Listening: The Cooper Temple Clause Kick Up the Fire, and Let the Flames Break Loose
Reading: Janie Steps In Elinor M. Brent-Dyer
Rugby:

I was up until almost 5am last night working on a new site (a directory for girls fiction sites) and so didn't get up until 1.30pm today =) I'm actualy quite proud of that! I then had to battle the elements to make it into town to buy some more hiking socks and pick up the comics I have on standing order. I've just finished packing for my four day field trip to Cork (hence needing the hiking socks) and while I am looking forward to it, I can't help but feel that the weather is going to make me hate everything about Cork *L* I'm sure it's a lovely place, really! Plus, it is a lot lower than Galway so it may be slightly warmer there *keeps fingers crossed in hope*

While I was in town I stumbled on this amazing second-hand bookshop and picked up some great bargains, including a guide to Dark Skies (and not Dark Visions like I previously said in a complete LJS brainleak moment!) for 1 Euro. Whippee! Did anyone apart from me ever watch that? I also got the novel of Rancid Aluminium for 1 Euro, but I don't really know what it's about. I remember wanting to see the movie when it came out, but I have a sneaking suspicion that that may have been because Joseph Fiennes was in it... I'm taking it on the field trip to read, as the bus journey to Cork is over 6 hours long, so hopefully it's as good as the reviews on the back cover make it out to be!

PS - HAPPY HALLOWE'EN (for tomorrow)!! I can't believe I'm going to miss the unveiling of what's happening over at Project Kenaz *grumble*

Listening: Bush The Science of Things
Reading: Janie Steps In Elinor M. Brent-Dyer
Rugby:

Mwhahaha. I had completely forgotten that Betula picks the GGBP books straight from the source, thus cutting out the a stage in the process. Apparantly Anne & Clarissa (who run GGBP) won't be able to post out the copies of their newest books, The Highland Twins at the Chalet School and Janie Steps In, until after November 1st. But mine arrived today thanks to the wonderful Betula of Topsy Turvy Books! YIPPEE!

Been visiting Bloody Quills 2003 (an LJS fan-fic competition site) and pondering over whether or not I should enter. I have a story that I wrote a while ago that could do with a major rewrite that might just be submittable. Whatever I decide, I'll probably apply to be a judge.

*gawp* Who's doing the Nick Armstrong fanlisting? Is it you Heather?

Listening: Everclear So Much for the Afterglow
Reading: The A-Z of Chalet School Characters The New Chalet Club
Rugby: Georgia v. Uruguay: 12 - 24

Over the past week or so I've really gotten in to updating The Chalet School Journal again, which is good, if time consuming. Currently I'm working on a yearbook-type project which should provide lots of details on the characters, since according to my poll this is what people want to see. I've only done the basic details of the first 18 pupils and 4 teachers so far and it's taking me AGES! Still, it'll be worth while, hopefully. I've also been wondering if it's time for a layout change. The only problem is that I can't really think of something I could change it to. Any suggestions? Plus, changing the whole layout would probably be a LOT of effort...

Listening: Matchbox 20 yourself or someone like you
Reading: Samantha and the Fugitive Elinor M. Brent-Dyer
Rugby: Argentina v. Ireland: 15 - 16

Yes, the rugby score is yesterdays (todays: Japan v. USA: 26 - 39), but I didn't blog ysterday and Ireland fully deserve to be celebrated today as well as yesterday! AHEM! So the Rugby World Cup is heating up at last. Ireland's performances haven't been stellar, but we're through to the next stage *doing a dance of joy* First, the team has to face Australia though and I'm going to miss what's bound to be a great game because I have ANOTHER field trip. Grrrrrrrr.... Oh, and can I just say - Italy v. Wales: 15 - 27!! Wales won a game. Will miracles never cease? From what I've heard though, Italy were the better side and have upped their game since the Six Nations.

