Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas by twitch-the-timegirl featuring short dresses

Holidays Are Coming!

You can tell it's the run down to Christmas when:

1 - Christmas specials are all over the TV
2 - I get excited by the single digits for Sleeps To Santa
3 - I watch my Christmas movies: The Grinch and The Santa Clause
4 - I make my family watch the reruns of the ITV Christmas pantomimes. Again.

I'm sure there are plenty more, like singing along to the Coca Cola advert and having Christmas songs stuck in your head. My point is, I woke up this morning and it took me only a few minutes to realise that it is exactly one week til Christmas!

And like the child I am, I got ridiculously excited.

Later today, I am going to sit down with The Boyfriend and watch The Grinch. And all this week, the pantomimes are on at half 5 in the evening, so I know what I'm doing!

On Tuesday, I am getting together with some of my friends from sixth form, who I haven't seen since the summer, and we are having a Christmas meal in a local pub, which should be good fun. At least, I really hope it will be, because they was a lot of drama trying to organise it. But let's not get into that; I do not wish to spoil my Christmas mood with bitching.

In case I don't talk again beforehand, I wish you all a Happy Christmas and a good winter holiday. <3

Remember the time we stole the whole day?

I should probably be finishing off my essay or cleaning my room or doing something productive but for several reasons, I simply do not have the energy. The main reason is for the last few days I have been suffering from a cold. This has led me to realise something... well actually two things. One, my immune system sucks. And two, I get sick when I have work to do.

This time, I have an essay due in on Tuesday. I finished it this morning, all 2500 words, it just needs editing and printing off. And luckily, I have had most of the past week off to write it. Which is actually quite fortunate because last Monday, I caught a cough. Then Wednesday, I woke up with a sore throat. Then yesterday I suffered the whole day with a running nose. Now it's Saturday and I have the whole shebang!

This sort of thing has happened to me before. Last year over Easter I had two 2000 word essays to write in a week and a half, with the flu. Good track record, huh?

But I'm pretty sure you don't want to hear all this. What I do want you hear about, if you haven't already, is Alex Day's new song 'Forever Yours'. I am a little bit obsessed with it. Can't help it, it is so good! Anyway, here's Charlie's video for it - stupidly funny! And on Nerimon's channel, he plea's to help him get it to Christmas Number One, so I am spreading the word! Yep, to all five of my readers...

Don't Talk To Strangers!

And I don't mean that in the sense that parents tell their kids that. No. I mean that I can't talk to strangers. It's not that I have grown up with really strict parents that would drag me away when someone smiled at me, or that when someone I don't know tries to engage me in conversation, I just ignore them. No, apparently I can't talk to strangers.

A few instances in the last couple of months has made me realise this. The most common sort of incident is a mother apologising for her child wondering into my path and I have to slow down and/or move around. I am pretty sure normal people are able to smile and say "Oh, no problem. Kids huh?" But I can't. When this happens to me, I sort of smile or smirk, watching them out of the corner of my eye and walk quickly on. Then, when I have walked on and left the people behind me, I think 'Why didn't I say anything? Is it really that difficult to say that?'

Does anyone else do this? Surely I cannot be the only one this nervous or whatever it is that is stopping a 20 year old woman from talking to people! God, it's so frustrating that I can't even say 'You're welcome' to someone who actually thanks me for waiting out of the way!

Ok, I think that's enough of a rant for now. A few quick observations before I sign off. One - I just saw the Coca Cola advert, which means it is now Christmas (This is probably a UK thing, by the way). Two - I have a stinking cold and should be writing an essay that's due in next week. Three - actually, I don't think I have anything else to say. So, in that case, this was a little bit rubbish and I apologise and I will see you next time.

A Loving Character

Anyone who loves reading will have experienced this at one point or another. It is surprisingly easy and half the time, you don't even realise it's happening to you.

I am of course referring to the phenomenon of falling in love with fictional characters.

Being an avid reader for as long as I can remember, this has obviously happened to me. Many times. My most recent obsessions include Shane Collins from Morganville, Draco Malfoy, Frank from Cat Royal, Bones from Night Huntress Series and oh God, so many more!

You may wonder why I am talking about this. Well, I think I safely blame Sophie for this, as all we ever seem to talk about are books. And the books I need to read. And the characters we are in love with. And then we realise that there are a lot of them. And that it is probably a bad thing. Or least very sad. Either way, surely we can not be the only people that suffer from this... thing, to fall in love with a fictional character. Someone who seems too lovely or caring or brave or simply brilliant that even though they don't exist, you cannot stop thinking about them.

And of course, it doesn't necessarily have to be with character's from books. I am very much in love with the Doctor and Capitan Jack Harkness and Tony DiNozzo and Seeley Booth to name but a few!

I wonder why this happens. I suppose more than likely it is due to the quality of the writing, whether it be prose or script. A character who has the best lines, is adorably comforting at the right time, knows when to hug and when to fight, well how can you not love them? So I guess, really, it's the writer's fault. I mean, why create such a character and not make him real? It's playing with reality and it's just cruel. Tugging on our heartstrings like that.

