MOVE, BITCH!

Ah, yes. Moving time. I've sent in my deposit return form, rung the Daddy about flight dates, rung the aunty about car hire, lugged the storage boxes down the street and settled into a precarious city of towering piles of my campus collectibles.

Still no sign of a future place to live though. And so it goes...But screw it. Home is calling me. Mother's cooked food is calling me. A bed twice this size with significantly cleaner sheets and more bounce is calling me. I can go on, but will desist in an attempt to ward off depression. The parental unit called, and I said get me outta here by Saturday!

But I wonder how many other students are packing and hitting the road like me...
three pairs are missing from this by the way.

Merely the scarf section of my accessories (the lightest section too)

I did all that folding two seconds ago through Sex and the City Season 2! TOO PROUD! Now to choose...what's going in the summer trunks and what stays in storage...

Good deed for the day: distributed all my magazines to the campus clinic, counselling suite and Queen Mary's Hospital across the road. Best reading material they would've had in their waiting areas for centuries! (Thanks for all the contraceptives and sexual health screenings! Yes, T.M.I. but is that not what this blog is all about?)

Half of my bag collection

Jewelry and hair accessories sorted nicely today!

Why do I have a decorating scheme in dorms?

ALSO, NOT SHOWN: Electronics, a significant chunk of the rest of my accessories, many many books (come on, Creative Writing major), noticeboard, a few handbags that can't be folded, a fedora that is bound to get smashed, an appalling amount of toiletries/pharmaceuticals, bedding and towels, my impressive sweater collection and kitchen utensils. Pretty stoked I'm not the rice cooker type and live out of a Che Guevara tea mug. Now all I need is a willing strapping young man to help a Lonely Londoner out! POO!

ANYWAY! After overdosing on Sex and the City Seasons 1 and 2 all weekend, I realised how fun, fabulous and frivolous life can be. That is why I have decided to have a Daphne Guinness-esque clearout sale when I head over to Trinidad this summer (OOH! AHH! Goodies from a 1st world country!) Sorry, a tad mean. But a girl could do with some cash, and I see a thick wad ahead of me. A detox is always good. Imagine the new and fabulous things I could buy next!

SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE

Trudging around London Bridge for roughly 7 hours on a photo safari in the wrong pair of shoes yesterday means not much happening today. It also means I can allow myself several hundred sinful Saturday calories (AH! Did you hear that Consonance? 'SSSSS' Lovely. I'm such a dork) Yes, it's an extremely taboo student weekend, but it's only 5 o'clock...

CAMPUS LIFE

If you're gonna live it, you better love it. You should ideally be drunk 3/4 of the time to survive. Leaving this in roughly 10 days. Thought I'd reminisce. You will ABSOLUTELY NOT be missed.

SEVERAL THINGS ABOUT SATURDAY

Whoa. I can't sleep right. So, I woke up a couple times for the unruly buzz of my cellphone and a knock at the door, which I was so shocked by that I didn't even answer (no one in this flat knows I'm alive. Why would that happen?), but other than that, I literally slept all day. So tonight is going to be interesting. I'll tell you ALLLLL about it.

What's so funny is that the latest song stuck in my head is 'Gubbish' by Chad Vangaalen. Its lyrics go something like this. NOT ONLY that song though! 'Asleep' by The Smiths won't stop popping up when I put my iPod on Shuffle. (Okay we know that's also about suicide but DON'T think so deeply. It's about sleep too)

So I'm taking matters into my own mouth. I'm doing sleeping pills. The date will be set for tomorrow (well today, later, whatever). (Okay we know I sound suicidal and have suicidal tendencies but don't think so deeply. This is about sleep too). I will take them at 10pm and hopefully that will set things straight from there. I have not been on the right time zone since 2006. I've been up and down from Trinidad to Abu Dhabi to London to San Francisco and back, this way and that way, whichever way is cheapest; because my old friends are in Trinidad, my family is now in Abu Dhabi, my school life and flat is in London and my boyfriend (now ex) was in SF. So, it's just never stopped. It's amazing how far apart they all are too, just to stretch my fucked-up-ness even more to the limit.

