{ . colour . me . rainbow . }

Christmas continued!

Sun, 27 Dec 2009 01:21:04 GMT

[RANT - skip to the Christmas bit if you can't be bothered to read it!]

Recently, I was looking over some work from the school I've been observing in. I have to do it as part of a child observation study, as well as to prepare myself for the endless hours of marking I see in my future. One child had actually written OMG in their work (this was supposed to be a serious journalism piece), and I have to say, it did tickle me quite a bit (as my fellow students will tell you, as I burst out laughing. Oops!). When I told our class teacher, she cringed. "Oh, I hate it when they do that!" was pretty much what she said.

Although it had made me laugh at the time, I thought about it a bit since then. A lot of kids get their role models for correct English from text messages, and in the case of some children, the Internet (not all families have computers at my school). I was reading over some old journal entries earlier today, which I like to do sometimes, and realised I USE OMG AND LOL TOO D: in my posts! I'm actually feeling a little horrified at myself, since I know I struggle with spelling, so I always check each post to within an inch of its life, yet I'm still not using standard English. This probably sounds like I'm overreacting, but I'm filled with determination to be the best role model I can be. Writing LOL and OMG can sometimes be used effectively for 'internet humor', but mostly in my writing it just looks untidy :( I have no problem with using the odd smiley, as you can see, but the 'netspeak' kind of provides me with a bit of a conundrum.

When I type LOL it is usually because I am actually laughing out loud. Anyone who knows me in person will understand this - I laugh loud, and I laugh often. People at Uni probably call me the Laughing Girl behind my back, or so I imagine, because I may have disturbed a lecture once or twice with the volume of my humor... >_>; whatever Dr. Hibert on the Simpsons has, I have that too. I'll definitely try and get out of the habit of using untidy netspeak or short hand in my posts, simply because it is bad practice, which means I will have to flex my long abandoned writing muscles for other ways to inject humor into my writing. Maybe it won't matter so much to anyone else, as I don't really post that often (and when I do, its either a rant like this one, or lots of pretty picture to sooth my short attention span), but I like to think I can achieve change for good if I put my mind to it.

[/RANT]

Anyways, enough with the boring stuff, here are some amusing Christmas pictures. My Mum's brother and family are coming over tomorrow (or today actually, is that the time?), and they love to play games, so we decided to get into the spirit of it by having a balloon animal challenge...

Snow in St. Albans!

This would be a great picture if my eyes weren't closed :(

LOL James never brushes his hair.

We always go out to a friends party on Christmas eve :) Liz always writes us a good quiz, I lost as usual.

Dad only need one Christmas present this year - The Bro Code. He didn't touch any other present for a good 30mins! Anyone who has seen How I met your Mother will love this book.

Flux Capacitor! 1.21 Gigawatts :O

Mmm purses.

I think that must be chocolate.

LOL Dad, the pink shirt was enough, but the scarf...

Liz is happy with the offering of Kath Kidston.

Sitting in all the wrapping paper.

Christmas dinner! Nom nom nom.

Got a new camera :) it takes good pictures!

The Great Balloon challenge begins. Mum got us crackers full of balloons, so we could try this out. The pump was utterly useless however!

Liz looks like she's enjoying herself a little too much...

Sad Dad is sad because his balloon is limp! :(

Mum discovers a tyre pump in the garage that works VERY well! :D

Hams with his sword and laser gun. I don't think that was part of the game...

Balloon hat making is a science.

A rabbit? Who knows!

My pink dog! I was very proud of my balloon bending skillz.

The sad balloon that looks like a sperm.

Balloon dog has a friend!

Wow, they look a lot ruder then when I took this picture.

Ahahah balloon hat!

err...

Balloon sword for great justice!

</div>

Merry Christmas!

Fri, 25 Dec 2009 14:06:28 GMT

Happy Midwinter Everyone :D

Party hard!

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 11:58:37 GMT

Well, I partied hard last night. Good old YAT work Christmas Party. Was probably the best one this year, though I'll have to wait for others to post pictures to facebook before I can post any myself (my poor camera, it is no more >: ). We ate so much, and since it was James Bond themed, they had a casino. I was going to try for some poker, but all the tables were taken, so myself and Patrick decided to help ourselves to all the unattended wine bottles >:3

This is probably why I feel so rough this morning. Urg.

Luckily, my first lecture is at three. I may drag myself into Uni now and see if I can do some work. Maybe.

Taking advantage of free stuff is the student way of life

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 16:42:23 GMT

I feel a lot better than when I wrote that last post. I still have loads of work to do, but now I actually feel like I know what I need to do, it’s much easier. I have structure in my life, yay :D

A couple of weekends ago was the St. Nicholas Fayre in York, which I always end up helping with. Was at Barley Hall for two days, and bought loads of Viking/Medieval stuff that I don’t actually need, I just wanted lol. Here’s a lovely picture of me and Lindsey behind the till;

The really funny part of the weekend was when I got sent back to DIG for doing too much work! I spent all of Saturday as a 'tavern wench', serving hot mulled wine (and then finishing it off at the end of the day, ahahah!), but on Sunday was thrust in front of the till.

I have never used the Barley Hall till before. Likely, it was found in the archaeological dig they did in the eighties, it’s that flipping old. But, Lindsey and Darren showed me quickly, and then I was off for the day, serving customers and selling tickets. It was pretty simple, but the funny part was when a lot of volunteers were then asking me how to use it.

Barley Hall is mostly run by volunteers, and they’ve been working there a lot longer than I have. Since I was so good at working the till, most of them just wondered off to do some shopping. Hence why we all got in trouble lol, so I was banished to make them work. I ended up coming back at the end of the day, just to help clean up (there was no ulterior motive to do with the mulled wine at all). Overall it was a good weekend, because I had a good chat to a lot of the sellers, especially the horn ladies :) and, the lovely guy selling Viking bracelets gave me a free beeswax candle for buying from him! What a sweetie ♥ now I just need an updated picture of my Viking kit.

I really wish I had time to do more sewing this holiday, but I have all these essays to write :( I have a Tudor dress to work on, a new winter Viking dress possibly in the works, and I’ve just started embroidering for a Viking bag. Le sigh. That doesn’t leave me time for doing any artwork either, tragedy is my life.

Sadly I don’t have enough money for loads of Christmas presents this year, so I have to make time to draw everyone a lovely card :( on the upside, there are lots of parties coming up! Tonight I’m off to Kev’s house with a bunch of people from work for free food (yay!). Then tomorrow Mike at work has organised a trip to Pizza Hut, which I have saved up the last of my money for (boo!). Possibly on Saturday I might be going out as well, and finally on Monday we have our work Christmas party WITH FOOD AND A TABLE OF FREE WINE, DOUBE YAY. There will be photos, I hope ♥

Everything I have done, I have done for you.

