting and clearing and tidying and cleaning in there, to make it acceptable for guests to stay in over the next few days. I'm pretty pleased with the outcome! I found some interesting things during my sorting today, including lots of stories I wrote when I was about 10. They're pretty cool actually, although they're all basically rip-offs of all the books I liked to read at the time. I also found a song I wrote about the same age, and that is so bad it's funny!
The chorus goes:
"I don't really care anymore
I've herad it all before
Just the same old stories and games
I've seen them all before" x2
I can actually remember how the tune went if I think hard enough, that wasn't very interesting either!

In other things...it's my birthday tomorrow, woo! I am very excited, I'm gonna be so old and grown up! It is kinda depressing though that I still get asked for ID buying wine in a supermarket...

2007-07-01T22:44:00.000+01:00

Wow back to this blog! It's been a while...
Last weekend I went back to Belgium for a couple of days for trianing for my summer job, it was so weird back! I stayed with some friends in the town I used to live in, and it felt so strange walking around there but not living there anymore. It was great to see people again though, I had a really lovely time. And I got to drink cherry beer again :) The training was ok, pretty boring though and not all that informative, but I do at least have a vague idea of what I'm going to be doing there now. Basically I'm working as an english assistant at a summer language school, and have to run workshops, for rich kids who have been sent away to learn English, that is my main task. In a really remote school...for 4 weeks...should be alright!
I start there in 2 weeks' time, but before then there are other exciting things, such as my birthday! 1 week today I'll be 21!! Woo!

Belgium!

2006-09-27T11:47:00.000+01:00

Yay I finally made it here! Spent the night in Brussels which is an amazing city, so many beautiful buildings, can't wait to come back and explore properly. This afternoon I'm heading down to Verviers, which is the place I'm actually working. Now I have the fun task of finding somewhere to live! Just a quick update for now, I'm going to create a new blog for all my Belgium updates so I'll let people know the address when I get round to doing it.
Au revoir for now!

9 days

2006-09-17T23:14:00.000+01:00

Sorry I've been ignoring my blog-readers again! Just been so busy lately, had no time to write! Got back from Spain a few days ago, had a brilliant week there; sun, sea, mountains etc. Decided I want to do spanish degree when I finish this one, just so I can go spend a year there! Speaking of years abroad, I'm off to Belgium next week, it's scary! Still don't have anywhere to live, yet I'm strangely unworried about it! I know God will find me somewhere and it'll all be ok! I have a few contacts there now so that's good. Off to Manchester for the week tomorrow before I leave the country, so that will be fun!

Update

2006-07-22T21:42:00.000+01:00

Well, it's been a while, and I have a lot to report! You'll be glad to know the countdown to my birthday is over, it's a little too early to begin the next one yet...
But the countdown was worth it, I had the best birthday ever!! T in the park was awesome, saw so many acts including chili peppers, franz ferdinand, kaiser chiefs, arctic monkeys, maximo park, feeder, placebo, boy kill boy, delays...there's too many to remember! And now I have V festival to look forward to too :)
In other news, this week I went to Germany for 2 days! A place came up on a school trip at my old school, and since I've been helping out there for the last few weeks I was asked if I wanted to go, so I did! Despite spending over 24 hours travelling in total, and the unbearable heat I had a brilliant time, went to the best theme park ever and got to see Cologne, oh and I made lots of little year 7 friends! And people understood my german! :)
I've finally found out where I'm going next year! I will be in a place called Verviers, which is close to Liege. Apparently it's not the most exciting place ever but I'm sure I'll still have fun! So all those people intending on coming to visit me can start planning now!

2 days

2006-07-06T16:52:00.000+01:00

Woo, two days until my birthday and T in the park!! Just incase anyone had forgotten...

School reports

2006-07-02T17:45:00.000+01:00

Back home in the country once again! It's good to be back, weird too though. The first thing I did on friday night before I even got to my house was help some people shift a load of hay bales!! So that really welcomed me back to the country! It was such a huge contrast to Manchester, but it was fun, I got to ride on a trailor and drink beer!
Anyway, yesterday my mum showed me some old school reports from primary school she'd found out, it was so funny reading them! I was such a little boffin! Similar comments every year, along the lines of:

"Marie has had another excellent year. She always works very hard indeed whatever the subject. She is popular with peers and adults...a credit to the school and to herself"

It's quite sickening really!! The thing that most made me laugh was a pupil comment I'd written myself on one of them:

"I think I have done well in most subjects, but I would like to improve them all, not because I'm not very good at them but because I want to learn more about everything"!!!

Last day in Manchester :(

2006-06-30T13:18:00.000+01:00

Today is my last day in Manchester for over a year, sob sob! :( Well I'm sure I'll be back at some point so technically it's not, but it's my last day as a resident of the city! I'm currently sitting in school doing not a lot, cos it's an inset day so we're basically getting paid to do nothing for a day! Well, we did put up a display but that's finished now, and it's looking good! It's pink, purple, silver, green and pink! Very bright and colourful and cool! Had a fantastic night out at 5th ave last night, it's was the best last night ever! Random group of people, great music and generally just a brilliant time! And I got about 2 hours sleep but am unbelievably awake, I seem to have quite a talent for survivng on little amounts of sleep, yay!
In other exciting news, it's only 8 days until my birthday and t in the park, woo!!

Chocolate biscuits

2006-06-24T19:26:00.000+01:00

About time I wrote a post I reckon, I've been so busy, just haven't had time to sit down and write. The last two weeks I've been working in a school again (diff school this time) which has been awesome, I feel like a proper teacher now, I've done loads of actual teaching, and even got to give out homework, that was a great feeling! Haha I'm so evil but I love exerting my authority and showing the kids who's boss! But I can't be that evil, cos in one of the lessons Rob and I taught the other day loads of kids were saying it was the best french lesson they'd ever had and asking if we could teach them next year!
Other than school I've just been mostly sleeping and eating, I seem to get in, fall asleep, wake up and eat, then go to bed! I'm pretty tired today though after having about 2 hours sleep last night, although I was surprisingly awake when i had to get up this morning. Last night Alex and I watched the entire 2 series of big train, woo! It is an amazing show, and the many people who haven't heard of it are missing out! But yeah then I had to get up at 7.15 to go to chester for the day with my aunty and uncle. Had a cool day, it's a really nice city and I'm very proud cos I managed not to buy anything despite being very tempted by the sale in hmv! The best thing of the day (hmm think that's really bad grammar but oh well) was that I was given a bag of chocolate and biscuits and crisps and stuff like that, yay! :D
Ooh and it's two weeks until my birthday and t in the park, yay!!!

Morning - but is it?!

2006-06-09T08:33:00.000+01:00

Listening to radio breakfast show before you go to bed is very strange and confusing...they keep talking about this afternoon and tonight, but surely it should be tomorrow afternoon cos I haven't slept yet so it can't be the next day!! But it appears that it is...and I really can't be bothered to go to bed, it seems a bit pointless at half 8 in the morning, and it's such a nice day I just want to be outside, but today I will buy suncream cos I really don't want to get any more burnt! Got very sunburnt today, it's starting to hurt now, and is horribly patchy! argh and I'm hungry, despite having eaten breakfast (yep breakfast before bed too) I've now been up for over 24 hours, quite an achievement I reckon, it had been a cracking day (and night) though! Went to blackpool, woo! It was so hot and sunny, we sat on the beach for ages, had a picnic, played cricket and scatch, walked along the sea front and pier, ate ice-cream and fish&chips, and generally just had a typical day at the seaside! Went to pangaea in the evening, also so much fun! And I lasted until 6!! Woo, Marijn and I (I'm trying very hard to speak(and type) correctly, even though it sounds so weird to me!) are the only hardcore people, since everyone else wimped out and went home earlier! (well not everyone in general, just everyone else we were with, unfortunately we didn't have the whole place to ourselves) They all missed out though, we got to see Jack!! And learnt his real name, the mystery is finally over!! Well for us anyway, other people have to guess it...good luck! We also had yummy breakfast at about 6.30am (fried egg sandwich, yum yum!) and now I should probably think about sleeping, otherwise I will never be able to play and watch football later...so goodnight, or good morning, or whatever it is...

