Sujhaile

Hello!

I am slightly tanned, quite happy, busy, and full of sticky toffee pudding today. Lots and lots of stuff has happened since I last updated, but the bare bones of my recent history are as follows:

Finished the taught part of my course and PASSED it with merit (woo)
Sent a lot of belongings that I didn't want any more to the recycling and to charity shops
Packed up everything else and moved it to Bury
Packed up a proportion of all my stuff and moved to Guernsey
Wrote the first 7000 words of my dissertation (almost 7000 anyway - 7000 by this weekend or I'm in trouble!)
Got a full time job as an archives assistant (argh, where did all my time disappear to?)
My boss is known as L'Archiviste de la Coeur Royale.
Went to the beach a bit
Spent lots of time with Ric in our attic eyrie
Ate lots of food prepared by other people
Introduced my dad to the Lancashire Hotpots
Encouraged my sister with her cheffing apprenticeship
Ate loads and loads and LOADS of Guernsey tomatoes, and Guernsey butter and even some Guernsey beanjar... I missed home :)
Haven't seen enough of my Guernsey friends
Missing all my UK friends MASSIVELY
Counting down to Kerry's arrival in SIX days
Getting brown from walking around in the sun all the time - Manchester's sun was never strong enough to make me brown

Today I walked to work in the blinding morning sun, then spent the day transcribing a letter from 1816 from a young lady named Catherine de Sausmarez to her brother, a naval officer named Durell. Then I did some less interesting stuff with States Records. I had a delicious lunch with my sister and dad at the pub opposite where I work, then came home and cooked spaghetti carbonara and sticky toffee pudding for six people - myself, Ric, Dad, Helen, Pete and Dave, our lodger from Glasgow. I have recently been investigating self-sufficiency, much to my parents' disgust. This weekend I plan to work on my dissertation, see my friends if they're around, and go to the farmers' market up at Sausmarez Manor (yes, it is connected with the family I mentioned before!). I can hear Clyde miaowing loudly in the front garden, because I have the dormer window of our attic room wide open because it's so warm.

Well, that's all for now. Did I do ok, Debbie?

I bid you all a fond adieu, my dearest friends (I think I've been reading those nineteenth century letters too much...)

So it's time for a Rachel update! I'm not feeling very good at the moment, actually. I think it's the brownies that I didn't cook enough but I'm still eating. No more brownies for me - Ric refuses to let me throw them away though, so I guess I might be nursing him through a bout of salmonella in the near future.

I'm currently 'hard at work' on a presentation about enhancing adult reader experiences for my literature and its readers module. It's quite good fun, actually, and next I have to design an event that will have people flocking to the library (budget: £500). Any good ideas people? At the moment I'm considering a chocolate-themed evening - you know, books with a chocolate theme, a tasting, perhaps some info on Fairtrade chocolate...

[about five hours later]
Sooo... Kerry came round! First person apart from Ric that I've seen in about three days. I ended up eating another brownie and now I don't feel so good again... I need to work on that 'learning from my mistakes' thing. We watched Addams' Family Values and ate tea together. It was good.

A superfast 'other stuff Rachel's done' update: I had an ace birthday, although I have yet to hold my postponed jelly-and-icecream-sixth-birthday-party. It will happen! I've bought two Nigel Slater books with my birthday book tokens and have been reading and trying out recipes from them ever since. I made a snowman yesterday (you may have seen Ric's picture of Clive) and I've been fretting about the environment and global warming some more. I think that's everything for now - I'm tired and I think it's my bedtime.

I might write some more sometime soon - hopefully before Ric has to poke me again!

I've been working on this bloody thing since five this evening, after baking some biscuits to try and relax a little. I've just completely rejigged my literature review but I don't know what to write about user studies! It's driving me up the wall. I really want it to be a good dissertation proposal because it's about something I'm passionate about, but my brain is just not clever enough to work out what I should say. I feel a bit dispirited and unmotivated now. It doesn't help that my head is thumping from concentrating so hard for so long. I can't even go and rant to Ric about it, as he's at his parents' tonight. Gah!

I was hoping to get further with it tonight, but instead I have added NO new information, just made the stuff I did know (the zoo stuff) look better. On top of that, I'm worried that Chester Zoo won't let me do my research because it will take up too much staff time, that I won't ever hear back about the job, and that I'm going to end up completely doolally before I find out anything because I can't think what to write next in this STUPID PROPOSAL. No wonder my brain feels like it's been put through the mincer.