Fri, 27 Nov 2009 17:25:13 GMT

I haven't used my LJ to vent in a long time, or actually post anything at all, for that matter. I really wanted to finish putting up all those Malaysia picks - not because I think people are waiting on the edges of their seats to see them lol, mainly for my own benefit, because I just like to be able to see them in an LJ post. Don't ask me why, I'm weird. At any rate, when I have the time (hah!) I'll finish them and back date the posts.

[rant]

Really, the title of my university course should not be Primary Ed. It should be Kiss Goodbye To Any Life You Have (No, We Really Mean It). Since starting in September, I feel as if I've stumbled onto the wrong part of the course. We learn multiple lessons - a bit like being back in GCSE and doing everything again, Science, English, ICT, Performing Arts (Humanities, Maths and PE is saved for next term, oh joy), expect we're expected to do it to A level standard. Did I also mention we have to do the same amount of reading as someone writing a dissertation? Plus, of course, we have to get up at 5:30am once a week to go to a school and do tasks about the lessons they have, as well as writing a child study on several children in the class.

And that is just the first term of the first year of the bleedin course.

For probably the first time in my life, I have the motivation to be an academic. I could never have done it if I'd started at 18 (I have no idea how the 18 year olds on my course do do it), what with all the reading and independent learning we have to do. I've basically lit a fire under myself and kept on top of all of it, which I never do, and most people who know me well are surprised at how with it I am. My reputation on the course seems to be someone who knows what she's doing - a lot of people ask me about stuff, since I am so on top of the work. I've finally had a look at myself and thought, yes, I can do this.

Except. There always seems to be more work. I think I'm on top of one thing, and something else comes hurling in from the sidelines and surprises me. We're supposed to do all this reading, which I'm trying my best to do, but then they ask us to do totally pointless tasks like make posters in groups, to see if we have done it. These things aren't even marked, yet we're expected to take up our valuable independent time doing pointless activities. Its not the actual work that stresses me out, I can handle the assignments and essays - its all the other crap team work shit we aren't even graded on, that they keeping freaking giving us. If I didn't think I'd get kicked off the course, I'd protest.

Last week we got up at 5:30am everyday to go to our respective schools, so we could do as many tasks as possible. I've been calling it the week of coma, since I was pretty much catatonic when we got home every night at about 6:30pm. Not that I didn't enjoy the experience - there were good and bad things about the whole, but it hasn't put me off of being a teacher. Its made me think a lot though, especially because of the children we work with. I can't say much about the school, as that would be a breech of trust, but to say these kids haven't had such a good start in life would be a massive understatement. The area is a poor ex-mining community, the school is okay, and my year 6's have a very low learning level. You leave every day not only physically exhausted, but also emotionally exhausted.

My first day there was a massive culture shock. A lot of people were concerned by how shaken I was, but I got over it pretty quickly. The more I think about it, the more I wonder what I can really do for these children. They're all lovely, but lack significant emotional, moral, cultural and intellectual development. If I can't do anything for them, should I really be a teacher? Its a question I ponder over a lot, but there never really seems to be an answer. By the end of the year, I'll be teaching them with two other girls (we're worked together so far, and they're both lovely. I misjudged them a little at first, being that they are so young, but I don't think I'd have survived that week without them), and then I guess we'll see if any of us can make a difference.

[/rant]

Yesterday we were in school again, and I've just felt catatonic ever since. I managed to crawl into English this morning, but I couldn't face two hours of Science. I have never missed a single lecture before D: I must have looked pretty awful though, because everyone said I should go home. By home, I took that to mean 'go into town and buy crap to make yourself feel better!' which I did, without managing to fall flat on my face from exhaustion. I was quite proud of myself. On a plus note, a customer left me some biscuits at DIG, because her and her son had really enjoyed my tour. I was so chuffed, I kept handing out anyone near me a biscuit. That cheered me up quite a bit.

Its the Saint Nicholas fair in York at the moment, which means town is crammed and I can get some Christmas presents for everyone. I've been told I'm working in Barley Hall tomorrow and Sunday, so I shall save my purchase gushing for then, in case I buy anything else.

At the moment I just don't want to think about Uni. Even if I am working, at least I can have a brain break at the weekend. I don't even have to think when I'm at work, even if people ask me a history question. I just open my mouth, and the right words come out. Hard to believe my job has now become my weekend off, but there you go. Probably not having a day to physically rest means I am more tired all the time, but I won't quit. I need the money, and also... I need to have friends my own age! D: Not that I don't love the Uni people, but honestly. Sometimes you just wanna geek out over plastic dinosaurs and horn spoons. How bizarre my life is. Sometimes I just wish the Goblin King would come and take me away.

*waits*

Damn it, that never works! >:

Sing-lah-por!

Sun, 16 Aug 2009 17:33:36 GMT

Those of you who are on Facebook will probably have seen most of these pictures already, but some of them I haven't posted before :)

First installment, Singapore! Let me tell you all about it through the medium of pictures;

In the car, heading towards the airport. As you can see, we are tired already.

Plane!

Board of plane now :(

One of the few words I know in Malay is Keluar, because its everywhere. And Tandis, which means toilet.

Obligatory out of plane shot.

Yay, we're about to arrive in KL!

KL airport. Being in here was interesting after only 3 hours of sleep. It was just a short stop however...

On to Singapore! We sat next to a nice British woman, who lived in KL with her Malay husband and children. She was taking them to see Liverpool, who were incidently in Singapore as well ^^;

James develeopes the first signs of ROBOTitius before we get on the MRT. This is the Singapore version of the underground, which is pretty futuristic and awesome.

The first thing we do in Singapore is SLEEP. For like half an hour, and then it was up and out again!

My parents balcony. Walking out, it was so awesome and HOT.

The Durians! As seen from our balcony. We were on the 23rd floor I think.

Sing-lah-por!

Getting ready to go out for food.

Sisters ♥

The first thing we ate. After plane food, this was bloody amazing. Super cheap as well. The drink is mango juice.

This is us getting lost whilst trying to find a temple. This is a running theme for our holiday.

Don't have any pictures of this temple unfortunatly, its considered a bit rude to just start snapping away, and I was tired. These are James's hands, covered in red dye from the incense sticks we used.

L to R: Conrad, Dad, Me, James. Conrad is our sometimes adopted brother when we need to make up numbers. Oh yes, we were all given little cute packets of blessed rice at the temple.

Much later that evening we went to another temple, which was special... because it was inside an aparment building! The actual temple is to the left, but this is there symbol. It was pretty cool, apart from the fact we were all falling asleep by this point.

James, being a lazy sod.

Me, camwhoring.

Walking to the Goddess of Mercy temple in town.

Outside the Goddess of Mercy Temple. Again, wasn't really supposed to take pictures, but its a very pretty temple. Inside they had lots of people shaking jars full of sticks, which is an interesting kind of fortune telling.

