2012 in Pictures

Below I present a summary of my 2012 in 23 photographs....

Start the year as you mean to go on, with a game of Cranium on Dads birthday. 

 This would become a pretty familier site as we played at just about every occasion for the year, in this case at our Anit-Valentines party at Joni's parent house. 

March brought yet another house move, but a very successful one, into a place that would become 'home' better than any of the previous places. 

March also brought a trip to London for Joni and I, to see a David Hockney exhibition, which neither of us were particularly impressed with and the Design of the Year awards 2012, which we were very impressed with. 

We got to break in our new home with a fantastic House-warming party with all our friends, and Tris brought fireworks, making him my new favourite (and pissing off the new neighbours within the first month!) 

The conservatory quickly played host to several birthday parties, including Fears...

...and Tims on the same night. 

In June Joni & I got to spend a morning playing at being Zombies in Nottingham. It was cold, wet, miserable and it took hours to get that syrup out my hair and my underwear  It was also the most fun I have ever had at 4am in the centre of town. 

Speaking of Town, June was also the month that the Olympic torch came to Nottingham, marking the start of Olympic-fever which would take over most of my summer. 

We did manage a few BBQ's which had a strange tendency to end... 

....with this man's bottom. 

The sun did manage to come out for about a week, and Joni & I caught it perfectly with our little holiday down south. 

In July Amy came to visit, so we marked the occasion with a game of cranium and lots of beer, of course! 

During full Olypic-fever season Stephen & I took a trip to London and joined in with a crowed of thousands celebrating as Mo Farah won the 5000m.

August is also the month to celebrate Chloe's birthday, an occasion summed up by this picture perfectly. If you don't find it hilarious don't worry, no one else did either! 

Chloe also got her first flat this year and the girls went round to celebrate in the only way we know how - with Pornstar Martinis!  

Stephen also had a birthday party this year, which he celebrated the only way he knows how. In a Onese. 

In October we said goodbye to my sisters unmarried life in true style...

...and welcomed Ben to the family in (slightly classier) style too.

We even managed a couple of good poker nights, especially when we started using chocolate coins instead of chips. 

Christmas brought the purchase of hundreds of lights and the joys of figuring out where to put them all. 

And ended with mountains of food which we will all be eating at New Years. 

 And so we say good bye to a long and changeable year. These photos actually miss out some of the most important things to happen this year, but they sum-up all the most fun things.

Christmas-Limbo

Stuck in that strange limbo between Christmas and New Year I thought it was the perfect time for a little run down of what I got up to for my festive celebrations.

It all kicked off with the First Annual Tennant-Norwood Christmas Party, which was a huge success. We managed to get the whole house decorated, including a Christmas tree which was far too big for a our living room (soooo cool). It was fantastic to see everyone, particularly old and far-flung friends who I don't get to see as often as I would like. People making that extra effort is one of the best things about Christmas.

Oversized tree squished into the corner

Speaking of extra effort, this years Christmas Jumper Competition winners were so good that next year we are actually going to have to come up with a different theme because I don't think anyone could beat them. My particular favourite was Ashley's stocking complete with sweets!

Joni's effort - sadly he couldn't keep it on due to the need to be plugged in!

Some very worthy winners

A few weeks after the Christmas party came my works Christmas do which was .... shall we say a laugh? This being the second 'works Christmas do' I'v been to in my time, and me being a highly ambitious person (and a terrible drunk) I decided I wouldn't drink too much surrounded by people who are much more important than me. Sadly I was then presented with a tale full of free wine. Ooops. I'm glad to report I was extremely well behaved at the party (I think) which is more than can be said for the next day at work. It was the last Friday before shut-down and sufficed to say I think there will be some very... odd looking work waiting for my on the 2nd of January. I would like to say I wasn't the worst - one guy went home at half 9. However I was probably not far behind him!

And so we made it to the Christmas shut-down without any major incedent, and I even managed to do all the Christmas food shopping on Friday night with Joni and a majoy hang-over. I slept for 11 hours that night but it was worth pushing on through to not have to go to Tescos the weekend before Christmas. Instead I spent the weekend visiting Joni's family for my first proper Christmas dinner.



As you may all have heard (through my endless bringing it up) this year was the first time I got to have Christmas day in my own home with Joni (and Tay). Because of this I had declared I was not stepping over the threshold of my house that day, and instead everyone would have to come to me. I was very excited about it and it was everything I had hoped for. I was quite surprised to wake up to a full stocking and loads of gifts from Joni. So we had lots of opening presents with croissants for breakfast before we had to get cracking with the cooking for Christmas dinner!

Tay guards my stocking!

We had been getting ready for this for months - including a dry-run the weekend before to practise the veg recipes and making a gravy in advance with 3L of chicken stock and a bottle of wine. Still., I'v never roasted a whole turkey before and we were pretty nervous that the whole thing could go horribly wrong. Luckily (and thanks to my epic and detailed action plan) all went to plan and dinner was delicious.

Turkey goes in the oven

So, all 8 people showed up and we squashed into the conservatory for dinner. Some time later the rest of the hoard showed up to pick over the left overs and so at one point we found 11 people squashed into our conservatory. And it was fantastic. I loved every moment of it, even the cooking. It was so fantastic to have Christmas in my own house. Of course the moment they all left I totally passed out, but it was worth it.

Roll on New Years Eve.....

Everyone squashed into one room! 

My Swiss Adventure Days 4 & 5 - Wednesday & Thursday

So day 4 and 5 together I think because I was too tired to blog yesterday morning.

The course on Wednesday started with a tour of the production line upstairs which was absolutely incredible. I have never seen anything like it. Each one of the products is made by hand. Hand blown glass by professional glass blowers, the most intricate glass work and precision measuring. It was just amazing. We all left saying we would never again question the price of such intricate and delicate products!

