Slightly Belated, but not Late

Yes, yes I know I haven't posted since I promised to post more often. I have learnt 2 things, one is that I will never ever make a new years resolution ever again, and the other is that when all those people told me that 3rd year was going to be hard work, they weren't joking. Still, I finished with most of what was left of my sanity intact, only mild sleep deprivation, and that elusive first. Success. So what have I been doing since, you ask, the answer is as little as physically possible.

On saying that I went on some adventures in York before I left, including a trip to Flamingo Land where I got unfavourably compared to a warthog, a visit to a country house where we saw lots of art and some adorable small children dressed up as Victorians, and an English girlie day out to the Bronte museum, which was amazing, and the Yorkshire moors where we ran around shouting Heathcliff at the tops of our lungs, like the cool kids we are.

More recently I have just completed a mini tour of England in the trusty Nisan Micra. I was going up to Manchester, (Didsbury technically, if you're at all interested) for a Frisbee tournament, so I packed up the car, picked up a frisbee player from the station, and set off for Manchester. That was at 2 o'clock. We finally arrived in Manchester at around 10 following having painstakingly inched along for 213 miles, and having completely failed to get dinner in Stoke because it was packed out with Jehovah's Witnesses at a convention. Nevertheless, fun and frisbee frolicks were had by all and I even got a bit of a tan! Hurrah!

Following Didsbury I went on to explore the delights of Macclesfield (good roast dinner) Manchester (good chinese) and then went on a brief sojourn up to York to watch the new housemate on the telly. She was on University Challenge, looking all smart and fringy. If twitter is anything to go by, her fringe was in fact the only thing worth discussing about her television appearance, but in case you were wondering York won. Of course.

From York I went to Nottingham to visit the old housemate, who made me yummy dinner and we went on a walk around Nottingham and did general girlie hanging out type things, and then in the morning she brought me tea in bed and made me breakfast and it was just like old times. Then I went on a mini-trip to Staffordshire, where it rained Old Testament style, they had really good fish and chips and I pinched a hoodie.

And then I made my way home, where I have settled into a life of domesticated bliss, watering tomato plants, doing laundry, reading in the unexpected sunshine (yes, American friends, we do have some sun in England too...) making my brother dinner when he comes home from work and so on. You know, as you do, when you're a domestic goddess like I am. 

And then things happened...

So in a startling turn of events I have not been blogging, not because I'm not doing anything interesting but because I've been really busy trying to catch up on work because I've been doing so many other things. And now I shall tell you what I have been doing.

This weekend it was a big frisbee tournament in York, which was really fun, there was much frisbeeing and running and watching frisbee games and playing silly games and generally freezing my nose off. Also, much eating of bagels and talking about baked goods and hugging and laughing and ridiculous behaviour. It suddenly got really cold this weekend and so it was colder than the inside of a icicle in the tent where the tournament was being held, so I wore my ski jacket for most of the weekend. Eek.

I had a team from Nottingham Trent come to stay in the flat overnight between the two days of the tournament, and it was really lovely to hang out with them and have dinner and get ready for the party. Each team got a Disney or Pixar film to get dressed up as. The girls staying over were dressing up as Lions from the Lion King. Our film was Toy Story, so I dressed up as Wheezy. Because I'm just that cool. There were actually two Wheezys, and Tom had flippers, but I think my beak was better. So there.

Also, I've been hanging out with my friends at the Library and catching up, because when you usually see people every day suddenly three weeks over Christmas seems like a long time. And then there's the housemates to catch up with, and cook with, and go on runs with. And then on top of all of this there's library and work and meeting with supervisors and tutors and so on. On which note, I'm going to go try to upload my masters application again, since the website is being pooey and not letting me on. 

To 2012 and BEYOND!

It struck me the other day as I made my way onto campus on a Sunday morning hours before leaving back to Guildford, in the same fashion as I have every morning for the previous 10 weeks with minimal exceptions, that the title of this blog was fast becoming very redundant. True enough I had had a prolonged and epically adventurous battle with my duvet covers that morning, and after a brief stop at the library I was about to perform as Mary in the church nativity play, which let's face it is the female lead. (On a side note, half way through the performance an angel sat down on my lap and refused to budge until I had to make my way to Egypt. It was utterly adorable.) Notwithstanding these minor excitements, I have to admit that the days of travel blogging, day trips and other fun adventures are over, at least until May. Until then I have a fairly full looking schedule of Library days ahead of me.

I'll be honest with you guys, I haven't been posting as regularly as I would have like, but this is simply because nothing remotely adventurous or misadventurous has occurred. I went to play frisbee for the day back in November, I had a couple of migraines which kept me going to the library for a few days, I got dressed up for a couple of meals out, I had friends over for Sinterklaas, I almost mowed someone down cycling on the wrong side of the street while coming down Heslington Road on my bike. THese things are the closest to adventures I have come since last posting, not counting a run in with a photocopier when someone inconsiderately requested a book I needed over Christmas.

