If I had a million dollars, I'd be rich

That song is going through my head right now, and is incredibly appropriate as my mum rung me the other day to give me some EXCELLENT news... Student Finance have re-assessed my situation, decided that actually I'm NOT Paris Hilton and given me a lovely present of a £1000 grant! Yay I can afford to live! The money is getting saved up for the rest of the year to go towards my terrible spending habits in Morrisons reduced-to-clear section so I can afford to eat without worrying now. I'm happy, although I must admit, I did spend a little of the money when I was out shopping with some of my friends yesterday. The money went towards a new bakini, a track suit so I can start going to the gym and a new dress which I wore last night when out with Luke and his friends who will one day be my future housemates.

You know, I've just thought that if you're reading this and you're a person that doesn't know me you don't really know what I look like or Luke for that matter. Well I'm not good at describing myself and if I told you about Luke you'd probably be imagining some ginger-bearded pirate viking from the late 1700's. So I am now going to proceed to attempt to upload a picture of us (Out at our favourite nightclub, sugarcubes, taken last night) so you have some idea of who we are.

I'm the one without the beard in case you're wondering, and we're dancing in the picture, we're not horribly mutated as the picture might suggest. Do you like the dress by the way? I love it! Although I must say at the beginning of the night with the little black dress and bright red lipstick I felt a bit like a gangsters wife, but ah well, Luke says I looked good! It took me so long to try and work out how to upload this I can't actually remember what else I was going to say.....

* * * * *

OH I remember! I'm going home this weekend for an optitions appointment and also for the solstice gathering with mum and dads boarder morris side. I'm supposed to wear black and amber when I'm out with them, but as I'm going specifically so I can take pictures I thought that might look a bit like we're blowing our own horn so I'm just going in normal clothes. Luke will be there as his little brother Robbie is going to be dancing too. This is why I'm writing this now because I know I won't have time over the weekend.

I've had to change what I'm doing for my video project. I was originally going to do "Mr. Rocks adventure" about a pet rock who falls off his shelf and goes for a little adventure but realised that a)I dont have enough time to do it, b)I dont have enough people willing to do it and c)I'm not drunk enough to come up with a good idea of how he can get around with no legs. It was going to be one of those bright and colourful childrens shows that makes little kids really happy and excited and scares the living daylights out of their parents, you know the sort, the sort of scary thing theyre always playing on the CBBC channel nowadays. But like I said, certain reasons have stopped me doing this. So now I'm doing a project much closer to home and a lot more depressing. Instead I'm doing a very sad story about a young woman who becomes ill, thinks she is pregnant but it turns out she actually has diabetes. This is something I've been thinking about for a while because I was going to write a book in the style of Helen Fielding's Bridget Jones' Diary, but decided that the little bit where she is diagnosed could easily be done in a very visually pleasing way within the space of about 2 minutes which is what the brief is asking for. Unfortunately, the girl is going to have to be a student because I don't know anyone living in a normal house around here and really can't be bothered getting up at 9am just hand the camera back in, 9am is a time no student should ever have to see or even know of its existence.

The photography project this time could be quite interesting and I may post my final results. We have to take a picture of ourselves and merge our faces with a friend and then with an animal. One of the girls on the course has done an excellent job of turning herself into a pig-woman and I'm feeling rather jealous. But as I am going home this weekend I may pin down my cat Willow and merge my face with hers so I can always look back and remember the morngy old thing. (If you dont know this word then it's probably what my family would call a "mum-ism", being a word my mum had made up out of nowhere, she has a whole dictionary full of them. Anyway it basically means something that complains. A LOT.)

Well I'm going to finish now. I fell asleep in my lecture for a minute or two, so decided to take an hour power nap when I got back to my apartment at 5pm. Two minutes later it was 9:30pm and everyone in my flat had gone home for the weekend. So now I don't want to get a shower at this time but still have to pack my bag for this weekend and write down the train times so I know what time to get up in the morning and what trains to catch. Ciao for now.

but she's still preoccupied with 1985!

Todays title has to be dedicated to whoever the legend is that keeps playing indie music REALLY LOUD out of their window in Pavs. So far I've heard Bowling for Soup, Journey, and possibly Beatles, but I was talking at the time so didn't listen very well. Also it seems appropriate because I have been so preoccupied I've forgotten to write my lovely self-obsessed blog to you all, so sorry to my darling grandparents who I know read this religiously. I do love them dearly.

