Sophie's Blog

Nr 8. I can make pretty things!

2007-05-02T04:10:00.000+01:00

We are the 1st of May today, as such i had the day off work, woo! (I had yesterday off because of an exam, less woo) But anyway, I decided that I was going to make some jewellery because that's what I do when I have free time and its raining! Anyway, I am going to show you what I made today, and a few things from other days. My most productive hour was between 8 and 9pm when we had the power cut, an unusually short power cut it was too. We are well prepared for power cuts and got out the candles and torches. We learnt the hard way!!!!

So anyway here goes, I hope you like them!!!

A necklace - I really liked the glass bead and didn't know what to do with it until now

Earrings - I bought the base, which is the round moon shaped bit and did all the rest. They look even prettier when worn.

I made these the other day by twisting wire, and adding branches of beads from time to time. I am going to make a necklace using the same technique when i muster the patience! Its fiddly!

I made these ages ago, I made the yellow earring and didn't have anything to go with it so I made the blue side.

Again made a while ago, this is a nice light, dainty necklace comprising of 3 layers

A bracelet that I made today. It didn't come out very well in the photo because its a chain and the flash reflected off the metal. I have made necklaces out of chains too but they didn't come out well in photos either, so this one will do to illustrate.

Place your orders now! Hehe

Little know facts about me!

2007-04-26T02:29:00.000+01:00

I have 79 days left in Argentina
I can crash dive ball-out
5 days till my exam... and I still know nothing!
I am 1/2 french, 15/32 english and 1/32 spanish
I am qualified to teach gymnastics, trampolining and swimming at various levels
I don't like management very much (yet I am studying it)
I can count to ten in english, french, spanish, german and japanese (aren't you impressed!)

Thats all I can think of for the moment! Will go do some more of my reading now!

Honey, its cold out there!

2007-04-25T01:49:00.000+01:00

I was lying in bed yesterday, and i had the most brilliant idea for a post. I had even thought about how I would start it. Much to my dismay, i can't remember for the life of me what I was going to write about! Oh well, its can't have been that interesting then can it! Hehe

I just watched the saddest film, I was crying like a baby all the way through it. (Sarah wasn't even vaguely sympathetic!) It was about a lady with a terminal illness and her fight to have assisted suicide legalised in Canada. It must be so hard to be in a situation like that, not only for the patient, but also for the family. I can't even begin to imagine it. I don't want to go into a long rambling post about palliative care, passive and active euthanasia so I will leave it at that.

I have an exam in less than a week, and I have not done have the reading I am meant to have! Oops... I should be doing it now! Have any of you noticed that my blogging rate increases significantly when I have coursework to hand in, or an exam coming up?! I'm not avoiding anything, really! I will read a couple of chapters in a sec. i read 4.5 last night, and 2 on Saturday, so I am getting through the material little by little. Go me!

Its getting cold here, booooo. I liked Buenos Aires better when it was hot! Not only is it cold, but the mosquitoes seem to have developed resistance to the dropping temperatures and are still buzzing around. Horrible things. They seem to particularly enjoy my blood... I always get bitten at least twice as much as anyone else. How is this fair?! Maybe I am just sweeter than the rest :-)

I may do my reading tomorrow morning instead... ie. get up at 6am or so and read for a couple of hours then. It will be quiet at least. The only problem is that when i use this strategy I tend to add 30 mins repeatedly to my alarm clock until I wake up at the normal time anyway! :-S

Full stops.

2007-04-23T02:17:00.000+01:00

Politics and strategy of businesses. More interesting than it sounds. No, really. Looking at how people think and behave. What they consider important for the growth of a company. Analyse the lot, and come up with a strategy. Simple.

Unfortunately exams coming up. Bother, have yet to read books. Nothing different there then... Happens every term. One week to learn it all, typical. Will manage, always do.

Have work as well. All going well. Organising golf tournament at the moment. Not totally sure what I am doing, but who does? They all seem to think I do. Too many people in office for resources. Not enough computers. Lots of time lost. Wasted. Lose work flow. Never mind.

Friend to visit. One day soon. Coming from Uruguay. Keeps putting it off. Has too much work. Annoying! I want to see him! Nothing I can do. Waiting.

Life good. Generally. Lots of friends. Will miss them when back. Time flies. 3 months left... Too little, don't want to leave! Did England change as I did? I think not.

2 dollars to the pound. High purchasing power. Good for shopping :-) Bad for luggage allowance. Problem!

Enough for now. Bye bye.

Some things never change...

2007-03-28T02:51:00.000+01:00

Winking boy is still winking.
I thought he had gotten over his 'tick', but he hasn't! Grrrr!!!

Argentina

2007-03-27T03:56:00.000+01:00

Well as usual it has been a rather long time since my last post...

To be honest, I am not doing anything different, life is ticking along nicely. I go to work, I go to university a few times a week, I go out on weekends both to cultural type things and clubs, I meet my friends, I drink mate, and generally have a good time.

And thats it really, the rest is just details...

I leave you with a photo that I took the other night of El Puente de la Mujer (Women's Bridge).

I can't sleep!

2007-02-08T05:33:00.000Z

It is hot here! You see there are disadvantages to being in Argentina. To add to the hotness, the mosquitos keep attacking me, its horrible! So I can't sleep because the bites are itchy, and would close the window but its too hot for that! AND the only fan that Valeria possesses and which before was in my room is now in hers, and she isn't even using it! How selfish!
So anyway, this explains why I am up at 2.37 am writing on Blogger, not that this isn't an excellent time to write, but I think that I might be more productive at work tomorrow if I were able to sleep!

Yesterday I signed up for a bijouterie class which is exciting! I am going to make little animals and necklaces and things out of beads, wooo! Beware I might discover my creative side! Hehe! Although I did used to make necklaces a couple of years ago, and it was very fun, so am looking forward to it.

Today I went to my first class of 'parado de manos' which basically means balancing on hands, ie. handstand class! How perfect is that for me! I know! So now, I am doing gymnastics, capoeira, and a handstand class. Can I point out that all of these activities do include handstands, and that two of them include cartwheels, a recurring theme I feel.

Talking about gymnastics no developments yet on winking boy. Before last session Ivor started winking at me every time I faced him; now i assume that this means something as he wasn't winking at anyone else... not too pleased about this I don't think! Then last session I am soooooo sure that I overheard him asking another girl in the gym (one that I hardly know) if she thought I would go out with him, and she replied that she didn't really know me! Phew! I suddenly became very busy and was always doing something or chatting to someone whenever he was hanging around! This is very unusual for me I must say, as most of this class is usually spent lying on mats watching everyone else train! Its very fun i promise! Well I do rather a lot of chatting as well, its more of a social activity then a sport! But its good for my spanish, right? Thats my excuse for everything! Anyway, I am still deciding whether to give the guy a chance or not if he does ask me out, he is rather quiet, and hardly know him despite having seen him twice a week for the past 5 months! I will keep you posted!

Oooh my new version of blogger is all in spanish! I assume that this means i have an argentine google account which will be interesting. The letters don't match up to what they are called in spanish. For example, bold in spanish is negrita but is still represented by a b. Now, if this were word then it would be an n. Oooh I wonder what language the spell check will be in! That is a crucial factor which does actually matter, I might have to write all my posts in spanish from now on in order to be able to spell check them. You're not interested i know, neither am I really but cut me some slack its 2.52 am.

I think it is time to attempt to join the world of sleep again, perhaps I will have more luck now, if not I may be back online soon!
Nighty night! (I hope)

2007-02-04T00:41:00.000Z

Well its been a while! Ok so I seem to start all posts with that particular sentence or something similar! I will try not to in future!

Over christmas and new year, I was off travelling argentina which was very exciting. I have put all my photos on facebook, so i won't post any here, as there are sooooo many of them! I had such a good time, it was fantastic, and I really love argentina. So anyway, if you are interested, you can pretty much see what i was up too from that! It includes getting covered in mud during some fangotherapy in mendoza, which by the way leaves your skin feeling soooo smooth!!!! to cyclying up and down mountains in bariloche, I cycled 66 km in 6 hours! Trust me when I say that its a long way!

More recently I started work at the argentine british chamber of commerce, which i have enjoyed so far! I finished the months newsletter last week, and that got sent out. I wrote it single handidly, though people in the office kept passing me things to include so wasn't short of ideas! I'm going to have to start the next one soon because this one went out a little late.
I have been emailing dfferent companies when they make trade enquiries and things which is nice, and lots of brainstorming goes on for the fundraising event we are holding in march.
Everyone is really nice in the office, and they all bring things in to share, so we spend most of the time drinking coffee and eating anything from cheese and grapes to medialunas (argentine croissants)! Yummy!

The weather is rather hot here, its been around 33 degrees for the past couple of days, or higher than that at times. The heat is oppressive, but you get used to it, and i'm not outside that much anyway, as I am at work. However taking the tube in the mornings is horrible, between the heat and the overcrowdedness, urgh. To combat the weather, i have been to my friends flat a couple of times. They have a pool, so its always nice to visit!!!

Anyway, I am going out now, so will post again soon!

Who? What? When? Where? Why?

2006-11-27T02:34:00.000Z

Somehow the why doesn't seem to fit on the end of the who what when where. It doesn't flow. Strange. Whenever I click on the just updated blogs, they always seem to have a point to them, or maybe thats because I click the blogs with the interesting looking titles, who knows? So I was wondering what is the point of my blog? Why do I keep up the pretence of writing it? It isn't in the least bit informative, its rather dull actually. I read back through it and realise how bad my essay writing skills must be! I am not really telling anyone about my life because this is such a superficial part of it. It is a basic list of things that I have done over the past year or so, but nothing more. How does one put ones life on paper? Or on the internet in this case? I do not think it is possible, so much is lost of the pure essence of things. I don't write about most of my day to day happenings anyhow, who would be interested? And by the time I remember to update this journal, I have forgotten the small things that made life interesting and enjoyable at that time. I must admit that I have never put in a great deal of effort into the writing of a post, but I am also lacking most of the eloquence and style that some of you possess. I suppose that i have never been a natural at recording the happenings of my life, ie. I have never been organised or motivated enough to write in a journal, other than a couple of times when I was very upset, or someone told me something that shocked me deeply. I think that that amounts to a total of aprox 3 times! I tried to start a diary once when I was 12 or 13 I think, it lasted a grand total of 2 days! Commitment obviously isn't one of my stengths!!

Well done if you made it this far, I didn't! I'm off to bed! Good night, I love you all! :-)

2006-11-24T17:32:00.000Z

Hello lovely people,

I wrote a short post yesterday but then lost by internet connection, well the person from whom i steal te internet at home's connection , and so was unable to post it. I will attempt it again tonight, or maybe I won't, who knows! It wasn't very interesting anyway!
Yesterday I bought a 70 litre rucksack for my big trip through patagonia, wooo! I also bought a mini christmas tree to bring with me. Its sooo cute, and little, i don't know how well it will travel but never mind it was only a couple of pesos. I bought a mini angel to put on top of it and everything! I still have to find a present for Anna and her parents for christmas day since i will be with them. Arghhh, what can I get them?! I don't know her parents!Also we will be in the middle of a national park so it needs to be small... and if edible not meltable, and it can't be heavy, and well you see my dilema!
Today is my last day at university, and the last time I will see lots of the people that i have gotten to know here over the past 4 months. Strange! Well I will prob see some of the argentinians again soonish as I WILL STILL BE IN BUENOS AIRES, BUT LOTS OF THE FOREIGN STUDENTS ARE GOING HOME. tHEY SHOULDN'T BE ALLOWED, THEY SHOULD STAY TO KEEP ME COMPANY! HEHE! Ohhh bother, its gone to caps and I can't be bothered to change it to normal. Ohh well it will just look funny.
I went to a polo match on sunday, I felt very aristocratic, ok well maybe not as it isn't as exclusive as in england but it was nice to see a different sport, and the horsies were pretty! It was a little boring at times, and the crowd was rather silent but I will forgive polo for that! After all they gave me some free yerba mate, what more could i want?, even though I don't drink it very often.
I went trampolining for the second time in Buenos Aires on wednesday, at a different place and it was just as dangerous as the first place, but the people were nicer! The bed was soooo old that the elastic was frayed everywhere and the stitching had come apart around the cross so the elastic moved, allowing feet to periodically slip through, argh scary! Given the high rate of injuries in trampolining, I may wait till i am back in england to try again!!!!

Off to my last lecture of the term now, so bye bye my lovelies

Sophie's guide to...

2006-11-20T19:44:00.000Z

wasting a day!

1)Right were to start, well getting up late at 12ish usually helps the day move along well

2)Eat breakfast followed almost immeadiatly by lunch, ok so breakfast usually consists of a glass of fruit juice on a wasted day so its ok to follow it with lunch, really!

3)I forgot the shower bit, that takes a little time. Ok it doesn't really, but then you have to choose what to wear, which granted doesn't take very long either, you can just pick clothes off of the floor.

4)Watch tv for a while, some friends never goes amiss

5)Surf the internet, this includes reading emails and replying to them, reading blogs- noone ever writes anything anymore other than helen! Ok I am no the best at keeping this thing upto date either, but hipocritical I know... umm lets move on from that one. What else, look at buses to get to salta, obviously this doesn't apply to everyone as not everyone is about to travel to salta, but I am sure you can work that out yourself. And look at other interesting/ vaguely usefull sites.

6)Back to tv for gilmore girls! Best tv show ever, am totally hooked. Watch a bit of home and health, or people and arts which shows changing rooms! When you have had your fill of Lawrence lleweln Bowen and Handy Andy move to home and health and watch a couple of women giving birth or getting married or something.

You have probably worked it out already but the above has been my day so far... this is what happens when I have no univesity to go to for a whole day! Sad I know! To redeem myself, I had a really busy day yesterday, I didn't stop for a second! I will tell you about it later. But for now, i must continue with my day of nothingness, though I may do a little academic reading stuff later. urghh! The thought! And I need to go buy food too!

Interview!

2006-11-10T02:26:00.000Z

Please don't all faint from shock at the idea of me posting twice in a week, when i have hardly been posting at all! But I am excited at the prospect of perhaps getting a job! I have an interview with the executive director of the British Argentina chamber of commerce!!! Isn't that exciting! The most incredible bit is that it all came about when the university iof bath's deputy vice chancellor (thats the number 2 of the university, don't know why they are all vice chancellors, and not chancellors...) came to visit us here in argentina the day before eysterday as he was around doing something else. Anyway he had a meeting with this lady today and she actually rang me! Wow! So now I must do such things as send her my cv, and read up on the chambers online!

Thats all for now, tata

Sophie xxx

Eggs

2006-11-08T04:20:00.000Z

Hello everyone! Its 1.15am here, and I just got back from a pool party! How cool is that! So I thought I should write on blogger whilst eating boiled eggs, yummmm! But anyway, the pool party was to celebrate the fact that our partialito (little test) was over in financial maths. I had it this morning, and it went ok, finals here I come! (Just going to get another egg, one sec! Right I am back) So anyway, it was a good party, a small exclusive crowd at an argentinians friends house, we drank wine and then moved onto the vodka and coke. I know drinking and swimming not such a good idea, but most of the drinking was after the swimming. So yes fun fun fun!

What else? Well my mum came and visited me (she left a week ago now)}. She was here for 2 weeks, and it was the perfect excuse to do lots of fun stuff and go travelling. The first week we stayed around B'sA's. We went to an estancia (ranch place) to do some horse riding, we went to colonia (in Uruguay) which was very pretty, she visited the city a bit, we went to a tango show, and did other things too! Can't remember exactly! Then we went to Iguazu (Yes I went again!) to see the waterfalls there, and then flew to El Cañafate to see the glacier. The glacier was really cool (haha brilliant pun, only kidding) bits break off of the front of it all the time and it makes the most tremendous noises. It sounds like a jet's ultrasonic boom. We went hiking on the glacxier which was the best part of the trip. Its really beautiful and white and blue on the inside, and full of lagoons and rivers and lakes, and big holes!

I shall post about all opf the above in more detail and with pictures when i am not in need of quite so much sleep as I am now! I have to meet the deputy vice-chancellor of Bath uni tomorrow, cos he is visiting Argentina and thought he would pop in and see us, great! It means that I have to get uop 2 hours earlier! Ok at 12, but still! Anyhow, I shall go to bed now and write more when i get a chance!

Missing you all lots and lots! (Although pool parties make it all better! Hehe!)

5 portions a day

2006-09-26T13:38:00.000+01:00

I just came back from the green grocers with 3 bags of fruit and vegetables and it only cost me 16 pesos! That is less than 3 pounds! And this is what I bought:

1 kilo of eating oranges
1 kilo of apples
4 bananas
1 red pepper
2 small cucumbers
1/4 kilo of cherry tomatoes
A rather large bunch of brocolli
3 large pears

Isn't that impressive! Like I said all for less than 3 pounds, £2.75 to be exact! What can you get in england for that price?! Nothing! I love this country! Now I have the small task of eating all of these fruit and vegetables... Did I forget to mention that it was all for me!

