Gingerella

When life gives you lemons...

2011-01-11T13:16:00.002Z

I suppose you make lemonade. :) Incidentally, it is one of the items on my 101 in 1,001 list. So, I can now tick this off!

And that's just what I did yesterday, along with a bit of banana loaf.

Waitrose Homemade Lemonade

You can find a copy of the recipe at Waitrose but for your convenience, I have typed it out.

Ingredients

4 unwaxed lemons, washed
100g caster sugar
600ml boiling water

Method

Using a vegetable peeler or grater, thinly peel the zest from the lemons, leaving as much white pith as possible. Squeeze the juice from the lemons. Place the zest, lemon juice and sugar in a large heatproof jug.
Pour in the 600ml boiling water and stir until the sugar has totally dissolved. Cover, and leave to cool completely.
Now, strain the lemon mixture into a serving jug, and discard the zest. Dilute with 400ml chilled water and sweeten with extra sugar to taste.
Serve decorated with lemon slices, mint leaves and crushed ice (all optional).

Note: This was my second time making it, and this time I decided to use 400ml sparkling water instead of still. I do not recommend this, especially if you don't like sparkling water. Still water works just fine as the lemonade is zingy enough to be refreshing without needing any fizz.

Dear Me...

2011-01-09T22:26:00.008Z

Taking into account my love for Clear Your Heart, when I read her Dear Me letter sometime ago, I wanted to write my own. There is a book, where celebrities do the same, and at dearmebooks.com you can read others' letters to themselves. You can join in via Twitter using the #tweetyour16yearoldself hashtag.

Dear 16 year old me,

it's 2001 and you're in the last year of high school, the summation of some of the best and worst times of your life. You make the right choice to leave school and go to a college in another town, nearly 10 miles away. 6am starts will be the norm for 2 years and you'll have to work hard but you'll love it, and it will pay off. And don't worry about the A levels your dad is helping you 'choose', you will in fact love physics and it will be your life for the next 10 years.

That guy you're with now, he's not the one. He's not even good for you. He holds you back and tries to make you hate your family. You have a wonderful heart and beautiful body, please don't let his actions convince you otherwise; there is nothing wrong with you. And you do not struggle to make friends; that isn't the real reason he is segregating you from his friends. Eventually, he will shatter your heart into a million pieces, show no remorse, and still think you can be friends. I wish you would listen to your family about him but I know you won't even believe me. You will spend many years regretting how terribly you acted towards them but you'll get past it; at 25 (and now an auntie!), family is more important than life itself. It takes you some time but you do get over him and those 3 and a half years make you a strong little lady, but he destroys your trust in others and your faith in just how beautiful you are. Please try not to let this happen. You are so beautiful, inside and out.

Let go of the bullying and dismiss the memories of your school shirt down the toilet, repeatedly being shouted out of the girls changing room, the name-calling on the school coach, all the tears, and the rest. Life will get better. Listen to your mom when she tells you that girl did it simply because she was jealous of you. When you meet years later she won't have changed and you come to pity her. People do want to be friends with you, in fact, you make a great friend. Please believe me. You need to stop testing every friendship to the nth degree, and expecting it to fail. You lose a few friendships this way; being so reluctant to open up in fear of being let down, or them realising they don't like you. They will, and do, love you!

You flirt with different hair colours; blonde, brown, red, but you always go back. You get many compliments from people -- strangers included -- about how beautiful your hair is. And your mom really is right; people pay a shedload of money to have your hair colour. The name-calling will become insignificant and you will embrace being a redhead.

You take a huge leap towards independence in 2003 when you move to Manchester to study physics at university; you stay there for 8 years, learn to cook, and cook well, meet so many amazing people, drink/eat a little too much, teach physics, join the choir and become a halls tutor. You have an amazing time and you undergo quite a metamorphosis.

You will meet the love of your life there, but you don't realise or admit it for another 4 years. Ignore his reluctance in the beginning -- he's only human -- and power through; it'll be so worth it! You're still just as feisty so try to cut him some slack, after all, his imperfections are all part of who you fall in love with and he accepts all yours, so it's only fair. Try not to make the same mistake again; hold onto your friends, you'll regret it if you don't. Stop being so argumentative and learn to relax. He becomes your best friend and the best person you know, he knows you better than you'd like to admit and you love him more than words can say.

Edit: As of June 2011, not so much, as it turns out. But life is a work in progress and you're already well on your way to getting past it.

21st October 2011

Think long and hard about whether you really want to do a PhD. Don't listen to anyone else and ignore wanting to please others. I wish I could tell you that you make it through, but I'm still struggling with that myself. I hope and pray that you do. Please know that quitting is OK, and when that crosses your mind, oh and it will, consider it seriously; carpe diem. If you soldier on, work harder, much harder, and sooner! I know how much you hate to admit you need it, but if you need help, ask.

Take care of yourself little lady.

Love,

The future you x

All images from weheartit.com

Going Bananas!

2011-01-08T14:34:00.004Z

I am forever buying a bunch of bananas and forgetting all about them, and they end up looking like this...

Jeremy Beker

My usual solution is to throw them in the bin. But for some time now, ever since my obsession with a beautiful version of it I used to buy at school from an independent sandwich shop, I have wanted to try and make banana loaf (it seems the word 'loaf' often confuses people; perhaps bread or cake will avoid that?). I knew that you had to have pretty damn ripe 'nanas for that.

So, I left a bunch of bananas on the shelf and 'forgot' about them; this time I wanted them to look like the above picture. In fact, the riper the better; the riper they are, the more banana-ery taste they will produce. And the result...

Just perfect. So moist and just the right amount of banana-ery-ness.

Fancy having a go? I used the BBC Good Food recipe, Banana Breakfast Loaf, but it can obviously be enjoyed at any time of the day. *wink* But I've typed the recipe out here, just for you.

Banana Breakfast Loaf

Ingredients

75g butter, softened
110g golden caster sugar
125g plain flour
10g wholemeal flour
2 tsp baking powder
2 eggs
4 ripe bananas, mashed
50 g pecans, each snapped in half (optional)
To finish: 1 lemon, juiced, mixed with 1 tbsp golden caster sugar (optional)

Note: I didn't have golden caster sugar or wholemeal flour, so used Demerar and plain flour, respectively.

Method

Heat the oven to 180C / fan 170C / Gas mark 4.
Beat the butter, sugar, flours, baking powder, eggs and banana together.
If applicable, stir in the nuts.
Spoon into a lined and buttered 450g loaf tin.
Bake for 50 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.
If using, spoon over the lemon sugar.

Au revoir 2010!

2011-01-07T20:33:00.005Z

Another year, another... blog post? Yes, finally. Now that we have been ushered into 2011, I felt the need to wave goodbye to 2010. This post will be that figurative wave.

Oh and yes, I cheated a little and took inspiration from Clear Your Heart's post. But I heard imitation is the best form of flattery?

1) Was 2010 a good year for you?

If I'm honest, I can't remember all of it. Or, at least, I can't remember where 2009 ended and 2010 began. It wasn't the best but it has still had its fun times and laughs, and hopefully I learnt a few lessons, too.

2) What were your favourite moments of the year?

By far the best had to be living with R for 3 months; at times, it was pure bliss for me. Going to San Diego, albeit all on my lonesome, to present my research, especially as it gave me a much needed publication. Getting to know my nephew during the first year of his life. Living with some lovely ladies who I found via an internet ad for a free room! And spending more time in London; it is a wonderful city.

3) What was your least favourite moment of the year?

R having to leave Manchester and the thought that he may have to leave the country. :(

4) Where were you when 2010 began?

In my house, celebrating with homemade punch!

5) Who were you with?

With the aforementioned lovely ladies.

6) Did you keep your new years resolution of 2010?

"Mine are the standard keep fit, spend less and work harder!" Well, I definitely managed to spend less, after moving back into halls of residence free of charge. My keeping fit regime was mediocre; cycling to and from uni but began to give myself license to eat more, anyway. Bad, bad.

7) Do you have a new years resolution for 2011?

Yes! Perhaps some are more like guidelines, though. I came across a great idea from Moleskine, over at Moleskinerie; the Blank Dice for 12 Resolutions and so decided to do my own:

Spend all your spare time on finishing your PhD!
Drink more water; 8 glasses a day!
Have productive weekends
Cycle more
Get off the internet!
Spend less money and save more
Join an exercise class
Eat more fruit and veg!
Go to sleep and get up earlier
Learn to say no to people and activities
Make and take your own lunch food!
Achieve your goals

It did look more perfectly formed but after a trip in my bag, it unfortunately went through a bit of a squashing trauma.

8) Did you fall in love in 2010?

Yes.

9) If yes, with who?

The bundle of joy that is my nephew.

10) If yes, do they know?

Probably not but oh, he will!

11) Are you still in love with them?

Yes, everyday.

12) You regret it?

Not for a second!

13) Did you breakup with anyone in 2010?

Thankfully, no.

14) Did you make any new friends in 2010?

Yes!

15) Who are your favourite new friends?

Oooh favourites is a dangerous game but I think if they were reading this, and they're probably not, they would know who they are.

16) What was your favourite month of 2010?

August probably; despite it being one of the most stressful times of my life, my trip to San Diego and how hard I worked before it, paid off!

17) Did you travel outside of your country of residence in 2010?

San Diego. Are you getting sick of me mentioning this now? I know I am.

18) Did you lose anybody close to you in 2010?

Again, thankfully, no.

19) Did you miss anybody in the past year?

Many. My family, constantly. And all the friends I didn't get to see because of my lack of time and money.

20) What was your favourite movie that you saw in 2010?

I think it has to be L'ennemi public no1.

21) What was your favourite song from 2010?

Hmm, that's a difficult one and my Last.fm is very deceiving; I didn't think it was Passion Pit - Sleepyhead but that's what it tells me. I really love Adele - Make You Feel My Love.

22) What was your favourite record from 2010?

Probably Florence + the Machine - Lungs

23) How many concerts did you see in 2010?

None?! It cannot be none... Damn.

24) Did you have a favourite concert in 2010?

Stop rubbing it in, please.

25) Did you drink a lot of alcohol in 2010?

Nope. There were long periods of no drinking at all. I don't think I can handle it anymore.

26) Did you do a lot of drugs in 2010?

I will admit I took more Ibuprofen than I normally would.

27) How many people did you sleep with in 2010?

I'm a one-man-kinda-woman.

28) Did you do anything you are ashamed of this year?

Not really. The sad, sad life I lead.

29) Where did most of your money go?

Probably on food, actually. 2010 was a year of wanting to eat out.

30) What was the worst lie someone told you in 2010?

I'm not aware of any lies. So either everyone I know is a very good liar, or they're all saints. (I liked that answer Helen, so kept it.)

31) Did you treat somebody badly in 2010?

Yes, I am very sorry to say. :(

32) Did somebody treat you badly in 2010?

All things considered; no.

33) How much money did you spend in 2010?

Too much. And more than I saved.

34) What was your proudest moment of 2010?

Repetitive I know but presenting and semi-publishing my PhD work.

35) What was your most embarrassing moment of 2010?

Another hard one because I've never been that adventurous that I end up being embarrassed. I'll get back to you on that one...

36) If you could go back in time to any moment of 2010 and change something, what would it be?

Too many to mention, but that is no way to live your life.

37) What are your plans for 2011?

Knuckle down, stop galavanting (as my mother would say) and finish my PhD, learn to drive, eat and live healthy but laughing is good for your heart so try and do lots of that. I really would like to blog more. Oh and continue to tick things off my 101 in 1,001 list

So, how was your 2010?

Will you walk into my parlour?

2010-11-06T12:08:00.000Z

I think this might be my favourite poem, of all time.

The Spider and the Fly
Mary Howitt

"Will you walk into my parlour?" said the Spider to the Fly,
"'Tis the prettiest little parlour that ever you did spy;
The way into my parlour is up a winding stair,
And I've a many curious things to shew when you are there."
Oh no, no," said the little Fly, "to ask me is in vain,
For who goes up your winding stair can ne'er come down again."

"I'm sure you must be weary, dear, with soaring up so high;
Will you rest upon my little bed?" said the Spider to the Fly.
"There are pretty curtains drawn around; the sheets are fine and thin,
And if you like to rest awhile, I'll snugly tuck you in!"
"Oh no, no," said the little Fly, "for I've often heard it said,
They never, never wake again, who sleep upon your bed!"

Said the cunning Spider to the Fly, "Dear friend what can I do,
To prove the warm affection I've always felt for you?
I have within my pantry, good store of all that's nice;
I'm sure you're very welcome -- will you please to take a slice?"
"Oh no, no," said the little Fly, "kind Sir, that cannot be,
I've heard what's in your pantry, and I do not wish to see!"

"Sweet creature!" said the Spider, "you're witty and you're wise,
How handsome are your gauzy wings, how brilliant are your eyes!
I've a little looking-glass upon my parlour shelf,
If you'll step in one moment, dear, you shall behold yourself."
"I thank you, gentle sir," she said, "for what you're pleased to say,
And bidding you good morning now, I'll call another day."

The Spider turned him round about, and went into his den,
For well he knew the silly Fly would soon come back again:
So he wove a subtle web, in a little corner sly,
And set his table ready, to dine upon the Fly.
Then he came out to his door again, and merrily did sing,
"Come hither, hither, pretty Fly, with the pearl and silver wing;
Your robes are green and purple -- there's a crest upon your head;
Your eyes are like the diamond bright, but mine are dull as lead!"

Alas, alas! how very soon this silly little Fly,
Hearing his wily, flattering words, came slowly flitting by;
With buzzing wings she hung aloft, then near and nearer drew,
Thinking only of her brilliant eyes, and green and purple hue --
Thinking only of her crested head -- poor foolish thing! At last,
Up jumped the cunning Spider, and fiercely held her fast.
He dragged her up his winding stair, into his dismal den,
Within his little parlour -- but she ne'er came out again!

And now dear little children, who may this story read,
To idle, silly flattering words, I pray you ne'er give heed:
Unto an evil counsellor, close heart and ear and eye,
And take a lesson from this tale, of the Spider and the Fly.

Schpooky!

2010-11-05T15:15:00.001Z

I've always wanted to dress up for Hallowe'en and have been obsessed with dressing up as a Corpse or Undead Bride for the last two years; All Hallows Even.

This year, an opportunity presented itself in the form of a friends hallowe'en house party -- it was now or never. OK, not never but carpe diem and all that.

It's a shame this is the best picture I have before I went out (and it's not even a full shot) :( ....

Hopefully, I still look convincingly dead?

I'm hoping my friend took some better pictures!

Some might consider it an expensive costume to go for but it was so much fun to make, get ready and then wear, and others were really quite impressed with my costume. I shall be recycling this outfit for many years to come. Fancy having a go yourself? Check out the list and prices of the costume and make-up components below.

____________________________

CLOTHES

Dress: £20, Vintage Oldham Street, Manchester (Customised with dirt, teabags and scissors)

Shoes: ~£10, Primark

ACCESSORIES

Handbag: £2, Vintage Oldham Street, Manchester (Customised with dirt)

Veil: £1, Vintage Oldham Street, Manchester (Customised with dirt)

Broche: ~£7 The Bead Shop, Afflecks Palace, Manchester

Tiara: £8, Claire's Accessories

Black flowers: £3.99, Afflecks Palace, Manchester

Lace gloves: £6.99, Afflecks Palace, Manchester (Customised with dirt, teabags and scissors)

MAKE-UP

Make-up Tutorial: Free Zombie/Dead Girl Look by NikkieTutorials

Make-up

Primer: GOSH Velvet Touch Primer £12, Superdrug
White Face paint: ~£3, Afflecks Palace
Foundation: Clinique Gentle Light Make-up Foundation in 01 Candle Glow, ~£20 Boots (Have just found out Clinique have discontinued this foundation, again! Booo!)
Face powder: Rimmel Stay Matte Pressed Powder in 01 Transparent £3.99, Superdrug or Boots
Eyeshadow primer: GOSH Eye shadow base £6.99, Superdrug
Dark brown eyeshadow: Clinique
Purple eyeshadow: Barry M Dazzle Dust in dd99 Bright Indigo £4.50, Superdrug (2 for £7) or Boots
Black eyeshadow: Barry M Dazzledust in 11 Black £4.50, Superdrug (2 for £7) or Boots
Black, Brown and Purple eyeliner pencils: Kohl pencil, Boots
Black liquid eyeliner: MAC Fluidine in Blacktrack, £12.50
Pink blush: Sleek, ~£3.99, Superdrug
Nail varnish: GOSH Nail Lacquer in 75 Avantgarde ~£5, Superdrug
Eyebrows: Dark brown eyeshadow: Clinique
Lips: MaxFactor Colour Collections Lipstick in [fill in later] £7.99, Superdrug or Boots
White Hair: Batiste Dry Shampoo £2.30, Superdrug or Boots
Hairspray of your choice

Brushes

Foundation brush: MAC 190 Foundation brush £25
Concealer brush: MAC 194 Concealer brush £15.50
Blusher brush: No7 Blusher brush £11, Boots
Contour brush: MAC 168 Large angled contour brush £22.50
Overall Eyeshadow brush: MAC 239 Eyeshader brush £17.50
Crease eyeshadow brush: MAC 275 Medium angled shading brush £17.50
Eyeliner and eyebrow brush: GOSH Eyeline brush slanted, fine ~£7

I've moved!

2010-09-17T11:42:00.002+01:00

For quite some time I have been considering a move from Blogger to Wordpress. I signed up for a free Wordpress blog many moons ago and actually managed to get the username I really wanted: gingerella (without having to add the 'j').

I'd be really happy to have you all join me over there! If you think you'd like that too, add my Wordpress blog to your reader: gingerella.wordpress.com/

I have also taken the decision to switch to the Twitter account I use much more often: twitter.com/gingerellaj

I'm not going to delete this blog, just yet. You never know, I might be back!

So, to cut a long story short, I have gone back to Wordpress to try it out. The negatives are definitely the inability to have complete control over the CSS for free. Blogger is awesome for that! But it's an itch I simply had to scratch.

There are going to be a few changes compared with Blogger: I'm going a little more, er, 'public'; I shall try to make it more related to me, my PhD, my life. Hopefully, that way, I won't ever be stuck for material? Yeh, right! Either way, I am hoping to move away from just being an anonymous person behind the Gingerella username, and become more Jen.

I have imported the old posts and comments from Blogger into WP, although I decided to hide the ones that didn't quite fit in over there.

So, here goes, my new leaf...

Living with a boy, part 2

2010-06-17T12:17:00.014+01:00

R and I had already decided to live together and with us only wanting to rent for 3 months, private landlords were a better bet than agencies who usually prefer tenants to let for a minimum of 6 months. Cue Gumtree. It is like (read: better than) Craigslist.

By the way, I've always wondered why Americans can't say the name Craig? Well, they do say it, but they pronounce it Kregg? What's that all about? It's Cray-g!!

So, I'd used Gumtree before but never actually got anything directly out of it. This time, I'm determined to make Gumtree work for me and swoop a deal!

Almost immediately, I think I'm onto a winner -- a 1 bedroom flat in a very popular block of apartments in a very central location (for anyone who knows the Manchester area; The Quadrangle on Lower Ormond Street opposite the BBC - brilliant location right?) all for just £90 per week. Wow! That would be just £45 per week for each of us.

I quickly reply to the advert expressing my interest, requesting further details on bills and asking to arrange a viewing.

In the mean-time, I spy another very similar advert on the same street, for just a little more (£105 per week). There seems to be some confusion in the advert though as the poster mentions another area of the UK (Sunderland) in the title but everything in the advert implies Manchester. So, I conscientiously reply to the advert with the same questions, first trying to ascertain exactly where the flat is.

I receive a pretty rapid response to the first advert via e-mail. One of the most convoluted e-mail responses I've had in a long time.

Exhibit A: E-mail #1

Sender: Jennifer Cole

Oooh, we have the same name! Yay.

Thanks for the interest you have in my flat. My flat is still available for rent and you can rent my flat as long as you pay your rent at when due. Rent is £90 pw and deposit is £500, returnable at the end of a month stay in my flat. Utility bills inclusive (water, gas, council tax, TV license and wireless internet) for £0.00 pcm.

At when due? What are you talking about Jennifer? And wow, council tax for nothing?!

However, my flat is fully furnished in and out with all necessary house use. At this stage that you want to rent my flat, I need to know some few question about you. Can you take care of my flat as it is? How many months do you intend to rent and pay for? Do you have references in Manchester?

You have furnishings on the outside as well as the inside? I don't get it. Take care of your flat "as it is"? Well, how is it? I haven't seen it yet.

Kindly reply for further information and I would like to know where you are coming from to stay in my flat

Regards
Mr/Mrs Cole

Er... are you a man or a woman? Perhaps whatever I want you to be? At this point, I assume it is from a husband and wife team, simply choosing not to go with the traditional Mr & Mrs Cole.