Free

2006-06-08T01:38:00.000+01:00

Yay I finally finished exams and second year of uni! gosh that's weird, I'm half way through my degree now, scary! But freedom is such a great feeling, I was getting so depressed that everyone else had finished and I was still sitting in working. Today has been a great day, went for a drink after exam then went into town, then went to visit miffy then went to the lowry gallery (somewhere I've been meaning to go the whole time I've been at uni, and finally made it today!) then had a bbq in the evening and sat outside for ages, not worrying about having anything else to do! I did get sunburnt today though :( not badly but my arms are quite red. I have a feeling this is going to turn into a rambling post, but oh well. Tomorrow is blackpool day, yay! so excited, we're gonna play cricket on the beach! but not go swimming!! Paddling but not swimming. then in the evening it is pangaea...and the weekend after that involves lots of football! (playing ans well as watching) before monday morning I have to be up early(ish) to go to school for 3 weeks...yippee I think I should sleep soon cos i have to get up in a few hours time to get the train, ooh and it is a month until my birthday and t in the park, yay! but I don't want to be 20, that's just old, like a whole new decade, weird, hmm well I can still pass for 16 which could be a good thing, or not, I dunno. right now I really am rambling so I will think about sleeping...bonne nuit!

Saturday

2006-05-20T12:11:00.000+01:00

If only there were an exam in procrastination, I would get 100%! I have an exam on tuesday which I know practically nothing for (started revising yesterday) and I'm still sitting here messing around on the internet!
Don't even want to write anything specific on here, it's just another thing to do to put off revision! Although I have actually found an interesting bit of typology, yay!
Updating my last post, I found out it should be i's as apparently plurals of letters always have an apostrophe. I would like to thank my dutch english tutor for that information!

How many eyes?!

2006-05-17T00:08:00.000+01:00

I was reading some revision notes the other day when I came across the word indivisibility. I noticed the large number of eyes it contained (writing it like that cos I don't know if it should be i's or just is, and I don't want to get it wrong since I'm a language student as that would just make me look bad) I did a bit of research on it and found out it is actually the shortest english word with 6 eyes, wow! I also found this amazing website (well it's amazing if you're a language geek) :

http://plex.us/archives/word.html

It has some amazing facts, such as

AMBIDEXTROUSLY is the longest word in common use with no letter appearing more than once.
ONE THOUSAND contains the letter A, but none of the words from one to nine hundred ninety-nine has an A.

It is claimed that -OUGH can be pronounced 9 different ways in the following sentence:

A rough-coated, dough-faced, thoughtful ploughman strode through the streets of Scarborough; after falling into a slough, he coughed and hiccoughed.

However, David Olsen says that slough does not provide a unique pronunciation for -ough, but that HOUGH (pronounced hock) is a Scottish word, meaning the ankle joint of a horse, cow, or foul, or to hamstring, or it is an obsolete British word meaning to clear the throat. Olsen says that in order for the sentence to have 9 different ways of pronouncing -ough, it could be rewritten as:

A rough-coated, dough-faced, thoughtful ploughman strode the streets of Scarborough; after falling into a slough, he coughed, houghed, and hiccoughed.

Ted Clarke says there are 10 pronunciations for OUGH. He adds LOUGH, the Irish form of loch.

Check out the site for more fascinating facts!

Culinary delights

2006-05-15T23:59:00.000+01:00

Everyone knows that eating is something I do quite a lot of, and I can get quite excited about food, but meal times have been even more exciting the last couple of days! Last night was a key moment in my life: after almost 2 years of living in Manchester I finally went out for a curry in Rusholme! Yay! It was cool, and I'm so glad I decided to stop being a wimp and try food I always thought I didn't like! Help, too many exclamation marks, but I guess I'm just an exclamative person (is that a word?! Oh well, it is now!) And I just don't do serious...but I will try
Tonight for dinner I had potatoes, meatballs, salad and...rhubarb&strawberries! (yes, all mixed together) Rhubarb is another one of those things I always claimed I didn't like, and I would certainly never have eaten it with savoury stuff, but it was so good! Another fantastic thought made by the dutch, well done! Foe pudding we had more rhubarb and strawberries, with ice-cream and custard, mmmmmmmmmmmmm :D there was meant to be jelly with it too...but silly me messed it up :( I really don't know how it is possible to go wrong with jelly, it's the easiest thing in the world to make, but for some reason I forgot to put cold water in it!! Duh! So it might be set sometime next week if anyone fancies any
I may be lacking jelly-making skills, but I impressed myself with my dutch skills today, I managed to form a coherent sentence form random things I know, yay! I translated 'lovely weather for ducks', such a useful phrase!
Ooh and I had a good exam today! It was french listening, and I was expecting it to be abslolutely rubbish since I seem to have to ability to listen (to french anyway) but it was actually surprisingly easy, the first bit was so so easy I felt like I was back in primary school, not that you do phonetic transcription of french in primary school, but if you did it would be that easy.
Now I need to sleep and get up early to revise :( but there's light at the end of the tunnel, in the form of blackpool and other things such as karaoke, football, bbq which we put in our list of things to do after exams, bring on june 7th!!

Paperclip

2006-05-06T22:47:00.000+01:00

Grr!!! Feeling stressed and angry, due to the annoying stupid little paperclip on word!! It is so so stupid and I wish it would just go jump off a cliff, and stop bothering me!! I was writing something earlier and it tried to tell me I was writing a letter when I wasn't! So it really doesn't have a clue what it's on about and is no help at all, I'm sure no-one appreciates it! Me and Alex are starting the "Club of rebels against the paperclip", if anyone wants to join let me know!!

My new favourite sweets

2006-05-06T21:12:00.000+01:00

The other week I was watching the news and heard about some new sweets asda had brought out called "whatevers". They're basically like love hearts but have speech bubbles on them and say things such as "whatever", "bothered", "init", "you what", and "minger"!! So good, much better than the stupid things love hearts say! So anyway, we made a trip to asda yesterday to buy bbq food so I picked up a few packets, they're so cool!!!

Tonight and other things

2006-05-05T00:25:00.000+01:00

Oops, just dropped a load of stuff on the floor...
anyway, argh I'm so hyper!!! this is bad, I should be sleeping! had a cool night though, got a certificate!!! to certify that I am a peer mentor, yay! We got free food and cake and (the best thing of all, yes, even better than free food and cake) a free phone torch thing!!! that you stick to you phone, it's so cool!!! So it was well worth sitting through 2 hours of boringness, watching people go up to get certificates and listen to people do speeches about nothing! then we went to the union and I was very hyper but I was allowed and then we walked home and my feet hurt from blisters but I don't care cos it's been so nice and warm and I haven't worn a jumper all day, yay! And we're having a bbq tomorrow, woo and now I really am rambling, wonder how long I can keep this up for, writing about absolutely nothing, probably quite a while knowing me cos this is one of my talents, rambling on about nothing...
ooh I've had 3 exams now, only 9 more to go! quarter of the way there...woo! 2 of them were really ribbish but one was good so it's not all bad, and I got a seen exam paper already for my last exam on june 7th, it's gonna be so much fun preparing for it! and I actually mean that, I know i'm a geek but I like phonology, it's cool, ooh and in final year me and Helen are going to be peer mentor co-ordinators and we're gonna do a fantastic job! such an excellent team we will be, and then we can get another certificate, yeah! see everything is related to something...I'm not really jsut rambling, everything is related ooh and I rode Helen's bike today, it was so much fun!! Hadn't ridden a bike in years, but I can still do it! so it really is true what they say, you never forget how to ride a bike! I wanna get one now, I miss my bike!! This summer, I will go on lots of bike rides! oh and I did a roly poly thing over the bar tonight, another thing I haven't done since being a lot smaller (ok maybe I should say a lot younger cos i haven't really grown since I was about 10. seriously, when i was at home over easter, I tried on my bridesmaid dress that I had when I was 10 and I could still get in it! it was only about 2 inches 2 short!) but anyway, yeah I was scared for ages that i would hit my head on the floor but i didn't and it was fun! I don't wanna turn 20!! 2 months on monday, urgh! :( for once in my life I'm not looking forward to my birthday
anyway i really should stop rambling soon and try sleep, i was planning on being in uni early tomorrow to print off work before computers get taken, dunno if that will happen now, but oh well...argh I really can't type! So, goodnight!!

First exam

2006-04-27T23:05:00.000+01:00

1 down, 11 to go!! Had german listening today, it was ok I guess, not great though, I really hate listening! Some bits I could do ok, others I totally made up! But oh well, should really start revising grammar now!
All this nice sunny weather is going to make me super fit, yesterday I played football and walked back from uni, today I walked into uni and back, tomorrow I'm playing squash...woo!

