I'm writing this post in short bouts while I'm waiting for the songs to load in Guitar Hero. So far I'm enjoying having an entire house to myself. I can be as noisy as I like and don't have to tread around others while I'm cooking dinner. And I have lots of space.
I've made a few plans for the next couple of weeks which I'm quite happy about. According to them, I'll be busy enough not to get bored, but won't be terribly stressed out. I am on holiday, after all. The plans aren't quite set in stone yet, because I agreed to sing with a choir, and I can't remember when the rehearsals are, so I have to check that.

Aaaaaanyway, there was a medieval fair in town today, which was quite fun. The weather could have been better, though. The grass was wet and slushy. But it was still cool to see the people in costumes and the awesome weapons. I took a lot of pictures.
I also saw a really pretty dress in a shop, but it was too small for me.

Ooh, and my results are online. I got a 76 for my dissertation! 78 for the story itself, 72 for the commentary. And just so you know, a 70 is a great mark. A 78 is mind-boggling.

Hey, I got a 5-star performance on Guitar Hero! Rock on!

Actually I was going to do some writing this evening, but, uh, yeah, Guitar Hero. Self discipline? What's that?

I've deleted some old icons and uploaded new ones. This should motivate me to post more often. I was considering getting a paid account, just to get more icons, but that's kind of silly. I know it's only $20 a year, but it still feels weird to be spending money on something as trivial as extra icons. I'm not that rich at the moment.

News:

I've moved out of the halls of residence and am living with Chris and Jenny now. On Saturday they're going away for two weeks. I might use that time to do some travelling on my own, but I have to figure out what's convenient first.
I booked my flight to Iceland yesterday. I'm coming on the 13th of July. I need to book other flights as well, but I think I'll leave that for a couple of days, because the krona has suddenly gone down again. Apparently it's 209.5 kronur for a British pound at the moment. Evil.

Oh, and I'm very much in love with Doctor Who. It's such an exciting, well written and all around awesome show with great characters. Not to mention that David Tennant is pretty. Very, very pretty. *sigh*
 

I'm more or less finished packing. Now I'm absolutely knackered. Need to run a bunch of errands tomorrow, which I'm not really looking forward to. I'm moving into Chris and Jenny's place on Saturday, which should be nice.

Kristján gave me an iPod for my 21st birthday, so about a year ago. For various reasons I never used it, and I didn't really think I needed it. Then yesterday I was clearing out a drawer, found the iPod and decided to finally hook it up to my computer and put some music on it. Today I tried it out for the first time, and... how the heck did I manage to live without an iPod for so long?! It's just so brilliant! You can walk around and do all kinds of stuff while listening to music at the same time! And they're not bulky like CD-players, so you can fit them in your pocket. They also don't skip if you move too quickly.
Yes, I do realise that I'm about four years behind the rest of the world. Don't ruin my joy. :P

I just handed in my last assignment, so now I'm freeeee! \o/
It's been a lot of work, but now I can relax for a while.

And tomorrow I'm turning 22. Last Sunday we had a picnic in the park to celebrate Jenny's and my 50th birthday. We look good for our age, don't we? :P
I took some pictures, which might be going up on Facebook soon.

Anyway, you remember when you were a kid and you were looking forward to a certain birthday, because you'd finally be old enough to watch PG movies in the cinema/ride in the passenger seat/get a driver's license/vote/get married/go to pubs/whatever? I think it makes birthdays more special when you can connect them with something like that, so I decided to make up a few arbitrary age limitations myself, starting with 22, because that's how old I'll be tomorrow.

22 - you're allowed to eat chocolate with chopsticks

23 - you're allowed to climb trees in your pyjamas

24 - you're allowed to rent a dragon

25 - you're allowed to do scientific experiments with jell-o

26 - you're allowed to dress up as Snidely Whiplash and yell "Curses! Foiled again!" in public places

27 - you're allowed to operate a pirate ship

28 - you're allowed to send postcards of places that don't exist

29 - you're allowed to make a larp based on your own life

30 - you're allowed to keep a clock in your hat

I'm in a bit of a self-loathing mood, because I feel that my dissertation story doesn't quite work. The ideas are good, I like most of the main characters, and the story almost works. Just not quite. I'm kind of stuck in a scene now, because I'm not quite sure how to move the plot from point A to point B, so to speak. I'm well into the story now, so it's more like point T to point U, but you get the picture.
Some of the scenes seem needlessly rambly and unsubtle, instead of exciting and ominous. And at times I feel like I'm preaching.
Also, the villains. I'm not sure if they work, if they're scary enough or if they make readers shout out, "Do something, for goodness sakes!"

