~stealing to your window again, now i say, "we could fall in love"~

As I sat in the quad between my two pointless classes today, I was ambushed first by pretentious prat from my tutorial and then by his posse. One of them's a Christian and she tried to rope me into something to do with CU. Plans to take over the English Society and make it about, you know, English instead of getting pissed are underway. They're actually nice. They asked did I want to join them for lunch after class, but I had some stuff to do at home, sadly. :(

~come on come on, lets take a chance now, we could fall in love~

Mmm, essay questions.

2. Does the content and form of Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code adequately account for its popularity?
No.

Full marks please. This is clearly the correct answer.

~resting faces, calm and quiet~

Yesterday we walked to the Marine carpark and saw an ice cream van. It made me think that the fair must be coming soon, one of my favourite things to see in May but my least favourite thing to go anywhere near. That led us to remember the fireworks at Loughshore that we went to see last year and ran into Fuzz and Crooksie. We all went on the Waltzer, and I thought I was going to die and Dave lost his phone. But then Dave found his phone, and we didn't die. So it turned out to be not such a bad night.

~soft, sweet music makes me sleep, calling my mind away~

There hasn't really been much I can discuss on a public blog. I'm worried and I'm waiting for things to change for the worse because I'm beginning to realise that they might. The most frustrating part is that if it does, it's going to be my own fault anyway.

Sorry for being ambiguous. Have a hamster to make up for it.

~with our laughter, bright, white sound~

Yesterday's band practice went really well, and Christina caught up much faster than I had anticipated. Kudos, and time to knuckle down and learn the stuff for next week, I think.

To be honest? I need to admit that my main reason for updating is that, inspired (or maybe reminded) by a conversation with Laura last night, I need to get my hair done. I can't afford it, but nonetheless I've booked an appointment for tomorrow afternoon. Should I change the hair or get the same thing again? Any thoughts? :)

~see how it dances from you, to me, to you~

To Do List

1. Go to bed earlier. Get more sleep (already failing because I'm writing this sentence at 12.26am).
2. Keep up with things rather than just letting them pile up because I can't be bothered doing even one of the tasks.
3. Eat more healthily. Rather than eating super-healthy food one day and a load of total crap the next.
4. Sit down and actually, you know, think about stuff. No time? make time!
5. Get off my ass and dance.
   

~i love to watch the light spread to the room~

Well, today I slept in and woke up 15 minutes before I had to leave the house! Nightmare! Luckily I got ready super-quick this morning and caught the train. Yay me!

Uni was Uni, and doesn't need to be blogged about besides the fact that I got charged £7.50 for a DVD that was a day overdue. WHOOPS.

So tonight I went with Kirker to see Confessions of a Shopaholic, which was a thoroughly enjoyable watch! I didn't like it much at first, but I found myself getting into it! I definitely liked her friend's clothes more though! We haven't had much of a chance to hang out lately because we're always so busy, but it was great to just chat again! It was such good times!

~and humming children to sleep~

Yesterday I got to browsing youtube and stumbled upon a cartoon I used to know pretty much by heart when I was a kid. The Wag-tastic opera parody directed by Chuck Jones, What's Opera, Doc? Needless to say it brought back a lot of memories. I find it strange how I appreciate things so dramatically differently now compared to when I was a small person. But the fat pony? I will always appreciate.

When I was at work last night, I was serving a young-ish woman and her daughter who looked to be about six. I was in a fairly foul mood at this point, so I didn't actually pay much attention to them until the woman spoke to me and basically this conversation happened:
Lady: I was just thinking about the last time I saw you.
Me: Oh? *confused*
Lady: You were in that pantomime, weren't you?
Me: Oh! The Captain Righteous one! Yeah, I was!
Lady: Aw, it was good fun. My daughter was just wondering if you got married to Captain Righteous.
Me: (!!!) ... Well, we're thinking about it! ^_^
Lady: Aww that's nice! Well, thanks very much! *leaves*

How random!

~i am whirling, wearing my sun feet~

Today is a day off uni, and what have I done with it?

Grandad's going kind of downhill so mum booked a plane yesterday to fly out to Dundee this morning. So we dropped mum off at the airport and I had to go and pick up a few things in Abbeycentre. And then I drove home and got shouted at by my dad because I tried to change lanes at a particularly stupid time. Carrick roundabout really is hideous when it's busy!

Also, the flowers Dave gave me last week? I thought they would just always stay how they were when I got them but they've all opened out and look even more gorgeous than they did a week ago!

Tonight I'm working. Blah.