The rest of the day proceeded as normal. Lots more analytical talk. Im not sure how much of it was sinking in by then but I tried my best. More strange lunches from the school canteen and I progress the third type of odd looking tart for an afternoon snack. I think I managed some fruit too, just to make sure I wouldn’t get scurvy.  

Wednesday was the night they we’re taking us out for a real taste of Switzerland and apparently this means only one thing (and its not chocolate) – Cheese Fondue! So we were taken off on the train into Zurich city, and a tram up a very steep hill (mountain) In the snow to a tiny little restaurant that serve only cheese fondue.

And I have to admit I was pleasantly surprised. I think I would have preferred it with a little more vegetables and a little less… cheese but it was pretty good. Especially once you included the beer, the wine and the Kisch which is a Swiss drink. They ordered shots of it for you to dunk your bread in before you put it in the cheese. Needless to say at a similar %vol to schnapps, my attempt at this made me pull that face I pull and everyone else roar with laughter (they had had had lot of kisch by then!). But, with the snow falling outside and a little fire under the pot on the table it was very nice.

From there we wondered into town where the 2 guys from the office in Switzerland treated us to a few of their favourite bars before we went back to the hotel and a I sat up till they kicked us out chatting about the various differences between the UK, Germany and The Netherlands with the others from the course. Needless to say when I went to bed my head was spinning and when I woke up my stomach was spinning.

But power through we must, and (probably due to my nearer proximity to my student days) I looked a lot brighter than a few other people round the table on Thursday. Late nights aside, everyone was feeling pretty drained on Thursday, four days is a long time and it was a very heavy course so we took it easy, covering just a couple of last simple things and reviewing what we had covered. We finished at 3 so the others could get evening flights and I transferred to a very nice hotel much closer the airport for my super early flight.

During this week I had learnt that in western continental Europe they have a tradition of celebrating St Nicholas day which is when Sinterklass  brings presents to children. Apparently only the really rich kids actually get 2 Christmases, for the rest of people they just get some sweets and special lessons in school. What they do have is these special sweet-bread men they make. So once I was in my hotel I walked into the local town and found the local supermarket where I could buy some swiss chocolate and a Sinterklass man.

Sinterklass!

Beyond that I was far to tired to do anything, so I ate dinner in the hotel, listening to some incredibly American business men talking hunting and shooting and gun laws! And this morning it was up at 5am, another dull airport, another dull flight and back home again. And I am very glad to be back. 

My Swiss Adventure Day 3 - Tuesday

So day 2 was a much more peaceful day.... sort of. Lots more chemistry for the main part. Sadly the snow has all gone and its not stopped raining since Monday evening, but such is life. It couldn’t be a winter wonderland all the time

The course is still just plodding along. I’m quite enjoying it although its pretty heavy stuff. I hope I can remember at least half of it when I get back.

Kate helped me make progress in getting to know people. Its such big news that Kate & Wills were on the front page of Swiss newspapers and this gave everyone something to strike up conversation about, so I think you Kate! We eat lunch in the local school which is quite cool. Its pretty good food and apparently they have an arrangement with the company because its quicker and simpler than trying to eat in a restaurant. The school itself looks just like a school in the UK, big concrete building, lots of school work on the walls etc. It does have electronic opening doors which threw me on the first day!

It was too wet and miserable to go out adventuring last night and I think everyone felt the same, so we had dinner in the hotel restaurant which was a laugh. We spoke about work for about 2 hours but eventually (with the help of a fair amount of Bavarian beer) we drifted into talking about families, politics and eventually the smoking ban. I’m sure this is very sad, but I found it fascinating to chat about the EU from the other side. My companion from Germany pointing out that the Germans have never had a choice as the whether to join the EU or not, while a very vocal companion from Bavaria (hence the beer) points out that the Germans have made 60m Euros from the loans to Greece.  Really fascinating to hear the other side. And they found it hilarious to hear what the British (not that I am very representative) think of Europe.

Today’s challenge is to learn everyone’s names. I learnt over dinner yesterday that they are all much more important than me so good contacts to make. Also going on a tour of the factory today which should be great fun. 

My Swiss Adventure Day 2 - Monday

OOO blogging at breakfast. Its not a bad breakfast in this place, little too much meat for my stomach first thing but tis ok. I might try bacon and eggs tomorrow.

So yesterday was the first day of my training and it was quite good fun. Well, maybe fun isn’t the word, but very interesting. I have certainly learnt a lot about pH sensors. The people on the coarse all seem very nice. I nice mix of 6 middle aged men from various surrounding countries. Sadly they all speak German (or some derivation of German) as their first language so whenever they are just chatting they tend to slip into German, which makes it quite hard to chat  to them.  One of them chatted to me about England a bit, he used to live in Bedford, and one of them chatted to me about football (he remembers when Forest were good so I got to pull out the old “My dad took me once but we lost 4-0” story which went down well). Hopefully today I will get to talk to them more.

After we finished at about 5pm last night I decided to brave the snow and try and tackle the train system in the (slight) day time. And it turns out its very simple. Once you get your head around the fact they have trains, trams and busses all working on the same system it becomes quite easy. And not too expansive. I paid 12.80 CHF (about £8) to get into Zurich and back which is quite a lot for such a short distance but I wouldn’t mind paying it in England if they trains were as organised, spacious or punctual. Also no one came to check my ticket either way so I wonder how many people actually did pay.

A view of the city over the river 

Zurich is fantastic. You get off the train in this amazing city station which is just huge. I saw signs to platform 55, and I have no idea if the was for a bus, tram or train, but it was cool. Once you make it out of this epic train station / shopping center, you are right in the heart of the city. To one side you have the old town, where I whiled away a full hour and a half just walking down cobbled streets, looking in shop windows and admiring the Christmas decorations. I also found dinner in a little restaurant where I sat next to 2 Danes. Typical.