My benefit-of-the-doubt principle goes into overdrive and despite her atrocious writing skills, I decide to give Jennifer a chance. Maybe she's Chinese and married to an English man? Who knows.

I reply with the answers to her questions; yes, we have references, yes, I assume we can look after the flat (but we do want a viewing!), we're coming from Manchester and can we arrange a viewing.

I wait patiently.

I decide to revisit the advert on Gumtree to look at the information and pictures again. I'm thinking "I know someone who lives in that apartment block and it doesn't look like that -- but maybe they had it customly decorated. Oh but wait, a flat in an apartment block shouldn't have a fireplace?!"

My visit to Gumtree reveals that the advert has been removed. Wow, she's keen. I only sent an e-mail not signed a contract. Then I discover the second advert has also been removed.

Alarm bells should have been ringing by this point...

*Ding* Another e-mail hits my inbox, this time about the second advert which mentions Sunderland but implies Manchester.

Exhibit B: E-mail #2

Sender: Lora Colin

Thanks for your interest in my flat. I mispost my AD to Manchester section. My flat is still available for rent and you can rent my flat as long as you pay your rent at when due. Rent is £105 pw and deposit is £400, returnable at the end of a month stay in my flat. Utility bills inclusive (water, gas, council tax, TV license and wireless internet) for £0.00 pcm.

This looks spookily familiar. Also, if it's actually in Sunderland, I'm not interested!

Everything else in the e-mail is the same, apart from this time pictures are attached (also looking amazing!) and Lora signs off;

Regards
Mr/Mrs Colin

These just aren't genuine adverts are they? Then again, maybe I am being too cynical? What could they be after; my money, my body, my passport. I don't have to wait long to find out the answers to those questions...

Exhibit C: E-mail #3

Ohhh hello again Jennifer.

Thanks for the reply and the sincere interest you have in my flat. I spoke with my lawyer...

You're lawyer?! WTF Jennifer? In which e-mail did we say we had previous convictions for murder? Anyway, so you spoke to your lawyer...

...concerning your stay in my flat and we both agreed to have you in my flat as long as you'll take good care of my flat as how it is. However, it is unfortunate that my past bitter experience of inviting people to come and view or reserve my flat without any form of confirmation of their financial ability and not keeping up to time as at when scheduled, has brought about great loss to me. I have traveled all the way from Ireland to take some interested candidates round my flat because that's where i work with M. Gould (Scunthorpe) Ltd.

I'm really sorry to hear about your past bitter experience and great loss (who died exactly?). As bad as my Geography can be, I'm pretty confident Scunthorpe is not in Ireland. M. Gould is a real company by the way, and presumably nothing to do with this scam.

At this point, I exclaim "Oh. My. God." and begin reading the e-mail aloud to R and his housemates.

Some outside tenants do not have the money to pay the rent and yet they disturb the the landlord to arrange a viewing with their friend or relative who are in Manchester, also some do not meet up with the appointments which has led to the dismissal of some landlords in office by their employers.

So wait, let me understand this, some "outside tenants" (maybe that's people to you and me?) wanted to view your flat, which "disturbed" the landlords (what like needing-counselling disturbed or...?!) and because they cancelled the appointments, the landlords got the heave-ho? Wow, that's harsh.

Henceforth, my lawyer and I have decided to carry out a simple test on financial ability to pay for my rent before coming for viewing. I would not ask you to send your bank statement. At least 1 month rent and security deposit which is £500 which is refundable after your 1 month stay in my flat, would be required from you to transfer through Western union money transfer agent. You can make the transfer with your name as a sender name and your partner or friend in UK premises as a receiver.

OK, so you don't want my bank statement. That's good. You want me to pay you £500 via Western Union? Well, that was my initial thought when I read this ridiculous e-mail but upon closer inspection, Jennifer wants me to transfer £500 to my partner (is that partner in crime or...?). Apologies for my interruption. Please, do go on.

Once you have done this, scan the receipt to me and if you do not have scanner, you may write out the details on the receipt as i will send it to my lawyer to verify if it's truly genuine and available in your friend's custody, after verification, then we can proceed for the viewing and you can as well tell your friend or partner to pick up the money and also, i will refund back to you the cost of transfer when we meet.

I am so grateful that you thought of a contingency plan in case I don't have a scanner. So, you want the receipt with all the transfer details on - and why would that be? Oh, that's so you can pick up the WU transfer money before my "partner" has the chance to and even though I haven't given the money to you, you still rob me of it! Brilliant.

I look forward to reading from you soon.

Well, Jennifer (fraudulent stealer of my name), you will not be "reading" from me soon!

I really wanted to reply with a funny response. Perhaps replying to Jennifer and CC'ing Lora Colin. If their English had been better and they hadn't sent the same scam e-mail to the same address in the space of an afternoon (scammers clearly have no quality control -- did they not notice they'd already e-mailed me once about a different advert?), they might have more success. Not with me of course, you understand.

At least that lesson was for free.

And so, the flat-hunt continues. The next day, we found a brilliant place and this time, it was real...

Super commenter?

2010-06-15T13:14:00.003+01:00

Tuppence has tagged me with the Super Comments Award! Thanks so much my lovely!

I first have to answer a few questions:

1. What is your most embarrassing moment of all time?
Maybe I'm not living enough if my most embarrassing moment is when I was 15? Our school was situated on top of a hill and anyone needing to get the bus home, had to descend said hill. One day, I managed to trip at the top of the hill. My initial thought was phew! I didn't roll all the way down. Then, I realised my skirt had flown over my head, I had unwillingly flashed my knickers to a large portion of my school, and one of the most popular and loudest people in school had been stood right behind me. The teasing began immediately, lasted the long walk to the bus stop during which I think I started crying (I didn't make it any better for myself did I?) and once we hit town, I saw my sister who I decided to report the incident to. She started shouting at this boy in defence of her poor, embarrassed sister. The next few days, maybe even weeks, at school were so embarrassing!

2. If you could eat only one food for the rest of your life, what would it be?
Hmmm this is difficult. It would either be West Indian food (curried mutton, rice and peas is so delicious!) or Chinese dim sum, plenty of selection. If I really must choose, it would be home cooked West Indian food.

3. How old were you when you had your first kiss?
Oooh I think I was quite young actually, I was in infants school so must have been about 5 or 6 years old. And I was convinced I was in love with him. I still remember his name; Jason. I think that's where my love affair with ethnic boys started. He was a little two timer though, kissing my best friend on the same day haha.

4. What is your browser home page?
iGoogle which includes weather reports for Manchester and my hometown of Walsall, my Google reader, Gmail, BBC News headlines, Date and Time, Horoscope, currency converter and Google Translate.

5. What colour you you never wear?
Ginger and red don't go well together at all!

6. Are you a nature lover or a city slicker?
50/50; I love camping, fishing, the outdoors, hiking and cycling but I do like to have regular transport, nice bars, cinemas and shops close by. It is nice to go somewhere at a moments notice. I couldn't live for any extended period of time in the middle of nowhere, waiting 3 hours for a bus.

7. If you were granted three wishes, what would they be?

To see my nan, grandad and uncle just one more time
To have thinner, sexier legs. Yes, very superficial, I know!
To own my own business, either selling stationery or cakes

8. Do you have any scars? How did you get them?

I have a few;

one of my knee from falling in the playground when I was about 9; my knew went full force into the very sharp corner of a brick, it bled a lot!
one to the right of my chest when I was swimming at 12-ish; I stuck the locker pin into my chest as well as my swimming costume
one to the left side of my nose when a doctor prescribed too high a dosage of hydrocortisone cream for my face (you're not even supposed to use it on the face!) when I was a baby; something like 5.0 instead of 0.5. What a plonker! But you can't really see it much now.

9. Have you ever seen a ghost?
Nope.

10. What is your dream job?
To be a scientific editor.

Now I have to pass this onto 10 fellow bloggers. But I'm going to cheat and just choose 5. Here ya go!

Living with a boy, part 1

2010-06-14T12:50:00.005+01:00

I'm going to be living with a boy! And not just any boy, my boyfriend. Ahhh!

A bit of background first, oui? OK.

I just wrote a fairly long back-story spiel about R and I living together but to cut a long story short, we decided living together for the next 3 months (some PhD thesis writing period) would give us cheap as chips accommodation. But, we are often an explosive mix, being either best buds or extremely incompatible.

But that didn't stop me wanting to attempt living together; even if he does leave the toilet seat up, we're pretty well matched on cleanliness and tidiness, he's my best friend and he's quite well-known for saying some pretty funny shit. Like what?

On the bus somewhere:

Jen: I really have to save money for next year
R: Maybe you should pimp yourself?
Jen: I don't feel it would be that profitable
R: Oh I dunno, I'd pay £20 to sleep with you

Whilst using my brand new, slinky laptop:

R: Ahhh your laptop is so nice and so light
Jen: I know *smug-face*
R: When you die you should give it to me. In fact, we should just sit down and write your will right now!

Random facebook message:
(You should know, we'd been dating a little while but our facebook statuses didn't reflect that, most of my relationships have involved none-white men and R doesn't have a British passport. And no, before you get all freaked out, it's not one of those 'Arab man marries overweight 40 year old ginger woman to get British passport' Take A Break stories!)

R: hello. my name is R. I like you. I notice you are single. Wanna be my girlfriend? ps. I am not white
Jen: Hello R, thank you. I too notice you are after 'random play' and 'whatever you can get'. Perhaps you are a naughty boy... are you sure you want a girlfriend? p.s. I do not sell passports

When not really listening to me, a common occurrence:

Jen: I have a job interview with the BNG (the British Nuclear Group)
R: Why would you wanna work for the BNP Jen?! I don't think we can date anymore.

_________

So, feeling confident that I'd made the right decision, how hard could it be to find a cheap-ish flat in Manchester for 3 months? Well, not a piece of cake, as it turns out and an internet scam seemed to be the order of the day...

Happy 2nd Blog-a-versary

2010-06-11T17:03:00.001+01:00

Aaaand it's that time of year again; Gingerella's 2nd birthday. No, not my 2nd birthday! Today, this blog celebrates its second year of existence. All together now, "Aww! Isn't she cute?!"

Happy 2nd Blog-a-versary to Me!

After a good first year, let's just hope this isn't the terrible twos....

June bug

2010-06-03T12:01:00.004+01:00

Whaaat? We're already in June?! How fast this year is going is incredible!

There's me thinking May was busy, what with all this jazz going on;

my choir's summer concert
one of my best friends' 30th birthday
my cousins long awaited wedding
applying for an editorial job and failing, miserably (I'm yet to tell you about that!)
writing a lengthy funding application only to discover all funding had already been allocated
R and I making the decision to live together, temporarily (I also haven't told you about that yet!!)
confessing to Super that my Fudd. is so awful, I want to quit!
consoling my brother after he and his girlfriend of 8 years split up
attempting to plan a conference trip to San Diego
and endless parties, birthdays, nights out and shenanigans, cinema trips, dinners, voluntary work, etc.

Yet all that seems to pale in comparison to what I can expect in June, July and August;

finalising a monumental conference proceeding manuscript to get my first publication (oh and actually getting the results to go in it)
moving out of my flat and maybe moving in with R, if we find somewhere that is
chucking out a phenomenal amount of junk I have accumulated over the past few years -- I really want to do a car boot sale!
two conference trips; fingers crossed for the one to San Diego!
R and I's 3 year anniversary is on the horizon
...and the end of my Fudd.... let's not talk about that.

What was your May like? What are you looking forward to, or dreading, in the next few months?

I am a blogging girl and I went to BNO, and I can play...

2010-05-26T11:09:00.002+01:00

... what can you play? Err... not the banjo?!

Please tell me you know that song? Three guesses. And if you do, yes, that really was the best I could think of.

Oh wait, you're still wondering what BNO is right? It was my chance to meet some fellow bloggers from down my way (Geddit? see what I did there?) back in April at the Bloggers Night Out in Manchester. At least I think it was April.

Anyway, I had a blast with the lovelies that are Helen, Kate, Tuppence and Rapunzel.

After being almost the last person to blog about it, I don't think even my best literary crafting can compare to the already wonderfully composed blog posts on the event. But I can say that there was lots of vino and cocktails, a little food and water(!) to wash it down, the odd number-exchange, flirty text messages and a never ending supply of chatter and giggles. I had an awesome time!

If you want to read more, and you really should (go and read more that is, rather than want to read more, although you should definitely want to read more), and to be a picture-perve, visit:

Tuppence: Girls Just Wanna Have Fun Parts One & Two
Rapunzel: Flirtini
Kate: Game On

Enjoy!

Oh, and if there's anyone else out there wanting to partake in more blogger meet up fun, holla!

Suffocated

2010-05-20T11:11:00.003+01:00

Another one of those "sorry I've been away" blogs? Yes, correct. I am sorry, I have been busy. I'm never not busy, really. Rapunzel gave me some pearls of wisdom; wherever I am, write down my blogging ideas. Tried that, didn't work. Why? Mainly because there is little to zero excitement in my life, but also because the topics don't seem nearly as interesting upon second inspection. Finally, because I realised what is holding my blogging back...

... I'm not anonymous.

I have plenty of personal shizz that I'd like to share with you all, so much I want to just vent about. People I want to vent about but without my readers thinking less of them and/or me. But considering a lot of people I know and/or am related to read this blog, both with and without my knowledge, I just can't do it.

So, how does a Blogger go underground? How do they reinvent themselves? How can they entice their lovely followers to do just that, follow them underground.

Tuppence has an invite only blog which I considered following suit. But that could possibly get a little confrontational when a friend or family member asks me for an invite and I have to say "Er... no?" How would I deal with that. Sometimes I just want to vent about my life to people who don't know me in real life, and can't get offended, hurt or angry or most of all, judge me for the things I say and do as well as judging the people I dish the dirt on. I should be entitled to that right? Maybe wrong. Maybe I don't have the right to "dish the dirt" on people.

I am so envious of people who had the foresight to keep their identity hidden. I want that. But I don't want to have to start all over again. You lot are all for keeps and I'd rather not lose you.

There's all sorts of philosophical questions; why do you need to be anonymous? Why can't you just be yourself and not care what other people think? But, aside from saying I do care, those all sound like judgemental questions, which I don't really care enough about to sit down and ponder answers to.

Oh boy, I'm getting excited just thinking about all the possible topics I would feel free to write about if I possessed anonymity! It could just turn into a big bitch fest.... but I think I really want to do this.

But then I know a lot of it might revolve around my current relationship, friends and family and no matter how anonymous I would think I am, my fear would be that I could always be found out. I would hate for any of the people I really care about to read a rant after a bad day, or a truthful but painful comment. Which is why I try not to do it now; I don't want to hurt anyone.

So, what do you suggest? Would you do it? Have you done it? How does a blogger completely rearrange their virtual life and identity?

101 in 1,001

2010-04-25T17:21:00.005+01:00

The idea of creating a 101 in 1,001 list (101 goals in 1,001 days) has intrigued me for a while now. Initially, 1,001 days sounded like such a short time and I wasn't sure what goals I could fill my list with let alone whether I'd complete them! But the more I thought about, read other peoples' lists and realised, wait a minute, that's actually 2.75 years, the more I warmed to the idea.

So, I've created an account over at Day Zero, made my list (detailed below in all its scary glory!) and shall document my progress here for you all.

START DATE: April 23, 2010
END DATE: January 18, 2013
ITEMS COMPLETE: 3/101

In Progress
Completed

PERSONAL

001. Be asleep by 11pm ever night for a week
002. Be with or engaged to the man I want to spend the rest of my life with
003. Cut swearing out of my everyday vocabulary
004. Don't complain about anything for a week
005. Drink only water for one week
006. Expand my vocabulary by 100 words
007. Find out my blood type
008. Get a funky haircut
009. Give blood
010. Go vegetarian for a week
011. Have 10 dates with R (0/10)
012. Identify 25 things I like about myself
013. Identify 100 things that makes me happy
014. Kiss in the rain
015. Live by myself
016. Live in another country
017. Lose weight
018. Make a new friend
019. No alcohol for a month
020. Own a goldfish
021. Save £3,000
022. Try teeth whitening
023. Write a letter to myself to open in 5 years

BLOGGING & WWW

024. 24 hours without the internet
025. Buy my own domain name
026. Encourage someone to start a blog
027. Guest post on another blog
028. ~~Go to at least one bloggers meet up~~ [ Manchester Bloggers Night Out, April 24, 2010 ]
029. Host a blog giveaway
030. Not log into Facebook for a whole week

ACADEMIC

031. Become Dr Jen
032. Get a job
033. Have at least one publication to my name
034. Present my work at a conference

ACTIVITIES

035. Bake cookies
036. Build a snowman
037. Buy a car
038. Buy a lottery ticket
039. Buy a plant and keep it alive
040. Buy something on Etsy
041. Complete a 1,000+ piece jigsaw puzzle
042. Dance without music on
043. Do 26 Things
044. Donate to charity
045. Dress up for halloween
046. ~~Eat at a Greek restaurant~~ [ Kosmos with R, April 23, 2010 ]
047. Eat cheese. Yuck!
048. Eat no sweets (desserts, cakes, chocolate etc.) for a week
049. Get a massage
050. Get a pedicure
051. Get waxed
052. Go on a picnic
053. Go camping
054. Go fishing or crabbing
055. Go on a road trip
056. Go swimming at least 10 times (0/10)
057. Go to a Crumbs and Doilies Cupcakes market stall in London
058. Go to an Ann Summers' party
059. Have another go at ice skating
060. Have pictures taken in a photo booth
061. Host a dinner party
062. Join a book club
063. Learn 2 new card games (0/2)
064. Learn how to make homemade lemonade
065. Learn the capitals and locations of all countries
066. Learn to drive
067. Leave an inspirational note inside a book for someone to find
068. Make a birthday cake for someone
069. Make ice cream from scratch
070. Paint/decorate a room with someone
071. Read 20 books (0/20)
072. Read Harry Potter to see what all the fuss is about
073. Read 'Lord of the Rings'
074. See a movie in 3D
075. Send a secret to PostSecret
076. Smile at everyone I see for an entire day
077. Sneak into a movie
078. Take a packed lunch to work everyday for a month
079. Try shisha
080. Visit a sex shop
081. Visit America
082. Visit Edinburgh
083. Visit Imperial War Museum (IWM)
084. Visit Manchester Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI)
085. Visit Paris
086. Volunteer with a youth project
087. Watch at least 50 movies
088. Watch more films at The Cornerhouse
089. Win a pub quiz
090. Win something

ARTS & CREATIVE

091. ~~Buy a guitar~~ and learn how to play [ Guitar purchased 5 October, 2009 ]
092. Customise a piece of clothing
093. Go to a dance class
094. Keep tickets or events stubs and put them into a collage or scrapbook
095. Knit a scarf
096. Learn a foreign language
097. Learn to knit or crochet
098. Make 10 pieces of jewellery (1/10)
099. Watch an Opera

MISCELLANEOUS

100. Make another 101 in 1,001 list
101. Save £1 for every completed item on this list. Donate £2 for every incomplete item

Phew! That's a lotta shit to do! You'll be able to keep upto date with my progress via the 101 in 1,001 page.

Have you got a list?

Blog Swap: The best thing about being a blogger

2010-04-14T14:53:00.005+01:00

Today's post is brought to you by Spontaneous K from [ My Own Voice Over ] as part of the 20sb 7th Blog Swap. And you can find my post over at Spontaneous K's blog. But, without further ado, I'll let him do the talking.

_________________

Surprise, denizens of the UK! Jen won't be adorning you with her energetic wit and grin-inducing ditties today. You have an American addressing you. Rut roh. I'm not that bad, honest. Jen and I have decided to do a little blog swap, so alas, I am here. And you are now my audience. MWAHAHAHA. Ahem. Sorry.

So what do I have to say during this precious time on another blogger's blog? Well, the topic is, obviously, "What is the best thing about being a blogger?"

Ah, the age old question. Or at least one that is as old as public internet. So about 15 years. But it's still age old, damnit! And important!

It's going to be difficult to choose the best thing about being a blogger, considering it's so awesomely popular that there are hundreds of millions of blogs in the wondrous blogosphere (that's not even a small country, that's a LARGE country).

However, if I have to choose one thing, just one, that is best about being a blogger...it's the freedom. Freedom of what you ask? Good question!

Expression. No matter how amazing of an artist you are, no matter how much you pride yourself on your ability to express how your feelings, your thoughts, your ideas...we're all somewhat worried when it comes to the matter of what other's think. I liken blogging to Halloween parties. If you wear a costume that has a mask, your true character comes out. Why? Because you can say and do whatever you'd like (y'know, within legal reason) with sheer confidence, since nobody knows who you are.

