Blue Skies Through The Tears In My Eyes...

...and I realise

I'm going home.

Extra Brownie points to anyone who gets the quote.

So. I am all moved in to my new shiny paint-smelling bedroom, and for good this time. I say all moved in, and I mean in physical proximity only- I have yet to unpack the thousands of bags that seem to have journeyed with me up here and find homes for all of the things that I doubtless need but brought anyway. This is what I should be doing with my evening. Instead, I intend to have a shower and then watch Doctor Who, after moving enough rammel* off my bed for me to get into it. Tomorrow I shall do the sensible unpacking things, and to be honest I am rather looking forward to the part where I get to make things have a place to live in my room-it makes it more mine. 

I love the whole process of moving in to a new student room, even though this is the third time I have done so and I seem to accumulate more stuff every semester. It's the claiming of the space as your own, turning it from that drab and dreary plain room into something that has your stamp on it, that is full of familiar things that are put in the places exactly where you wanted them to go. It's very therapeutic, and personally makes me feel quite proud at the end of it-when I can look around and marvel at what I have created. Once it's done, once it's finished, I will take some photos of it to show you and you can decide what you would have done differently. That's the best bit, it's entirely my own and no-one else would do it quite the same.
Until then, I am going to just enjoy being home again.

Night, 

Jenni x

*Rammel is a word my mother uses to describe general clutter and stuff.

My Life Changing Moments

Inspired by the lovely Amycakes's post, I decided I too wanted to challenge myself to pinpoint the 5 moments that have made me who I am today. I love getting lost in memories from time to time, and whether they be happy or sad they all affect us somehow. But how to choose only 5 that have shaped me into, well, me? I am, after all, only 21, I haven't finished university yet and I don't even consider myself to be a proper 'adult'. Even so, once I thought about it, and really thought about it, I could find those defining moments that put me on the path I am walking today.
So my 5 Life Changing Moments are:

- 7th July 2002
The day before my 12th birthday I had a fairly unique opportunity. Thanks to my drama school Theatretrain, I was standing at the front of the stage of Her Majesty's Theatre, London, belting my heart out at singing 'Do You Hear The People Sing' with 2 other girls. I realised how amazing I felt, and how much I wanted to do this forever. It sparked my desire to be on a stage, and gave me the best feeling in the world-that of being in a spotlight doing what you love. I've been in at least one performance every year since. I have a lot to thank them for.

-5th-19th November 2005
Simply put, I fell in love for the first time. Everyone remembers their first love, the magic, the fireworks, the constant desire to be near them etc etc. It was all that and more, and at the time was all I had ever wanted. It started me off in the right direction to becoming me, but I had a long way to go.

-14th August 2008
This was my A-Level results day, and things didn't quite go as I had wanted them to...That day and the next couple of weeks led to me, one way or another, having a gap year. At first I was a bit upset that I hadn't gone to uni that year, but looking back I am glad I did it, because it made me grow up a lot, in all sorts of ways. A lot of things would be very different now if I had got the grades I had originally wanted.

-7th-25th March 2009
This was a crazy couple of weeks. I learned that I was stronger than I thought and that I could stand on my own, which I hadn't known how to before. I realised that I had gone and fallen in love again, and I was so grateful to find out the feeling was mutual. I realised I wasn't happy, and what I needed to do about it, and most importantly what would make me happy again. What's been making me happy ever since. Best decision I ever made.

-24th September 2009
I was wandering around the Activities Fair on my own, a new university student still a little in awe of everything. I stopped in front of the theatre stalls, and asked what the difference was between the three of them. A strange man with long hair wearing a cape thrust a leaflet at me and began talking very animatedly to me. I liked him straight away, he was honest and funny. And so I joined USLES, and found my home at uni. We have the best of times.

And here I am, better for all of these times. I wouldn't be me without them, and then who would I be?
Can you pick out your five??