Ah well, writing it all down has made me feel better. I'm going to pack in this internet malarky for the rest of the night now, and go and do something... ANYTHING, to take my mind of this silly knot of confusion it's gotten itself into. Don't worry about me, folks - hopefully I'll have sorted it all out by this time tomorrow. Helen was right though - it would be so good if I could wake up tomorrow and it was complete!

Well, Ruth and Debbie posting such detailed and interesting entries has persuaded me that I should do something similar. Plus, work is currently quite slow so I can use up the time till lunch this way... I'm going to work backwards from today, I think.

Today - I'm sitting at work with a pile of children's picture books and I'm 'weeding' them (this means deciding which ones the library should chuck away). Well, I'm not senior enough to choose, but I am looking up details so that the person who does weed will know whether we have the books at another site.  My nose is a bit itchy. I'm currently snowed under with coursework and dissertation stuff (anyone who I haven't spoken to in ages, this is the reason why!). I'm probably going to make Greek onions and baked sweet potato for tea.

Yesterday: Burns night! I tried haggis and black pudding for the first time and liked them both. Helen cooked for us and it was delicious, and then we watched The Wicker Man, which I think Kerry's American visitors found a bit perplexing and weird. I enjoyed it though! There was also shortbread and cranaghan (sp?) and clootie dumpling. All very nice and good fun!

Thursday: I took Ric to the Lake District to get some Grasmere gingerbread. He got a 'mystery ticket' for his Christmas present and this was the trip I had planned for it. It was a really lovely day, it didn't rain, and the lake was all dark and mysterious and wind-tossed, so it was exciting too! We ended up buying 24 pieces of Grasmere gingerbread (some of which are going to Ric's family though!). It was a bit of a cop-out Christmas present though, since I enjoyed it just as much, if not more than Ric! There are pictures on Facebook if anyone's interested.

Last Friday: Another Chester Zoo visit! This one was on business though, since I am hoping to do my dissertation on the library there. The library staff were really friendly and helpful, and answered loads of questions, so I am very hopeful that I will be able to base my research there. Yay! Also, afterwards we had the whole of the rest of the day to wander round Chester Zoo (Ric came too). Again, there's a few pictures on Facebook.

Guernsey Christmas: This was lovely, a real break of nearly three weeks! I think it's the longest I've been back home since I left uni. Ric came over after Christmas and spent New Year with me, which made things perfect. We had a coal fire on cold nights, and I enjoyed my nice big dry and warm house very much!

End of last term: This was not lovely. I got totally overstressed about the course and couldn't wait to leave to go home. I am really hoping that things don't go the same way this term. At least it's spring now (almost) - I always feel a million times better about things in the spring.

So, there you go - I've missed out loads of stuff but I think I got the gist of the past few months. Although I've been a bit stressed about the course and about always having to be an adult (I miss the time when I could just forget about everything and veg out!), in general I have been very happy indeed. I have lots of things to look forward to, as well. I'm going for a meal with Ric's family tomorrow. It's my birthday soon, and my parents are coming up to see me. I'm seeing Misty's the day after my birthday with (at the current count) 15 people.  And, of course, it's getting lighter outside, there are the beginnings of flowers appearing, and soon the birds will all be back. What a positive way to end an entry!

Someone in my management group made this !

Well, I gave my Ikea cd a test drive on Wednesday when we went to Ikea on a whim (to buy storage stuff for when we are students!). Here's the tracklisting below:

Ikea - Jonathan Coulton 
Marble House - The Knife
P.A.C.O! - Ladytron 
Dancing Queen - Abba
We're From Barcelona - I'm From Barcelona 
The Cactus Where Your Heart Should Be - The Magnetic Fields
My Kingdom For A Trundle Bed - Bound Stems
Pretty Shoes - Jens Lekman 
My Favourite Game - The Cardigans (I thought of them, Kerry!)
Spinning And Switching - Love Is All
All That She Wants - Ace of Base
Treehouse - I'm From Barcelona  
April & May - David Fridlund
Save Tonight - Eagle Eye Cherry (who'd have thought he was Swedish?)
Hate To Say I Told You So - The Hives
Crying At The Discotheque - Alcazar 
Aussie Girl - Laakso 
The Final Countdown - Europe
You Can't Hurry Love - The Concretes
Sky Phenomenon - Jens Lekman 
Put The Book Back On The Shelf - Belle and Sebastian

I want to give honourable mention to both Zan's suggestions, though - very good ideas, and they'll be going on the next version of the cd! And don't worry, those of you who missed out on the trip - we'll be going back again sometime soon!