The internet is the same thing. It is an epic mask, and the party is the entire world. You can say whatever you want, portray yourself however you want, and there are no consequences (that is, if you're using a secret identity. If you let your friends and family know that you're blogging, and you talk about whatever you want, well...may the force be with you. That's a whole other can of worms.)

Blogging truly allows you to be yourself, something a lot of people can't do anywhere else. It's a manner of self-discovery, and also discovering that you're not alone. There are tons of bloggers out there writing about the same topics as you, empathizing with the same problems, providing advice and (mostly) constructive criticisms. I've made great friends through blogging, like Gingerella here. And...I've learned a lot about myself.

A toast, my new European audience! To blogging. :)

Check me out at http://myownvoiceover.blogspot.com. And thank Gingerella for allowing my 15 minute take over.

Adios amigos!

-Spontaneous K

_________________

Hells Bells!

2010-04-14T10:35:00.018+01:00

Dearly Beloved,

we are gathered here today to mourn the passing of a cute, little, pedestrian-warning, sound-making device; MiniBlackBell. I know ~~most~~ all of you never got the chance to share in the joy of meeting, knowing or spending rain or sunshine with her. She was my beloved bicycle bell, gifted to me but, from day one, it were as if she were my own ~~purchase~~ BellChild.

Trusty and faithful, she remained ~~attached to the handlebar~~ by my side whenever I ~~wished to mow down a pedestrian meandering in the cycle lane~~ needed her. My life, and even the life of Biki, will never be the same again! Her ~~ringer snapped off~~ soul departed this earth around 9am this morning whilst Biki and I were trying (and failing) to avoid a gazillion potholes on the way to work. The image of her losing her solitary limb, thereby disabling her ring, will stay with me until ~~I forget~~ my dying day. We must take comfort in her quick and painless end... even if her severed appendage is still out there somewhere.

In closing, we are gathered here today not just to mourn MiniBlackBell's passing but to celebrate her life. We know she is in Bell Heaven now.

Amen.

Whilst MiniBlackBell can never be replaced, she can certainly have a new bell attached in her honour. And I wouldn't mind one of these bells...

The Taj Mahal of Bicycle Bells

Image: Georgie_grrl

Polkadot Bell

Image: plush skirt

Coffee Bell

Image: drew*in*chicago

Ladybird Bell

Image: piaktw

I ♥ My Bike Bell

Image: Location is Everything

or perhaps this vintage Brass Bell is the way forward

Image: mannyvv

Which bell would you choose? Know of any funky bells I can get my hands on?

Been a while, crocodile.

2010-04-05T02:44:00.008+01:00

It certainly has been a while. I apologise for such a long hiatus period. Things got very busy there for a while. I shouldn't really use past tense because actually, they still are. But as always, I've been missing this place, even broadcasting into silence seems to be calling me. I have been reading all my fave blogs through my Google reader, though and even finding time to comment on a few.

It's 1.30am on Easter Monday morning. I really should be asleep especially as it's looking scarily similar to last night (I didn't sleep until 4.30am! Doing what, I have almost no idea) and have set my alarm for 8am to get plenty of work done in time for ~~work~~ uni starting again on Tuesday.

My Easter Sunday has been pretty unremarkable, didn't make it to uni as I'd planned, or even (unplanned) Church. Opted for thesis/publication writing at home instead. Happy Easter by the way. Get many eggs? Sadly, I didn't. And why not? Well, apart from being a little too old and no-one here to give me any, I have a one word answer. Lactose. But after tall tales of Ferraro Rocher 'eggs', I shall be in search of one tomorrow! I think I have decided they are my favourite chocolates of all time.

Want to get in my good books? Buy me some of those bad boys!

Lately, I seem to daydream about my future a lot. I'm no longer a spring chicken. I don't actually believe that, I'm only 25 and actually look like quite a young spring chicken even, but have always wanted to say that. But I am still wondering how my life is going to pan out. OK, confession, I have probably fantasised and obsessed about my wedding day for yeeears but it's getting worse. And babies, too! I think the babies are just down to me recently becoming an auntie and only seeing the cute side (although, I have been thrown up on a couple of times already!) Subscribing to several wedding blogs doesn't help either; I've begun to consider colour schemes, am in love with and want my wedding to be filmed with Super 8mm film and even have an idea on wedding songs... just so you know, I am nowhere near getting married! I think it's just the fantasy and the idea of panning something so spectacular. (I promise, R! No, don't leave...) Or maybe just escapism from my current existence.

I'm thinking that you're never too young to be groomed on a social networking website...

I am currently facebook messaging with someone who seems to think they have met me before. They conveniently can't remember where or when apart from a generic 'studenty bar' when they came to visit a friend in Manchester. Already seems odd, you say? Yes, it does but for some reason, I didn't twig. I suppose I can get chatting to some strange-os when I get drunk so let's give this stranger the benefit of the doubt.

So, the conversation starts off light about Manchester and studying and I'm thinking, this can't last and I'll be able to go to bed soon. *yawn* But it slowly progresses and I find myself answering questions such as 'what do you think makes a good relationship?' and 'would you ever go to a naturist beach' interspersed with seemingly normal questions and nuggets of information.

So, why am I still conversing with this individual and continuing with this sherade at this hour when I have already clearly decided their reason for meassging me are a guise for something else? No idea, but it continues. The topic of threesomes come up (OK, you have to know I'm giving you a fast-slim version of events here and the topic came up because of a funny proposition I decided to share. I did not have a threesome, not that there's anything wrong with threesomes.... oh gawd! I'm gonna leave that alone and continue) and they begin to ask me what I think of threesomes.

Woooahhh! Slow down there. Alarm bells finally start to ~~make a distant jingle~~ ring and I start to clam up and reduce the size of my answers. (Whaaaat? You're still answering and talking to this fruitcake?!)

But wait, there is a key piece of informarion I am yet to divulge to you. And I just can't keep it in any longer. The incessant messages are coming from, wait for it... a girl. Yup, a girl! Well, that's if I am to believe anything 'she' has said so far or anything implied by her profile. I'm going to call it and say she is trying to recruit R and I for a threesome (or more-somes!) Why? Well, dead giveaways might be questions like what do you think of threesomes and if there were any circumstances under which I would let my boyfriend sleep with another girl. No. Oh, wait, under one circumstance, maybe; over my dead body!

This is happening in real time kids. I am chatting to this vag-freak right now. And finally, I have womanned up and called her out. After her asking whether I could watch my platonic male friends take showers, I had to draw the line and settled for telling her that her questions are weird and I don't know why she's asking them! (Plus adding that no, I do not want to watch my male friends in the shower. Those attachments are damn fugly!)

Let's wait for a response to that...

Ooooh! Put your handbag away 'lady'! She has issued a goodbye statement due to me thinking she's 'weird'. Damn right I think you're weird, but now I'm bloody interested! Who, or actually what, the hell are you?

I reckon that's going to be the end of that conversation. and it certainly wasn't how I expected my evening to turn out at 2am on Easter Monday.

And on that note, I am going to take my leave and bid you farewell. Goodnight.

Spank you!

2010-02-26T16:12:00.018Z

Blogging twice in one day? It's definitely Friday. And before you berate me for reminding you when you already know, you'd be surprised just how many people do not know what day it is.

I just remembered the splendiferous LG at London Town and Me gave me the Sunshine Award. Spank you very much LG! ;)

I'm told I have to pass this award onto my 6 favourite bloggers. Oooh that's hard. Do we really have to use the F word? Anyway, I nominate these 6 bloggers because they bring a little bit of sunshine to my day.

Enjoy!

OK, this area right here...

[ .......................................................................................................
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may have been the diva version of myself complaining about blog award responses yada yada yada! But I decided to remove it because it makes me sound so friggin' ungrateful! And lovelies, I am so very grateful!

Happy Weekend!

Anti-climatic much?

2010-02-26T12:06:00.015Z

Is it Friday again, already?! It's been a week since I last blogged. Time flies when ~~you're having fun~~ you don't have a laptop!

Thank you all so much for the 25th birthday wishes my lovelies! You all rock.

It was a rather low key affair (more on that shortly) and I have to say, now I'm 25 it's all really, rather "well, is that it?!". Anti-climatic. Maybe it's because I'm still stuck being a 'student' and nothing much has changed, except my age. Everything else is still the same. Or maybe it's because I definitely don't look 25, I still pretty much look like this...

except I've discovered mascara. I really wanted that headband, like a fat kid loves cake, so I'm told, which I now realise, made my ears slighty reminsicent of dumbo. *sigh*

But still, I appreciate it's a quarter of a century and yay for having made it this far. So, Happy Birthday to Me!

I mostly received dollars (not actual dollars, I'm British, I'm just trying to be hip with cool and the gang) but my sister sent me a beautiful framed picture of my nephew. It was propped up straight away! R was planning to get me a coat, maybe because my other one is an absolute ~~bag of shit~~ mess. He thought he better ask me first, though to which I replied I desired a coat. So, massive point scoring for him! We were going into town after uni to have dinner, so went a little earlier to look for a coat together. I really didn't expect to find one but stumbled across a lovely, black coat. Oh gawd, I wish I had a picture of it because describing it as a lovely black coat is just giving you nothing, right? Anyway, it was £95.... down to £36!! Awesome! And it was a size 6.

Oooh, I found pictures, and it's selling on ebay for £125!!

Then we went for dinner at Pizza Express and enjoyed a lovely starter, scrumptious pizzas (cheese-less for moi, a very spicy one for him. Well, it was called 'Etna', dear) and a bottle of white wine.

You can tell I really dressed up, made an effort, right? Like with my almost complete lack of make-up and with my university swipe card lanyard still on. Jen, you're so hot right now. And you might notice all the chillies still left on R's plate, and those were only half of them. OK, let's stop talking about that, I'm getting a craving for pizza now.

We fell out a little because he made a comment I didn't like. But it was mainly because I decided to be a massive diva cuz, ya know, it was my 25th birthday and all that shizz. Come on, you know the inner-diva comes out sometimes. So yes, I overreacted (which I feel pretty bad about now) but we made up cuz I still love him, of course and because he still loves me, even when I'm a dick. An actual phallus.

And that was that. The next day came and it was all over. I was considering organising some drinks at a ~~cheap~~ inexpensive cocktail bar tonight as it's Friiiiiday! But I'm not sure I can be bothered really.

I tell you what else is anti-climatic. Getting built up to submit your research abstract online for a conference on the day of the deadline (today). And then, .... *tumble weed* ... nothing. Maybe I will get the confirmation e-mail shortly. Even so, I have to wait until April to hear whether I will be presenting.

Or, you get all stressed out to submit a research abstact before the extended submission deadline closes, thinking you've just made it in time! ... And then, submission is still open, a week later. Arrrhhhh man!

All I can say is TGI Friday!

What do you have planned this weekend? My parents are visiting on Saturday for a belated birthday dinner and then good ol' Film Club on Sunday. I can just tell this weekend is going to zoom by far too fast and before I know it, I'll be staring straight at Monday!

Oh. This is weird.

2010-02-19T17:58:00.005Z

To my recollection, I have only ever blogged on my own machinery. OK, maybe R's machinery. But definitely not in a computer cluster -- basically just a free internet cafe for students at my university -- and it feels quite odd to be sat in the same place I would've been 7 years ago.

I'm sat in the computer cluster for the halls of residence I used to live in during my first year at university. It's kinda weird. But in a good way. Oooh the memories. Very uncharacteristic but I think this calls for a photo:

Me, aged 18, with 2 of my best friends; Rainbow (yup, her name was actually Rainbow) & Saii Man

Now, what would be weird is if one of my "students" plopped themselves down at the computer next to me. I think I'd end up censoring the websites I was visiting, incase they were looking. You ever do that? I don't know why I should care. But that's me, complete over-carer!

Anyway, none of them are sat next to me. In fact, no-one is sat next to me, it's lovely and warm and it's actually pretty quiet as it's Friday night. Everyone knows students don't work on Friday night, right? ;)

I sat in the house today and waited almost the entire day, 9am-4pm, for DHL to come and collect my laptop to send back to Acer. I've finally pulled my finger out and sent it back. However, as the laptop spent the entire day taped up in a box, I was at the mercy of daytime television. Oh. My. God. *shakes head* That was not easy! So now, I have no laptop and am resorting to computer clusters to get my blog fix! Let's hope Acer don't keep it for too long.

A girl across the room keeps looking at me. Whaaaaat?! Stop it, will ya?!

It's my birthday on Tuesday. Not just any birthday, my 25th. I don't have anything planned. Think R hadn't realised it's so close either. Should I do something? I really think I should and actually want to but it's probably too late now. I'm always late organising shizz for my birthday.

Anyway, I'm just talking jibberish now. I need to go get some dinner and have something of R's to return to him so I have to run along.

Happy Friday and have a lovely weekend y'all! What do you have planned? Maybe a few drinks for me tonight and then a friends birthday on Saturday, which I could possibly tag some of my own birthday celebrations onto but not sure what the music is like where we're going. Might have to sacrifice my musical tastes but hey-ho.

Toodles!

Beaudifu' Bloggers

2010-02-18T14:56:00.005Z

The wonderful Tuppence over at Tuppenny Tales has given me the Beautiful Blogger Award, and I will tell ya, it really warmed my heart!

I've only ever had one award (but possibly forfeited it by not following the rules, and passing forward) so thank you so much Tuppence! (hey, what's your real name lady?)

The award winner (oooh, I feel special!) must:

thank and link the person who gave them the award:

Tuppence, muchas gracias my dear!

award another 15 bloggers you deem fantastic or beaudifu'.

So, here's my list:

Nicole at pine nuts and vodka
Amy at Just A Titch
V at sunshine tinkerbell
Nahl at The Juicy Courtship
Meg at *curls and coffee*
LG at London Girl and Me
Nikolett at Better Than Coffee
Eileen at Engineering Eileen
Brittney at La Midge
Jessica at Lildonbro
Emma at Irregular Expressions
Ali at The Way I See It
Paul at Langley's Blog (men can be beaudifu', too!)
Amber at Girl With The Red Hair
Stefanie at Yeah honestly

That's the lot! And you I want to thank you all for being such beaudifu' bloggers!

Toodles!

Happy Valentine's Day!

2010-02-17T15:17:00.005Z

It's a taaaad late because I spent my Valentine's enjoying it and, in the days that followed, being snowed under with work and just generally living a life full of endless crap. Anyway, before this turns into an "I'm too busy to do anything" rant and sob story...

What did you get upto? I've really enjoyed reading all the different things people have done (or had done for them) on V day 2010 and their opinion towards this "commercial bullshizz holiday".

Wanna hear about mine? No? Well, you're gonna.

R and I did our celebrating on Saturday the 13th. The original plan was to have a 3 course meal, cooked by me, the same as last year but we couldn't actually agree on what we fancied for the main course (our faaaave is steak, but we'd had that recently) so instead we went with the easier option of eating out. I did promise to still make him the rhubarb crumble and custard I had planned as dessert, I just didn't say when.

We'd been to Italian Ciao Bella a few times before and loved their tomato soup, and I was particularly taken with their meatballs. But we'd never known it to be busy or popular so were hoping we could just wing it; arrive a little earlier and get a table. But we actually ended up going to thai restaurant Siam Orchid a few doors down and opted for the 2 course meal with a glass of wine; red for him and white for me. The meal was actually pretty good; Thai Red Beef Curry for R and Chicken Pad Thai for me, although our order ended up lost in translation and R ended up with a free starter. But who's complaining?!

So, at the restaurant, I presented him with my homemade Valentine's card which I had ~~wasted~~ spent all day making. It was based on this Martha Stewart Ribbon-Punched Valentine's craft. I put to good use the red and pink card and extremely inexpensive red ribbon I'd bought for my Christmas crafts. Sewing the heart into the card was really fun!! I really wish I'd taken a picture of the final result, I will try to soon and probably tweet it.

He didn't get me a card but that's OK, I know he's not the card giving type and actually, if I hadn't had this craft stuff lying around, he wouldn't have received one either.

After the meal, we headed to a popular area of Manchester full of young and trendy bars called the Northern Quarter, which, if you're ever visiting Manchester, is well worth a nighttime visit! We decided on Walrus, and I didn't get ID'd! We had such a nice time, the music was fab and we danced the whole night! By the end of it, we'd managed 3 bottles of rosé between us, although I was adding lemonade to mine, which is why R explains how he became so drunk by the end of the night and terribly hungover the next morning and I wasn't.

We were also celebrating a bit of good news; a good journal accepted his research abstract and so he's on his way to his first publication! Congratulations! So, I don't blame him for getting a little trollied. :D

Valentine's day itself wasn't filled with much except relaxing (i.e. R getting over his hangover), some football (R playing, not me watching) and TV. Just a pretty typical Sunday really.

I hope you all had a lovely Valentine's day! And I'm glad R didn't spend lots of money on me, because...

...what he really needs to save his money for is my birthday next week. ;)

Toodles!

Blogging No Man's Land

2010-02-13T10:12:00.002Z

"Good morning, gooood morning! It's great to stay up late..." ♫ ♪

Even though I didn't stay up late and was naturally up quite early this morning. When I woke up, however, I couldn't breathe and my face felt like a balloon as it seems my housemate left the heating on all night!

I digress.

I realised, after over 18months of this blog (with rather inconsistent posts, I must add), I am still in blogging no man's land! I don't really know what I want this blog to be about. Well, I know I want it to be about me (why did that sound so self-absorbed?!), all the things I like, and hate, doing and just generally about my (limp excuse of a) life but I never know which things to include or leave out.

Admittedly, most of the time, there's no post because I end up not having time (read: I don't make time) to sit down and post content I had planned. And then the topic feels stale so I just toss it aside, maybe for a rainy day.

I think I shall just stop worrying about what to post and just post it! And of course, make time to actually sit down and post it. If I just stayed in at the weekend and blogged, rather than going out shopping and/or partying, my bank account would be hella happy!

So, matter resolved? Yeh, probably. I seem to have just 'talked it out' with myself, right here, for your viewing pleasure. Aren't you just so thankful.

But now, sadly, I have to leave you to complete my long list of errands and chores today e.g. bank, food shopping, bathroom cleaning, vacuuming, and completing an all-important beautifying ritual for my dinner date with R tonight. ;) He seems to think we will just be able to turn up to this nice Italian restaurant tonight and get a table. It is normally pretty quiet, I suppose. Fingers crossed.

I did have some topics in the pipeline so I hope to be finished with my duties to share them with you -- even if the Valentine's themed DIY, crafts and cooking maaaay be a tad late now.

Right, shower time (should sound distinctly similar to hammer time).

Toodles!

How could I forget...

2010-02-10T13:46:00.007Z

... to tell you about my Film Club night?! Never fear, I am here to fill you in.

In the end, after spending 2 hours on Sunday afternoon proof-watching it, I went with Oldboy. At 2 hours long, it was right on target for the duration that the Film Club audience can withstand. But those 2 hours actually went by really quickly, considering I had already watched the same 2 hour footage a few hours earlier and knew exactly what was coming.

Has anyone seen this? No, I'm not going to spoil it and tell you the twist but, omg (importantly, I pronounce it 'omj', like that well known, international sound of meditation, with an additional 'j', not like o-m-g. Anyway) it's pretty sick.

With a subtitled film, I find it difficuly to judge the acting but I thought it was quite good. I loved the soundtrack and the fight scenes were damn cool. I thought it was great cinematography, actually. I would rate the film 8/10.

Apart from the sickiness of it all and despite hearing "oh great, another subtitled film" at the beginning, everyone seemed to really enjoy i.

There were 4 out of the 10 in the room that had seen the film before and I actually heard the occassional huffing from one person who may, or may not, have been unimpressed about having to give up 2 Sunday hours to watch a film they'd seen before. I hope it wasn't that but if it was; middle-finger-up to you, my friend.

My film night almost failed thanks to my troublesome hard drive not being recognised by R's computer. But all worked out in the end and disaster was averted.

Snacks and drinks? I went with what I would want to eat and drink; so, armed with 2 Kettle Chips multipacks, cartons apple and orange fruit juice and a tub of homemade Fairtrade chocolate brownies, I think my night turned out relatively well!

Toodles!

"What's in the bag, lady?"

2010-02-09T00:31:00.006Z

This was something really fun I saw over at Better Than Coffee's blog and have wanted to do it all week!