Football

2006-04-26T21:30:00.000+01:00

Woo, we girls rocked at football today!! Had a boys vs girls match that ended up being mixed cos the guys did have a slightly unfair advantage...they still won though :( but it's the taking part that counts (right Helen?!) and we got a fair few goals (I scored 1!!) I hurt my ankle :( and in true football player style I'm going to complain about it as much as possible! And anyway, I'm allowed!! Might even undo another button later...since it's not sunday!
I should really be working, since I have so much to do, and my first exam tomorrow, but instead I am sitting in front of the tv watching a thrilling snooker game and drinking beer! (how much of a guy am I today?!) I will listen to german tomorrow...
ooh and other news, I ate curry the other day!! proper curry, for the first time ever, it was great! Thanks Marijn!
oh and this is the last post for a while since Alex apparently won't speak to me cos he can just read about what I've done on here :(

Easter

2006-04-21T20:26:00.000+01:00

Haven't written anything for a while since my spell of writing loads...but I've been pretty busy over the hols! So here is an update-

The first week of the holidays I was in school again, doing the second week of my teaching placement. It was really fun and a bit more relaxed than last time cos it was the last weelk of term. One afternoon I got to watch wallace&gromit with the kids for their end of term treat! Can't believe I got paid to watch a film! A lot of the lessons were just making easter cards and doing wordsearches so that was pretty easy! I did get to take part of a lesson again though, another presentation, that was cool. My highlight of the week was probably when a couple of girls said they couldn't believe I was only 19 and thought I was a lot older! Makes a change from people thinking I'm about 16! The only slightly negative thing was they thought I was 30 something!! Oh well...

After my tiring week of work I finally made it to Leeds to spend the weekend with Emily! Had a really cool time, we went to the cinema to see ice age 2, watched back to the future and lots of coupling, and went shopping and tried on lots of random clothes! I then had a long and tiring 6 hour journey back home!!! Crazy!

Last week I spent most of my time baking cakes! And earning money for baking cakes, woo!

This week Helen, Inge and Marijn came to stay for a couple of days, had a great time!! I showed them round a few places and felt like a bit of a tourist myself! On tuesday we had a pretty busy day, we went to 3 different places, ate fish&chips and ice-cream, went for a walk up a big hill and back down the other side, played on a little kids park, played pool...can't remember what else but I'm sure there was more! Oh and we took loads and loads of photos!

That's pretty much been my holiday, well the highlights anyway. Tomorrow I have a wedding to go to then back to Manc on sunday! with a big presentation to finish for monday, woo!

5 past 3 sunday morning

2006-04-02T02:38:00.000+01:00

Actually managed to make a decision to go out tonight! Had a cool night out in 5th ave, lots of classic songs and good memories from last year! And when we got back me and Alex (ok I know that should be Alex and I but I don't speak proper!) planned our wedding! We're gonna have a huge huge cake which is big enough for us to stand on, and have a meringue igloo on too! And maybe penguins...real ones...and we're not singing shine Jesus shine!!! And part of the vows is gonna be the big mountain song 'ooh baby I love your way'! It contains classic lines such as:

Moon appears to shine and light the sky
With the help of some fireflies
I wonder how they have the power shine shine shine
I can see them under the pines
But don't hesitate 'cause your love won't wait hey
Ooh baby I love your way every day
Wanna tell you I love your way every day
Wanna be with you night and day uh yeah

Argh my jumper is so falling apart...I look like such a scrubber! (that's not part of it, that's just a random comment from me!)

On the subject of bad lyrics we've just been reminiscing about bad cheesy pop, such classics as Daphne and Celeste! I so wanna shoot them! How stupid are these lyrics?! kinda funny though!

Hi! This is my friend Daphne and I'm Celeste

[Chorus]
" Ooh stick you
Your mama too
And your daddy…
Ooh stick you
Your mama too
And your daddy…

Ooh stick you
Your mama too
And your daddy…

Ooh stick you
Ooh stick you! "

Your mama, your daddy
Your greasy, greasy grandmammy
You got a hole in your panty
Got a big behind like Frankenstein
Going beep-beep-beep down Sesame Street
Toot-toot-toot wear army boots
In your ear with a can of beer
Up your butt with a coconut
OOOHHHH!

" Ooh stick you..." [Repeat Chorus]

You go girl!
EEEEEEEEHHHHHHH!
OOOOOHHHHHHHH!
EYE!

Do you want me to tell you what I really think about you?

You got facial hair like a polar bear
You blow up like a toad and then explode
Your face looks mean like Halloween
You got big red eyes like cherry pies
You got the IQ of a digeridoo
You look insane and got no brain
You got a big fat belly like a bowl full of jelly
Your fat mum Milly looks like Free Willy

" Ooh stick you..." [Repeat Chorus]

You go girl!
Ride 'em cowboy!
Yee-ha!
Giddy up horsey!
Ride 'em cowboy!
Pew! Pew! Pew!
It’s like a horror movie isn't it?
OOHH!
Ride 'em cowboy!
Ooh Ooh Eee!
Ride 'em cowboy!

Do you wanna know what
I really think about you?

You're a little kid that looks like a squid- oh no!
You've got a bad perm like a can of worms- oh no!
Cheeks like a balloon ; face like a baboon- oh no!
Everybody knows you eat the nails from your toes & you rub 'em in dirt and eat them for dessert!

Whatever!

" Ooh stick you..." [Repeat Chorus]

ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!
ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!
eye!!!!!!!!!

You got ears on your face like spock in space!
You got teeth in your head like Mr Ed!
Everybody knows you put fleas in cheese, mix them with glue and use it like shampoo!

What?

Ping-pong why am I saying ping-pong?
Ping-pong Ping-pong Ping-pong!
Whatever whatever whatever!

" Ooh stick you..." [Repeat Chorus to fade]

Wow this is turning into a long post...
We're also planning to record a house CD, woo! It will include things such as Dan singing Hero by Enrique Inglesias with me playing guitar, Dan singing Stay another day by east 17, Thanh Mai singing Blackbird by Paul McCartney...
I haven't decided what I'm gonna do yet...but everyone has to do a song! It will be so cool!! Woo!

Dutch!

2006-04-01T16:38:00.001+01:00

After finally dragging myself out of bed I decided my next activity of the day will be to learn some more dutch! I met some dutch people last night and realised it wasn't very impressive that all I could say to them (in dutch, obviously I could say a lot more in english...) was "all the ducks are swimming in the water", "I see the horse" and "you have a nice arse"!
So far I have learnt the numbers 1-10, and now I'm onto saying things about myself:

Mijn naam is Marie
Ik ben negentien jaar oud
Ik heb een zus en een broer

Time to go and talk to Sarah!

stopped

2006-04-01T13:11:00.000+01:00

I'm so thick, the word 'stop' just needs to be in the past tense too! duh!

Spelling

2006-04-01T12:23:00.000+01:00

Trying desperately to find things to distract and amuse myself with today, I have resorted to further analysing the look and read programme I was watching the other day! One of the rules they were teaching wsa how to form the plural of nouns ending in 0 - potatoes for example (ie you add an e before the s) There are however a few exceptions to this rule, piano, studio and video. I began to wonder why these are exceptions, had an idea that it could be something to do with the etymotology of the words, so I searched and found out all these words come from latin or italian (which is from latin anyway) so maybe it does have something to do with that...although I don't know what! However I could be being (can I say that?!) way too technical and geeky, cos I also noticed that these words all have two vowels at the end so maybe it's just simply to do with not wanting too many vowels together! Other exceptions to the rule such as kangeroo and zoo fit better with that theory!
Hmm...I think it's time I got out of bed and had a shower and stop being such a geek! Argh that sentence sounds really ungrammatical but I can't work out why...different tenses I guess but I don't know how to change it to make it right!

Advert

2006-03-31T00:40:00.000+01:00

I decided to expand the repertoire of my blog and start doing some lonely hearts ads!
My housemate Dan is desperate to find a girlfriend, in his words "4/10 and over preferable"!
Only other requirement is that she must be shorter than him, less than about 5ft 8".
Leave a comment if interested!

Nemo!

2006-03-31T00:29:00.000+01:00

Watched finding nemo, woo!! Hadn't watched it in years, it's cool!
Ooh and I forgot, this morning me and Alex (who is asking to be mentioned on my blog!) watched look and read which was amazing! We used to watch it at primary school, it is one fantastic programme! They were doing spelling rules for words ending in y, and how to form the plural of nouns, which actually taught me quite a lot! Although I was then overanalysing everything in linguistic terms and making it really complicated! But it gave me the ambition to do some kids tv programme teaching french! So watch out for me on french tv in a few years time! There was also a very funny bit on the programme with wolves trying to get onto the ark, but they weren't allowed cos they had a badge saying wolfs and not wolves! They then dressed up elephants and tried to get on in disguise but there were already enough elephants so that didn't work!! So you see, that's what happens to you if you ignore the rules of grammar!

Decision made!

2006-03-30T22:35:00.000+01:00

I got a better offer so decided to stay in and watch a film with Alex! Then it doesn't matter if I fall asleep! I'm such an old woman!!

On the other hand...

2006-03-30T22:05:00.000+01:00

I am actually really tired and will probably fall asleep if I go out, and I have no money...

To go out or not to go out...