I've also bought tickets, along with the rest of my household, to see the wonderful Jens Lekman (starring in the mix cd above because he's Swedish!) in a church in Salford. Helen and I are both very excited, because this man has the most wonderful deep voice! I can't wait!

In other news, I got to try out my Hi-Life card at the Didsbury Village Restaurant last night. I went there for a meal with Ric and it was lovely. I recommend it (although it's a bit expensive if you don't have a Hi-Life card!). The food was delicious and the service was good too! Ric and I got to play at being grownups and dressing up to go out, too.

Well, I can't think of anything else to add, so I'm going to go and start making batter for toad in the hole! Cheerio folks! 

Well, I had a great evening playing Scatagories and eating Fifteens round at Kerry's yesterday. I also spent a fair amount of time wandering around the new-layout Sainsbury's in Fallowfield with Helen - we are both supermarket windowshoppers! I made something I'd never made before for tea, spiced sweet potato and aubergine bake. Both Ric and I enjoyed it, so I'll definitely be making it again - Ric even suggested that I could make a big batch for us to have next Christmas Day Day, as that way Hannah could have the same food as the rest of us!

Anyway, as the title of this post says, I need some suggestions. Specifically, suggestions for what to put on a mix cd for a trip to IKEA! I'm thinking there's one person reading this who might be very helpful... But I want everyone to suggest things! Basically anything to do with things you do and see at IKEA, and any songs by Swedish bands. Thank you!

Signing off to go get clean now... :)

Because of my lack of posting - you know how it is, you leave it for a week, and then another week, and then the amount you have to catch up on is too daunting, so you keep leaving it and leaving it, and just reading everyone else's posts, and feeling guilty, until someone nudges you and you finally spring into action, like a tiger!

So, this is me springing, raaaargh! I believe that last time I wrote, I was talking about my new furry animal companion (I've heard it's considered unPC to call them pets now). Falafel is a weird hamster:



She likes to strike a pose and then hold it for up to fifteen minutes, she wees all over herself, and she is on some kind of quest to ingest vast amounts of plastic. But she is cute and velvety soft, and she seems to quite like me, so that's ok! She has to live downstairs at night because she is so noisy.

In other news, life in the ditch between the motorway of work and the dark woods of studying is quite good. I go to bed early and get up quite early (so far always before 9!), I potter about doing various errands, I spend time with Ric, and time with Lee and Helen, and time with Kerry. I cook, I tidy fruitlessly and I worry about the future. All pretty standard. We've also been on some great trips out of late - at this point I should applaud Lee, who is always happy to drive people places and work out routes and stuff. We've been to Gawsworth Hall:



And we saw knights swordfighting, and an old church, and I bought LOADS of chutney. We went to Chester Zoo:

Which was a wonderful day out, with five of us and a gigantic picnic crammed into Lee's car. I made an animal and zoo themed mix cd too! I also went to see Architecture In Helsinki with Ric, and although I felt ill just before they started, I'm so glad I stuck it out, cos they were great!

So, I feel I'm a bit more up to date, although I'm sure there's loads that I've missed out. I hope the forest of studenthood isn't as daunting as it looks! I will try and post more often here, too, despite the lure of Facebook.

Although she also answers to 'Foffy' and 'Sweetheart' and 'Awwww!'. Pictures will follow at some point!

Well, we went to the petshop on Wednesday, and I became the proud owner of a chocolate-brown female Syrian hamster. She's about three or four months old, and I've bought her a cool cage to live in. I've also started building all sorts of weird and wonderful cages on the build-your-own section of the habitrail website (www.habitrail.com), so I think she might be a very spoilt hamster! I also favour the cute bedsock idea that Debbie mentioned in my previous entry.

I'll probably post again when I've decided on her name :D. I am so excited!