On other topics, apologies once again, for the lack of blogging. I've been really tired lately and my motivation is at an all time low. I only had two lectures this week and they were both completely boring. Then we had a field trip to the Burren on Saturday which was actually fairly enjoyable. Once you put aside the whole having to pee behind a bush thing, anyway =) When we got back to Galway, I went for a few drinks with some of my course-mates and managed to get fairly merry. Sadly, that led to an argument with my boyfriend, in which I was completely irrational. Ooops.

Yesterday, I spent some time updating The Chalet School Journal only to leave the disk with all the updates at Uni. So, any minute now I'm going to leave my room and go outside into the natural light, to retrieve the aforementioned disk - eep! This morning I've managed to pretty much catch up with all my e-mails, which is a good thing because I've discovered that Golloptuous has 3 new members and Psychic Vampire has 1! Hurrah! I also received some e-mails about The Chalet School Journal and one from Liss supporting a project I proposed. So that's all good.

Before I forget, Heather has finally opened her Hunter Redfern Fanlisting so go check it out!

Listening: The Smashing Pumpkins Adore
Reading: The Chalet School Companion Helen McClelland
Rugby: Argentina v. Romania: 50 - 3

Things I have learned today:

1. Traditions at Irish Universities are startlingly sexist. For example, for undergraduate graduations, only women wear the mortar-board because they are being 'capped' in their education and are not expected to go further, whereas men will, of course, go on to MA or PhD level. This, they tell me, is not the belief today, but they still honour the tradition.

2. If you are trying to watch something, your housemates will immediately begin to have a loud conversation which quickly degenerates into shouting.

3. Irish people are not equipped to deal with the cold.

4. Sabrina the Teenage Witch is an idiot.

5. If the University gives you a job, it will immediately mess things up, leaving you in the lurch.

6. The worst thing about moving is leaving most of your books behind.

Listening: Linkin Park Meteora
Reading: That Boarding School Girl Dorita Fairlie Bruce
Rugby: Italy v. Canada: 19 - 14

I have achieved and thus I am proud. While my achievements may not seem like much to others, I am proud, for today I left the flat. Huzzah! What have I been doing? I hear you ask. Well, this morning I did not one but TWO loads of washing (a complicated process taking over two and a half hours due to the general crapiness of the laundry facilities here) giving me clean clothes AND sheets. Oooooh. Then, in the afternoon I managed to go food shopping and have, in this way, averted meals consisting of pasta flavoured with salt. Also, a text book I've been waiting for arrived this morning which means I can get on with one of my essays (this may not actually be a good thing). In fact, my achieving actually extends back to yesterday when (between watching three movies) I managed to make these lovely ladies:

Say hello to Corney and Jacynth, marvel at their beauty and head on over to The Chalet School Journal to adopt them!

Listening: to the radio
Reading: Nothing
Rugby: I have no clue

Urgh. Sorry for the lack of blogging. Basically, I spent Friday, Saturday and Sunday climbing every mountain and steep hill in Sligo in a quest to look at big piles of rocks. Exciting, eh? Actually, it was the first of the compulsory fieldtrips that are art of my MA course. Despite my surpisingly low fitness levels, I had a really good time. I just feel lik I could sleep for a week or so. I'm completely disorientated and disorganised, which isn't good, but I'm too tired and sore to actually do anything about it. I think I might make today into a combination of bed-day and update-websites-day. Or I might just sleep...

Because we were in Sligo, I got to see my family briefly, which was nice. Especially as my Dad bought me a drink and my Mum bought me lunch, thus saving me lots of money on what was an expensive trip. I also got to pick up Dorita Fairlie Bruce's A Boarding School Girl which I'm looking forward to reading. I also picked up my 3-in-1 edition of LJS's Dark Visions trilogy. So I have hoursof good reading ahead of me.

