things acquired free in the last two weeks

A bag of soya products (revolting).
A man's razor (new).
Blackberry Torch (!)
Rescue Remedy chewing gum (as weird as it sounds).
Knowledge that I will barely scrape through the accountancy exam I am taking in May.

Ooh! There's a new Kitsune album out. Excuse me.

things I want to do (part i)

John Soane's house
the Dove pub in Hammersmith
rugby match at Twickenham (I've done this, but he hasn't)
Portobello Market (haven't been since I was sixteen, and I live twenty minutes away)
Bea's of Bloomsbury for afternoon tea (in my head it's a bit like a British Angelina's)
Gray's Market (antiques!)
catch the first tube home in the morning
yOyO at Notting Hill Arts Club on Thursday nights
go to Ginglik more
Tower of London/Crown Jewels
buy something in Liberty's

things I like about this horrible city

My gym. I like it a lot. I don't want to move away from it next year.
My yoga teacher.
Buses.
Old friends only minutes away.
Ravenscourt Park.
Ravensourt Park tube station.
Long walks along the South Bank.
Borough Market.
The City at weekends, empty of people and full of closed cafes.
Late at the Tate.
The BM.
The reassuring noise of the aeroplanes.
Paddington station.
The beautiful brick Pavilion on the green, sadly disused.
Gloucester Road tube station, with all the moody lighting and artwork.
Whole Foods.
Being able to wear anything at all because you'll never be the weirdest person on the street.
Waterstones on Gower Street.
Hyde Park/St James Park/most other central parks.
Breakfast out.
Chiswick.
Westfield (shhhh).

I hope you're proud, boyfriend.

stuff on my desk

photo of my sister aged 15
blank valentine's card
fitness first timetable
Guardian article about boyfriend
incomprehensible science paper written by above
an "Alternative Personal Statement" composed by friends when aged 17
birthday card from Economics teacher
diary that looks scarily like Gideon Bible
two lamps that don't work
photo of EA on D of E giving the camera the finger
photo of AL in graduation gown
list of "Things What Are Large" produced at 21st birthday party
postcard with bird labelled "Mystic Tit"
calendar with mock exams in orange highlighter
pile of Civil Litigation work I am going to do now

sheep

SHD tagged me to do this on fb. I am not sure whether it is more or less narcissistic to post it here instead.

Rules: Once you've been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it's because I want to know more about you.

1. I just dug out some very rusty html skills to write that SHD link above, as Blogger's hyperlink thing appears to be unwell. I am quite pleased I got it right first time.
2. Writing is my passion. What a fucking stupid statement; probably the truest thing I've ever posted.
3. Dried apricots are THE FOOD OF THE DEVIL.
4. I don't tell anyone anything, though I pretend to. I am not particularly proud of this.
5. I worry about how I compare intellectually, not physically.
6. I am fantastically vain, however.
7. I have made every major decision in my life (degree course, University city, postgrad study, etc) at the last possible minute.
8. Conversely, I stress about everyday situations far too much.
9. I know the calorie content of pretty much everything.
10. I loathe running. I do it anyway.
11. I wish I looked nice in cream. The colour, not the foodstuff.
12. I have a disproportionate number of good, gay, male friends.
13. I have two birthmarks; one on my right thigh, one behind my left ear. The second one isn't particularly attractive.
14. The most acute pain I have experienced was breaking a rib. The memory of it, and the sound it made, makes me cringe.
15. This has taken me three days so far, and I am only at 15. I overthink.
16. In moments of hating my degree, I always wished I'd read English.
17. I have been skydiving, but I'd never bungy (sp?) jump.
18. I get Diet Coke cravings, especially when hungover.
19. My hangovers are monstrous, and last all day.
20. Seriously, I'm out of pointless rubbish to tell you. There are five more to do. Feel free.

the answer to your unasked question

It seems September is the month I ignore my blog. Hurrah! For you, I mean. I should write more. Apart from all that beneficial release-of-emotion nonsense, it may help with the glitter-eyed dream about being published.

Anyway. Where have I been, you might say. Or! You might not! It is a crazy world, this one in which we live. You get an answer anyway. I have been:

moving in - falling off chairs on my first day of law school - failing to get the job [yes I know it sucks, move on, move on]- making Norwegian boys in nightclubs really quite cross - getting a slightly rubbish haircut by mistake - writing letters - tripping over my own feet in aerobics - leaving my Oyster card at home multiple times causing much RAGE - and various other things.