2006-03-30T22:02:00.000+01:00

Argh, I really am so rubbish at decision making!! Have been trying to decide for at least half an hour whether or not to go out tonight! It's such a hard decision, so many things to take into account!! Although I'm thinking maybe it'd be a good idea really...hmm...yes, I will go!!! Woo, maybe this is the way to make decisions, write about them on my blog! Will remember that for future reference! Now I just have to decide what to wear...

Monday morning

2006-03-27T13:33:00.000+01:00

I made it in for my 9am lecture today, woo! 2 weeks in a row! I may have been 10 minutes late, but that is unimportant, it's the other 40 minutes I was there for which matter! And I managed to get almost everything right in the test we had, despite not having been to any of the classes on the topic the test was on! Go me!
And I finally got my exam results!! Got 67% in syntactic theory and 70% in psycholinguistcs, not bad given the amount of revision I did! Especially syntactic theory for which I started revising the day before!

My stupid mistake of the day

2006-03-25T13:57:00.000Z

I am so silly, and here is proof of it! When I woke up this morning I looked at my clock and it said 1.50pm so I got in a huge panic cos I should have left the house around 9 to go to kids club, and thought I'd slept through my alarm and missed it all. But then when I checked my phone it said 9.10am so the panic was over and I managed to not be late! Anyway....when I just got back home I decided to check out the mystery of the alarm clock...Turns out when I reset it last night after the power had gone off I'd set the time as the alarm time and the alarm time as the normal time!! Duh!!

Naughty Marijn

2006-03-23T21:21:00.000Z

Woo, I am no longer the only person to have broken the agreement! Thanks Marijn, I feel a lot better now!

Naughty me (in the words of Ricardo)

2006-03-22T16:52:00.000Z

On monday night, an agreement was made between me, Helen, Inge and Marijn that we would all go to all of our lectures until the easter holidays, and then we could get some kind of reward after! I managed it for one day...argh! Unfortunately I failed to hear the part of the agreement which stated that whoever missed a lecture had to buy everyone else beer! Grr! If I had known that, I would have made more of an effort to get up this morning!

Breakfast

2006-03-19T12:27:00.000Z

Today I discovered something amazing to eat for breakfast - ice-cream on toast!!! (Chocolate ice-cream so it tastes like chocolate spread but better! Especially when it's carte d'or triple chocolate ice-cream!)

Pirates!

2006-03-12T17:51:00.000Z

In honour of Rachael's birthday we turned into pirates for the night! Yar!

We pillage, we plunder, we rifle and loot.
Drink up me 'earties, Yo Ho!
We kidnap and ravage and don't give a hoot.
Drink up me 'earties, Yo Ho!

Yo Ho, Yo Ho! A pirate's life for me.

We extort, we pilfer, we filch and sack.
Drink up me 'earties, Yo Ho!
Maraud and embezzle and even hijack.
Drink up me 'earties, Yo Ho!

Yo Ho, Yo Ho! A pirate's life for me.
Yo Ho, Yo Ho! A pirate's life for me.

We kindle and char, inflame and ignite.
Drink up me 'earties, Yo Ho!
We burn up the city, we're really a fright.
Drink up me 'earties, Yo Ho!

Yo Ho, Yo Ho! A pirate's life for me.

We're rascals, scoundrels, villans and knaves.
Drink up me 'earties, Yo Ho!
We're devils and black sheep, really bad eggs!
Drink up me 'earties, Yo Ho!

Yo Ho, Yo Ho! A pirate's life for me.

We're beggars and blighters and ne'er-do-well cads.
Drink up me 'earties, Yo Ho!
Aye! But we're loved by our mommies and dads!
Drink up me 'earties, Yo Ho!

Yo Ho, Yo Ho! A pirate's life for me.
Yo Ho, Yo Ho! A pirate's life for me.
Yo Ho, Yo Ho! A pirate's life for me.
Yo Ho, Yo Ho! A pirate's life for me.

Evenki

2006-03-09T22:29:00.000Z

I am currently studying the language of Evenki...which will be very useful if I ever go to Siberia! We have to do a presentation in two weeks time on this randopm language which I know nothing about apart from that it has millions of words for reindeer! There are 34 different words for different kinds of reindeer, and then loads more for other reindeer-related things! These are a few of my favourites!

reindeer harnessed on the left-hand side of a sledge-team = kostur
reindeer which became wild = gelu:n
castrated reindeer = aktaki
not completely castrated reindeer = nara
reindeer which cannot be trained = mullikan

They're so random!

Masterchef(ess)

2006-02-28T01:07:00.000Z

Check out the mighty fine pavlova I made tonight! Although actually I shouldn't take all the credit, Helen, Inge and Marijn did help too so it was a team effort! (even if in some cases that was only reading the recipe out!) Maybe I should quit my degree and become a master chef instead! Cooking really isn't all that hard!

Change

2006-02-21T01:40:00.000Z

Woo I changed the template! I was bored of the pink!

food

2006-02-21T01:25:00.000Z

As most people will know, I do quite enjoy my food (ok so maybe quite isn't the right word to use but anyway, I don't want to make myself sound like too much of a pig...) and lately I've been branching out and discovering new culinary delights! Today I ate prawns and smoked salmon which I previously thought I didn't like...and realised that they're are very tasty! But my personal favourite is the amazing meal I made for dinner the other night - fishfinger, mushroom and chip sandwich!!! It was soooooooooo good!

Funny

2006-02-09T00:26:00.000Z

I was told by Ben to write something funny on here but I really can't think of anything at the moment! I'm practically falling asleep and should really go to bed, but it's too much effort! ooh and I just noticed toblerone on my floor...am quite tempted to eat some! although I should really do some work but it's late and I'm tired and anyway I'm going to get up early in the morning and go to the library (that's my plan anyway...whether or not it will happen is a different matter!) just noticed how many times I've written the word really...oh dear and now I'm rambling and probably sound really silly so maybe this will be something funny...
ooh yeah, I realised today that one of my lecturers really sounds like c3po!! It's so funny and kinda hard to concentrate on the lecture when I just want to laugh all the time!

Resolutions

2006-01-31T23:49:00.000Z

Well, can't say I'm doing too well with my new years resolutions so far! One of them was to try and be on time...yesterday I was 10 minutes late for 2 out of my 3 lectures...I've never been that late for a lecture ever! (on the first day of the semester too, not a good start!) So I seem to be getting worse not better! Haven't played Ben at squash or pool yet so can't judge that one, I've done pretty well with the films though! I've watched quite a few in the last few weeks, the shawshank redemption, anchorman, dodgeball, team america, wedding crashers, to name but a few, can't remember them all! Oh and a night at the roxbury, which has the best insult ever in it - "you're a jungle theme"!! classic! you kind of have to watch it to understand it though...not that it really makes sense!

Can't be bothererd to think of a title!

2006-01-27T01:08:00.000Z

Woo I finished my exams today! All two of them!! I feel guilty being happy cos I've finished when my friends have had 4 or 6 or 7 exams!! I guess to them I can't appreciate the true greatness of exams being over! But I'm still happy, and now I'm starting to ramble...it's the wine talking...and to be fair I did hardly any revision so it's not like I can even be happy that I no longer have to spend all my days in the library revising, I think the most revision I've done in day in the last couple of weeks is about 4 hours, I've been such a slacker! But my exams were fine! :) Well I think anyway, obviously I could've done really badly but I feel like they went ok, for saying how badly prepared I felt beforehand anyway! I thought I was going to be so screwed in my exam today, we had to answer two questions out of 6, I knew 2 topics so was really relying on easy questions on them coming up! Thankfully they did so it was ok, I was so happy when I saw the questions! In the summer I will definitely start my revision earlier and be more organised, especially since I will have 11 exams!!! I'm going to die, I'll never cope with that many! I was struggling with two this week! Thinking about it, I must have had that many gcse exams, don't know how I ever managed then!
I am currently learning to airdrum! (if that's even a word!) it's well fun! And I'm getting the hang of it now! And I have to find something to amuse myself with since I've been abandoned by Ben who has gone off to join his flatmates while I'm left in his room with only the computer and music and wine and chocolate and guitar and air drums for company!!! So actually it's not that bad, but still, it's fun to complain!

Friday

2006-01-14T00:12:00.000Z

Well, the week is over, and in a strange I'm giong to miss school! I feel settled in there now! There are some things I won't miss, such as getting up early, being mistaken for a pupil (as I was today by some kids walking behind me in the corridor!!! They don't even have 6th form there so that means at the oldest they thought I was 16! :S although to be fair they did realise I was a "teacher" when I turned round so it's not all bad!), and trying to make kids work who just sit there and go "I'm not doing it, I hate french, it's boring, i'm never going to use it" and refuse to do anything! I'm sure I was going to write more but I'm falling asleep now...oh yeah, I'm addicted to coffee and sudoku!!! Argh!