One of many Christmas trees

Decorations in the old city

On the other side you seem to have the newer part of town. I was pretty cold by this point and even the Christmas late-night shops were closing so I didn't explore so far but I did walk down a huge, wide road with all the big brand designer shops on it (Mango, Esprit etc) and 3 stories of Christmas lights strung across the whole street. It was pretty magical actually.

Christmas Lights 3 Story's high on the main street

And I made it back to the hotel easily, and soon warmed up back in my room. Now its about time I went to face the day. 

My Swiss Adventure Day 1 - Sunday

I thought I might write a daily (or possibly one at the beginning and one at the end, depending on how busy I am) update on my Swiss adventure.

So Yesterday was day one and the first thing I did was go to Birmingham far too early!! In my haste to have a relaxing day Joni and I ended up spending ages driving around the airport area in search of somewhere to waste a few hours because we had arrived at the airport 3 hours before check-in opened! Opps. Luckily we managed to find (after 2 bad pubs) a nice place to grab a good lunch/dinner. Fantastic, modern pub serving a Sunday roast with belly pork. Yum Yum. Not great apple crumble which always confuses me. Crumble is so easy, how do people get it wrong?

So eventually Joni left me at the airport. I checked in and passed through security with minimum fuss and queuing  And I whiled away a couple of hours looking round duty-free, watching bad TV on my laptop and generally trying to get over my fear of flying. 15 mins before my gate opened I remembered that plugs in Switzerland are different to plugs in England so I very hurriedly bought an adapter plug.

And then I was off. Up in the air and down again so quickly you could have missed it with a brief power-nap. I have to say it was nice to not be in a flying shop (aka ryanair). I was given a sandwich and offered a glass of wine (which I decided was a bad idea). The seat I had picked didn't actually have a window (too far back) so once everyone was seated they let me shift forward so I could be next to a window. It was all very pleasant. I can defiantly see the point of not flying budget.

Back on the ground things started to go a little badly. It was 10pm local time, and I had had a very long day. And there was lots of snow (which is awesome). I found the tram stop, but I could not figure out which tram I should get on, then i couldn't find the taxi's so I went back in and couldn't find the information desk. When I did finally find one, the woman their had no idea how to get to my hotel by tram so i decided to sod the cost and take a taxi (the information desk did know where I could get one of those). Sadly the taxi smelled seriously of piss and the driver had a terrible Indian accent (not very different from Birmingham then) but he got me to the hotel with minimum fuss and at the extortionate price of 87 CHF  (thats around £60).

But the night porter at the hotel was friendly and my room in lovely. Nice and modern and very warm. And I have an amazing feather dovet, its the warmest thing in the world and I am buying one the moment I get home.

My neat little room

 So I got the internet working, said goodnight to Joni and promptly passed out. Set the alarm for far too early (hence the blogging before work). I even had time after breakfast for tea in the worlds smallest tea cup. Im not joking, I can't even begin to describe how tiny this cup is and I'v stayed in Premier Inns. Imagine how small their tea cups would be, this one is smaller!

The worlds smallest (and thus most useless) tea cup. 

 The advent of daylight brought with it a fairly dull view of a street (with snow on it) and a car park (with snow). Also, there is snow. Lots of snow. It made for an amazing view as we landed, lots of pristine white fields (obviously there are no children in Zurich because you wouldn't get untouched fields of snow like that in the UK).

The view from my hotel 

Now its time for work...

Off on an adventure but first a TV review

This week I am off on my first Business Trip (oo doesn't that make me feel important! lol). I am being sent to Switzerland for some product training, so its time to dust off the old grey cells and try really hard not to do anything embarrassing in front of the important people. I am looking forward to the chance to stop feeling quite so lost in my job, and also to explore a new place. This also means I have to fly on my own for the first time, so I have spent the whole night convincing myself I really like flying, flying is cool....

But I promised you a TV review, and the show I am going to review in Borgen (pronounced bow-un with a bit of the weird Germanic-style fleming in the middle), a Danish political drama. Joni and I were brought to watching this after really enjoying The Killing, a crime series made by the same people, last year. We rented Borgen from Lovefilm and found it so gripping we have watched all 10 hours in one week (tripling our usual weekly viewing figures!).

To give you brief synopsis, it starts with the election of a new Prime minister in Denmark, and the series follows their first year in office from both the governments point of view, and also through the eyes of the number 1 news station in Denmark, TV1. It is a show about family life, careers, journalism (particularly topical atm) and politics. But above all of that its a story about characters and that is why I loved it so much.

I don't know how they do it, but Scandinavian writers just seem to have some ability to make realistic characters that no one else does. We saw it with The Killing, and with The Royal Affair (a film still a possible contender for best film in 2012) and Borgen is full of it too. Just the right number of characters for you to remember who they all are, every one of them with depth and dimensions enough to make you feel they could really exist.

For course that makes the show a little slow and meandering, because real life is quite slow and meandering. No one screams and shouts, throws highly breakable objects across rooms or starts sleeping with their secretary within 24 hours of hiring them, because no one does that it real life either. And that is the pure brilliance of this show. It doesn't matter if you don't care about politics or news reporting or if you don't understand the Danish political system (although I do thing all AV-haters should be forced to watch this show so they can finally understand how it is a much better system) because this is a show about people. And I can't wait for the next series!

Well, that was a bit serious for me wasn't it? Back to normal now because I bought a Christmas tree and its too big for the room! Hahahahaha!!!

Long time, no see but its that time again...

Wow, its been so long its safe to say I basically gave up blogging for 6 months but I'm back on it thanks to the demands of my crazed fans (Thank you Charlotte!). As you could predict, one of the reasons I haven't blogged in so long is because I have been very busy getting on with life. I think the best way to catch people up is with one line reviews of each of the interim months:

June: I got a crap job, Hurray! and a real payslip, double hurray!!
July: Joni & I got on a strange, highly middle-class holiday in Bournemouth before....
August: I get a real job!! Using my degree and my ability to talk the hind legs of a donkey! HURRAY!!!
September: For a week I think I might be dying on a rare African disease and Sally comes to visit (2 unrelated facts I promise).
October: A wedding is coming
November: A wedding happened. Kate & Charis came to visit. And then Christmas started.