In conclusion; somewhere in the ether of equity and contract and tort (I know what that means now! Eight thousand pounds WELL SPENT) I will get back to writing.

I Don't Think I'm Ready Yet

I had an interview last Thursday.

When people ask how it went, I answer: It wasn't as bad as my Oxford interview.
It wasn't. In the second Oxford interview they showed me a picture of a large structure and asked me what it was. Clearly, it was a tomb, but I said watch tower. Oh yes. I also told Robin Lane Fox that there were multiple versions of Homer's Odyssey. My explanation of this sort-of truth was not sufficient, clearly.

There were the required amount of fatuous questions. I gave equally pretentious answers. I felt hardly myself, playing this game of pretty platitudes, jumping through hoops.

Good Things: (to distract me from silly interview) moved into new house (beautiful), listened many times to my new purchase- Patrick Wolf - The Magic Position, tiptoed around family, begun watching the first season of House (watch it watch it watch it) and revisited my Eels collection for comfort. (Check the title).

I don't think I got the job. But - watch this space.

things I fear I'll never grow out of

1. Writing stuff (song lyrics, Latin phrases) on the inner side of my left wrist. Especially odd when you consider visible veins aren't my favourite thing.
2. Talking to myself while I drive.
3. Blink-182.
4. Leaving important decisions until the last second.
5. My Diet Coke habit.

trailer trash

Terrible things that I really love:

1. Rose Vamp nail varnish by Bourjois, enriched with vinyl. It resembles the peel-off varnish I used to have as a kid.
2. Britney.
3. Really trashy newspapers/magazines, like the News of the World, and the National Enquirer.
4. Enormous hoop earrings.
5. Chunky gold jewellery, and too much of it. An armful of bracelets is my good luck charm.
6. McDonalds McChicken sandwiches.
7. Tranvestite-esque high heels.
8. Anything animal print.
9. Metallic bikinis.
10. White jeans.

things in my life that aren't my dissertation

1. The bruise on the back of my right hand. No idea how it got there. It looks like a grab mark, but it's a little quiet on that front.
2. That bloody Bon Iver song I was listening to yesterday. I do own steal crap music.
3. Two dreams, in two successive nights, about two different man-types who featured in the daytime world once upon a time.
4. Jugs of Pimms with the girls, drunk man telling us we shouldn't be in the pub if we didn't want to be "bothered".
5. Son of Rambow. Yeah, cute enough.
6. New platform sandals that may get an outing with obnoxious coloured tights and too much eyeliner tonight. The lovely Miss McG calls my dress sense "trashy" and I take it as a compliment.
7. Seriously. Bon Iver? You're meant to say it like it's French as well, but isn't 'winter' 'hiver', not 'iver'? It's bothering me.
8. Really shit TV programmes, like the Channel 4 documentary about the Ark of the Covenant. I didn't watch the end but I looked up what happened. The chap reckons the Ark is in a storeroom in Zimbabwe.
9. Another shit TV programme: Channel 5's knock-off of 4's 'Bodyshock' series. The man that looked like a tree was quite alarming. The shows are just excuses to stare. Doesn't mean I stop, though.
10. Chocolate. A lot of chocolate.

Basically, my life? Full of nonsense.

what I did on my holiday

A list. Because I am tired.

1. Got rained on.
2. Did not get a tan.
3. Woke up one morning with a transfer tattoo on my left breast. Remembered vaguely, through the hangover, weird barman putting it there.
4. Did not remember - still a touch unsure - how we got back to the boat the same night of the transfer tattoo debacle.
(Sister assures me it had something to do with a bloke named Bill.)
5. Reacquainted myself with the unattractive lumpy rash I get on my hands and joints every time I go sailing.
6. Got several mosquito bites, despite it being cold.
7. Listened to Black and Gold by Sam Sparro many many many times.
8. Did not do the dissertation work I took with me.
9. Only dropped the warp when throwing it once. Still embarrassing.
10. Read This Book Will Save Your Life, by AM Homes. And it was the best novel I have read in years.

More, maybe, at some point. Maybe even with proper sentence structures.