I think the hardest hit I have suffered is the Doctor. Especially the Tenth Doctor. Despite the fact that he is gorgeous, he has the best lines, mad and brave, running around the universe and saving people. How can you not love him? Many moments have been lost when I have been dreaming of running awway with the Doctor. Any fangirl will admit to this: it is a common fantasy.

In books? A similar character: Shane Collins from Morganville Vampires. I share this fascination with my friend Sophie. We often waste hours discusing his character, his motives and actions, how jealous we are of Claire! He is brave, fearless and a little bit silly, charming and adorably tough, if you can have such a combination!

Also Draco Malofy and Severus Snape from Harry Potter. Personally I am intrigued by the motivations of both these characters, espeically Severus. 'The Prince's Tale' is my favourite chapter of any book I have ever read; it is also quite possibly the best love story ever written. In my opinion anyway.

I could go on about fictional characters I love, but I think I'll stop there. It's a little bit depressing actually, thinking that these wonderful people don't exist. I suppose really they are too good to be true anyway.

Dreaming of the Doctor

I know I blogged yesterday but I feel I have to share this. And no, it's not about Halloween. I'm sure you are already aware of the date but I don't particularly care about Halloween. Don't get me wrong, it's a great holiday but being British, I see it as an American thing and generally can't be bothered with it. Especially when I have essays to write and journal articles to read.

Anyway, just a little mini post this morning, literally just to tell you the dream I had last night. Before you start, it wasn't anything scary or weird or dirty... in fact, as my dreams go, it was pretty normal.

In my dream, I met the Doctor. Following on from my previous point, for a dream, not that weird. I mean, I've had dreams where I've had to stop Harry Potter from running over a cat in my garage! And following on from yesterday's blog, dreaming about the Doctor? Way nerdy!

Anyway, it was a short dream. I saw the Doctor walking along the path on the other side of the road. I crossed the road and called his name, he turned around and I gave him a big hug. My arms around his neck, I said "Thank you Doctor. Thank you for all the times you've saved the universe, even when we didn't know it." All he did was tighten his arms around my waist and bury his head into my shoulder. "And you're not alone Doctor. You have all this friends, all over the world, all through the universe and you don't even realise!"

And that was it. I think he might have let me go at some point and said something like "No one's ever said that to me before", in a kind of cute and pathetic way that made me want to hug him again. Kind of boring from a neutral context but when I remembered it when I woke up, it put me in a really good mood.

God, I watch too much Doctor Who! But I love it and I love him and even though he's a fictional character and it was my dream, just telling him he is wonderful made my day.

Closet Nerds

As quite a shy young woman, I do not broadcast my nerdiness. In fact, on the outside, I probably look quite normal. Until I open my mouth. But definitely not if I'm wearing my purple skinny jeans. Although I have been praised on my choice of trouser colours. Case in point, I don't look like much of a nerd. I wear normal enough clothes, listen to normal enough music, read normal enough books to appear normally average. But under this cover, I am a nerd. A proud one at that. I wear All Caps and Doctor Who t-shirts, I listen to Chameleon Circuit and The Parselmouths, I am obsessed with the Harry Potter books.

Yet, unless someone gets to know me, actually gives me a chance to talk freely about what genuinely interests me, most of the world would never know. And when I find that one of my friend's is also somewhat secretly nerdy, I love them even more. And looking around campus, I notice things. There is a lot more nerdiness out there than I thought. Some examples include a girl sitting on the bus in front of me, listening to All Caps, and a girl walking past me on campus wearing a shirt that says 'Keep calm and it will be totally awesome!' I didn't even get made fun of for knowing the name Buckbeak's would-be executioner! All this is making me think that there is a lot more nerdiness in most of us than we think.

Specifically, I am an English Nerd, so being good friends with Sophie is awesome! In fact, I have a blog because of her! Being her friend gives me a chance to discuss books. Because despite most of my friends at university doing an English degree, we don't generally talk books. So me and Sophie... yeah, it's probably not a proud thing to admit to but we have major in depth discussions on characters and plot lines from books that are not only not on our reading list but are probably too young for us anyway. By the way, I am talking about the Georgia Nicholson Confessions series and the Morganville Vampires series. And sometimes Harry Potter.  You know, when we're not talking about Glee or Bones or how much of a fool her housemate is.

At this point I would like to just ask if anyone knows what Minecraft is. Some do, some don't. Ok, so I got hooked because The Boyfriend plays it and even though I have been playing, ooh, at least a year, I am not very good. And by that I mean, I get blown up by creepers and shot by skeletons. A lot. I like to play on peaceful mode and build things. Generally it's little villages made of pine wood or cobblestone. But last week, like the huge nerd I am, I made a new world purely to recreate Hogwarts.

Yeah, feel free to laugh at me. I am even re-reading the books and researching Harry Potter Wiki just so all the rooms go in the right place. Oh God, I just realised how pathetic that is!

The point of this blog was to highlight that nerdiness is everywhere and in most inevitable. Pretty much all my friends are nerds in some respect and most are hardly aware of it. If anything were to come from this blog, it would be this: don't hide your nerdiness, don't be afraid to show it. Because chances are, there are people out there that are just as nerdy as you and you don't even realise.