Usually when I end up pulling these all-nighters I don't fall asleep til noon, and I made an appointment to get my hair dyed black later at 2pm so I'm just gonna have to Redbull it all day long. I HAVE to stay awake. "I'm never goin' to sleep, I'm never goin' to sleep, I'm never goin' to sleep..." That song is so permanently lodged up there....*sigh*

Anyway, to make matters worse, I have a choice of two new DVD's tonight that I bought yesterday because they were dirt cheap. Wait for it....'Interview with the Vampire' and 'The Science of Sleep'. HMMM. To be the living dead or to be the dead living? To be awake or asleep? My brain has hinted enough. It's time to end this Zombie Tirade.

Maybe I should've shamelessly gone to that 'Pimps and Hoes' party at Suburban that I got invited to tonight. Could've just gotten smashed so I would've knocked out conveniently at a fairly decent 3am hour? Oh well, too late. Didn't feel like wearing THOSE BOOTS anyway. But I DID shave my legs this weekend so the mini skirt would've been fun to wear. I hardly ever shave. I opt for the long pants/jeans/leggings route. And well I'm not having sex so...psh! But a couple hours ago, since I shaved, I wore shorts to go collect my pizza and the wind felt like someone was running a silk sheet against my legs...ahhhhh *falls back into a bed of roses* pure bliss. I'll shave more now. :D

So, first thing on the agenda for tonight's sleepless activity was deciding on and ordering several books to read over summer. The class I'm taking next year, Developing the Novel, requires that we read at least 10 books over the summer, not including the Creative Writing texts they asked us to look at as well. So, I made my list:

1.The Lonely Londoners -Sam Selvon (yes, this is where I got my blog title from. I think I read this book in class back in Trinidad. He is a very famous London based Trinidadian author)

2. Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams - Sylvia Plath (I love Sylvia and the title rocks. Plain and simple.)

3. Candy Girl: A Year in the Life of an Unlikely Stripper- Diablo Cody (all the Juno fans should know that this is the chick who wrote the screenplay for that movie and won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, and used to be a stripper, and is gorgeous, and wears gorgeous Daphne Guinness-esque rings like this!) (I will be doing more posts on her in the future. She's my new research project.)

4. The Body: And Seven Stories - Hanif Kureishi (You knew I had to put him in. I'm also struggling through 'Intimacy' and plan to finish it tomorrow at the salon. Seriously guys, get into this guy's work.)

5. A Moveable Feast - Ernest Hemingway (Sadly, this is the first book by this reclaimed suicidal author I am reading. I think anyone who writes such a beautiful short story all in dialogue, about abortion, without even mentioning the word or scenario, deserves my readership - Hills like White Elephants)

6. The Snows of Kilimanjaro: And Other Stories - Ernest Hemingway (gotta know this guy more)

7. Another Sky: Voices of Conscience from Around the World - Hani Kunzru (I heard excerpts from this at a seminar for imprisoned writers/censorship in other countries etc. It is compiled letters from prison, and they are fantastic, and real. The seminar was put on by this group I am planning to join called PEN (Poets, Playwrights, Editors, Essayists, Novelists and their translators), and they aim to 'promote literature, defend freedom of expression, and build a world community of writers'. They're based in 104 countries but here's the wesbite I have for English PEN.)

8. On the Road - Jack Kerouac (I should've read this eons ago. But I read this book about The Beat Generation of San Francisco/New York and all those cats; Ginsberg, Burroughs, Carlos Williams and Kerouac, all the amazing fag writers, and that is one of the craziest things I have ever read, along with 'Howl'. Now I know what I'm getting into and I'm ready for their prose. I remembered about it again tonight because the girl who told me to read it, a friend from Uni, she ran off to India and came back a couple days ago. I missed her a lot. So this is for her.)

9. Naked Lunch - William S. Burroughs (I know. Don't laugh. But I'm ready now.)

10. The Book of Other People: Short Stories- edited by Zadie Smith (Smith is one of my favourite writers, having read 'White Teeth' and 'On Beauty' so...anything with her name attached to it gets me going. This is compiled short stories from UK and overseas writers, including Hari Kunzru who compiled 'Another Sky' above. I figure, if she chose them, they must be damn good. So there.)

I ALSO ORDERED:

11. The Inheritance of Loss- Kiran Desai (Because I think I've read something EPIC from that author before and it's set in the Himalayas and has lots of character Point of View stuff. I realised I like lots of Asian Conflict prose. Theyre very funny and very tragic; Amy Tan's 'The Joy Luck Club', 'Bonesetter's Daughter', Ha Jin's 'Waiting', Arthur Golden's 'Memoirs of a Geisha', Dai Sijie's 'Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress', Hidier's 'Born Confused', Gita Mehta's 'A River Sutra'...I could, and BADLY want to go on...)