That's pretty much all you need to know about the last 6 months, so on with the main event...

CHRISTMAS IS NEARLY HERE!!!!!

I feel like (what may to some observers seem like) my slightly premature excitement about Christmas 2012 deserves a little explanation. Without wanting to sound too self-pitying (because I did quite enough of that in the first half of this year) the last 2 Christmases for myself and Joni have been crap. in 2010 we had just moved to Scotland and we were so broke I got Joni a 10 year old cookery book from a charity shop and Joni got me a hug. And my parents bought us both train tickets home. It was delightful. But its ok, we thought, next year will be much better. Roll on Christmas 2011 and we have just run away from Scotland, we are both unemployed and our debt level is so high its actually a calculable part of the countries deficit. I still haven't actually paid for the present I got Joni, and he hasn't paid for mine.

Roll on January and we said No. Enough is Enough. We love Christmas, I love Christmas. Christmas is the only holiday I care about, its my favourite time of year and I refuse to have another Crap Christmas. When Joni and I came back from Scotland we promised each other Christmas 2012 would be different, and its exactly what both me and Joni have been working for all this year. When we picked our house we talked about how we could have Christmas dinner here, we put 2.5% of every penny either of us earnt into savings to pay for decorations and presents and we have been dreaming of our big Christmas party since August. For Joni and I, Christmas 2012 at our house is our way of saying Yes, it got pretty bad back there but its ok, we are finally on the way to better things and it really was all worth it in the end.

So on to Christmas this year! Woo Hoo! Almost all presents bought, all most all party invites sent and the menu for the first ever Christmas Day Dinner at our house almost finalised! I literally couldn't be more excited!

Hope I haven't peaked too early.....

Spark Energy. All that is wrong with consumerism.

Well, what a rediclusly long time to have not blogged in. Sorry everyone (anyone??), iv been pretty lazy. Lots has happened but right now I want to take the chance to tell a tale about Spark Energy.

(Before I begin I just want to say Spark Energy Your Move Spark Energy Your Move Spark Energy Your Move Spark Energy Your Move Spark Energy Your Move Spark Energy Your Move Spark Energy Your Move Spark Energy Your Move Spark Energy Your Move Spark Energy Your Move Spark Energy Your Move Spark Energy Your Move Spark Energy Your Move Spark Energy Your Move Spark Energy Your Move Spark Energy Your Move Spark Energy Your Move Spark Energy Your Move Spark Energy Your Move Spark Energy Your Move Spark Energy Your Move Spark Energy Your Move Spark Energy Your Move Spark Energy Your Move Spark Energy Your Move Spark Energy Your Move Spark Energy Your Move Spark Energy Your Move Spark Energy Your Move Spark Energy Your Move Spark Energy Your Move Spark Energy Your Move Spark Energy Your Move Spark Energy Your Move Spark Energy Your Move, just so anyone looking for information on either of these companies finds this page hopefully). 


The day Joni and I moved into our new house, the landlord told us he had given final readings and our names to British Gas, and all we had to do was phone up and give them our details and we would be all set. Within the first couple of weeks we did this and (mostly out of habit) we put in a transfer to nPower. We paid final gas & elec bills to British Gas, and nPower started taking direct debits from us. Now we knew the direct debit was small and also that nPower were having some trouble taking over the gas, but we had checked we didn't owe British Gas any money and we figured it would sort itself out. 

All the while this was going on, Joni was getting letters from this company Spark. When the first one arrived we took a good look at it. It was an unprofessional looking letter, with nothing to identify the company other than a name and nothing to identify us other than Jonis name and address. And it was demanding £50 from us. Now this was clearly a scam, we were paying British Gas and nPower, so we binned the letter. This went on for a while, one letter every few weeks asking for increasing amounts of money. And we kept binning the letters, after all we had never heard of this company, let alone given them permission to take over our gas. 


At the start of this week we got another letter from them. By now they said we owed them nearly £200 and that they were going to send debt collectors round. We decided enough was a enough and Joni called the number on the letter. And then it got stupid..

"Its in your contract" they said. We checked. Indeed it was. On page 18, in tiny print.

"I was not made aware of this" I said,

"Sorry, Your Move should have told you, and we shoud have called" They said (Kevin, line manager)

"So I'm not paying you, and can I please leave your company now." I said,

"Umm... no. Not till you pay" they said (Kevin, line manager)

"Sod off, I'm not paying and btw holding me to a contract I wasn't aware of is illegal" I said.

"Umm... yes you are. We won't let you leave till you do" they said (Lucie Moffet, Customer reolutions executive)

"I hate you" I said.

"We all hate you" The internet said (Seriously, check out http://www.sparkenergy.org.uk/ Someone has paid money for this site so they can rant about Spark).

"I know, we don't care" Spark said.

To be continued......

A Very Good Week.

So, as I'm sure everyone has heard by now, this Sunday marks the end of A Very Good Week for me. A blow-by-blow account probably isn't required, but I'm going to give you one anyway.

I was given about 3 weeks notice on my viva and in that time I did, on average, nothing towards my viva. With this in mind I decided to go up 5 days early to prepare. So I drove up on Friday (loving the long drive btw) and had a pretty calming meeting with Paul, in which he taught me how to derive the Braggs equation for the 3rd time and generally made me feel better. Que a montage of me studying hard in various locations over the weekend, interspersed with shots of me reminding many people why they were glad I left in the first place (in particular Cameron, who isn't even in my team but who had to change his PC password once because I kept messing with his background.)