Estancia Santa Maura

2006-09-06T19:03:00.000+01:00

Right this is the place I went to with some friends over the bank holiday weekend that we had here. We went horse riding, lasso throwing and cow milking!

Puerto Madryn

2006-09-06T18:48:00.000+01:00

Hey guys, well i promised photos, so here they are! The 4 above are from Puerto madryn, which is where I went whale watching. My photos of whales aren't very good, as they aren't animals that stay still for that long! Seals on the other hand just lie there posing! They sleep and look cute! The other picture of animals are guanacos, a type of llama.

Remember me?

2006-09-02T21:01:00.000+01:00

Ok, I realise that I am rubbish and that I have sent no emails recently, or written any blog posts or even been on msn messenger very much. And I am sorry! Really! Please forgive me! Its mad here you see, there is always so much going on and i don't have a reliable connection at home (as it isn't my connection and I am ´borrowing´other people's wireless!) so writing emails is therefore very very difficult as I have found that they just get deleted when I disconnect. Now I hope you will be able to forgive me for being so rubbish at basic cross-atlantic communication. Because I really am! Now I am going to try and update you all on what I have been upto in the past month or so!

Puerto Madryn: Some of you know that I went to see the whales in Puerto Madryn. And the selas and the guanacos ( a type of lama) and the austriches. It was really good fun, and I met lots of lovely people there of various nationalities. I went and walked along the beach lots and decided that i really love the sea, its so pretty and unpredictable. And I took lots of photos of the animals, which I will post when I bring my memory stick with me to an internet cafe, promise! I also went diving here, which was great fun, but really really cold! I couldn´t feel my toes when I got out of the water, and even after a hot shower it was so cold!
San Andres: This is the university that i go to here. It is a private university which means that everyone who goes there is very well off in argentinian terms. I have been to some of their flats, and they all have maids and so on! But they are all lovely! The university is titchy, which is good because it means that you get to know most people really quickly. And that you see those people all the time around campus.
Intercambio students: There are 40 of us from all over the world, a huge proportion of which speak fluent english and/or french. Well actually all of them do, so that means that i have been speaking a lot more of these languages than I should! We tend to go out as big groups of exchange students and its great fun.
Classes: I have finally chosen my subjects: Financial maths, human resources and spanish for foreigners. None of them are overly difficult, and I have mondays off! Woooo! Thats a long weekend every week, which should make it easier to go travelling into the argentine wilderness! But yeah, my classes haven't been difficult, the fact that they are in spanish really isn't a problem, although it can be difficult to understand students when they start to speak in class. They speak really quickly and use lots of lunfardo, which is the porteños' (person who lives in BA) slang.
Nights out: Going out here is incredible, argentinians go to a bar for a drink at 11 ish and then go onto a nightclub at 2ish, which makes for a very confused bodyclock! I seem to spend most weekends sleeping and then going out and then sleeping some more! Siestas are very much required for me to last through the night, as I usually get home at 6.30ish!
Santa maura ranch: A couple of weekends ago I went to an estancia, still in Buenos Aires Province, but 3 hours away from the capital federal. Thats the time it takes for a trip from London to Bath but for an argentinian thats just a jump, a hop and a skip away from the city! It was great fun, we went horse riding every day, gaucho style! (gauchos are like argentinian cowboys, they ride by holding onto the reins with just the one hand leaving the other free to throw their lasso at bulls!), we did some lasso throwing...at spades! You may laugh, but it was still incredibly difficult. We milked some cows, apparently, should I milk a couple more cows for a couple more days, i would be an expert milkmaid! The lady was very impressed because it is supposed to be a difficult skill to pick up, so there you go should I ever envisage a change of career...!
El teatro Colón: I went to see Messias at the theater the other day. It was my first time at a classical music concert, there was an orquestra and everything! heeh, obviously! And the soprano lady was wearing the prettiest dress in the world, it was greeny blue metallic type material, and was lovely! The man playing the funny looking drums was funny, he kept caressing them and listening to them and turning these dial things, I didn't realise it could be quite so compicated! I really want to see Swan lake which is playing there throughout september, but I haven't organised any tickets yet.
Shakira: On the other end of the cultural spectrum I am going to see Shakira with a load of exchange friends in november which should be fun! I had best start learning the words to her songs in spanish!

Tonight I am going to eat in a sweedish restaurant which serves a lot of vodka apparently! I will tell you about it if I remember the evening... And then we are going to a club somewhere! Who knows where!

Argentina!

2006-07-20T22:06:00.000+01:00

¡Hola! ¿Como estás? Hehe I will change back to english now. As many of you know, I am presently in the city of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Which has been referred toby some as the 'other side of the pond'. It is a very large pond, as it took me 14 hours to fly accross it! And it took my luggage longer, my bag had a loely time taking in the sights of Madrid airport. But I will forgive my bag this once as it decided to take the next plane out and join me here! (The last couple of sentences translated mean that I had to wait 24 hours for my bags to arrive as they didnt get put on the madrid to BA flight due to delays from london)
And then I arrived and was driven to my new abode, a very nice one it is at that. It is an area called Las Cañitas. (Ooooh this keyboard has fancy keys on it, it has a key that does this: ñ and this: ç isn't that cool! Except I keep pressing them by mistake cos they are in places where other things should be normally. I will have to learn to use argentinian keyboards!) Anyway, i have a very nice flatmate, she bought me a mug for my arrival isn't that sweet. I think it is!
Today its the day of friends here, and I was looking for things to buy her, but I couldn't find anything, I just ended up buying myself lots of stuff, which really wasn't the plan! It isn't even stuff that I can give to her! Silly Sophie! Ohh well!
Today I went into the centre of BA, to see the main sites. The pink house in the Plaza de mayo is cool. Its where all the presidents waved to enthusastic argentinians, and where Madonna pretended to be Evita!

Thats all for now, speak to you all soon!

2006-07-15T23:47:00.000+01:00

Well I said that I would put some photos of the Cambridge ball up so here they are! See below! Italy next... Maybe tomorrow!

2006-07-15T23:40:00.001+01:00

And its me!

2006-07-15T23:40:00.000+01:00

Izzie in front of the Bridge of Sighs, which incidentally looks nothing like the original in Venice!

2006-07-15T23:39:00.000+01:00

Food time!

2006-07-15T23:38:00.000+01:00

A cool ice sculpture! Its an elephant!

2006-07-15T23:37:00.000+01:00

In front of St John's

2006-07-15T23:36:00.000+01:00

Izzie and I

Cambridge Ball

2006-07-08T23:24:00.000+01:00

Well as usual I haven't posted anything in a while, though this time its mainly because I have been stupidly busy! But anyway, what have I been up to, well many things, a ball in Cambridge with my friend Izzie, a trip to Italy with Sarah and a blog-b-q!

So anyway, the Mayball with Izzie was great fun! I arrived in the early afternoon so that we could have a good chat and catch up. For those of you who don't know Izzie, we have been friends for years and have always done multiple extra curricular activities together! These have included ballet, tap, gymnastics, gymnastics coaching and swimming over the years, in fact all of them in the same year for years! In fact although we never went to school together we still spent over 1o hours a week together doing these activities. Gosh I was busy during my school years! We used to joke that we needn't go home on a Friday evening and that we should just stay at the leisure centre because we were there again on a Saturday morning! (6 till 7.15 coaching gym, 7.15 till 8.15 participating in gym, 9 till 10 swimming on a Friday and then 9 till 10 coaching on a sat morning followed by 2 hours of gymnastics!) So yeah, that's quite a lot when I think back on it, I remember being rather tired on Saturday afternoons! But anyway, we caught up on all the gymnastics gossip, there was quite a lot of it too!, and then got ready for the ball.

Photos of us a couple of years ago! It seems like yesterday, doesn't time fly!

But anyway, back to the ball. It was a lovely and amazing ball with entertainment everywhere I looked, and food and alcohol being offered to us incessantly. We danced, listened to music, watched the fireworks, played at the fairground stall (where I won a teddy bear!), and had a massage! It was all great fun! We were still up for the survivors photo which was taken at 6.30am the following morning. At which point we both decided it would be best to go to bed!

(I am trying to upload some pictures of the actual ball, but blogger is being increasingly silly and won't let me! Grrr! You will have to wait, or look on facebook, if you have it)

So this brings us to the Wednesday, the day I am leaving for Italy, so I woke up after 5 hours or so, and said good bye to Izzie. I jumped on a train to Standsted airport where I awaited the arrival of Sarah B. The journey had gone very well for me, but not so for Sarah, she was stuck in a coach on the motorway somewhere, with an hour to spare before check-in closed! Arghhh! I decided to check-in so that when Sarah arrived, well it was increasingly looking like if Sarah arrived, she could check-in quickly and then we could rush through security. I was starting to panic a little, and was not relishing the thought of flying to Italy on my own! But thankfully, Sarah arrived! Wooooo! Thank goodness for that! Anyway, we made it to Italy! I am starting to think however that Italy is going to require a separate post, as we were there for a week!

So It is probably best if I go to bed now, and write about Italy tomorrow, when hopefully Blogger will allow me to upload photos of the Cambridge ball and of mine and Sarah's adventures in Italy!

Good night xxx

To hell and back

2006-07-02T22:05:00.000+01:00

The Dante's Inferno Test has sent you to the First Level of Hell - Limbo!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Level	Score
Purgatory (Repenting Believers)	Very Low
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers)	Very High
Level 2 (Lustful)	Low
Level 3 (Gluttonous)	High
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious)	Very Low
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy)	Very Low
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics)	High
Level 7 (Violent)	Low
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers)	Moderate
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous)	Low

Take the Dante's Divine Comedy Inferno Test

Well thats not too bad I suppose! It could be worse!

Hello

2006-06-18T21:45:00.000+01:00

Well I am home, not for long admittedly! I am off to Cambridge to go to my friend Izzie's summer ball on Tuesday. Then I am going to Standsted on Wednesday and flying to Venice with Sarah B. Yey! We are going to visit Venice and Florence in the 8 days we are there, it should be fun :-)

This is a short post as don't have much to say! Ohh other than visit this website:

http://www.postsecret.blogspot.com/

I really like it, its lovely. People send in their secrets on a post card and some get put on the website every week. They are so real, refreshing and revealing (do you like the alliteration there?!) So yes I definitely recommend it.

See you all soon hopefully at the blog-b-q at sarah's on the 3rd of July.

Four by Five

2006-06-15T23:36:00.000+01:00

1. Five albums I'd take to a desert island
Dirty Dancing soundtrack
Eddie Brickell and the New Bohemians- Ultimate collection
Jack Johnson- In between dreams
Kahled- Sahra (the song Aicha in particular)
Richard Cocciante- Notre Dame de Paris

2. Five books that changed my life
Wild Swans, 3 daughters of china- Jung Chan
Rough guide to Vietnam
The nation’s favourite poems
Post secrets – also in website form www.postsecret.blogspot.com
Le petit prince- Antoine de Saint-Exupery

3. Five people who inspired me
Aisha- my old gymnastics coach
My mother
All of my friends- many of them have inspired me and I think that they count for at least 3 people!

4. Five achievements I am proud of
Passing my coaching qualifications
Coming 9th in BUSA trampoline southern qualifiers, and 17th in the final
Teaching children gymnastics skills and seeing them progress
Getting AAA at A levels, and consequently getting into Bath University
Being generally happy and making others around me smile

Pimms and croquet

2006-06-15T23:06:00.000+01:00

Well it’s been a while since my last post and a lot has happened in that time. The most obvious of course is that I have sat all of my exams. Some went well others less well, some were cancelled and some were not set by our lecturer but from past papers. The AUT strike has therefore had quite an effect on my degree this year. I have yet to receive any marks from my Spanish courses for this semester as my lecturers have all been on strike. This means that I really don’t have a clue how I have done so far. Never mind! I haven’t failed anything I don’t think! Anyway, my Spanish oral got cancelled which was good because I meant that I had one less exam. I think they will be taking marks from other modules in which we had to give oral presentations in Spanish.
I am very glad that exams are over because it means that it is the summer and the holidays, although it also means that I will soon be flying to Argentina which really is a scary prospect. It still seems very far away both in time and distance!

Anyway, on the Friday after the last exam we had a lovely barbeque at my friend Claire’s house. There were lots of us there and I may have been a little hyper… all I had were a couple of glasses of sangria… Once we had eaten our fill we skipped (literally!) to Victoria Park to play in the children’s play ground. For those of you who haven’t been to bath or the park in question this playground is amazing! It has 2 zip wires and an amazing see-saw. It has a spider web climbing frame thing and lots of other things! It’s great!

Saturday was the day of the ball, and Sarah B arrived. I collected her from the station and then rushed off to university in order to get ready for the salsa show that we were giving from 6 till 10.30. It was soooo much fun! I loved it. I’m not usually one for performing in front of crowds but it was so nice dancing on the stage by the lake in the grass amphitheatre. We were right by the entrance so everyone who arrived could see us which meant that some people that I knew saw me dance. It’s always easier when you don’t recognise the people in the crowd. So anyway, after we finished dancing I got changed into my ball gown and went and enjoyed the ball properly with Sarah. It was a lovely night, we even saw karaoke Ron, I think he was the highlight of the evening for Sarah! He is a legend at the university ‘come on people, we are wasting valuable karaoke time!’ Hehe!

Sunday we slept lots! And then gave Jack his birthday presents: a book on the world cup, a rather large croquet set and other little things. They were wrapped in fairy paper! We warned him in advance that they would be but I’m not sure he believed us! Then in the evening we went to La Tasca for tapas. Very yummy!

Monday I had lots of appointments to go to, and between them Sarah and I wondered around Bath. We did what everyone likes to do on a nice day: shop! And then Sarah had her hair highlighted and I went back to my house to pack her bag and bring it down to her. Then my Jack, Emma, Jenny, Claire and myself were off on our road trip to Thorpe Park. We stayed the night at Claire’s house and then on Tuesday had a great day at the theme park. It was great fun. Perhaps we should have gone on the water rides a bit later on in the day because we went on them at 11ish which meant that I was rather wet for quite a while! I went on Colossus and Nemesis inferno and samurai and X:\ and lots of other rides, but I stayed very far away from stealth which just looked very scary! We took the train back to Bath as Claire had a flight to catch the next day to America. She is working in Camp America over the summer. We were shattered and so cheated for dinner and ordered a nice pizza.

Wednesday I went out for lunch with my friend Renee. But nothing much else happened. Which brings us to today. Today was a lovely day! I had some stuff to do on campus this morning which I dealt with as quickly as possible; it’s strange to think that it may be the last time that I go to university in a year and a half. I met the others in town (housemates) and we set off on a walk along the canal. We headed for The George, a lovely pub on the water front where we had lunch. This was accompanied by 2 pitchers of Pimms. Pimms is very nice! It even had strawberries in it! We walked back and went home so that the others could watch the England football game. I read my book whilst they all sat watching the TV intently! And the day was finished off with a game of croquet, very refined I think :-)

I just tried to add photos to this post but blogger won't let me so I'm afraid you will not get so see any! I will try again later. Hope you are all having nice enjoyable weeks.

Kindness

2006-05-25T14:23:00.000+01:00

I have just set my status on facebook to avoiding revision, so I might as well do it well...hence a post. It is going to take me just as long to think up something to say as it will to write it out in intelligible sentences afterwards. But never mind, you need not understand me.

The other day, on my way back from Sainsbury's laden down with bags, I had a sudden, how to put it , realisation perhaps is the best word for it. I realised that most people are good and kind. Now why did I choose that particular time and place for this insight you may ask, well something as simple as a helpful word made me think. I was standing at the bus stop waiting for the bus, reading my book, when I saw the bus in a distance. In a slight panic I fumbled around to get my book back into my bag, as there was no way I would manage my book, my rucksack and the 6 bags of shopping full of the food that had been requested by the house. An elderly lady who was also standing by the bus stop, asked me whether the bus which was coming was the one that I wanted and told me not to worry that she would hail it for me and that she would help me with my bags if I needed help. It was just so kind of her that I didn't quite know what to say.

Its the little things like that in life that make you appreciate people. I don't think she has any idea how touched I felt at her little act of kindness, but I thank her for it all the same, and perhaps all the more, because she had nothing to gain. It all sounds a little silly now, but like I said it is the little kind thoughts in life that make the world of difference to people around us.

I don't think there is much more I can say in this post without lowering its tone, so I shall leave it at that. I hope you don't all think that I am a romantic, idealistic fool now because I don't think that I am.

