More than a week later...

Sorry fans, I've been busy with school work, so I've been unable to write anything! It's hard to believe but I've become enthralled with journal articles-I think I enjoy reading them more than books! Anyway, I'll, most likely, sign in again when the pressure of assignments (impending doom) go away. Talk to you soon!
ps. For all those preparing to have a great Christmas vacation-I wish you all the best, you lucky dogs!

Tuesday...

Today..has been an otherwise magnificent day!

Today..I had the pleasure of going to class at 8 am followed by a tantalizing 1 pound 50 pence lunch consisting of green lettuce, tomatoes, something white next to it, combined with a slice of onion quiche (I don't believe this quiche even exists in France). Afterwards, I was quite ecstatic because I decided to spend more money on-well you guessed it-PHOTOCOPYING material for two of my assignments. I spent a few remarkable hours in two different resource centers-one being a library!

If this day hasn't been exceptional enough yet-I'll let you in on my next few hours after that! At 2, I had a class, so at 5 minutes past 2, I ran hurriedly to this class, only to discover, from a stranger, at the entrance of the building, that, indeed, my class had been cancelled. At this point, most students would be overwhelmed by joy...however, I, being a good and wonderful student (please note, one of my professors may be reading this) wept bitterly in disappointment at realizing that I would not be able to sit in on a tantalizing lecture of Research Methods.

In my bitter disappointment, I walked slowly home-45 minutes later, I found myself in my room and came up with the brilliant idea of re-arranging it. I wanted my bed to be closer to the radiator-having, several hours later, achieved this criteria, after moving several key pieces of furniture in my room, which is the size of a rather large closet, I was awestruck by my expertise in interior decorating. I wanted to be as close as I could to the radiator so that I could feel the heat and I, also, wanted the strength of the internet signal on my computer to change from Very Good to Excellent (cave girl's response to this was "it doesn't make a difference"-I, wholeheartedly, disagreed!) After showing off my "piece de la resistance" to cave girl, who immediately remarked "I don't like it."-I quickly ate supper and started working on my computer, only to discover that the Strength of the Internet Signal stubbornly sits on Very Good. Oh..well..can't have everything I suppose. At least I have HEAT.

What a wonderful day.

Lazy days...with Crime included!

Hello all!

Today has been one of those lazy days! I went to Morrisons yet again, oh joy! Sometimes, I think I shop every day-I'm beginning to hate food-why couldn't doctors find a way for students to stop eating and then we wouldn't have to pay for food! After, I watched 2 movies: Capote and The Constant Gardener. We wanted to stay in the living room until it got warmer in the rest of the house-so we decided to watch movies. Lately, I've been reduced to using my laptop as a knee warmer and cave girl gave me the idea of using my charger as a foot warmer!

Last night, was a terrible night for intelligent blond-I've decided to call her brunette with blond roots now, because she has dyed her hair! Well..her purse was stolen from her workplace!

It reminded me of the time when I was in Paris and this man, the one in the pic, nearly stole my bag! I took a picture of the fiend because he had caused me so much grief. He was a dastardly man who saw my bag (which I had left unattended) and ran with it to the basement of a store that I was in. This store belonged to a friend of mine and when I realized that my bag had disappeared-we shut the store down and went looking for my papers in bins. We thought, that whoever took my bag ran out with it, took some money and put my bag with my papers in the bins.

Needless to say, I was in shock and upset! Never in my life had I felt this way! I wanted to find this jerk and shake him for even thinking of taking my things. Luckily enough, when we returned to the store, we found him holding my bag, standing like an idiot, in front of a locked door. We had shut the culprit inside! Take a good look, folks, this drunken, spineless jerk took my things 4 months ago! I was lucky-I found my things and, the best part was he kept on saying that he had given everything back to me but when I looked in my wallet I realized that he had stolen cash from me. He gave that back as well. The police gave him a warning and my friend told him to never come back to his store but a few weeks ago he had returned to my friend's store! My friend told him to leave and never come back or he'll be calling the police.

