Daffodils (sort of)

Hello again reader(s)!! I know, is it even possible that I've done more than two updates since re-beginning to write my blog (again)? And yes indeed, it is!!! This post is about probably one of the best decisions I've made during my time at university, excluding the choice I made to be friends with the lovely people I am friends with. I've bought some narcissus. They were sold to me as daffodils, but I'm not silly; they're narcissus. The currently sit in the pot I bought them in at the corner of my desk, although I'm hoping to get a bigger pot and an actual drip tray (rather than a cereal bowl.) So, I've been pondering them, basically.

Firstly, I've been surprised at how quickly the little flowers have grown. I bought them last week, probably on Wednesday, I think, and several of them have already flowered, with many more probably flowering in the next few days. The first one flowered on this Thursday and I actually watched it open throughout the day. Now five are properly open and one is opening today. Let me show you:

Thursday evening

Thursday lunchtime

Thursday afternoon

Saturday afternoon

Friday morning

Friday evening

 So you see how quick the development of these pictures has occurred... Even as I'm writing this, another bud has started to bloom! I'm now on six!

My other ponderance is how much better they make my room. Apart from a dodgy smell from the soil-y stuff when I water the base, which is easily ignored, they are very attractive and definitely make the room a little happier. At the same time, I think having them around in the room also makes it feel more like home. It's something I can look after and it adds another element of life to the room.

Finally, I feel I should explain the caption on the fifth picture. Since I arrived at university I have come to the realisation that a lot of my friends... How can I put this so that it encompasses everything?... I have a lot of friends who bat for the Owen's team, who like to exfoliate and whose favourite film is Moulin Rouge. Is this getting the point across at all? Basically, I've been nicknamed the Fairy Gaymother because I appear to attract a certain type of person as my friend. Apparently I also have this effect on flowers...

House Hunting

It's now come to that time in my life where I've had to start (and indeed conclude) a hunt for my first privately-rented property (how scary!) So, this led to me pondering the housing market and, well, just everything really.

For anyone who's interested, I am sharing as part of a group of five girls who will all be living in a two-storey house in Beeston; near the university. The property has five bedrooms, three bathroom-esque rooms (only one actually has a bath in it, the others have showers), one lounge, one dining room, one kitchen, a scrubby garden with a "bald patch" (Helen) and a "Bedroom", in which the bedroom furniture doesn't even fit. Needless to say, this will be used as an occasional overnight room for people staying (willingly or because they're unable to use their own legs...) over and (probably) a storage room.

Basically, this whole process has made me feel very grown up; primarily because I have been doing most of the dealings with the estate agents (as the one who was willing to make the phone calls on Monday) and this gives me a terrifying level of responsibility, but also because I now realise that next year I will be responsible for myself; all the payments of bills and rent will be down to me (probably not financially, but I will be in charge of organising it) and if I mess up, it will be my own fault, with no way to blame anyone else.

That's scary.

In addition, I have decided I would be a terrible estate agent. I would feel incredibly guilty for the amount of... not quite lying, but... 'smoothing over' I would need to do to sell certain properties. Did you know there's no patron saint of estate agents*? Somehow it doesn't really surprise me. (At a stretch you could say it was St Lucy, patron saint of salespeople, but I'm not sure that's the entire of the estate agent's job.)

To be honest, my main concern for next year is getting on with my housemates, who are all lovely girls. This may seem a silly thing to say, if they're all lovely girls, why would that be a concern?
Basically, because they're so lovely I'm worried that I will be the one who will annoy everyone to the point where we have an argument and they are no longer friends with me. Apparently there's meant to be someone like that in every house. I really hope we're the exception...

If it doesn't work out, I could always live in a yurt.

Emmatt update: I realised I didn't do one of these last time, so in case anyone's interested, I thought I'd let you know. Matt and I sent a lot of time together over the Christmas holidays, even though we both had a lot to do. We're both very happy that we've now (more or less) reached five months together and are making plans to see each other in a few weeks, just after my Birthday. I also hope during this time to introduce him to some of my other friends (the girls I'm living with, plus other people in my course), although he doesn't know this yet. Sorry Matt.

*P.S. Father mine, the patron saint of Bankers is St Matthew

Ding Dong Merrily On A Budget

I know, I know, I haven't updated this blog for over two months now and I'm very, very sorry. Therefore, like a parent who has missed their child's school play, I am now going to ravish you with extra attention and new and more interesting posts to make up for it. Hopefully. I have actually been hoping to write this particular post for about six or seven weeks now, so it is a bit late (and out of season), but I hope you'll excuse that. Anyway, on with the show!

