Wednesday, January 18, 2006

Dreads!

Well, it took months and months of wanting but trying to make sure I really wanted, followed by 3 days of tortuous backcombing, but I am now the proud owner of a head full of dreads...



Actually, not quite a full head since this morning I realised that several at the front were just crap and combed them out (they were so crap they were combable), so I'm now waiting for Graeme to get a free moment to re-do them. But still...bit of a change hey? I am pleased with them, though have been through several moments of 'what the hell have I done?????', and I know that they are going to take a hell of a lot of work to get good. I've not yet braved the outside world with them, that should be interesting...will people look at me weird? Think I'm a pretentious twat? (I'm not!) It will be fun, anyway. God knows what my mum will say...I'd prefer not to think about it.
My lovely friend Caroline spent a full 2 days sat in my living room backcombing my hair, for which I will be eternally grateful, even if some of them are a bit crappy! Bless her, that's a long time to spend knotting your mate's hair. It is not the most fun process, but we watched lots of daytime TV and cooked nice meals in between the combing. I think she will forgive me!
Before (what an horrendous photo...but how shiny my hair is! Oh, my beautiful hair! Gone forever!)

Spiderhead!

Oh, just delightful...


So, it is done(ish). Hopefully the front few will be really lovely, and hopefully they will get done before the meeting thing I have to go to at 12 tomorrow. Hmmm...

Wednesday, January 11, 2006

Back in the swing of things...

Long time no blog, once again. Hey, my life is just too darn exciting to sit down and write about it, what can I do?
Christmas/New Year has been OK, not riotously exciting, but mostly pleasant. Working sucked, as I knew it would, but it's over now so no need to worry. Xmas day with Graeme and family was lovely, then a nice trip up to the Lake District, which was slightly spoilt by my moods and the hatred that mountains have for me (and my right leg especiall!), but still had some lovely moments, as illustrated here! Then a lovely, rather sedate and mature, New Years Eve buffet type do that Graeme and I 'hosted' for a few close friends. (The beautiful photo of me 'dancing' and drinking some sort of cocktail like concoction on this evening is really just to show how awesome my scar is. It's even better up close. It is my major achievment of 2005-is that bad?) All rather lovely, with only one major blowout with the family, that was pretty much all my fault but very distressing nonetheless, and seems to be put to rights now. I doubt I'll stay at home during the next holidays, it's just not worth the potential aggro. We should have learnt by now how much better we get on when far away from each other!
And to top it off, on January 3rd we whizzed off to Amsterdam for a few days, which was mostly lovely. It's strange going with friends when I'm used to travelling alone, or with Graeme, especially when none of them are the most independent people in the world, but we had fun. Look at that lovelyblack and white photo of us consulting the guide book-how classy/cheesy is that? It's a nice city-I can't say that I completely fell in love with it, as I tend to do with more Mediterranean or Eastern places, but I'd definitely go back. Would be a good place to study for a bit I think, what with the bikes and the dope-what more does a student need?
Unfortunately, all this gallavanting meant that absolutely no uni work got done, and as a result my first week back in Leeds has been truly horrendous. I produced the absolute worst essay I have ever had the misfortune to put my name on, which was probably a consequence of thinking that I could do a 3000 word essay deconstructing military intelligence and providing a detailed analysis of the Iraqi WMD case in one day, without any precious research, and still have time to watch the Hollyoaks omnibus. Yeah. And I've done very little revision, messed up the three exams I've already had, and yet, instead of desperately studying foreign policy analysis so that I can redeem myself for that essay in my exam tomorrow, here I am writing crap for no one to read! This is really the first time in my life that I've just had no inclination whatsoever to put the effort in academically. Perversely, it has coincided with the moment at which I really cannot bluff it anymore. I knew that had to happen eventually, but I've become so complacent with the fact that I tend to get good marks that I just haven't noticed how much harder it is becoming. My Italian, particularly, has just become really poor because I simply cannot be arsed to learn stuff. If I put the effort in, I could be fluent. Instead, I struggled ridiculously with my exam this morning, a nd realised I'm lacking the most basic vocab and grammar skills. So, some pulling out of fingers is required, methinks. And it will happen, honest. I just have so mcuh other stuff going on, I tend to push it to the back. No more. 2006 will be the year of the motivated Beth, who gets off her arse and studies. And keeps the house tidy. And makes awesome stuff. And is sociable. Really, it will, after this last exam tomorrow. Then I have a week of utter freedom in which to get my shit in order for the real start of the year. Oh, such a procrastinator.
I'm tempted to put my New Years Resolutions up here, but the shame would be too much as I've already failed on most of them. And I've kind of missed the boat on that anyway. But I will make some lovely lists during my fabulous free time, which starts tomorrow at four. Now, I must actually apply myself to some revision. After Neighbours, of course.