The passing of days

2006-05-21T19:52:00.000+01:00

I have discovered that my memory is appalling when it comes to remembering what I have done over the past week. Try as I might the information is not forthcoming, so I will do my best to patch together my activities of the week.
I have already told you all about receiving the llama, and I wanted to thank you all for your name suggestions. As I have not yet thought of an appropriate name for said llama, I will leave you in suspense a little longer (well those of you who might possibly care, ie. Not many) and you will be notified of my decision shortly. Gosh this all sounds very formal doesn't it, never mind lets continue.
Time seems to have flown by and I have done not nearly as much revision as I should have considering the impending examinations. These are chores that we are put through every term and which really should be abolished. Whoever came up with the idea really should be shot! There is a song in France which school kids sing:

Qui a eu cette idee folle, d'un jour inventer l'ecole?

C'est ce sacre Charlemagne!

Sacre Charlemagne!

(Who had the crazy idea, of one day inventing school? bis

It was that stupid Charlemagne, Stupid Charlemagne) Thats not quite the proper translation but it will do. I'm not sure how to translate sacre!

Ok so the song is about school rather than exams but still! I have just skipped around the house singing it, and my housemates think I am a little crazy hehe. Well we al knew that already!

Ok well looking back a few days brings me to Thursday, a lovely day, and that of my friend claire's birthday. We went to Cafe Uno and ate far too much very nice food. On the way we bought a cake for Claire and gave it the waiters on the way in without her seeing, which was very clever of us really :-D. I was sat next to ed, one of Claire's housemates, and we had an ice war! It sounds silly now, but I think the two of us kept our side of the table very amused with our antics. The other side was a lot more demure. Ed kept giving me lots of ice in my glass, and no water, and so I gave it back to him, and it all continued from that really... I ended up putting ice down his top too oops! He couldn't slip any down my back as my hair was in the way, what a pity! Mature aren't we. When it came to the cake time, we tried to ask the waiter inconspicuously to bring the cake as he seemed to have forgotten, which of course did not work. he looked very confused and mumbled something about being in the process of bringing ordered puddings out. It was obvious he didn't understand what we were asking! Anyway, it finally clicked and the cake arrived to Claire's delight. After lunch we all trooped back to my house and drank some pimms, or was it sangria? I can't remember. Both are very nice after all.

Friday was my brothers 18th birthday, but as he is in London, and I in Bath, I did not see him. They grow up so quickly do they not? It makes me feel old having an 18 year old brother, and I'm only just 20! Anyway, back to Friday, I had a long chat with will instead of seeing him which was nice, I don't talk to him enough really. And I went to claire's where we played some board games. I don't see the attraction of board games personally. Lots of my friends like stategic ones, but they are just sooo boring! Following the games we had a girly sleepover which is always fun, and we chatted till 2ish about life and such like. The usual, those of you who have had girly sleepovers will know the general topics of conversation covered :-).

Saturday I did some more work, and then made a rhubarb and apple crumble which was very yummy. I do like rhubarb, its been ages since I last ate some. Oooh and I watched Eurovision! Woooo, the others just about put up with it hehe. I'm not sure they see the charm of it. I have good memories of eurovision though. Its one of those family or friends nights where everyone gathers round the tv and makes fun of the acts. Its great! Ohh and did you all see the national lottery get overtaken by fathers for justice that was exciting! It was even on the news after eurovision. Today, I have read lots of my book, which Jenny keeps laughing at me about as it is in French! I painted a plaster cast mask which was fun, a good passtime, which I recommend to you all. I shall be painting the clock which I was given for my birthday soon, once the first exams are over at least. I also made a pasta bake for dinner, which was nice. The best bit is always the cheese on top, but I usually get told off for scraping that bit off. Claire made tiffin which is always lovely. I think that my house is going to start a tiffin appreciation society :-)

Thats all that has happened in Sophie land over the past few days. Nothing very exciting but all pleasant. Hopefully everyone has had nice enjoyable weekends.

The Llama in question!

2006-05-18T01:14:00.000+01:00

Llama

2006-05-18T00:46:00.000+01:00

Hello everyone! To update you all, I finished my essay and handed it in on Tuesday morning...Before the lecturer got in. Yea! I will try not to do that again, it was a bit tight for my liking... Umm ohh well never mind, I have to be 'rebellious' at some point, and if that's as bad as it gets well that will have to do won't it!
Anyway, as you have probably worked out already I am little on the happy side this evening/morning thanks to the alcohol. I only had one too, a pint of cider, but on an empty stomach. I'm never hungry after 2 hours of trampolining and a game of rounders. Does anyone else find that they are not hungry after exercise? And I can't eat before it cos then would be ill! Anyway, that is besides the point. back to what I was saying, ummm, I've kind of forgotten where I was going with all of this.
Ahh yes, at some point I was going to tell you about the llama that I received today. It arrived in the post! I must say that when Sarah B told me she was sending me a present for my birthday (only a month late, that's very good for you Sarah! hehe to be fair my original present got eaten by German students... don't ask) But anyway, this llama is yellow and brown, and it doesn't spit because it is made of plastic, but I have been told that they do, and hane tells me that they make funny noises too. Its so cool and unexpected! I need to give him a name, its a he by the way, I decided just now because he looks like a he. Name wise, any suggestions are welcomed. Also, why do people breed llamas? Are they for riding on, or for their fur, or for eating? Also, Hane wants to know the difference between llamas and alpacas. (Jess I think you would be a good person to answer these questions as you are doing zoology, but anyone else is welcome!) Obviously this particular llama is plastic and so not very good for any of the above!
In other news, yesterday I went to salsa, and absolutely loved it. Why I haven't been more often this year is absolutely beyond me, its a great dance! I was amazed at how much I could remember, and was even able to follow the advanced class without too many problems considering how rusty my following skills were... There is a possibility that I will be doing demos on the night of my summer ball for people as they walk in, that would be fun :-)

I should probably go now, and perhaps get some sleep as not much has been had in the past few days what with one thing and the next. So have a great day, and enjoy yourselves. For those with revision, don't do too much!

Essay

2006-05-15T19:30:00.000+01:00

Although I haven't technically missed the deadline for my essay I am going to give up trying to write it in order to bring it in tonight becuase I am soooo bored of it. Plan B is to get up early tomorrow morning, and stick it in my lecturers pigeon hole before he gets in :D! This obviously involves finishing said essay which i am loath to do. I am singing out loud instead, as the others have gone out to play football in the park. But I will have to get back to it at some point I suppose. I really hate essays! Hehe

Six Things

2006-05-15T11:45:00.000+01:00

I have a essay to write for 5pm tonight, so i thought I should write a blog post! hehe. This is just something that would distract me but not take too long to do, thus allowing me to return to my work quickly! Yet another quiz thing I know, its all i seem to do, but never mind!

Six things in your room:
1. A mess- clothes all over the floor
2. A wall hanging from Vietnam
3. A photo of friends
4. A plant - it’s still alive!
5. A large selection of cuddly animals
6. My laptop

Six things you say most:
1. Shush!
2. Rubbish
3. Thank you
4. You’re welcome
5. Hello!
6. Boooo!

Six things you can't live without:
1. Internet- its my connection to the world outside Bath
2. My friends – they mean everything to me
3. Happiness – who can live without this one?
4. Distractions to keep me occupied
5. Excitement
6. Smiley faces

Have you ever:
1. been out of the country? Yes (Vietnam Thailand, USA, Australia, many parts of Europe)
2. Been to a bonfire? yes
3. Broken a bone? A finger, a toe and my nose
4. Had a dream come true? No
5. Had a crush? Of course
6. Run away from home? No

Six things in the last 24 hours:
1. Been confused? Yes
2. Cried? No
3. Felt stupid? Yes
4. Missed someone? Yes
5. Sang? Yes
6. Talked to an ex? Yes

13th May

2006-05-14T02:15:00.000+01:00

Good evening/morning all! I have just come back from what has been a great day full of fun. It started this morning/afternoon, whatever time you will call it, at 12.30, a picnic in the park was organised for jenny's birthday. Say woooo everyone! Everyone brought food with them and we sat on blankets and ate it all. It was very nice, there were flapjacks and cakes and scotch eggs and pies and pizza and sandwiches... The highlight of the picnic was the performance by the Great Nodgo, a magician! (also known as jenny's dad) he was great, well apart from the french jokes, they were rubbish but I wil forgive him for those, for he performed some almighty tricks. He read peoples minds and changed red handkercheifs into yellow ones and vice versa. Most of it was obvious, but it was made hilarious by the fact that there were a couple of young children who were totally taken in by it all, and who couldn't understand how it all worked! A big awwww for them! A bit of salsa was then danced in the park, and the i headed back home to get changed for my next social event of the day: Trampolining handover dinner/ night out! I got home, to find the housemates watching the penalties of the FA football thing. I was made to watch them too, and the highlights of the match afterwards. Ummm... Can't say it was that hrilling but the own goal was funny!
Anyway, I got to the social a little late because of all of this, never mind and we all sat down and ordered food. I had a cobb salad, and lovely it was too, once I had passd the bacon onto someone else (thanks Naomi!) Horrible stuff bacon! Prize giving was then carried out, and i won... *drum roll*... Tramp of the year award! How pleased was I! The bst part of it all was not the certificate but the prize that came with the award: a baton! with swirly ends and stuff. It was great and kept us all amused all evening! As we left the restaurant, we ended up on a grassy roundabout in front of the Abbey and decided to have a nice group photo. This soon ended up as sports acro photos, with people standing on shoulders, and giant pyramids being constructed. it was soooo fun! When the photos get emailed round, I'll put some up!
O'Neills was our next destination, where we partied and swirled (the baton) the night away! As you can probably tell I have had a few too many, and so will leave you all now to get some sleep, as I need to write an essay tomorrow. If this post makes no sense, then i am sorry, I will deal with it at some other time!
Good night everyone!!!

Random Post about Aries

2006-05-10T09:58:00.000+01:00

Having completed the questions about myself, I decided to investigate what being an Aries was supposed to mean, and whether I fitted the average profile or not. (I also haven’t blogged properly in ages and thought this was a good chance to do so!) Also I met my dad’s new neighbour a few days after my birthday so she worked out that I was Aries, and nodded in a way that suggested I fitted the profile. I think she said something along the line of Aries being quiet, responsible people. Ummm…
Obviously the profile of an average Aries is going to be quite broad, but I will see what conclusions I come up with anyway!

First some general information:
Aries is the zodiac sign for those born between the 21st of March (spring equinox) and the 19th of April. Being born on the 5th April, there is no doubt that I fit this requirement!
The emblem of Aries is the Ram, a determined fighter and a powerful adversary. The young ram is adventurous, ambitious, impulsive, enthusiastic and full of energy.
Well I could be a powerful adversary I suppose. I’d never really thought about it!

Mythology
Aries, The Ram, is the first of the twelve zodiacal constellations, and in Greek myth represents the animal whose fleece was sought by Jason and the Argonauts. Legend has it that when King Athamus of Boetia took a second wife, Ino, she was jealous of his existing children, especially his son, Phrixus. She therefore arranged for the crops to fail and persuaded the king to have his son sacrificed to the gods. Despite pleadings from the boy’s mother, King Athamus agreed to the sacrifice but, at the last minute, the boy and his sister, Helle, were saved by a magnificent ram with a golden fleece, sent by Zeus in answer to their mother’s prayers. Unfortunately, as the ram crossed the narrow stretch of water between Europe and Asia, Helle fell to her death but Phrixus was carried safely to land.

Aries in Love
Fire flies higher with Air signs.
Fire is secure with Earth signs.
Fire loses spark with Water signs.
Fire dances with Fire.

The gritty stuff
‘Ariens are always overflowing with ideas, schemes and plans to conquer the world, for a well-aspected sun in Aries radiates power and vitality. Many a moth has been burned in its flame!’ Humm, not sure about this one. I don’t recall ever having any thoughts of world domination. Maybe they are still to come! Although I haven’t seen any moths around recently… maybe I am taking over the world subconsciously. Now that is something to think about!

‘Mars, planet of high energy, aggression and assertion, arguments, fighting, and sex is the ruler of Aries. Mars is the doer, the warrior; he has youthful, physically active, and sometimes combative energy. Aries natives need some kind of physical activity as an outlet for this high energy. They tend to be good at sports and enjoy physical activities like dancing, hiking, or peace marches.’ I think this means that I am quite aggressive, and argumentative, which I would tend to disagree with. On the other hand I do do a lot of sports and it has been said that on the days I don’t do any I get a little hyper…So that would be the high energy then!

Arians are great organisers and leaders, full of flair and originality and can organise fantastic and impressive ventures. Unfortunately, despite your desire to be the front-runner in all that is done, sometimes your fire element means that you lack discipline and the capacity for prolonged effort and can just wander off, or sit back and allow the lesser folk to have their way.
Not sure about the wanting to be the front runner in EVERYTHING that I do! But I do get bored really easily and wander off to do other things.

In your personal relationships Arians are frank, direct and candid, and make enthusiastic and generous friends. There is, however, a negative side to your associations with other people. You can easily be irritated by slowness or moderation in your companions and, though yourselves sensitive, ride roughshod over the sensitivities of others. Please do tell me if I ever disregard your sensitivity. :-S . I can be a little blunt at times, but I think that is more of a french thing than an Aries one! But i like the thought that I am an enthusiastic friend, Claire told me the other day that I was perfect, which is a little far fetched, but it agrees with the generosity and stuff. Modest aren't I!

Strengths	Weaknesses
Headstrong, Courageous	Self-absorbed
Impulsive, adventurous	Oblivious to surroundings
Assertive	Agressive
First, self-motivating, initiating	Impatient
Honest, straightforward	Opinionated
Active, childlike, energetic
Competitive	Argumentative
Independent
Youthful	Provocative
Idealistic, defender	Angry
Passionate
Fun, popular	Loud
Charming

This shows characteristics of an aries person. I will leave you to decide which I portray. I can't decide!

(I can't remember how to put lines between cells on html tables. Ooops! Never mind, this will have to do for now until I sort it out!)

I'm bored of this now, so I am going to leave you with the conclusion that I seem to fit quite a few of the characteristics of an Aries, although that isn't that surprising given the broad spectrum of characteristics they have included!!!!

And the band wagon continues on its merry way...

2006-05-06T19:06:00.000+01:00

Well everyone else has done it, so I thought that I should follow the trend…, a little late I know, but better late than never!

Ok here goes:

Champagne at our JAGS leavers ball

Y-Stand on the beach in Hastings

Name: Sophie Annabelle Charlotte Bloomfield
Age: 20
Height: 1m71, I have no idea what that is in imperial units
Weight: Too much!
Hair colour: It is strawberry blonde I have decided, though my sister continues to insist that I am a red head… you decide!
Hair Style: I had it cut shorter recently, so it is a shoulder length bob
Eye Colour: Hazel
Blood type: I’m afraid I don’t know
Status: Single
Build: umm medium to broad
Siblings: A little brother and sister, well I say little 18 and 16 respectively
Pets: Millie
Pro-life or pro-choice: Pro choice
Right or left: I am right handed, and step onto my left foot for handstands and cartwheels. Though I can do both off the right foot as well!
Favourite food: My mums cooking, it’s amazing what you miss when you are away from home!
Favourite beverage: Water, nice and refreshing.
Chosen degree subject: International Management and modern languages (spanish) quite a mouthful I know, which is why it is known as IMML, or SPIMML.
Chosen Unis: Bath, and San Andres in Buenos Aires for next year
Personality: I would say I was friendly and approachable.
What I like about girls: They are nice and sweet and understand that wearing skirts is nicer than trousers. And they smile when you (well when I) twirl lots in said skirt and don’t laugh at me too much for doing so. Girls are also easy to talk too, and share ideas with and are generally lovely and supportive.
What I like about boys: They are friendly and talkative, and don't mind being dragged from the lake to go to a gymnastics conditioning session!
Music tastes: I like nice songs that you can sing along to when no one is listening
Film tastes: Chic flicks basically. I get easily scared by films. To give you an example, I went to see hostage last year with my housemates and jack kept looking t me in concern when I jumped every 5 minutes and asking me if I was ok. Not long afterwards watched I-spy and spent most of the time with my head buried in the sofa and a pillow over my head.
TV shows: Whatever happens to be on, in this house that tends to be friends
Hobbies: Trampolining, bounce bounce! And gymnastics, and work avoidance. I am very good at this, through the use of msn and facebook and other such delights. Oooh and I like reading, but I keep running out of books because I read them too quickly.
Nationality: British / French
Heritage: Well on one side I am french, though I come from the part of the country which was french then German then french then german then french etc. And on the other side I am English, though my dads ancestors came to england from france with Guillaume le conquérant. And apparently have a great grandparent who was Spanish too.
Favourite colour: Turquoise is pretty
Favourite metal: silver, its shiny
Favourite non-metal: Water (H2O) its transparent and liquid and freezes into ice and is a cool colour, and forms lakes and rivers and oceans and rain and is nice to drink!
Dislikes: Crisps
Pet type: Millie: Jack Russel Terrier, Zafara: Burmese cat (but we left her in our old house :-()
Pet age: Millie is 18 months old
Parents still married?: Technically but separated
Intelligence: Intelligent enough to get by
Gender: Female
Sexual orientation: Straight.
Homophobe?: Nope
Anything else-phobe: Maybe scaryfilmsophobe
Been on a boat?: Yes
A plane: Yes
A hovercraft: No
Town of residence: Bath and Tooting, London
Any crushes?: No one of interest around, and don’t have time!
Best mate?: Sarah is great! And I am going to Venice with her in June yippee. Claire and Emma are also lovely.
Am I mad? Little me? Not possible :-P
Lonely?: At times, even when surrounded by lots of people
Feeling towards exams?: I don’t like them and they don’t like me. The feeling is mutual
Do I like you? I hope so
Distinguishing features: I tend to smile lots
Any skills?: I can do handstands and somersaults, oh and speak French but that one is boring
What would you do if in command of all?: Try and make the world happy
Thoughts of future: To survive a year in argentina
What's that?: a country in latin america, far far away
Cock size: I am a girl!
Favourite sport: What a silly question! Trampolining and gymnastics of course, I know this is 2 sports but they are ruled by the same governing body so I reckon I should get away with it!
Favourite real animal: Ferrets, I walked one once and decided i would own one when older
Favourite mythical creature: Pegasus
Date of birth: 05/04/1986
Star sign: Aires
Chinese new year: I’m a tiger, Grrrrr! Apparently this means that I am sybolised by the element of: Fire - Dynamism, passion, energy, aggression, leadership
Happy?: Most of the time
EMO!: I don’t know what this means, please explain, Wikipedia isn’t any clearer
Then what are you?: I’m Sophie, and I am a who not a what
Errr...: So there!
Religious: I’m not, despite the best efforts of Claire my university friend who has been trying to convert me to Christianity, bless her!