I guess I'll put a few chapters up on deviouswriter . Maybe someone can comment and tell me if the story seems to be going in the right direction. And maybe I'll bother Mika about this tomorrow. He's good at being my muse.
This really wouldn't be such a huge deal if I had enough time to think about this, but I'm supposed to be handing this thing in next week! Bleargh!

Mondays have become my favourite day of the week (bizarre, I know). That's when I have dinner at John and Amy's place and watch Doctor Who. The point is to introduce me to each Doctor, so we watch a serial from each season. Last week we had Tom Baker. Tonight we'll get the bloke with the celery on his jacket.
We've also made an arrangement that I come over every Friday to watch Malcolm, to give Amy some time for housework. We started with this last week. I got paid with free food, ice cream and the second season of Red Dwarf. Yay!
Taking care of a baby can be pretty hard work, especially one as hyperactive as Malcolm (it's interesting how he already shows a distinct personality at such a young age - at least I don't remember Sebastian being this lively). But it's much more fun and rewarding than most of the jobs I've had. Honestly, though, I have no idea how single parents stay sane. After asking around a bit, the general consensus seems that they don't. :-/

Tomorrow I'm going to Liverpool with Jenny. That should be pretty awesome. I haven't been to Liverpool since I first moved here. And this time I actually have a camera! :D
The only problem is that I'm running very short on clean underwear. I was going to do laundry today, but there are repairs or something going on with the washing machines. I'm considering waking up extra early tomorrow to see if I can get my laundry done then, just to have clean clothes when I go to Liverpool. Annoying.

I'm going voting tomorrow.

Number of times I've fallen asleep in my clothes in the past four days: 3
Yeah, not good.

Anyway, this post will be slightly rambly, but I hope it will be interesting for some.

Small disclaimer: Spoilers from the following:
Sluggy Freelance by Pete Abrams (webcomic)
Fullmetal Alchemist by Hiromu Arakawa (manga)
The Girl Who Lived by Keiran Halcyon (fanfiction)
Left Behind by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins (book)
Harry Potter-series by J.K. Rowling (books)

( What It Means to Be a Hero )

I don't post very much, do I? My life isn't really super-interesting, you know. The only reason I'm updating is because some of you might like to know how I'm doing.

I'm on Easter break, which is great, although I fear that a lot of time will have to be spent writing essays and working on my dissertation. I've also finished my school placement. Today I handed in all the paper work, only to find out that there were a few more pages of paper work that I'd missed. Grudgingly I filled it out, handed it in and am now completely done and relieved and can just wait to get paid. Yay money!

Last week John started a tradition of inviting me over every Monday for some free food and a few epsiodes of Doctor Who. It's great to get to spend time with friends, and it's also great to watch Doctor Who.
Last week we watched a serial from the very first season in the 60's. It had an impostor monk in it. Yesterday we watched a serial about Cybermen from the second season, and one about Daleks from the third. Cybermen are scary.
Amy pointed out a shape in the end credits that looks like Darth Vader's helmet.

Also, I got Mika hooked on Full Metal Alchemist. Go me!

And now I'm tired and considering a nap.

( Starring... )


...I think I was supposed to study or something.

( Answers )

The meme itself can be found here.

Yesterday was quite annoying. The annoyingness started Sunday night, really, when my internet suddenly stopped working. It's happened occasionally that the server is down for a couple of hours, so I decided to just take it as a sign that it was time for me to log off and go to sleep. When I came home on Monday afternoon the internet was still not working, but I was too tired to deal with it, and spent the rest of the day sleeping.
When the internet was still down yesterday, I got quite annoyed. I called the ISP at the university, but the bloke answering the phone told me that according to his data the internet was working fine and should be switched on in my room. He did redirect my problem to some technicians, telling me that they'll soon give me a ring to get some more details. In my naiveté I somehow assumed that "soon" meant "in a few minutes". More than a day has passed now and they still haven't called.
I spent a large part of the day trying to keep myself occupied while waiting for that call. I didn't dare take a shower and go shopping, even though I was in dire need of both, in fear that I would either miss the call or not be at my computer when I got it. For a while I even postponed making lunch, because I was afraid that the call would come while I was eating and that the food would get cold while we were working through the problem. I caved in once I decided that I was too hungry to mind cold food. It was around that time that I started trying to troubleshoot the problem by myself. Unfortunately Windows Vista was being extremely unhelpful. Its advice pretty much amounted to: "Hi there! I've run into a problem that I can't solve on my own! Now I'll keep you guessing!" I changed some configurations that could have been the cause, but it didn't do anything.
Additionally, I spent a lot of time looking for my back-up disc for Microsoft Office, but couldn't find it anywhere. I was worried that I had lost it and that I would have to buy a new version. I don't even particularly like the newest version of Word. It looks daft. Luckily I managed to sort at least this problem out with a phone call to my dad who found the disc in my old room. He's going to snail-mail it to me as soon as he can.
I also found out that iTunes starts crying and throwing tantrums when you move files around. Strangely enough, it only had a problem with some files, even though I had moved all of them. I did manage to fix it, though.
After 8pm I realised that the technicians weren't going to contact me that day, so I finally took a shower and bought some food. And I got a package from Mika, which was nice.