ANYWAY, as a result, that's why I am looking for something more on asian culture, and something on Samurai (because I still want to study their ways and become one...yea right). I'm going to also order:

12. Saving Fish from Drowning - Amy Tan (She is an asian wordsmith goddess. I heard this one isn't like her usual Chinese mother/daughter dramas though, and is actually quite disappointing, but I'll be the judge of that)

I AM ALSO TRYING TO FIND:

13. The Savage Gentleman - ? (Amazon is bringing up a buncha crap for this. I think the book might be out of print, which explains why my ex has it wrapped in plastic at home (?) "Hey, Euphemism, a little help finding this book?" Wonder if he'll read this...)

14. Indestructible Wolves of the Apocalypse Junkyard - Max G. Morton (I am so pissed about this one. Jen from Gnarlitude featured it on her blog and, since I shamelessly worship her now, I thought I'd give it a go. It sounded interestingly sick and something new for the reading palate. There are only 500 copies in print and I found one yesterday on Amazon but now it's gone. Will keep checking the website, I guess...)

ANYWAY! I made up my mind to watch 'Interview with the Vampire'. I'm going for sleepless allround tonight. And my pizza's getting cold, and my drink's getting warm, and this is way too long so, Goodnight to all those who sleep!

Nevermind...everyone's up now. Campus alarm went off. MUHAHAHA!

GOOD MORNING, 6:38AM

What the fuck do I do now? I feel like my University dropped me in a garbage disposal at aged 2. I am so bored. I'd kill for an essay to write.

NERVOUS BREAKDOWN SORTED

Hey guys...ummm, sorry about the last post. I'm dealing with it accordingly (crying, drinking Budweiser, having All Day Breakfasts at Troubadour in Fulham, calling my mom, umm cancelling on people, sleeping and living in the O.C. via my DVD collection). I don't have TV in dorms and for some reason you have to have a TV License first so...I've just been regurgitating the O.C. and My So Called Life and movies.

I'm in some kind of hellish persistent nightmare which I am currently taking a well-deserved break from: word CoUNTS, quotations, bibliographies, citations, DEADlines, gRAMmar, editorial ANALysis. Ever been there before? I'm also not feeling very well. *POO!*

I also spent a moment slamming my head into the wall because I announced the launch of Fiction Friday earlier this week and failed to produce my first piece yesterday. GGRRR! I just can't right now okay? I think you understand. So let's just...postpone that until next friday.

Yuh know what's so weird? Watching the O.C. Season Three for the second time I'm realising how much of a nagging, whining little BITCH Marissa is. She bores me to tears. TEARS! That's her entire role throughout the O.C. 'Show us some tears!' And she couldn't even get that right. There. I said it. She and suicidal surfer boy would've made the perfect pathetic pity couple. They could've swam into the ocean and drowned together. Hated him; especially how he talked from the side of his crooked mouth.

And Puppy Eyes Ryan? He is no one to me anymore but someone who looks just like my friend back in T'dad.

Yeah, Summer and Noodly arms Seth were cute and all...

BUT THE BITCHES! I love the bitches. Julie Cooper...Volchok....Volchok *giggles* Seriously Volchok and Marissa should've stayed together. They were my favourite. Their sex was bordering on tantric. HOT! I love the oddly placed ear piecing (considering...) and his shitty arm tattoo is real. I TOTALLY ABHOR THE PRETTY BOY STANCE, and clearly that's what he is. I mean, exhibit A:But I have a soft spot for him. Yeahh...like it isn't enough already that I have a shameless addiction to the O.C., I have to go like a guy like this. Instead of keying Ryan's car with the words 'Lil Bitch' he should've carved that into Marissa's back while they were clawing away in bed.

AND LASTLY, MY ALL-TIME FAVOURITE TV CHARACTER (SERIOUSLY) TAYLOR TOWNSEND! It's like...the writers took it up a notch with her and her dialogue. She was superbly funny...superbly mind-fucked and demanding with those crazy piercing eyes with the perfectly applied eyeliner (jealous!). And people might hate me for saying so (or might not even give a shit) but I'm SO glad she and Ryan got together. Perfect. All was well with the O.C. Let Marissa die. I'm game. Weren't Ryan's 80's Rock music video visions of Taylor THE FUNNIEST THING in all of Season 4?!? "Are you dirty Ryan?"