To continue on..my flatmate was outraged and, unfortunately, she never found her bag. This particular thief, went into an area designated for employees, and stole from them. Some handsome policemen took her statement-her words, not mine but she didn't have money to, even, go home. The worst part was that after this terrible experience, her manager didn't care and didn't even have the courtesy to give her some money to go home. Which brings me to my next point-what kind of manager can be so callous to not even think of the welfare of his own employees-may he rot!

So that's that folks...will continue on at a later date....

It's the middle of November

It's the middle of November and I still have so much to do! I, all of a sudden, feel the crunch of papers and assignments about to fall on my head. I'm really worried about my disseration topic-hopefully, I will have it sorted out by the end of December along with 3 assignments! Is that possible?? Anyway, I feel fatigue setting in-so I'm trying not to think abt it too much and just try to finish what I can as I go along here. The best part is that, I was able to set up my webspace-I was really worried abt the technical aspect of that. Anyway, I'm afraid I have nothing funny to say today-I had a very tiring day and tomorrow is going to be the same. I cannot wait for the weekend. Hopefully, i'll be in a more talkative mood in a few days. Talk to you all very, very soon. Good night.

Definition of a REAL MAN!

Last night was an astonishing day because I was upset to discover that of the 3 men here, none of them had a hammer! I needed a hammer to fix the panelling in the bathroom-the fact that none of them were really interested in doing this, is another story. 2 of these so-called men were downstairs watching yoga porn and the other was 'busy' studying. Needless to say, my endless search for a hammer was futile. In the end, I was forced to concede to my despair and wait another day to find a REAL MAN (with a REAL HAMMER). Note to the Englishman: Putting a "little elbow grease" into it, will not hammer nails into wooden panels!
Today, was an exciting day because I discovered the REAL MAN! His name is Tony and he is our maintenance man-and, guess what, he had a hammer! After an eventful day in which door knobs were screwed in and wooden panels were hammered in, I decided that, indeed, the main criteria for a REAL MAN is that he should have tools!
My male flatmates disagree with this and have marked me as sexist. And insist that if I am to be like that, that I should 'put on the kettle'. I answered by letting them know that the trash will always be there for them to take out-as far as I can tell-I've, yet, to see them budge to do this chore. Men!

Wake me up before u gogo

Today was a fantastic day-I woke up at 6:30 because 2 of my flatmates wanted to use the shower early this morning. Usually, my time slot is 7 but today, one wanted to go at 7 and the other at 7:15. So, I had a shower at 6:30. Nevermind that I had to leave the house at 8 and they didn't have to leave until 9! Greaaaat Day! Fantastic! I love my 630 am showers-wouldn't have it any other way. Groan...
So..at this moment, I am dying. I've been at school all day, I finished at 4. And now I want to go to bed. It's only 8 pm.
The worst part is that I'm trying to concentrate on my reading but I keep on falling asleep. Currently, I'm reading a book about the Effectiveness of Video in the Classroom but most of the studies were done in the 1940s and 60s-so sleep overcomes me now and then.
I'm hoping that tomorrow will be better work-wise.
Oh..and today I became interested in cave girls work (mostly to take a break from my reading) and started working on her mathematical issues-it was very exciting, I haven't looked at a trig function for 8 years-it's incredible how much the mind can remember. Sometimes, I shock myself.
Anyway, guys I'm really dying...so...ttys all!

Wokmania and the Cashier Nazi

Warning to all: Do not go to Wokmania at the Gate in Newcastle! They steal from children and students!

Today, started out as a great Sunday up until the last few minutes before I left this place. Here's what happened and decide for yourself.

1. The nazi cashier, a rude, young woman whose name begins with C, but from now on we will call her the she-nazi, decided, without asking, to charge us as a group (there were 6 of us). Her excuse was that she didn't have any change. (which is crap because we all know that there are many restaurants at the Gate, along with a CO-OP just next door where she can easily move her ass to, to get change). Straight away, she charged us 48 pounds. Well, folks, what's 48/6-well, that's 8 pounds a piece-this was with a 10% student discount! Keep in mind that the normal cost of a meal at this place is 5 pounds. Sounds like she made an error doesn't it?