Inside. I almost got thrown out for taking this, so I had to post it!

The hindu temple next door.

Don't feed the pidgeons!

The fortune center, which had a massive religious shop in it. Alters, statues, prayer beads. You name it, they had it.

We mostly got around Singapore on a convoy of many taxi. The taxi drivers found this pretty amusing. Again, James, Elizabeth, Mum and the Patel family :)

James and Bob.

This is where we were headed, the best tea shop in the world. TENREN! :D I bought a lot of tea.

Me and the sibs, after our run to Suntech city. We were only in Singapore for two days, so we didn't really have time for some seriouse shopping (though I did buy 3 handbags :x) but we really wanted to do Suntech at least once. They told us it would take us 20mins to walk through the underground city to get there, and we took that as a challange to beat. Managed it in 10mins, which gave us about 30mins shopping time.

A large group of white people, cluttering up the place.

Another temple. This one was cool, it had a wishing well inside it. The idea was, you throw some money in, say a prayer, then pick up a small bucket to throw water over the statue at the back. Some of us had done it before, so managed to get the water where it was supposed to go... I got most of it on myself :(

I think this speaks for itself really.

Singapore at 2am. Sadly the Durians are dark, they were lit up earlier in the evening.

Another night shot.

MRT back to the airport!

Mum and Liz don't look impressed by our antics.

Airport-chan is pink!

Goodbye Singapore, we'll be seeing you again soon!

I have over 800 pictures to edit from Penang, so that might take a while D:

Tofupillow :D

Sun, 09 Aug 2009 06:57:12 GMT

I'm back from Malaysia :D

Man, what an awesome time I had. Eating, shopping, eating, temples, eating, some more eating... I actually have culture shock coming back to England, because I'm not used to seeing white people everywhere D: weird. I'll post about it in more detail when all the photographs are uploaded (of which there are a lot), but for now, have a tofupillow;

Reflections~

Fri, 17 Jul 2009 12:29:28 GMT

Its now exactly one week until I fly to Malaysia. I'm reeeally excited, but at the same time, tired and fed up :/ I have loads to do before I leave, but I've wasted my whole morning procrastinating. I did get some drawing done, but meh, I should really be cleaning and packing. I'll get my butt into gear as soon as this post is done.

Last night I went out with a meal with lots of people from work (loreleyluna came as my wife :3 ) because our beloved volunteer Katy is leaving. Its a crime that they won't give her a job, but that's YAT for you, petty bastards. We had a good time anyways, apart from when they didn't bring us our paella in La Tasca - but we made up for that by drinking a lot! I've also been carrying my little Chinese Horoscope book around with me, which suddenly everyone has become fascinated by, its now the new thing to read out at the pub! My little book is very (scarily some have said) accurate, and everyone is keen to know who they should be looking to go out with. Its quite funny, because I often use it for that very shallow reason >_>;

Anyways, I finally have some pictures of that play I was in! Mark, our director, took them, and he's just sent them out to us. I'm only going to post the ones of my play (there were three plays in total), well, the choice ones. Its shockingly awful how un-photogenic I am :( some of the pictures made me cringe, so I combed through them for the halfway decent ones. I still don't look great in most of them, but at least Ben looks alright, hee. Our play was called 'Reflections';

The writer was really pleased with it, so hopefully we'll get to do it again. I'm excited anyways :) its really fun to be part of a group again, even if a lot of them are quite a bit older than me. I predict I have an eventful half year left to make the most of :D

Urbex

Sun, 12 Jul 2009 18:55:45 GMT

So, I thought it was about time I made a post about this. Last week I did my first play for 6 years (!?!), only a short piece, but very fun none the less. I've joined a group called YSCP, and everyone is really lovely and awesome - and older, which is nice, makes me feel less bad about being a 20-something armature! But anyways, for the play, my character was supposed to be blond. Obviously I don't have blond hair, and was thinking of getting a wig. It suddenly occurred to me however, that it has been too many years since I've done anything strange with my hair... and Jemma helpfully told me that I wouldn't get in trouble at work for it. Soooo... prepare yourself for a shock if you haven't seen the Facebook images yet!

I actually quite like it, and might keep it until dying the roots becomes too much of a hassle. My mum is a bit pissed off I've done it just before we go to Malaysia, but meh :P

More recently I've been continuing my obsession with going out and doing stuff, which is what lead me to join the YSCP in the first place. Neil, a Viking friend of mine from Jorvik, invited me yesterday to come and see him play Jesus in an open air mystery play (he really looks like Jesus!). It was pretty awesome watching him get crucified whilst semi-naked (oh how I laughed), though I was surprised I was the only person from work who came. It was alright in the end, since me and Neil decided to just follow the other actors and go out for drinks with them, rather than with people from work, which was mightly fun.

Before all that though, I walked with him and his parents to where they'd parked their car, which was in.... an abandoned ambulance building! One of the actors was a former paramedic, so he knew the code to get in. Apparently they'd been using it for practicing, but it made a pretty good private car park as well. Turns out the building also must have had offices in it, so me and Neil decided to explore. Here, I introduced him to the idea of Urbexing, and we had a jolly good time...

The first of many creepy, plaster coated rooms. Let me introduce you to the rules of urban exploring...

Open cupboards are another creepy, running theme.

Mmmn, sink paper

Neil enjoys the graffiti in the ladies toilets

Neil decided he needed to use the previous toilet, so I scampered off by myself for a bit.

Ventured back for this photo.

I like broken windows that look like spider webs.

Ahh he's coming for me! Urban explorers should always be on the look out for police/ zombies. Luckily, Neil is neither.

Mnn more creepy cupboards.

Wonder where that key is for?

Nuffin...

... a Katherine!

Neil manages to find some interesting possible bondage hooks.

Another important rule of urban exploring - don't move things. They are more interesting in their natural environments.

Managed to get onto the roof.

A football and some other crap.

Really now?

In case of zombie invasion, always have bandages.

Mnn another Silent Hill sink.

The ambulance hanger (?)

Some more creepy bondage chains!

I'll probably post these to my Facebook as well, which is here, in case anyone is desperate to friend me :P

MANCHESTER 2009

Fri, 10 Jul 2009 09:36:25 GMT

Whoa, massive backlog of stuff has happened recently! I've been too lazy to update my journal :/ so, this is me, catching up, starting with...

MANCHESTER!!
An adventure starring Jemma and Katherine of the YAT slave trade... I mean workplace.
Some of these photographs were taken by me, some by Jemma.

Waiting at York station. Look at all the crap we carried with us!

On the train. See how easily entertained we are!

Our hotel room. The hotel itself was pretty posh, and surprisingly expressive. The company was paying, or rather, they were supposed to! When we got there, we realized that YAT had failed us yet again, and I had to hand over my credit card >: luckily however, I got all my money back later.