Okay, where to start, where to start? It's so hard becoming active in an area of life where you've previously been really lazy, it's like starting going to the gym again after months and months of not... Although of course less strenuous on the muscles and more on the back. I can't even remember what I wrote about last. So I'll tell you about everything from the past... since I got back to university... 2 weeks ago? I think so.

I was really busy the first week back! I had a photography project, a history essay, a Luke essay and Luke's first dissitation all to hand in within a week and a few weeks which was quite hellish on my "I like sleep" attitude, but I got it all done anyway and can I say I can see myself getting more than a measly 3rd on this unit of work, although it hasn't been marked yet. My history essay could have been improved had I known about the website our lecturer was supposed to show us months ago and invariably forgot, but no matter, what's a few years and a spelling of a name or two in history? (Sarcastic nervous giggle inserted here) Yeah yeah I know that is a ridiculous mistake to make but as I'm only taking history for the frst year and the first year doesn't actually count for anything more than getting into second year I'm not that fussed. The new lot of work we are doing involves the most basic of all tools on photoshop, which is driving me mad having been quite an expert for a few years now. At least I can expect a fairly good mark from it though, unless of course the lecturer has a certain way she wants us to do the work, then I could have a problem. She tried teaching us the "quick mask mode" in lecture, a tool I am more than capable of using having been taught this every year since being 13 years old, but she managed to confuse me to the point of not understanding it any more with her method... So I'm really not looking forward to this and have a feeling youtube tutorials will be my point of call.

Anyway, because we were between project for quite a while, me and Luke have been spending every moment available to us together, and it's been MARVELOUS! Such a joy to find time to fall in love all over again to the guy you want to spend the rest of your life with. We haven't even been doing anything interesting to be honest. We watched Scream which I actually really liked, we also watched "Avatar 3D" today which was stunning. We also have been house hunting for a student house next year... And very much doubt we'll be IN a student house, looking at the state of the 2 we looked at. One was £65 a week, our perfect price range, but was so small,poky and damp we said we wouldn't live there for £10 a week. The other was the most beautiful thing ever seen in the world and I would love to live in as my actual home one day, but was £80 a week, so really really expensive. Because there is 4 of us going to be living together we could quite easily afford a place costing £800 a month (£50 a week each) and also pay for all bills quite happily, and if we got a 3 bedroom place for £800 a month, it would be huge. So although the deposit is likely to be expensive (£1000 all together I THINK. The deposit is always a bit more than a full months worth of rent, but I think that means we will have already paid for a month and a bit... Don't quote me, when the other girl we will be living with gets better we'll be doing a lot of research), we'll have a really nice house to live in for however many years it takes for us to afford our own houses, which will be perfect.

I got quite a few things coming up soon. Valentines day is quite soon and although I don't have much idea of a present to get Luke, we have a few events that we will be going to such as "Spiers and Boden" concert (very famous folk singers), a ceilidh and a few other things all happening. We're pretty much using the entire month to celebrate as on 11th March, we will be celebrating our 4th year of being together. Good times are all on their way!

But the good times have had to be planned really carefully as I won't be around from the 17th Feburary - 26th Feburary, you know why? I'M GOING TO SAN FRANSISCO!!!

We got the details through the other day. We're staying on "pier 39" of fishermans warf, which has views of the river, the city, and the Golden Gate bridge! We'll be going to China Town for food a few times, also to be visiting "Castro", also known as "Gay Central", as well as Pixar studios, Dreamworks studios, Nappa Valley (sorry if that's spelt wrong), Alcatraz (again, dont quote me on the spelling), and we'll even be visiting Berkley University. For those who don't know, Berkley University is an Ivy League university, so on the same status page as Harvard and all the other big unis, that has a campus the size of the CITY of Lincoln itself. We'll apparently get to meet the students who hopefully will be able to tell us where to go for a drink (because Americans have a minimum drinking age of 21, and they're really strict on it ¬_¬). the only kick in the teeth will be setting off at 2:30am from Lincoln, so we've been told not to bother trying to get to sleep but we deffinitely have to eat something before we set off as apparently the plane food will be dire.

I think that's everything interesting in my life right now. I'll post again when anything good happens. So Ciao for now!