~i am dancing, shrouded by green trees~

I find sometimes I think so much about something that it becomes a huge black hole for my thoughts, always there and eating up all the other thoughts until it becomes a big obese overfed thought. The sort of thing that just stays in the back of your mind and becomes sort of white noise. Normally I write these things down in some way or another and it sort of lifts it a little. Not always a successful effort, but worth a try. Sometimes it feels like I'm balancing something heavy on my head that obscures the top of my vision or something, it doesn't really make much sense. I think what I need at the moment is clarity. I hope I haven't scared anyone off with my bizarre moment of WHAT THE HECK IS NICKY ON ABOUT THIS TIME.

~i don't know, and i can't contain my heartbeat~

Today I went shopping with the lovely Carla. Much bant was had, many in-jokes were revisited, and we just generally caught up and shopped a lot. Lots of police in Belfast today. It was all good though. It's been nice to have a whole entire day off without any work to go to or any uni crap to do. Carla got a new ear piercing and i got a skirt and more importantly, SHOES. They are beautiful. I've missed Carla so much, so it was amazing to just hang out for the whole day like we used to, skulking round Belfast and people watching from the window upstairs in Starbucks.

Last night I drove all by myself. Up the Beltoy and round to Dave's house, then we went to Abbeycentre. I've decided driving alone in the dark, especially on the Beltoy, is a little scary, so I turned my iPod up.

That's all I got. I just wanted to mark the seeing Carla occasion and show off my shoes.

~and from our heads will come bright flowers~

Lecturer: We can compare David Lurie to the poet W.B. Yeats. What do we know about Yeats that we can compare with Lurie?
Damien: Well there's the Maud Gonne thing. Lurie sort of imposed himself repeatedly on Melanie and Soraya. He was kind of old for it.
Lecturer: Yes, and we also know that he got monkey testicles implanted at age sixty nine in an attempt to rejuvenate that part of his life. He said it was like a second puberty.
Damien: ...
Lecturer: ... Okay, so we'll move away from Yeats now...
Stuart: Wow, Yeats was awesome!!!
Class: *snigger*

Also as a note to self, 'and then some' is probably not an appropriate term to end a sentence with when addressing your lecturer about the moral message of any novel.

~and when i'm done, the clock will stop~

So today was the driving test of doom. Needless to say I was SHARTING myself all the way to Larne, and when I swapped over to take the wheel I made a few ridiculous mistakes in my lesson, particularly one on a dreaded ROUNDABOUT and got very very worried...

Got into the test centre and only two other people were doing it at the same time. Lavery, the guy I had last time, didn't seem to be in. The other two being tested were boys in school uniforms. One of them (who I am now calling David because he looked like David from Coronation Street, not to be confused with my lovely boyfriend) was doing his test for the fifth time. Argh.

Then the examiners came out and the other two went on ahead. Ryan told me I had Paul Rice. My brain imploded, then exploded and then imploded again.

There followed 36 minutes (according to my test sheet) of pure TERROR. Paul Rice was really lovely to me, but I was convinced that I'd failed, if not because I almost didn't see a motorbike behind me then because I hesitated so long at a traffic light that I couldn't quite tell was for me. So I pulled into the parking bay pretty accepting of the fact that I'd failed but it was cool, I knew what I'd done and I'd just go in for it again. Except he put me out of my misery fairly quickly and told me I had in fact passed (with six minors WHAT?!!!!), because those two things I thought I'd failed on hadn't caused anyone any danger. After pointing out however that sitting with me at a junction was like watching paint dry, he nonetheless congratulated me on passing and let me go leaping back to Ryan. I'm going to miss Ryan, to be honest. How he put up with my blondeness and my occasional OMG I CAN'T DO THIS rants I shall never know. He reckons he'll save on tissues at any rate, plus he gets the pleasure of teaching Dave's brother come Friday.

As Rice was sorting out my paperwork for my new license, David (as in school uniform David) drove into the space next to me, and promptly majored for parking far too close to me so that the examiner couldn't open the door. I felt so sorry for him. If his test had gone well to that point it would have been even MORE hideous. I hope he's lucky on his sixth attempt, he looked gutted.

Tonight Dave came over and brought me beautiful roses! And bought me dessert at Springsteens, as well as a witty Passed Your Test card! He is so good to me. We went and got R plates for the Getz.

Now I just have to not crash.

~i'll build a castle that won't fall down~

*
~
Traveling like a broken boat
Heading for the sky,
And I'm an island.
~
*

I've been thinking a lot lately. Surprising, I know. A chat with Kirker tonight gave me even more to think about and I deserve not so much a negativity dance as an all-singing, all-dancing, fabulously-clad negativity chorus line.