At this point I feel I should mention the awesome Scotland-themed party the newly-wed Chris and Louise threw for me on Saturday night. With the help of Dean and Lou's little sister (only mildly confusingly also named Fiona) they attacked me with all things Scottish in a hope of reminding me why Scotland is great. Well, it sort of work, in as much as I will now always remember Scotland contains awesome people like Lou, Chris, Fiona & Dean, even if the rest of the place kinda sucks. Also Chewin the Fat is amazing. End of.

So we role around to the morning of the viva. They make you sit in an office while they discuss what's going to happen, then they invite you in to sit around this massive table. They each have a copy of your report, with post-its sticking out and notes all over it, enough to make anyone panic. And then they (they by the way are my internal examiner and one of the worlds most renouned crystallographers, Prof Alex Slawin, and my external examiner Russell Howe who is probably world renouned at something) open up to page one and start asking questions. "cant you explain this in more detail?" "why did you do this?" "how does this work?"  A full 2 hours worth of questioning before they make you sit outside for the most nerve racking 5 mins of your life before inviting you back in. And the next thing you know you are being shaken by the hand and told its all over, you have passed. And with flying colours too. Best presents report he's ever read says Russell. First A-grade pass she's ever given says Alex (spot the subtle boasting from the author here). Later Alex emails to say you don't have to do corrections if you don't want, but i feel having come this far I  might as well do the job properly. So with a glass of wine on one hand and a laptop on my knees I sit on Lous sofa that night and do the most work iv done in 3 months, correcting all 100 pages in one evening.

Next day I'm sat around watching it print when the phone rings, and I'm sat on the stairs in the main stairwell when a woman from HEROtsc tells me they would like to offer me a job. I'm so excited I start jumping around the corridor. It's not until later I realise that iv just completed 4 and a half years, and £25k worth of education and I'm super excited to get a job less skillful than the one I left to go travel New Zealand in 2007. How ones world changes.

The rest of the week pass in a bit of a blur. I have to pay my £50 'graduation tax' finally (i had been putting it off in the hope I might fail and not have to pay) and I do the long drive back on Tuesday. I pick up Tim on the way, as its Jonis birthday, and we all sit up late playing poker and looking forward to a peaceful summer in which we all have crap jobs but at least no one has to worry about paying the rent.

The weekend was also rather fantastic. Went to see the Avengers on Saturday, a great film. And saw Simon Amstall live tonight curtisy of Jonis parents as his last birthday treat. Very very funny, hope he's out enjoying Nottingham tonight.

Quite sad to go back to my boring life tomorrow...

Standing on the precipice of the end..

Gosh, I can't believe its been nearly a month since my last blog. Quite a lot has happened in the month. I am currently sitting in Louise's living room (thats in Scotland) with my thesis on one side and a notepad full of scribbles on the other. This is because my Viva is tomorrow morning. (for those of you not in the academic world a Viva is a type of oral exam in which you have to defend your work to two academics who work in a similar field, but who arn't directly related to the project). I am feeling pretty nervous, it was the outcome of my last Viva that started the thought processes which ultimately lead me to give up my PhD in the first place. But I think my feeling less confident it probably a good sign, I was seriously under prepared last time and I didn't realise it. This time I'm more prepared. I'v been in Scotland for 4 days now preparing.

For Information: The Viva is 10am tomorrow morning, it will last approximately one hour and I don't know when I will be home from Scotland. If its gone well I may be required to stick around to get my thesis fully printed and bound. I'll announce it to the world when I know.

In other news there are now 2 French guys living in my house. They are exchange students and they are staying with us for 2 months (until July 5th). So far they have mostly just been very quiet and keep themselves to themselves. We keep trying to encourage them to hang out with us, but they don't seem particularly interested. This does have the advantage that I sometimes forget they are even here, although it feels a little odd.

On the job hunting front, things have slowed down a little in the last few weeks, what with the Viva and all I'v had to focus elsewhere. A company running a call centre called HeroTSC have left me hanging for nearly a month now, which is driving me mad. They keep saying they are processing my application, and that I passed the interview but they are gathering data. Ugh, frustrating as hell. I also I have properly registered with a recruitment agency who specialise in getting jobs for graduates in sales, so we shall wait and see what comes of that.

And thats everything thats going on in my life right now. I promise to keep anyone who cares up to date via facebook. and I PROMISE, PROMISE when I get a job, posting it on facebook will be the first thing I do, so for gods sake, stop asking!!!

An Initial Response

Tonight I went to see the Hunger Games in the cinema, and it has left me feeling quite confused, I'm not sure how I feel about it.

Before I went in I had heard it was a good film, and I thought I would probably love it, although I was curious to see how they handled such a serious subject matter for a teen audience. For those who don't know the film is about a teenage girl who is forced to take part in a state-run TV competition which involves being thrown into the jungle to fight to the death against 23 of her peers. It is based on a novel aimed at teenagers and the target audience is similar to Twlight.

I came out of the film feeling quite confused, and now I have had 2 hours to think about it, I'm not sure I liked it. I certainly didn't like the main character, if you could call her that. The writers didn't seem to think she needed a consistent character. Thanks to that she had no continuous traits I could identify with and so have any empathy or sympathy for her. She was acted well though, I will say that.

On that note you can say all the acting was pretty good, the sound track worked well, it was shot nicely, the contrasting colours and lighting effects between the city & the districts work well to emphasis the different areas etc etc. It was overall a well made film which should have been a generally enjoyable experience.

However, it had one fatal flaw that it could never get over - the subject matter was too dark for the style of film. The subject is about young children being forced to kill each other by their government but the target audience is 14 year old girls. Because of this the whole issue had to be lightened up and skirted round, and it left me not sure what type of film I was supposed to be watching. It just didn't work.

I might be wrong, certainly the critics and the box office figures would tell you I'm wrong. But this film is the first in a trilogy and it left me with no desire to see the next 2 films and that definitely wasn't the film makes intention.

