Work, eat, sleep

the title is pretty much my priorities at the moment. I'm doing a lot of work (not begrudgingly but willingly, mind you) and there isn't a whole lot of time for other things at the moment, which is a pity. But never mind. I've got pretty much everything done I wanted to get done, except the work for Tort Law, which is due on Thursday. I have time because like a particularly well-organised student I did the work for the other three modules over the weekend and so it hasn't been rushed and panicked, but instead patiently worked through as it should be. Which is what I enjoy the most about my life at the moment. There's time to do things.

I promised you all a picture of the flowers!!

They are truly lovely. And I still have them even though it's been more than a week (they're not over yet). They smell FANTABULOUS (yes, it is a real word) because there's Eucalyptus in the bunch, as well. So my whole room smells of Eucalyptus now. Not complaining at all. Thank you, Patrick!

I'm reading The Godfather by Mario Puzo in my spare time (scoff, scoff, chortle, chortle). I felt bad having seen the films and not read the books, which I really think I should have done first, but never mind. You can't do everything as you'd intend to do it. And besides, the films are rather good. If for whatever reason (coma? you're a hobbit? you have no self-esteem? lack of time/money?) you haven't either seen the films or read the books, I suggest you rectify that. I always find it amazing reading or watching these "classics". How did this come out of someone's head? It's an incredible phenomenon that we have such active imaginations, I tell you that.

I've had coldy-flueyness this week, unfortunately, so I'm not as lovely and happy and bouncy as I'd perhaps have liked, but that's not really a problem. I'm going home at the weekend again, to see my mum for a bit. I never feel like we get to spend much time together so I'm working through everything I need to do in preparation for that. I also have an assignment due in next week that I need to do the preliminary reading for, which means either going to the library or hooking up my printer (not difficult but time-consuming).

Happy reading, folks! I can't tell you how nice it is, having you read these posts. It means a lot to me, not because I WANT you to read them, but because you're interested in what I say (whether you agree or disagree is interesting too, so please comment if you can).

Victoria Jane :D

Visiting family

So I took this weekend off (after handing in that Assignment, I needed a break!) and went home for the first time in a month! It's the longest I've ever been away from home. Once when I was younger I camped with a cousin for two weeks and going back home felt pretty good. So, after a month of being in a new, confusing city, doing work and generally not knowing where many things are, going home was not only AMAZING because it meant I could see my family, but because it also gave me the chance to be lazy with directions and   cooking. I got there Friday evening and went skating (the first time in a month, it was a relief to realise I can still skate to be honest!!), before having dinner at home. Just pasta and sauce but actually eating with my mum was really lovely.

I also (as you would) went to see my lovely other half, Patrick. I take great delight in surprising him, so I told him I'd be there on Saturday morning for hugs and such, and even called him while I was outside my house, saying goodnight... And then I got a lift to his and opened the front door VERY quietly and took my suitcase up the stairs VERY quietly... And walked into his room. And he freaked out! It was fantastic. He was sat in bed, saying "What are you doing here?!" and he had the BIGGEST smile on his face. Made it worth the effort of lying to him all week, definitely. He also bought me a LOVELY bouquet of white roses, which are my favourite flowers! I've never had flowers bought for me before, so that was a lovely surprise.

So we spent the evening chatting and then went out the next afternoon, after I'd been to the opticians to get some new glasses (I stood on mine, poor things, they're bent beyond all functionality) and check my prescription. My head has widened, they said, and I had to explain that it was because of the metal stretcher I used to have in my mouth. For reference, I used to get one Shreddie stuck between my opposite back teeth. The gap is now wide enough for a Party Ring. It's nice to know all the pain was worth it!!

In the afternoon, we went out for lunch (ham, egg and chips is an amazing meal and if you disagree there is something fundamentally wrong with you), then for a milkshake. Patrick bought a banoffee one that was so thick, he couldn't finish it, which I think was a foreign concept to him (he looked very confused). We also went out for dinner with my dad, so I am certainly well-fed now!

I currently have reading to do for the morning ( a side effect of not doing work all weekend is catch-up work that needs to be done), so I'm off to do that.

I will upload a picture of the flowers with my next post!!

Happy reading, folks!!

Looks and books

Hey hey! I'm just into my fourth week at university and having a great time so far. Sorry or not having posted (I know I said I would) but I've been busy!!

so, I've been preparing my first assessment (a piece of coursework due in at the end of this week), which is for Foundational Legal Skills. This part of the course is 100% coursework. I need to do some pretty interesting things for assessments here at the university, and I like that they don't spoon feed us the information, because it means we KNOW if we're not doing enough work. It's very autonomous and you control the outcome of everything quite strongly here. So, I spent maybe twenty hours in the last three days reading and doing little bits towards this assessment. I didn't feel like I was prepared to even start writing until last night!
 So obviously this means that I am busy and hungry and don't always have time for meals. But, like any good student should, and particularly one who tends to get ill when when they don't eat enough, I have cheats. Now, these lovely little thingies on the right are a new-ish product from Nutri-grain. They're called Breakfast Biscuits (as you can see) and they're really good if you're on the way to an epiphany, meaning you don't have the time or patience to deal with your grandparent of a cooker. You get six packs of four biscuits. They're perfect. They're yummy. They stop me from fridge-raiding.