As you can see, today's post is called "Ding dong merrily on a budget" and, basically, the idea behind this has sprung from my desperate need, as a student, to decorate my room for Christmas on an incredibly minimal amount of money. I set this limit for myself at no more than £10 and managed to come in below this amount anyway. So, my first shopping trip took me to (where else?) Tesco; where I spent approximately a fiver(?) on decorations, consisting of:

• Tinsel, 2 (two) - gold, total of 4m
• Stocking, 1 (one) - red and white felt
• Battery powered Christmas lights, 1 (one) string - star-shaped, purple and pink alternating

I was quite happy with the way my looked at this point; I may even have a photo...

Somewhere.

For now, allow me to continue.

This was in the last week or so of November (I thought it best to get in early, although I am usually against this, as I was leaving Uni on 13th December, so wanted the full Christmas season), however, by the beginning of December my friends and I had decided that we wanted to have a Christmas party and, seeing as how my room was the tidiest/I'd done the least hosting all term/I was most open to decoration, my room became the designated party room. This, of course, required more decorations to be purchased. 

With now only £5 left in the budget and most of a room to make festive, we thought we'd have our work cut out (does anyone else think I'm beginning to sound like one of those stupid house makeover programmes?) Anyway, we decided to start thinking outside the box; the regular person, socially acceptable box...

So we spent about £3.50 on wrapping paper and we (Declan and Elena) wrapped the walls of my room.

Yes. That happened. 

See photo if you don't believe me.

Please ignore these people. They're just actors posing as my friends.

So, my plan with this post was to encourage people to get involved in the "Ding dong..." idea wot I came up wiv, but obviously it's a bit late for that. So, please consider it for next (this) year (especially those of you on tight budgets) as a cool Christmassy thing to do.

Hopefully I'll have another post soon. Much love xx

(P.S. Tom, I haven't forgotten about your letter. I have it and am in the process of writing back, but I haven't yet had the chance to send it - sorry!!!)

Pretend It's Monday, OK?

Soooooo, topical blog update for today, methinks. Obviously today is Armistice Day/Remembrance Day/ Poppy Day so I thought I’d have my two cents on the matter. I always ponder it quite strongly when it gets to this time of year, so I may as well share with you folks.

 For me, Armistice Day is a very sombre and serious occasion; not because I personally knew anyone who died in either of the world wars, nor did I lose any grandparents that way. Put simply, I completely disagree with the idea of war and think that we should remember those who gave their lives fighting for their country, wherever that may be.

Interesting phrase, that: ”Gave their lives”. It makes it sound like they had a choice at all times to lay down themselves as a sacrifice. We know, of course, that that isn’t the case, especially with forced subscription. There are some soldiers who did choose to give themselves entirely to protect their friends and comrades, but many of them had the “decision” forced upon them at one point in the process or another.

So today we are asked to remember those who died in the First and Second World Wars, as well as all wars before and since. I think this is a beautiful thing to do; so many families have been torn apart by war that it makes perfect sense to have a day on which we honour the fallen. Plus, it’s one of the few ‘special days’ in our calendar that has yet to be overly commercialised; there are the poppies (of course), but they’re for charity. There’s also the Remembrance Service on the Beeb on the Saturday night before Armistice Sunday and parade, but I wouldn’t say that was commercial because a) It’s the Beeb, and b) it’s an excellent idea for those who can’t attend a Sunday service or march but still want to remember the fallen soldiers.

I think Armistice Day is an excellent idea because, as they say, lest we forget...

Oooh, Look! A Blog Post!

So, I'm terribly sorry that there has been about a month’s gap between this post and the last but, seeing as how nobody even reads this, I guess it doesn't really matter anyway. I am currently on a train. This had made me ponder trains.

I don’t like the fact that there isn't somewhere on trains that you can keep your bag without losing sight of it; even when it’s in the overhead luggage rack you can’t really see it. Plus, you can’t put large bags there anyway, so it’s not helpful if you've got a small suitcase, which I have. Fortunately, I have sat next to very understanding people on both the trains I've had to sit next to people on today, so it’s actually been OK. J

Now, this is a strange thing to say, but I was going to make a post about things I dislike about trains. Except that I was going to do it on Friday when I was having to rush between platforms to catch my connections. Today I've had a short wait at both Stevenage and Grantham on the way back to Uni, so I've not really got much to complain about; I haven’t even had to go up and down a lot of stairs to get to far away platforms as they've all been across the platform from each other.

So, apart from an apology (what else would you expect?) for not writing for so long, this post will be rather pointless. Thank you for bearing with me whilst I settled in to Uni life and (almost) got on top of my workload. Much love xx

Emmatt update: If anyone is bothered, Matt and I are still very happy sharing each other’s company and we spent a fair amount of time together whilst I was at home this weekend. I am still waiting for him to realise just quite how crazy I am, but (mercifully) that time has not yet come.