A message of defiance

Lest week was a bad week. I was turned down for a total of 7 jobs in 5 days, and it did not feel good. One of them I was turned down for failing a test, one for not having "the right personality", but mostly because "There was no problem with you at all, there was just a better candidate". Not only is this the most frustrating sentence in the world, it doesn't actually help in the slightest. Why were they a better candidate? What can I do to be that better candidate and how long till I'm the best candidate left on the market?!?

So it turns out unemployment is really hard. Job hunting is totally soul destroying, and last week I fell into a bit of a slump. I basically spent two days on the sofa watching bad american TV, and I ate my body mass in ice cream. Luckily I have Joni and Beth to help me, and I have to admit if Beth and Ruby hadn't come down to visit last Thursday I think Joni would have come home to find me a drunken mess on the sofa.

I have to admit I have a new sympathy for the 'dole dossers' and rioters of last summer (never thought I would be saying that). When you have no hope of getting a job; when you discover that all that time and money you put into education is actually making it much harder for you to get a job; when you find 4 years of higher education later and you can't even get your old job back again; well, you begin to see how a person could take to the streets in anger.

But I will not let it beat me. This week I am up, I am bright eyed and ready for action. I have written my list of things to do this week, some of which are job hunt, but some of which are other things too. I have bought scales so I can focus on me, instead of the rest of the world.

I will get through this, with or without a job.

An awesome Birthday Treat

I know its a few days early, but today I got my awesome birthday trip to London.

It started early, with an 8am train. Sat in first class, it was very posh! Lol. We made sure to get our moneys worth of free tea, juice, biscuits and water. And there was a very nice conductor who didnt even ask for our rail cards which was handy as Jonis is expired (something he negelected to tell me when I booked the tickets).

First thing we did was head over the British Design Museum to see the Design Awards 2012 exhibition. Some of it was very cool, some of it was super practical, and some of it was really rubbish. There were a couple of chairs in particular which were just uncomfortable, which is like the last thing you want from a chair. I was particularly impressed with the re-design of the back of an ambulance and the wind-powered land mine clearing device. Both brilliant pieces of design. I really want to know if any of them will ever actually get used, to save lives and change the world. Seems like a good idea to me.

From there we headed back towards the tube, on the hunt for lunch before heading to the Royal Academy. The weather we beautiful for March, and we stumbled across these sort of pop-up BBQ stalls down an alley, next to a cathedral. The locals clearly knew where to find them because each stall had long queues but we managed to get food within 10 mins or so. I had a huge burger with all the trimmings for £5, a price not to be sniff at on the south bank!

Next we headed to the Royal Academy to see the new David Hockney exhibition. A I have to say I did feel fairly smug after walking through the gates and seeing the huge queue of people snakeing around the whole courtyard, and realising we could march to the front because I bought our tickets online months ago. We picked up the tickets with half an hour before we could go in so we popped back to a patisserie on the main road where I had a massive ice cream sunday. And it was soooo good!

Shame I can't say the same about the art. For all the hype, I found it rather boring actually. The first few galleries we quite good, and I did like his paintings. We were greeted by 4 huge canvases each with the same view of 3 trees and a field, each in a different season. I liked them a lot actually, the colours were bright, the subject was simple but distinctive. The problem was he went on to repeat this same-view-different-seasons idea through another 9 gallery spaces, a total of around (and this is not an exaggeration) 60 paintings and prints. What started off fun and dramatic just got boring.

And there was more to it than just the plain repatition. There was a distinct lack of any message or drive to the work. There was no story being told, the work didn't make you see the world in a different way, it didn't make you revaluate your opinions or even teach you something new. They were just pretty pictures for the sake of being pretty, and that's not my kind of art.

Despite this we left the gallery feeling fairly happy. I was glad to have seen such a high profile show (although I won't be heading for any with quite so many people any time soon!). We walked back to Piccadilly and bought 2 fairly expensive tickets to see a play we knew practically nothing about called The Ladykillers. A comedy apparently.

After dinner at Pizza Express (complete with free bottle of Proseco as its ny birthday) we headed to the theater, bought a program, sat down to read it and quickly discovered why it was so expensive....

The lead was played by actual Peter Capaldi. An actual famous person. Even more. There were only 6 actors in it, and i recognised at least 5 of them from tv. Most of them from Doctor Who. The only one I didn't was the woman. Beyond this it was also an amazing play. Genuinely laugh out loud from start to finish, a very intelligent plot and a really amazing set which was all revolve-y and stuff.

So all in all a fantastic day out. Back on the train and heading home super late. Won't be back in bed till about 3am, but I'm not feeling too bad. I think I will feel it tomorrow however! We shall just have to wait and see if I'm getting too old for days that busy!

The First Morning

Waking up for the first time in our new home. Oddly, it pretty much feels like home already. It's stuffed full of our stuff already. Tim says he is coming to stay tomorrow, but I don't know where as currently everything we own that isn't specifically 'kitchen' is piled in the spare room! Best get on with unpacking today. I'm so happy to be moving, I'm even excited about unpacking. Yesterday when trying to sort the kitchen I kept finding stuff I forgot we owned. It was like Christmas - you never know what the next box will contain!

Yesterday was total chaos (as any good move should be). It started with a strange indecent of banging in the loft of Jonis parents place, so us running to my parents at 4am in an attempt to get a good nights sleep. It was a little late for that by then. Going back in the morning we discovered a massive rat, so Joni threw poisen at him and we left.

So much stuff!!

Next problem involved the near murder (I still hear that in Scottish every time - mur-dur) of an estate agent. So we all, dad included, sat down in the estate agents office and she says she will start by taking the deposit and first months rent in cash. IN CASH!! That's £1200 in cash no one had bothered to tell us we needed. And she wasn't giving us the keys till we got it. This is because, unlike every single shop on the highstreet, Your Move don't have chip&pin machines so they can't take instant payments. They have to write all your bank details down and fax them to head office to be processed!! Honest to god that woman is only alive right now because NatWest are not a bunch of incompetent fools, unlike Your Move. So we got the cash, we signed a million bits of paper work and then we got the keys!