Speaking of books, I was checking out Girls Gone By Publishing last week and, yay for all the title they're planning to publish, but why, oh why, can't they publish an EBD book that I haven't already got/read? All the non-CS books they're planning to publish, I stupidly borrowed from the FOCS library last year, so I've already read them. Not that I'm not looking forward to buying them and owning my own copies! I'm especially looking forward to the collecting of the CS short stories, which oughta be a good read =) I'm pretty excited by the news that they're starting some susan Coolidge stuff. I had no idea that there were five Katy books!

Oh, and Liss, I DO read your blog!

Listening: Alanis Morissette Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie
Reading: Landscape of the Monuments: A study of the passage tombs in the Cuil Irra region, Co. Sligo, Ireland Stefan Bergh
Rugby: Fiji v. USA: 19 - 18

In order to try to a) learn something about Irish archaeology and b) make myself feel like I'm actually a University student, I went to three undergraduate lectures today! How very exciting! Frankly, I feel sorry for the poor undergrad masses. They have to do so much more work than me! I have 5-6 hours of lectures a week (oh, no, how do I cope?), whereas they can have 5-6 hours in a day, and that's just in archaeology. They have to take three other subjects too. I'd probably miss a whole bundle of lectures by sleeping in =) I actually found the lectures I went to a WHOLE load more interesting than my own lectures, which is probably not a good thing.

Listening: Feeder Polythene
Reading: Three Go to the Chalet School Elinor M. Brent-Dyer
Rugby: Scotland v. Japan: 32 - 11

Well, the ex left this morning, bringing a strange weekend to a close. To sum things up, he's no longer my ex-boyfriend. We've decided to start a long-distance relationship (he lives in Belfast) and see how things work out. I'm keeping my fingers crossed...

You know that list I made up on Saturday? I achieved very little. Here's what I actually managed to do:

1. Give the ex a tour of Galway
2. Create a layout for the Robert Harris fanlisting
3. Watch more rugby
4. Change the layout on Cacophany

Creating the fanlisting took waaaaaay longer than I'd anticipated. The layout took ages to get right and then adding content took several hours. However, it's done, and I like it - so check it out and let me know what you think. Codebreaker - the Robert Harris Fanlisting.

There wasn't any rugby today *sniff* so you'll have to make do with one of yesterday's scores. Oh, and incidentally, Ireland exited the running for Euro2004 on Saturday. Let's all have a good cry =(

Listening: The Cooper Temple Clause The Apple Sessions
Reading: Three Go to the Chalet School Elinor M. Brent-Dyer
Rugby: Ireland v. Italy: 45 - 17

Like a good little girl, I set my alarm for 7.50 this morning so that I could get up to watch the first Ireland game in the Rugby World Cup - and it was worth it. We won! We won *executes a little dance* We will, one day, rule the world =) I also watched the Australia v. Argentina game yesterday and I have to say that Argentina played well below expectations. Perhaps it was just nerves...

On other news fronts. I've been approved for two fanlistings. One for the author Robert Harris (which I'm very excited about) and the other of the X-Man Joseph (which I applied for AGES ago, so had kinda forgotten about. I applied for a few in the Books section, but I haven't heard anything back.

Things to do at some point this weekend:

1. Give the ex a tour of Galway and make him buy me dinner
2. Update the Adopt A Chaletian section with new dolls including,
- Cornelia Flower
- The Maynard Triplets
- Daisy Venables
- Jacynth Hardy
3. Create a layout for the Robert Harris fanlisting
4. Update Perpetual Metamorph before people think I've disappeared
5. Watch more rugby. The England game tomorrow is on at 1pm, so I might even get to watch it in a pub...

Listening: Buffy the Vampire Slayer Original Soundtrack
Reading: Nothing... eeep!

First of all, a friend of mine, Heather, turned 18 today, so HAPPY BIRTHDAY to her!

Today seems to have sped by. I went out last night (hence the lack of an entry for yesterday) and managed to get quite drunk. The night wasn't as good as it could have been, but I had a good time. I even ran into an old friend from Sligo which was completely unexpected! I didn't come home until about 2am and so slept in until about midday today. That gave me just enough time to shower and make it to my lecture on time. The lecture itself was OK, nothing too special. I was full of good plans about doing some reading etc. etc. Sadly, my resolve was easily broken when someone went "Coming for a drink?" So, of course, I did. One turned into three...