OLD PEOPLE

I've been thinking about the idea of aging a lot lately....well, more than usual. Every year since I turned 18 (ok so that only makes two years so far) I've been crying on my birthday. 17 will always remain one of the biggest, craziest, best years of my life (I doubt lol). I thrive off of the fact that people admire how much I've already done at such a young age. People over here are constantly amazed that I will be going into my third and final year of University at 19, and graduating at 20, ready to start a life in the US on my own; independent. But that is so useless to me. If only they knew the life I lived when I was younger. ULTIMATE OVER-ACHIEVER! And now that I think about it, I guess that's why I was bullied so much. Then, with my depression, I just stopped...achieving, period. I didn't give a shit. And I was the most popular kid around. EVERYONE wanted to be my friend, and they would still tell me how great I was, which made me even MORE depressed. And now, I feel all washed up. I want it back; the skills, the envy, the admiration. There are kids on here like Miss Couturable who make me feel like dirt. Anyways, I guess, reading this passage over now, I see that it has just been something I needed to get off my chest. I hope it makes me start working my ass off now. I AM NOT OLD. Someone please tell me. People laugh at me for crying on my birthday and I am not even legal in the US yet. Tell me. I HAVE A LOT AHEAD OF ME. I HAVE NOT YET LIVED. I AM NOT. OLD.

Yesterday, my parents and I were having a serious and seriously long discussion on Skype about my accommodation situation here in London. My particular course (Creative Writing) doesn't have exams in it so we finish the school year much earlier than everyone. This year, I'm finishing by the end of April, while people are staying on 'til June (SUCKS TO BE YOU!). But then, it also sucks to be me too in this case. Basically, I'm on campus, and have already paid off my accommodation fees for the Spring term, which means I'm set to fuck about in this room until 6th April. Then, the summer term begins..and we have to pay £868 to stay here from April 7th to June 5th. So...I emailed the accommodation officer to tell her I would be going back home on May 1st, and only staying 3 weeks into the summer term (which at £90/w I calculated would be only £270). She emailed me back to tell me I would still have to pay the whole thing. So I freaked. I started packing my suitcase and everything! Because I WASN'T DOING THAT!

Why is this related to old people? Well, my Grandfather is my only remaining London-based UK relative. The three other families I have to run to in the UK if I ever needed a place to stay are:
1. My aunt and uncle and their 4 kids who just moved to Cambridge
2. My aunt and uncle who live in Derby
3. My aunt and her two kids who finally got tired of London's ridiculousness and moved to Qatar a month later after being offered a job.

BUT! My dad told me his father (my grandfather) was back in Florida where he has another house. 'He told me he would be back since November!' I cried.
'Well, things happen. The house in Florida has serious flood damage so he is stuck there fixing it. Did you know, his wife, your grandmother's birthday is today and she fell and broke her collarbone? So he is staying longer because of that too. Please take some time today to call or email her,' said my dad.

So I do NOT know where I will be living in April, because of old people (yes, the accommodation officer is also old with a stern jaw and reminds me of Glenn Close's character in 'The Devil Wears Prada'). I. Hate. Her.

MORE OLD PEOPLE NEWS!
One of our assignments for class on Tuesday is to take a piece of writing we did back in Year 1 in our Life Writing class and try to re-write it the way we would like it to be written now; with regards to the knowledge we gained in the past year on what would work better for a story etc. So, over the past few days I've been looking at one about my grandfather dying called "A Death in the Family", now renamed "Loss". It was pretty good but I had a lot to change about it this time around. Instead of it being a real life event plucked from my youth, I sort of fictionalized it this time to make it more interesting. Because, really, all it was before, was me talking about my grandfather dying...and....whether we like it or not, people die all the time. So, I've been deep in the past recently, re-thinking that whole incident and what my grandfather's life was like. It's been a sad, pensive couple of days.

BUT he also helped me realise something! I don't think I told you, because I was afraid to do so before, but I am entering the Vogue Talent Contest for Young Writers this year and one of the entry requirements is a piece on someone who has been an inspiration to you, and that's been the toughest bit of the entry for me thusfar. Even though I don't know who the hell I am at 19 with severe mood swings, the 600 word Autobiography bit took me 45 minutes to write! And I am already ready with something to nail the 600 word contemporary arts review. But...now, I'm thinking I should talk about my grandfather as an inspiration.