So, I present to you... the contents of my bag;

1. Lab Book 2. Phone 3. Calculator 4. External HDD 5. Camera 6. MP3 Player 7. Inhalers 8. Pencilcase 9. Book 10. Glasses 11. Diary 12. Cosmetics 13. Documents 14. Cycling Gear 15. Purse

Wow, there's a lot, huh?! Please remember I carry a backpack around with me most days. It's not as bad as it looks. Oh, click the picture if you fancy a closer snoop. Here's more info;

Lab Book: lab book #2, to be precise, and this has been going everywhere with me lately. It's actually really heavy because of all the extra graphs and datasheets I glue into it. Need to get #3 soon.
Phone: yes, it is a BlackBerry but, because it was a hand-me-down/replacement from my sister when my phone wasn't working (I just haven't been bothered to swap it back) and because I am on PayAsYouGo (yes, nearly 25 and still on PAYG), it's actually just a beast of a phone (size-wise), without any internet, etc.
Calculator: every scientist needs one of these bad boys. I have had it for 7 years now and because it was a very popular calculator amongst my peers, I added that rainbow Amnesty International sticker on the back (that I got in my very first week of uni) to make it unique.
External HDD: this 250GB worth of storage also goes everywhere with me and has most of my life on it. It is actually playing silly beggars and constantly seeing "USB not recognised" is scaring me half to death many times a day.
Camera: aww, what a lovely polkadot bag, you're thinking. That was from a pair of Topshop sunglasses. The camera is a digital compact; Casio Exilim Z85, for when I feel the need to snap something.
MP3 Player: it's actually a Sony Walkman HD and is 20GB worth of music. I paid a pretty penny for it many moons ago and has lasted well. (Saying that probably just jinxed it because I just dropped it on the floor from a great height.)
Inhalers: I have mild asthma and carry them just incase. I wheeze a lot after cycling in the cold, especially.
Pencilcase: if I'm away from my desk, all I need is a pen, pencil or rubber but I still carry the whole pencilcase around with me. It is from Muji, as are most of its contents.
Book: this is the one I am "reading" at the moment. I picked it up from Oxfam for £2 or £3.
Glassses: my slightly dented but very sturdy case for my spectacles. Something else I paid a pretty penny for (the glasses, that is, the case was simply a biproduct of the purchase; they're kinda designer?! lol) and have lasted me well.
Diary: the lovely moleskin diary I was telling you all about.
Cosmetics: every girl has to have some sort of beautifying product in her bag (we didn't all need to see the sanitary products either!). Mine's quite minimal; aloe vera vaseline, mini-brush, Nivea mini-deodrant (hey! you never know when you'll need one) and Body Shop's aloe vera day moisturiser.
Documents: my passport, my cheque and deposit books for my bank account and a silly card-reader that my bank (Barclays) introduced; I cannot access Online Banking without it. Grrr!
Cycling Gear: a bicycle pump and headlight. It's actually a camping headlight so don't know why I was using that to cycle with! It was a Christmas present from R (see, I told you he buys me really useful things!) I do have other cycling gear but it's attached to my bike.
Purse: last, but by no means least, my purse full of cards, money, stamps, bus pass, vouchers/coupons, passport photos, receipts and probably a lot of other crap. It's from Hong Kong.

I did forget to include my keys but nobody's really interested in those.

So, your turn, "What's in the bag, lad(y)?"

Toodles!

Saturday slump

2010-02-06T15:55:00.001Z

Thaaaaanks so much for all your responses about my Film Club choices. I'll admit that I really want to go with my first choice and instinct and show Lars and the Real Girl mainly because yeh, it is weird. But people might just be left wondering "what the hell was that all about?!" I'm torn with that one.

Michelle, I loved your ideas of showing Strictly Ballroom accompanied with some masculinity-boosters. Asweome! Plus, Jessica's brilliant Tina Sparkle cupcakes idea is making this film choice sound very fun!

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is a brilliant movie but as I suspected, I now know everyone has seen it. So, that's out.

Paul, Cashback looks fab. I'm going to try and watch it this afternoon. Downfall; I have actually seen it, I think. Sadly, it is quite a long movie (2.5 hours!) which I don't think would go down amazingly well with the audience.

For munchies, I was thinking...
...of making my* delicious brownies to die for!

*not actually my recipe

Maybe by tomorrow I will have chosen my movie!

But for now, it's still Saturday and everyone knows weekends are for being a coach/bed/chair potato and enjoying getting your slump on. ;)

I really should be working, though, with only 20 days left to formulate 250 words worth of meaningful research to submit to this conference. Very worried I'm not going to make it. Eek! And the remote access I set up to access my uni desktop and experiment computers appears to have failed. I could get started on these 250 words from here and just leave blanks for the actual numerical results... if I ever get them.

But, what am I doing? Blogging. Great prioritising, Jen.

The sound problem with my brand new laptop is definitely a hardware problem, not software. I really need to send it in for repair, I just need to find a box the right size. That is much more difficult than you'd think!

Kids, I think I really have to start over with my blog layout; the coding is clearly screwed up so much so that it is hindering people from commenting. Such a pain in the ass; it took me aaaages! I also considered of moving over to the dark side and joining... Wordpress. But, I love Blogger, especially it's total free-ness! So, I'm here for a little while yet. Anyone else use Wordpress? Which do you prefer?

Ohhh, I watched the first 2 episodes of Lost, Season 6 last night - anyone else watching this? What the hell is going on?! Must be the most confusing show on TV.

Do I have any other pointless things to tell you? Oh, yes, I realised I am a shit twitterer. There really should be a mini-guide or something for us dumbos.

Toodles!

p.s. Although, I may be back soon; I can see myself blogging twice today.

Choices, choices? Help!

2010-02-04T12:10:00.001Z

I need help. And, no, not the psychiatric kind (well, I probably do, but that's not the point today).

I may have told you about Film Club. No? Well, about 12 friends and I set up a Film Club, of which I'm also the secretary but that's neither here nor there.

Basically, Film Club -- also known as Come Cine With Me, you like? -- runs every Sunday evening, the host (chosen at random) shows a film and provides snacks of their choice, the audience scores the film/overall evening anonymously and a short discussion may ensue.

The first round, before Christmas, was actually quite successful. Although I didn't win, I didn't do too badly either with my Halloween-themed 'The Strangers' film and spiderweb cheesecake.

So far, this round of Film Club, we've had German film 'Lola rennt' ('Run Lola, Run') and Swedish film 'Låt den rätte komma in' ('Let the Right One In'), both rather good.

Somehow, with some freakishly-swift passage of time, this Sunday is my turn again and I'm stuck on my choice of film, again.

This is where you come in and can hopefully help me. What film would you show for a Film Club?

I have listed below some narrowed down choices. What do you think? Any good? Have you seen any of them?

Lars and the Real Girl (2007) | IMDB Rating 7.6 | American/English | 106 mins

A delusional young guy strikes up an unconventional relationship with a doll he finds on the Internet.

Originally, I was going to rely on the IMDB rating and reviews alone and show this film without watching it. But, I have since seen it and really quite liked it. But maybe it could be considered as "weird". But weird can be good, right?

Oldboy (2003) | IMDB Rating 8.3 | Korean | 120 mins

After being kidnapped and imprisoned for 15 years, Oh Dae-Su is released, only to find that he must find his captor in 5 days.

This is another film I've not seen but heard good things about. It is exactly 2 hours which is the limit really, as the audience tends to get fidgety around the 2 hour mark. It is in Korean and subtitled but most members don't seem to have any problem with that.

Strictly Ballroom (1992) | IMDB Rating 7.1 | Austrailian/English | 94 mins

Brave new steps put Scott's career in jeopardy. With a new partner and determination, can he still succeed?

This was one of my favourite films when I was younger. It's actually quite a humourous film, in my opinion and will probably get points for being short. But it is about ballroom dancing - is it a bit of a chick flick? The Film Club crowd is male-dominated!

4 luni, 3 saptamâni si 2 zile (4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days) (2007) | IMDB Rating 7.9 | Romanian | 113 mins

Drama about a woman who assists her friend to arrange an illegal abortion in 1980's Romania.

A pattern is forming; I haven't seen this one either, but I have heard good things about it, too. And remember wanting to see it. It's under the 2 hours, subtitled and from the clips I've seen, looks interesting. I'm just curious, as with any film I haven't seen, about the ending.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) | IMDB Rating 8.5 | American/English | 108 mins

A couple undergo a procedure to erase each other from their memories when their relationship turns sour, but it is only through the process of loss that they discover what they had to begin with.

I have seen this one and it's fab, but I imagine a lot of people will have seen it before and whilst I believe it's OK to show a film some have seen before, if everyone has seen it, it might be a bit of a waste of time.

I think that's the lot, actually. I just simply don't have time to get hold of all these films and watch them all before Sunday.

So, please, give me some guidance! :D

Toodles!

P.S.: If you can't comment, and want to e.g. Wordpress people, I would really appreciate if you could kindly tweet me and tell me. Please! I am trying to see how many people are being affected by the commenting issues here. Thaaaanks!

Q&A

2010-02-01T14:38:00.003Z

In an effort to help you lovelies get to know me better, I proposed a Q&A session; in which I said you could ask me anything and I would answer. I also hinted at a post containing all the probing Q's and the honest A's.

Now, I wasn't inundated with questions but -- mainly because I said I would and because I've left it quite long enough, in the hopes I would get more -- here is the list of Q's and A's for you to enjoy (or deteste) to your heart's content.

Q: What is your favourite book? (Sonshu)
A: My favourite book was probably 'The Other Boleyn Girl'. I imagine a lot of people choose it but (sometimes) I don't mind being a little obvious. I just could not put it down and was so engrossed! Have you read it?

Q: Did your first crush know that you had a crush on him? Did you tell him/her!? (Sonshu)
A: Well, I'm wondering how far back I should go here - I've had a lot of crushes, I'm not sure which one I should consider (or can even remember) being the first! Either way, yes, I told my first crush that I had a crush on him. It didn't turn out too well in the end so it just gets filed in the 'life experiences' section. :P

Q: What do you really look like? That's my question. :) (Langley)
A: Just like most people, I have eyes (brown), ears and a nose, oh and red hair. But maybe a picture would be a better illustration. {The picture I showed him is on the right, there.}

Q: Well, when did you lose your viginity and where? (Langley)
A: Hmm your question isn't too far. Very probing. When I read it, I was trying to decide if I was too embarrassed or too much of a prude to answer it; I'm not. I'm just a shy girl at heart so answering this one isn't easy. Plus, there are a few people who read this blog that I actually know. But hey, screw it. As you might have read in my Twenty-Five post, I was 22. I shouldn't be embarassed, right? Well, I am a little, but I don't know why. The location? Erm, a bed! lol. It wasn't in any sort of risque location.

Q: What would you recommend as the "must see" thing in Manchester?! (Michelle)
A: Hmmm. It depends what kind of thing you like? It has a brilliant football stadium; Manchester United's Old Trafford. It has a pretty good shopping mall; The Trafford Centre. I really quite like the Town Hall in St Peter's Square. I don't think there are a great deal of tourist attractions in Manchester. :(

Now, sadly, because those are all the questions I received, the rest are random auto-generated questions by Formspring. Yes, that's very sad. :(

Q: Chocolate or Vanilla?
A: Vanilla

Q: Would you rather be really hot or really cold?
A: Really cold, assuming I had access to a large number of extra layers I could pile on.

Q: If you had the opportunity to live one year of your life over again, which year would you choose?
A: The first or second year of my PhD, probably the second more, as I just didn't make the most of it and hence am cutting it a little bit fine with getting some good quality (and publishable!) research.

Q: When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?
A: A singer. And then a teacher. I would still be a singer now if I had an amazing-enough voice, but not a teacher. I settle for being an alto in the choir these days.

Q: Would you rather be a vampire or a werewolf?
A: Hmmm. Vampire!

Q: If you could be a star athlete in any sport, which sport would you pick?
A: I would love to be a star gymnast or trampoliner! I used to do a lot of gymnastics and dancing when I was younger and was a member of the trampolining club for a while.

Q: What TV show makes you laugh the loudest?
A: I think it would have to be the British music quiz show, Never Mind the Buzzcocks. I find it holarious at times! Although, they have gotten rid of my favourite host now. I always love the Identity Parade round.

Q: What's the furthest you've ever traveled?
A: It would have to be to Hong Kong when I went with some friends in 2005.

Q: How would you describe yourself in 3 words?
A: loving, insecure and ginger

Q: If you could be invited to one person's birthday party, whose would it be?
A: I am not sure why this person sprung to mind but Lionel Richie maybe? I imagine he would throw a good birthday party! That's a poor answer but it was instinctive.

Q: What was your favorite birthday gift?
A: Hmmm... I actually prefer the simple little things and a Sudoku book that R (the boyf) got me last year was a good gift; it's small and I'm still using it! But I also love things I can consume (takes up less space), especially cake!

You can of course still ask me anything using a variety of methods (visit the right sidebar!) e.g. email, twitter, in the comments, etc. or you could even use this form I have conveniently pasted for you here:

Toodles!

Friday feeling

2010-01-29T14:45:00.004Z

I really should not go out galavanting and partying on school nights; it results in either a hangover or being too tired to get up early, or both! And mid-week hangovers are baaaad, m'kay?

But last night, I made an exception as it was my housemates last night in Manchester before she's off to cold Canada for 2 months to do her elective for her medicine degree. Luckily, I knew when to stop with the drinks and after a Raspberry beer (they didn't have Mango!) and an exotic fruit cocktail (it actually had a wedge of watermelon sticking out!) in a beer jug, I called it a night drink-wise. It was one of those very last minute events and I was already yawning before we left the house but I managed to stay on my feet until nearly 3am, finally tucking myself in at a late (or early) 3.30am!

I love my sleep. I find it so hard to get out of bed without 8 hours of the stuff. So, today, I thought I'd let myself sleep in. Bad. Bad. Bad. I didn't sit at my desk until after 11am! Tut. I managed a little bit of work before lunch rolled round, during which time, I stuffed my face; I was famished. Now I'm finding it reeeeeally difficult not to fall asleep. And it's Friday. This is not helping me keep those Friday feelings at bay. Tired and sleepy after a big lunch is prime time for those bad boys.

A nap would actually be so nice right now.

This weekend, there are a couple of birthdays; Friday and Saturday nights out are on the cards. I can't handle this stuff anymore! I say that, but once I have a little lie down (yes, yes, I'm an old woman!), I might be ready for anything. OK, not anything but you get the idea.

Well, Happy Friday everyone! What do you have planned this weekend?

Twenty-Five

2010-01-26T16:14:00.004Z

The lovely Sonshu has tagged me to complete a list of 25 things, facts, habits or goals about little, old me.

Physics is the love of my life!
I used to be a girl guide when I was a teenager and now volunteer as a leader at a local girl guide unit
Cross-stitching and sewing is one of my hobbies. Even though it's uncool
I still don't know how to drive *blush*
My party trick as a youngster was fitting my big toe in my mouth without assistance
Despite my 7 years at university, my ultimate goals in life don't concern my career but revolve around having children and becoming a wonderful housewife to a husband I cannot live without
In the last 3 years, my normal day consists of playing with "lasers" (no, not humping them)
Whilst some might say I'm cursed, I love what makes me, me; red hair, freckles, glasses, a Brummie accent, Physics (to PhD level!), hayfever, lactose intolerance and circulation problems ;)
I hadn't travelled to my country's capital (London) until I was 22 years old!
My 3 pet hates are drivers who don't indicate, the sound of people dragging their feet when they walk and unneccesary untidiness
I never had a single detention during my school years
I hate bullies with a passion! And vow to stick up for a child if I ever see them getting bullied
I love laughing, singing and dancing!
I failed my GCSE I.T. - does that mean I don't know how to use a computer? :P
I once dated a guy I met on the internet, but it really didn't go well
I consider my parents, sister and 2 brothers my 5 all-time best friends
If I had to choose to have one cosmetic procedure, it would be a nose job
[I had to remove this point due to it not being appropriate for some of the people now reading this blog]
My favourite number is 2
At every available opportunity, I avoid talking on the telephone. But I worked in a call centre for a year
I have a personality disorder; Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder. This is not the same as OCD
[I had to remove this point due to it not being appropriate for some of the people now reading this blog]
My birthday is on the 23rd, and my year of birth, (1985) adds up to 23; 1+9+8+5 = 23, my office room number is 2.323 and I sit at desk number 23. Has anyone seen the film "The Number 23"?!
When I walk up stairs, I have to count them
I turn 25 in less than a month!

It actually wasn't that easy to choose 25 things!

Now it's your turn, so I tag anyone who fancies doing this and hasn't already. So, if you're reading this right now, consider yourself tagged.

I'd love to learn 25 things about you so feel free to let me know where I can read your post!

Gingerella sans diary

2010-01-22T14:49:00.008Z

After 3 weeks of living without a diary, I realised it's actually pretty darn difficult to do - or at least remember to do - anything.

And no, not the "dear diary, today was so depressing..." kind of diary. The up-to-date-planning, appointment-making, event-monitoring kind.

I actually get a pretty good free one as a member of the Institute of Physics but this year's was sent to my old address and well, frankly, it's just too out of my way to go and get it. Plus, it means making small talk with my ex-flatmate. That's bad, I know. Did I mention I'm busy, too?!

So, I caved, and per-chased a diary. And not just any kind of diary. I thought I'd treat myself and splash out (should read: it was all they had in the closest bookshop. Shush, I'm not lazy!) and I got one of those moleskine ones. Not know what they are? I didn't know what the fuss was either. Well, they are supposedly; "the legendary notebook" and enclosed in the diary was a quaint little pullout about the history of a legendary notebook. Sweet. Turns out they're more expensive than you would think (or maybe you already know?) but boy, are they nice. So much choice, too; notebooks, diaries, planners, journals. Eurghh! I'm in stationery heaven looking at that website!
Image: .::Nin::

This might be an apt time to mention my love of stationery. In fact, I might be a little bit nuts about stationery, if I was rich, I really would spend a lot of money on it. And look, I'm making whole blog posts about the stuff! But I'm not going to mention that I am actually subscribed to some blogs about paper and stationery. If I had my own shop and could choose one thing for it to sell, it would be stationery, or maybe my other love, cupcakes.

But, you know what, I don't think I'm alone in this. I think a lot of people (OK, girls.) have a secret stationery fetish as well.

Aha! I knew it; stationeryfestish.com!

Yup, I have just self-diagnosed. I am a stationery addict. Please tell me some of you love stationery lots, too?!

PROOOOOBE ME!

I am going to be shameless and make another plea for more of your questions to answer. They can be about absolutely anything! Head over to my Formspring page here to submit your questions. You can also ask me in the comments, on my twitter, in an e-mail, (links in the sidebar) or even scroll to the bottom of this page and submit your question in the footer!

I have already answered some of you, in the comments and at formspring. If I get enough questions, I will put a post together with the answers but right now, there's not much probiong going on and I want more!!

Right, back to work aaaand I just got a nose bleed. Nice. The work is clearly turning my brain to mush.

Cold sooooore!

2010-01-19T10:26:00.018Z

I've always been a worrier.

If it's one thing in life I can, and will, do, it's worry. If I were to convince you to put your money on something that will occur, me worrying about something (or several) at least 3 times a day, would be it.

The way my worry externally presents itself is not very pleasant. Some of you might get big bags underneath your eyes from no sleep or bad skin from stressing out, or bitten nails. Well, my body decides it wants to give me a blistered lip. Similar to a fat lip, without the punching involved. That's right ladies and gentlemen, a nice little bit of herpes.

Once you get herpes, that's it, you have it for life. It lays dormant in your system and you can never hope to get rid of it.

Come on, don't be silly. There's no need to close the window; you cannot catch it from reading this blog.

I am fairly lucky with the one I have at the moment as it is sort of inside my lip so is managing to do a fairly decent job of concealing itself. It does mean, however, that my two lips were stuck together when I woke up this morning. Nice.

You're really not going to like this but I'm going to do it, anyway. Let's just remind ourselves what a lovely coldsore looks like...

And you better consider yourself lucky as that was the least ugly picture of a cold sore that Google images could uncover. And I made it small.

Haha! Are you feeling grossed out? Good!

Also, never make the mistake of putting Vaseline (petroleum jelly) on a cold sore thinking it will keep it moist. Yes, maybe once you've gotten rid of the infection and you're left with just a scab, but not before and especially not right at the beginning. Like I did, once. The Vaseline just keeps the puss that normally oozes out, inside and if the swelling can't get out, it will just stay in. My lip was huuuuuge! It began to swell my nostrils. Luckily for you, neither me nor Google images has a photo of that.

I've had cold sores since probably pre-teens but my earliest memory of cold sores (the plural has an extra special meaning here, you'll see) was when I was about 11 years old and just about to sit a grammar school exam. For those who don't know, a grammar (public) school is a high school for which you have to sit (and pass) an exam to earn a place. Oh, and give lots of nice and juicy monetary contributions once you're there. ;) Whereas, a normal high (state) school is funded by the government and there is no entrance exam. Although, perference is given to students who live closer. I think the definitions may be the reverse in America, for example.

Anyway, I'm sure you don't care about all that. The point I'm trying to make is that it was a big deal to be sitting an exam for a grammar school; they are held in higher academic asteem than state schools and generally do have better teaching to boot. I think anyone could apply to sit the exam, but obviously not everyone would pass.