I sort of need to take a step back towards, well, everyone, because I've sort of cut myself off from most of the people I know, if that makes sense. I still see them as often as I used to and everything, I just don't relate to them anymore. I don't just go up and talk to people, and if they come to me then I'm usually a little bit too surprised at that. I have some bridges that I didn't so much burn as neglect and leave to decay a little. Nice. It took me a while to realise what sort of attitude had entered into my mind without me even noticing. The words I used when I was talking to Kirker were, 'nobody really cares whether I say something or not anyway'. So this is me saying something. The last few months have been strange and it's difficult to explain. It was even hard to explain to Rachel. It felt great to let things go over my head and to never cry at anything anymore but indifference lost its appeal when I realised that I disconnected myself from nearly everything. The phrase 'I don't mind' has been steadily replaced by 'I don't care' lately, even in conversation. And technically those two things mean the same thing, but to me they're entirely different. I hate the phrase 'I don't care' almost as much as I hate 'I want', and yet I've started saying it and i was true. I really didn't care about a lot of things I should have cared about. My relationship with God hasn't suffered yet, but I know that's coming if I don't sort myself out now.

I guess it doesn't make much sense, but I need to stop acting like me and start being me. Stop just doing the things that people expect of me and that I think will make people like me just for the sake of going through the motions and getting through the day unscathed and unhumiliated because I did/said x, y or z. I don't fit in with the crowd. I blend in with the furniture. I used to not do that. I used to have so much more energy and just do silly little things because I cared or because it seemed like a good idea at the time. I need to talk more to the people I love, and share more becuase I'm not just for myself. God has given me a gift and put people in front of me and I've been ignoring it all.

Just saying.

~gather timber from the ground~

Oh, Hannah,
You asked me for a love song.
But my love for you is so strong,
That it might get ridiculously long.
Oh, Hannah,
You asked me for a love song.


Oh, Hannah,
I love the way you dress.
Your style never fails to impress.
I'm blown away by your fabulousness!
Oh, Hannah,
I love the way you dress.

Oh, Hannah,
I love your beehive.
It's on your head, so very high,
It looks much better on you than Amy Wine...house.
Oh, Hannah,
I love your beehive.

Oh, Hannah,
I love what you do.
I go on Twitter and follow you.
I refresh a lot, to see what's new.
Oh, Hannah,
I love what you do.

Oh, Hannah,
Some day,
You'll be the best in Broadway
For writing all of the greatest plays!
Oh, Hannah,
Sooommeeee daaaaayyyyyy....

~I'm gonna build a house and hide away~

Am I to understand that displaying images isn't frowned upon here the way it is on livejournal, where the slightest hint of an image is generally followed my 'CUT PLZ', 'LJ CUT - LERN U SUM', or, my personal favourite, 'OMG U BORKLE MY FLIST WIT DAT IMG'?

I'm also not sure that it's particularly cool to post two days in a row, but as I'm currently in the throes of a midlife crisis I have an excuse for overcompensating in my attempts to be hip.

Today my patience was tried. That should probably give you enough warning as to the nature of the entry. I woke up thinking it was Saturday. For the most blissful of moments I prepared to go back to sleep, before I heard my dad leaving for work - crap. I had half an hour to get ready. As usual, the heating on the train was broken. Everything was made better by a skinny caramel cappuccino from Starbucks before Ethnomusicology. Mm, guilt-free yet sweet.

Ethnomusicology today was... well, for the last three or four lectures, all we've done is watch a dvd. I wonder what the lecturer is being payed for. Also, annoying mature student needs to stop drawing attention to herself deliberately by asking questions to which the answers are blatantly obvious. If you want an excuse to read out parts of your wonderful lecture notes for the prof. to be impressed with, do it in your own time, please. This video will be played to the end whether you choose to pause and interrupt it or not, and I'm bored with the origins of 'la salsa'.

The next tutorial I had to go to was English Language, in which we were to discuss the pretentious prat we all know as William Wordsworth. And speaking of pretentious prats, the guy who sits beside me needs a slap. He doesn't seem to realise that he won't gain any friends if, when the TA asks a question, he looks smugly at the rest of us before snarking, 'Anyone at all? Oh, well I suppose I will offer an opinion...' before launching into a long, drivelling, ostentatious speech that he clearly rehearsed in his head beforehand. Ugh.

I'm going to end it there. I'm not even getting started on Translink.

Testing, 1, 2...

Blogspot is completely different to livejournal. This is going to take some getting used to and I'm still trying to work out some bits. But since this is my first entry, I should probably write something about my day. I can't promise witticisms. I'm getting old.
Most pressingly today, I'd like to know why my lit. tutor likes to ask me things specifically during tutorials. He doesn't seem to do this to anybody else. One or two people state their opinions on the matter, there's a pause... then inevitably... "Nicola? What do you think?" I find it annoying. I was planning on sleeping in that tutorial. I'm starting to wonder if he knows anyone else's name.

Yesssss.

So, how do you drive this thing? What are all the cool kids doing on their blogs? Edumacate me.