New keys.

So, a quick meeting with the new landlord then we were off to fetch the van. Only I left the keys at Jonis parents. But no bother, we got a car load from there (forgetting the tool box, which will become important later) and then split up so I could drive the van and Joni could take the car back to the new house.

Almost forgot to pack the Joni.

So this van. We were borrowing it from my would-be employers. And it was a bit of a wreck. Some Twat has stole half the exhaust so it sounds like a tractor and because it is owned by 2 men who .... Well let's just say there is never any fuel in there vehicles. At all. So i had to brave the Saturday traffic in the monster van to get diesel. But i got lunch and a bottle of bubbly too so all was ok.

All of this ment we didn't get the van to my parents till midday and we had to be back home by 1pm to wait for the virgin man. So we filled it with as much as we could and off we went. Unloaded the first lot and sat for lunch in our new conservatory, because we couldn't get the sofa any further into the house. We managed it later by taking the legs off.

Putting the table together before we can have lunch.

After lunch we realized I couldn't start putting furniture together till Joni went back for the toolkit (i said it would be important) so Joni went off for another load from his parents and i mostly just wondered around the house looking at it! Bizzarly, Joni could only find half our wardrobe at his parents, so we need to find the rest of that today.

Dad and Joni fighting a mattress upstairs. 

While Joni was off with the van again the virgin man showed up and (minus a tiny hiccup) we had the internet up and running in half an hour. I have to say I'm impressed. It's the first time iv ever moved somewhere and had the internet up and running the same day. And we accourding to speedtest.net we are actually getting 20mg download speeds. Happy.

Richard putting together a table with added help of wine. 

So there we are. Moved in-ish. Richard came round and helped us to put together some furniture, and to eat pizza and get slightly drunk. Today we need to fetch yet more stuff from both houses and put up yet more furniture. And buy a cutlery tray. Funny the things you realise you don't own.

A review of 2012 so far

I haven't blogged in while, mainly due to my life becoming too complicated to get into, but now that it has finally straightened out I can talk really about what i have been up to in 2012.

Two weeks ago I started properly job hunting. It's very dull. But, iv applied for 15 jobs, had 2 preliminary interviews and only 1 rejection, which I think is quite good really. Got to keep up the looking. I'm also volunteering at Occasions Catering still, learning to be a sales woman. That's quite good fun, going to meetings and networking. I have business cards now, how cool am i? Lol. I figure the longer I'm working there, the more experience I will have, the quicker I will find a paying job.

Big News! Joni & I finally have sorted our new house! Woo hoo! I get me stuff back soon! And the cat. It's just a rental for now, since the financial sector thinks we are 'unstable' but its prefect. Can not wait to move in, its going to be so good. We move on the 17th, and housewarming is on the 24th . All my loyal readership are invited!

Last Wednesday we managed to hit our Target for going to the Broadway once a month (just) by going to see The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. Went with Joni and Richard Fear (promised I would make him famous by mentioning him on the blog). This film has got some bad reviews, and I would be the first to agree it is not high art. The plot is easy and fairly predictable but it is by far one of the funniest films I have seen in a very long time. I was doing that laughing-embarrassingly-loud thing in the cinema, which i haven't done since The Hangover. An apsolutly brilliant film.

Also seen, at home, this week - Cars 2 and Attack the Block. Also both brilliantly funny films, in different ways. Attack the Block is particularly well done.

Finally, in other news, we have found out this week that our Granny is coming back to the UK. Very excited about getting to see her again, apparently Thiland isn't for her. Currently the whole family is pitching in for the very stressful task of finding a home for an 87 year old woman with nothing to her name but a suitcase full of clothes, but once that is delt with it will be great to have her back. I am sensing a trip to Kates house in New Deer coming up, as it has some of grannys stuff in it. That's if I ever get around to having a viva.....

The ending that was never an ending...

It's been a long week. I left home thinking that by this time I would be feeling better. That handed in I would feel a great weight had been lifted and the stress would be gone, but sadly it was never to be. You see, I had forgotten a few important facts.

At some point in the next month I am going to be called back to Scotland for a VIVA. For those of you who don't know, a viva is a meeting with a professor you have never met, who has been given your report to read. In a meeting that will last at least an hour this stranger will attempt to tear holes in everything you have done for the past 18 months. They will find every flaw and they will demand logical and scientific explanations for everything you have done, not to mention indepth knowledge of every material used and every technique mentioned.

The last viva I sat did not go well. This one will require just as much work to prepare for as the actual writing took. So there goes feburary.

Should the viva go well, the most likely outcome is I will be asked to do minor corrections (typos and the like) and told to hand in the final thesis one month later, resulting in yet another trip to Scotland. So there goes March. And in April I have to move back in with my parents, kissing goodbye to the space I need to clear my head and figure out exactly what it is i want to do with my life (other than just be left alone). And here was I hoping it would all be wrapped up in 2011.

So if I'm mean to you in the next couple of months; if I snap, bitch, moan, shout, cry or even just ignore you, then I apologise now. Please just give me the benefit of the doubt. I promise when I'm not having a major life crisis I'm a nice person. Honest. And I will get heck there. I hope.

P.S. the next person the ask me what I'm going to do next is going the get their head ripped off so I can use it as an ornate drinking vessel. Fair warning.

The Great Diet of 2012 Week 2, plus A Long Train Journey

First things first - the diet. This week I am down another 1.4kg, so woop woop. Feeling quite happy about this one - keep it up at that rate and I will soon be seeing the difference. Im also pleased because that is purely a exercise loss. I have not eaten right at all (between the sisterly fuddle, the goodbye dinners and the lunches with girlfriends I can think of a single day I "diet" ate) but I have exercised every day. Now I just need to find a balance between last week and this, and I will be onto a winner.