Us getting ready to go out on the first night. We had a movie star mirror!

This is how you eat posh french food!

x2!

Had a bit of a wonder around Manchester and found a bar called the Shakespeare. Our kind of place, obviously.

Our stall, at the Fun Ideas Show. Doesn't Jemma look fab?? It was, however, a long and boring day, and we went slightly mental towards the end.

The wench. At some point, we noticed this really creepy teddy bear driving a car and singing recorded songs was being paraded around, and stopped by us at one point, playing the time warp. We, of course, couldn't resist, and did the dance, whilst all the other stall people laughed at us/ avoided our insanity.

Jemma's geeking out over David Beckham's shirt, hee hee.

There was a stall giving away free ice-cream, which I abused a LOT. I think the guys giving it away thought I was pretty funny, jangling around with my medieval keys.

DEATH

DEATH

Found Chinatown! Very exciting.

LOL, we chose pizza this time.

Even though it was a Saturday night, we thought it would be quite cool to go and see a movie. I remembered seeing a cinema when we were at the GMax, but it took us bloody ages to find it! It was awesome and massive though, and we went to see Transformers 2. Giant Robots from space turning into things and blowing stuff up. What more could you ask for?

Afterwards we went to Deansgate, mostly because I was curious about spotting some kind of celebrity. We didn't see any, but we hopped between some hilarious bars, before wondering back towards the hotel, which is where we found this little underground gem, Sam's Bar. It was a good night.

The chandelier in the hotel lobby.

Climbing the many stairs for the millionth time. It was easier with alcohol!

Next morning, bit of a mess!

Obviously we had a room with a view. There was also a nightclub just under us, so you can imagine how fun that was, to listen to Michael Jackson all night.

The Britannia hotel. Our room was on the first floor, third from the left, next to the banner.

A better view of the inside of the GMax. It was flipping huge! And we only used about a quarter of it.

Huge building is huge.

Someone gifted us with pirate things, wee!

Arrrg!

Tidied up afterwards. Managed to get that huge banner thing into that red box, it was an effort.

Next cover of Vogue.

Sleeping on the train home.

Human Proximity to Pigeon

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 13:26:27 GMT

The last couple of days have been interesting. Finally gotten over my throat infection, which is a relife - I really hate being ill, especialy when I'm stuck in bed with nothing to do. Anna has now introduced me to a new game called Peggle, which I'm kind of glad I found out about after my recovery, else I might have vanished into a Peggle shaped hole for the last week or so.

Had Mead Wednedsay as usual this week, execpt I skipped away for about 2 hours. I may not have mentioned this, but a few weeks ago my friend Andrea from work took me to an audition with a company called Yorkscript (local people writing plays about anything), and surprisingly enough, I got a part! Its only a two person play, me and this guy called Ben, called Reflections, and we had our first rehersal this Wed. It's so awesome to be doing acting again, even though my character is supposed to be blond LOL! I may also have scared Ben a bit, poor thing :/ he's maybe in his thirties and kind of quiet, so yeah... oh well. Can't really be anything but myself.

Anna stayed over Wednesday night, and because I had Thursday and today off, we decided to jaunt around a bit, visit raineonthebrain in Selby. We had this epic breakfast on Thursday morning - egg, muffins, bacon and cheese, but it was whilst I was doing the washing up that I got a bit of a surprise. We have a door in the kitchen that leads to our utility room (or the Panic Room, as I like to call it), with a furthur door inside there that leads to our yard. Both were open to let some air in, so I look down whilst doing the washing up, and a PIGEON is staring up at me. I give a girly squeak, which makes Anna look up and scream, and both of us run out of the kitchen yelling for my housemate lorelyluna. She was like 'What have you guys done now?' and I expressed my distress by standing in her doorway and waving my arms, saying 'There's a pigeon in the kitchen!' D:

LOL. So we all troop back downstairs and manage to chase the poor thing back outside. It can't seem to fly, and trips over its own feet several times. We noticed it also has some tags on its legs, which later reveals its actually a racing pigeon! What followed was a rather hilarious few hours where we would turn our backs and the pigeon would come strolling back into the house again! It really wanted to be inside, so eventually lorelyluna caught it so we could read its tags and find out who its owner was. By this point I was kind of over my fear of it and found it kind of endering - we've resulted to calling it Pidgy-pidge in a very XKCD 'human proximity to cat' way. We gave it water and some bread and seeds, but it just seemed to be kind of tired and disoritendated. Apparently this can happen to racing pigeons, especialy if they get dehydrated.

Leaving Pidgy-pidge in the yard, we went on an epic train adventure to Selby (by we, I mean Anna, lorelyluna and myself), to visit the lovely raineonthebrain. Who we then kidnapped and brought back with us, ahahah! Plus her Playstation2 for some late night FF12 and Peggle games. Pidgy-pidge was still in the yard, so we brought him into the utility room for the night, and this morning lorelyluna put him in a box with some food and water, as par the owners instructions;

Can you see the pigeon?

Apparently he's flown all the way from France! No wonder he was so knackered. Poor thing - we aren't sure at the moment if they want him back, because his foot is a bit injured, but I'm sure we can find a pigeon fancier in York who'll take him. This is the closest I have ever had to a pet >: poor Pidgy-pidge, I will miss making stupid cooing noises at you when you are gone.

Now I have to clean and pack, because myself and Jemma are going to Manchester this weekend, for work :D. Am I excited!? Well, indeed.

Viral infection, wrrrrrrrrrrrrrrry!

Sat, 20 Jun 2009 23:38:21 GMT

I have a throat infection :( it is a sad time. I've pretty much been in bed since Tuesday, a totally useless lump. The thing I hate most about being ill like this, I can literally do nothing ><. Just sit in bed all day, hoping my computer will keep me company.

So far, I have watched;

All of season 4 of Doctor Who
The first series of the Sarah Jane Adventures (I'm downloading the second as we speak!)
Several episodes of Lie To Me, which is amazing OMG.
Some very random internet videos, including the Sailor Moon Abridged series (very funny), and some good old Xiaxue's Guide to Life.

I really should just go to sleep, but I couldn't help sharing this with you all. Maybe because I am tired, but this is so cute, and I really want one.

Tomorrow, I pray for the energy to do something useful, like more drawing. And the washing up :<

EDIT: Spellchecker.net is my new friend :>

Long time no see.

Sun, 14 Jun 2009 19:54:46 GMT

I think this picture of the Evil Eye sign pretty much sums up my life at the moment.