I have also been inspired...by...I don't know what/who, I guess dead people everywhere, to share with you said short story. I've been so afraid all these years to share my work but Year 2 has really been an impactful, life-changing year for me so it turns out, I am now ready to share! I am now ready to get a move on with life, I guess. Which is great because I thought I would die before I ever got my work published because of my fear. But I AM YOUNG, and there is nothing I can do wrong at this stage. So, why not? What's the worst that could happen? (that was me trying to be positive about age). I'll post it in the next post since this one is dreadfully long.

10 THINGS ABOUT TODAY

1. Uncle Ben's is doing Risotto in a bag, y'all! And it tastes great! Uncle Ben is really saving students, man. The rice in a microwaveable bag thing is totally boss. You guys go ahead and lug your grandma's rice cookers along with you for college orientation. Not me, thanks.


2. Went to Sainsbury's today and while unloading and stuffing my one shelf in the fridge and having my flatmates go 'you eat that?', I realised how un-collegiate and chic my food buys make me look. Here is my shopping list:

Smoked Scottish Salmon

Brie

Red Wine

Green Seedless Grapes

Grated Mozarella and Cheddar Cheese

Grapefruit Juice

Lemon, Ginger and Honey Juice (experiment. Is this good?)

Brown Sugar

Green Tea

Whole Grain Tortillas

Thai Sweet Chili Sauce

Mushrooms

Uncle Ben's Risotto(not so chic but no one has to know it's origin, which then makes it chic!)

Gü Brownies (Have you ever had anything by Gü? FREAKISHLY AMAZING!)

3. Somestimes it's fun to wear heels and dress up a little just to do groceries a bus ride away. Cars stop for you in free-flowing traffic. Damsel in Distress! It reminds me of THE coolest line in Steve Buscemi's latest movie 'Interview', which he wrote the script for too:


Katya: Do you like fishnet stockings, Pierre? Wait. Let me rephrase. Why do you think it is that men like fishnet stockings so much?
Pierre Peders: They look good on women.
Katya: Fishnet stockings are a net, and the woman is imprisoned in this net like a fish. Do you get it?
Pierre Peders: Yeah, and what about high heels?
Katya: Well, high heels make walking very, very difficult. So you see, nothing would be more attractive to a man than a woman wearing fishnet stockings and high heels because she has trouble walking and she's imprisoned within this net and therefore he thinks she's easy prey. I know everything.


4. IT KILLS ME how spot on Trendinista always is. She's great. This. Is a cigarette case. I don't know about you, but it makes me want to die of severe Lung Cancer.




5. These headphones take the cake compared to the ones I rustled up. GREAT colours. Stolen from The Cobra Snake. I'm so lame. (I don't think you can be snapped on that website if you don't smoke cigarettes or own a pair of geeky glasses. I love watching those people but do they have missions in life? They're always having fun! *pout*)

6. I'm sick. On the one day I have classes this week. And am P.O'd that my Writing Fiction lecturer is once again flaking on me for my one-on-one tutorial. I understand that people get sick because...I just SAID I'm sick lol but my short stories need guidance. Help a lead character out!

7. I gave my room a thorough scrape out. HEY! I actually did a Spring Cleaning in time for Spring. Never did that before. Anyways, the reason I decided to turn up the Trance music and tackle my room today is because I did a swamp load of laundry and coming back to my room, resting my happy face on my warm scented hippie blanket, I was faced with the realization that I had too much clothes for an international student. I REALLY SHOULDN'T BE A STUDENT, GEEZ! IT'S DAWNING ON ME! So I started sifting the Charity shop give-aways from the dump-me-already's, then reasoned that I would have more space if I actually FOLDED the remainder of the good stuff; which I was right!

8. Things I found while cleaning:

an over-the-top Afro for a 70's/80's party I didn't go to

my pale pink bob wig a la Natalie Portman in Closer that I wore with other slutty stuff because I was some fetish fantasy for a Halloween party, and made my pinoy boytoy ex a meek and mild Heroes geek, and dragged him around on a leash

About a dozen tubs of old hair products

My Hello Kitty! adult crayon set

Enough Emirates money to buy myself something new at Forever 21 when I head back to the U.A.E.

A short pleated red skirt I wore to a 'Hired Help' party as a Prostitute (I had a condom and a wad of cash in my bustiered cleavage and everything!)