2. Well..it turned out that there was a small piece of paper on our table (I didn't see it, so I guess our fault) it said that there was a gratuity charge of 10% and if we didn't want to pay it, then we'd have to ask her beforehand, ok fair enough, we didn't ask-so we got charged 4 pounds-what a scam!

3. After taking our money and letting the she-nazi know a million times that we were students-she gave us a 10% student discount on our bill, which turned out to be 18 pence on the bill. 18 pence! Check the math, I know the British are crap at math (due to loss of math teachers in the British education system) but, last time I checked 10% of 48 pounds is not 18 pence and when we went to her to complain, she DIDN'T APOLOGIZE PROPERLY and DIDN'T GIVE BACK OUR MONEY!! She told us that we had to go to the manager to get back our money-so we asked when the manager will be back and are going to deal with it that way-she apparently didn't know how to deal with the cash register to give us back money, even though, she, certainly, knew how to use the till to charge us! Also, shouldn't we all have recieved 10% off, we are 6 students, so that should have been 60% off the bill.

4.What I thought was the greatest thing in the world was that I saw her do the exact same thing to small children-3 of them of age 11-when they looked at their bill, they were shocked as well, to see how expensive it was! I asked them about whether or not they had asked to not pay the gratuity tax-and guess who butted into my conversation with the 3 boys, the she-nazi! She told me not to speak to other customers, that it was against the rules-WHAT A HOOT! Wokmania is now under rule of a young girl who is in charge of the till! What the hell is going on, is Wokmania a mini society where the rules of freedom of speech don't apply. Well, lookahere she-nazi, you treated every one of us in a rude manner and then ripped off small children-which I cannot believe. As a result, I've decided to boycott Wokmania because I don't want to eat at a restaurant that steals from small children! That's really underhanded.

5. The other thing that I didn't understand is that there were no chopsticks to be found in this restaurant today-what's the point of having a Chinese restaurant without chopsticks?? And there was Indian food at this restaurant, why is a Chinese restaurant selling Indian food? This seems to defeat the authenticity of this kind of restaurant. Last time I checked, we never cooked Indian food with a wok. I don't get it.

Friday night...

Well..last night was an unproductive night in terms of work and so was tonight. I can't seem to motivate myself. Today, I decided to clean the downstair's toilet rather than work and yesterday, I went to the pool. Again! I cannot seem to focus. My only motivation is cave girl and she's left for the weekend. Watching her work, usually, motivates me to work too! I hope that tomorrow is better. I think the real reason that I can't focus is because I know that I have alot to do and I don't know where to begin. It's quite depressing...I feel like I need a kick in the pants. Yesterday, I was lying down on bed and one of my flatmate's took a 2 minute video clip of me saying, "I am not a slacker."
Anyway, I hope things become better over the weekend and that I get loads done. It's going to be an interesting weekend. I'm going to work on my website, do my video homeowork, read alot, and go to morrison's to do some very exciting grocery shopping. I hope I'll be able to reward myself tomorrow night and be able to watch some fantastic American shows-the Englishman will love this!
By the way, one of us is sick, which means that there is a possibility that I'll get sick too. I hope not. I hate being sick. I hate sniffing and having a sore throat. Sniffing drives everyone mad but I have no choice-it's because I hate blowing my nose, I'n not very good at it and always end up with more stuff in my nose than out of it. As for the sore throat, it only worsens because of all the backlog of goo that enters your throat when you sniff-it's like a never-ending cycle.
Anyway, that's all for now. Today, I didn't feel like showing a pic of my nose, because I thought it would be easier if you imagined my 'dilemma' instead. Have a good night all!

