Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Overdue update...

I seem to be leaving far too long between updates. Ah well.

All is well at the moment. Plenty of work to be doing, but then that's what the final year is (apparently) about. I feel mislead. It's all good though - translation is just fun in a geeky kind of way, and one of my modules involves reading French books that are highly explicit. The one I'm currently reading ("Therese et Isabelle" by Violette Leduc) is basically a full-on naughty schoolgirl story. Fun.

Been spending far too much time out and drinking though. Two weeks ago I took a bunch of friends to Formal, which is essentially a formal dinner with gowns and stuff, but with a lot of quite bizarre rules. For example, you're not allowed to stand up once High Table have entered except for Grace or to get water, stealing other people's place settings is quite normal, and in order to signal to High Table that we're ready for food we spend half an hour (usually) banging our spoons on the tables in various rhythms, just like four-year-olds. It's all highly amusing, especially since consuming a bottle of wine each in about an hour is the norm.

After formal we went to Planet of Sound, the union's club night, more often (and accurately) called Hounds. I'll let you work out why. Whatever you're thinking, it's probably right. In there I threatened to punch someone in the nose if he groped me again - he [i]almost[/i] came back, but then apparently realised that I was serious and walked away. I hate when people think that because I'm wearing a skirt they can put their hands underneath it. Just no! Le sigh.

Last weekend (the one just gone) was my friend's birthday, so that involved more drunkenness, a really good home-made Italian meal (he made the pasta from scratch and everything, very impressive) and then another Hounds trip. This time I didn't threaten to punch anyone, because I was wearing jeans and looked more Goth and therefore harder to get? I don't know, but it was nice.

Yesterday we continued his celebrations by having his friend over to cook us a meal. Now this other friend is head chef or something similar in a pretty decent Indian restaurant in Durham, so you can imagine how excited we all were. It was truly amazing, really spicy but with flavour as well as heat. I love Indian food and spice in general, and had been complaining about how boring our catered meals are (they used oregano the other day and I got really excited, so that gives you an idea) so I was particularly enjoying it. Mmmm good food...

This weekend coming up, I have some friends visiting! They're both graduates from Durham, so we're going to have a nostalgic weekend (despite the fact I'm still here), and probably end up in Hounds again on Friday... after which I will be Hounded out for the term!

This is long now, so I'll stop. Back to the translations for me! xx

Tuesday, January 16, 2007

Christmas and stuff

I'm updating a little later than planned, oops.

So Christmas and all that was good. Rob came over from the States, which was really cool. I don't get to see him nearly enough, so having a whole three weeks with him was great :D We spent a lot of time making mince pies ('cos they're just so good) and walking my nan's dog. Crazy puppy. We also got climbing, which was cool, and of course Rob did the (re)meeting of the family since it had been a while.

New Year was... interesting! We were heading into Manchester for a house party, which was hampered by the fact that BOTH of my home town's train stations were closed. On New Year's Eve. Without any replacement buses (or indeed any buses into Manchester at all). So that involved an expensive taxi to a neighbouring town to catch the train from there. Bastards. But we got there eventually, and had fun (although Rob did drink too much whisky, not helped by the fact that when he asked for water he got given a rather strong gin and tonic instead... not my fault, I hasten to add!)

So yes, good holidays. Now I'm back in Durham and am supposed to be writing an essay, as you can tell by the fact that I'm updating my blog instead. Ho hum.