Until next time,
Jenni

My Week In Photos the 1st

My Week In Photos (MWIP if I am feeling lazy) is a photo snap shot of my life for the previous week, as a sort of diary for myself. I am aiming to post one every Monday, although I cannot promise that there will be 7 photos each week. I have imported them here from my other blog because I feel this is a better home for them. GIAG Diaries is about doing new things and trying new experiences, Life and Times is more about me, about my life, about the ordinary adventures. Because every day IS an adventure really, so what better way to remember them?
I give you then, My Week In Photos.

5/9/11-11/9/11

Monday

This is my 'Before' Hair shot. Ignore the dodgy light and tired eyes.

 Tuesday

I was meant to get my hair cut today but the hairdresser was ill, so that didn't happen...

This is not an 'After' hair shot. Fright Night at the cinema. I didn't rate it.

Wednesday

I saw my Nate. No photo, coz I forgot!

Thursday
Ditto for Thursday! It was spent tidying Nate's room.

Friday

Trev's Leaving Party, for she is going to London to be dancey and stuff

Saturday

Spent the whole day with these lovelies! It was very giggly.

Sunday

I spend all my Sundays with these weirdos. It's quite fun.
(Little Show 2011)

And there you have it!
I will see you next week,
Jenni x

Lovely, rainy, crazy Edinburgh II

To start with let me apologise for these posts taking SOOOO long, I started them the day I got home but have slowly managed to forget about them due to the 5 resits I have just had to complete. Boo. However, they are now behind me (Woo!) so it is time to party on and get down to doing all the things on my to do list. Including finishing these somewhat delayed blog posts...so here I am!

We awoke on the morning of the 3rd August to see the sun shining brightly for the first time that week. We donned our summery clothes, and dug out our sunglasses from the bottom of our bags, and set off to climb this:

What that is is the Scott Monument which is a towering 200ft tall monument dedicated to the writer Walter Scott. It has 287 steps, the top set of which are decidedly narrow. So narrow in fact that I had to squeeze through almost sideways, and bring my right arm through afterwards...eech! However, it was VERY worth the uncomfortable climb because you could see for MILES due to the gorgeous weather. There were some absolutely beautiful views! We also found some graffiti from 1884 scratched into the walls, which we both thought was rather cool as vandalism goes.

Just look at this gorgeous city!

After climbing back down all those steps (and collecting a certificate for being awesome) we decided we had earned an ice cream, and went to sit outside the Scottish National Gallery to eat them. Rara promptly fell in love with a "Sexy Bagpipe Man" and sat there squeaking as he smiled at her, it was rather cute!
We spent much of the rest of the day awandering, sitting in the sunshine, and watching people rehearse in silly make-up for the Edinburgh Fringe. Oh and eventually we found this rather disappointing dog:

It was NOT worth it. Not at all.

That evening, we set about the near-impossible task of finding an Indian takeaway for our dinner. In the end we gave in, and resorting to getting the very lovely Elita to Google one for us. We ate our £25 tea at half past 10 that evening, with aching feet and hungry tummies. (Note to self: Next time just settle for the stuff you can find in restaurants, K?).

And so our final morning rolled around, with pendulous black clouds and heavy rain. We packed our bags and said our goodbyes to the lovely Travelodge, and set out to buy the last of our souvenirs and make the most of the short time we had left. We decided, as it was the day before the Fringe proper began, to indulge ourselves with some free comedy shows, just to say that we had. The first of these were the excellent Office Girls Gone Crazy, who made us laugh rather a lot with their naughty poems! Not sure Rara enjoyed being sat next to my over-loud laugh in the pub with only 5 other people in, but I can't help being loud and embarrassing, can I?! They even challenged us to a Limerick competition, and once I saw the first line, (There were some comedians at the Edinburgh Fringe...) I knew what had to be done. This was my effort:

There were some comedians at the Edinburgh Fringe,
With jokes that would make people cringe,
The blokes spoke of their poo

And the language turned blue, 

And the ladies all talked about Minge!

It was received rather well I thought, it's always fun making people snort because you used a naughty word ;)

After a very nice pub lunch for me, and lots of souvenirs for Rara, we found a nice man in the street with an umbrella, so we took a flyer from him and decided to go and watch him (and his friends) be funny too. They were the absolutely fabulous Three Blokes Tell Jokes , and they were so very good. We laughed until our sides hurt, I twitched and knocked a bottle of water over and got heckled by one of them, and it was a very amusing and enjoyable hour. Look out for them, because they are rising stars!