Goodness, its been a while since I've updated this thing - let alone read anything on my friends page (sorry guys!). I've been on a... well, I suppose you could call it a bit of a bender really. Going out drinking a lot with friends from work, and not just on Mead Wednesday. I went to visit my family a few weeks ago, and last week my mum and my sister came up to visit me. It was a pretty awesome visit, I actually took them to the Evil Eye and we met up with some of the crew, got very drunk and had an awesome time. Everyone loved mum, predictably enough, and Liz was in her element. Growing up to be a deviant, just like her older sister >:)

I even took mum and a friend of hers to Jorvik the next day, got them in free whilst me and Liz went shopping. It was pretty funny, all the Vikings were like 'Hi Pat :D', and all the ones who hadn't come out with us were like WTF how do you know this woman?? She enjoyed herself, at any rate.

Unfortunately, my new obsession seems to be trips to the pub. I often lament about my obsessive personality, but doesn't seem to be anything I can do about it. Not as bad as it could be I guess - less expensive than dolls, and less deviant than other stuff I could be doing (there is a story behind that comment, buts its long and weird, so I can't be bothered to tell it). What would really make things better is just... someone I could drag out with me whenever I feel like. Me and Anna used to get together all the time, not just on Wednesday, but its much harder now she lives in Harrogate. I have lots of other people I love to drink/ socialize with, but many of them have girlfriends/boyfriends or shit tons of Uni work to do, so I'd feel a bit weird asking them out all the time :( I'm even slightly tempted to ask someone out, just so I can have some company every now and then, but that's not really as easy as it sounds.

Le sigh. At least not going out this evening means I've actually cleaned my kitchen. And made some delicious chicken karaage for dinner. Right now I'm contemplating just watching some TV shows, like Doctor Who, now that Ashes to Ashes has finished (the ending was kind of awesome in a terrible, OMG FTW scary what-were-they-thinking way ^^; ). Before I go though, here's a cute picture of myself and Anna at our favourite drinking hole;

More Viking adventures!

Fri, 08 May 2009 20:17:20 GMT

Few, the last two weeks have been busy @_@; I've been trying to keep track of everything, but it is hard when you have no time! Today I've literally spent all day clearing out all the crap in my room, and then cleaning it. Pretty successful, and I feel a lot better for it. It's amazing what you find when you go through stuff you've had for ages, like tons of postcards, birthday cards, and even some moleskines I thought I'd lost.

On a more recapping note, not only have I been doing a lot more Viking outreaches recently, I also went down to St.Albans (and London) last weekend, but I shall talk about that in another post. Last time I spoke about Viking outreach, I was meaning to tell the tale of how me and Colleen escaped the zombie hordes of Royston Vasey... sorry, I mean Halifax! Sadly I didn't take any pictures of the experience, but having learnt my lesson, I took my camera with me two Wednesdays ago, and this was the result!

Myself and Colleen were asked to do a Viking Outreach in a place called Boggle Hole, which is apparently near Whitby. We knew this would take some time to get there, so she not only brought her van, but her husband as well! Ron is lovely and also helped us with the Viking stuff, since he and Col normally do reenactment in their spare time anyways. He's also a bit mental, which is why I guess Col keeps him around! We stopped off in Pickering for fish and chips, though I don't think the people of Pickering were quite ready for us...

This is Ron, emerging from the men's loos. Possibly one of the funniest things I've ever seen is the looks on peoples faces as Ron walked past. Especially this one old guy, who couldn't believe his eyes...

.... because Ron does look like he's wearing a dress. Myself and Colleen were sat in the car, pissing ourselves laughing.

We set off on our way, with some lovely countryside views.

It took us about 2 hours in total to drive there, but was made fun mostly by Colleen shouting abuse at slow drivers, and Ron relating holiday stories to me.

Ron looks very scary in this picture.

And me! By this point we were making lots of horrible jokes about sheep, and I was meant to be gazing adoringly at them.

Ron is a sheep whisperer

"Look!" says Col, "If you're quick, you might get a decent looking one!"

Heading down to Boggle Hole, we weren't allowed to bring the car, so had to walk the cart down. Bloody good thing they brought the cart, because it was pretty steep and long!

They lent me a coat and a mink :3

Col appears to be on her 200th cigarette already.

We appear to be heading towards the sea! On our way out, the people who own Boggle Hole offered us a lift in their jeep, which they had to drive into the sea to get back up again. That was an exciting experience.

This is the path we struggled to drag the cart along...

And this is the bridge! Colleen appears to be saying "What the f*%@!"

Classy.

Back at the field, after our exciting jeep ride into the sea, and off home we went.

The story doesn't end there however, oh no. We were supposed to be following the directions of Col's TomTom to get us home, but we still managed to get fantastically lost, going up and down and through the most random little farms. By the time we got back on track, it was getting dark, and all of us were in stitches from the stories Ron was pulling out of his ass. I learnt some interesting things about secret underground bomb shelters in the area, bit random...

Due to the stories, none of us were really paying attention, and as we pulled out of Pickering, Col suddenly goes; "Fuck, fuck!" as we're flagged down by a police officers! The conversation went something like this;

Police: Did you know you where speeding? This road is 30miles an hour.
Col: Oh yes, didn't know that.
Police: Well, you were. Where have you just come from?
Col: *still dressed in Viking costume* from work!
Police: ..... where do you work?
Col: The Jorvik Viking Hotel... I mean center! We just came from Boggle Hole, have you heard of it?
Police: no.
Col: Neither had we! *Proceeds to tell long winded story about getting lost, whilst Ron makes random unnessiary comments, and the poor Policeman is trying hard not to laugh*
Police: Well, I'll let you off this time, but just remember, no more speeding unless you want 3 points on your license.
Col: No problem. By the way, where did you think we'd come from?
Police: A fancy dress party *is vainly trying to contain his laughter*

And with that, we headed off again (waiting until turning a corner before speeding away). My god, how we laughed. The worse part is, if he'd actually asked any of us to step out of the car, we would have had a hard time explaining all the knives we were carrying! That actually had as in fits on the way home, imagining phoning in to work and asking for bail. These things only ever happen when I'm with Col and Ron. Despite all that excitement, I still managed to go to the pub for Mead Wednesday afterward :)

meeeeead wednesday!

Fri, 24 Apr 2009 21:28:16 GMT

I did a Viking outreach today with Colleen, which I am currently writing a long post about. I'm not sure if I'm going to post it or not though, because its only really funny if you've seen League of Gentlemen (the place we went to was seriously Royston Vasey, OMG D: ). We had to make an epic escape because it was so terrible, but more on this later.

Right now, I am going to post some lovely photographs from Wednesday night :D me and Anna completed our shopping trip, came back to York, gathered a few people, and got utterly wasted!

So, maybe we had more than a few drinks...

So, we arrive in York from Leeds, and Anna spots a fire engine! Her friend Neil is trying to collect pictures of fire engines for his website, so I happily lept into this picture for laughs!