Making Friends

Hello dear friends! Today I am writing very briefly about one of the downsides of living in halls of residence (not that there are many!) because it's happening right now and I'm pondering it as a result.

The gentleman below me and I have only met once during my time here (and I'm not even entirely sure which one he was) and at that point, Declan, Beth and I were rolling around on the floor laughing like loons on loon tablets. However, I have learnt quite a lot about my downstairs neighbour from his taste in music.

At some point each day, usually when I am sitting in my room "studying" (i.e. Eating cheese and biscuits, painting my nails, blogging, arranging my stuff/timetable etc.) the gentleman downstairs will begin playing loud club dance music from the (rather impressive) speaker system he must have down there. I know that dance music is designed to have a very noticeable bass line and hence would be fairly audible at any volume, however, this particular music is being played so loudly that I am able to tell what the song is.

Think about that for a second. I, Emma, can identify the club music which is being played. Any other genre, you might sort of say "well, yes, but you know every piece of music ever released" but club dance music should make you think something's up. Firstly, I absolutely hate club dance music and know very little of it; the fact that I know some is merely a reflection of Freshers' Week and its effect, the fact that I can identify it shows how loud it must be. Secondly all club music sounds exactly the same when played quietly, for it to be identifiable, it must be quite loud....

So I have come up with a solution. Many of you will think it childish, but to you I say "Ner ner ner ner ner!!!" I have declared "Battle of the Awful Music", which means that every time his music is so loud that I can hear it, I turn up the music I'm listening to to drown him out (and hopefully educate him in what music should actually sound like.) So far today, Mr Underneath-Room has been subjected to "Wouldn't It Be Nice" by the Beach Boys, "Ticket To The Moon" by ELO and "I Wish It Could Be A Wombling Merry Christmas Every Day" (Fat Boy Furry Crucial Dub Groovy Acid Burrow Garage Mix) by Roy Wood and the Wombles, which he may well have actually enjoyed.

Grow up? NEVER!!!

A Very Controversial Video (This post comes with a content warning)

***THIS POST IS NOT SUITABLE FOR SOME READERS***

See introductory paragraph for details.

Being at uni has both its good and bad points. Today in this (hopefully) short post, I'm pondering what could be seen as both. If you are of a delicate disposition, are easily offended by swearing or dislike very obvious sex references, I wouldn't bother reading further. I will not be doing any of these things, but the video I am discussing does all of them almost constantly and I do have to refer to it somehow for this post to make any sense.

I was shown a very controversial video on YouTube last night; it's apparently been removed from YouTube once and then replaced there in all its resplendent glory because of the debate surrounding it. In short, it is a parody of the song "Blurred Lines" by Robin Thicke but in long, so to speak, it's a bit more than that.

[SIDEBAR:] For those of you who don't know the song "Blurred Lines", it's a very provocative song about how women behave around men and how men want women to behave around men. In the words of Beth (who is very nice) "It's a bit rapey".

The parody in question is called "Defined Lines" (don't click the link if you don't want to be exposed to a high level of sexuality and swearing, or if you are somewhere that swearing and sex would be frowned upon, e.g. work) and it's by a group of girls called Law Revue, who appear to be highly feminist to the extreme. And American. But that is irrelevant.* It is a good video; as a parody it's almost identical to the original in its layout, apart from the obvious content change. The words to the song, whilst overly explicit and full of expletives, are actually part of a very good argument about women being treated like pieces of meat and used for sex. However, as mentioned, the video is much more explicit than it needs to be and could have been done almost as effectively without the constant swearing and sexual references.

This then creates a good argument though because, content-wise, the video is very close to the original song (which is probably known to quite a lot of young children) but with the gender roles reversed. Therefore, we must come to the conclusion that the original song is far too explicit to be played on the radio. But this isn't true. YouTube actually did remove this video at one point because of its obvious sexual nature. Law Revue apparently then wrote to YouTube and said "If that's the case, take down the original "Blurred Lines" video on the same grounds." At that point YouTube unblocked the parody video on their website.

So you see, this video does lead to a very good and in-depth argument, which I actually would enjoy having with people who weren't over the internet. And I am actually beginning to have with myself after this post. I hope I haven't caused too much offence with this video/message, I just find it interesting how different the standards are for men and women and how a song which could be conceived as being about rape is actually number 4 in the charts as I write this.

I apologised for any offence caused anywhere in this post, but I gave as much warning as I possibly could, considering that there is no "Explicit" button on Blogger.


*Future Emma believes the ladies are in fact from Down Under. Leave it.