On my way back from the bar, I got a message from an ex-boyfriend announcing that he was going to come visit me this weekend. We've talked about him visiting, but I didn't think he actually would, so I was really pleased that he'd decided to do it. Pleased, but confused! This should be an interesting weekend =)

Listening: The Thrills So Much for the City
Reading: Alice Borchardt The Wolf King

I'm starting to feel really bad. All of my housemates have absolutely hectic schedules, especially the two doing Masters courses. They have work coming out of their ears at this point. Meanwhile, I get out of bed around midday and watch trashy daytime TV (I don't care what anyone says, Temptation Island is an intellectually stimulating piece of television!) until about 2.30. At some point around this time, it occurs to me that I should get dressed and leave the flat. Now, this is only on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Every other day of the week I am lecture-free. I have a pathetic 6 hours of lectures a week and the course seems really disorganised so I have no idea what kind of assingments I'm supposed to do and when they'll be due. Great. So basically, while everyone else drowns in work, I'm getting lazier and lazier.

That said, I had the first two of my landscape theory lectures today. The thing about theory is that it can either blow your mind, confuse the hell out of you, or send you down to a level of boredom where the thought of poking your own eyes out seems like a good idea. Before we started we had to write down what 'landscape' meant to us. Now, while I wrote two and a half lines, other people were scribbling furiously, thus making me feel inadequate yet again *g* Anyway, at the end of the lecture, we had to write down what we now thought of the term 'landscape' and tomorrow we get to read our thoughts to the class. There are only 12 of us, but it's still a cruel and unusual form of torture. Especially as I think pretty much the same thing after the lectures as I did before. Ah well.

Moving on to the lectures themselves... They were ok, I suppose. I personally find theory incredibly frustrating. Not because I don't get it, because I do, but because it's all so dry and in archaeology if you say 'theory' what you really mean is 'theory in the Neolithic'. When is archaeology as a whole going to realise that there are OTHER periods in the past? It's best I don't get started on my Neolithic rant. It's not pretty.

Listening: Oasis (What's The Story) Morning Glory?
Reading: Alice Borchardt The Wolf King

A new layout - ooohhh.... pretty! Well, I like it anyway. If anyone's interested, the image used is an old illustration of the wider Avebury landscape by William Stukeley. Let me know what you think =)

Listening: Sunna One Minute Science
Reading: Alice Borchardt The Wolf King

Today was a bit of a non-day, really. Not much happening. I did, however, go into Uni and use the cd burner on my computer there, which I'm very pleased about - I've never had open access to a cd burner before!

Otherwise, I watched A Knight's Tale which stars the very delectable Heath Ledger. Overall it was great, but that idiot of a woman he falls for... that's just wrong.

Listening: The Cooper Temple Clause Kick up the Fire, and Let the Flames Break Loose
Reading: Robert Harris Pompeii

I've finally given in and decided to write my own blog. I'm not entirely sure why, but we'll see how it goes! Probably no one will read it, anyway =)

I went to see Intermission last night. I don't think it's been released outside of Ireland yet, but when it is, I recommend it! It's a VERY strange film about a group of Dubliners, starring Colin Farrell and Colm Meaney. Colm Meaney is the main reason why I went to see it actually, but it turned out to be worth the extortionate EURO 7.50 they charge at the cinema here in Galway. Moving back to Ireland has turned out to be amazingly expensive *sigh* BTW, does anyone know the HTML code for the Euro symbol? I bet there isn't one...

Today has been set aside completely for the updating of my ever-growing collection of websites. I've been updating The Chalet School Journal since about midday, but that always gives me a bit of a head-ache, so I've given up for the moment now. Luckily, that gave me time to create this blog - yay!