And so the fact remains that I have a few months ahead of me that will be dominated by reading, essay writing and lunches in Vanbrugh dining hall, with hopefully a bit of frisbee and cricket thrown in here and there, until I embark on that big adventure known as graduation, followed by the somewhat daunting prospect of Real Life (or perhaps a masters program, because, let's face it, I'm not quite ready to give up my nice warm seat in the library just yet...)

Regardless, adventures shall be few and far between, and so rather than leaving my blog lonely and unattended I have been doing I have decided to embark on adventures into the wider world of blogging, So here is what I am planning to do in 2012, because all good intentions should start int he new year; I will blog more regularly, but in doing so blog more widely. Basically I'm thinking of blogging about stuff other than things I've actually done -- books I've read and enjoyed, films I've seen, the odd amusing anecdote -- which hopefully should also have the added benefit of making me take breaks from the library which are slightly more productive than endless youtube clip watching...

This is the closest thing to a New Years Resolution I have ever undertaken, so I hope you'll join me and my new and improved blogging experience. I'm looking forward to seeing where 2012 takes me. 

Things I have learnt this week..

1. "Fresher's flu" should be more accurately renamed "nasty cold you get every single year due to abundance of germs, lack of general hygiene and complete absence of sleep on return to seat of learning".

2. "Housemates" should be more accurately referred to as "Angels who cook you dinner when you're too busy or stressed to look after yourself, bring you your keys/lunch/whatever else it is you have forgotten in mad dash out of the door, and are generally available for snuggles and classy tv times".

3. Third year could be summarised as "living torn between the desire to do all the fun things you can because it's your last year at university, and having to do lots of work because it's your last year of university."

This and that and some bits in between...

Aha! The long awaited post of stuff that is happening in my life has arrived. Sadly I have to inform you that the reason it has taken a while to get to this stage is because I have been waiting for something adventurous to happen in my life. However, it has become clear to me that my life is settling more and more deeply into monotony and I am resigning myself to the fact that I will be spending most of what remains of the year either closeted in the library reading articles in such scintillating topics as the history of the word culture and patriarchy in Palestinian politics, or in a puddle if exhaustion on my couch with my housemates watching such intellectually stimulating programming as Made in Chelsea, or Hollyoaks. Which actually, ironically, ties in with my reading about the word culture and the debate between high art and culture. See! My subject is relevant!

Where I would like to be spending my time

Where I am actually spending my time

Other than library and terrible TV time, I have been taking advantage of Orange wednesdays and my friends' generosity (we watched Melancholia and Midnight in Paris, in case you were wondering), joining the York Ultimate team, doing copious washing up for church lunches and doing vaguely important cricket-y type things.

In other news, yesterday, someone asked me where in America I was from, I really didn't think my accent was that bad...

Soap box time!

In my defence I don't often use my blog as a platform for conveying my opinions on anything, but I have a post in the works all about my thrilling adventures in the university of York library, and this rant has been building for a while...

(While reading the gumph below, it might be worth bearing in mind that it is my opinion, and possibly not entirely factually accurate...)

If you believe that women have the same mental facility for reason and logic as men, and should therefore be afforded the same political and educational opportunities, whether it be the chance to go to University or the right to vote, you are a feminist.

If you believe that women should be given the opportunity to choose to have a career or not, who or whether they marry, and when and if they have children, then you are a feminist.

If you believe that women have something more to offer the world than their bodies, and their ability to produce mini-bodies, and reducing women to a bunch of organs is probably both reductive and detrimental to society as a whole, then you are a feminist.

I honestly think that you can be pro-life or pro-choice and still be a feminist, I think you can be a Christian or an Atheist and still be a feminist, I think you can be a man or a woman or somewhere in between and be a feminist, I think you can be a Republican, a Conservative, or support the Monster Raving Lunatic Party and still be a feminist.

You can have opinions on every women's issue known to man or you not even be able to name one women's issue, you can plan to become a women's rights lawyer or a housewife, you can join real life groups, or facebook groups, or be outwardly ambivalent.

Basically what I'm trying to say you guys is that you don't have to be militant, or lesbian or any of those things that get associated with feminism to be a feminist, you just have to think that women deserve the same chances that men get.

Also, you can totally still be a feminist if you're secretly a little glad that the Doctor didn't regenerate as a woman. Geeze. 

Las Vegas Night

It is Las Vegas Night tonight! It is odd to think that it's been a year since that blog post; I haven't seen anyone strutting around in their underwear for quite a while! Apparently a few people have been reading my blog because if you google "Las Vegas Night, Playboy and Mount Holyoke" I an what comes up. I find this quite amusing since I don't think my blog is particularly what people are looking for, especially since my last post was about socks... Sorry folks!