Some great handed down vintage jewelry

9. I DID NOT use any plastic bags while shopping today because over-sized handbags work just as well, AND BETTER! Say yes to big bags and make the world a greener place!

10. I might be bi.

NO CLASS THIS WEEK!

Why did I have to be the one to procrastinate and yet still manage to complete a classic short story, copy out 500 words of text and read four short stories and analyse them ALL in one day (yesterday) to find out from my friends, and much later, my lecturer, that class was cancelled tomorrow?? It is so ironic how after writing out word number 500 onto my page, which was the last bit of homework I had left doing, that I would receive a Facebook wall post from a classmate saying how happy she was that we had no class.

I'm not mad that we have no class but it's definitely something I look forward to in the week, seeing as my week consists of two classes and two 3 hr shifts at the yoga studio; C'EST TOUT! Now I'm probably going to have to just sit home reading core and secondary fiction texts, cast a spell somehow on my brain in order to create at LEAST 3,000 words of very damn good prose and go to yoga everyday. I was thinking of taking a class tomorrow though. Hmm.

Here's the email I got a few hours ago from my awesome lecturer (she says 'lol', and bad words! hehe):

Hi Kara, Don't worry: I realise that I didn't have you in my email addresses because you weren't there first class, so you weren't on the list I took. This is the email I just sent out. So sorry for the confusion. Thanks for double checking.

Dear All,I believe that many of you have been sitting and praying for class tomorrow to be put off, despite my saying it's on. Well, believe it or not, tomorrow's class, the 18th, IS NOW CANCELLED. I believe the prayers have worked. My voice is now non-existent and any effort I might have made to talk is a joke.
Oh dear. I am so very sorry. It would have been a good class too! This means something very important, and I really need you all to pay attention to this: We miss TWO classes, now. No class tomorrow because of my voice; no class on the 25th because I'm doing tutorials. And I am not messing any more people around! THE NEXT TIME WE MEET WILL BE MARCH 3RD.Sigh. But never fear. I am a fab teacher and you are all fab students, so we will make up for it, and nothing will be lost, I promise.Except perhaps a little patience with the blasted teacher that keeps sending you emails.
Ironic, I think Alanis Morisette would say. But then she thinks everything's ironic.

PS: Those of you who've been putting spells on me can stop now :-)Leone

MY VALENTINE'S DAY WILL BE THE 15th

I GOT THE CALL! Remember how I said different countries celebrate V-day on different days? And that if you weren't ready to celebrate it just yet, for lack of a significant other/dinner date/fuck buddy/valentine then it was okay to wait until you acquired one to then take on la Jour d'Amour? WEEEELLLLLL My ex called me all the way from San Jose, CA at 11pm on the 14th, while I was busy sleeping away the day (by accident. I went to bed at noon), to ask me to be his valentine! AND I SAID NO!

Just kidding, dorks! I got giggly and hyper after that and decided to arrange some surprises for him out there. I put on some Britney and had a photoshoot. Above is one of the LESS personal in the bunch/stack/heap *giggles*. WHAT? I'M SMITTEN, OKAY? I really got carried away and must've taken like 8 dozen!

I also had the great fortune of hearing my neighbours on my left scream in ecstasy while they thought their sexual epiphanies were being drowned out by their R&B/Slow jams CD. While to the right of my wall, my other neighbours were having a serious fight. I heard a girl crying like a mouse with its tail cut off, and she was running away in distress clattering down the hall, then coming back in love; back and forth, back and forth while I tried to slide down the corridor out of her way with my plate of rice and korma, and my best comforting smile. *sigh* Tis Valentine's Day in halls of residence.

I also gathered together all the old emails since April 2007 that my valentine and I have had and sent them to him all in a pretty little document. I'm about to go over them now, which could take a good 45 minutes so I thought I would blog first. I tried to write him a new sonnet but I encountered something that I wouldn't exactly call Writer's Block; more like Lover's Block. BUT, IT'S NEVER TOO LATE FOR LOVE. I'll try again another day. Hope everyone had a splendid day yesterday. I'm going to enjoy mine today! :)

REASONS I CAN'T SLEEP!

1) It's been a trecherously long week for me and for some reason I can't get it out of my head that it's only Sunday! It should be an easy thing to remember, but I am just in constant fear that I need to get up and print something off for Monday morning class. "KARA, YOU HAVE ONE MORE DAY OF REST!"