Music thingy

2006-04-03T23:40:00.000+01:00

Well I thought that i would copy the others and do the music thing too! So here are my results:

How does the world see you?
Surfer Girl- Beach Boys : Umm well never having been surfing, not sure about this one! But I like the idea.

Will I have a happy life?
I say a little prayer for you- Aretha Franklin : Doesn’t sound too optimistic does it! If someone os saying a prayer for me there is hope yet!

What do my friends really think of me?
Big love adagio – shine : Does this mean they like me, I hope so.

Do people secretly lust after me?
Bend and Break- Keane : I assume this means no!

How can I make myself happy?
Mooning- cindy Bullins & Louis st louis : Not sure this one needs a comment. And before you ask, no its not happening!

What should I do with my life?
La cour des miracles- Richard Cocciante : Roughly translated as the garden of miracles. Does that mean I should wait for a miracle to happen? or that my life is a miracle?!

Will I ever have children?
Walking contradiction – green day : This one’s not very clear.

What is some good advice for me?
Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious- Dick van dyke, Julie Andrews, Pearlie Chorus : Yey! Mary Poppins is brilliant, and jolly :-)

How will I be remembered?
I love you everyday- errol brown : Aww, well that’s sweet

What is my signature song?
Beautiful stranger- Madonna : Am I a beautiful stranger? Hehe, or do i get to meet one, how exciting! I hope i meet one!

What do I think my current theme song is?I’ll be home for christmas- doris day : Well actually I will be in Argentina, a few thousand miles away, but that’s a small point I know!

What does everyone else think my current theme song is?
Are we dancing? – John davidson, lesley anne waren : Oooo dancing, I like dancing, haven’t been to salsa for ages but I really should…

What song will play at my funeral?
Heigh-ho –dwarf chorus : A nice jolly one then :-) , I hope it doesn’t mean I’m going to have to work lots once I’m dead!

What type of men/women do I like?
Don’t know how- Joss stone : Haha, this is pretty self explanatory

What is my day going to be like?
Bad day – daniel powter : Not that far off the truth! Today was a pretty boring day. I’m sure tomorrow will be better though.

2006-03-31T11:14:00.000+01:00

Your Birthdate: April 5

You have many talents, and you are great at sharing those talents with others.
Most people would be jealous of your clever intellect, but you're just too likeable to elicit jealousy.
Progressive and original, you're usually thinking up cutting edge ideas.
Quick witted and fast thinking, you have difficulty finding new challenges.

Your strength: Your superhuman brainpower

Your weakness: Your susceptibility to boredom

Your power color: Tangerine

I must say that I think they are spot on wehen they say that I have superhuman brain power! Modest hey! Hehe.

Last few days

2006-03-30T14:02:00.000+01:00

Its nearly time for the Easter holidays, and as such we have had the usual mad rush to hand things in followed by a calm period. I've been pretty organised this time round. I think I am learning to do work before the last minute. This is good as lots of pieces are due in on the same day!

For our Organisational Behaviour Coursework, we had to analyse the group behaviour within our degree course and the level of conformity that has occurred. It was a little silly but quite interesting. We came to the conclusion that for an IMML:

It is ok to arrive late in a lecture as long as one is accompanied by others.
Once in a lecture it is the norm to sit in the same place every week. Not to close to the front, and as near to sides of the rows as possible which helps ensure a quick exit.
That our course is full of people who go out drinking lots and talk about their drunken adventures the next day- well that's a surprise, nothing like your average student then!
That thanks to the Spanish and French contingents of our course, friends are met with la bise (air kiss) rather than a handshake!
That there are differences between the different language groups on our course. The students studying German tend to be more punctual, whilst those doing Spanish are more relaxed about time. Again it fits the stereotypes of the country.
There are different types of group within our course, the course group, the language groups, informal groups of friends, and formal coursework groups set by the lecturer. Within each group there is a different level of conformity
There is a certain amount of rivalry between IMML's and BBA's which makes IMML's arrive on time to shared lectures in order to keep the impression that our group is superior to theirs. ( We do both a language AND management. They only do management!)
And then we had some criticisms of Asch and Tajfel's social identity theories. But I won't go into who they are or what their theories are as I don't think that you would be interested.

I had a Spanish presentation on: Â¿Hasta que punto es verdad que la integracion europea ha proporcionado el marco fundamental para la elaboracion de la politica economica espanola desde la muerte de Franco?
This translates as: To what point is it true that integration into europe has proved to be the fundamental point for themaking of Spanishh economic policy after Franco's death? I'm sure you will agree that it is a thrilling topic to have a presentation on, so I will not bore you with any more details!!!!

Today I had a lovely picnic party with my housemates at lunch in pitstop (a sandwich place on campus). We had sandwiches, and I bought some party rings and bakewell tarts for pudding. Ummm party rings are nice. I don't find nearly enough occasions to eat them! Its ok though, because I still have a packet as they were on buy one get one free in the SU shop. It was fun and we chatted and ate nice food, and yeah simple but effective. I know that possibly it is a bit early to celebrate bday, but everyone is busy tonight and they are all rushing off home tomorrow, so it was the last chance for us all to gather in the same place!

RSPCA was my next stop of the day, I bought Millie a new collar on mum's request.It is one that should stop her pulling on the lead. We shall see if miracles occur! Hehe. I was also asked to buy a bubble machine that makes meat flavoured bubbles for dogs to jump and catch. Aparently it provides them with hours of fun. I am yet to be convinced, but it sounds like a cool dog toy. Never mind a dog toy in fact, I want one with nice sweety flavours!

Thats all folks! See you over easter hopefully.

2006-03-19T21:25:00.000Z

The last post was in fact written today, but it doesn't seem to want to tell you this. I can't find the place where I change the date!

Filling time

2006-03-16T15:34:00.000Z

Hello all you wonderful bloggers out there who still bother to read my blog! I am going to try and remember interesting things that have happened in the past few weeks since my last blog. I have to warn you in advance that most of these will be related to trampolining or gymnastics in some way as work is generally boring!

Looking way back into the past, there was the very exciting event that is the Bath trampolining competition. It was great fun because so many of my friends went. The comp was really well organized and run thanks to Lady Emily! She is THE most organized person you will ever come across, and is also chair of the trampoline club. They should have told me that you had to be organized before making me chair gymnastics! But anyway, the competition went very well and I came 3rd in my category, won a team silver and came 2nd in the syncro event. Sop a pretty good medal haul I think! All I was missing was a gold, but never mind! That will come one day... I am far too demanding aren't I!
Anyway, moving on we come to the Gymnastics BUSA competition. It was held in Lilleshall National Sports Centre, near Telford, in a purpose built gym (*drool*). Why don't we have one of them? The university has spent millions on a brand new sports centre, and didn't include a gymnastics centre. Grrrrrrr! But anyway, it was great fun, we watched the amazing grade 1 competitiors and then it was our go! We competed on vault and floor, and came 11th overall as a team. (out of 18 teams). After the competition I played in all the pits and all the trampolines, it was great!
Trampolining BUSAS were the following day, I was driven there by Jenny on the Saturday evening. We sang throughout the 3 hour drive to various tracks, including songs by alanis morisette, alisha's attic, robbie williams and others. By the time we arrived in Lancaster, it was 11 pm and we were both ready for bed! Sunday morning, and a hot cross bun later, we drove to the sorts hall where the trampoline competition was being held. Ummm hot cross buns are yummy, especially when they have been toasted and have a bit of margarine melted on them.
But anyway, back to the sports hall, it took us ages to find it, there was a full blown blizzard going on outside, to the point that when we got into the sports hall they announced that we should book somewhere to stay for that evening because they didn't think that people would be able to get home! All the trains were cancelled, and cars couldn't get out of the car park because they had to go up a slope, and it was covered in ice! But anyway, we managed to get home fine in the end as the snow slowed down. I did my 2 routines right at the start of the day, I screwed them up a bit, but never mind, I came 17th overall in the end, which I am pleased with because I was not last! Anyway, that was last weekend.

Monday I can't remember much from other than the usual ridiculous number of lectures. Tuesday I had a group meeting all day, ohh the fun life of a student! Wednesday was similar during the day and then I when out in the evening, and got a little drunk. Ooops. My grammar class at 9.15 the next morning was fun! The day was then spent in another group meeting. Friday, guess what, I had another group meeting! Can you see a pattern emerging here?! And then I went shopping in town, and bought lots of pretty clothes, yey! A pair of trousers and 2 t-shirts. On Saturday I went to Bristol with Claire in the morning and bought more clothes! A really really nice jumper and some walking shoes, because my mum kept telling me to buy some!
That brings us to today, I had yet another group meeting, ohh the fun of I all. In case you are wondering they are for the various pieces of coursework due in at the moment in the form of essays or presentations. Yeah I know, my life is thrilling is it not!

2006-03-01T13:49:00.000Z

My favourite places

My home in London- my family live there need I say more?
My home in Bath- this is where I spend most of my time with lots of my friends. Yey!
The stv (sports training village)- it has lots of trampolines in it! They are fun to jump on and do somersaults and baranis on! The stv also has a really big cool swimming pool, which is 50 m long!
The inside of my mind- its a great place for a one to one chat with myself!
Camber sands with Millie- its lovely to see her run around on the sand and try to dig it up to find shells.
Box hill- a great place for walks
The Lycee- a place full of fond happy memories
South Kensington- contains a good selection of museums and the nicest creperie imaginable. Yumm
Vietnam- its kind of cheating to include a whole country, but it was so lovely and the people were so nice and I had such a wonderful time that I think it deserves to be on this list.
Lots of other lovely places deserve to be mentioned but they will have to be left for another day.

Boooo!!!!

2006-02-22T22:39:00.000Z

Hope I didn't scare you! :-P
I went to Birmingham today for the much awaited gymnastics competition! I managed to find a driver in the end. He was really sweet, and drove s all the way there and back. I thought that he would wander off into Birmingham for the day but, no he stayed and watched the competition! The advanced men and ladies categories were very impressive mind.

So anyway, I did everything I was meant to do as the organiser of the trip, I remembered the leotards, the scrunchies, the directions and even the bum glue! (don't ask! Its used to stick leotards down so that you don't get a wedgie half way through a routine, a very annoying occurrence I must add)

We were in the cool new Mercedes 9 seater thing, which although it is a car is absolutely massive and is nearly the size of a minibus! It is very nice and comfy though :-) , good for a 2h30 trip each way! Our driver got us there in one piece, well done him! And got us back to obviously.

Once there, we spent the first couple of hours watching the advanced competitors competing. As I said earlier they were all very good, although I think that some of my team should have been in advanced rather than novice... umm ohh well... next year we will know!
Then it was our go. After a general warm up and a specific warm up we each took to the floor, strutting our stuff in time to the music! Hehe. I was good fun, and I managed to remember my routine! Go me! We moved onto vault next, and competed two vaults each. It was on vaulting table, which is always scary especially as I haven't used one in years. But it was all fine.

So yeah that was it. We came 2nd overall as a team, which I think is rather good, and Nicola came first in our category. (She is the one I think should have been in the one above! Ooops!) So we all have shiny medals now. Yey, I like competitions, not so much the competing part but more the team spirit before and after the comp. Its funny because neither gymnastics or trampolining is considered a team sport, but that is by far the best bit of the day, the mucking around as a group.

Ooh and we all looked really flashy and cool in our brand new, collected today, white gymnastic club hoodies!

PS. I seem to have used an incredible number of exclamation marks in my post. But then I suppose that isn't unusual, I always seem to :-)

Life and stuff

2006-02-16T12:46:00.000Z

Why does organizing things always seem to be so difficult? I have been landed in a position of responsibility and I can't even find a driver to get me to Birmingham and back for a competition. Ridiculous. The sooner the end of the year comes and a new committee takes over, the better.
On a lighter note, I have had a nice half week so far. Sunday was lovely, I went to Surrey university to compete in trampolining BUSA's (British university sports association) and came 9th out of 100, which means that I qualified for the finals. I'm not sure whether I actually want to go to the finals in lancaster though because I know that I have not a chance of getting a podium position and I qualified through luck more than anything else. Well, by luck I mean that my routines went well for the first time ever. I'll end up going because the university likes people going to BUSA's and getting into finals. It increases their points in the league. They need all the points they can get if they ever want to compete with Loughborough.
Yesterday my mum, sister and Millie (dog) came to visit me here in Bath. It was nice to see them. We went for a lovely walk along the skyline, which has the prettiest views of the city imaginable. Millie was a pain though and decided to roll in some poo, silly dog! So we had to go to the RSPCA shop and buy some dog shampoo and give her a wash when we got back.
Tried to go to the theatre but was sold out. Not surprising really, as is Dawn French and a famous singer but can't remember her name, playing in it.
The times gave me a free newspaper today, and the film Rebecca, which I must read and watch at some point. I never seem to have any time at the moment. Am preparing a presentation for Monday on the Falklands. It really was a stupid war that, and issues over the islands still haven't been resolved.
Ohh and we are having our windows fitted with double glazing! Just in time for the summer! hehe! But it will be nice to cut some of the noise from the road out, and will make the house warmer. Unfortunately the putty he is using to seal the windows with stinks to high heaven and the whole house smells!

Sweden

2006-02-13T13:19:00.000Z

The week before last, was our intersemester break, which was a great opportunity to relax a little and recover from the 2 weeks of exams that preceded it. The university are going to get rid of it next year! Nooooo! Claire and I used the opportunity of a week off to travel to the lovely country that is Sweden. Why Sweden? Well ryan air had some cheap flights going and I've always fancied going there, especially since I made some lovely Swedish friends in Valencia a couple of summers ago.

We went to Stockholm and stayed in a youth hostel on a boat!

Isn't it pretty! We had a nice cabin on it which we had to ourselves most of the time, except the one night a Finnish lady joined us. She was a little boring, she didn't want to talk at all, this may be because she was tired. She slept solidly from 5pm to 8am the next morning. Strange lady!

On the first day we went to visit the Vasa museum, which was all about a big ship called the Vasa which sunk 20 minutes into its maiden voyage. The ship was a little top heavy you see! They forgot about the Vasa until recently (350 years after it sank), when they managed to bring the whole thing up off the sea bed and built a museum for it.

We visited lots and lots of things. We visited some of the many islands comprised in the archipelago (the 22000 islands that surround Stockholm) , I don't really want to bore you with the details, but they really were lovely. The water all around them was frozen and they were all covered in snow. It really was nice. I also met up with my friend sofie, which was lovely as I haven't seen her in nearly 2 years! She invited us to dinner, and we reminisced about the old times! How old do I feel!

Origami

2006-01-16T15:40:00.000Z

I got back home earlier and decided that it was as good a time as any other to begin my one page a day origami calender. The best one was the crown which I will show you in all its glory:

Emma decorated the crown with some lovely stars! And Sheep here is modelling it very nicely wouldn't you agree :-)

Translation of French post

2006-01-15T10:46:00.000Z

Helen asked me to translate the post so that she could read it. As she asked so nicely, I will comply! I have translated it more or less literally.

It was about time that I wrote a post in French, so here it is. It won’t be a very long one, but will tell you what I have done in the gap between this one and my last.