Then it was time for our very last few rainy hours in the beautiful Edinburgh, before boarding a train and heading homeward. I was very sad to leave, and I will be definitely be going back again! Who knows, I might even be performing there some day-watch this space!

So for now, from Edinburgh, from me, Goodbye. I will be seeing you soon, I don't doubt.

J x x 

Lovely, rainy, crazy Edinburgh I

My trip to Edinburgh a few weeks ago with my best friend Rara was my original summer holiday before Slovenia was even a twinkle in an eye. We wanted to go somewhere cheapish* that we hadn't been before, but that had plenty to do-and Edinburgh did not disappoint!
It all began on Monday the 1st August at stupid o clock in the morning. That's no exaggeration-our train was at 5.30am! After a horrifically cold shower, and a lot of grumbling we were ready for the off. Thankfully my new Sheffield house is only a twenty minute walk from the train station, so it wasn't too much hassle getting there. After changing trains at Doncaster we slept for most of the journey, thankfully! I did wake up in time to see the Angel of the North, and work out where we were crossing the Scottish border though, and our holiday had finally begun!
The minute we emerged blinking from the train station, (once we had actually found an exit that wasn't closed and was actually an exit!) we saw a traditional style topless bus pull up opposite us. As my mum had given us some money specifically to spend on "Going topless in Edinburgh**" we decided that's what we would do for the morning-see the city and decide where we wanted to visit. So we toured, we took photos, and we absorbed the beauty of the place we were to call home for the next few days. We ate our lunch in front of the Royal Yacht Britannia, just because we could.

That's it there. Yes, it appears to be in a cage.

By the time we had gotten the bus back into the town centre, we were definitely starting to flag due to lack of sleep, so we headed to our Travelodge, checked in, and HAD A NAP! We are so very rock and roll! We woke up a good two hours later, and with rumbly tumblies went foraging for food. We found it in the form of an all-you-can-eat Chinese restaurant near the station and boy did we take them up on that offer! Stuffed and happy, we headed back to the hotel for crap tele and sleeps.

The next day dawned bright and...chucking it down with rain. After all-we were in Scotland! This did little to dampen our spirits though (just for you, Mr. Matt), and we spent the morning perusing all the shops along the Royal Mileandabit, which were in turns very tacky and very expensive-but it was a nice relaxed way to pass the time.

Rara bought an AWESOME hat!

That afternoon, after soggy sandwiches in a shop doorway, we went to the Camera Obscura , which was pretty awesome as far as I am concerned! The Camera Obscura itself is a 160-year old lens which looks down at the people of Edinburgh walking past and used to freak Victorian ladies out, which is still pretty damn cool. The rest of the 'museum' is full of optical illusions and magic tricks and general fun stuff/stuff that makes you look generally unattractive.

A me and Rara hybrid. Voldemort nose anyone?

After the Camera Obscura, we headed up to the castle, decided not to pay the £15 entry fee, and went to that most important of places-the gift shop***!
On our way back to the hotel that evening, we bought ourselves a Scottish delicacy from the seediest chip shop in the world-a deep fried Mars Bar. If you didn't let yourself think about what you were eating, it wasn't entirely all that unpleasant. I don't think I will be buying one again in a hurry though, put it that way.
That evening, we ate at an awesome pub called The Jekyll and Hyde, which was decorated with all manner of interesting bottles and diagrams and pictures. Plus the toilets were hidden away in a sufficiently mad scientist-horror movie sort of way, so it was quite a fun eating experience all told. And for 2 meals for £8, it was pretty tasty food too!

So that was our first two days in the lovely Edinburgh...the rest to follow shortly.

Hope you have all had fun holidays!





*It was cheap to book at under £100 for 4 days, 3 nights. But NOT cheap to holiday there. I am not sure I even mind.
**Yes, that is exactly how she phrased it. She's filth my mother.
***Can't visit a museum and not the gift shop. It's the rules (Graham).