...You know what? I think I'm going to blame everything that went wrong yesterday on Windows Vista. Okay? Everyone fine with that? Good.


EDIT: I'm at home now. This time Vista actually diagnosed the problem, so I managed to fix it by myself. Feeling a lot less cranky now. :)
(Still not too happy about Windows Vista, though...)

EDIT: Lost internet connection again. I restarted, but that didn't help. I tried to fiddle around with the configurations, but it didn't seem to do anything, and then suddenly the net came back on. Randomly. When I hadn't been doing anything. In other words, it seems that from now on I'll be living in constant fear of randomly losing connection to the internet. Oh yay.

Sick. Again.

( Music meme )
-----

( Book meme )

Five Subject Meme
Comment to this post and I will give you 5 subjects/things I associate you with. Then post this in your LJ and elaborate on the subjects given.

( The subjects sarahblack gave me )

This took a lot longer than I intended. And I was actually going to write about something else too. Oh well, I'll leave it till tomorrow.

Over at sarahblack's journal, I hinted that I had some particular thoughts on femininity. I hope you didn't come here expecting some great insights, because you might get disappointed. Just like with many of my other particular thoughts, they might not make much sense or be very important for anyone but me.

Anyway, as anyone who's met me should know, I'm quite a tomboy. In different stages in my life, my tomboyish has played different roles. When I was very little, I spent most of my time with my big brother, and as a result, I wasn't particularly feminine. Once I started school, I tried to fit in with the other girls (didn't succeed too well), so I became a little more girly. I don't think I realised at that point that I was less girly than my female classmates. I wasn't exactly masculine either; I didn't really hang out with the boys. I guess I was sort of... gender-neutral. Yeah, I was a weird kid. No wonder I had such a hard time fitting in.
My girliness was at its peak around puberty. I started caring what my hair looked like and whether my clothes were fashionable enough. Developing an interest in boys probably played a big part in this. After all, I needed to be pretty to impress the other sex.
Then, slowly, I came to realise that there's nobody I need to impress. If I need to look like a doll for a boy to like me, he's not worth my time anyway. If I need to look like a doll for a girl to want to be friends with me, she's not likely to be a good friend. So I started just being myself and gave way to my tomboyishness.
And, I fear, I gave way to the other extreme.
For a while I despised anything girly. I wouldn't allow myself to listen to what I considered girly music, wear what I considered girly clothes (unless I had to - I still wore a skirt to church) and associate with anything that I considered a girly stereotype. I'm not sure if I was even aware that I was doing this. Now what is the problem with this? For one thing, I wasn't being 100% myself, by pretending to myself that I didn't like ABBA because they're too girly for my tastes. But I was only deceiving myself, so that's not really the main issue. The main issue is that this is a certain kind of sexism. What I was (unwittingly) telling myself was that, yes, women deserve to be equal to men, but only if they act like men. Women who act like women should be looked down upon. This is wrong. Feminism is all about choice. Bullying women into staying in the kitchen is just as bad as bullying them into staying out of it. While it is an achievement that nowadays a woman can walk down the streets in jeans and a hoody without anyone crying scandal, that doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with wearing a dress.
The truth is that people are not binary. The world doesn't divide neatly into feminine people and masculine people. A women can have masculine hobbies, like playing videogames or watching football, and still like wearing pretty shoes and listening to Celine Dion. Likewise, a man should be able to have feminine hobbies, like shopping or embroidery, without being considered flaming gay. This isn't the case in the real world yet, but hopefully we'll get there some day.
I'm still a tomboy. I like to wear boyish clothes, play Super Mario and listen to rock music. And I can't stand make-up. But I still enjoy wearing a pretty dress once in a while, reading Jane Austen and listening to ABBA. And I shouldn't feel ashamed about it.