Obviously we all celebrated the festivities (that doesn’t make sense in English ummm). Christmas went by without too many problems this year. William came over to get his presents, dad came for the day, Nathalie was of course already at home with me and mum. I received some very pretty jewellery, several guide books for Sweden and Argentina (countries that I will be spending time in shortly), some DVD’s and little bits and bobs to fill a stocking.
We ate a lovely turkey which was very nice and a lovely Christmas pudding. That has to be my favourite pudding! It would have been nice to have a ‘buche glacee’ (like an ice cream roll decorated as a log, that you have in France for Christmas) but they don’t sell them in England :-(. It will have to be for another year! (Possibly not next year as I will be in Argentina)

The following day were used to empty more boxes of stuff, I went ice-skating with my sister Nathalie, Sarah and Tom. Sarah was a very effective decoy as he spent much of the time at the rink speaking to her, and trying to hold her hand! My plan was brilliant! Hehe! I ignored him mostly, if he doesn’t get a hint that subtle then he never will! It’s been two years since I met him now and he still doesn’t get it! Silly boy! Other than unpacking and skating, a lot of TV was watched.

New Years Eve we spent in Guildford with some friends and their friends, all very nice people. Everyone has written extensively about it so I won’t bother :-)

I spent 4 days at Claire’s house in the new year. We had said that we would do some revision but we didn’t do that much! But a little is better than nothing no?! I had a lovely time there, we went shopping, played some tennis and played lots of card games.

Manou arrived on the Saturday during the day and I went to collect her from Waterloo with mum. She wasn’t expecting to see me so it was a nice surprise for her . She is sleeping in my room, so I had to move all my stuff out before she got to London, which of course was a lot harder than I had thought.
That evening I went into London to meet up with a friend I met on New Year’s Eve. We went for a very nice walk around central London, with stops for a couple of drinks of course!

And here I am back at university, with exams in a few days. I will really have to start revision as I have hardly done any, but I can’t get started on it. There are too many distractions. We shall see how it goes in time.

But I am going to wish you all good night, and sweet dreams, as i think it is time for bed now! Speak to you soon!

My aura is blue

2006-01-14T16:00:00.000Z

Hmmm, I'm not sure about some of it, but blue is a pretty colour
(and if I do quiz things I don't have to revise)

Your Aura is Blue

Your Personality: Your natural warmth and intuition nurtures those around you. You are accepting and always follow your heart.
You in Love: Relationships are your top priority, and this includes love. You are most happy when you are serious with someone.
Your Career: You need to help others in your job to feel satistifed. You would be a great nurse, psychologist, or counselor.

What Color Is Your Aura?

99 words

2006-01-14T15:34:00.000Z

I have been sufficiently bored by revision to write a 99 word story today. Although I'm not sure if it qualifies seeing as there isn't a plot of any sort! Here it is:

The sun flickered through the branches of the tree above her. She surveyed her surroundings and noticed a stream in the horizon. A blink and she had arrived. Passing birds called out greetings; trout, each a different colour of the rainbow, swam round in circles. Chocolate frogs jumped across stepping stones waiting to be kissed. A fluffy cloud of candy floss briefly obscured the sun, sending pink shadows over the mysterious land. She shuddered at the sight of the beautiful yet eerie landscape.
The girl stood up and yawned. She smiled to herself; it was time to go home.

And here is the one I wrote a couple of days ago. This one is even less of a story, but I think I prefer it:

Thoughts, they run through my head like a steam train through a tunnel. Whooshing and wooing all the way. They serve no purpose, they have no destination. I turn to see what is coming, but find I cannot see. The silence is deafening. So I walk in the hope of finding shelter. The train is still on its way, I try but I cannot outwit it. It knows I am there. I shout and scream but no-one hears me. I am alone. I hear someone calling me; I leave my thoughts behind; the smile returns; all is well again.

They are quite similar really aren't they. Funny that.

2006-01-13T23:52:00.000Z

I keep trying to write a 99 word story, but have failed miserably. I got to 76 words earlier this morning, but couldn't think of anything to say to fill the word count. Ummm. And I went back to read it this evening and it sounds really quite bad and sad! So that one is being thrown away! Maybe inspiration will strike at some point.

I had a nice day today, I didn't have to get up for anything so I was able to lie in till 10 which was nice :-) . I did far too much revision, well I didn't really as I have hardly done any yet and I have an exam on Monday. Argh!
I went trampolining this evening which was fun. I didn't do anything very complex, just some tucked front and back somersaults and a barani or two. It was tiring but fun, and very lovely to see my friends there after a long break.

Tomorrow its the weekend which means I don't need to go up to university. That should save me some time and allow me to do some more revision! That is if I don't spend too much time on msn. Ummmm. Ohh and I have a friend coming over for a roast chicken thing, so revision is going down the drain really isn't it, although we did say we would do some revision. Anyway, I shall see tomorrow!

Un poste en francais

2006-01-11T23:05:00.000Z

Il etait haut temps que j'ecrive un post en Francais, donc le voila. Il ne sera pas long, mais vous dira ce que j'ai fait dans l'interlude entre mon dernier et celui ci.

Bien sur on a tous fete les festivites. Noel s'est passe sans trop de problemes cette annee. William est venu chercher ses cadeaux, papa est venu pour la journee, nathalie etait bien sur deja a la maison avec maman et moi. J'ai recu quelques bijoux tres jolis, des livres qui m'aideront a visiter les pays dans lesquels je vais me retrouver dans quelques semaines et dans quelques mois (la suede et l'argentine), des dvd's et des petits trucs pour remplir ma chaussure qui etait devant la cheminee.
Nous avons mange, comme est la coutume dans ce pays, une dinde, qui etait tres bonne, peut-etre un peu seche, et un bon gateau de noel. J'aurai bien aime une buche glacee mais ils n'en vendent pas en angleterre :-(. Ce sera pour une autre annee!

Les jours suivants furent utilises pour vider des cartons ( nous venons de demenager, si vous ne le saviez pas deja) , pour aller a la patinoire(en evitant Tom autant que possible en amenant avec moi Sarah, une ruse tres efficace car il a passe la majorite du temps a lui parle!), et pour regarder beaucoup de tele!

J'ai fete le jour de l'an a Guilford avec des amis, et leurs amis qui etaient tous tres sympas. Nous avons bien sur trop bu et pas beaucoup mange. Ceci est un mauvais melange! L'alchool me monte deja a la tete en circonstances normales, alors sans rien manger, et ben vous pouvez imaginer! Mais j'exagere un peu car j'ai arrete de boire assez top dans la soiree.

Je suis allee passer queques jours chez mon amie Claire dans le nouvel ans avec l''excuse que nous allions reviser. Bien sur nous n'en avons a peine fait! Mais un petit peu c'est mieux que rien apres tout, non? Je me suis bien amuse avec elle, nous avons fait du shopping et nous avons beaucoup joue aux cartes.

Manou est arrive samedi pendant la journee et je suis allee la chercher avec maman. Elle ne s'attendait as a me voir donc ca lui a fait une bonne surprise :-). Elle dort dans ma chambre donc il a fallu que je bouge toutes mes affaires avant qu'elle n'arrive, ce qui fut une tache bien plus difficile que je ne le croyais. Ce soir la je suis sortie avec un ami que j'ai rencontre le soir du jour de l'an. Nous sommes alles dans le centre de Londres faire une jolie promenade avec des arrets pour quelques boissons bien sur!

Et me voici maintenant arrive a la fac, avec des examens dans quelques jours. Il faudra vraiment que je me mette a reviser car je n'en ai a peine fait, mais je ne reussis pas a me motiver en ce moment. Enfin, on verra bien comment ca ira.

Mais je vais vous souhaiter une bonne nuit, et esperer que vous faites de beaux reves, car je pense qu'il est temps de dormir maintenant! A demain!

Jenny's thoughts (I'm a housemate by the way)

2005-12-12T13:44:00.000Z

Hello this isn't sophie, but hey I can still tell you what she's been up to.

She is right about the coursework thing, she is always up till very very late the night before, usually after spending the evening singing french nursery rhymes, so its her own fault!

She is now very bored, the poor girl has nothing to do for the next 2 hours - how sorry do you all feel for her.

Last night she had a very nice time, after Emma (house mate) cooked a lovely christmas meal, and she also won a bracelet and magic cards in the crackers. She also managed to still have some money (chips) at the end of poker, and that was with only going cap in hand to the bank once.

Tonight we are giving out christmas presents - she has just made a really poor attempt at getting me to tell her what she is getting. But it is ok i'm on the ball and haven't given anything away.

On Saturday she went to a first aid course, how glad am I she is my house mate. On Sunday she went to a trampolining competition and came 16 out of 32 - VERY WELL DONE!!!!!!!! And the team came 4th out of all the teams!

Apparently this is a very short post - all I can say is at least I've made the effort.

She must have done more than this - she is never in the house

Jenny

2005-12-08T08:43:00.000Z

To tell you the truth, I haven't done anything all that interesting since my last post. I am in work avoidance mode and so I am blogging!!

The weekend before last I had the lovely task of helping my mum clear out the garage. We found some weird and wonderful things in there including some potential Christmas presents! We found loads of old videos that we haven't watched in ages seeing as we don't have a video player any more, so I returned to bath laden with such classics as Aladdin, black beauty, the worst witch, Mary Poppins, well you get the drift! My house mates were thrilled to bits! Hehe.
What was quite odd was finding pictures of my mum with boyfriends from when she was my age, she didn't dwell too much on them though and moved on pretty quickly! I'm sure that here are some possible stories that can be wheedled out of her on this topic!
Since the weekend clearing out, I have been doing rather a lot, far to much for my liking in fact, university work. Why do lecturers always set coursework deadlines for the same days? I am rubbish at forward planning, so I always end up the night before writing the essay for the next morning, which isn't always the most constructive thing to do. In fact that is what I am avoiding now. I have a lovely essay to write from my Comparative employee relations module on Industrial Relations in Spain (in Spanish of course).
I went to a lovely carol service on Tuesday evening, which ended in the eating of many mince pies and the drinking of wine. Yummmmmm! I then went to a salsa night which was fun. Its been ages since I have danced and its amazing how quickly you forget to follow a lead! (and how quickly you forget how to walk in heels, let alone dance in them!)

But I really should go do my essay now, so I shall love you and leave you. Bye bye!

My week

2005-11-07T11:34:00.000Z

Hello,

I guess I lied when I said that I would be blogging more often this year than last because I had more frees throughout the day! They all just seem to be taken up by work and messenger and email checking, and by the time I get round to writing posts on my blog I have forgotten everything that I have done in the time period since I last blogged.

On Monday night I went out to caddies with the trampoline club and got quite drunk. But it was fun. We played lots of strange games which were supposed to get us to know everyone better, such as when someone stood up and yelled Chinese firecracker everyone had to change seat and talk to the person next to them. This evolved into doing 'la bise' too (ie. air kisses). At Cadillac's I had my fist ever shot of sambuca which was lovely, I love aniseed! But hell was it strong.

Moving back in time I used a trampoline competition being held in Warwick as an excuse to go visit Sarah hb which was lovely. It meant getting up at 5am on the Saturday morning though in order to drive there. I was navigating so me and the driver had to remain awake. The others in the car however were soon fast asleep with their mouths hanging open! The competition finished and Sarah and fauzia came to find me, we had a lovely dinner in a restaurant called xanana (like banana but with an x :-) ) , and then went back to sarahs to get changed for school disco night in the SU. It was good fun, but I'm afraid I wasn't brilliant company as I was extremely tired. We went back to sarahs and chatted and messed around until 6am, so I was up for a total of 25 hours. Madness!

Yet another step back in time takes us to Wednesday and my visit to Bristol to see georgina. It only takes 15 minutes by train to get there! The bus takes longer than the train does! I managed to find the right train and we chatted in her bedroom and ate pizza and ginger cake (yumm ginger cake, thanks for introducing me to that georgina! I bought some more yesterday!) until it was time for me to go home and for her to go to her navy thing.

Thats all folks,

Sophie xxx

Hello lovely people

2005-10-10T13:29:00.000+01:00

Hello again!
I think that I may be blogging a lot more this year due to the sheer number of useless hours I have dispersed in my timetable and my unwillingness to do work :-) Today for example, I had a 9.15 till 11.15 and then 4 hours free till 3.15 (I am currently between the 2 lectures). I can't go home because I will lose an hour to get there and an hour to get back and then I have to settle down and blah di blah. So I am stuck up here. When I actually have work to do then it will be ok as will have something to do! But we have started the year off nice and slowly, which I am not complaining about in any way!

Tomorrow is my friend Renee's birthday and the day after it is my friend Emma's birthday. I am going to buy Emma a dressing gown but can't think for the life of me what I am going to get Renee. Any ideas? If you do please comment!
Tonight to celebrate the birthdays we are going to caddies which is a nightclub here in town. I haven't been since last year but its usually quite fun. And then tuesday is my lovely no lectures day. Yey! Tis a hard life being a student.

Can't remember who asked but I do international management and modern languages (Spanish), otherwise known as SPIMML.

Have a nice day!

University

2005-10-07T17:36:00.000+01:00

Hello to anyone who might still actually read this. I doubt that there are actually many of you left! Helen was saying that she couldn't remember what she had done in the post week, I haven't blogged in a little longer than that so my memory is going to be rather full of holes!
I have been at university for 2 weeks now, and have had lectures for 1 week.
Today was interesting, I had the strangest lecturer ever. The course name is organizational behaviour, and thrilling it sounds too. Or not. But anyway we did nothing related to the course at all in the first hour. We were first asked to 'get into the zone', (the learning zone that is in case you wondered) by relaxing our shoulders, moving our neck, closing our eyes and remembering a time when we were truly motivated. You can imagine the sniggering going around the lecture theater at this point. So anyway there we all were with closed eyes peeking a look at our neighbours to insure that we aren't the only ones going along with this strange start to the lecture! So after reaching the zone, we were all ready and eager to commence. Ummm in theory. The guy then went on to explain that we all remembered things differently and that memory worked in different ways and that we had to describe what we remembered from receiving our A level results. This was followed by making a mini production line of paper folding, and the joys that come with this. But yes enough said about that lecture!

What to write about now? I am currently waiting for enough time to pass that I can go trampolining. I don't know who organised the times but it only starts at 7pm and finishes at the stupid time of 10pm. Its all very well if you live on campus but I have to get home and it is a long long way. But I don't mind the houses location too much because I like my room, and the people I live with are nice.
I went to my friends house for dinner the other evening which was nice. She made a lovely chicken lasagna which I must say is not a dish that I have ever come across before but nice all the same. She offered me a lift home in her lovely mini called rose, which is white and has a pink roof. We got half way back to mine to the bottom of the hill when rose obviously decided that it wasn't worth the effort of driving me home and so broke down. We had to push this mini into a suitable space in order to wait for the AA. As we were moving the car, a lovely lady passed us and invited us in for a cup of tea whilst we waited. For once the AA was very quick and we only waited 30 mins or so before they arrived. Rose then drove all the way up the hill quite happily!

I am going to grab a bite to eat now before trampolining starts, so bye bye, and I will try and blog more frequently. Ha! Like thats going to happen!

Vietnam

2005-09-12T13:48:00.000+01:00

Like I said before I am going to make my life nice and easy and post the 2 emails that I sent whilst i was in vietnam. They will give you a pretty good idea of what I did whilst I was there.

Email 1

Hello all!

Well I have finally arrived in Vietnam and have been here a couple of days now. I am slowly picking up a few words in order to be able to speak with the locals in their own language, always appreciated, usually creates a laugh at my awful accent!
The journey here was a long one which involved 3 planes, the first to Abu Dhabi (arab emirates),the second to Bangkok(thailand) and the third to Hanoi(vietnam. We spent around 24 hours travelling, fun!
The stopover in bangkok was nice, a good opportunity to stretch our legs and practise our mostly forgotten thai. We were there for 5 hours, so we decided to have a foot massage. it was lovely!

Our first day in vietnam was spent relaxing, and catching up on sleep. There was a nice pool at the hotel with a retractable roof, and we spent most of the day lying on chairs beside it reading, sleeping and occasionally swimming. We ventured out onto the streets of hanoi later on in order to buy some water. Its really dangerous to be a pedestrain in this country because there are no traffic lights, pedestrian crossings are ignored and mopeds speed around everywhere. Its real havoc! They dont even stick to the correct side of the road most of the time!

Yesterday evening we boarded the sleeper train for Lao Chai. It was certainly a bumpy ride! It was really hard to sleep because the train kept stopping and starting abruptly and like I said before it was really bumpy. I got a couple of hours sleep though, and then watched the countryside go by. Vietnamese farmers were already in their paddy fields at 5.30. The scenary was beautiful, I didn't expect vietnam to be so green, but there is greenery everywhere, probably due to the abundance of water thanks to the large rivers that flow through the country.