We enjoyed a rum and raisin ice cream cone

And then settle into the evil eye for some random. I have a new necklace from Leeds :D

Baggins, the cat bag!

Tom joins us for some fun! Follow by loreleyluna and cicak!

Then things got a bit strange....

Bondage mead!? With my new necklace!?

loreleyluna controls the Evil Eye.

Better use of my necklace!

Mead goggles 8D

Pished.

Further adventures in life bettering

Wed, 22 Apr 2009 07:55:12 GMT

Morning all! Despite today being my day off, I've kind of woken up at my usual time - I guess when you get up early every day, it becomes harder to sleep in. Also, I'm excited because I'm meeting Anna in Leeds today, so we can shop and pretend like we have money, ahahaha.

Kafers, progress is thy name. Since my last post, cicak and I have spoken about the whole running thing. She linked me some awesome sites from her delicious (I do also have a delicious account, but it has nothing on it you guys would actually want to see :P), namely this and this. I now realize where I went wrong the other day, which is to say, pushing myself too hard. Perhapes with our combined efforts, we can actually follow these plans. Will keep progress updated, lah.

Another reason I'm excited is because I'm going home in a week, because its that time of year again. The Chang Sun Feng celebration, where we meet up, do some Tai Chi, eat a lot of food, and generally hang out. I've booked three days off work, so I can have a nice long weekend with my family and friends. So yeah, if any other St. Albands crew want to meet up, I'll be free Sat 2nd or Monday 4th. I may be coming home more weekends anyways, because my friend Anna is needing to be doing work at the British Library in London, but has no one to stay with whilst there. Easy solution of course is my house, which means I can come mong out some more :) also, loreleyluna, cicak, raineonthebrain, you guys are all welcome to join us if you fancy a small holiday.

Speaking of holidays, its only 4 months until the Malaysia trip! I cannot contain my excitement, seriously. As you can tell, I am practically counting down the days. Pretty much everything I do is in prep for this trip (which reminds me, must get a new passport!), which is why I'm buying lots of new clothes and stuff. I got some cute cute coloured hot pants from New Look, which I wore yesterday - this may have been a mistake, as every morning I open my front door to pray, and all I could hear as I was trying to recite the Great Compassion Mantra was these builders across the street going "Cor, look at the bird down there! Fwaaa!". Thanks guys, I could hear every word you said, clear as crystal. I did give them a little wave when I was done - as Anna said, it was probably the highlight of their day.

I've realized recently, my posts have been lacking in pictures for you guys to look at. I always think my posts are a bit too long; didn't read, as I myself have a very short attention span for things without pictures. Myself and the ladies had another foody day yesterday, and I made salmon pasta with chocolate cake for dessert. Sadly didn't take any pictures of it though, I was so hungry I just scoffed it all really quick. So, instead, here are some amusing pictures of me at work! Well, if you haven't already seen them on facebook, that is;

Myself and Lindsey dressed as Vikings. We were at the Youth Hostel at night, which is why the picture is very dark and grainy. Poor Lindsey looks very small next to me! The giant Viking woman.

Katy and me, getting ready to blag a weapons workshop. I think this was when Colleen was dressed as a nun. Oh what fun we had.

Our staff room is usually the only place where a bit of peace and quiet can be found. CHECK OUT MY UNIFORM GUYZ, IS IT NOT VOGUE??

My tudor costume. Here I am posing with Katherina, who has sadly gone back to Germany now :( we have lots of volunteers, all of whom end up leaving us, like jilted lovers.

Myself and our cleaner, the loveliest woman on earth. I believe its her camera these pictures were taken on. She's a little Brazilian woman who speaks very little English, so has been teaching me Portuguese instead :D moito bom!

When dressed as a tudor lady, I am always the picture of elegance. Note the authentic tudor time piece on my wrist.

Some whining about my coming year

Sun, 19 Apr 2009 19:06:58 GMT

I've just been out for coffee with friends from work, which is something I haven't done in a long time. Firstly the coffee is making me feel all buzzed up and awake, like I should be up and doing stuff, but I know that will lead to a crash of epic proportions e_e; it feels good though, to have somewhat of a busy social life. I go through strange phases - a lot of the time, I find my own company to be best, but recently, I've had this massive craving to go out and do things.

Out of interest, I decided to read my Chinese Horoscope for the year (well, several to get a kind of overview), and was interested with what I found. The Ox year, which is my personal year, is where I'm supposed to make big changes and set myself on a new path for the next 12 years. Looking good so far, seeing as I'm planning to go back to Uni this September. In case anyone is interested, I've got all my acceptance letters back now, so I just have to choose where I want to go! Most likely it will be York St John again, but I shall converse with the 'rents first.

Being an Ox, I tend to be pretty staid in the way I do stuff, so this is a good year to get myself out of bad habits. I want to be fit, for a start. On my last day off I decided to go for a run and almost killed myself, because I'm so bloody unfit, so that's something I need to work on. It would be a lot easier if I had someone to do it with me, but alas, we are all lazy buggers around here (no offense guys, but you know its true). Mostly this fitness thing is in prep for Malaysia, because I don't want to be a total flab monster and lag behind whilst everyone else trudges up hills and stuff. Also, a lot of Malaysians are naturally slim as Asians tend to be, so they see me, almost 6" with plenty of curves to go around, and I feel like a bit of a giant blob. If I could keep up with everyone and look decent in a swimming costume, that would be enough for me.

Sadly, this is not a good year for me to be looking into relationships. This made me a little disappointed, because my socialite urges have been tingling, and I really want to go out and meet new people. Making friends is wonderful too, but also meeting a decent man would be fab. I've even asked Jen at work to introduce me to some of her tall manish friends, in the hopes of something sparking off, but.... obviously if it doesn't, I'll have to try not to be so disheartened. Perhaps having a more upbeat social life with friends will take my mind of it? I haven't had much luck in love in years (or maybe ever?), so I'm hoping fate will be looking favorably on me soon. *big eyes* ;o;

Those of you who know me well will probably have realized I have a bit of problem with obsessions. When I find something I really like, it becomes the center of my universe until I basically burn myself off it, which is something I'm trying to curb this year. Not healthy, I know! At the moment it's mostly focused around TV series, which is alright... and beauty products, which is not necessarily bad, apart from the fact it costs money. Just recently I spent a sickening amount of money on Benefit make-up, some hair straighteners, and clothes. I'm hopefully going shopping this Wednesday to Leeds as well, which just adds to it. I'm doing my best to keep this obsession under control though, by only buying things of decent quality that will last a long time. That way, I won't end with a bunch of crap that I'll never use/ wear. I've even cleared out a lot of old stuff, like clothes I don't wear anymore, to begin the age old spring cleaning. I just hope I can spring clean my life as much as my wardrobe.