So, you could say I was a little worried. So, what happened? Well, you'd be slightly correct in thinking I got a cold sore. Yup, I had just one... until that one spread all over my face; they were on my cheeks, my nose, luckily they didn't reach my eyes!

It turned out that I had to miss the exam because of my hideous face and then attend a second sitting which, sadly, I failed.

Now, I say sadly but it was the all-girls grammar school in my town and everyone who went there was considered a snob and I will admit now, I didn't want to go! That's not why I failed, I don't particularly remember doing it on purpose. :P I guess I was just too dumb. But at the time, I was glad to be going to the same school as my friends rather than, god forbid, have to make new ones at a 'snobby' school. Silly child.

Incidentally, I later sat an exam for another all-girls grammar school in a different town and passed! I really wanted to go there, mainly because it wasn't in my town so all my old friends wouldn't be anywhere near me to call me a snob. I repeat; silly child.

But I never made it to the top of their waiting list. :(

And so ensued the end of my parents' dream for me to attend an all-girls grammar school. I attended the state high school associated with my junior (primary? middle?) school.

After all that, it definitely hadn't been worth a face full of cold sores, that's for sure!

Ask me anything!

2010-01-15T11:31:00.001Z

Hello lovelies!

Do you have a burning question for me that you simply must know the answer to?! Something you want to know about me? Well, head over here to ask me anything you like!

You can always ask me in the comments section, on my twitter or send me an email if you perfer.

I shall answer them wherever I get them but if I am inundated with questions (unlikely) you might get a blog post out of all the questions, and answers, of course..

I look forward to reading - and answering - your burning questions!

Toodles!

Image: Ségozyme

Early riser

2010-01-12T09:36:00.006Z

I have decided on a new 2010 resolution; get up and get into work earlier, at least before 9am.

I'd been toying with the idea for a while but, knowing that I would have to sleep a lot earlier than normal (I love my sleep and really like to have 8 hours a night) and fight my comfy bed in the mornings; it all sounded so hard! But last night, I set the resolution wheels in motion by attempting to go to bed before 11pm. It was helped by the fact that R, yet again told me "yeh yeh, you won't do it" (the hair-cutting incident springs to mind). I thought right, that's it. I'm doing it!

Unfortunately, it was hindered by the fact that I suffered a bad lactose-intolerance episode; those cheap packets of tortellini from Lidl clearly contain waaay too much cheese for me, despite what the ingredients say! It resulted in me nodding off later than the planned 10:30 pm.

I still managed to wake up before my 6:30 am alarm, though - probably because of my still present tummy-ache :( - and got up (almost) straight away. Maybe R was still ringing in my ears.

I managed to shower, dry my hair (sadly, since the haircut, it's not just drying; some styling is required), put on my minimal warpaint (ginger eyelashes, and maybe even eyebrows, are not in abundance; I do not wish to look like an 8 year old boy; I'm 24!), dress, tidy the mess I left in my wake, have breakfast whilst watching morning news and even conjur up a snack for work! I left the house at 8am. That's good for me.

Cut a (potentially) long story short, I plopped into my nicely radiator-warmed desk chair at 8.25am. Woo! OK, so it's not exactly a record; I've been in earlier, but it's certainly the earliest in a while.

Oh, it takes me back to my college days (just to clarify, that's 16-18 years old here); walking to the bus stop with not many people around, up when it's still dark and wintery outside. Once I'm up, I actually love it! I like being in a quiet office before most other people have got here.

That's all great, until you're sat at your desk at 9.30 am, yawning your head off and trying to stop your mascara running whilst realising you didn't actually use the extra hour productively. You got up that early for nothing? Well, no, because you got all that procrastination (that normally begins at 9:30 am) out of the way earlier. And although it all works out the same - you get up earlier, you go to bed earlier - coming in earlier is all about your productive time starting sooner and more of it falling in the realm of office hours.

I might have changed my sleeping habits; albeit one day so far, but I really think I can keep it up! However, I still need to step it up and get into the swing of things.

Now then, what time can I have this pancake snack I made?! :D

Macro Monday

2010-01-11T10:23:00.000Z

Good Monday morning!

How are we all today? The snow is beginning to melt in Manchester but the mixture of ice and slush is rather slippy. So, the walk from the bus stop to my desk wasn't easy.

Anyway, it seems time for one of those few and far between Macro Mondays today. Sadly, it's not really a genuine Macro Monday (and no, not because it's Tuesday!) but because I don't have an actual macro lens but, maybe one day. *daydreams*

I also wish the photographs followed some sort of theme but they've got nothing to do with anything. Except, maybe, that they are items from my house. They are both old photographs I took back in August and, last night, realised they were slightly better than I'd initially thought.

ISO 400 | 1/20s | f/5.0 | Sony A350 DT 18-70mm @ 30mm

ISO 125 | 1/125s | f/5.6 | Sony A350 DT 18-70mm @ 70mm

Oh, did anyone notice I took my blog's Christmas decorations down? It felt a little bare at first but I'm used to it now. :P Can anyone tell what's different about the header? ;)

Have a lovely Monday ladies and gents!

Toodles!

Brownies to die for!

2010-01-10T18:15:00.000Z

I bring you a wonderful recipe for brownies, that are indeed, to die for!

Sadly, I cannot take credit for the recipe - it's from a BBC Good Food publication; Cakes and Bakes 101, nor do I have an amazing photo to share with you, but that's mainly because between now and when I made them (last week) I have eaten most of them!!

Ingredients

350g dark chocolate, broken into pieces
250g unsalted butter, cubed
3 large eggs (free range, organic please)
250g dark muscovado sugar
85g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 160C. Butter and line the base of a nine inch cake tin and set to one side.

2. Take a heavy-based saucepan and set over a low heat - melt together the chocolate and butter, stirring once in a while to stop it sticking. Once melted, stir well and set to one side to cool somewhat.

3. Whisk the eggs until pale and then whisk in the sugar until thick, glossy and completly combined. Now fold in the cooled chocolate mixture and finally sift in the flour and baking powder and stir until all is combined and you have a smooth batter.

4. Pour and scrape into the prepared tin and bake for around 35 minutes. It should be just firm to the touch but the middle will still be soft in the centre - it will firm up on cooling.

You can store them in the fridge but I would just give them a re-heat in the microwave or oven until warm. They're nice with bananas and custard!

Enjoy!

Fontage

2010-01-08T15:00:00.000Z

If you ask me, this actually feels very reminiscent of a good old Freebie Friday. And do you know why? Because I am about to share with you some fresh, favourite, funky and absolutely free fonts!

I narrowed it down to 16 fonts from the thousands on dafont.com; a fabulous font directory, listing both free (for personal use) and purchasable fonts. You can see these, and my regularly updated list of, favourite fonts anytime you like by visiting my 'Font Favourites' folder @ dafont.com.

OK, let's get this show on the road!

Wishlist 2009

You might want to use this font to make your christmas, birthday, valentines, wedding, whatever (!) wishlists for 2010.

Puffy

Need a font that looks like it's been written with clouds? Try this one on for size.

Insight

You could use this font for just about anything you fancy, but makes good advertising titles.

LL Cooper

As the author points out, this font pays tribute to the typeface "Cooper Black" -- an old style serif typeface designed by Oswald Bruce Cooper in 1921, becaming somewhat iconic in the 1970s -- in an unfocussed, doodle style. Or maybe, like me, you just think it's cool?

Schematic

This is probably a very specific font; working well with science related advertising, perhaps?

Alice

I think this font is very contemporary and really want to use it, just can't decide what for?!

Naya

A font which, I think, would work well with designs and advertising relating to nature. But, don't ask me why!

Clarisse

A very gothic font and feels very 'Interview with a Vampire', despite the name reminding me of 'Science of the Lambs'.

Snickles

This actually reminds me of the font on a Snickers chocolate bar; I don't know if it's the font itself or just the name, but I do luuuurve Snickers!

Indonesiana

This font is based on the logo for 'Visit Indonesia 2009'.

Angelic War

This font is for those looking a very cursive, embellished font.

DivLit

A very futuristic font.

Katy Berry

Do you like the font used for Katy Perry media and merchandise? Well, this font - from the author of Angelic War - comes very close!

Notice Std

Ever looking for well known symbols, notices or signs? This font is here to help.

Life Lessons

Being a stitching girl myself, this one caught my attention and I fell in love. I think it would work if you were looking for a homely, motherly-related font.

Outlaw

Last, but by no means least, comes a font from a popular style often seen on vintage themed wedding or party invitations and posters.

_________________________________

Well, that's all 16 fonts, folks. Seen one, or more, you like? Fancy going hunting for your own favourite, free fonts? Head over to dafont.com, grab some free fonts and feel free to share what you used them for; I'd love to know, or even see!

Oh, and another awesome place to find free fonts, amongst so much other fabulous stuff, is DeviantArt.com.

Toodles!

Snow Days!

2010-01-07T10:59:00.008Z

Do you remember winter times when you were a child and it snowed? School would be closed and you'd officially be allowed to stay home to build snowmen, have snowball fights and go sledging? Yes, I do, too. But once you leave high school, you can forget all about Snow Days.

That is, until your city has more snow than they know what to do with! That's what has happened in Manchester, and many other cities across the UK. They're calling it 'The Big Freeze'. Brrrrr!

The amount of snow overnight on Tuesday, resulted in my university kicking students out, telling them to go home and not bother coming in the next day either. Sounds good, right? Oh, it was!

I still had places to go and people to see, though but this sort of view as I left my house was well worth braving the cold for;

ISO 64 | 1/100s | f/3.1 | Casio EX-Z85 (DigiCam) @ 6.3mm

R flew back from his Christmas and New Year trip to Lebanon and I went to meet him at the train station. Having only lived in the UK for the last 7 years, he was in shock; "I've never seen this much snow in my life!"

ISO 64 | 1/125s | f/4.5 | Casio EX-Z85 (DigiCam) @ 12.5mm

I did spent all day yesterday indoors to finish my articles for the postgraduate newsletter I am now an editor for - did I tell you that? If not, I'm an editor!

We did, of course, build a snowman! Well, it was more like a snowhead! :P

ISO 200 | 1/60s | f/3.1 | Casio EX-Z85 (DigiCam) @ 6.3mm

Sadly, it is back to work today. But I will be back soon to share some lovely things with you; including some new favourite, funky and (best of all) free fonts and a scrumptious recipe for brownies!

Toodles!

p.s. maybe it's time to take down my blog's Christmas decorations - what do you think?

Bonjour 2010!

2010-01-04T12:54:00.003Z

Hello all,

I wish you a Happy New Year and a very warm welcome to 2010. Does anyone have any new years resloutions? Mine are the standard keep fit, spend less and work harder! ;)

Image: KKellyS

So, you may have wondered what the hell happened to me over the festive period? No?! I'm gonna tell you, anyway.

I was all set to keep you informed of my Christmas Crafting (I did do more, promise! Jam, cookies, chocolates, marinated peppers, coconut cake and mince pies.) but then, my first unborn nephew decided he wanted to arrive a little early, a month early! So, on December 14th, off I trotted to Wales, where my sister now lives with her husband. To cut a long story short, my sister had a beautiful baby boy, Lucas James, born 6lbs 5oz at 7:26pm on December 15th. And I am in love with him!! I would let you bask in his awesomeness, but my sister prefers not to have his fizog plastered over the internet. Hear, hear!

Alas, Manchester and my teaching duties beckoned and I had to return, all set to go back upto Wales and spend Christmas with the new addition.

So, why did I stop blogging? Well, 2 Thursday's before Christmas, some very mean-spirited and (presumably) Mancunian souls decided to let themselves into my house via a window, knock my bedroom door down, and pilfer my laptop, along with another 2 belonging to my housemates. Oh joy, of all joys.

I did still spend Christmas with my sister, a few days back at home-home and then back upto Manchester to get very merry (and then very sick) for New Year; and a wonderful time was had by all.

All very eventful. How was your festive period?

All that remains is to share a few of those wintery, Christmassy photographs I promised you, captured by none other than moi at the lovely Anglesey coast. More can be found on my Flickr, or even at the bottom of this page.

ISO 400 | 1/5s | f/3.5 | Sony A350 DT 18-70mm @ 18mm

ISO 100 | 1/400s | f/11 | Sony A350 DT 18-70mm @ 35mm

ISO 100 | 1/160s | f/10 | Sony A350 DT 18-70mm @ 18mm

Toodles!

Christmas Crafting: Gift Tags

2009-12-11T13:12:00.003Z

Printable Gift Tags

Here is a lovely selection of Free Printable Christmas Gift Tags from across the blogosphere for you. As long as you have Adobe Acrobat Reader, or something similar, to download the PDF's, you can get clicking, printing and holepunching straight away!

Just scroll down for the links.

Sew, Mama, Sew or click straight to the PDF
Creature Comforts Blog or click straight to the PDF
Paperseed or click straight to the PDF
Martha Stewart or click straight to the PDF
Fog and Thistle or click straight to the JPG
Angry Chicken or click straight to the PDF
Delight.com or click straight to the PDF
Living Locurto or click straight to the PDF

Enjoy!

Jingles!

Christmas Crafting: Ornaments

2009-12-07T10:47:00.000Z

Sequined Christmas Tree

Taken from guest Blogger Living with Lindsay, over on Centsational Girl, this is one of the Christmas crafts I have started albeit, not yet finished. You should give it a go though, it's really quite fun.

SUPPLIES

Styrofoam / polystyrene cone ~8" tall
Sequins (8mm) in 2 colours e.g. blue and green
Beads (4mm) metallic or clear
Straight pins e.g. dressmakers' pins, with a large enough head so bead doesn't fall off

DIRECTIONS

Separate beads and sequins into sectioned boxes, e.g. tuperware, bowls, etc.
Begin by sliding a bead then a sequin onto one of your straight pins.
Starting from the bottom of the cone, push the pin into the Styrofoam base and make a horizontal row around the cone, slightly overlapping each sequin.
Make horizontal rows around the cone, alternating between your 2 colours (or just use one colour, if you wish). You should also slightly overlap the sequins with the row below so that the Styrofoam cannot be seen underneath the sequins.
When you have about one row left until you get to the top of your cone, fill in the flat top by putting one sequin in the center and then making a ring around it.Then finish the top row around the tree.

Alternatively, you could use a styrofoam ball to make a Christmas bauble decoration. For that, you make a ring of sequins around the ball vertically and then a ring around the ball horizontally. Incorporate some ribbon to hang your decoration. A good ball tutorial can be found at ThriftyFun.

Jingles!

Christmas Cooking: Goulash

2009-12-03T10:34:00.000Z

I have a lovely BBC Good Food winter recipe for you today to warm your insides and banish those icicles from your fingers and toes!

Quickie Sausage Goulash

Image: glitterboi

INGREDIENTS

2 tbsp olive oil
454g packet low-fat sausages, cut into big chunks
2 onions, roughly chopped
400g can chopped tomatoes
1 tbsp tomato purée
1 tbsp bouillon powder (powdered stock)
1 tbsp paprika
good pinch of sugar
4 medium floury potatoes, cut into large chunks
2 big handfuls shredded spring greens (I couldn't get srping greens so substituted them with leek, you could use any vegetable you fancy.)

METHOD

Heat 1 tablespoon of the oil in a large saucepan and fry the sausage chunks until evenly browned. Remove from the pan and set aside.
Mix the remaining oil with the onions in the pan and cook over a high heat, stirring occasionally, for 5 minutes or until the onions are golden brown.
Pour in the tomatoes, stirring in the bits from the bottom of the pan, then add the tomato purée.
Fill the can up with water twice and pour the water into the pan. Sprinkle in the bouillon powder, paprika and sugar and plenty of salt and pepper. Stir well and bring to the boil.
Tip the potatoes into the pan, cover and simmer for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Drop in the shredded greens and sausages and gently heat for 5 minutes or until the greens are tender. Taste for seasoning before serving.

I served mine with a generous portion of bread and butter!

Jingles!

Christmas Crafting: Advent Calendars

2009-12-02T13:22:00.000Z

Matchbox Advent Calendars

So while Advent begins the fourth Sunday before Christmas Day, you can always join in a little late -- it just means you have to eat all the chocolates you've missed so far, oh how very awful!

Do you have some spare matchboxes lying around? Give these Matchbox Advent Calendars a whirl.

1. Christmas Tree Advent Calendar

SUPPLIES

25 matchboxes
Pen or small rubber stamps (numbers)
Christmas wrapping paper/card
Glue
Your choice of sweets or chocolate

DIRECTIONS

Glue 9 matchboxes together to make the first row from the bottom.
Wrap the entire row in your Christmas card/paper. Do the following with the other rows, decreasing the number of matchboxes in each row by 2.
Glue each row together to make a Christmas Tree .
Write numbers 1 to 25 on the sides of the matchbox in any order you like!
Finally, fill your matchboxes with sweets or chocolates, you may decorate the top of the Christmas Tree with a star or angel, if you wish.

2. Martha Stewart 'Chest of Drawers' Advent Calendar

This advent calendar looks like a cute little chest of drawers, made up of 3 columns and 8 rows. And when each matchbox is removed, a Christmas image begins to emerge.

SUPPLIES

24 matchboxes
Pen or small rubber stamps (numbers)
Christmas wrapping paper/card
Glue
Your choice of sweets or chocolate
Ribbon
Paint, felt tip pens or crayons
Scissors

DIRECTIONS

Gluing matchboxes in 3 stacks of eight.
Glue stacks together to make the chest.
Cut a strip of your Christmas paper/card to wrap around the sides of the chest, and glue it in place.
Number the front of each drawer using paint, felt tip pens or crayons.
Turn the chest around; paint a design of your choice on the back e.g. a Christmas tree.
Remove drawers and glue a ribbon tab on the underside of each drawer on the numbered end.
Cut a square of card to use as backing for the chest to keep drawers in place and hide the image; attach it at the edges with glue.
Fill the drawers with your choice of sweets/chocolates, or even notes, and slip them back into the chest.

Now all that's left is to eat the chocolate!

There are so many more DIY advent calendars out there so investigate! Or perhaps get creative; design and make your own!

Jingles!

Christmas Crafting

2009-12-01T12:32:00.001Z

Goodness me, it's already December!

Image: Phil Stewart

Every year I avoid the early Christmas cheer as the shops go all out with decorations, as early as November(!), in an effort to make you spend, spend, spend. However, as soon as it hits December, I start to adopt some Christmas spirit, especially when the ground is covered in ice and my choir has already begun serenading the public with carols.

My goal this year is to be as thrifty and crafty as possible. It all began with the idea of making my own advent calendar and has been followed by the scouring of t'internet and da blogs in search of anything and everything DIY Christmas!

Then I thought 'Hey, if I'm doing it, maybe you are, too?'

*ding*

Let's have a Christmas Countdown! And no, not an ordinary countdown but a crafty, DIY themed Christmas Countdown!

Piggy-backing off Sweet Paul's idea, I have decided, between now and December 25th, I shall share with you some Christmassy DIY crafts, recipes, resources or gift ideas located somewhere across t'internet or the blogosphere -- the more the merrier. I shall aim to fuse it altogether with some Christmassy and wintery photography.

So let's kick things off gently -- especially for those lacking some seasonal spirit -- with some December and Christmas calendars for your computer desktop. Head on over to Smashing Magazine for a selection of 45 desktop calendars. I managed to narrow it down to a good ol' Christmas Tree!

_________________________________

CALLING!

Perhaps you have a tutorial, craft, recipe, gift idea or something you'd like to share? Or maybe Guest Blogging is your game? Get in touch! Visit the Contact Me section in my sidebar to the right.

_________________________________

Jingles!

Christmas Blog Decor

2009-11-29T16:30:00.000Z

So, after some blog formatting jiggery-pokery (in the good way, of course), you see before you some lovely Christmas decor around the Gingerella blog.

What do you think? Having to add a santa hat and put up for my virtual decorations really got me in the mood.

What are you doing to add some Christmas cheer to your blog?

Jingles!

100th Post!

2009-10-08T10:47:00.004+01:00

I know, I know; considering I've had this blog since February 2008, I really should have smashed through this milestone some time ago. But it's quality rather than quantity, right? Actually, don't answer that; you'll shatter my illusion.

Either way, I think it deserves a minor celebration!

Yay me!

I shall be back with more later. I have so much to blog about, including stories of a newly acquired musical instrument, a blogger networking event, a charity shop haul, reviving an old craft and blogger kudos, but I just can't seem to find the time. I must make time!

Toodles!

DIY Face Mask Recipe Cards & Labels

2009-09-29T15:41:00.003+01:00

If you've had a good old peruse around my blog, you'll know I'm training to be a girl guide (or girl scout, for any American readers) leader and recently had to plan a themed evening for the girls; a Girls Night In.