We arrived in Lao Chai at 7.00, an hour late, and had breakfast. We then drove to Can Cau market which is in the mountains. There are lots of minority peoples living in the mountains, the ones from this particular region are called the flower H'mong people. They wear lovely dresses
made from lots of different peices of fabric (mostly red) and lots of velvet! I don't understand how they stand the heat because they wear so many different layers, and it is so hot! They were selling lots of bags, and diferent materials. Very pretty, and cheap!
This afternoon we drove to Sapa, passing very close to china on the way. We drove on one side of a river and china was on the other, literally a couple of metres away. In fact mums mobile thought that we were in china and it welcomed her to the country!
It really shows that vietnam is a communist country, the military have so much power here. There wee loads of poicemen in the airport, and today we got stopped in a road block. The policeman asked to see the drivers papers, and decided to keep them, saying that he would get them back when he returned. This of course left our driver without papers. We continued on to the market, and on the way back we were stopped by another set of policemen asking the same thing. Of course he didn't have his papers as they had been confiscated. he therefore had to pay a bribe of 100000 dong (3 pounds fifty) it doesn't sound much I know, but in vietnam you can do a lot with that amount of money.

Tomorrow we are going to visit the silver waterfall and then going on a walk to visit Cat Cat village. We will also go and see Sapa market.

Email 2:

Well I left you all a while ago now in Sapa, in the mountains. I will try and remember all the interesting things that happened since then! (though it may be difficult!)

Well in sapa we went to Cat Cat village which is the home of the black H'mong people, a different minority group from the mountains. They wear clothes dyed dark blue with leaves from the indigo plant. Of course it means that lots of women wonder around with blue arms because they have been dying material! We had a lovely walk to go down to the village through paddy fields, and then we visited some of the houses in the village. Their houses are just one massive room with some partitions made of material. The biggest area is always reserved for the altar that they use to worship their ancestors. They also have little bits of paper hanging from their doors to keep wandering spirits out of their homes. The H'mong have some lovely customs such as men kidnapping the woman he wishes to marry and putting her in a room in his house. he keeps her for 3 days during which time she only eats something if she agrees to the marriage. Its quite hard on the woman if she doesnt like her suitor! 3 days of fasting!
Later that day we went to a waterfall which was very pretty. The most interesting thing however were the hoards of men lining up to take photos of me! I was very confused and didnt know what was happening! I still dont for that matter. Mum did nothing to help me at all, in fact she quite willingly started taking photos of them with me for them!

The next day we went to visit the red Zao people in their village. On the way there, guess who we should bump into but................. yes you got it the group of vietnamese men who had taken photos of me the day before! I hid!!!!
The guide book says that this ethnic group is a shy and retiring one, however upon arrival we were surrounded by 7 ladies trying to sell us their wares. We were followed and even encircled by them at times during our 'relaxing' walk through paddy fields! We ended buying some of their goods in order to get rid of them!

We took the sleeper train back to Hanoi (another bumpy ride accompanied this time by a dutch man and thai lady) We had the day off, so we did what you do in vietnam, shop! The next day we visited the city. Everything is very militarised, when we went to visit Ho Chi Minhs mauselium, we were made to walk in lines, 2 by 2 and were not allowed to talk. There were guards stationed at every corner of the room. Ho Chi Minh himself looked pretty good for his age! (he has been dead 20ish years and it looked like it had been a day) They spend 2 months a year on his appearance, which helps I suppose! Mum and i both came out under the impression that he was made of wax, which I am still inclined to beleive although the guide was adamant
that he isn't! The prison was our next stop, the 'Hanoi Hilton' as the americans called it. it was full of propaganda about how well they treated the american soldiers during the vietnam war, but then that is to be expected I suppose, the propaganda I mean.

We had a nice relaxing day on the thursday on a boat in Halong Bay. I was a little disapointed when i found out that it was just me, my mum, the guide and the crew on board and that there weren't any other people joining us. I was hoping to talk to some other people, but in the end it was fine. We had a lovely time kayaking around the islands and swimming in the jade coloured
sea (whilst avoiding the numerous jellyfish of course!). Our guide got stung several times, and for once i didn't! A miracle! I tend to get stung by anything that moves.

Back in hanoi we had our most interesting meal of the trip. We started off with 3 different types of spring roll, one resembling a cornish pasty, another a round doughball and the last a spring roll. Feeling full we moved on wanting to try a dessert called che. We approached a lady sitting in the street selling something that looked like what we were looking for. We asked for che, at which she looked slightly confused. In the end we jut pointed at someone elses dish and got what they were eating. Upon tasting the thick white liquid we discovered to our amusement that it was in fact rice gruel with fried bread on top. it was, erm, interesting! We ate a bit and managed to discard the rest! we presently moved on and came accross a stall selling bamboo juice (they pass a bamboo shoot through a pressing machine thing and put the juice in a plastic bag with a straw.) which was lovely. We were wandering along enjoying our juice when we found a sign with che written on it, so we tried it! They give you a glass and then you get a spoon and fill the glass up with all kinds of weird and wonderful looking things. I dont know what half of them were! It tasted a little strange, a bit of a mish mash of flavours, and textures. It was not very sweet because the vietnamese dont really have a sweet tooth and dont like cakes.

The following 2 nights were spent in a stilthouse, sharing a house with local people. Well that is, us sleeping on their living room floor, under mosquito nets! There wasn't much to do in Mai Chau so we tryed to find an internet cafe, and we managed to find one but unfortunatly the power was down for the 2 days that we stayed there so it wasn't open! We walked up and down the only street in the village 5 times looking for somewhere to eat. The locals must have thought us pretty strange because we are not exactly inconspicuous! We ended up having a soup in the pitch dark somewhere.

The next day was pouring with rain and we had been supposed to go on a long 2 hour walk around the countryside with our guide. However, the guide announced that the walk was off due to the weather. Seeing as there was nothing better to do, we decided to go on the walk without him! At this point he decided it might be best to accompany us. It was certainly a muddy walk, so I decided to do the local thing, and took my shoes off (which weighed a ton anyway thanks to the kilos of mud attached to them). It was a lot more fun splurching through the mud after that!

We took our last train in Hanoi and said goodbye to our guide not that we were all that sad to see him go, as he wasn't a brilliant guide. During the train journey we were kept amused by 2 vietnamese business men who fortunately were getting off at the same stop as us, which mum was very pleased about because she had been so worried about missing our station. +There was no chance of us missing the station however, because our travel companions woke up at 5.30am and started making noise which woke us up too! Then at 6am some propaganda music started playing through the loudspeakers. We only arrived in Dong Ha at 7.15!

We met our new guide Anh Co who was a lot nicer than Dinh (previous guide). We went to visit the Vinh Hoc tunnels which are tunnels that the vietnamese built during the war in order to shelter from american bombing. The deepest is at 23m. The whole community stayed in the and the had all kinds of facilities ranging from a maternity room to a meeting room (which is supposed to take 60 ppl, but could prob only take 15!). From there was drove to Hue, a town in the centre of vietnam which was briefly their capital city. We visited lots of pagodas and a citadel and tombs. It all sort of rolls into one at this point and every tourist site looks like the last one.

From Hue we went to Hoi An which is the silk and tailoring centre of vietnam. Of course we had to have some clothes made, it was part of the experience! hehe. Here we stayed in a lovely resort hotel with a swimming pool! A real luxury!
We cycled round the city with the guide, which was certainly interesting. It was scary at times as there dont seem to be any traffic rules at all and traffic lights are yet to be invented in vietnam! We even cycled to the beach and spent an hour or so there, though it wasn't very sunny.

Next stop was Nha Trang,and a new guide, a seaside resort place which looked very much like any seaside resort in the world. It was funny because it didnt feel like vietnam. We had a boat day trip which was really nice because we had glorious weather,we were with other people and there was lots of swimming! The next day we had free so we went to a small waterpark. It was fun despite the fact that the average age must have been 11 excluding mum!

From here we headed into the mountains to Da lat which was a freezing place! The temp was around 15-20 degrees centigrade. The locals wore woolly hats and thick winter coats! We had a nice horse and carriage ride around the town and went on a pedalo which hardly moved! Its a town known for its vegetables and flowers, and we saw plenty of both. We went to a beautiful pagoda which was still under construction. To make the mosaic walls, they use bowls and beer bottle by the hundreds and break them. I dont think that the workers get to drink the beer though!

This morning we started our long journey to Ho Chi Minh (saigon) and stopped off on the way at Dambri fall. It is a big waterfall with a sheer drop of 50m or so. We walked along the bridge i front of it and got completly soaked, we could hardly see where we were going there was so much mist and downpour from the fall! We arrived here a couple of hours ago and are getting settled into the city. Still 5 days in vietnam then 5 in bangkok and then we will be heading back.

lots of love

Sophie xxx

Thats all the emails that I sent. We spent a couple of days in Ho Chi Minh with Jason our new guide, and then went into the Mekong delta. We returned to HCMC for a couple more days and then flew to Bangkok. We spent 5 days there which was quite strange. It was really busy and really built up and i felt so out of place after having stayed in villages and small towns in vietnam. Even the big cities in vietnam don't feel all that hectic because they aren't all that developed yet.
But bangkok was nice all the same. We went swimming in the pool, visited the floating markets and the Grand Palace and did lots of shopping in MBK. As a result my sister is now the proud owner of a new mobile phone.

I think that the above is a very complete account of my time abroad in vietnam and thailand and I heartily congratulate anyone who has reached this point of the page! If there are spelling mistakes then I am very sorry, but I was unable to use spell check due to the fact that it will think that my words are spanish. Ohhh the difficulties of being abroad!

¡Que os lo paseis bien!
¡Hasta Luego!

Sophie xxx

Hello from Spain

2005-09-07T08:22:00.000+01:00

I thought that it was about time that I wrote a new blog post because the last one is just ancient!
Since then I have returned from university, stayed in london for 2 weeks during which time I taught some gymnastics and saw some friends. I didn't do all that much during the time. Then I went to vietnam for 4 weeks followed by 5 days in Thailand. I then spent a week and a half in england. I kept myself nice and busy during the week. I took Millie for walks, I went to Bath for the weekend to see uni friends, I taught gymnastics and went to a pirate party. And I am currently in Valencia (thats in Spain for anybody who didn't know!). I have another week and a half here and then I fly home, give my mum my laundry and take the train to Paris the next day with my friend Claire. We will be staying at my granmothers for a week and visiting Paris. I return home on the saturday evening and will be goinbg to university on the monday evening! But that leaves loads of time to see anyone who is still around and not back at university! (ie. Sarah B, if you are still in London)

But that is all for the moment. I must go now, and I will explain what I did in Vioetnam more fully another time. (Well I will post the 2 emails that I sent when I was out there, its a lot easier like that!)

¡Hasta Luego!

Summer Ball

2005-06-29T21:38:00.000+01:00

Saturday evening was the summer ball which I wasn't going to go to due to the fact that Tom had the tickets, and i broke up with him over a month ago now. However, when I walked to Claire's room, I saw his parents, and after having run for cover in order to avoid them spotting me, I wondered what he had done with the tickets, as he obviously wasn't going to the ball. I was sitting in Claire's room discussing this with her when we decided that we should ask him. Well I say we, but it was a lot easier to send Claire along to ask him! hehe. It's still a bit awkward between us, as he doesn't seem to want to get over me, silly boy! So I sent Claire running off to find him, and he told her that the tickets were bluetacked to the freezer in his kitchen. He also asked whether I was going with her, and she said probably. Apparently he looked a little upset at this. Oooops! Anyway, we collected the tickets, and then proceeded to decide what to wear. We had to drive down to Claire's new house in bath into which she had moved all her stuff, including ball dresses. We had a quick dinner, got changed and off we set.

We proceeded to the ball, were we were handed a glass of bucks fizz and entertained by mime artists, and stilt walkers and a steel band. We then decided to head to the funfair. Yes that's right funfair! We had a go on the dodgems, and on the Jimeny cricket ride too, it went round and round and bounced up and down. Inferno was given a miss though. After some coconuts were won at the coconut shy and a lovely green visor from the other stall we headed back to the parade to chat to more people.

We spent the evening in various locations, we tried our hand at a little roulette, unsuccessfully, went to the comedy in elements and finally ended up in the sports hall where most of the music was being played. In the sports hall there was a van Gogh picture studio! All I could think of was Sarah B's obsession with the thing! So Claire and I had a photo taken/painted by the computer. We also had one done where we appeared to be someone else, in my case buffy. Did I mention earlier that all of these things were free? I don't think I did! Well they were! It was great! So anyway, we then listened to the music. The chip shop boys were on first. They were great, they played all the classics that you want to hear such as 'Build me up buttercup' and 'Hey Jude', then there was a band called a hundred reasons. They weren't very good, you can't dance to rock music in ball gowns! In the middle Katy Hill compered! She wasn't anything like she is on Blue Peter, it was really strange actually! She kept on going on about how fit the guys were at the university of bath and blah blah blah. And to finish the night off there was a DJ. He played some really good music too. I was there till the end, and left at 2am. It was a really good night, especially since I managed to find Nathan amongst the crowds :-). hehe

2005-06-29T11:39:00.000+01:00

Well I haven't blogged in ages, except of course for yesterday, so I have lots to write about! It will probably still be a pitifully short post, as I don't seem to have helen's knack for writing paragraphs on not very much!
Ok, i will start with revision week, a long long time ago (I can still remember...) it was revision week, and I took my friend Claire along with me and my mum and sister to stay in a caravan in Rye. We stayed a week and had lots of lovely sea side walks and uncle/aunt/cousin visiting. I think I have already blogged about it, so won't go into too much detail.

I then had a week at home, during which I was meant to be revising. Well I can tell you that not much revision occurred. Who revises when there are friends to catch up with or meet for the first time, tv to be watched, dogs to walk, computers to chat on? Well I don't! Anyway, I returned to uni on the Thursday as I had an exam on the Monday. Not that I did any more revision at uni, no, I went to salsa on Sunday and got dragged into town to perform in Walcott street festival because they didn't have enough followers for rueda, and then we all sat in the pub and had a drink. Lovely way to spend an afternoon before an exam I think!

Anyway, my exam was at 1.00pm so I got up a couple of hours before and had time for an hours revision. It was only Spanish grammar you see so that is all i needed to do for it. Well hopefully I didn't need any more than that, but I'll see if it was a mistake when I get my results! My next exam was on the Thursday and was accounting which required significantly more revision, so the next 2 days were spent in the kitchen with Claire learning what a profit and loss account, balance sheet, variance analysis, ABC costing, etc. were!

With that exam taken, Claire and I jumped onto a train and headed to her house (somewhere near London) for a long weekend, and needed break from work. She has a trampoline in her back garden! It's brilliant, we spent lots and lots of time on that and I taught her some new moves such as swivel hips(seat drop half turn seat drop), back drops and other such simple moves. The weather was beautiful so we spent lots of time lounging around in the sun and actually managed to get tan marks! Isn't that amazing! I didn't even go red! On the Friday, we set off for the lovely city that is Cambridge for a day out. Although it only took 1h30 to drive there, finding parking was a pain and took us at least an hour. Once that was sorted we had a wander around taking a look at all the lovely colleges. Strawberries and yoghurt were purchased in the market. They were very nice! Ohhh and yogurt covered raisins tooo! Lovely. :-) After lunch we headed down to St Johns where we were met by my friend Izzie who gave us a whistle stop tour of the place before she headed off for bumps. On passing the river, we decided that it would be a good idea to go punting. So off we set armed with a punt and a long stick. It took a little while to fully understand the mechanics of moving in the right direction, but we were off when we worked out that you could use the stick as a rudder. I managed to lose the stick, it got stuck in the mud at the bottom of the river. Oooops. But we got it back much to the amusement of onlookers and continued on our merry way. Very tired by the exertion that punting entailed, we lazed in the sun for a bit before finally heading back to Claire's. On the Saturday we went to an open air Shakespeare production of 'The taming of the shrew'. It was very good, although I'm not sure I quite agreed with the motive of the story, which went along the lines of taming a willful wife until she was totally obedient. Huh, surely independence is a good thing! Sunday we spent in the sunshine and trampolining. Ohh and we had a waterfight! Who said I was mature?! It was brilliant, we were completely soaking wet by the end. Very refreshing!

We headed back for university on the Monday so that we would be ready for our Tuesday quantitative methods exam (statistics). Wednesday was spent frantically revising for Thursdays economics exam. Now I know that this one was multiple choice, but it was evil I tell you! There were deductions awarded for incorrect answers, and I've never seen such horribly difficult questions. I don't like economics! But it was my last exam so I am happy! After the exam we went to sit by the lake with a drink from the parade and chatted until late. We were going to go to Weston super mare on the Friday but it was pouring down with rain, so we abandoned that idea and just chilled instead. When the weather brightened up jack, Emma, Claire and myself played some frisbee and some rounders in the field.

