Happy New Year!

I can't believe it's already the end of the year.

I can clearly remember writing the blog entry at the start of the year which is now ending. i.e this year. 2006.

Remember it?
It was the one with the top 40 songs, according to how I was feeling at that particular moment. (If you had asked me the same question 10 mins later, it probably would have been quite different).

Now do you remember it?

Here, allow me to refresh your memory.


I've been trying to think of something more interesting to do for this new year post.
I know that this blog has been looking a bit forsaken recently. Like the elephant grave yard in the Lion King. In fact, when checking back to see if I had written another profound, witty, informative (or otherwise) post, you may caught sight of some tumbleweed blowing across your screen.

I'm afraid don't have an excuse for this blogging hiatus.
Just like I haven't had excuses for any of my other blogging hiatuses. (Or is it hiati? Or hiatii? Isn't there a place called Haiti?!)

I could tell you that I've been busy, and it would be true, but I could have made time to blog. I mean, this blog has survived for a year and a half now, (depending on your definition of 'survival'), and life is always fairly busy, isn't it?

With it being Christmas recently, we have received a lot of Christmas cards, and many of them contained news letters boasting about how busy everyone has been, what with their recent promotion / the arrival of their new baby / their extensive travels / their impressive sounding degree course / their home improvement plans / their half finished autobiography / their extraterrestrial abduction etc.
Everyone is busy, but that doesn't stop them all from blogging.

I could also tell you that I have had more important things to do, which would also be true, because I have had more important things do do. I just haven't done them.
For example, I didn't write any Christmas cards this year.
Not a single one.
This is probably the first year I haven't sent out cards since I was 6 or 7. Before that, it wouldn't have been worthwhile to send them, because my writing wasn't clear enough for people to read who the cards were actually from.

The exchanging of Christmas Cards has become a social obligation, and to be honest, it actually felt quite good to eye the other people in the supermarket queues, buying piles of christmas cards, and knowing that I was rebelling against society in a fairly significant, but ultimately harmless way.

I suppose I could even try to excuse my lack of posts by telling you that I forgot I had a blog. However, this is not true either, because several people have told me that they have read my blog recently. Some said it helped them to understand me more (what's that supposed to mean?!) others said they found it quite funny (thats fine, I don't care. Go ahead. Laugh at my pathetic little life. If you get pleasure out of sick passtimes like that, it says more about your pathetic life than it does about mine. So there.).
Actually, why do you all read this?
Thats not a rhetorical question.
Why do you, yes, YOU, the person reading this now, keep coming back to 'that place between asleep and awake'?
And when you're here, why don't you leave comments?

Other people on Blogspot get comments.
I have had very few comments.

If you read my blog, leave a comment.
Don't come and find me in person!
This blog wouldn't exist for you to read if I told you everything in person rather than writing it here.



Erm.... argh.
See what's happened?
I'm out of practice at blog writing.
There are even more tangents now than there were before.

What I was trying to say is that there isn't really an excuse for my lack of blogging.

But I need a new years resolution, so maybe mine can be to blog more regularly.
My new years resolution was actually going to be to go swimming once a week like last year, if you think back to what happened, it wasn't very successful in the end. In fact, I think it would be safe to say that it totally failed.
I think regular blogging is a better resolution, because it's not very strenuous. As you all know, I don't really 'do' strenuous.


Anyway, as it is new year, I thought I would upgrade to the New Blogger! It's been asking me to upgrade for ages, but evidently, I must be quite a conservative blogger, because I was a bit concerned as to how the new Blogger would be different. I liked it the way it was. Also, I couldn't really be bothered to undergo another extensive registration process.
Today I finally took the plunge, and registered under the new Blogger. And, truth be told, I don't think it's all that different from the old Blogger. But I haven't had a chance to explore it yet. Apparently, you can do a lot of cool things with the new Blogger. Like privacy settings to pick and choose who can view your blog. But to be honest, I don't think I can afford to be picky with my limited (but lovely) audience.


Anyway. Why am I writing all this?
I'm meant to be wishing you all a happy new year.



I'm going to watch the fireworks in Westminster. =)

Let's hope it doesn't rain. And that I don't get stuck behind a tall person.

