Wednesday, May 25, 2005

time flies

Really not feeling great at the moment, lots of shitty stuff going on that I really don't feel like writing about because that's not what I do, my way of dealing with shit is to bottle it all up and pretend things are fine until it all comes out again. Anyway...

The weekend was good, although I remembered how horrendoud most of the people at home make me feel. It was fun though, especially since we got to introduce Hannah to the 'mysterious customs of Saddleworth', as it were! Both Whit Friday and the Beerwalk were very pleasant indeed, despite the horrendous weather on Saturday that made the beerwalk more of an ordeal than a piss up! It was also, terrifyingly, my first really adultWhit Friday, where instead of being groped by a spotty lad on a park bench and then puking up in the corner of a field, I sat and watched the bands with a few friends and a couple of beers. Shocking! All in all, it was enjoyable but not exactly raucous. Could it be that we have actually grown up?

The weekend also made me absolutely petrified about the summer, because if there's one thing I definitely have grown out of it's living at home. Which is what I'll be doing as of this weekend because I need some pennies and can only get short term work in Manchester. Crap. Keep telling myself it will be OK, as it's only in short bursts. 3 weeks of sheer hell, living with parents and commuting into Manchester every day, then 3 weeks travelling around Eastern Europe, another 3 hellish weeks at home, then a couple of weeks in Dorset chilling out by the sea. I haven't really got that much to complain about. It's just terrifying how quickly it has come around. This term is so ridiculously short. Tomorrow is my last exam (which, of course, I should be revising for now), then that's it until September. Terrifying. I have too many 'loose ends' to tie up here, in 3 bloody days! I hate this split existence. Wish I could just stay here. Never thought I'd say that.

Thursday, May 19, 2005

maybe not so crap

Well, the literature exam this morning did not go ever so well. It was hard and made me sob a little. This is entirely my own fault as last night I completely failed to get any sort of decent revision done and instead went to the pub then came back and watched Desperate Housewives and ate pizza with Caroline. Perhaps I do need to get my priorities straight.

However, I got the job! Unbelievable! I really thought I had completely messed up on this one, but I was either wrong or they were very desperate. Either way, it means that I have a job sorted for the next academic year, although I know I will depise it and get stressed because that's just what I do. But the money is so needed that it's all good. Can't believe I'm going to be working behind a bar again though, since I really am quite crap at it.

This afternoon there is an anti-BNP protest in town that I am very tempted to go down and join. Perhaps I will, although I won't know anyone and there's not really anyone around that I can ask to go with me. And I'm knackered and really need to pack for going home tonight. I need to do more active campaigning, and I really should go and take this opportunity. But it's raining. That's a ridiculously lame excuse. But I also think I'd probably get too angry, because I think there will be BNP supporters there as well (it's outside the magistrates court as some 'party' members are being tried for incitement to racial hatred there), and I'm in a very irrational angry mood at the moment. Grrr.

Me and G are going back home to Saddleworth tonight because this weekend is Whit Friday and the Beer Walk, festivities involving heavy drinking and brass bands that can only be understood by those from small villages in the north of England. I am looking forward to it, although the last few years have been spoilt a bit by dickheads who use it as an opportunity to be dickheads. And I got overly angry whilst doing the beerwalk last year, so I'm not going to do it this time. G and some friends will, I'll probably just stand on the sidelines and drink a bit and donate some money. I do hope it's better than last year. Will be nice to see everyone anyway, not that I'm desperate to get back. I rang my dad yesterday and told him I'd be staying at home tonight and he didn't seem particularly impressed. Very upsetting, they've turned my bedroom into an office with loads of garden plans on the walls! Ah well, I think I'll get over it.

I think I should probably now go home and tidy up the flat, for it is fast returning to its usual state of squalor. And I can pack and eat some ridiculously over garlicky home made hummus and guacamole that me and G whipped up yesterday in our quest to eat to the very back of the cupboards before the end of term (next week! fuck!)

Wednesday, May 18, 2005

crap

Well, I just had my second interview for the job in the Student Union Bar, and I fucked it up I think. It was hard! When have you had an original idea and implemented and communicated it to members of a team? Ermmmm.....I'm 19 and all my jobs have been minimum wage, please don't ask me that! Oh well, you win some you lose some, I'm going to try not to dwell on it. I was really nervous, and I lost it. Didn't want to work there anyway. Serving drinks to students all day wouldn't actually be that fun. Hmm, never mind. Am a bit miffed but will attempt to repress it in my mind.

And once it is repressed I can focus on my exams. Good grief this is an unpleasant week. The classics exam yesterday went surprisingly well, considering I did 1 hour's revision, used the lectures to catch up on sleep and had no real interest in the subject whatsoever. I'm quite good at bullshitting on essay questions I suppose. Shouldn't be saying this now, or I'll probably find out I failed horrendously. Tomorrow is my Italian literature exam, which I've just found out is at 9AM not 1PM like I thought. And I know nothing at all. Not even entirely sure of the format of the exam. Will have to go home and read the entire novel again and put on my best poetry bullshitting head, that I have not really used since English Lit GCSE. I hate exams. I'd forgotten how horrendous they are, and how terrible I am at actually applying myself (hence being sat at the computer instead of doing very important revision). I'm so out of practice at being academic. I'm still very happy that I chose to spend last year working and travelling instead of going straight to uni like a sheep, but I'm undeniably rusty when it comes to exams and essays. Anyway, just the language exam to go, a week tomorrow. Hooray I have a whole week to learn an entire language that I just haven't applied myself to all year.