On a cherry note though, I have been drawing a lot more recently, and even getting some nice compliments from people at work (where I do most of my drawing haha). One day, even if I do become a teacher, I will have a worthwhile artistic career/ hobby to follow through with, even if it is just writing and drawing comics about Vikings :D

Lastly, dear St Albans crew - who's around on the 2nd, 3rd, or 4th of May? Because I will be, ahahaha :D being seeing you lovelies soon!

LIFE ON MARS 8O

Mon, 06 Apr 2009 23:14:23 GMT

My god, this is why I shouldn't be allowed to stay up late at night, randomly searching things on LJ. I happened to come across a post about the ending of the US TV series, Life on Mars, which just made me too curious for words.

I've known for a while now that the US decided to make their own version of Life on Mars - the English version being possibly one of my favorite TV shows ever - but held off on watching it, because I just knew it would be cheesy as fuck. Well, I wasn't wrong... I present you with one of the most cring worthy videos I have seen in a while.

Apparently this wasn't good enough for US, oh no. So they re-cast the whole thing and shot it again, which annoyingly, took me ages to find the trailer for. It is possibly even more LOL than the first one? Especially because Gene is a tiny, scrawny man! :O British!Gene could eat you for breakfast, man, and still have room for blaggers.

BUT WAIT. Just before you thought I'd scarred your eyeballs beyond repair, there is MORE. Oh, more than I care to know, but I have to share. Because yes, SPAIN have made their own version :DDDD which a wonderful LJ user, may_potter, has translated here; http://community.livejournal.com/lifein1973/1615775.html

The bit were Samuel Santos spins into the white void actually killed me. I weep with the cheese of it all. Enjoy my friends, enjoy.

:D Happy face!

Sun, 05 Apr 2009 10:29:12 GMT

Thanks everyone who posted to my last crisis!post, the problem is fixed now. Daisy is all happy and sparkly clean, which does mean I have to re-install all my programs, but no longer is it busted :). I'm at raineonthebrain's house right now, monging out, but I managed to fix Daisy before I left.

I turned off the Window's Live Updates, and it was like 'do you want to install SP3?' and I was like 'NO MOTHERFUCKER, ACCESS DENIED }:0' AHAHAHAHAHA. Ahem. So yes, no more shitty windows updates for me :)

♥

Goddamit Daisy D:

Fri, 03 Apr 2009 11:33:29 GMT

ARG. This post is worth several days worth of frustration >:{ my laptop, Daisy, seems to have died a rather spectacular death, so I'm posting this from work on my lunch break.

I think it has something to do with the Windows System Pack 3 update, but whatever it is, it is totally fucked. I can turn it on for a short while, but then it freezes, and I have to reboot. Arg! Luckily I've had enough time to store everything on an external hard drive, but still... tried restoring it to its factory settings (and again this morning), but nothing seems to be working :(

Is this the end for my faithful Daisy? Hopefully we shall find out soon.

Dressing up is hard to do.

Fri, 20 Mar 2009 17:50:12 GMT

Today was meeeeental. Work has been tough the last week, since lots of people are on holiday and ill, so we've been worked off our arses more than usual, giving tours and such. I was so glad it was Friday today, my sixth day this week, wasn't gonna be that bad, right?

D:

One sick member of stuff really does mess a lot of things up. This morning I was dressed as a Medieval lady, taking some Dutch teenagers around Barley Hall and telling them about medieval medical practices (this is like, my favourite workshop, but I haven't done it in a while, so it was a bit short). When that finished, I had to run back to DIG, change into a Viking costume and joined Colleen (who was dressed as a 10th century nun) to do a Battle Tactics workshop.

Its supposed to be done by a man, obviously, so the fact we managed to pull an amazing workshop out of our asses when one of us was dressed as a nun was pretty amazing. Me and Collen, we rock the blag. To be fair, Collen is pretty amazing at workshops anyways, but it worked much better with both of us - I was the cunning woman, the Viking witch that calls the gods down before battle. So, we had the whole Christian / Norse pagan shit down well.

Few. It was actually quite fun, but I'm glad its over. I've got the whole weekend ahead of me now, to waste away as I choose :D

Yesterday we had our usual food (sometimes sewing) day, since we couldn't do it on Tuesday like we normally do. loreleyluna's turn to cook, and she produced some lovely sticky chicken and noodles for us.

loreleyluna looks like a beautiful Victorian governess.

I can't help taking pictures of ciack and her Durham pout. This time with my headphones!

Tasty tasty noodles and sticky chicken.

Teeeea.

With all this illness about, I can feel myself coming down with something. Praying I don't, because I'd rather not be ill on my days off >:

Spring

Mon, 16 Mar 2009 18:11:30 GMT

Every time I step out my door, I can smell spring on the way. Its such a lovely feeling, walking out into the sunshine each day - I didn't even bother with a coat today, just threw on a hoodie as I headed to work. I kind of feel as if winter pushed me into an animalistic hibernation. I really hate the cold, and was spoilt when I was younger by living in a very warm house. Alas, no more.

Genuinely, I pretty much abandoned all my projects in October of last year. I've been pretty lacklustre and unenthusiastic since then, but with the return of the sun, my lust for doing things seems to have returned. Slowly at first, but by summer, I'll be madly working on projects yet again.

Mainly I've been making things for work, but ever since I read The Thrift Book, by India Knight (and lo, the recession happened), I have a new thirst for making things for myself. On my last day off, I went through some of my clothes and pulled out all the things I don't really wear anymore. I was actually going to take them all to Christian Aid or something (I probably still will with my old shoes), but I realized I still really love some of them, they just don't suit me anymore.

So, I've decided to return to my teenage habit of looking on t_shirt_surgery for ideas, which has also given me a creative boost. I really want to improve a lot of what I wear, especially for when I go to Malaysia in summer. I did buy some new sandals, but I'd rather make my old clothes look awesome again than buy loads of new things.

I still need to work on my Thrift skills however, since I bought loads of stuff at The Body Shop the other day. I really wanted the free gift, which I now have - the purse it actually comes in is really cute, and would make a perfect clutch, apart from the fact it had The Body Shop written on a little metal tag across the front. I say had because I've just glued several pink Swarovski crystals over it. Now I have an awesome little diamante clutch :D

As a beginning, I think that's pretty good. In other news, I'm hopefully going back to University in September. I've just had my last interview, at York St. John incidentally enough (the place I went before), for there Primary School teaching course. I already have an offer from Leeds Trinity & All Saints, which although an awesome Uni, I would still prefer to go to YSJ. Cross your fingers for me everyone!

Randomly at work the other day, the Lotto gave us a giant blow up ball. Why? Because they funded us to open like years ago, and now they want to take pictures of us with a giant ball. I know, wtf, but it gave me this rather amusing picture.

I'm the first on the right, in the horribly vest thing they make us wear at work. Miiiiinging

What strange thing will happen at work next? No one knows.