Saturday was the summer ball. I will tell you about that in a separate post, as this one is getting rather long. And Sunday brought the arrival of my dear mother and with her the wonderful joys of packing!

I think that that is all I have to tell you all for the moment, summer ball will be in the next installment!

Descriptions of people

2005-06-28T20:39:00.000+01:00

I am going to do everyones profile thingys now, I promise! I'm sorry that it has taken me so long to get round to them, but i've had exams. I know everyone else did too, but i only got round to revising for them a couple of days before they all started and they all caught up on me.

Following the trend!

2005-06-07T22:56:00.000+01:00

Well everyone else is doing it, so why shouldn't I?! I'll probably regret posting this soon though, when I have enormous difficulty finding things to say about people!

01. Reply with your name and I will write a short phrase describing you.
02. I will then tell you what I admire about you.
03. I will make up a short drabble with the both of us in it.
04. I'll tell you the most memorable moment I've had with you.
05. I'll then tell you something that I've always wondered about you.
06. Put this in your journal.

2005-06-06T15:26:00.000+01:00

My pirate name is:

Mad Ethel Bonney

Every pirate is a little bit crazy. You, though, are more than just a little bit. You can be a little bit unpredictable, but a pirate's life is far from full of certainties, so that fits in pretty well. Arr!

Rye

2005-06-05T13:19:00.000+01:00

For the past week I have been residing in a caravan in Rye harbour. I was joined by the lovely Claire, my mum, my sister and of course Millie the dog. I love caravans so much, especially when it is raining. The sound of the rain on the rooftop is so lovely, it really reminds me of my childhood. We used to own a caravan you see, and when it rained we would put on news broadcasts. Everyone would stand under the orning, and the news reader would be inside the caravan and make up some pretty unlikely stories about our neighbours in the surrounding caravans and such like. Good fun for all the family! Ohhh the other thing I love about caravans is caravan cereal! The packets of 10 different cereals in a packet, and you get to choose which one you want to eat. Brilliant invention that! It's one of the only times when I will eat cereal in the morning. Whistling kettles are great too!
But anyway, Rye Harbour, it's right by the sea so we had lovely long walks along the beach. Listening to the swooshing of the waves. Its very relaxing and calming, just what I needed. Claire and I even went paddling in the water which was suprisingly warm. We went in as far as our knees, and of course our jeans which had been rolled up as far as possible, got soaking wet. In order to get to the sea at low tide we had to walk over lots of sand which would turn into squelchy mud unexpectedly. We sank into this mud, at times up to or past our ankles. It was horrible stuff!
When we got bored of the sea, we cycled into Rye, which is a very pretty town. My uncle and aunt live in Mermaid street which is very handy as we were able to leave the bikes in their garden. Lots of shopping was done in Rye, especially looking through their many charity shops. I bought a pair of Levi's for 50p! We ate far too much fudge, and had tea in my aunts coffee house. Ooooh and there was a fun fair. That was fun too.
Back in the caravan, many board and card games were played, and little revision was attempted. So now am very behind on what I should know! Thankfully, my first exam is in a week, so have plenty of time to revise for it.
That is all for the moment. Speak to lots of you soon, and good luck to anyone with exams coming up.

Ghostly happenings

2005-05-24T15:18:00.000+01:00

Look what I found!
Its a survey seeing if you can sense any ghostly activity in the picture. Unfortunatly, they don't tell you whether any ghosts have been spotted in the area that you choose :-( ,but its still fun and part of a survey for channel 4!
Have fun!

2005-05-22T17:31:00.000+01:00

Well I have been and competed in the trampolining competition. I came 4th which is a respectable place, unfortunately just out of sight of a medal but never mind.
Now I have to write a 1200 word essay in Spanish on the 1978 Spanish constitution. Who said university wasn't fun?! It is due in tomorrow by the way. Yeah I know I leave things till the last minute, it isn't my fault I reckon that it is in my genes or something. I just can't help it!
Wish me luck :-)

Eurovision

2005-05-22T01:16:00.000+01:00

Well I have just come back from this year's eurovision party, which might I add was very different to last years. There was no Jess, or Sarah, or Richard, or any other JAGS or Jess related person for that matter. They were all uni people, and rather than eating ice cream on the floor of Jess's living room, we were playing drinking games on Greg's bedroom floor, which is decidedly smaller than the living room.
So anyway, the rules of the game went along the lines of if something typically eurovision happened, you had to drink 2 fingers of your drink. So things like the presenters changing their attire, fake blondes, the sound of bagpipes, emotional looks towards the audience/camera, and many others.
I was assigned a country upon arrival, Ukraine. Unfortunately they didn't do very well, never mind. I think it is because they didn't want to host the show for a second year running, so they entered a rubbish act!
But anyway, I really should go to bed now because I have a trampolining competition tomorrow. So I had better drink some water, hope I don't have a hangover tomorrow because hangovers and trampolining don't go together and go to sleep.
Good Night everyone xxx

A post on anything and everything

2005-05-14T11:59:00.000+01:00

I'm sorry that I didn't post before, but I just haven't gotten round to it. I can't use the excuse of having had too much work because that would be a blatant lie, although I probably should start revising for exams and writing my Spanish coursework essays. I can't say that I have been incredibly busy because yet again that would be untrue. In fact I think that I have spent most of my time on msn chatting to people, half of whom I have never met. Ummmm.
Well what is there to say? Last weekend was the much talked about trip into London. I came home from Bath especially to see everyone and am very pleased I did too. It was great fun. Swing lessons, brass rubbing and science museum, along with sandwiches in railway stations and ice creams. That is a very brief summary of course. Sarah and Jess have told you all about it already.
A complete change of topic now, next year I am going t be chair of the gymnastics club and treasurer of the trampolining club here at university! Isn't it exciting! I don't actually have a clue what either of the roles involve. Oh well, I will work it out as I go along I suppose. I've had a budget meeting for trampolining already, We had to request the budget for next year. It's all very confusing :-)
There are only 2 weeks of lectures left now, and then I have exams. I'm really not looking forward to them! And then of course there are the spanish essays that I am supposed to write for my coursework. I had better find the sheet of paper that gives me the essay titles! I think that I have lost one of them, ooops.
What next? Ohh my summer holiday. I am going to Vietnam for a month, and then stopping in Bangkok for 5 days on the way home. But Vietnam is the exciting bit! We (my mum and I) are going on a tour which will take us from Hanoi to Ho chi min (Saigon). I will blog about it further another time.

Finger food

2005-04-30T16:28:00.000+01:00

Well as the nursery rhyme goes:
1,2,3,4,5 once I caught a fish alive,
6,7,8,9,10 then I let it go again.
Why did you let it go?
Because it bit my finger so.
Which finger did it bite?
This little finger on my right.

Replace fish with trampoline and little finger with middle finger, and you have pretty much grasped my situation. On Wednesday evening I was at Baskerville's and I was mucking around on the trampoline there (its lovely and sunk into the floor), I did some back flips, and then I did one badly and my finger went into the trampoline web whilst the rest of me continued the move. Clever me! Well I strapped it up, and thought nothing more of it, but it turns out that I have broken it! How do I know this? Well 4 hours in St Georges last night told me. Mum was kind enough to drag me there when I got home. Nice of her isn't it! hehe.

So as some of you have possibly guessed by the fact that I was in St Georges last night, I am currently in London for the long bank holiday weekend, which is made longer by the fact that I have no lectures on Tuesday and now have a hospital appointment at the fractures clinic on Wednesday. Pathetic really, going to a fractures clinic for a finger!

That's all I have to say for the moment, I will try and write another post this weekend, because I never seem to have time whilst at university. There is always something else to do!

Photobucket

2005-04-29T10:29:00.000+01:00

This is a test post from Photobucket.com

Happy Birthday to meeeee

2005-04-06T23:03:00.000+01:00

As you can probably guess from the title it was my birthday yesterday. 19 I now am. How old does that sound?! I don't feel much over 12 most of the time and I'm sure many people would ell you that I don't act older than that either!
My birthday was quite a quiet affair, with friends from university who came down to stay a couple of days. On Monday we went bowling and played 3 games. Loads that is! Unfortunately bowling is not my forte and I lost miserably which means that I received a lovely certificate declaring me to be a Mega flop. Claire was the Mega star of the group, and as such received a bottle of bubbly which was in fact poire. (Its like cider but made with pear instead of apples. They called it perry on the bottle but haven't ever heard of perry. Never mind!) So we returned to my house where we drank the bubbly and read my sisters bliss magazines. It really is shocking the things they talk about in those magazines though! There were questionnaires about whether or not you were ready for sex and equally inappropriate things for 14 year old girls. Ohh well, maybe I am 19, I am starting to sound like an old woman, tis very worrying! But the stories in the mags were good! Just like sarah's old chat magazines and Take a break! Brilliant!
But anyway I think that it is time we moved on to Tuesday, although by this point it was past midnight so could be classed as being Tuesday. My brother was kind enough to ring me up at 8.45 to wish me a happy birthday, which of course woke everyone in the room up, except for Tom who seems able to sleep through anything! But anyway, one everyone was up we all played badmington in the garden until the wind picked up and we couldn't play anymore at which point it was decided that we should head to Pizza Hut in Covent garden for lunch. Lunch was eaten and we proceeded to walk around the market for a bit. I think that Tom got a little bored at this point being the only guy there and all. Bless! There was a very good band playing down by the pub so we listened to them for a while. At one point an opera singer joined them and sang 'Ohh Sole Mio'. He was really good, I think that he must have wandered down from the Royal Opera House which is in Covent garden. But we will never know! From Covent garden we walked to Leicester square to collect Jack. We then walked to Trafalgar square and sat on the lions for a while. This post is getting too long so I will try to speed up the narrative now! We walked to Victoria past buckingham palace, where we waved to the guards and they did their funny marching thingy where they stamp lots. Ohh dear this isn't really getting any quicker is it! Ohhh and we saw a celebrity person that we all recognized, she was being filmed, but none of us could remember what her name was! How annoying is that! Anyway we went to clapham to collect Jack's stuff from his sisters house, (she moved in that day and this is why he was soo late, cos he was helping her move in) and then finally got back to my house at around 6.00pm. We played a bit more badmington, followed by some pool which I am pleased to say the girls won! (girls v boys) This was followed by a game of whatever next which is aimed at 6 year olds but is fun for all ages! We then watched Wimbledon (the dvd) and then had a pillow fight! You see we are all very mature and grown up!
Wednesday everyone rolled out of bed at different times, Claire and I being the early birds. We had time for a couple of games of Jenga and showers before the others showed their faces! After some yummy toasted sandwiches for brunch we watched The eternal sunshine of the spotless mind, a very confusing film that no one really understood. People then started to drift off to their respective trains which took them back to their parts of the country.

Happy Easter

2005-03-27T16:05:00.000+01:00

Hello everyone,
Well here I am at home in London! I went sight seeing in London on Tuesday ,to Harrods and Hamleys ! Both very important places, not that I bought anything there, but they are soooo pretty!! Hehe. And then the natural History museum for a bit of culture!
On Wednesday, I went to Harpingdon, which is somewhere near St Albans, to visit Tom. Its only half and hour by train from St Pancras, but it feels like he lives in the middle of nowhere! I am most definitely a city girl!
Can't remember what I did on Thursday but on Friday and Saturday my mum, my sister and myself went walking in Box Hill with Millie (the dog). It was very nice, but by Saturday evening I really wasn't feeling well, and this morning I woke up feeling terrible! I have the worst headache ever, and paracetamol isn't working. It's Sods Law that I should get ill whilst on holiday. Hopefully I shall make a full and very quick recovery, because I have no intention of feeling this yucky for very much longer! Despite the feeling ill, I still managed to go out into the garden to search for Easter eggs. However, my Easter bunny was nowhere to be found, and mum couldn't remember where she had hidden it! So we called in the expert noses of our young neighbour's, who soon sniffed out any remaining chocolate eggs including my Easter bunny!
But I shall leave you all now, and perhaps go back to bed although I have only been up for 2 hours. Have a great Easter weekend, and hopefully see most of you over the holidays.

2005-03-14T17:03:00.000Z

Millie

Doggy Doo Daa

2005-03-14T16:18:00.000Z

I blogged earlier but forgot the most exciting peice of news!!!!! We have a dog! She is a Jack Russel Terrier called Millie and is 4 months old.
I will attempt to load a picture of Millie for you all to see!

My weekend

2005-03-14T10:10:00.000Z

Well it has been a while since I last posted, so I thought that I should update you all with my news! Not that there is much!
Well on Saturday I did a St John's Ambulance basic lifesaver course, which was lots of fun. We did CPR and things like that, so in the hopefully unlikely case that I should come across someone having a heart attack or an accident, I would be able to manage the incident and organize people, and administer first aid. I met some very nice people on the course, Kim being one of them. We came back to my kitchen and played darts. Unfortunately her skill was just too great and she won!
Last night I went to the plug (student bar on campus) with Tom, and we played babyfoot (table football). I won!!! Aren't I great!
There isn't much more to tell you all and I can't really think of anything else to ramble about, so I think that I am going to go get myself some breakfast.

Mother's day

2005-03-06T14:01:00.000Z

Umm despite the title I am not going to be writing about mother's day. I just thought that I should point out that it is today, and if you haven't rung your mum yet, then ring her quick!
Well what am I going to tell you lovely people about? Well on Friday evening 9 of us trampolining club people piled into a minibus and went to Portsmouth because the following day we had a trampoline competition in Southampton. Sleeping bags on the floor really aren't very comfortable, and not enough sleep was had, but no matter, many of us finished our night at the competition. Sleeping bags are very useful because you can get them out anywhere including university sports halls, curl up in them and fall asleep ;-) .
So anyway, Saturday was the day of the competition, and I competed in the intermediate category. My set routine went well, and then the dilemma came, should I put a back somersault into my voluntary routine, or should I stick to a full turn?! Keep in mind here that 2 days ago I hadn't done any back summies on my own before, but that 2 days later I was thinking about competing with one! I did put it in, and although it wasn't the best one in the world, I got a tremendous sense of achievement from having done it. So anyway, I came 14th out of 45 in my category, and our intermediate team came 2nd! So I got a medal! Wooooo. hehe.
that's all for the minute, I am still recovering from last night, cos when I got home Emily convinced me that I should go to the campus bar with her and her friend where she proceeded to get me quite drunk. Not good! But anyway, that's all for now, so bye bye!!!

The House Hunting Fiasco

2005-02-20T13:26:00.000Z

House hunting, I thought it would be an enjoyable experience. How wrong I was. The first step to find the perfect house (which of course we were never going to find) was of course to find Jack and Emma! You would have thought that this would be quite an easy and stress free process, but nooo they were nowhere to be found. I rang their phones looked on msn, went round to Jacks, noone was there. I wasn't sure which room was Emma's so I took Claire with me and she helped me find it. They took ages to answer the door! Anyway, I finally found them and we went through the house database. It took hours, but by 9pm we had 6 houses lined up to visit the next day.
So we set off on Wednesday afternoon at 13.30 to visit the houses. We just made it in time to the first house where we were turned away because they only wanted to rent houses to single sex groups! How silly is that! Anyway, we therefore made our way to the next house on our list. We were standing in front f the door debating who was going to ring the doorbell when I got a call. It was he landlord telling us that the house had just been rented and so was no longer available. At this point we thought it was quite amusing that we hadn't seen any houses. We walked to the next house but had lots of time to spare, so we went to get a drink in the local pub. I stuck to lemonade! Anyway, we went to house no 3 and were told at the door by another group of students that the house had gone. We therefore returned to the pub because we had 1h30 to kill. This was the most enjoyable part of the day, we had another drink and played pool. Emma however then got a phone call telling her that house no5 had been rented. We made our way to house no4 and visited it. The first house of the day! The house was nice but the small bedroom wasn't, it had an en suite in it, well a toilet and sink and the bed in there was tiny! There was no oven in the kitchen either which was a little strange. (The landlady was French though! but I didn't tell her I was too) We proceeded to house no6, the last house of the day. It was really nice, the only problem being location. It is a little far from uni, and although there is a direct bus into university in the morning, in the evening you have to take 2 buses to get back.
Well we slept on it, and decided that house no6 was the house for us! Now we just have to hand over a couple of thousand pounds worth of post dated checks and all will be done. Arghhh!
Wish me luck!