We were both young when I first saw you

A line from Taylor Swift's "Love Story" and very appropriate for this weekend. This weekend is Strawbear Folk Festival, the festival that is hosted by the residents of Luke's home town, Whittlesey, and me and Luke have a long history of seeing each other at the festival but never doing anything about it. I think the first time either of us noticed the other was in 2005, Luke swears he saw me sitting in a tree watching the bear burning on the Sunday. Then I saw him in 2006, he walked right past me at the ceilidh on the Saturday night and I remember thinking "Hello, I'll be talking to you later!", but unfortunately he was taking his little brother home who had been dancing all day and was really tired. If only he hadn't gone home we could have started our relationship months earlier than we did! Now we go to the ceilidh together every year and this year will be meeting up with his friends from Highschool in the local pub before the real festivities begin, I'm so excited!

Anyway, I don't have such a headache anymore so I think I can handle a more substantial blog than last time I tried to write! On Monday we had our first lecture back from christmas with Tracey, the photography teacher. She told me my pictures this time were a lot better and that I'm looking at getting a good mark so I'm hoping if I can put all the time in I want to put in then I might get a 2:1 for a change!! That'll be fantastic if I do. My camera is in my bag with full battery and spare memory card so I can take plenty of pictures at Strawbear and hopefully add them to the massive collection I already have for this project, we'll see.

The other big thing that happened this week was receiving a text message off Lauren, a girl on my course. We have spoken a few times before and get along pretty good, but before christmas we'd both been comaplaining that we never got told when the people from our course were going out so kept missing social events. But she sent a text to me on tuesday and asked if I wanted to go out with her and a few of the other people on the course. We met at Essence, one of the local bar/pub type things and got really quite drunk. (5 cocktails and 5 shots, plus paying to get into the club later on and I still had change from a £20?!) We met up with Charlotte, Dara, elizabeth, Amy, Lucy, Lucy's friend I don't know the name of, Luke and even Rebecca from our course and I also saw Sophy (manager of Shellshocked, the film I'm in) and had a really fantastic time! I'm really glad I went and can't wait for the next outing we all go on. But me and Lauren have started getting on really really well. Last night she was talking to me over facebook and told me she had lost her charger for her 450DSLR camera, so I went over to lend her mine, and ended up staying over until about 2:30 in the morning! Was good fun though, I can see me and her being really good friends. I found out this week who else is going on the San Fransisco trip with me in Febuary. Dara who was there on tuesday and is lovely, Rebecca who I'm getting on with better and better every time we talk and Tarryn who I have never really spoken to properly but that's probably because she's a joint student. It's gonna be such an amazing time! Can't wait for it.

Anyway, although my lecture doesn't start until 1:30pm today and it's only 11:55am, I need to go. I have to go to pick up a perscription from my doctor and cash it in at Boots, finish packing and do something to tame my hair which is not liking all this cold weather and the changes in the water I keep having to do through moving round the country. So I shall write again when I get back from Straw bear. I hope you're enjoying my blog!

I was born to love you

By a band called Secondhand Serenade introduced to me by Emily. I only have a few songs by them but they're quite nice and I've been with Luke pretty much constantly this week to make up for lost time over christmas. It's been really nice seeing him so much and I get to see him even more this weekend because it's Strawbear Folk Festival in his home town. We're going to meet up with his friends from Highschool on Friday; Cag, Adam and Al who we haven't seen in ages which should be really good.

Me, Luke, Dic and Sarah went house hunting for next year as we'll all be staying on at uni. We only found 2 houses that we were interested in, one on Waldern street and one opposite Luke, dic and Sarah's local pub, the Stag. Waldern street was AWFUL! The bedrooms were absolutely miniscule, with only just enough space for the double bed if you didnt use the desk or wardrobe, a bright lemon/yellow living room with dated curtains and a big damp patch on the ceiling and a tiny little kitchen, with a single bathroom for all 4 people to share. It was £67 a week and the Landlord, who was really rude and defensive by the way, wanted a £200 deposit and a £50 holding fee, neither of which are needed legally. But the second house was beautiful. The bedrooms were HUGE, they were all very blank white rooms but with plenty of nails for pictures to hang, a massive kitchen and a really good sized living room. It was beautiful and I really wanted it, but it was £80 a week, way higher than any of our budgets. So we had to decline both of them and are now stuck because we cant find any other landlords with houses in the correct location. So the hunt continues.

As it's Strawbear this weekend I've been working frantically all day today to get my work done and so am having a bit of a break for a bit while I get my head working again. I'm hoping I can get another useful photoshoot at Strawbear to add to my work and hopefully get more than a measly 3rd.