- Hamster
- Rats
- Chinchilla
- Sugar Glider
- Hermit Crabs
- Tortoise
- Chameleon
- Pygmy Hedgehog

Which means it's about time I posted an entry! Especially since the day seems to be really dragging here at work. I've done loads and loads of stuff since I last wrote in my LJ, and it's pretty much all been fantastic. The fish pie evening, the trip to Guernsey, my dad coming up, all fantastic. Now if only work would perk up a bit. It's so boring here with no-one in! Today I have spent 2 hours on the counter, during which I dealt with maybe three people, processed some reservations, and researched hamsters. Yes, in the continuing saga of Rachel Wants A Pet, I have decided that getting guinea pigs at this stage is a bit silly and impractical :(. So I'm thinking that hamsters or rats are the way forward. 

I have also moved lots of journals we don't want anymore, and eaten some toast. Now it's nearly hometime, right? Hah. At least tonight I get to hopefully see Lee's car, and go to the quiz. Now the bad weather's back I feel like I just want to curl up in bed and sleep, though. I think that's about all I have to say for this entry!

Well, I'm sure you all know by now that Truck was cancelled. :(  I can't say it wasn't a bit of a blow, especially for the two Helens - my sister because she's not sure she can afford to come back up in September for the rescheduled festival, and my housemate because she has her friend's wedding that weekend, and has had to pull out.

We tried to make the most of a wet, disappointing weekend, and I think we did a pretty good job of it. On Sunday, especially, there was the excitement of having a brunch at Trof with Ruth and Dave, then heading to Solomon Grundy's for lunch a few hours later and meeting up with a bunch of other people. 

On Monday we went to Liverpool for the day and had a lovely day out. We went to Tate Liverpool (there was a brilliant exhibition by an artist called Ellen Gallagher. I encourage everyone to check her out!) then ate lunch at the Albert Docks, looking out over the calm glassy waters of the Mersey. After that, I showed everyone Quiggins, which is a bit like Affleck's if Affleck's was owned by a mad theatre company with a stack of paintbrushes. Finally, we dragged our weary feet to the Walker Gallery and saw the Josh Kirby exhibition there. For anyone who doesn't know, he painted all the covers of the Discworld books, but they pale in comparison to seeing the same painting up close in their hugeness. It was really really cool :).

I saw my sister off on Tuesday, which ended my long weekend, and returned to the slog of work on Wednesday. Luckily, I had some things to look forward to, which made work more bearable. On Wednesday evening, Ric took me out to an Italian restaurant in Bury, and treated his parents too. Then we brought a microwave home! When we walked in the house smelt deliciously of baking, since Helen was preparing cupcakes for....

THE PUDDING PARTY!!!
This was a tremendous success (how could it not be?). It was Zan's wonderful idea for her birthday, and everyone brought a different pudding to share. Zan's mum made Yorkshire puddings and beef and gravy, and once we'd eaten them we tucked into all the different things people had brought. It was all lovely, and I managed to eat enough without feeling ill! It was great to meet Zan's family (and they are all nice people!) and talk about strange things like the Rocky films and Pokemon. A fun evening!

So, to look forward to - a trip to Liverpool this evening, to see Jamie on his way back to Guernsey. I'm taking Ric along too - I hope it's fun for him! Then, next week... hopefully fish pie! And on Thursday, Guernsey. I like how I always have lots of things to look forward to.

Still happy :) I have done lots of fun things in the past few days, including going to see Final Fantasy (we stood next to Lee's friend Mark who is a very enthusiastic clapper. The projections throughout the songs were beautiful, and I became overexcited geek-style about the D&D inspired names of the songs), going to see Harry Potter with Ric (yay! The film was pretty good too, heheh. It had lots of brilliant bit parts which were almost more interesting than the main characters) and going to Fab's 9th birthday party last night with Lee, his friend Heather, Eliza (sp? Sorry if I spelt her name wrong, Lee!) and eventually Sarah and Dan (who also works at one of the libraries). There was free food! Delicious free food which I shouldn't be thinking about because I haven't had my tea yet and I won't be getting it till 9.15 ish at this rate :( And I had a cup of tea.

My sister is coming up tomorrow. I'm looking forward to seeing her, and I'm doing my best not to worry too much about Truck. At least we have train tickets now!