Teaching day four

2006-01-12T18:47:00.000Z

Only one day left to go as being a teacher! :( for this week anyway! I've had a great time (apart from being ill and spending an afternoon asleep in the staffroom!), teaching is fun!! I had to take part of a german lesson the yesterday, cos the teacher doesn't speak any german!! How stupid is that, you can't teach something you don't know!!! It was only a year 7 class so she knew basic stuff but was rubbish at pronunciation and I had to tell her the word for wednesday! Today I had to do a presentation about different regions in France (got to use the interactive whiteboard!!) It was a year 9 class who are usually really noisy and disruptive but they actually sat quietly and were interested in it and could answer all the quiz questions afterwards to prove they actually had been paying attention!! So I was pretty pleased! And I think they will forever remember that you find marmots in the alps after one boy renamed them 'marmite eating marmots'(!?!)
In other news, I now drink coffee!!! I've finally trained myself, not sure if that's a good thing or not but at least I have a way of waking myself up now! (which I've had to do several times this week!)

Penguin

2006-01-09T20:54:00.000Z

I finally got a penguin! Unfortunately not a real one but this will have to do until then! And she is very soft and cute and doesn't have to be fed out of my mouth with food I have already eaten so I guess that's always an advantage!

Teaching!

2006-01-09T20:31:00.000Z

After getting up at the crazy hour of 5am (it's dark and cold at that time!!), leaving the house at 6 and getting the train at 7, I finally arrived in accrington for the first day of my paid work experience teaching kind of thing (don't really know what to call it but that kind of thing! basically I get paid to go into a school for a week and see if I like the idea of teaching!) It has been a great day, very interesting and I've learnt a lot about how not to teach! (as well as how to!) I'm working with one of the french teachers, who is neither french nor english, I have no idea where she's from but she pronounces all her w's as v's (and visit as 'wisit'!) and has the weirdist french accent ever! I had to stop myself from correcting her loads of times, these poor kids are gonna end up speaking french so badly! She doesn't seem to be able to handle the classes at all and doesn't make it in any way fun so no wonder I heard loads of the kids saying "I hate french, why can't we just say it in english?!" I really want to give her ideas of how to make it more interesting for them, but can't really! On the plus side she does give people chocolate if they're good! After school we had to stay for a staff meeting to see what other things teachers have to do, it was the most boring thing ever!!! I very nearly fell asleep, the only interesting bit was when they played a clip of little britain! But other than that it was just loads of ramble about classrooms looking nice, awards for the best looking classroom, marking schemes, review days, uniform and I can't remember what else!
It shall certainly be a very interesting week, and hopefully lots of fun! I met cool people who are also there from uni doing the same scheme, and I have lifts in for the rest of the week so don't have to get up crazily early to catch the train! yay!

Snow picture!

2006-01-06T18:51:00.000Z

I took this near my house the other day, it was so pretty!

January 1st

2006-01-01T23:32:00.000Z

Happy new year!!! wow it's 2006, that's strange! I remember when it was 1996, doesn't seem 10 years ago! Ooh that was when my sister was just born and I was a wee little girl of 9 years old...anyway, I'll stop being nostalgic now...
I don't normally bother making new years resolutions cos I know I probably won't end up keeping them, but for some reason I've got loads this year! I'm not sure if I should tell people or not, cos then at least if I don't keep them no-one will know! But I guess they're only really for me anyway (apart from the ones that affect other people) so it doesn't really matter...sorry I'm starting to do my rambling email thing now (a talent I learnt from helen) although since this isn't an email it's probably more a rambling blog...right, now I really am making no sense at all, this is what you get when you try type this late at night after having only about 4 hours sleep last night (sleeping on a living room floor where 7 other people are sleeping too isn't the best combination for getting lots of sleep!)
ANYWAY...back to the point (if there even is one) oh dear people are going to start to think I'm drunk or something, but I haven't drunk a drop of alchohol in ages, honestly! (well a few days anyway!)
But yeah, back to the resolutions, I will probably have forgotten them all by the end of the first week but nevermind, I can try!

no. 1: I will try and stop being late all the time and keep people waiting for ages (literally hours sometimes, sorry Sarah!!) Also maybe this will help me miss less buses, trains, planes etc!
no. 2: I want to better my film education! (which I know is pretty rubbish!) I hate feeling really thick when people talk about films that everyone else in the world has seen apart from me!
no. 3: I want to beat Ben at squash!! (this one may be slightly difficult considering the scores from when we last played, but I like a challenge! I guess I would settle for beating him at pool if I can't manage squash, I probably have a better chance with that!)

Hmm I did have more than this but I can't remember them! oops! oh well, it's late and I'm tired, I'm sure they'll come back to me!
Was gonna say be less stupid in general but I'm small so can't help that! (it's been scientifically proven that short people are stupid apparently! It makes a good excuse for doing silly things!)

Oh dear it's now gone past midnight so it's january 2nd and my title isn't true, nevermind!!

Snow!!!

2005-12-28T18:14:00.000Z

Woo we have snow!! :D I love it, it's so pretty and white...and cold! But nevermind we can forgive it for that! Took my brother and sister sledging today, it was so much fun! Hadn't been for years, fogotten how great it is! It probably would have been better if there'd been more snow but we did the best with what there was! With a good push you could go flying down the hill! The only not fun bit was getting freezing cold feet!

It's christmas!

2005-12-25T21:54:00.000Z

Merry christmas everyone! woo I love christmas! Today has been great, I didn't even mind being woken up early by sister (at 7.45) and being told I should be thankful cos I was woken up at 6.30 last year so got a lie-in this year!! (strange logic!) I got lots of ace presents and dinner was so nice I ate too much and felt sick after! My parents were well impressed that I ate brussels, parsnips, bread sauce and christmas pudding for the first time ever! Thanks Helen for making me eat them the other week! We had a family get together round my grandparents house and had such a laugh playing charades and other silly games. We played the game where you have the name of a famous person stuck on your head and have to ask questions and find out who you are, my parents were so bad at it it was hilarious! My mum was Miss Piggy and couldn't even guess it when we gave her such obvious clues as you're one of the muppets and star alongside a frog!!
Now I intend to spend the rest of the evening watching a dvd and eating lots of chocolate!
Hope you all had a great day!

Grumpy

2005-12-12T09:17:00.000Z

I'm not in the best of moods at the moment, came into uni for my 9am lecture and my lecturer didn't turn up!!! Grr...I'm extra annoyed cos the only reason I came in today was cos we have an exam on wednesday so I thought it'd be useful to turn up. I could've so easily stayed in bed, following our 2pm-2am 'christmas day' yesterday, it really was an effort to drag myself in! We had so much fun though! I have to say, me and Helen cooked a fantastic dinner (not showing off or anything, just proud of how it turned out!) even if I did forget the cabbage which I made such a fuss about having! And twister at 1 in the morning is always fun!
Anyway at least I have more time to work now, still have to finish my essay, 2 pieces of german work and start my revision for exams tomorrow and wednesday!

Mr. Bump

2005-12-03T22:37:00.000Z

I've been feeling a bit like the Mr Men character Mr Bump lately, I've been so accident prone the last few days! On thursday I kept running into the wall when playing squash, so have a bruised elbow from that, (I also have a bruised ego from being totally thrashed, but that I can cope with!) Yesterday I managed to trip over whilst crossing the road, went sprawling, ripped a hole in my jeans and hurt my knees! It was quite an embarrassing experience, and I felt a bit like a school kid again but it was a good excuse to buy new jeans! (I got a pair that are age 14-15 and a bit too big!) It really hurts whenever I move now though, and I have big bruises :(
This morning at kids club, it was painful enough playing games anyway, then I twisted my wrist or something playing ladders and it really hurts now! On top of all that, my jaw is still hurting (for no reason, has just been like it for the past couple of weeks and I don't know why!), I cut myself on my key when opening the door earlier, hit my head getting out of Kit's car, and caught my finger in the lock on Matt's door!! Argh!!!
Maybe I'm suffering from lasck of sleep or something!

Family visit

2005-11-26T07:57:00.000Z

Today has been ace! My mum, sister and brother came up to visit me in the wonderful world of Manc, and we had a really cool time! I got to see the city from a different perspective, like all the kids clothes shops that I'd never been in before!! (for obvious reasons...although it was quite depressing that all the age 14 and above clothes looked huge and like they'd drown me!!)
We went on the Manchester wheel which was cool, a great view from the top. I also didn't realise how close to the centre the nearest hills and fields are!! It was really strange seeing things other than buildings and civilisation! You kinda forget theres countryside out there sometimes! We also went to urbis and the christmas market which were cool, and ate dinner in pizza hut! :D I'm so easily pleased!
It's also cool going shopping with my mum cos she buys me things! Just random little things that I'm buying anyway but she offers to pay for!
My brother also came up with an interesting name for Manchester; 'The land of scaffolding'!! That was when we were walking along by piccadilly bus station where there is a lot of scaffolding at the mo, and to him only being small it must've looked like even more of it!!