Oh my head hurts too much. I'll write again sometime next week. I have my own photography project to finish, a photography history essay to write and Luke's dissitation to check through which I simply refuse to do without him being in the room in case I come across any sentences that are really hard to understand, so might be thursday before I write again. Au revoir mes amis.

And all i can breathe is your life

From the Goo Goo dolls Iris, I was listening to this last night while laughing at Luke and Dic having a fight using nothing but rolls of wrapping paper. It was quite nice last night, Luke's house was full of his friends and we were all complaining about work that we have to do because we're students, so of course we have to complain about this kind of thing! Dic has finally finished his essay this morning which was due in before 4pm today, I'll be impressed if he gets more than a 2:2 on it. Luke had his done weeks ago and I finished marking his English this morning to check there were no stupid gramatical or spelling errors... There were of course, quite a few, but I dont mind becasue what he lacks in english he makes up for in science, general knowledge and of course, keeping me a happy girlfriend!

We watched "Halloween" last night. After the big build up my mum and dad gave me before we watched, I was rather disappointed. There was only one part that had me truely scared and hiding and that was when the "bad guy"'s face came looming out of the darkness like an ugly looming thing. Honestly, if it wasn't for the mask he insisted on wearing I would have been bored of the entire movie and it's supposed to be an 18! The cook, the thief, his wife and her lover was scarier than that film!

Anyway, I know todays blog is a bit short and I appologise for that, but I ahve just been given the horrific news that apparently we had to have our history essay on 19th century photography finished for today and of course, having not known this I haven't done it. I've been given a weeks extention but seriously, with my photography project to do and Strawbear folk festival erradicating my weekend... Well, looks like my bad low blood sugar reaction from the other day isnt going to be the only thing wearing me out. Looks like I have another all nighter to live through to get my work done. Lord help me.

Lincoln's Calling!

Yes my sad word play with the title of one of The Clash's greatest songs ever: "London's Calling". I'm very much my daddys daughter I'm sure you can tell. But Lincoln is calling, I'm due to go back on Sunday, but guess what? We're still walking in this bloomin' winter wonderland! Yes England is seeing it's coldest times ever with lows of -18 and highs of -1 degrees C (don't try and make me spell that word, there's not a chance I'll get it right, that's for scientists and news reporters to know, not photographers, we take pictures of the cold, not record it.) My mum had promised that she would drive me back but the likelihood of that is slowly slipping through my fingers like the snow that is causing such misery in the world. I fall on my bottom at least 4 times every time I try to get to our nearest town.

But ANYWAY! I'm going to stop rambling on now. Christmas was wonderful as I'm sure you all can imagine with the grandparents and the Uncle visiting from Canada and lots of lovely gluten free food and all that jazz. I went to Luke's house and finally got my passport sorted which is excellent. Also I have finally got my pictures printed so i can get on with my work now and hopefully get a better mark than a 3rd. As I'm sure every other person who blogs is doing, I'm sure I SHOULD be writing about my New Years eve, but unlike the rest of the country I spent it with my boyfriend and his family and it was possibly some of the most disturbing days I ahve ever lived through. But to allow my mother-in-law and father-in-law to keep some of their dignity I am going to spare you all the horrific details and jsut move on.

So that leaves me with talking about the only times I have been out recently, once to go back to college to visit my amazing IT teacher from college; Lynette, and also to do a bit of shopping for films I should ahve bought weeks ago. I bought Halloween, Scream, The Birds, The bicycle thieves and finally, one of the most grotesque films ever; The cook, the thief, his wife and her lover. I know you will be thinking "but Halloween and scream are much worse!" And I'll probably agree with you but I haven't watched them yet so I think I'll reserve my judgement for now thank you. I also went shopping with elizabeth, my friend from being about 4 years old. CD's, hair dye and jeans were purchased as well as a couple of books and as I have said before that I would tell all about this series of work, I shall do so now while I wait for my brother to go to bed and the appropriate time for me and my dad to start watching "the birds" by alfred Hitchcock (I'm sure there's too many C's in that mans name for the good of it. He's like E_war_Woo_war_, little joke on Edward Woodward's name for you there)

Noughts and Crosses by Malorie Blackman
I do actually kiss the ground this woman walks on for her noughts and crosses series. It has everything a good story needs; a romance, lots of action, a whole heap of underdogs, a really good moral and a new born baby (I'm a girl we like seeing new babies!) The storyline is really clever because she swaps around the way things were in our past, creates a brand new set of pop singers, popular songs, political figures, locations, even a brand new set of swear words and throws them all into our time frame while creating a completely different past.