Valentines Day

2005-02-15T13:41:00.000Z

Well having read everyone else's posts about valentines day I thought that I should write an account of mine. Well I thought it was a lovely day, but then that is partly due to the fact of my having receiving 2 cards!
I got up at 8am in order to catch the 10.30 train back to Bath. Unfortunately, or fortunately, there were no people giving out free chocolate soya milk this time (disgusting stuff! I don't know how Sarah browncross drinks it!). So onto the train I struggled with my bag in one hand, laptop in the other and rucksack on my back (ok so I only came home for a week, but there was washing to be done! It is quite scary, I am turning into one of those students who bring their washing home, although I have done it a couple of times up here in Bath.). It was a very good trip, and by 12.01 I was in Bath. 30 minutes later I was standing outside my door and there were 2 valentines cards sellotaped to the door! They were only printed from the computer but they were still both very sweet. (from Tom and Duncan)
I met up for lunch with my friend Claire, and we both went to choices (like school food but slightly better, it means that you don't have to do any cooking and washing up which is great when you are feeling lazy!). I then proceeded to unpack, and later on Tom and Duncan came to visit. Of course I said thank you to both of them.
In the evening Tom and I were going to go to caddies (local nightclub) but it was very full, so we went to The Playground instead (also night club but that plays rock music. (I felt slightly out of place in my pink 3/4 length jacket thing as everyone seemed to be in black!). But anyway, Tom was really sweet and bought me all my drinks (I didn't drink that much though, only 3 smirnoff ices, although they did make me feel slightly tipsy! Let's just say that nearer the midnight mark I was able to dance, well I say dance I mean shake my hair around. Everyone was doing it ok!). And to make a lovely day even nicer, Tom asked me out at the end of it, and I said yes.

Exams, exams, exams

2005-02-03T22:09:00.000Z

Exams are over!!!!! Yippee :-)
And now I get a week of holidays, so am going home. No cooking or washing for a week! Brilliant! I don't have much more to say really, except that will try to blog a little more over the next week, when will have lots of free time on my hands.

Un Poste Francais

2005-01-31T15:59:00.000Z

Ben je pense qu'il est temps que j'ecrives en francais! J'ai assez ecrit en anglais donc j'ai pense que je changerai de langue.
En ce moment j'ai des examens pour l'universite. Demain j'ai un test de grammaire espagnole, mercredi j'en ai un de politiques espagnole et jeudi d'economie. Bien sur j'attends avec impatience qu'ils soient finis car j'ai une semaine et demi de vacances! Youpiiii!!!!! Je n'aurai pas a faire la cuisine, ou la vaisselle pendant tout ce temps! Super!!! Hihi.
Et bien sur a la fin des vacances, le dimanche, je vais aller a une competition de trampoline. Je ne sais pas vraiment si je veux le faire, mais ca ira bien j'esperes. On vera bien! Je vous dirai dans deux semaines!
Quoi d'autre? Je ne sais pas. Ahh oui, ou vais-je habiter l'annee prochaine? Et bien mon amie a decide qu'elle ne voulait plus habiter avec nous. Tres sympas ca! Je ne sais pas si je veux vraiment habiter aec les autres sans elle, car 2 d'entre eux sont petits copains, et sont toujours ensembles, donc... J'ai demande a une autre copine et elle dit que je peux vivre avec elle et ses deux copains, mais elle fume et je ne pense pas pouvoir vivre avec quelqu'un qui fume. Je deciderai pendant les vacances je supposes mais je ne veux pas laisser la decision jusqu'a la derniere minute.
C'est tout pour le moment, mais je pense que le prochain poste sera peut etre en espagnol bien qu'il serait plus facile d'ecrire en anglais ou en francais. Hihi.

Sophie xxx

World Wide Web

2004-12-16T23:09:00.000Z

I just looked at the stats for both my blog and the website that I did for university, and I have visitors from all over the world!
So hello to all you British, Americans, Canadians, Australians, Romanians, Spanish and Pakistanis!!!!!!
Sophie xxx

Economics

2004-12-16T22:00:00.000Z

Economics is due in tomorrow. I should probably be doing that really! Lets just call this blog my break. :-) Ohh and I have a spanish presentation as well. Ooops! Sarah helped me start that, but I haven't acually done any more on it. Ohh well. I will just have to blag my way through it. hehe. Organisation, what is that?!
Well I may come back later to write a bit more but until then bye bye! It was short but sweet.
Sophie xxx

2004-12-12T01:06:00.000Z

Well hello everyone,
Today has not been the best of days. It started to go wrong sometime yesterday (friday) I think, well certainly very early this morning. Not sure whether that counts or not but never mind. Jenny, Emma, Chris, Jack, Andy, Dan and myself went to the Parade bar, where we spent the evening. The premium doubles being an affordable £1.50, a fair amount of these were consumed by all the afore mentioned parties. Slightly too many by the guys though, so the three of us reasonable girls ended up herding them back to their respective houses. One of the guys was in a particularly bad way and so we ended up playing at being first aiders too. After he was sick, the recovery position was called for, it took the 3 of us to lift him up and lie him down on the floor of the kitchen! But anyway, he was fine in the end.
Then this morning, well afternoon I woke up at 2.00 to find that I had missed most of the gymnastics coverage on BBC Grandstand. I missed Beth Tweddle's new routine! Ohh well, I will see the floor routines tomorrow hopefully.
I attempted to do some economics coursework as well which was a complete failure, and then realised that I have a presentation to give next week as well which I haven't even started to look at. I don't know what I am going to do about that!
But anyway, good night to you all.

Sophie

Hair today, gone tomorrow

2004-12-04T13:19:00.000Z

Hello everyone!

It's meeeeee again. :-) Well it is 12.20 and am sitting at my computer writing this blog. I don't even know what it will be about yet, I am thinking on my feet! (well technically am sitting down)
Ooooo I know what I can tell you I had my hair cut yesterday. It is now shoulder length. Yesterday on impulse, I walked into the hairdressers;

Hairdresser lady: Hello
Sophie: Hello, could I make an appointment please?
Hairdresser lady: Yes, when would you like to have your hair cut?
Sophie: Whenever
Hairdresser lady: Do you want to have it done now then?
Sophie: Ok then.

Thrilling, no?!!!!! So anyway, my hair is now shoulder length. She started cutting by taking all my hair and chopping about 10 cm (4 inches) off, showed it to me and chucked it in the bin!!!

I got asked later in the day why I had had so much cut off, and I don't know. It doesn't feel like that much. My head feels a lot lighter, and just think of all the shampoo I will save!!!!! Also I was really fed up of long hair it was just a pain!!!

This blog has turned into a blog about my haircut, so I think will stop there and come back another time once I have worked out what else I can tell you all.

2004-11-30T18:27:00.000Z

Georgina came to visit me for a few hours. It was very nice to see her!

2004-11-30T18:10:00.000Z

Here is a very nice photo of Sarah

2004-11-30T18:06:00.000Z

Sarah got very arty and took some photos in Bath. This is Bath Abby. Isn't it pretty!

2004-11-30T18:04:00.000Z

And here I am.

2004-11-30T18:00:00.000Z

Sarah with Mr Pumpkin at Halloween. As you can see she is a witch. You can also see a bit of my room around her. Untidy as it is!!!!

2004-11-30T17:57:00.000Z

Stu singing at the Karaoke night

2004-11-30T17:55:00.000Z

And here is Claire!

2004-11-30T17:53:00.000Z

This is Emma a friend from university

2004-11-30T17:51:00.000Z

Here I am visiting the lovely Sarah in Oxford. I went for the day and we had a very nice time. We went looking for a USB port in oxford! And then returned to cook pasta in the kettle!!!!!!

2004-11-22T18:06:00.000Z

Today, I got told off by Helen because I had not blogged in such a long time. So here I am! I am sorry everyone for my lack of posts, but I have been incredibly busy (ok so this isnt strictly true, but it sounds good no?!).
Well as most of you will probably already know, for the past 2 weekends I have been attending a club coach general gymnastics course. This has meant travelling from Bath on Friday evenings, and arriving in London at around 7.30. On Saturday I had to get up at 6.30 in order to get to Hillingdon for 9.00am!!!!!! Far too early if you ask me. My poor mum had to get up too to drive me to the tube station as I couldn't leave from Tooting Bec station because the journey would take too long. This of course is thanks to London Transport deciding to carry out engineering work on just about every line they could have chosen! So I left from Wimbledon Park station instead.
Anyway, at the course, all I did was play really! Somersaults off the trampette, handsprings, flysprings, handspring vaults....... all good fun! But very tiring. When I got back to Bath on Sunday evening after a non stop weekend, I was shattered both weekends running!

I'm sorry if that was boring. What else have I done? Well I recently gave in my website assignment. It is on surviving university, and you can all go look at it if you want to! Nothing very exciting, except that I made it myself!

www.bath.ac.uk/~sb266

I have lots of other assignments due in tht I havent even started. Oooops! I will get to them soon. I think! Well they shouldn't take too long. I hope!

But that is all for now, so bye bye, and I will try to blog more often! I promise!

Bath

2004-10-12T14:25:00.000+01:00

Well here I am in Bath. I have been here for a whole week now! Wow, that is sooo strange! I arrived last Wednesday, and did all the unpacking type thing. My room is quite small but nice. I have my own bathroom which is great. I will post a picture of it when I get my digital camera that I bought before coming. Then that evening there was a beach party which involved lots of people dressing up in bikinis and shells and other strange costumes, and being half frozen all night! (cos is very cold here, well colder than London anyhow). Thursday, I had a whole day of lectures *yawn* about the course and what will be doing on the course and all the usual stuff. In the evening I went salsa dancing though, which was fantastic and well worth trying! I have joined the salsa club here and am going to do some every week! Well they will teach us how to dance it first! In order to do the salsa I missed the pub crawl round bath. But I'm not sure I really wanted to go to that anyway! Where am I, ohhh yes, Friday, well there were more boring lectures about the course, and I got my timetable for the term. Then there was the Oscars and casino night, which involved dressing up in slightly formal wear and partying again! Yey! On Saturday, I had a well deserved lie in! I can't really remember what I did do on Saturday; all I know is that it was the toga party and that we were all dressed up in sheets! (With clothes on underneath in my case!) Ohh I remember now that I went to watch the football in Bath with my flatmates. England won! Wooo! Sunday, I went into Bath to do treasure hunt! Unfortunately my team didn’t win but it was good fun all the same! Well perhaps a bit long. (It took us 3 hours!). Yesterday, Monday, lectures started of course. I had a law one which was actually very interesting, and then one in Spanish about business in Spain or something which was very boring! Then in the evening I went to my friends flat and we played with my diabolo all evening! Brilliant! And then we played a strange card game, which resembles solitaire showdown on msn. Thanks to Helen I was quite good at that! :-) Today I had one lecture on personal computing; it was a bit weird because we didn’t have any computers! Ohh well! But we will have tutorials to have the hands on practice, although this was only explained half way through the hour, so the leturer had some very confused students! The lecturer also told us that our first assignment was to make a webpage! I can't do that! Help! But anyway.... and then tonight Georgina is coming to visit me! Yey.

Well that is all really, I should go tidy my room a bit because it should be in an acceptable state for georgina when she arrives!

Barcelona (part 2)

2004-09-20T16:37:00.000+01:00

Ok so where did I get to? Ohhh yes Saturday.

I think that I will leave Saturday as it is. Oooo except to say that I got given 5 roses! Aren't I a popular little lady! hehe.

Sunday I went to the parque de la ciutedella, and searched high and low for the zoo there but to no avail. I followed sign posts and everything but I just couldn't find it! Ohh well, I was slightly disappointed though! There isn't all that much more to say really. In the end I sat under a tree and read Harry Potter and the Philosophers stone in Spanish. Hehe, was very good!!!!!

Monday I had classes in the morning because I had asked to be changed, but the class is a lot bigger and the conversation teacher is really awful, though the other one is good. The grammar teacher has a totally unpronounceable name though! Meritxell is her name, or something similar.

Umm I have kind of forgotten most of what went on last week. Crap memory or what!!!!! Ohh I went to the beach on Wednesday I think with a Swiss girl and German guy. On Thursday I went back to the police station to try to report the case of the stolen bag! I waited 3 hours and in the end was able to place my report. Can you say that? Ahhh I can't speak English anymore!!!!! Or French or Spanish for that matter. What am I going to do?! So all that is left to do is to make a claim to the insurance which I am sure will be another lengthy process! But in the police station, I got talking to some other victims of crime. They all seemed to be French! I even acted as a translator between them and the policeman! Clever me! Umm that took up the whole of that day though.
On the Friday, I went home and had a siesta in preparation to go out with the Swedish people again, because I know that otherwise I would get tired and grumpy by about midnight!!!!!! I went to their flat where I got given a few Henrik specials, which really had me rather drunk. Henrik by the way is one of the Swedes. Sofie is another. There are other Swedes but they aren't as friendly as those two! By the time I get home though I think that I will be talking fluent Swede! Although I never understand a thing that they are saying!!!! So after most people had left we then went out to a bar (Sofie didn't come, she decided she was too tired, she was also a not feeling too well thanks to the alcohol. By the time we left the bar it was about 4 am, and so Henrik offered to walk me home. I had been planning on taking a taxi but.......... So he walked me home and then had a rest on the steps outside the apartment building. We had only been there about 5 minutes when another student who is also staying in my family arrived. It was very strange!

But anyway on the Saturday, I went with the Swedes again to the beach. And again on Sunday. There isn't much to say about the beach.....Sun, sand , clear sea. Lovely.

And today we are Monday, and I have a week to go before I go home.

Barcelona

2004-09-15T20:37:00.000+01:00

Well things have gotten better since my first day! I did find msn on some computers in the school and also I can go to internet cafes! I will try to provide you with a diary of my days, although it may be quite short due to the lack of money in my purse and the fact that I am sitting in an internet cafe!

Well I arrived last Monday and as you could see was rather bored and didn't have much to do apart from writing on my blog. I had my classes and of course my very boring culture class which was all about a painter named Velasquez, of whom I have never heard of. But then that was the only day that I went to my culture class!
Anyway Tuesday was umm interesting I went walking in Barcelona and visited the Cathedral, which was very nice. I then decided to write an email and chat to people on msn, so I went to an internet cafe, where I had my bag stolen. I had been chatting to my mother and Sarah B, and didn't even notice it had gone until I looked down and there was no bag. I got a bit panicky at this point and proceed to cry silently whilst asking people if they had seen a blue rucksack. Ummmm. But anyway, I lost my mobile phone, the new Spanish sim card that I had bought the day before (so I still have my English sim card and English number, though I may have lost some of your numbers). I lost my camera, thankfully I had told mum that I didn't want to bring her digital camera with me to Spain because she had offered to lend it to me. Ohh and my sunglasses. Umm I was a bit at a loss really, it was going on 8.30 at this point and I had to go home to the family because dinner is at9.00 ish. So I had to politely turn down the nice man's offer to escort me to the police station to make a statement knowing that it would take hours to do so. I got home and promptly had to tell the family that I had lost their keys and that the flats address was probably in the bag! ooops. I did stress the probably although I think that it was definitely in there.
The next day, Wednesday I went to the Sagrada Familia which is a massive temple/church thing that is being built. It was designed by Gaudi over 100 years ago, and hasn't been finished yet partly due to the fact that some of the plans and models got burnt in a fire. But anyway, I went there with school and met some very nice Swede people, of which one is a girl who is called............................sofi!!!!!! Ok strange spelling but still! Anyway, there are huge towers on this church which we proceeded to climb up (using the stairs! I am no Spiderman, well Spiderwoman!) It was free to use the steps but you had to pay to take the lift! Obviously the stairs were better! This was in the morning. In the afternoon I had classes, which were ok, we did the pluscuam perfecto del subjuntivo, and other equally horrid things! Is a lot easier than it sounds! And then that evening the hunt for the elusive police station started! My parents had told me that I should go and make a statement so that I could claim for the phone on the travel insurance. Sarah very much agreed with this, so I asked my teacher where I could find a police station. She gave me a very vague area in whis¡ch to look in which although it reduced the search area made it no easier! In the end I asked a nice security guard and he pointed me in the right direction.I got to this police station only to be told by the policemen on duty that they didn't deal with these things there and that I had to go to the main station, which was I don't know where! I got my map out and showed me where to go, and off I went! I got to the second police station over an hour after having started my hunt for the first one! phew! I strode into this very much larger station and was asked my name. This I gave promptly, and I was then told to go and sit in waiting room. There were quite a few people in this room, and all seemed rather pissed off. I gathered with time that this was because they had all been waiting so long! By this time it was about 7.30, and I decided that I should wait a further hour before having to leave. The time passed slowly, having nothing else to do than read my Spanish text book, which as you can guess isn't the most thrilling of reads! Any way, my hour passed and I found myself having to leave the station because I had to go home for dinner. Umm so that was a waste of time!
Thursday...........................I'm not sure I can remember. Oooooo, I went to the beach maybe or was that Friday? I'm not suretime all kind of jumbles up at this point and gets a bit ´confus` how do u say that in English? Confused that is it. Sorry!
Saturday I spent all day at the beach with my Swede friends. And then we met up in the evening, and went to a bar. I ended up practically carrying one of them home. She had drunk a little too much. It was a strange evening............... But I shall tell you about it another time.

I think that that is enough for today! I am going to go and eat dinner now!

Adios, hasta luego