We had various different stations, including DIY face masks and lipgloss. I decided to put together some labels (for the pots of DIY face masks I'd made at home, the night before) and some take-away recipe cards for the different flavours; Honey & Oatmeal, Cucumber, Peach and Strawberry.

So, I thought I'd share them with you all:

You can download PDF copies of the labels and the recipe cards.

I simply attached the labels to cocktail or kebab sticks to sit in the face masks themselves like umbrellas, which is why they are double sided. You could also print singlesided versions onto adhesive labels and stick them onto containers. Enjoy!

Toodles!

Raspberry & White Chocolate Muffins

2009-09-19T15:01:00.003+01:00

Ingredients

300g (10.5 oz) plain flour
15ml (1tbsp) baking powder
100g (3.5 oz) caster sugar
100g (3.5 oz) butter
2 medium eggs
200ml (7fl oz) milk
150g (5.5 oz) raspberries
100g (3.5 oz) Somerfield white chocolate
Muffin cases

Method

Preheat oven to 200°C, 400°F, gas mark 6.
Sieve the flour and baking powder into a large bowl.
Add the sugar.
Melt the butter.
In a separate bowl, whisk together eggs and milk.
Pour the melted butter and the egg mix into the flour. Stir; take care not to over-mix.
Stir in half of the raspberries. Cut the white chocolate into small chunks and stir in half of them.
Arrange the paper cases in a muffin tin. Spoon the mixture between the cases. Dot with the remaining raspberries and chocolate chunks, pushing them in a little.
Cook for 15–20 minutes until golden. Cool. Eat on same day if possible.

Incredibly yummy! With the left over batter, I added a little cinnamon and made cinnamon and white chocolate muffins.

Toodles!

I need to...

2009-09-17T14:55:00.021+01:00

... VENT!!

The following really isn't going to mean much to most of you but I am going to go ahead, anyway because I am losing my patience, and probably my sanity, right now.

I just cannot align the laser beam with the inverted microscope. I will have it pretty much spot on until I add the 3rd of 4 lenses, at which point it all moves out of alignment and the laser beam isn't collimated. I don't know if it's the galvanometer controlled mirrors -- maybe not at the right height -- or something else. But everything right up until that 3rd lens seems to be fine. Then, kaputt!

Then, once I try to adjust the lens position using the X, Y, Z adjustments, the lenses pop out -- which frigging way are these things supposed to go in?!?! Because no matter which way I have them, they always shoot/fly out. And today, at least I think it was today, I have managed to crack a rather expensive anti-reflection coated 1064nm lens because it flew out and bounced around in the enclosure. Wonderful, just friggin' wonderful.

I am so pi**ed off.

If the other researcher in my lab hadn't come in, I think I might have actually started crying.

I would go to Super's office and have a mini-rant about it all if;

a) it didn't make me look like a totally incompetent 3rd year and
b) if I thought I could actually hold it together without breaking down in front of him. I am that frustrated with it all right now!

I have a 2nd year poster session on Thursday that is supposed to show my progress since first year and my plan for final year but I have no friggin' results and no actual laser trapping ability right now. So, it's all useless.

I just don't know what to do. No, scrap that, I do, but no matter how hard I try, it won't friggin' work.

Maybe not having had any lunch today had something to do with this reaction, but I don't care!

... :(

Update

I decided to act on my situation with an e-mail:

Hi Super,

Should we have a meeting tomorrow?

I'd also really appreciate if you could just come and have a look at the alignment after the meeting tomorrow because I just cannot get it right -- and two heads are better than one. I'm just getting really, really frustrated with it!

Thanks,

Gingerella

That doesn't sound so bad, right? Sometimes, you just need a helping hand. We shall see his response.

Wordless Wednesday

2009-09-09T15:15:00.002+01:00

MIA

2009-09-08T16:08:00.007+01:00

It seems I have to write these apologetic I'm-sorry-I've-not-blogged-for-ages posts all the time but here's another. Yup, I've been M.I.A for a little while, mainly because I haven't had anything interesting to say but also because I've been rather busy of course. There's not a great deal to update you on and I don't really have the energy to recall it all now, so I shall just continue as if all is well. Sound good? Good.

Alright, I shall return to the topic slightly. I think I need something of worth to blog about because -- and I'm not hoping for a string serenade here -- my life is really not 'of worth' when it comes to blogging. I tried this website called Plinky, which offers you questions/topics, supposedly for you to blog about, but they are rather ridiculous questions/topics, if you ask me. So how does one go about being inspired on blog topics? How does one stay motivated and fresh when it comes to blogging?

The whole Book Club I was hoping to partake in and the Book Review portion here, didn't really come to fruition as I am just too busy these days, my mind is rather preoccupied by other things!

OK, OK, so I'll give you a little update.

R and his housemates have started a band for which R is the drummer and I may or may not be the singer (it's undecided)
I want to teach myself the guitar (I might be getting a second hand-me-down guitar)
In 2 weeks time, I officially start the 3rd and final year of my Fudd.
I am addicted to Florence And The Machine's album, Lungs
This year marks the centenary (100 years) of GirlGuiding, for which the celebration launch party was the weekend just gone
I want to learn to make my own jewellery and sew my own clothes (yup, a sewing machine would be required)
I watched District 9 last night = weird
A bunch of friends and I have started a 'Film Club', which I may or may not keep you posted on :P
I went to Glasgow for Fudd. purposes and was sure all academics there thought I was actually an r-tard
I narrowly missed out on the chance to go to South Africa as part of my Fudd. this week. Nice, just bloomin' wonderful.
I need to find a nice dress to attend R's cousin's wedding next month
In roughly 18 weeks, I should be an auntie!

Well, that should do. Toodles!

The Playlist

2009-08-01T17:54:00.006+01:00

So it's Saturday night and rather than sitting around an empty house moping and pining after R, tonight I'm gonna have a night out. :D

A large bunch are headed out to a club in town, Boutique. I've never been but heard it used to be a gentlemen's club (eek! plenty of poles then, I'm sure) and that it's expensive e.g. drinks are £8-10!! So I shall either drink at home (yup, on my own, can't see that happening) or drink somewhere else first, cheaper of course.

There is one saving grace, it is supposedly free before 11pm for the ladies. Otherwise it's £10! There's quite a lot of people going, supposedly 50+ confirmed on the guestlist and I know a lot of other maybe's will turn up. So, I better get myself outside that club early so as not to be stuck waaay back in the queue when the clock strikes 12 (well 11, but shush, you get it). If I miss the free entry, I'm coming home; what club can be worth £10 entry and then £10 drinks?! I should be smuggling drinks in instead, Benicassim style. I say that now though, but if all my friends are there, I might just pay £10. :(

Anyway, to the point. It's taken me all week to psyche myself up for going out tonight. So, in a bid not to waste those efforts, I shall continue to stoke the fire with this awesome 'Party Tunes' playlist I just created, which I thought I would share with you. I know, I'm lovely aren't I? :P

- Sweet Dreams - Beyonce
- Release Me - Agnes
- Beat Again - JLS
- Poker Face - Lady Gaga
- David Guetta & Kelly Rowland - When Love Takes Over
- Poppiholla - Chicane
- Dog Days Are Over - Florence & the Machine
- Quicksand - La Roux
- Just Dance - Lady Gaga
- I Gotta Feeling - Black Eyed Peas
- Bulletproof - La Roux
- Papparazi - Lady Gaga
- Boom Boom Pow - Black Eyed Peas
- In For The Kill - La Roux
- Out Of This Club - The Pussycat Dolls

I've never really sat down and created a specific playlist and there are a few odd ones in there, but it's not bad. I'm hoping I don't get bored of it repeating and that it gets, or at least keeps, me in some sort of party mood.

What's everyone else upto this Saturday night? Whatever it is, enjoy! I'm off to get ready and put my warpaint on...

Tooodles!

Holiday Blues

2009-07-31T11:19:00.006+01:00

I know, I know, long time no blog, and I'm sorry! But you may -- or may not -- be pleased to know, I'm back.

I had so much to do before my holiday that I didn't have time to blog. Similar is true about when I got back, although I was mostly too busy forcing myself to get over my post-holiday blues just enough to get out of bed in the morning, let alone blog.

But I finally unpacked (after 4days of my luggage sitting there) and I really feel 'back'. And I've missed jabbering on about absolute nonsense.

The holiday was fab! I decided to extend by an extra day, which cost me at least another £120 (!), but it was well worth it. First was Benicassim Festival which involved 5 days camping. Just like last year, the music and beaches were fab, the camping not so much but it's all part of the fun! The only downside with the festival was the massive windstorm that occurred on the 2nd night which saw the stages and campsite areas getting ripped apart, tents blowing away and campers being evacuated in the middle of the night to the town's local leisure centre. Check out one of the YouTube videos of the winds;

We'd already fled the campsite by this point and 5 of us spent the night in one of the fellas rented cars. It was so sereal, and uncomfortable. It resulted in Kings of Leon -- the main band I went to see -- not playing! Gutted. But the show must go on and it was still so much fun.

Then onto Barcelona for 5 days. I love the city and whilst I initially would've preferred to go somewhere I'd not been before, this time we went with a different group of people, spent doing different things in different places. So it was still great; a whole new world of discovery.

The final downside is that on the 26th July, I flew back without R, and he's still in Espania touring the country with 2 of his housemates. I miss him too much! He's not back until the 8th August, at which point I will have left Manchester and be at my cousins wedding, so won't be here when he gets back. Big girls don't cry. I'm being so mellodramatic, I'm not gonna friggin' cry! lol.

What else is new? Not a fat lot. Things are being readied for me to visit Edinburgh and perform some measurements. I say that as if I am not the one (supposed to be) organising it. I still need to email the guy back about exactly when I'm going. I also still need to make some more samples, and really should be doing that right now. Tut tut Jen!

Well, this is getting rather long so I shall leave it there. My apologies for all the boringness. I shall be back with more later.

Toodles!

I fell off the wagon...

2009-07-07T14:39:00.031+01:00

So I was either going to go with that analogy or the 'get back on the horse' one. But wagon is a pretty cool word. Not to mention, I really love wagon wheels;

Wait, you still don't know what I'm talking about? Well, I'm not an alcoholic so it wasn't the sober wagon I fell off. It was the blogging wagon. I'd gotten into a good routine and then my Fudd. had to get all involved and zap my time. And then I just kept putting off my blog posts...

But I'm back my luvlies! And I have lots to update you on but I will try and keep it brief.

Poster
The poster (big file!) went absolutely fine! I didn't manage to get it laminated as they'd run out of laminate at the printers. Super spotted the one (non-technical) mistake on the poster straight away. I was going to correct it before sharing my poster with you lot but I changed my mind, so feel free to peruse it for the mistake yourself. Here's a little preview:
Moving house
The move to my new house, with 3 previously unknown ladies, also went well. I am loving the house; it's so homely, and although I had initially thought the room would be small, I love it! If you're lucky, I'll provide photographic evidence of my new room. I need to get rid of quite a lot of clothes, either ebay or charity shops. That just reminded me, I moved out of my old place nearly a week ago and still haven't heard from the old landlord about my deposit. Tut tut. Shall text him now.
Holidays
I can't wait! I am going to the festival Benicassim in Spain, again this year. I fly there, from Birmingham, next Wednesday. I'll spend a few days in Barcelona afterwards before flying back to (probably rainy) Manchester. Sadly, I shall be returning alone though as R has a big Spanish tour planned with 2 or 3 of his mates. He might come back without a liver... eek!
Fudd. news
Due to me having to do some rather in-depth data analysis for my poster, I actually made a breakthrough. A similar breakthrough came in the form of using digital calibration techniques as suggested, to Super, by an expert in the field. Within 2 weeks that has evolved into Super buying me (well, not really me, but my project) a Macbook Pro (£900!) and a new high speed Firewire camera (£800!). Both should arrive within a week. Super considers me to be worthy of such investment?! I'm in shock. The next step will be taking the new laptop and camera up to the experts in Glasgow and spending time with them getting to grips with it. I'm excited about that!
Brotherly love
One of my brothers has just finished his degree in Physics (yup, he copied me, and at the same university too) and found out he got a 2:1. :D I'm gutted I'll miss his graduation on the 16th though, as I'll be in Spain!!). His girlfriend also got a 2:1 in Accounting and Law, and I watched her graduate yesterday. A massive congrats to them both!

Well that's your lot and I know I didn't keep it very brief but, you know as well as I do, I can type for England!

I really need to do some photography so please bug me about it!

Toodles!

Looky looky!

2009-06-23T12:25:00.002+01:00

Ohhhh I know it's probably really weird to get so excited about this and it's only a measly little poster session (not even a proper one) but look;

That's pretty damn cool, right? No?! Sod ya then. :P

Toodles.

All systems go!

2009-06-23T10:56:00.005+01:00

So, the meeting went well and I submitted the abstract to the secretary on Friday afternoon. She didn't reply Friday, nor over the weekend, but she finally got back to me yesterday (Monday) saying my submission hadn't missed the poster-boat. So looks like I'm doing a poster folks. Yay me!

So now it's non-stop work for the rest of the week! I actually have to try and get some results, which isn't proving 100% successful just yet but progress is being made. The poster is coming along nicely though; I decided to do it in Inkscape (as opposed to the Powerpoint that most researchers do them in), and used a university compliant template I got from the media centre. Don't worry (or should I say, if you care?) I shall share it with you when it's done! :D

Today (or asap) I need to;

Finish writing the porgram to control the stage motion (my fellow Fudd.'er A helped me out with starting it)
Understand concepts relating to microrheology, the viscous drag force method, Faxen's correction law and position calibration without using Brownian motion and power spectral analysis
Make samples of the liquid crystal and polystyrene beads. I really think I am neglecting this one, it's pretty damn important but I need to calibrate with water first
Find out about particle tracking with CCD/video using LabVIEW (IMAQ)

Yes, I realise most of that probably means nothing to most of you and I apologise! To make up for it I'll post something much more your scene soon.

In other news, I'm starving!!

Toodles!

So abstract.

2009-06-18T18:07:00.002+01:00

"Publish or perish" seems to be a popular belief when undertaking (or failing, as I am) a Fudd. and whilst I'd really like to let you go down the path that your mind is probably detouring to right now, I have to put you straight; I haven't published anything nor am I even a million miles anywhere near publishing my research.

Dude, it's a big thing. I'm gutted that I'm not at that stage yet. And although I'm reassured by people that this is common, I actually feel embarrassed.

And just to add icing to that pile-of-poo-research cake, I'm not really anywhere near presenting a bloomin' poster about my research.

But that, my little tiddywinkles (don't ask, because I have no frickin' idea, seriously), might all be about to change! There is a poster session (for my institute's big wigs) coming up at the end of the month and I decided to grab the bull by the proverbial horns and make a poster for it and submit an abstract.

Yay! Yeh, I thought that too. But it's definitiely not that frickin' easy. Let's break it down, the potential problems, that is;

I only decided to do this yesterday
the deadline for titles and abstracts is tomorrow
I only sent the title & abstract to Super this morning
Super responded pretty quickly, but it was all a little difficult to gauge what his response really meant with phrases like "the poster session is a week on Monday!" and "we'll discuss it tomorrow". Eeek! It feels like when you call your mom/dad and tell them you're staying out late and maybe not coming home tonight, and asking whether you're in trouble. Usual response: "we'll talk about it tomorrow". Yikes! that means I'm in trouble!
For my current project (please observe: I say current like I've had several so far, lies!) doesn't actually have any results
I have to get results in time for a) the poster session and b) to be included on the poster, which will probably need to be submitted for printing on the frickin' Friday.
I have to make the bloomin' poster!
Assuming I get past all that, I then have to stand up in front of said poster and face (probably concealed, maybe openly displayed) judgements of why the hell I even bothered to submit a result-less poster and explain it all with a smile on my face

Arghhhh! And there's me thinking this was going to be a beneficial undertaking. Just so that I have something other than a pretty blog, a fancy schmancy new camera and lots of responsibility-dodging volunteer schemes to show for my Fudd. so far.

Well, I will let you know the outcome of tomorrow's meeting with Super.

Toodles!

Wordless Wednesday: Holidays Revisited

2009-06-17T12:22:00.003+01:00

{ Black Point Lighthouse, Penmon Point, Anglesey, N. Wales }

1/400s | f/5.6 | Canon Digital IXUS i @ 6.41mm (DigiComp)

{ City of Arts & Science, Valencia, Spain }

ISO 80 | 1/140s | f/2.8 | Kodak C763 @ 5.8mm (DigiComp)

{ Cathedral of Santa Maria, Plaza de la Virgin, Valencia, Spain }

ISO 200 | 1/60s | f/2.8 | Kodak C763 @ 5.8mm (DigiComp)

{ Cathedral of Santa Maria, Plaza de la Reina, Valenica, Spain }

ISO 80 | 1/140s | f/2.8 | Kodak C763 @ 5.8mm (DigiComp)

Wounded

2009-06-16T11:32:00.009+01:00

I'm wounded, financially wounded!

Almost the worst kind, especially for a student (albeit a fully funded Fudd. student) like me. The purchase of a digital SLR, along with accessories, has affected me more, and longer, than I thought it would. It's only the middle of the month and I'm overdrawn! What the hell am I spending my money on?!

Granted, 2 siblings owe me money and I am currently 'missing' 2 accommodation deposits, one of which I should get most -- if not all -- of back when I move places. But it sucks. I have a rather large overdraft facility but still, I hate being in this situation. Plus, I have flights, travel insurance and train tickets for the Spainish festival, Benicàssim, to worry about, too. I'm hoping they won't be any more than £150.

R has managed to save up so much money whilst I appear to have simply squandered it. :( And that's with him getting slightly less funding than me. But my rent is more and he also gets paid for teaching assistant duties.

If I clamp down on my clearly ridiculous spending (I still don't know on what?!) for the rest of this month, get as much of my deposit back as I can i.e. clean my flat phenomenally well, and wait patiently for July's instalment of my funding, I should be fine. Right?

Many moons ago, I used to keep a spreadsheet of my expenditure; maybe it's time to start doing that again. I could also get one of these bad boys?

I always thought I didn't need these sort of money saving devices, but maybe I should reconsider. Or how about one of these;

Now that's a clever piggy bank.

I did have another holiday in the pipeline for September but my Dad pretty much vetoed that (yup, I haven't lived at home for 6 years and my parents are still the boss of me) which I don't really want to talk about. But it's probably a good thing, seeing the state of my financial affairs.

You have simply disgraced yourself, my dear.

Toodles.

Holla! @ Happiness

2009-06-15T15:45:00.011+01:00

Blogging ideas are a bit thin on the ground again this week. Yes, I know it's only Monday and I'm already falling short of content, but allow me, my brain is otherwise occupied with some other junk (= Fudd.).

So, in the mean time I will give a Holla! @ Happiness and share with you a few things that have made me happy recently;

Wallpaper
This is a fab little wallpaper I found over at Freelance Switch.

Last.fm
I know I don't shut up about this radio station style website but I really don't think nearly enough people use it. I didn't understand enough about it -- likening it to Yahoo radio before I'd even visited the site -- but after test driving it, I was an immediate convert. And the number of old school songs that pop up and remind me of my youth are enough to lift my heart!

Questionable Content
This webcomic, QuestionableContent was a recommendation from Kitty over at Kitty's Monster and it managed to tease a giggle or two out of me.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
I would love to know why, if any other women know, why crying at a film makes the fairer sex happy? maybe it's not all of us, but I sure as hell love a good cry, I tell ya. Well, I watched this film last week and it was rather sad indeed and, whilst the severity of it's effect might be blamed on my already high monthly hormone levels, it really made me blub. And no, it's got nothing to do with my all out infatuation for everything Brad Pitt (did anyone see Meet Joe Black? I love him, no, both of them, Black and Pitt!). OK, I probably was a little influenced by my attraction, but it was actually a good film regardless.

Time for your Holla! @ Happiness.

Toodles!

Happy 1st Blog-a-versary

2009-06-11T16:58:00.007+01:00

This is going to be short and sweet...

Happy 1st Blog-a-versary to Me!

Thank you all for making it so much fun for me so far!

Wordless Wednesday: 'Baked Bean Tin'

2009-06-10T13:49:00.001+01:00

The 'Baked Bean Tin' Building, The University of Manchester

ISO 100 | 1/320s | f/10 | Sony DT 18-70mm @ 20mm

Strawberries & cream!

2009-06-08T16:12:00.008+01:00

Bonjour,

how was everyone's weekend?

Mine was nice. On Friday, the rain stopped a little and a night out with some friends was still on. It was really fun actually, although we drank quite a lot.

On Saturday, I passed by a little street book sale and, as usual, never expected to find anything but managed to spot a book I've wanted to read for a while now; The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova, and for a bargain price too; £2.50! The rest of my Saturday was a little wasted though; I decided not to take up the offer of another night out with friends, and had a lovely night in on my own instead. I finally did some baking and made some strawberries and cream mini-cupcakes.