Where as in reality it was the blacks who were taken into the slave trade and treat terribly, the colours have been swapped so the whites were the slaves and blacks were the majority, but there is still a major difference between reality and the books, the two colours never really mixed to be equals as well as in reality. This is the really big point of the book and the fantastic moral of the story, by swapping round the majority with the minority, Malorie Blackman has cleverly created a world that perfectly highlights that all people are exactly the same and that skin colour doesn't affect anything.

The main characters are Persephone Hadley and Callum McGregor. The whole way through the book you are taken with the characters as they try and fight to stay together as a couple when the whole world is against them and so by the end of the book, the demise of Callum has tears streaming down your face and you screaming at the unfair outcome of the book. the story line continues with an even smaller minority that shows that even though things look a lot better than in Sephy and Callum's day, things still aren't equal. I'ts a book filled with so many emotions; happy, sad, excitement, stress and so much anger for this young couple who put up with so much more than anyone could ever realise.

I have just finished "checkmate" which is the third book in the series and I only bought it a few days ago but it is so attention grabbing and unbelieveable that I simply couldn't stop reading, even when the words stopped making sence because my eyes were watering during the last few chapters.

If you can find these books, buy them and read them. I highly reccommend you do.
Noughts and Crosses
An eye for an Eye
Knife's edge
Checkmate
Double Crossed

Paper dreams Honey

Yes it's the Kooks, and yes I am only really a fan of "she moves in her own way" and "Oo La" but that does not mean I can't use the lyrics. I think it's the lovely northern English accent the boys have but certainly the Kooks have a small pull on me and I'm desperately listening out for another track of their deemed to be considered "good". But oh well, moving onwards and upwards.

In the end, I went to Lukes to get my passport (which isn't too bad actually, at least this time I won't look perpetually surprised!) and simply couldn't face going back to Lincoln just yet. I don't know why, maybe it's the pure hatred of being near school during the holidays that has implanted itself into my system and made me dread going back, but more than likely it's the bad memories I still have of the place. I know I should be getting over the horrific time I had at the beginning of the year, but I think it's maybe too soon as I don't know how the ex flatmates are going to react to seeing me again. Also the idea of gatecrashing a new years day party of someone I have never met before but happens to be a friend of Emily's was a little daunting. But I think one big part of it was looking at Luke and realising I wouldn't be seeing him again until well into January 2010 and I didn't like the idea of that, so I stayed behind at his mothers for new year...

... Please someone remind me never to do that again... EVER! It was lovely spending time with Luke, but that doesn't make up enough nice memories to block the terrible and awkward mental image of his mother "rearranging her undergarments" in the front living room, or the look on his dads face when I said "I really don't like wine, stop trying to force me to drink it!". I've never met a man more determined to get rid of 5 bottles of wine as his dad ever! Honestly he said to me "Ella, you can start putting mashed potato on your plate when you have drunk a glass of wine" and that was for every single type of food prepared, really nice thing to say to a girl who can eat hardly any of the stuff anyway because Lukes grandmother had bought everything frozen anyway. Christmas meals this year have been terrible with everyone digging into a massive plate full of food and me only being able to eat a few pieces of turkey, a lump of mashed potato, a few carrots and some really salty gravy. Don't go thinking I'm spoilt or saying there's people worse off in the world because I know all that, but people who are worse off in the world do not get fored a full bottle of gone off rosé down their throats before eating their pitiful christmas meals either.

On a much lighter note, I finally got my passport sorted! San Fransisco here I come! I'm so excited. I really can't wait to get there and am considering purchasing another 6 memory cards so I don't run out of space. You'll probably say to me "why not just get a bigger memory card than only 2GB?" well unfortunately having a laptop from my GCSE years means it does not have HD compatability and will even refuse to upload a single image of mine when on anything higher than a 2GB card. I can see myself buying a new laptop altogether before I start my real profession of photography. Money money money money money. But again, SAN FRANSISCO BABY! And here's where I say a massive thanks to my mum, dad and lovely grandparents who are lovingly parting with vast amounts of their own so I don't run out while there/back in my flat so thankyou you lovely people. I love you all. Goodnight!