 Everyone has a favourite drink as well! Mine is this stuff by a company called Tymbark, which is a Polish company. It's not very sweet, which is why I like it. The only problem is that I can get through a two-litre pack in about four hours.

So, this is my room! Accommodation is quite expensive, but it was worth paying for because, though it's not in the picture, I have a little en-suite too. Again, this is a good study-aid. I don't have to make any long trips just to have a shower or brush my teeth, and I like that rather a lot. It also happens to be good when I'm sore from training, because I don't do a whole lot of walking about at the moment. My knees hyperextend as a result of skating, and now I'm doing Taekwondo, they hurt quite a lot. I spent £40 on knee straps. It was worth it- I could actually walk today! I bought Elastoplast ones. They're fantastic.

So, yes. My room has lots of study space and the bed isn't too bad either (kind of a bad mattress but I'm always VERY tired by the time I go to bed so I don't really have an awareness of it for long. Taekwondo is fantastic. I'm enjoying pretty much everything about university, except that I miss my family. An unfortunate side-effect of loving people is that you feel a little empty when they're not with you. But I'm training four hours a week and studying maybe thirty or forty hours a week. and then I eat and sleep and explore. And life is good.

I'm going home this weekend!! It'll be great to see the lovely other half, Patrick for the first time in a month, I am very excited!!!

happy reading, folks!

Rank and file

Hello again! It may have been a little while, but I have a good reason: I've moved house! Well, that's a lie, kind of. I've moved to university! I feel it's all a bit rank and file from now on, because there are a heck of a lot of students here and we're all numbered (on our flashy student cards, which happen to match all the towels I've brought with me- style mistake? Or victory?)...

It was quite difficult packing all my stuff and leaving mum, but I'm having a great time here. So far, I've met all my flatmates, a lot of the people on my course, and some of the professors here too. Everybody is lovely and friendly and it's very liberating having to do everything for myself.

So, this week I've been doing the pre-reading for a module on my course, which starts on Monday. The actual module in question starts on Tuesday, but there's no harm in doing a little bit of work ahead of time to help get myself into the swing of things, right?

So, how are you all? Good? Well? Healthy? You know those New Year's resolutions, the ones that are impossible to keep? Well, I made a "New Academic Year" resolution, because it's easy to make all those changes at once; and I don't regret it. I have joined a Taekwondo course. So far, and for the foreseeable future, we train (and will train) on Thursdays and Fridays. Yes, Thursday was painful and fun. Yes, Friday felt like suicide. Yes, it was completely worth it. I am proud. I am proud that it hurts to walk and that my calves are so tight I can barely walk down stairs. I am proud that I have stretched, sprinted, side-stepped, punched and kicked my way to pain. I enjoy the experience, and I enjoy chatting to others on the course while we all get the crap kicked out of us, by ourselves. It's really, really painful and really, really fun, because it's nothing like anything I've done before. I recommend it highly!!

So, I'm starting my degree on Monday. Freshers' week has been good too, although I do miss my family. And my feet hurt a bit from running around barefoot, but it's a mark of self-discipline if you don't complain out loud, really (that or involuntary mutism, I guess).

Happy reading, Folks!

P.S. Soon, as promised, you'll all meet Christmouse, whom I have chosen as my partner for shenanigans now I'm here at university! He's friendly, he's a mouse, he sings carols, and I got him in my stocking, hence his name. Speak to you soon!!

The pain of not moving

One of the reasons I don’t post very often (well, ain’t this post a lil’ funny then?) is that, quite honestly, sitting at the computer for hours is a largely uneventful and painful experience for me. I don’t have anything particularly wrong with me, but as a result of various incidents I find it painful to sit down for long periods of time.

You know that way you sit in bed and read a book? I have to have my bed in the corner and sit quite upright if I want to do that for anything longer than a couple of minutes. The bottom of my spine really doesn’t like prolonged pressure and it makes it difficult to do things people find relaxing, like have a bath or sit and read. I suppose it’s a good thing, because it means I don’t sit around all day (something I have tried rather unsuccessfully to do today, in fact) and I get more done. Walking around aimlessly is awfully boring. It’s good for thinking, but I prefer longer walks for that sort of thing.

Even now, as I type, it’s very uncomfortable. My neck doesn’t like it, my back doesn’t like it and my legs take about half an hour to recover every time I do this. Exams are a nightmare and I find that I break my concentration by moving around in the seat a lot. But there you go, no matter! I was, more than anything, wondering if anybody else feels like that. I find it very annoying; I have to go to a physiotherapist for the duration of exam season because the studying leaves me unable to sleep.

The main problem is either having had whiplash a while ago that was never fully resolved, or the ridiculously unbalanced amount of muscle I have on my back. The right side has about three times as much muscle as the left, due to my being lazy with sports training and not practising elements (of any sport that requires feet) both ways around. It sucks. I tell you (more like warn), don’t do it. It results in annoying cramps and rucksacks are never comfortable.