So I sat down with a good book (although truthfully, the book was Twilight III, not the one pictured) and these deelish cupcakes. I'd stayed up until 3am to finish the book -- onwards and upwards with Twilight IV -- but I had gorged myself on cupcakes, mini or not, well before that!

Sunday I popped into town and just picked up some bits and bobs, toiletries mostly. I did spot a lovely dress in Miss Selfridge (one of my fave shops!) that I could team with Mary Jane court shoes, a quilted bag and some silver jewellery for my cousins hen party that I'm going home for this weekend. What do you think?

A bit of a girly moment here, but allow me that much; I am a girl, after all. :)

Toodles!

Good intentions

2009-06-05T16:49:00.005+01:00

So much for those...

I had all sorts of plans today, lots of tasks to accomplish;

Get on top of my mail, especially those that require a reply
Do at least some programming
Improve upon the data set I took this morning
Go exploring with my camera again
Bake cupcakes

But apart from er..., oh yeh, none of those were really achieved today. OK so there is still time to go exploring with my camera. That is, if it weren't for the sudden terrential down pour (with the odd crackle of thunder for good measure) that has just engulfed Manchester. I have to cycle in it, and you know how much I don't like cycling in the rain -- I need not fear though, I have my trusty Kag in a Bag and a new waterproof (I hope!) backpack that I told you about. Don't tell me you forgot?!

Yes, yes, I'd be telling myself there is still time to bake cupcakes too, but not with the insufficient lack of sleep I had last night -- I don't know how I'm keeping my eyes open to be honest with you; I need my 8 hours. Yup, that's a flakey excuse, I know because come on, how much energy does it really take to do a bit of baking? True, true.

Don't condemn me as being lazy juuuust yet though, plans to go out with the girl guiding leaders tonight around 9pm (£2 cocktails at Font!) would have also put to bed any aspirations to shoot some photos or ~~gorge on~~ bake cupcakes, but with this bloody monsoon weather, I am not sure a night out is even really on the cards. Am not decided how I feel about that.

We'll see what happens.

I know I don't need to explain myself to you (the masses that you are. Not.) but come on, it's Friday, it's almost 5pm; I'm going home! Well, as soon as it stops raining...

Happy weekend guys and girls.

Toodles!

Wordless Wednesday

2009-06-03T11:43:00.002+01:00

{ VICTORIA FALLS, SOUTH AFRICA }

Credit: Marie-Marthe Gagnon

Long day

2009-06-02T17:32:00.011+01:00

Very boring post today but I feel I should say something.

It feels like today has been a really long day. Especially as I have been working, or at least, attempting to. I need to write a program in LabVIEW -- software that I really don't know how to program with -- to control the translation stage of my inverted microscope. Yup, it's as difficult as it sounds. I have an old version of one such program from a previous Fudd. student but since the software was upgraded to a newer version, the file might not actually work. But maybe there is hope and I will try tomorrow.

The weather is still fab here so for lunch today, I sat on the grass outside my building -- probably burning, like the redhead I am -- and read some of my book.

Arghhh! There is an incessant car alarm sounding off right outside my window. So annoying! And nope, it's just not going to stop so I am going to go home. I wish I could chill out and enjoy the sunshine but there is so much I have, or want, to do tonight. just little errands and loose ends to tie up. Maybe I will find time in there somewhere to bake some cupcakes as I haven't done that in a while. Plus, it will provide some more photography material.

My posts always feel dull without any pictures. :(

Toodles!

p.s. It's only...

Created by OnePlusYou

Fudd. Mail

2009-06-01T17:16:00.010+01:00

So Friday's meeting with Super was not a complete disaster after all. Far from it, in fact and I would almost go so far as to say, it was a pretty good meeting.

Although I had decided about a week ago now, that I wasn't going to quit -- I didn't want to quit anymore -- I still considered quitting as an option because maybe it was too late for the Fudd. to be salvaged. I did mentally prepare myself for, depending on how the meeting went, to tell Super in Friday's meeting, that I was going to quit. But after the meeting going quite well, I finally put all ideas of quitting behind me. And I'm really quite happy about it. :D

I imagine Super wasn't amazingly happy that I came into his office with this worried 'I-still-have-no-idea-what-the-hell-I'm-doing!' look on my face, yet again. He asked me if I was confident (maybe about the small part we were discussing) and I just said 'No, not at all. Not about anything really.' I did try to put across to him how worried I was about the lack of time I had left but again, he put my mind, and my nerves somewhat, at ease with the old wives tale (maybe it's true?) that most Fudd.'s don't even get results till their 3rd year, anyway.

So, he doesn't seem to have lost all faith in what I'm doing. I'm sure I didn't impress him too much when he asked me about the Matlab program I'd written -- the topic of which I had admittedly, brought up -- and, as usual, I was taken off-guard and didn't understand, or know the answer to, his question. Ahhhh! Of course, I did know the answer, I just got all freaked out and thought because Super is asking me a question, I cannot possibly know the answer?! But, it's my program and of course he doesn't know the answer because he hasn't seen the program you wrote. Wally.

He did take a trip with me down to the lab, during which he told me I may have to completely move my experiment. Noooo! All the optic alignment took far too long, I cannot start from scratch. But he assured me that because someone above him was making us move the lab, he agreed to it on the proviso that he could use 2 forklift trucks to move my experiment so as not to disturb the delicate optics. Way to go Super!

He set me some tasks and we're going to spend some time together on Friday going through this Matlab program I wrote. 'Could take hours' he said. Eek! But I am happy about it -- even if it does show up my lack of knowledge.

Toodles!

Discovery!

2009-05-31T13:56:00.007+01:00

The weather in good old UK is glorious at the moment and whilst I have some time before I go out and enjoy it I thought I would share with you some of the lovely photos I took yesterday.

After I finally got hold of a camera bag and new backpack (there will be a post about that soon), I finally took the plunge and ventured out with my new camera.

I considered going to parks but knew they would be jam packed with people. Hmm... where might be a little empty on a gloriously warm and sunny day that I'd actually want to photograph? *Ding* University! So that's where I went. The libraries may have been full of students cramming for exams, but the university's old courtyard itself was deserted.

It is beautifully green;

ISO100 | 1/160s | f/10 | Sony DT 18-70mm @ 18mm

And I never fail to be amazed by the courtyard buildings themselves;

ISO 100 | 1/125s | f/10 | Sony DT 18-70mm @ 18mm

We'll have a few macro shots now. First, the beautiful door knobs, with the heart shaped brass, on the old wooden doors;

ISO 100 | 1/500s | f/5.6 | Sony DT 18-70mm @ 40mm

And now the bumblebees darting in and out of flowers;

ISO 100 | 1/800s | f/5.6 | Sony DT 18-70mm @ 70mm

Incidentally, if anyone knows the name of this white flower, I'd love to know. Or even a good website that allows you to identify flowers yourself, that would be really useful; I'm sure I'll be taking more flower shots.

Oh and go on, I'll throw another building in there for good measure. This is one of the arts buildings, very roman-esque;

ISO 100 | 1/200s | f/10 | Sony DT 18-70mm @ 18mm

Well, I took over 100 photographs yesterday -- most of which were shot on auto or auto macro, I'm nowhere near skilled enough to compose the settings myself yet -- but these were my faves. Maybe I'm biased but I think my university has a beautiful campus.

I hope you enjoyed the photos, I was quite proud of them for my first real time.

Toodles!

Over it?

2009-05-28T17:53:00.007+01:00

Dudes & dudettes,

there's me thinking I've had a motivational brain wave, epifany, if you will. I've been all raring to go since yesterday (OK, not all procrastination has ceased but I'm doing a Fudd., I'm not dead!), all I did this morning was spend 3 hours uncovering new literature, updating my EndNote library, coming across a 2009 paper that sounded exactly like my research but applied to a different liquid (ghay!), etc. I spend my lunch at my desk and spent all afternoon in the lab and this last hour doing data analysis...

And it's useless because I am mega crap at this bloomin' Fudd.. I really should quit despite whether I've had a change of heart about wanting to. I really can't do it, it's not doubt, lack of confidence, or lack of motivation talking now, it's my inner self -- she always seems to know the truth despite how long I deny it for. I don't have the intelligence. I don't even think I want to carry on in academia afterwards anyway!

What do I dooooo?! I need some serious help. There is a meeting set up with Super tomorrow morning at 11am and I have 4 options really:

Pretend
I could completely pretend that all is going somewhat to plan, with only a few hiccups, in the hope that Super still has even half an ounce of faith left in me, and work my damned hardest to sort things out. That probably equals late evenings and weekends at uni. I'll tell ya, I'm willing to do that if that's what it takes to get this things (back) on track, but the problem is: I have no idea where to start. Exactly how much of my almost-filled lab book is just rotten and diseased? God knows. Super definitely doesn't know!

Come clean
I could come clean about having doubts, motivational issues and generally just struggling with the work and/or with a Fudd.. Maybe then I can just wipe the slate clean a little. But, I've tried this before and either I don't really get my point across about how difficult I am finding it or Super just doesn't hear me!

Lie
Now, I don't normally advocate lying but if a little white lie -- such as, I have been having personal and/or family problems -- is gonna get me out of a whole heap of potential mess, then what's the harm? As long as I am doing it for the right reasons.

Quit
I think that one speaks for itself.

I repeat, what do I dooooo?! I have to shoot off now as I am going to have a night in -- takeaway, wine and a movie -- with my new housemates. I am really not in the mood but I really don't want to cancel. Hopefully it will be good and I won't have had too much wine to cycle home later.

Not an amazingly happy bunny but toodles!

Fudd. peevedness!

2009-05-27T14:22:00.006+01:00

Dear uninvited guest,

OK, you clearly know as well as I do that I haven't frequented my lab much over the past week or so. But, having swipe card access to my lab and me not being present during your scavenging mission, does not give you license to pilfer my equipment.

As I am sure you know, the items you took -- the power meter and laser shutter -- are very useful, in fact, I assume that's the very reason you took them. However, your need and/or desire of said items does not give you priority.

Allow me, if you will, to elaborate on exactly how vital those items are to me;

Laser shutter
I now have to switch off the power and remove the key for the laser every single time I leave my lab -- a lot, considering the amount of data I end up ferrying around between my equipment and my computer, situated on the floor above, no less.

Power meter
My current measurements involve me reducing the laser power until the trapping power is no longer sufficient to overcome the viscous force of the surrounding medium. I am sure you can guess, if not, as a fellow scientist, agree with me that power value readings are pretty damn important there.

If, unbeknownst to me, those items are to be shared, then I shall share. If you're going to ~~steal~~ borrow them, tell me. There is plenty of paper and the odd pen in my lab for you to leave me a note. I won't be cross, I promise, so long as I know where and/or when I can get them back.

Definitely no love,

peeved Fudd..

[/rant]

_______________________

I have e-mailed Super asking him if he knows where they are as he often takes the power meter. I am beginning to wonder if he is removing things from my lab to see exactly how long it takes me to notice they're gone. Maybe he has a hunch I've been avoiding the lab lately. Paranoid, much?

Potential

2009-05-26T11:35:00.008+01:00

Despite not hearing my 8am phone alarm this morning, maybe after turning it off or even smothering it with my body -- phone alarms are really no good, I must revert to my alarm clock -- I got straight out of bed at 9am, jumped in the shower and was ready to go fairly quickly. I felt ready to work.

So today has the potential to be really good. I am feeling productive., especially on the Fudd. front. R made a good suggestion; a To-Do list. Now, it's not difficult to sell a To-Do List to me, of all people; I love 'em! But he stipulated that it should be rather detailed, he should be able to ask me about whether I have achieved said items, oh and it should be work related -- forgot that minor detail -- not so good at those, well completing them anyway.

I have received an e-mail about a photon science poster session at the end of June. I will get some fatty-bumbum (translation: good) results and hopefully, rapidly put a poster together. Rather exciting.

I didn't do much over the bank holiday weekend apart from enjoying the weather and getting a little jolly on Friday night for a friends visit. How about you lot? I did however, receive the 2 reading circle books from Amazon and buy the pink 'Kag in a Bag' (although they called it 'Jack in a Pack' as it zips down all the way). R even got one of the black 'Kag in Bag''s as it was half-price.

Oh and I placed an order at Jessops for a Lowepro camera bag but won't be able to pick that up until at least Friday. Booo! But at least then I feel that I can start exploring the outdoors with my DSLR. I'm now just waiting for this month's pay before I order my lovely Jansport bag. I'm too excited. :D

That will do for now.

Toodles!

Images: Goddess_Spiral

Friiiiidaaaaaay!

2009-05-22T12:51:00.006+01:00

Happy Friday everyone! This Friday is not really any different, nothing in particular for me to look forward to, just glad it's Friday. Or TGI Friday! Oh but let's not forget this weekend is a Bank Holiday weekend though.

Oh, I do have a couple of cool Freebies for you today.

1. Free Müller Rice Nationwide
Any of you like Müller Rice? I love the stuff, even have an apple one for my lunch today. Well, Müller have changed their Müller Rice packaging and are touring the UK to give away free ones, 12th May - 24th July. I actually saw them in Manchester yesterday! Here is where they will be, and when:

Town centres and events
Newcastle: 13th – 15th May | Sunderland: 16th – 18th May | Preston: 20th – 21st May | Bolton: 22nd May | Blackpool: 23rd – 24th May | Liverpool: 26th – 28th May | Stoke-on-Trent: 29th – 31st May | Birmingham: 2nd – 4th June | Solihull: 5th June | Wolverhampton: 6th – 7th June | Walsall: 8th June | Download (Derby): 11th – 14th June | Swindon: 17th June | Goldcoast Oceanfest (Croyde, North Devon): 19th – 21st June | Bristol: 23rd – 25th June | Cardiff: 26th – 27th June | Derby: 29th June | Sheffield: 30th June – 1st July | York: 3rd – 5th July | Leeds: 6th July | T in the Park (Balado, Kinross-shire): 9th – 12th July | Glasgow: 14th – 15th July

Shopping centres

Eldon Square (Newcastle upon Tyne):12th – 14th May | Metro Centre (Newcastle upon Tyne): 16th – 19th May | Arndale (Manchester): 21st – 24th May | Pavilions Shopping Centre (Dublin): 27th – 31st May | Merry Hill (Dudley): 3rd – 4th June | Broadmarsh (Nottingham): 6th – 7th June | Westfield (Derby): 9th – 11th June

They do a lot of other events and roadshows so check out the About Us > Meet Müller section on their website.

LINK: Müller

2. Free Beck & Hersey Men's T-Shirts
Some T-Shirts may still be available, just click the link and fill in your details.
LINK: Beck & Hersey

That's all folks.

Well, I didn't buy the Kag in a Bag yesterday as the shop lied about being open till 8pm and so, when I got there at 7.15pm, was too late to purchase said kagool. But maybe today or Saturday.

I decided not to go with ePacks.co.uk as Luggagesuperstore.co.uk are selling the black Jansport bag for the same price, with free delivery! But I shall have to wait until the end of the month to purchase it I think, this month has been a little tight, especially after I bought my new DSLR. :) I need a blinking bag* for that, as well!

Went to see Angels & Demons last night. It was good but, as expected, a little far-fetched and ridiculous in parts. Anyone else seen it yet? Confession: the best part of the film was the end -- no, not for obvious reasons -- because the credits rolled out to the beautiful sound of a choir singing Morten Lauridsen's Lux Aeterna. I know what you're thinking; so what? Well, it's only the very same 30minute Latin piece our choir sang just 2 weeks ago for our Spring concert. And the crazy thing, the 2 girls I went to see the movie with were from the choir; we all knew the piece immediately! And we joked about that was how it was supposed to sound. That bit was fab... and I couldn't get it out of my head after that; ♫ ♪ O nata lux de lumine... ♫ ♪

Looking forward to my Heinz Farmer's Market Plum Tomato and Basil soup, with a nice crunchy baguette, today. I can smell that fresh bread smell emanating from underneath my desk, mmmmm! What are you having for lunch?

Toodles!

* Not actually blinking. You know what I mean right?
Images: Megan McIsaac

I ♥ rain.

2009-05-21T16:34:00.006+01:00

Not.

Well, rain is OK perse, but cycling in it is just not fun. And I tell you what else is not fun; that it's not raining before you start cycling, it's not raining after you stop cycling but is pelting it down when you are or at least won't stop whilst you're waiting for it to stop so you can cycle! All that happened to me today. I got drenched in the rain and took me 3 hours to dry at uni.

So, today I am buying a kagool or a 'Kag in a Bag'. Black or a funky pink? What do you think?

Then, I am buying a new backpack -- one that is actually designed to accommodate my laptop, too -- so that everything in my bag -- clean pants, tissue, diary, book, almost everything -- doesn't get wet when cycling in the rain. What do you think of this Jansport bag? I think it's beautiful! lol.

So sexy! Is it worth £50 though? Probably. Ooooh, gimmie!

It seems quite hard to get hold of though. Amazon do it but only in red, navy or white. I'd consider red and navy but it's the black I really want. This website: ePacks, has it in black but I've never shopped with them before. How many of you put your faith in an online company you've never shopped with before? It's difficult.

Should I, shouldn't I? Help!

Toodles!

Reading Circle

2009-05-20T16:29:00.023+01:00

Incase you don't already know, I love reading!

Sometime ago, I joined a virtual book club, inventively called The Book Club Forum, whose main interaction -- as you can probably deduce -- is via their forum. It really is a great place to talk about everything literary with fellow bookworms but unfortunately, I haven't been at all active there. I thought now is the time to get a little more involved and my first port of call -- as has been during all my previous well-intentioned visits -- is their Reading Circle.

Just to quickly explain how their Reading Circle works;

The Reading Circle, around since the early days of the forum, has now settled into a monthly read. During the preceding month, members can nominate, and then vote for, their choice of book.

The Reading Circle is a chance for forum members to get involved, from nominations, through to discussions. At present, nominations include all genres, but there have been 'themed months', covering such genres as 'classics', 'historical fiction', etc.

You can see all previous Reading Circle books by visiting Kell's Reading Circle Fast Finder. To buy previous or current choices, visit their bookstore.

The Reading Circle's choice for May was The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo, but we're already well into May, I'm still reading the Twilight Saga, I believe it's quite a long book, and, oh this small problem of my Fudd...

So, I'll start first with the Reading Circle's choice for June: Running with Scissors by Augusten Burroughs, as part of the Main Reading Circle. Then, in June: The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas, as part of the Classics Reading Circle. I've just pur-chased both of them for 1p (yup, £0.01) each from Amazon. Well, if you exclude the postage & packing of £2.75 per book.

Out of the 66 titles they've read so far, although I've heard of most of them, -- so they're not really obscure, like most book clubs -- I've only read about 6 of them. 9% is not too good, time to work on that.

One final piece of the Reading Circle puzzle, will be the start of my Reading Circle Reviews, posted here, on my blog. So watch this space. Maybe some of you can even get involved too?

Toodles!

Images: Manyaro

Musical Freebie

2009-05-20T14:44:00.004+01:00

I told you guys about it one Freebie Friday a couple of weeks ago but thought it was worth reminding you that you can download a free copy of Coldplay's 'LeftRightLeftRightLeft' album -- which I believe to be a live album they recorded during their most recent tour, but I haven't yet listened to my copy.

It is Coldplay's way of saying 'Thank you' to all their fans.

Get your copy here.

Toodles!

Recovery

2009-05-19T15:22:00.024+01:00

Recovery is an excellent word to apply to what's been going 'down' lately. I don't actually know where to start...

{ Busted laptop }

Wonderful, just what I need, a broken laptop. But that's what I got. Some people, if they knew I attempted to upgrade the RAM from 500MB to 1.5GB and then do a system restore, miiiight think I was the cause. But, considering the RAM upgraded fine, and it was thanks to the system restore failure that the laptop wouldn't boot, then I know you don't blame me, do ya? ;)

Luckily, I'd just backed up everything that was on the laptop -- which actually wasn't a great deal that I didn't already have backed up, as I don't trust laptops as far as I can throw them -- before I'd attempted the system recovery so that wasn't a problem. Buuut, Dell went through a period (that period may not have ended) of shipping their laptops without any recovery/installation and driver CDs. Cut a long story short, I finally managed to get my hands -- which the owner said I could keep -- formatted my hard drive and reinstalled Windows. What a mission to get hold of all the drivers and updates though! Then there are all the programs to re-install. Massive amount of annoyance but it has to be done. I shall create a restore point which will make future restoration to loveliness an altogether easier undertaking. Then, I am going to upgrade the RAM again. All should be hunky dory soon enough.