Argh!!!

2005-11-07T22:08:00.000Z

What a great day I've had so far...not! I'm feeling ill again, I've managed to go about 2 weeks without being ill but I should've known it was too good to last! After having a week off uni it was quite a shock having to get up for my 9.00 lecture this morning, so I'm pretty tired too. When I got in for my grammar class I realised we had a test that I'd totally forgotten about so that wasn't great! To top it all off I just had the worst, most frustrating tutorial ever!! Mainly down to the other people in the group who had clearly done no work at all for this unit and must've not been paying any attention in the lectures either cos they wasted the whole hour asking really stupid questions which we'd been over so many times in lectures. I know tutorials are meant to be for asking questions but there's asking questions and there's asking questions! So me and Helen spent the whole time having a conversation via pen and paper and making up sad linguistics jokes (that were funny to us!) and letting out our frustration by scribbling!! It gave me a bit of hope though cos I thought I hadn't done enough work for this module and wasn't sure that I was understanding everything but compared to other people I'm doing fine!
So after that I decided I'd had enough of uni for one day and couldn't be bothered to hang around until my oral class at 3 so will have a nice relaxing afternooon at home instead (doing lots of work of course!)

Poetry

2005-11-03T04:46:00.000Z

Whilst on my trip back home this week I rediscovered some wonderful poetry written by myself when I was at primary school. One of the teachers at my old school found them and gave them to my sister to give to me (I have no idea why they'd kept my work for 9 years!) They're so embarrassingly bad they're quite funny!

Poem number 1 entitled 'My favourite foods' was written when I was in year 6 so I guess I would've been 10.

Spaghetti bolognaise,
that's my favourite tea,
if I could choose what to have every night,
I'm sure that's what it would be!

But if I had it every night,
I'd be sick for goodness sake,
so for a change I think I'd have...
tuna pasta bake!

I've got some more favourite foods,
it's not pizza and chips,
or chicken leg,
it's not even chicken and rice,
but it's spaghetti and egg!

I like other foods as too,
as well as these,
but I like these really the best,
and after eating all this food,
I think I need a rest!

I actually remember writing this and having to read it out in a school assembly or something, and for some reason I thought it was hilarious and found it really hard to read it without bursting into fits of giggles!

I was 9 when I worte this next one, 'Snow':

Snow is falling to the ground,
a thousand flakes,
floating down.
Soon nothing can be seen
just a thick white layer of
SNOW!
Children come outside to play,
they all start shouting
IT'S SNOWED, HOORAY!
Soon footprints are everywhere,
snowballs are being thrown.
Then it starts to get dark,
the children go back inside.
it is all still and quiet
once again.

I just don't get the random capital letters!

And finally, one of my personal favourites cos it's so strange, and quite ironic! (I was also 9 when I wrote this)

My Perfect World

I have a perfect world you see,
lots of honey from every bee!
No armies, wars or guns
but instead cakes and buns!

Hot sun and rain
animals and birds.
Pollution in the world
never again!

Paper would be recycled,
no more trees cut down.
No big city and no big town!

Hehe first of all I don't like honey so why would I want lots?! The wars and cakes thing gives me an image of people throwing cakes at each other instead of using guns! It's so random! But clearly I've always had a soft spot for cake...
And the funniest bit is the last line, how ironic that I now live in one of the biggest cities in England and love it!

Message to everyone

2005-10-18T07:12:00.000+01:00

Go see Wallace&Gromit!!! It's fantastic, the kind of film that suits everyone, it's so clever and very very funny!! So yeah, you'll be greatly missing out if you don't see it!

Psycholinguistics

2005-10-11T10:07:00.000+01:00

I just had the best lecture ever!! Psycholinguistics is my favourite lecture anyway cos it's the most interesting and we have the best lecturer ever, but today was extra good! We got to play a record breaking game of chinese whispers, with 200ish people!!! I'm not really sure what it was supposed to be illustrating, something to do with problems with speech perception, but it taught me that chinese whispers doesn't work with that many people! It started off as 'Jamie Oliver says 5 a day' and ended up as 'Clean someone's ball'!! We were somewhere in the middle, and got 'I like touching little animals'!!!
Another thing that made it a very amusing lecture was the fact that the lecturer spent most of the time with a woodpigeon puppet on her hand which she would point things out with and randomly wave around and squeak!! In the end she had to take it off though cos everyone was in hysterics, it's hard to take anyone seriously when they have a squeaking pigeon on their hand!
We also had a panic that we were all going to be burnt alive cos there was a really strong smell of burning and it was getting really hot so we were expecting to have to run out the fire exit any minute! Thankfully it didn't come to that, I don't know what was burning but obviously nothing serious!

Trip down memory lane

2005-10-08T20:08:00.000+01:00

Last night we had a little reunion in Ashburne to relive the old days! (ie last year) Matthias was over visiting from Germany for a few days so we decided to all meet up and have dinner there...it was so so strange!! In a way it was exactly the same, same kind of not that great food, radioactive juice, hot chocolate, me and Thanh Mai being very childish with our food and everyone giving us strange looks etc, with the slight difference that we couldn't go back up to our rooms after cos we don't live there anymore!!! After, we took over the common room and had a few games of pool. I was pretty rubbish as usual but I must be improving cos a couple of times I was very close to winning! Then we watched 'Hitchikers guide to the galaxy' which is such a great film!! Very very random but so cool! I really want a knife that toasts bread while you cut it, such a genius idea!!

Less stressed

2005-10-07T05:42:00.000+01:00

I'm getting over my stress about work now, (for the time being anyway), I got loads done yesterday and today so it's not too bad now. But I've been feeling ill again the last couple of days, I'm so fed up of being ill!!! This morning I nearly collapsed in the hall cos I was really faint and couldn't keep my balance at all, it was quite scary!
Ooh and yesterday I had a meeting about my year abroad and I've decided I really want to go to Belgium! And work in a school, I can't wait to go now! I did want to go to Switzerland but I think they only take people over 21 so unless I can somehow add 2 years to my age I don't think I'll be able to go there :(

Pourquoi le stress?

2005-10-05T07:37:00.000+01:00

Arghhhhhhhhhh!!! I'm so stressed already and it's only the second week back, what's going on?! I haven't had a decent nights sleep since I've been back which really doesn't help, I have loads of work to do already and hardly any freetime to do it, and when I am free I have absolutely no motivation, grr!!! I'm starting to worry how I'm going to get through the year if I'm like this already, it's stupid really but I can't help it! Right now I have to make a birthday card to send to my aunty who's birthday it was today so that's late already, I have soooooooooo much reading, 3 presentations to think about, and I dunno what else...
Pas heureuse!

Geek

2005-09-30T06:53:00.000+01:00

Today I realised what a total language geek I am, and I don't like it! I had a german, we were going through basic grammar definitions, like what a noun, verb, sentence etc is. But cos I've done all that in linguistics I was making it really complicated and adding stuff that wasn't really necessary so everyone in the the class must've thought I was a right geek, oh dear! And I got really annoyed with the definition of a sentence that was on the sheet, "group of words which make perfect sense". Technically that's not true, it's just a group of words which are grammatically correct, it doesn't have to make sense. So for example "Green colourless ideas sleep furiously" is a perfectly well formed grammatical sentence even thought it makes no sense whatsoever! I then realised this wasn't really relevant to the german class and I should stop being a geek! I was also really happy that we got homework, we have to write 10 lines about our family, yay!! (In german obviously...) So yeah everyone will now wonder why they bother being friends with such a sad person...

Beginning again

2005-09-26T18:45:00.000+01:00

Yippee my first day of lectures and I have french grammar at 9am!!! It was quite a shock when my alarm went off so early, I was very nearly late cos I took so long to drag myself out of bed! But it's not all bad, I found out when I got into uni I don't have the seminars that I thought I did so I have fridays off :D

Going back

2005-09-14T07:37:00.000+01:00

Tonight is my last night in the sleepy little village of Middleton, with it's one shop and two buses an hour...and strangely enough I'm going to miss it!
Urgh I have a nosebleed, argh!!! I'll try not to faint so I can finish typing this...
Anyway...I may have complained the whole summer about there being nothing to do here and being bored, but I'll miss the obvious things like my family and friends, and my new friends at church, and also being able to go for a walk over the hills whenever I feel like it, and seeing farm animals and being able to have my hand sucked by a calf (a very strange feeling!)... and just home in general. It's wierd but I think I'll miss it more than when I went away last year. But hey, I'll be in Manc this time tomorrow, I'll soon forget the country and all will be good again!