But enough! How were the cookies? I hope a couple of you tried to make them. I’d make them more often myself if it weren’t for the fact that I eat them all one after the other.

I always forget to mention, if anyone has questions about me, you can always send them here (as in, comment below). I’ll set up an email address for correspondence in the future.

Happy reading, folks!

Victoria Jane 

Très Apologétique (COOKIE RECIPE)

Hello, everybody! (Hi, Dr. Nick...)

Many, many apologies for not having been in touch earlier! I hope you're all well. I have news! And then, of course, I'll give you that recipe that I've been holding on to for so long (I bet you've all forgotten about it by now).

So, results day for A2 students was back on August 16th (last Thursday to the less formal readers out there, hey hey) and of course we were all pretty nervous. But, by some intervention (known by normal people as "revision" and "good fortune" I managed to get good enough results to get into university, and so did my boyfriend, and most of our friends (the ones who applied anyway). So it was a great day! I got an A* and two Bs, and the other half managed an astounding A*AAB combination. I'm very proud of both of us.

So, off to uni, to study Law LLB, and I've decided to take a qualifying Law degree, which means I'll be able to become a barrister or solicitor afterwards. I look forward to it. My lovely other half is off to study Computer Science, possibly filling his dreams of being a mole for the rest of his life (I imagine he'll do well at uni, I really do).

Right! On to the recipe! Now, this makes some lovely ginger cookies (or you can leave the ginger out and substitute other things, like cinnamon at Christmas) and I'll tell you all the tricks I've come up with to help make the process as successful as possible. Here we go!

Ingredients:

• 125g unsalted butter (I use Stork in a tub, it's fantastic)
• 100g dark muscovado sugar
• 4 tbsp golden syrup (Tate and Lyle!!)
• 325g self raising flour
• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 2 tsp ground ginger

Utensils:
Glass mixing bowl
Dessert spoon
Saucepan (medium-large, non-stick)
Oven, Hob
Scales
Teaspoon
Greaseproof paper
Baking sheet x 2
Fork

Method:

1) Put your saucepan on the scales. Put in the butter and sugar, and the golden syrup. It's better to use four dessert spoons of golden syrup; the cookies are still going to be quite moist, don't worry. Then, put this on the hob and let it all melt together on a medium-high heat (I use around a 7 out of 9). You can stir if you like, but if you leave it on there it'll bubble and stir itself as a result. Just don't let it boil over!! Turn the oven to 180 Celsius (350-355 Fahrenheit).

2) Take your flour, powdered ginger and the bicarbonate of soda and (after weighing the flour) mix them all in a bowl, using a fork. Once they are thoroughly mixed and the butter/sugar/syrup mix has bubbled for a minute or so, pour that hot liquid (BE VERY CAREFUL OR IT WILL BURN YOU) into the dry ingredients, and stir it all together. It can get quite tough, and it will most certainly begin to rise.

3) Cover your metal baking sheets in the greaseproof paper and spoon spheres of cookie mix (around two-three teaspoons' size each) onto them at intervals of around five-eight cm.

4) Pop them in the oven, and wait about four to five minutes. After five minutes-ish, they'll cool to a soft but firm consistency and they're great with cold milk.

TIPS

Do NOT store them touching each other! Because of the syrup, they'll all stick together and form into one giant cookie-lump. (May not be a bad thing)
You can add chocolate chips to the mix! White chocolate chips are great.
They can be reheated in the oven (two or three mins at 160 Celsius) or the microwave (not more than 10 seconds or they burn).

Have fun and be careful! I've found them quite addictive, but they're really, really lovely so I'm not mad at myself.

Happy reading, folks!

Victoria Jane

Hello, stranger(s)!

I'll be the first to admit, it's been an abominably long time since I last posted, and I've not been particularly busy either, so I'd have to say that quite frankly, I'm just sorry. I've copped out. I've been a bit of a baby. 

My exams went... overall, disappointingly. With this phrase, I mean, I feel the first two exams went very well but the third and last exam, the two hour one in the afternoon... that came two hours after a three hour exam... That one didn't go so well. I put this down to a number of factors.

1) I completely underestimated the amount of time I'd need to revise the ten necessary chapters effectively.  I revised them, I did, but not nearly well enough. And that exam happened to want a lot of detail.

2) I didn't sleep enough. Not just the night before the exam, but in the month preceding exams in general, I was getting five or six hours a night, which truly just isn't enough. I reckon nine hours would have been better. 

3) Law, which was the last exam, was the hardest exam. And because it was the last exam, I had almost no choice but to revise more for the others. 

4) After the end of term, I generally need three to four weeks to relax. This is non-optional. I literally stop functioning as a responsible adult and student for this period of time and as such was unable to revise, which was the ONLY thing I should have been doing. Really. And I messed it up.

For these reasons, and the fact that I am somewhat angry at myself, I am afraid you'll have to wait for the major reason you've wanted this next post, which is, of course, the cookie recipe (Wooo! I tried it again the other day and it is STILL amazing and very yummy)... But yes, next time! 

Happy reading, folks!! 

Victoria Jane