The Death Trap

Well..there she is folks, what we fondly call the death trap. This stove has no ignition, as a result, we've been using so-called 'safe lighters' to light the stove top and oven. Alot of wonderful events have happened as a result. The best event was the day that the Frenchman was trying to light the oven with a 'safe lighter' and was singed by a great ball of fire as it flew into his face. After trying to light the oven and turn the gas on and off for 20 minutes, we didn't realize until then that this, indeed, is a little bit more dangerous than we previously thought. Don't worry, the Frenchman was fine, apart from his hair which burned off. Apparently he needed a haircut, so he was pleased-less money to spend.
As for the stove top, this has become our latest pet-peeve. Again using 'safe lighters' to light the elements, we end up nearly getting ourselves burned whenever we try to light them. Be, especially, careful if you wear long-sleeves and you intend to cook something on our stove. You might be learning to drop-and-roll before you even begin!
Now, you might ask, why do we keep this stove if we find it to be a life and death adventure every night when we cook our dinners. Well..the advantages of keeping this death machine is that every night 'we're living on the edge'-we don't know who's going to survive or not. We have a bit of a lottery to see who'll get burned-normally, everyone bets on the scotsman. But he seems to have avoided the death trap so far. He's a wiley one that one. The other advantage of having such a machine is that it allows us to practice fire safety and prevention methods. Without the death trap, we would never feel 'safe' in our own homes.
Anyway, 'til tomorrow, I hope...

Last But Not Least....

Well...there she is folks, the last of my never-ending flatmates! This one is, indeed, the smart-alecky cave girl. She insisted that I write tonight because she was very disappointed to see that I hadn't written anything last night.
Sorry about that folks, I was at the crummiest movie of my life, BORAT! I had nightmares about this movie after I watched it-it was a complete waste of 2 hours-I have never felt like leaving a movie theatre before but this movie, actually, made me feel physically ill. Anyway, after that movie, I came home and read some more glorious chapters from Richards-which instantly acted as the sedative that I needed.
Today was a little better...I woke up, had a 7 am shower-only to go straight back to bed, after, for 3 more hours-I was really tired because I was awakened by an idiot who insisted telephoning between the hours of 2 am and 3 am-may he rot somewhere for ruining my beauty sleep. Anyway, at about 11, I took off for my oh-so-wonderful-bank from which I have yet to recieve my credit card. It has taken about 2 months now...and it looks like I'll have to wait a few more weeks for it. Good lord and they say the English are better at banking! I never had to wait that long for bank cards in France! I think by the time I finish paperwork in England-I will have already left this country and people here think the French are lazy!
Continuing on...on my fantastic day, I headed for a 30 minute seminar followed by an awe-inspiring afternoon at the library. After searching for 4 texts and succeeding to find one-I decided that I had quite a successful day and headed for home.
The highlight of my incredible day was going to the swimming pool where I competed with small children for the hair dryer and played the game 'keep on pushing the button for hot water' shower. All in all, it's been a formidable day and tomorrow, I'll fill you in on the story of our private death machine. Sweet dreams all.

The Door Handle to our Ecosystem

Ok...this is the door to 'our ecosystem.' Do you notice something?? Yes, of course you do, our door handle has disappeared. Did a giant slug eat it? Did a reptile run away with it? or Did a naked man use it as a 'toy.' The answer to this question will always be a timeless one. Until, of course, you look below. There it is, on the ground...

This begs the question, who would leave the door handle on the floor, after using the bathroom, and why? This picture was taken at 8:15 pm, today. Was it to attract the slugs to the all-mighty door handle? Is this the new slug God? Please let me know what you think. All opinions on the matter will be looked at critically.