This week is not going to be a good diet week. This week I am in St Andrews. In fact this post is coming to you from a rather swish room in the Greyfriars hotel on North Street. Its going to be an expensive week, and its going to be a week of grabbing food on the go, snacking in coffee shops and eating in restaurants. I think for this week if I can make it home without putting the 2.5kg back on it will be a success.

To get to St Andrews involves a 6 hour train ride, and I was lucky enough to get a straight train, all the way from Derby to Leuchars. I was also lucky enough to get a decent seat, mostly to myself. About 4 hours in a young girl got on, at Durham and we got chatting. After that length of time I was glad for someone to talk to actually.

She turned out to be lovely. She is in her final term at Aberdeen Uni, studying (thought a weird set of events which made for a great story) Anthropology and History. She enjoys it very much. After I told her I was on my way to hand in my Masters, the first thing she said was "Do you think you will do a PhD?". And because I felt like a conversation I told her the truth. And this led us on to talking about University, and how the are run and what it means to be at university and all manner of related things.

It was incredible really. In that way strangers can be honest, and you can be really honest with strangers, I began to think about what I had done, and where I am in my life. See, as you may have noticed, I'v been feeling pretty down about the way things have turned out. Iv been blaming myself, and feeling like I have totally cocked things up. But some how, magically, this total strange on the train helped me to see things differently. Helped me to start to stop blaming myself. So I go to bed tonight feeling, not exactly happy, but more contented than I have done in a long time. I have no idea who that girl was, I don't even know her name.

Anyway, bring on tomorrow, and the supervisor to change all that.

The Great Diet of 2012 Week 1

Week one of my diet past in a haze of hunger and self flagilation. Whole days went by without me feeling properly full, and whole meals went by during which I ate only lettuce. During this time only 1 morning passed I which 8am didn't involve me throwing on my clothes and heading for exercise. At least twice I had the unnerving experience of waking up and finding myself already half way down the canal path on my bike.

I weighed myself every day this week to track my progress. The best I managed was 2.5kg down on mondays weight. However I had a poor weekend, with conceded family encouraging me to actually eat, so weigh-in found me only 1kg lighter. This feels pretty pathetic, and has led to a poor start to what will be a tough week.

Ahh well, back to the self-flaggeration tomorrow. Think I can get back to the gym soon, which will save me.

A diet update and a film review

Day 1 and day 2 of super diet have gone rather well. The weather is against me, the wind prevented me from cycling today (blown in canal, I think not) but i went for a walk instead. Most importantly I have eaten basically nothing and I'm getting used to being hungry. I expect my body to start consuming my ass quite soon, in order to sustain my basic brain functions.

Went to see the US version of Girl with a Dragon Tattoo yesterday and was very pleasantly surprised on many levels. Having read the book and seen the Swedish version I was quite scare of what the Americans might do to it, but it was very good. The main character was possibly better played by Craig than in the Swedish version (although he insisted on having his glasses hanging off his face half the film which drove me mad!). Overall it was a fantastic film - harrowing and surprising, with a great sound track and very well filmed. The director handled some very difficult material with care and it was dramatic without being crass.

The other interesting thing to come from that cinema trip was Sony 4k. Joni spotted this advertised on the cinema website over my shoulder and said he would go see any film with me as long as it was in Sony 4k. To which I replied what the hell is Sony 4k? What has followed is 2 lengthy discussions of film and sound, and how they work, which i will not bore you with. Suffice to say a film shown in 4k has four times as many pixels as a 1080hd film (which is what most bluray films are). It also specifies the sound comes in a .wav format, which i am assured is damed good.

But will I be able to tell the difference, I hear you cry? Let me say this. I am half blind and tone deaf. Even with my specs my eyesite isn't particularly good but i noticed. I noticed the moment the secreted came on and not the film trailers. I noticed the moment the still secreted started flashing up, while everyone was still coming in. It was like that first time you flick from BBC1 to BBChd, and you really marvel at the difference. And so I would advice you to find a cinema with Sony 4k and go watch a film, and marvel in how our technology has progressed. And after that go home and lament that all your dvds are in standard format so don't have even a quarter of the quality.

New Years Resolutions

I don't normally make New Years resolutions. In fact some years ago I made a resolution to never make resolutions again, and thats has been working pretty well for me so far. But this year Joni and I got talking. Joni is always into resolutions and he has convinced me to make some this year too. We decided there are five categories of New Years Resolution, and so I'v tried to set of resolution for each category. They are as follows:

1) Personal Interests

I resolve to go to the Broadway Cinema once every calender month in 2012. I'm ashamed to say that earlier this month I went to the Broadway for the first time, which is shameful because its such a great cinema I can't believe I have never been before. I really enjoyed our James Bond Marathon Challenge of 2011, so I hope this resolution will encourage me to see some more unusual films, and it a fabulous setting. 

2) Personal Well-being

I resolve to loose 15kg. I know this is a very boring resolution, but I'v gotten so fat recent that every day I don't have a heart attack is a bit of a surprise. I plan on losing the first 10kg with a month of eating basically nothing and exercising like mad. When I can't stand this life any more I will take on a more normal, steady dieting regime in order to be a more super-sexy me. 

3) Life Style

I resolve to have a Christmas party in my house next year. This one, I think, is actually a very clever resolution and probably the most important. It covers all the major things I want to achieve in the next year, mainly for Joni and I to have our own place, fit for some sort of Xmas or New Years party. 

4) Relationships

I resolve to not accidentally kill myself in 2012. Joni decided this would be the best thing I could do for our relationship yesterday, after I nearly cracked my head open on the fireplace. 

5) Altruism

I can't think of an altruistic resolution, which says a lot about me. I think four resolutions is enough for one person, I'll face altruism next year. 

So there you have it, my New Years Resolutions. I shall come back to those at the end of the year, to see how I have done. In the mean time, Happy New Year to all, hope this one turns out a bit less shit than the last and we don't all die in a Mayan Apocalypse.