I'm not stuck in here with you, you're stuck in here with me.

Sun, 01 Mar 2009 20:29:20 GMT

Okay, now I'm slightly less tired than I was yesterday, here's all about my weekend.

I skipped out of work on the Friday at about 3, and popped down to the station. The train ride was quite cool, I haven't been in first class for a while - I was soooooo hungry though, and didn't have enough money to buy food, so kind of sat and moaned to myself for two hours. They did provide us with free water and lemon biscuits, which in my food deprived state, tasted gorgeous and vanished in like two seconds. I've also forgotten what Kings Cross is like in rush hour, which involved a moment of anguish as I adjusted my brain from setting northan country bumpkin to southern city maniac. If you've never been to London, seriously, words cannot describe what it is like.

I actually drew a map of were I needed to be, and getting on the tube was pretty easy (I may have got confused about where to buy tube tickets at first, its been a while), but once at Piccadilly Circus, it was pretty much rendered useless. The street designs are insane, seriously. My dad gave me terrible directions on the phone, which I eventually managed to follow until I found him. The family was in a Korean restaurant and had ordered me some kimchi to be getting on with. How I wept with joy.

Anyhoo, we finally made it to Paramount Picture Studios in Golden Square, which I have to say, is a really nice building. They had lots of film posters inside, and we met all our friends and some others in this little lobby/ bar, which had even more food and free drinks for us. All the staff were so lovely and happy, which is I guess what happens when you have the BEST JOB IN THE WORLD. Wouldn't we all like to get paid to watch films all day? I certainly would - the actual screening room was like a mini cinema with a smallish screen, which was okay, because the seats were huuuge and really comfortable. The film was 2 1/2 hours long, but I hardly noticed, I was that comfortable.

As for the film itself, well. My post yesterday pretty much said it all. It was awesome - the soundtrack was so good, loads of catchy songs and funny/ ironic tunes, the cinematography was some of the best I've seen in a while, even the fight scenes were entertaining as opposed to boring, and the characters were mostly spot on. There was some suggestion that the ending had been changed, but its been so long since I've read the comic, I can't really remember. Pyramids in Antarctica people, what more could you ask for?

I'll definitely be going to see it again, as well as maybe getting the soundtrack, because it was that good. The whole experience was made all the more fun by being with our friends (the tai chi crowd) and my family, who are random. The moment the credits started to roll, my parents were up and out of there seats, and me and the sibs just looked at them like 'OMG we can't take you anywhere'. It was very funny. Crossing London with them was pretty entertaining as well, as one point my mother just decided to run off, and we all ended up chasing her to make it to the train. I had a mental conversation with my brother James on the train, which is pretty normal for us, so all in all, it was a good evening.

I'm back in York now, after a somewhat relaxing Saturday in St. Albans. I took James out (I kind of feel like I have to lead him out on a leash, in case he tries to eat people...) and we met Ster in town for some milkshakes, and then later my paternal Grandmother came around and I watched some films with her. Sorry to all the people I didn't get to see whilst I was there! Maybe next time my dears?

Anyways, I'm off for my usual evening procrastination, which usually involves me thinking about things I'd like to do, rather than actually doing them. Productive, I know ♥

waaaaaaaaaatrchmen

Sat, 28 Feb 2009 23:07:57 GMT

I went to see the Watchmen yesterday.

It was awesome.

The end.

(slightly better post when I'm not so tired!)

Purple, yellow and green - what am I?

Thu, 26 Feb 2009 22:05:10 GMT

Viking festival is over, am still kind of recovering. I decided not to do anymore daily accounts, because 1) I was too freaking tired, and 2) I forgot my camera on the last days, and I find my posts sadly uninteresting without pictures. (I have a simple mind that needs to be kept entertained)

Despite this, I did have fun on the last three days. Friday was massively busy, we made sooooo much money. This is remarkable in the fact that as an attraction, we actually run on a loss every year, and only stay afloat due to private and government funding. I did five tours, which is a LOT, but actually didn't feel too bad about it - been trying to do the whole thinking positively thing recently, and it seems to be working :)

Sat & Sun I was dressed as a Viking, which I unfortunately don't have pictures of, but my costume was very yellow and green. I snuck out for a bit on my lunch break, because I've been desperate for ages to look around the Viking markets - I always seemed to be working when they're on, but I didn't let that stop me this time!

I probably spent a bit too much money, but this is what I got; a beautiful set of bronze keys on a big ring, an eating knife (which is really sharp and technically not allowed, but no-one has to know) in a leather pouch, a wide leather belt with brass buckle (had to polish it up a bit, but the good thing is, it looks great with normal clothes as well as historical) and finally...

Okay, before I say what it is, let me just express something. I am at the moment, attempting to become a vegetarian. I know, sounds mental coming from someone who can't survive a day without some kind of protein, but apparently I've been a very bad Taoist. Or Buddhist, depending on how you look at it.

So, cruelty to animals is bad, which, should, in retrospect, made me pause in my buying of his particular item, but damn... I wanted it so much. Words cannot express how much I love this little bugger, his fuzzy tail, his little ears, even his claws and dried up nose. I would wear him around my neck every day if I thought I wouldn't get mobbed in the street, but sadly, I feel that I would. Have you guessed what it is yet?

This is what happens when I try to take pictures late at night e_e;

My great-grandmother had a fox, but we never could find it. So, now I have my own, to retro it up all I like :D I really really do love him ♥

Now half-term is over, things have kind of returned to normal. Well, as normal as working in a giant sandpit can be.

On Tuesday it was pancake day, also known as Shrove Tuesday, or to some, mardi gras. We chose to celebrate the latter, because what's more fun than wearing loads of glitter and eating cake? Except that was one of my religious days, so I was vegan (I do this twice a month regardless of eating meat or not normally), which obviously messes that up. The meal was a day delayed, but fun none the less.

Now its time for the picture spam :D *happy face*

King Cake in progress. A traditional cake, which would normally have a doll in it, but ours was just cinnamon flavoured with sweet cream cheese in the middle. All food created by the wonderful loreleyluna ♥

loreleyluna mixes topping, whilst I take stalkery pictures and drink tea.

Mmmmn sugar

Delicious Cajun gumbo, rice and crispy bread. Wine too.

Close up of NOM. I love this gumbo so much, it was very tasty.

Finished King Cake!

Another close up of NOM.

Mmmmn cream cheese filling.

I always manage to take a cute picture of cicak, although I can't remember now what that pose was about!

We all got glittered up so much, even the wine felt the effects.

Terrible picture of me! loreleyluna looks nice in the background, however.

On a final note, I'm gonna go see Watchmen in London tomorrow :D well excited, I am. I won't have anything to do on the train tomorrow, apart from read GOOD OMENS, which I have already started cicak, ahahahahahahaha. *zooms away*