So, I am going to leave this post with a little Plan that I have brewing in my head. The ingredients of this Plan are (so far):

Me
Fish
Pie
Lee
GameCube
Mars bar cake
Ric
Mario Party 7
Peas

And there's one other ingredient which begins with Z...

I've had a good week, despite extreme tiredness. We went to the quiz at the Bull's Head on Tuesday, and it was fun. Yesterday we went to see Jasper Fforde talk about his new book at Waterstones. He's a very entertaining and funny man, and it was great getting a signed copy of his new book. I have slight course/money-related stress but otherwise everything is ticketty-boo at the moment :D. I will cook Helen and Ric something lovely (hopefully) tonight* and tomorrow we're going to see Final Fantasy and then maybe out to a club. Next week: TRUCK!

*NB: I would make Lee something too, I'm not deliberately leaving him out, but he's not in tonight!

Yay! :)

They are little boys' shoes, and they have a map of the world on the sole. The best thing is that they're waterproof! My happiness about my new dry shoes is being spoilt by all the rain. There's a little voice in the back of my head that keeps suggesting that it's the end of the world. Trust the world to end when things finally start to go well!

It feels like about a million years since I last updated, although I don't really seem to have that much to write about. The move went ok, and I am starting to get settled in to the new place, but it's difficult to feel settled when I feel so unsettled in other ways. I am waiting, now, for a whole load of things: Truck, Guernsey, the course to start, various other things. It's difficult.

Chris and Dave came to visit yesterday, and seemed pretty impressed with our house. We ate tuna pasta bake that Ric made, and then went to the pub quiz. We had to seperate into two teams cos there were too many of us, so we went with boys v girls. It was quite gratifying that the two teams got exactly the same score, even though there was one more on the male side. It was a fun night!

I think that's all I have to say for now. I hope everyone else is doing well?

I always try to keep on top of things in LJ, because otherwise I lose track of what I've done, and forget to add events, and then the point of me keeping this journal (something to remind me of all the fun stuff I did when I get old and grey) is lost. Anyway, I believe I left off with feeling ill last Friday. I am still feeling ill, unfortunately. Not in the same way - it's more that a family of badgers is living in my chest now, rather than the barbed wire throat/dizzy face combo that I was suffering last week. It's tiring, having badgers living inside you. It hurts just to breathe. I think things are getting better though, and now I shall talk of the happier things that have gone on since I last posted. 

So, on Saturday we went out to celebrate my future housemate Lee's birthday. He asked for suggestions for somewhere to eat, and accepted mine of New Samsi. We got to sit at one of the tables-in-a-hole, which made me happy (although I am clumsy and it took me ages to get in and out!). Then we went to Fab, and also to the club night at the Star and Garter. I got to meet more of Lee's friends (he's a popular guy!) and also catch up with some people I hadn't seen in a while (hello Zan!). A very enjoyable evening!

I didn't feel very good on Sunday. No, not a hangover! The smoke had made my illness worse :( I started packing for our big move, even though it was a week away (that's how excited I am!). The pattern set on Sunday has pretty much held all week - cooking, packing, playing computer games, chatting to Ric, sleeping. I call that quite an idyllic life, really! Work's been a bit more up and down - it's been great when I've had something to do, not so great when it's too quiet and I have to make my own entertainment. The best bit was training the work experience girl - she was so friendly and bright that it was a real pleasure.

Now, to finish up, some things I'm looking forward to:

- Monkey: Journey To The West, tonight
- Mooooving, Sunday and Monday
- Final Fantasy on the 14th
- Truck at the end of the month (and my sis coming up, yay!)
- Guernsey at the start of August
- starting the course in Sept!

Oh, and one final piece of good news. I got the scholarship I applied for, so I won't need to raise funds for my course fees now. I am so pleased (and confused) that someone who doesn't know me nonetheless thought I deserved 6000 Canadian dollars, just on the strength of a letter I wrote!

Wow, ill doesn't look right with a capital I, does it? Anyway... I am not going for extreme happy optimism in this post, because my head's spinning and I feel crappy. I was off work yesterday, and spent most of my time in bed. It was horrible not seeing anyone all day, though, so I dragged myself into work today. Ric's gone home for  a few days so I had no contact with anyone! I drank a lot of honey and lemon in hot water and that helped a bit. I also spoke to my parents and sister and gran.

I don't really have anything further to add  - I am having an early night tonight, for sure!