The Slug Infestation

All righty...this is what our downstairs bathroom looks like. Doesn't it look pristine (apart from the toilet seat up!). People, please try to remember there are 3 girls living in this house! This pic was taken at 8:10 pm, today.
Anyway, you are all probably wondering why I put this pic up on my blog-well it's to relate the story of our slug infestation problem. Apparently, every morning between the times of 5 and 6 a.m., we receive these tiny tots into our home, usually, accompanied by the screams of Intelligent blond girl. We suspect they come in through this room. Recently, we have not heard any screams because the intelligent blond girl has gotten over her fear of them, picks them up and lets them run(?) free in our backyard. This is in direct contrast to the first 2 slugs she encountered where she battered one to death and salted the other as liquid puss came out of it. I guess after watching them writhe and die before her very eyes, she took pity on the poor, ugly tykes.
Unfortunately, we have not found a solution to our problem. They haven't multiplied but they have grown in size. I mistook one for a small amphibian-to this day, I swear it was the size of a tadpole. I, actually, thought it was a tadpole. Cave girl, an aspiring zoologist, was eager to see the 'tadpole' to only be disappointed to see that it was, indeed, a large slug. To cover up my error, I asked her to do a dissertation on our toilet ecosystem. She was unimpressed by the idea. To this day, she cannot believe that I mistook a slug for a tadpole-apparently tadpoles are "cuter."
In any case, I don't see how anybody could not be fascinated by our ecosystem, there are so many ways to adapt this to the theory of evolution. I am, sure, that the slugs are only the beginning, next the amphibians, after the reptiles and before long, we will find a naked man in our ecosystem. In fact, I believe that our toilet is not only the thoroughway of our waste but, indeed the DAWN OF MAN. I tried to reiterate this theory to cave girl but, yet, again she was unmoved by my passion.
What do you think?

The Intelligent Blond

Well...as you can see above, we have 2 gorgeous pics: one is of yet another flatmate of mine, the intelligent blond, and the other is a pic of a beach that we decided to visit together, which is about 15 minutes from our home. We had a great day that day, we visited a cafe and many boutiques in a place that used to be a church-might be considered sacriligeous in some countries-and walked along the coastline!
It was sunny and cold that day but worth it to go. These pics were taken using my phone-so that's the reason why these pics are of low quality-sorry about that! Well..that's it for today boys and girls-I'm heading out tonight to see some fireworks tonight-hope you all had a great weekend all!

Yesterday...

Yesterday was such a great day! I decided to not do any schoolwork and go out for the whole day! We went to 3 art galleries and in the evening one of my flatmates cooked for us and we had pheasant for dinner. We, also, sat in front of the TV to watch American TV shows. Some of my flatmates didn't like the American invasion BUT I won out because I, very happily, got one of my flatmates addicted to these shows. It was either that or watch crummy British TV shows which had a too-subtle humour that was bordering on deadpan.
The best part of that day was that I decided what to do for my birthday-we're going to have an adult-cultural evening out where we're going to go to an art gallery, meet some of the artists and, of course, have wine-ALL FOR FREE!! Yay!! I'm really looking forward to this evening. It's almost exactly like that scene in the romantic GREAT EXPECTATIONS where Gwenyth Paltrow sees Ethan Hawke become a great success in New York in his first gallery exhibition; but without 2 actors, without New York, and without a romantic entanglement. Ok..Ok..I guess the only thing the 2 have in common is the exhibition.
Be back soon.

The Scotsman...

Well..there he is people! Another one of my many flatmates! This one is the Scotsman. As u can see, he's into sports. Tonight, he came home drunk. Apparently, he was weaving a bit on his bike coming home. Glad he made it home ok. Wouldn't want to lose him-especially for rent purposes.
As for me, had the usual day: had a glorious class this morning involving a speedy review of an article with on-the-spot presentations followed by a filming shoot that became a little more complicated than usual because the method of creating a focal shift kept evading us. After being outdoors for an hour and a half in the freezing cold, 2 individuals started to become quite irritated so we gave up, did the best that we could and headed as quickly as we could for the warmest open cafe on campus. The thing that I will always remember was the fact that my feet were truly frozen. I thought I'd had frostbite! Afterwards, we went to the computing centre to obtain our usernames to register on UNIX. In addition, came home, watched 1 and a half movies-both were boring and not worth mentioning-except that Steve Martin should not write screenplays-ever! My flatmates and I, then discussed tomorrow's upcoming events along with the very exciting phone bills; which included the fantastic guessing game of who dialed which phone number.
Oh...yeah..and I learned a new british word today: FRANKPOST which is accompanied by the verb: to frank (stg). I had to stop someone in the streets of England to discover the meaning of this word. Try to guess what it is. I can tell you that it has nothing to do with a man named Frank...or if HE Franked your post or not-which sounds rather lecherous!-I wonder what the origin of this word is, because I'd never heard of this term until I arrived here.
I, truly, believe that the British have a name for everything, even for the most mundane things that most people wouldn't care about knowing. For example, the barrister. I prefer to call it a railing-same principle. I don't even think that Americans even know that word: barrister-it probably doesn't exist in American English. Also, in American English: I do like the terms 'watchamacallit', thingamabob', and 'thingamajig'-these terms are truly effective to know when you are stuck for a word and can't find the right word to communicate what you want to say. The British don't have these words or if they do, I've yet to hear it from my flatmates. They must speak the 'Queen's English'.
Anyway, all of the above were 'deep thoughts' for you today..so I'll bid u all a good night until tomorrow. adieu