Cash in the attic

2005-09-11T05:36:00.000+01:00

Yesterday I went to an auction cos they were filming cash in the attic there!! Unfortunately I don't think I'll be on tv cos we ended up standing in one of the only areas that wasn't being filmed :( At the start the auctioneer told people where they should stand if they didn't want to be filmed, which was where we happened to be standing, and we didn't want to move cos then it would've looked really obvious that we were only there to get on tv! It was quite funny watching the filming though, you realise how fake it all is, and we got to see some newsreader woman whose name I can't remember but I'm sure she's pretty famous!
I have no idea when it's going to be on tv so I probably won't even see it but it was an experience!

Ironic

2005-09-06T22:35:00.000+01:00

The whole summer I've been really wanting to go back to Manchester and now I'm going back in a few days I don't want to...

Housewife and other things

2005-08-21T07:40:00.000+01:00

This week I became a housewife! Not literally obviously, that would be a bit hard since I'm not married, but I feel like one as I seem to have spent a lot of time cooking, washing, ironing and cleaning! The cooking bit has been fun, but I'm not sure about the rest...at least I know I'll be alright at uni this year, I managed to feed myself fine for a week, and I got my 5 servings of fruit of veg almost every day! :D How healthy am I?!
Anyway...back to soul survivor and how brilliant it was! Delirious and Hillsong were there :D and led worship which was awesome, and the meetings were great in general, and so was everything else...I cant be bothered to write loads cos I'm almost falling asleep again...and we saw lots of shooting stars :D which was so cool, I love shooting stars! And we met some random Irish guy who was really mean to me and insulted my height and said I looked about 16...grr, he was funny though, he went round calling everyone "fe-reak" (as in freak, but said in a funny way!) I'm starting to get a bit worried about how old I look, the other day I got charged half fare on the bus (and I didn't ask for it) so the driver must've thought I was younger than 18! I wasn't going to complain that time though cos at least I got to pay less! And at least it'll be good when I'm 60 and only look about 40, that's something to look forward to!

Soul Survivor

2005-08-15T07:45:00.000+01:00

Wow, just got back from soul survivor and had a totally amazing time!! Sadly we had to leave early and I really didn't want to come home, but now I'm back I have the house all to myself for a week which is cool :) and yeah, I'm completely shattered and my bed is calling so I'll have to write more details about the last few days another time...

My weekend away

2005-08-10T04:25:00.000+01:00

I have now returned from my little trip down to the south this weekend, and had a fab time! On saturday I went down to London and met up with Thanh Mai and some of her friends for her birthday, we went rowing on the serpentine in Hyde park and went to see an outdoor screening of Donnie Darko in Kensington Gardens. Had a very cool day, the film was really good although I didn't totally understand it until bits were explained to me afterwards! I was also told that I've lived a very sheltered life cos I'd never heard of it before, which I agree is true! Had a big discussion about this with my parents yesterday and ended up really offending them by making it sound like I thought they hadn't done a very good job of bringing me up, oops! :s I really didn't mean it to sound like that I was just pointing out facts like I'd never been abroad until I was 17, (we always used to go to the same place in Dorset on holiday every year), I hardly ever went to the cinema before I went to uni (hence my lack of film knowledge) etc., I've just been stuck in our little country world with no idea what else was going on out there!!
Anyway...moving on...the rest of the weekend...I went down to Brighton saturday night and stayed with Mai until monday. Had a little tour of Brighton on sunday which was cool cos I'd never been there before. I had a chocolate muffin milkshake which was well nice! (basically just a liquidized muffin in a milkshake!) and we did loads and loads of walking cos after walking around town we walked to church which was over an hours walk, so I was well tired by the end of the day!
Then yesterday I had to get 2 buses and 3 trains to get home!! So I was completely shattered by the time I got back, and tomorrow I have to get up at 6.00am to go to soul survivor! I think I should get an early night...

Unbored

2005-08-05T05:23:00.000+01:00

Thankfully my holiday has become a lot more interesting and a lot less boring recently, I've been too busy to be bored! I've been working loads, making lots of yummy cakes (which unfortunately I can't eat as thay have to be sold!) Today I made chocolate cake and somehow got completely covered in mixture :s speaking of chocolate, I saw Charlie and the chocolate factory last night, which was fantastic! I want to see it again! Really made me want to eat chocolate though, which isn't a good thing since I have to go to the dentist soon...
Going down to London and Brighton at the weekend, then off to soul survivor next week, so it's all good!

I used to believe...

2005-07-22T07:13:00.000+01:00

A while ago I found a really funny website called iusedtobelieve.com, which is basically just stories of what people used to believe when they were younger. Well now I can add my own...I used to believe that hot air balloons were attached to the ground by a long rope to stop them from floating off too far...but I only found out that this wasn't true last week!! *hides head in shame* I suppose it is a bit stupid thinking about it, but I'm sure thats what they did on Postman Pat or something like that, that I saw when I was younger so I always thought it was true! I couldn't understand why my parents were laughing at me so much when I said something about the bit of rope atached to the balloon...

4 days

2005-07-04T15:20:00.000+01:00

4 days to go til my birthday, yay!
That's how bored I am, the only interesting thing I have to do is count the days til my birthday! And play on my sister's bopit extreme 2 which I've got a bit addicted to...I got the high score of 250 yesterday which I was quite proud of! I really need to find a job!

Results

2005-07-03T05:39:00.000+01:00

Yay I passed my first year at uni!! Got my results yesterday, they weren't too bad! I got 60% in modern french literature, 62% in french culture and society, 65% in approaching early french, 65% in morphology&syntax, 71% in french language and 71% in semantics. It's wierd but I actually did better in the worst exams!! Like semantics which I hated cos it was the most complicated pointless subject ever! My average mark for the whole year was 71%, which I was pretty pleased with!

50 ways to kill a slug

2005-06-23T04:14:00.000+01:00

I discovered the other day that my brother has a book called '50 ways to kill a slug' (don't ask me why a 7 year old would want a book like that, I have a strange family!) so I decided to read it incase I should ever have any slug problems! It's actually a pretty funny book, there are some genius ways of killing those slimy horrible creatures, and some that are just really sick!
Here's a few of my favourites!

Hang them out to dry
A slightly time-consuming but amusing way to dry out slugs.

1. Collect a bucketful of slugs.
2.Wearing rubber gloves, peg each one to your washingline.
3.Watch as they wriggle and sway gently in the breeze and dry out and die in the sun.

Impress them with your treads
This one is only for those with strong stomachs-it may not be the kindest way to send slugs off, but it's very satisfying.

1. Tell your children that you want to give them a biology lesson and get them out into the garden in search of slugs.
2.When they have successfully collected enough of the little beasts, give them a quick talk-dipping into your wealth of knowledge about slugs-then send them to bed.
3.Once they are safely tuckd up, wreak revenge by spreading all those slugs on your driveway and driving back and forth over them in your car.

Get them dead drunk
For those of you whose karma may be rocked by slug-slaying, this is the mthod for you...what nicer way for a slug to go?

1.Fill a shallow bowl with beer (Michelob and Budweiser are thought to have a high success rate) and place it strategically in an area of high slug activity.
2.Wait overnight.
3.Slugs love a slurp of stale beer. Once in it they'll drown.
4.Disposing of the slugged brew can be a messy business. A simple solution is to add it to your compst heap.

So there you go, such a nice book!!

In the country...

2005-06-18T06:27:00.000+01:00

I've only been home for 5 days and I'm already getting pretty bored, I don't know how I'm going to survive the whole summer!! It's so quiet compared to Manchester and there's nothing to do!! Obviously that's not entirely true but nothing interesting anyway! I can't believe that until last year I never wanted to live in a city, and thought I'd hate it!
I've also become the automatic babysitter at home again, whenever my parents go out they just assume I'll babysit, it's not always so bad though cos tonight it meant I got to watch Shrek 2! :D Tomorrow we're off to Peterborough for the weekend to go to a christening which will be cool and something to do!!

Freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

2005-06-08T20:53:00.000+01:00

I've finally finished my first year at uni!! Which is great but also scary cos it's gone so so fast! Had my last exam this morning, if it can be called that-it was 25 multiple choice questions most of which were exactly the same as questions on the past papers, we had an hour to do it in and I finished in about 15 minutes!! They were going to make us stay there for the whole hour but when they realised almost everyone had finished by about half way through they let us go! So yeah, I don't think it went too badly!
I also got my first (very early) birthday card and present today, only 1 month to go!!

:D

2005-05-27T23:57:00.000+01:00

Yay, no more semantics! :D Just had my exam which was the one I was dreading the most and it was actually ok! It could've been a lot lot worse anyway...but more importantly I can now watch Smallville season 3, yippee!! I know what I'll be spending a lot of this weekend doing...

