December 2006 Archives

* best choice i've made lately: switching to firefox. addons! themes! eyecandy! all sorts of cool things and about a thousand times better than explorer, which pretty much sucks.
* best tv series: i can't decide what is more addictive, grey's anatomy or CSI? i know that if i had this i would be even more addicted though...
* best way to download stuff: mjutorrent. it rocks.
* best food: polenta all the way. or alternatively, my dad's food.
* best thing to do over christmas: making gingerbread with my mother. tomorrow though.
* best way to buy presents: just grab something and go. i'm just not in the mood for present buying.
* best feeling: walking through the streets of paris in the winter cold air, wearing gloves and looking at shops and people passing me by. i'll never get tired of the beauty of this city.
* other best feeling: seeing m the day after tomorrow, and spending christmas with him. it'll be the first time i spend christmas with a boyfriend in around 4 years. i'm very, very excited.

off to london and then paris in a couple of hours; why does it feel so weird to leave oxford? and why does it feel like coming home every time i get back? it's bizarre how well i'm fitting into this place, this small world... how did i go from only loving huge cities to really enjoying living in a small town and an even smaller college? ah. who knows. (more on this later, when i have more time to develop the thought)
the next couple of days will have to be spent finding presents for everybody (i.e. my family and m). i have a couple of ideas already, i'm sure it'll be fine. it's just that i'm not feeling the christmas spirit as i used to - maybe i'm finally growing up?
and then m is coming over to paris on the 22nd, and that will be lovely. i'm not even THAT freaked out that he'll meet my parents. :)
packing packing packing....

my room here is lovely. it really is - brand new building, en-suite bathroom (a luxury in this country, especially in student accommodation), lots of wardrobe and shelf space. i love it. there's only one problem with it: i'm on the ground floor and since this block is very new, space to build it was scarce. which means that the tennis courts are right outside of my window. so on saturdays and sundays, when the weather is nice, people playing tennis look at me drying my hair, or sorting out my laundry. i thought that problem would be over now that it's, you know, freezing cold and rainy. instead, i get the people working on the grounds apparently burning half of the college's leaves right outside. queue smoke and flames three metre high.
sigh.
enough whingeing. the past week has been spent vegging out and doing very little amount of work (it's fine - the one great thing about eight week long terms is that i get six weeks off for christmas), and now i'm slowly waking up and preparing myself for a nice weekend in london seeing various friends and possibly getting very drunk. it shall be lots of fun.
my mood has ever so slightly improved - the first week of christmas break was hell, i was crashing, i was depressed, i wanted to escape this place. these feelings are now very slowly evaporating thanks to the laziness of it all and finally regaining my status as a normal human being. it's helped that somehow my dvd collection has increased enormously (mainly due to me borrowing lots of things!) so i have been watching house md, scrubs, grey's anatomy (i loooove medical tv series), spaced (special edition dvds are now mine!), coupling and... that's it. i'm in full dvd obsession again and might be ordering the first and second series of the l word soon. yay. :)
now i need to worry about christmas presents. shit. i suck at buying presents. help please?!? i need presents for my parents, my aunt, my brother and m. and possibly find some small things for my other friends too. it's never going to happen. i guess i can do it in paris when i'm there... right?!?
i think it's time for some more scrubs. don't you?

here i am, sitting in a dark room with my loyal berocca (the best cure for hangovers, EVER), finally. the past week has been sort of depressing - i was still crashing from the hyperactivity of the last two months, and badly. and, between sudden outbursts of uncontrollable crying, i've been taking care of m who's caught a nasty virus and has been very unwell (puppy eyes looking at me from my bed were cruelly sort of cute though). now m is feeling better and i'm feeling alive again after a good night out.
shame one of my friends got her bag nicked (oh, how i hate it when that happens - even to other people! i was running around trying to find it for about an hour and getting very stressed out). but then as i was looking for it i found a ten pound note on the ground which paid for a massive cheeseburgers and chips (and another two equally unhealthy meals for two friends) on the way home. shame i can't eat kebabs anymore - even though i can't simply because i know that waking up in the morning, hungover, with my breath stinking of kebab, is NOT fun.
today i need to get active again, and most of all, i need to start doing some work. i think having the whole of last week off is enough, i really need to get started on reading for the super-duper-fivethousand-word-long-core-essay-which-is-going-to-kick-my-ass-AND-actually-counts. it's very interesting (weber and confucianism and singapore, just my kind of thing) but my brain still feels absolutely dead.
anyway, to go onto more christmas-y things, don't you find it sad that as you grow older there's less and less things you want for christmas, and they all start becoming, well... sensible? like jeans, or a new pair of trainers. i wish i could still ask for barbie cars or whatever it was i liked as a kid.
why does reality feel so harsh sometimes?

i finally (hopefully) have found a solution to my spamming problems, so (hopefully) you should now be able to comment without any problems. let's all pray... (since when does movable type suck so bad at keeping spam junked?!?)
last night as i was coming back from a potluck dinner with my coursemates (which was, indeed, lots of fun, even though i left early - there's nothing like seeing people who usually work their asses off getting completely pissed) i met m at a corner, somewhere half way between his lab and my party, and then we got on a bus and came home together; as we were walking, a comment by m made me realise how, maybe, it was wrong of me to post the photo yesterday, and to let the world know just like that.
i think i never realised until recently that even though i do not seem to mind living in the spotlight (to a certain extent), it might not be so for the people around me. i'm questioning more and more the existence of this blog - already most of the 'private' stuff goes on my livejournal, so what's the point of this place? the fact of the matter is, i am not giving up dashofmilk. there is space here for other issues, other kind of entries, and so on; but it does make me sad that sometimes i need to censor myself here. i think the problem comes from the fact that i am a very open person, even in 'real life', and i'd tell most things about myself even to an absolute stranger. does that make me stupid, or vulnerable, or irresponsible? i don't know, but what i do know that it is the one characteristic that has enabled me to meet so many people and make friends here in oxford more than ever before, and as such i am not giving it up.
so where does all this leave me?
* i am frustrated with not being able to say everything i want to say here.
* it annoys me that people, despite the disclaimer at the top of this page, will make comments and talk about this blog when they really shouldn't (this is, in the end, MY personal space and as such i should be able to decide whether it's talked about 'out there' or not).
* it also makes me feel weird that i seem to be the only person i know who is most definitely quite open about talking about their private life.
* finally, i am tired of having to explain to people why writing a blog is good and interesting and addictive; i can't explain it, i never will be able to. all i can say is that it's cathartic, therapeutic, and i'm just used to it. it makes me think and it makes me understand.
at the end of the day, this is my choice. i don't expect people to understand why, but i do wish they'd respect it.
(so it all goes with what i was saying yesterday: IF YOU KNOW ME, DO NOT JUDGE ME. this is most definitely not the place to do that.)

...because there is not better way to wake up in the morning than coming out of the shower and seeing what you can see in the photo. which is not my face, but a beautiful little detail on a post-it note, left a couple of hours earlier by m.
do not judge us, especially if you know us.
i'm so happy.
(it helps that term is officially over and i have no lectures for five weeks! wow)
by the way, the ball was fantastic despite me having to have a half hour nap half way through it... i did dance until 4 o'clock in the morning so i can't complain. :)
mood swings are as bad as ever, but when i'm up nothing could bring me down... it's weird how i understand myself less and less as time goes on. does it even matter, when someone can care about me so much? even when i don't understand how it's happened and why...