My Flatmates

\

As promised...today I will introduce my flatmates. First you must understand that we are 6: there's intelligent blond girl (a paradox), cave girl, Englishman, Scotsman and every house needs one, a Frenchman. Or in his words, a French gentleman (possible oxymoron). As you can see, you can tell right away who the Englishman is in the picture above. The French gentleman is on one side of him and on the other side, is me. I'm afraid that my other flatmates were not there when the pic was taken. So..we'll have to wait a while to see when I can get some more pics this weekend.

The Englishman, Frenchman and Scotsman (this is not the beginning of a joke) enjoy fellwalking. The intelligent blond girl enjoys talking and cave girl enjoys sitting in dimly lit places while studying AND I LOVE being in bed!

All of my flatmates consider it amazing that I can do so much on my bed. I study in my bed, drink tea in my bed, work on my computer while in bed and, of course, sleep in bed. My desk is storage space for books and mail. I hate my desk because it's not well-lit, it's small and when it's cold, I prefer being under my blankets with the computer on top of me being used as a hot water bottle. At this juncture, you're probably asking yourself why doesn't she get out of bed and get a hot water bottle..My most simplest answer to this is that I don't want to get out of bed-too cold. Hmmmm...perhaps, I will ask my flatmates for a hot water bottle for my birthday. But, the main problem that I have abt hot water bottles is that they're usually cold in the morning and it's uncomfortable waking up to stg ice-cold next to you.

By the way, I already gave my flatmates a list of things that I wanted for my bday; to which cave girl's response was "you can't always get what you want." My natural response was to ignore this warning and ask for the following things: socks without holes, a calendar for next year-to which the boys asked with whose pictures-ha ha not funny,and lotion. I hope I get the calendar-I really need one! And socks without holes would really be great, I'm getting tired of darning my socks. And well..lotion is always nice, I like to smell nice now and then. I hope this will fit into their budget-since we're all students. I'm sure that they'll give me a free bank calendar-I should stop here, I don't want to give them any ideas! Anyway, they have quite a few days to think about it.

Day 2

Well, it looks as if I haven't become bored yet, because I'm still here! And at the moment, I'm in the process of entering a pic, you'll know if it worked at the same time as me! This pic was taken 3 years ago, in Korea. It's my favorite shmaltzy pic. Anyway, day 2, today was a very exciting day: I went to morrisons and read loads of articles and Chapter 7 from Hedge. I have never felt so fulfilled. The highlight of my day, consisted of speaking to one of my flatmates-there are 6 of us, 3 boys and 3 girls-about whether or not we wanted to brave the weather and go to an art exhibition. In the end, the idea of warmth overpowered us and we decided to stay in and watch the ending of the first film George Lucas made. Try to guess what it was. And then I debated whether or not I wanted to continue on to do more reading but sleep overcame me and I decided to hit the hay. So..this was my thrilling day. But the best part was, my flatmates and I decided to go to a few art exhibitions, a piano bar, and some fireworks this weekend, so hopefully, we'll have a full weekend! Tomorrow, I will introduce my flatmates and their personas to you all. ttys