Bored (very)

2005-05-26T01:47:00.000+01:00

Here's some interesting facts I found on www.greatfacts.com (I'm very very bored of revision at the mo!) I'm not sure if they're all true but some of them are quite worrying if they are!

On average, every chocolate bar contains at least three insect legs.
A cockroach can live nine days without its head before it starves to death.
Fish scales are an ingredient in most lipsticks.
It takes more calories to eat a piece of celery than the celery has in it to begin with.
"Adcomsubordcomphibspac" is the longest acronym. It is a Navy term standing for Administrative Command, Amphibious Forces, Pacific Fleet Subordinate Command.
People photocopying their buttocks are the cause of 23% of all photocopier errors worldwide.

Interesting!

Yoda

2005-05-22T05:00:00.000+01:00

After watching starwars the other night, I decided I really want to do a study of Yoda-speak!! It'd be such a cool dissertation topic, although somehow I don't think it'd be allowed...
So, being the sad language geek that I am, I worked out that instead of the usual English constituent order (which is basically word order) SVO (subject verb object) he uses OSV (object subject verb). So for example instead of saying 'you still have much to learn' which is SVO, he says 'much to learn you still have' which is OSV!! I know that probably makes no sense to most people but it does to me! The only reason I know so much about this is cos I've been revising it for my exam on monday, so I'm really hoping I get a question on it then I can use Yoda as an example! I think that'd be pretty original and I'm sure it'd amuse the person marking the exam!
I found some stuff on the net about other sad people who have studied Yoda-ish and apparently my observations are true (yay, I understand something!) although it could also be seen as something else that I can't remember but I'll stick with my OSV theory!

One down...

2005-05-03T18:39:00.000+01:00

One exam down, six to go! Just had my oral, which I think went ok, although I'm really not sure, but I know if I say that no-one will believe me even if it's true! Had to talk about lycées autogérés (schools in France that are run by the pupils), and whether or not you can succeed in your studies without discipline(??)...so at least I didn't get asked about french action films!
Now I should really go do some revision for my exam tomorrow...then I have semantics lecture, yippee!! Last week the only thing I learnt was that a hummingbird needs to eat twice its weight in food every day, don't ask me what that has to do with anything!!

Buffalo

2005-04-21T04:50:00.000+01:00

From now on whenever people ask me what you do in linguistics I shall tell them you study the meaning of sentences such as this one:
Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo.
No I haven't just written the same word 6 times, it is a proper grammatical sentence (well apparently anyway) meaning something like:
"American bison habitually bamboozled by members of their own species that have themselves been bamboozled by others of their ilk (that is, buffalo whom other buffalo who have themselves been buffaloed by buffalo regularly buffalo) tend to engage in bamboozlement."
I know, it makes so much sense!!!

The day I was latinized...

2005-03-16T07:14:00.000Z

Today one of my lecturers called me Maria when trying to remember my name, when I told him it was actually Marie he started going on about it being Maria in latin then said "there you go, we've just latinized you"!!! I was quite scared!

I also got to watch a video about the history of Barbie in french today! Apparently she was based on another doll called Lilli who was originally a cartoon character in a German newspaper and chased after rich men!! Oral classes are so educational!

Stressed

2005-03-14T08:54:00.000Z

Argh, I have a 2000 word commentary to write on a french passage before tuesday and I've only written 250 words so far!!! And I don't know what to write, I don't understand it! I also have a cold and a cough and feel generally ill, but at least I kind of have a voice again now :)
Had a great weekend at camp though, lots of hilarious camp jokes (that won't make sense or be at all funny to anyone who wasn't there!) such as pinocchio -"I don't like cake", and bilabial fricative!! One of the best moments was when one of the leaders came into our room, switched off the light and started hitting us with a pillow!! It was so random!
Also learnt that flipping a coin is a great way of making decisions, after me and Sarah spent half an hour trying to deicde who was going to make a phone call!!
Should really get on with my commentary now...

Finally...

2005-03-07T20:21:00.000Z

Yay, I finally got my exam results (all but one) and I'm so happy!!! I got 70% in Principles of linguistics, 82% in Langusge the individual and society and 92% in Introduction to the varieties of English!!! I was so shocked, had to check about 5 times to make sure I'd got the right number! Especially Principles of linguistics cos it was such a hard exam and I really thought I'd failed!
Yippee!!

Ice cream diet

2005-02-09T06:26:00.000Z

Yesterday I heard about the amazing ice cream diet! According to new research eating ice cream is good for you!! Apparently it may melt away fat helping you lose weight faster than if you hadn't eaten the fat in the first place (doesn't make a lot of sense to me!) It could also be good for other things such as keeping bones healthy, and lowering blood pressure.
Unfortunately it isn't as great as it sounds, you can't only eat ice cream, you have to eat it as part of a balanced diet and you're only allowed 1 cup per day for women, 1 1/2 cups per day for men!!! Who eats ice cream in cups anyway?!?

P.S. 5 months til my birthday!!!

A rule of rain

2005-01-30T02:28:00.000Z

Rain is wetter when you go out into it.

Marie (moz) says i can write a post on her blog so i am..........

2005-01-29T17:50:00.000Z

Urmmmmmm......... Moz says I have to say what a cool and amazing person she is, but you know im not so sure.

We've had a busy weekend and I am absolutely knackered, but it twas very cool one and I wanted to say what a cool bunch of friends she has!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And you people in ashburne hall have the best showers I've ever used!

by Emily

Français

2005-01-22T23:04:00.000Z

Le fond de la mer est le couleur des marshmallows violets

Gloups

2005-01-18T07:14:00.000Z

My new favourite french word and word in general - gloups!! The french equivalent of oops!!

Intelligent comment of the day

2005-01-11T02:25:00.000Z

Me (to my brother) : What did you do in your swimming lesson today Mark?
My brother : swam

Duh!!!

Fish

2005-01-09T04:23:00.000Z

As well as ghoti I've worked out another way of spelling fish - ghesi!! I'll leave it up to you to guess (ey) which words the letters come from!!!
P.S today it's exactly 6 months til my birthday!! yay!!

Happy New Year!!

2005-01-02T05:03:00.000Z

To add to the impressiveness of my christmas day post I'll now wish you all a happy new year in 8 languages!!! (The same 8 languages whatever they may be!)

Bonne Annee!!
Godt Nytt Ar!!
Gutes Neues Jahr!!
Felice Anno Nuovo!!
Bom Ano Novo!!
Gelukkig Nieuwjaar!!
Hyvaa Uutta Vuotta!!

Loser

2004-12-27T04:16:00.000Z

Today I suffered the humiliation of getting thrashed at uno by my nine year old sister!!! :o( Not happy!! To begin I let her win a few games cos I felt mean beating her and how does she repay me?!! In one game every single card she put down was a +2 or a +4, and she was dealing...a bit suspicious if you ask me!
I think my problem is I take this game way too seriously, I should really learn to be less competitive, or a better loser!

Merry Christmas!!

2004-12-26T05:54:00.000Z

Joyeux Noel!!
God Jul!!
Frohe Weihnachten!!
Buon Natale!!
Feliz Natal!!
Prettige Kerstdagen!!
Iloista Joulua!!

I have no idea what half of those languages are but I think it looks quite impressive to be able to say Merry Christmas in 8 languages!!

Mince pies

2004-12-23T05:57:00.000Z

Just realised I haven't posted anything for quite a while so thought I'd better give people something to read!! Today I helped make over 40 dozen mince pies!! (thats...erm...a lot of mince pies!! over 480...I think, I'm so bad at maths despite having an A level in it!) I don't like mince pies anyway but I now never want to see another one in my life!! I also got to decorate chocolate yule logs which was fun!! Especially sticking little plastic robins in them! (Just realised how sad I sound!)
Anyway here's some random things I found when I searched "mince pie" in google, they're probably not very interesting to anyone but have a look anyway!!

http://www.boingboing.net/2004/11/24/usb_mince_pies_for_c.html
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1402645,00.html
http://www.pepysdiary.com/p/3371.php

YAY!!!

2004-12-16T04:58:00.000Z

Yippeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!! Today I had 2 exams (which went ok I think!) and have handed in all my coursework so I've finished everything I had to before christmas, I'm so happy! I can get excited about christmas without worrying about work now!! We also had our hall christmas dinner tonight which was a really nice festive occasion, with great entertainment from the jokes in the crackers such as:
Why did the baker get an electric shock?
Because he stood on a bun and a currant ran up his leg!!!
You've no idea how hard it was trying to explain that to a non native speaker of English!!

Winner!!

2004-12-10T21:03:00.000Z

Yay, Matt the champion is finally defeated!! Last night me and Derek beat him at the cities game (variation of the animal game with cities instead of animals), woohoo!!! I'm so happy I've found something I can win!