Christmas!

I think that the way I did Christmas this year kinda reflects the rest of my life at the moment.

I didn't manage to get my advent calendar until the 8th December. By the 12th December I had eaten all the chocolates up to the 19th December. After that, I lost the advent calendar, and I still haven't found it.

This year, rather than traipsing around London like last year, Emma, Phelan, Lobs Tanz and Me decided to cook our own Christmas Dinner. It turned out to be a very interesting, edcuational and enjoyable weekend. =)

Here are some photos from our Christmas weekend!

Tanya and Emma.

Note Phelan's newly painted bedroom walls. =)

Emma, proudly displaying her new Captain Jack Sparrow action figure - complete with bottle of rum.

Phelan and Elizabeth - spreading the love.

Proof that Emma is a bad influence on the rest of us.

Phelan and Elizabeth, making a big noise while the rest of us were trying to watch Never Mind the Buzzcocks.

Elizabeth, Me and Emma, after being woken up the following morning.


Emma, proving to me that it is, in fact, possible to make Yorkshire Puddings yourself. Until then, I was convinced that 'Aunt Bessie' was the only person who knew how to make them, and that they were only available from the frozen food departments of supermarkets.

Nearly all the food was finished by this point.

Phelan and Elizabeth were stressing over the Roast/Mashed Potatoes. (deciding what mush in the dish could be described as, and working out whether it could be salvaged).



This is Elizabeth filming us while we were trying to drink shots of Brandy Sauce.

One of my famous 'M&M Cakes'. They always manage to end up looking like they have already been eaten, and then regurgitated back onto the plate, but that actually taste quite good. I promise....

I can cook some things, despite what previous posts may seem to have indicated.

When we were going to set fire to the Christmas Pudding, Elizabeth (always the responsible one) said there was no way she would let us do in in the house, because we'd probably burn the whole place down (does she think we are total idiots?). We went out into the garden, and it was freezing cold, and really windy, so it wouldn't light...

When we went back inside, nobody felt like eating it because it was so covered in vodka. (I know brandy is more traditional, but we couldn't find any...)

Anyway, HAPPY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE! =)

I Quit Chemistry!!!

Yep, I did it!

I've hated AS Chemistry since I started it, and I started to realise that I wasn't really getting anywhere with it, and that I don't enjoy it, and that the only reason I was doing it was so that I could get into medical school. Which eventually stopped seeming like a good reason to me.

I mean, if it's so important that they specify that you MUST have Chemistry A2 (and for most universities, thats the only subject they specify) do I really want to spend 7 years of my life (and run up a £20,000 debt) doing something that I'm not really going to enjoy, and that I'm going to find really stressful because I'm always going to be struggling to understand it?
The answer to that is, 'probably not'.

So, I quit Chemistry. I thought I'd have to fight to get them to allow it, but both the head of 6th form and the head of academics were both really supportive. Much more supportive than I thought they would be (considering I have wasted a whole term doing chemistry, I've been entered for a Chemistry AS Exam in January, and I'm asking to start a new subject and catch up on a term's worth of work). But it was great. They kept saying, 'Yes Anna.....definitely.....as long as you're happy.......whatever you'd prefer.......', and even, 'Did your chemistry teacher upset you? Would you like us to have a word with him about it'.
I just smiled graciously, but with a slightly hunted expression on my face which, I hope, indicated that the whole 'chemistry experience' had been terribly traumatic for me, but that I was willing to suffer in silence, and just quietly get on with the decade of therapy it would take for me to get over it.

I had my first french lesson yesterday. It was a bad day to join, because they were doing a listening exam. So I had to do an exam in a subject when I haven't actually been taught any of it yet. It was a bit scary, but I managed to pick up some of the conversation. (Believe it or not, the people on the tape speak even faster at AS than they do at GCSE!)


But yes. This is the start of a new era for me.

I am no longer planning to do medicine.


And it feels GREAT!

My life has an element of 'unknown' again. =)

Btw, if you type 'I hate chemistry' into Google, you get 1,280,000 results.
And it manages to find all of them in about 0.12 seconds. That's fast.