{ I'm infected! }

And I haven't yet reached the recovery phase. Dammit. I'm just going to go ahead and say what you're all thinking... I hope it isn't swine flu! But you can rest assured, there is no evidence to prove that the infection can be transmitted whilst reading my blog. Never fear, my dear. :)

OK, so I know that's a lose connection to the word 'Recovery' but it counts, OK?

{ Blog Boringness }

I always considered my blog to be quite boring and, for the reader, left a lot to be desired but not as far as Abstaining Irene from Year of My Fake Engagement is concerned. And how do I know this? Because this lovely lady has chosen me as one of her 5 nominees for a 'One Lovely Blogger' Award. I know, that's what I thought; what was she thinking?! Awww thaaaanks Irene!

I have seen these types of awards floating around the blogosphere and I never thought I would ever get one, but it really is lovely to get one. :D So, I suppose, my blog seems to have recovered from it's blog boringness disease. I shall soon post my nominees.

{ Fudd. }

Have I used the word Fudd around here yet? Hmm, probably not so let me introduce it now. How many of you thought it was Elmer Fudd? Go on, admit it. Well, it's not. Fudd = PhD.

I use it because, unlike PhD, it is a little easier on the eye, it makes you think of fudge, it doesn't leave people wondering where the letters come from or which letters should actually be capitalised, and it doesn't cause me to start sweating like who knows what at the thought of the state mine at the moment.

Anyway, I digress. I had a post in the pipeline about 'coming clean' regarding my lack of motivation and, therefore lack of productive work, for my Fudd. R and I had a big chat (and I had a big blub) about what I should do -- soldier on, or quit. I can't keep taking the money when I hate it so much and am struggling to produce anything worthy of a Fudd. And if I do carry on, I run the risk of not getting a reference from my Fudd. Super. That's going to put me up shit creek without a paddle. I still don't really know how I feel about it all to be honest and although I'd like to be able to post and say that my lack of Fudd motivation has recovered, I am not sure it has and I wouldn't like to tempt fate.

I think that's really all the recovery information I have for now. But actually, it's a bloomin' long post so it's more than enough.

Toodles!

PictoBrowser

2009-05-15T15:09:00.016+01:00

Bonjour,

how are we all today? Good I hope. I'm not too bad, got over my little bout of sicky-ness yesterday -- no idea what that was all about?!

Anyway, I have something else (I believe to be) funky to share with you. It's called PictoBrowser and I found it after a long and hard search for a way to share and display my (yet to be created) Flickr photostream. I tried out several different options including Airtight Interactive's Simpleviewer (of which there are Flash and HTML versions), Flickr badges and slideshows, and several other widgets. None of them gave me the kind of functionality or customisability I was after. Then, hidden under a virtual rock somewhere on the internet, I unearthed this little gem

As I haven't really got any Flickr photos, I opted to display photos from Flickr group Sony Alpha World, at the bottom of this page. Click the link in the left sidebar << to scroll down and have a look. I will change it to display my photos once I actually take some worthy photos.

Unlike the HTML SimpleViewer, it doesn't involve heavy HTML and CSS coding or the need to host all the photos you want to display -- and for those of us who are devoid of that mysterious entity known as a 'server', it means a lot of 1-on-1 time with Imageshack, Photobucket or Tinypic.com, i.e. not what I wanted!

Similarly, unlike the Flickr badges and slideshows (HTML or Flash), PictoBrowser has so many customisable options so your slideshow really will look how you want and still look the business! You can change;

PictorBrowser's Width and Height
Image file size (medium or large)
Image Vertical Alignment
Image Titles (on/off)
Image Notes (on/off)
Thumbnails AutoHide (on/off)
Image Zoom (on/off)
PictoBrowser's background color
Navigation background color

You can only show pictures from Flickr, it's true, but you can choose from your sets, groups or keywords. I simply created a set called 'Blogger' and bunged all my photos in there.

Toodles!

The arrival, then the departure

2009-05-12T16:50:00.005+01:00

So, I haven't really let you guys in on it yet but my new beautiful digital SLR camera arrived on Monday. Well, it would have arrived on Saturday if I'd been at home and been able to sign for the special delivery. But instead I had to wait till Monday lunch time to make a visit to the delivery office.

It arriving on Saturday would have done little good anyway as I realised far too late that I didn't have the correct memory card; a Compact Flash, which is more square than the ones which slot inside digital compact cameras. I have an abundance of those! Sod's law.

Anyway, after ordering (only yesterday, I s'poooose) and what seemed like an age, Amazon finally dispatched my memory card! Woop! However, it is being sent via First Class post (not the quickest of Royal Mail's services, lemme tell ya) and from Jersey, Channel Islands no less. Amazon's estimated delivery date of my memory card? Saturday 16th May! Good lord child, that's too long, I cannot wait! But I shall have to.

I am glad I pur-chased it from said website though as it was £17.99 (with free P&P, as I am an Amazon Prime member) -- and that increased to £19.99 today -- compared with at least £29 in the shops. Though, you know, a friend asked me "£11 extra for a day or two of having it in your hand? "* Initially, I said no but if I'd know it was gonna be a bloody week of extra playtime, I might have frickin' paid the £29.

*Yes, yes, I know, it's not really a perfectly formed question. Take it up with him, not me.

OK, let's swing it back to positivity and away from my anger simply from being impatient. The camera is wonderful! I have almost no idea what I'm doing and it's fab! Haha! Wish me luck... and pray for my package to arrive asap.

Toodles!

Tagged: Getting to know Me...

2009-05-11T11:49:00.017+01:00

OK it's my turn to let you all get to know me. My tag comes from Vanessa over at Nessasary Makeup.

{ THE RULES }

Take a picture of yourself RIGHT now. No primping or preparing. Just snap a picture. Load the picture onto your blog. Tag some people to play.

Me just after coming home from uni, I decided to go for a bit of monochrome (it's flattering, don't you know?). Oh and you can see my fancy University of Manchester lanyard. Yup, geek alert.

{ I had to add the photo later as I did not have my digicam (or the cable) with me and I still don't know how to get photos from my phone to a computer. Duh! }

I tag anyone who hasn't done this yet.

{ THE QUESTIONS }

Q: What made you choose your blog?

A: Well, I'm not sure I really chose it as such. I just decided to start blogging mainly because I'd started so many blogs before and I'd lost interest in all of them. I love writing and when I was younger, always had a diary so the writing part comes fairly easily to me, assuming I have a topic.

Q: What's your actual name?
A: Jennifer S

Q: Do you have any nicknames?

A: Yup, Jen, Ginge, Gingerella, Ginger Jen, Niffa, Robin, Cutie, Sweetcheeks, HoneyCups, Brummie, maybe some I'm not aware of?

Q: What hobbies do you have?

A: I love reading and writing! I'm not overly artistic but some crafts are quite fun and taking up baking and cake decorating sort of fell under the mildly artistic heading. I do like cooking when I have time. Oh and how could I forget music! I adore singing and am an alto in my university's choir and orchestra society. I can actually play the violin but decided not to join the orchestra section, not yet anyway. I've just invested in a new hobby; photography, by purchasing a digital SLR camera but we shall have to see how that all pans out...

Q: What do you do?

A: I am a research student in Manchester in the UK and am working towards a PhD (*shudder* Fudd. is much better) in Physics. I've been doing it for just over a year and a half now and sometimes, it sucks but I am hoping it will all be worth it in the end.

Q: What would you like to do?

A: I would either like to teach (Physics at high school or college level) or work for a scientific magazine, journal or editorial company e.g. Physics World, New Scientist, Scientific American, etc. I think that fits in nicely with my love of writing and reading.

Q: Tell us something embarrassing, but that you love doing?

A: Hmm... it's a tough choice but actually I will choose a hobby I didn't mention, cross-stitch. I suppose this comes under the craft heading again. Cross-stitch is a type of sewing and I have loved doing it ever since I was in my teens. My then boyfriend used to laugh at and ridicule me for it as he thought it was very 'granny-like' and several of my friends have laughed at it. But I don't really care. It's fun! Later I will try and upload a picture of one I did recently for my mom's birthday. { Oops! I can't find it. }

Q: Tell us a little something that we don't already know about you.

A: I am a very sensitive and worrisome person and although I don't ever really show it, I can be easily affected by the things others say or think about me. People that I don't know, and will probably never meet again, can take a running jump but the words, thoughts and feelings of the people in my life can have a massive affect on my mood and happiness. I tend to hide my true feelings and become rather defensive which is why most people find me very difficult to get to know. Despite that, I am a very sarcastic and jokey person (so not sensitive all the time) and the more I like you, the more I will be sarcastic and take the proverbial pee out of you. I know, I'm like a school boy in the playground, aren't I?

Q: What achievement are you most proud of?

A: My masters degree actually. It has a funky title; MSc in Photon Science! All together now: 'Ooooh!', but I think it's mainly because I managed to mess up my bachelors degree a little and having got a distinction overall for my MSc proved that I wasn't such a bad scientist after all, especially after being considered a rather average student at science when I was in high school. Although being accepted onto the Fudd. was a proud moment, if I'm honest I'm not sure if being declined the place would have been better for me.

Q: What do you most like about yourself?

A: Well, some people have said I'm funny, and I like that. Also, I am very loyal and once we are friends, I am your friend for life (unless you do something to muck it up) and even if we don't talk every day or see each other much, I haven't forgotten about you. I will do a lot for the people I love and care about.

Q: What would you change about yourself if you could?

A: Hmm physically, I'd maaaybe have a nose job and get laser eye surgery. Emotionally/mentally or whatever, I would change my insecurities, especially those related to friendships and relationships and would believe that people do actually like me for who I am and want to spend time with me; it would solve a lot of problems. I'm also a bit (very) obsessive compulsive but I'm not sure I'd change that actually lol.

Q: If you could have anything in the world (that doesn't cost any money), what would you want?

A: Apart from love, I'd wish for my nan, who passed away when I was about 9, to come and visit, even if it was just for a day, so that we could see her one last time. I still miss her lots! Oooh I feel a little weepy now.

Well, those are all the Q's, so that's all from me. Your turn!!

Toodles!

Funkin' tilt-shift!

2009-05-08T17:24:00.007+01:00

I know, I know, I'm late on sharing this funky thing with you that I promised yesterday but it's here now. And I am sure you are all about to be majorly disappointed but I think it's great! :D

It's something called... wait, wait, waaaait! Let's go the whole (disappointment) hog and build this thing right up...

*drum roll please*

Now, let me first explain: there is a little gem of a photographic technique called tilt-shift photography which takes an image of a real life scene and makes it look like it is a miniature scale model. (Pause: how effing cool is that?!)

This website, Tilt-shift Maker, will do it for you! Just upload your digital photo and wait while it is transformed to look like a miniature model. There are tips on the best photographs to upload as some pictures work better than others.

Here are just some examples (click to enlarge):

{ Seattle Stadium }

{ Ephesus, Greece }

{ Frankfurt Airport Terminal 2 }

{ Las Vegas }

Head on over to the website and check out more from the gallery or have a go at uploading your own. I want to see samples!

But just hold your horses, it doesn't end there. I have now unearthed this wonderful little tilt-shift video entitled Bathtub IV by Keith Loutit, a photographer from Sydney, Austrailia.

Bathtub IV from Keith Loutit on Vimeo.

How fab is that?! Well, very, I think. I hope you all enjoyed the funkin' tilt-shift as much as I did!

Toodles!

Problem solved!

2009-05-07T13:54:00.002+01:00

Yay! I am happy to report some problem solving has been taking place whilst you weren't looking!

Problem #1

May I refer you to the post immediately before this one.

I swallowed my pride and any stubbornness and solved the problem which, as expected, involved me giving in and smoothing things over. The picture I posted gave me inspiration and I just sent him an e-mail, like so;

Wow! I'm such a lovely girlfriend, aren't I? And you know you could learn a thing or two from my apologising technique.

Anyway, I didn't have to wait too long before he replied asking to meet for lunch. So yaaay! I did it! Sorted.

And so onto...

Problem #2

In a nutshell; I wanted to take up photography but alas (!), I do not have a digital SLR camera. The price of a good starter kit coupled with my complete noobness (novice), meant I didn't want to spend £400+ on something I wasn't even sure I was going to be any good at/enjoy. So the purchase of a DSLR was somewhat put on hold. I began to resign myself to the fact that it was going to be on hold indefinitely, just like the acoustic guitar I was going to buy and teach myself to play. Oops!

But no! A digital night in shining armour has rescued this damsel in distress and she shall at last go to the digital photography ball! (Oh shut up, you love it!) My sisters friend and work college has decided to sell his;

16 month old Sony A350 camera (fully and originally boxed)
Sony 18 - 70mm kit lens
Sigma 18 - 55mm lens
Tamron 70 - 200mm lens

all for £320!! I've done my research, that's a steal! And after a long, hard think (approx. 3hours lol) and many detailed questions to the seller, I decided Bruce's price is right! His name is not Bruce -- I'm so excited I'm talking gobbledegook! I mean, please observe just how bloody beautiful it looks here!

So watch this space as I begin my ascent up the incredibly steep learning curve that is digital photography. I'm dead excited!

Just so you know, I am probably going to blog again today as I have something funky to share with you!

Toodles!

My vow

2009-05-07T10:30:00.008+01:00

I made a vow to myself not to harp on about relationship stuff here, mainly because I can't really remember where I've posted a link to my blog so who knows who could be reading, not very private eh? But also because I don't want to bore you lovely people. Then, I figured, that any post might be better than no post at all... Aaand I am hoping airing it will make me feel better.

Because right now I feel like - pardon my french - shit. I don't know how, after arguing with R, this always happens; even when I think I am 100% in the right, I feel far too guilty. Maybe I do know why, because I always worry that just incase the last time I ever see or speak to that person, was the time I was annoyed with them, and it scares me half to death. In fact, that's probably the only reason I feel like crying after arguing. I say I hate arguing, it's not very fun that's for sure, but really, it's the aftermath of the argument that I hate; the panic of not being able to fix it quick enough.

So, the result; I give in and I would say I'm almost always the one to make the first move to try and patch things up. That's no way to live your lives people, let me tell you, because then you're always the one to apologise and give in and you get labelled weak. Maybe I am. Yup, I'm weak. But maybe that's better than being too hard?

The other key point is that I can be really, mega p'eed off in the moment and around the person that shit kicked off with, but within minutes, in fact maybe even pre-emptively before we have departed, I start to feel incredibly awful and will resort to all sort of tactics to stick around more so that I may have the opportunity to fix it, say sorry, make amends. I might never take the opportunity but I go to significant lengths to make the opportunity arise. That's sad isn't it? I should just apologise and be done with it rather than all this beating around the bush and making myself feel awful all day about the thing I wanted to do but was too stubborn to do.

Another reason why I don't like to talk about relationship issues; I don't like the idea of anyone - yup, that includes complete strangers - thinking that things aren't rosey. But hey, Jen, life is not rosey. Get a grip!

So yeh, right now, I feel like I should apologise but I also feel this could be the pressure my own worrying has exerted on me so I'm holding back. Theeen I start to worry I am being stubborn.

Ultimately, maybe all this worrying is completely useless because the offended person is just going to cut their loses and be done with me. I don't want that to happen.

But this time, I really don't know how I got all the blame. Like, I'm bad, I can be bad, but this time I don't think I did anything bad enough to warrant being ignored so much. :( And I'm sad about it. I'm not all that confident I can manage the day feeling like this. Brain-wave: just send him that? And apologise. Text or e-mail? He's usually slower to notice his e-mails. I think I need your help guys on rules of how exactly one goes about apologising?! Why am I so horrendously awful at making apologises?!

D'ya know, I wish this was a completely anonymous blog (i.e. that some of you didn't know me, and R, personally) then you'd have the inside scoop on exactly what was said and his response. But that would be incredibly unfair. If he read this, he would probably think I've said too much already but I need to release! And here is my place to do it.

*sigh* I wanna fix it.

It's not really a rant but I labelled it so anyway. And in place of toodles;

Boo-hoo! :(

Freebie Friday

2009-05-01T14:44:00.008+01:00

Last Friday there were no freebies as I wasn't here and nobody seemed to cry out in protest so I thought I'd just let it slide and wait until next Friday. And here we are.

1. Free tin of Nivea Creme
Just click the link below, click the free sample and fill in your details.
LINK: Nivea

2. Free pack of Purina cat food

I don't have a cat but maybe some of you do. Just click the link below and follow the instructions to get a free bag of Natural Balance cat food.

LINK: Purina One cat food

3. Free Coldplay Live Album; 'LeftRightLeftRightLeft'

Coldplay have announced they will be giving away free copies of a live album recorded in various cities around the world during their Viva La Vida tour. Copies of the 9-track CD will be given to everyone attending their remaining live shows (not festival) from May 15th. The album will also be made available to download online at their website; coldplay.com. The give-away is meant as a recession-busting mark of gratitude to everyone whose supported them. So keep your eyes, and ears, out for that one!

LINK: Coldplay.com
4. Free Mobile Internet Day on Vodafone Today!

Whatever you’re up to on Friday 1st May (today), using the internet on your phone won’t cost you a thing. That’s right. Free mobile internet. All day. You don’t pay a penny. Nada. Zip. Click the link below to read the full details and for help with setting up browsing on your Vodafone mobile.

LINK: Free browsing with Vodafone

Well, that's all I could find (that was worth posting) for you today. I may update later if something good wings its way into my inbox.

Toodles!

Gingerella

When life gives you lemons...

Waitrose Homemade Lemonade

Ingredients

Method

Dear Me...

Going Bananas!

Banana Breakfast Loaf

Ingredients

Method

Au revoir 2010!

Will you walk into my parlour?

Schpooky!

CLOTHES

ACCESSORIES

MAKE-UP

I've moved!

Living with a boy, part 2

Super commenter?

Living with a boy, part 1

Happy 2nd Blog-a-versary

June bug

I am a blogging girl and I went to BNO, and I can play...

Suffocated

101 in 1,001

PERSONAL

BLOGGING & WWW

ACADEMIC

ACTIVITIES

ARTS & CREATIVE

MISCELLANEOUS

Blog Swap: The best thing about being a blogger

Hells Bells!

Been a while, crocodile.

Spank you!

Anti-climatic much?

Oh. This is weird.

Beaudifu' Bloggers

Happy Valentine's Day!

Blogging No Man's Land

How could I forget...

"What's in the bag, lady?"

Saturday slump

Choices, choices? Help!

Q&A

Q: What is your favourite book? (Sonshu)

A: My favourite book was probably 'The Other Boleyn Girl'. I imagine a lot of people choose it but (sometimes) I don't mind being a little obvious. I just could not put it down and was so engrossed! Have you read it?

Q: Did your first crush know that you had a crush on him? Did you tell him/her!? (Sonshu)

Q: What do you really look like? That's my question. :) (Langley)

A: Just like most people, I have eyes (brown), ears and a nose, oh and red hair. But maybe a picture would be a better illustration. {The picture I showed him is on the right, there.}

Q: Well, when did you lose your viginity and where? (Langley)

Q: What would you recommend as the "must see" thing in Manchester?! (Michelle)

Q: Chocolate or Vanilla?

A: Vanilla

Q: Would you rather be really hot or really cold?

A: Really cold, assuming I had access to a large number of extra layers I could pile on.

Q: If you had the opportunity to live one year of your life over again, which year would you choose?

A: The first or second year of my PhD, probably the second more, as I just didn't make the most of it and hence am cutting it a little bit fine with getting some good quality (and publishable!) research.

Q: When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?

A: A singer. And then a teacher. I would still be a singer now if I had an amazing-enough voice, but not a teacher. I settle for being an alto in the choir these days.

Q: Would you rather be a vampire or a werewolf?

A: Hmmm. Vampire!

Q: If you could be a star athlete in any sport, which sport would you pick?

A: I would love to be a star gymnast or trampoliner! I used to do a lot of gymnastics and dancing when I was younger and was a member of the trampolining club for a while.

Q: What TV show makes you laugh the loudest?

A: I think it would have to be the British music quiz show, Never Mind the Buzzcocks. I find it holarious at times! Although, they have gotten rid of my favourite host now. I always love the Identity Parade round.

Q: What's the furthest you've ever traveled?

A: It would have to be to Hong Kong when I went with some friends in 2005.

Q: How would you describe yourself in 3 words?

A: loving, insecure and ginger

Q: If you could be invited to one person's birthday party, whose would it be?

A: I am not sure why this person sprung to mind but Lionel Richie maybe? I imagine he would throw a good birthday party! That's a poor answer but it was instinctive.

Q: What was your favorite birthday gift?

A: Hmmm... I actually prefer the simple little things and a Sudoku book that R (the boyf) got me last year was a good gift; it's small and I'm still using it! But I also love things I can consume (takes up less space), especially cake!

Friday feeling

Twenty-Five

Gingerella sans diary

PROOOOOBE ME!

Cold sooooore!

Ask me anything!