Feeling rather sorry for myself, it must be said. May take up smoking again, since last night me and G bought a 50g pack of baccy cos a lady in the pub was selling stuff she'd bought in Spain, for half the normal price. We were going to sell it on, but i think it may be kept for personal consumption. Seriously, all the signs seem to be telling us to smoke. G found a lighter and a pack of Rizlas on the floor as well! I think we'll find a use during this weekend's festivities. Mwah ha.

Monday, May 16, 2005

purple hair!

Woohoo, finally, after being desperate for it since I was a wee precocious adolescent, I have purple hair! Tis kind of a dark indigo/violet colour, really deep and shiny, and then when it catches the light quite bright purple. I love it. A lot. In the end I had to resort to using an evil, permanent completely synthetic harsh destroy your hair type dye, which I don't feel good about at all, but I wanted it so badly that I abandoned all my principles and eco-sensibilities. Whoops. The fumes were terrible as well, and I was somewhat racked with guilt after years of telling everyone about the joys and benefits of henna. but I have purple hair. And I love it.

I have also finally finished all the Globalisation work, which I damn well should have done seeing as today is the final deadline. Can't believe how horrendously bad I'm being about getting work done. It's the middle of exams and I'm still just wasting hour after hour, pottering around town buying asparagus, reading the paper, watching shite TV, and mucking around on the net when I've got a huge amount of work to do. I had to the last third of that very important essay in 2 hours this morning, and I'm really not happy with it. Just wish I could do work with plenty of time to spare, so that I felt like I'd done it properly rather than rushing it at the last moment. I know I normally do do pretty well despite this, but imagine how I'd do if I put effort in and was organised and motivated...

Tomorrow is my classics exam, which is almost laughable, since I know literally nothing about it. It's just an elective, but I've put literally zero effort into it throughout the year because of the stress of trying to learn Italian (and because of my inherent laziness), and now I have to do a bloody exam on it. So I really should go home and do some bloody revision.

Thursday, May 12, 2005

once more into the blog we go

I decided the time was right for me to try and have a blog again, not that it was particularly wrong before but I suppose it can be a bit like a new start kind of thing. Not that I desperately need a new start, that sounds horribly dramatic, but it's always good to start something which gives you impetus to a bit more like the person you want to be, I suppose. The previous blogs I've had have been really quite lame, full of teenage ramblings about boys and other such nonsense. Now I'm in my last couple of months of teenage-ness, and I am a completely different person. Thank f*** for that! Not that I'm entirely the confident, together, mature woman that I'd love to be, but maybe I'm getting there. I think I have slightly more interesting things to say now. I could, however, be sadly mistaken. We'll see.
A bit about me, I suppose is the obligatory thing to put in here. I love writing these bits about me, it makes me feel far more interesting than I actually am, and allows me to indulge in everybody's favourite illicit pleasure, rambling on about themselves...which is all a blog is really. Anyway, I am Beth, I am 19 years old, I live in a little basement flat in Leeds, Yorkshire with the most beautiful and amusing and odd man in the world, 5 Giant African Land Snails and an insanely cute hamster called Nibble. I study Italian and International Relations at Leeds University. I'm not that great at Italian really, but I am determined that one day I'll be fluent, and this will automatically make me elegant and well turned out like Italian women invariably seem to be. I am obsessed with traveling, it eats all my money up, but maybe it's making me a better person. I knit, sew, cook and craft like some kind of fifties housewife, but I'll be damned if I'm doing the washing-up. I take old-ladies shopping on a Friday afternoon, get wasted on a Friday night. I hate most of the trashy clubs in Leeds, but I like going out and drinking a lot of whisky and losing it slightly to metal, even though I actually really bloody love folk music. I think there's nothing wrong with liking both. I do a lot of volunteer work and campaigning in a general save the world type way, though I can feel myself becoming cynical already, which is slightly devastating. I have an almost unhealthy interest in politics, particularly international politics. I stayed up all night to watch the general election, although to my credit I did drink a bit and make hummus and chocolate brownies with friends. I am a shit vegetarian. I have always had a lot of principles, some I have shed as I grew up, some have become stronger. I love decent beer and I'm on the committee of the Leeds Uni Real Ale Society. Speaking of which, I get on better with geeky blokes than with most girls, but I'm still a feminist. I like to be outside. I am a country girl through and through, though I'm finding out how fun living in a city can be. I am a northerner, and an undeniable Yorkshire lass. I love tea and chips (not together). I have no intention of living in Britain for most of my life. My only real ambition is to do everything...in a manner of speaking. That's the reason behind the poncy name of this blog, which means 'a lifetime is not enough'. Well, it's not, is it?
I suppose I should quit rambling now, and do my essay on globalisation and inequality that has to be in for Monday morning, or alternatively go and walk around Hyde Park in the sunshine. Yeees...I think I know what's more tempting...