2)I keep thinking I gotta get a fashionable move-on with my day because I've spent the last 4 hours counting the plaid in My So Called Life and the number of fashion bloggers who totally know what they're about style-wise, and I just don't feel like I fit into the couturable equation anymore.

3)I keep regretting my lenten promise to not shop for 40 days and 40 tossy-turny nights. I have been on a serious fashion blog-spotting binge and the number of adorable things I've spotted that I just need to take the number 14 bus to Picadilly Circus and buy...*grrrrr* Well, let's just say the number is getting pretty close to the number of strands on my extra follicled head.

4)I haven't been able to get my daily dose of Pinoy boy toy on Skype/MSN Messenger because said person is away on a conference in Texas for the weekend in some kind of nightmarish hotel where there is no free internet! PFFT!

5)I am incomprehensibly H.U.N.G.R.Y and nothing I have is pre-made, and I am meeting a friend for lunch in Marble Arch tomorrow/later and I am just salivating over the places we will see and possibly dine at. I am also preparing a fantastic omelette in my head with the contents of my one cupboard, that I just don't want to have to get up and make!

6)My hair needs a wash and these extensions might be dying twice on my head. I am struggling with the fact that I may have to singlehandedly take out each braid myself this week and get the whole 6 hour long braiding process re-done. UGH! I am also trying to work with the idea of going back to my normal hair, which may need extra attention now with all the sweating I'll be doing at work with Bikram and friends, as well as with the damage it will be receiving if and when I dye it again. DOUBLE UGH!

Okay, it's 7:45am (beyond ridiculous!). I am going to have such a major insomniac hangover. It's time to fake it and stitch myself into the covers.

I'M JUST HAPPY

I have been clinically depressed for several years now. Recently I've been trying very hard to work at being a happy person in my own skin, everyday, just living life to the fullest and saying 'yes' more. I want to take some time right now to see what lifted my mood today because I think it's a really useful exercise. Here are some reasons why I am happy today:

I started off my day with a complete and healthy breakfast (which I never do. I never manage to be awake for breakfast): a bunch of seedless grapes, two slices of peanut butter and honeyed toast, a glass of grapefruit juice and episodes 3 and 4 of My So Called Life.

I did 33 miles on the bike at the gym today. That is over 400 calories and over 70 minutes. And the cool thing about it was I didn't even notice because I was too busy watching Scrubs and Smallwille on the little monitor on my bike.

I got a very very part time job, but it's money all the same. I'm working Friday mornings and Tuesday afternoons at a yoga centre in Fulham. And it's great because I get free access to the studio and I'm a big yoga buff. Yoga is so therapeutic; excellent for the mind and body. The breathing has done wonders for my mood/depression in the past. In fact, it is my psychiatrist who introduced it to me. After just three weeks of practising it, I was significantly more flexible, I was super energetic and not always tired and sleeping like I was before and my brain felt 'aired out'. Thinking and doing homework was such a breezy task. I loved it. GREAT BENEFITS, GUYS!

I am in love with this week's Writing Fiction homework. Snapshot stories. They're stories that don't really have a point. It's just like...life. It's stories where people don't change in the end, nothing really changes, it's just people living. Because, in life, not everyone ends up a hero or lives happily ever after, or not. It just...keeps going...yuh know? Snapshot stories also don't really reveal much. It's like looking at people from a park bench. You may not really know all the details but they're saying and acting and feeling nonetheless.
I nearly cried reading Hanif Kureishi's 'Four Blue Chairs'. So simple, yet so poignant. Also, read Ernest Hemingway's 'Hills Like White Elephants'. Beautiful. I am working on my own snapshot short as we speak/read/write/whatever.

I still have 15 more episodes of My So Called Life to go through. It may not be much, but 15 is better than 0. The show was genius, and truly missed by many I'm sure. It's also great seeing the plaid/grunge clothing overload in the show. Seriously, every outfit Angela Chase/Claire Danes wears has an aspect of great plaid in it. I'd love to wear their stuff now. I DO have a couple plaid items but there was also the outfit she borrowed from Rayanne in the first episode to go to 'Let's Bolt'. Gorgeous!
Also, when she first dyes her hair crimson, I totally got back the urge to start back dying/killing my hair. I had a new colour every month, I swear! I won't tell you guys what I'm going for at the moment, until I actually get it. She's been really inspiring me as of late. My two coolest most inspirational movie characters are Kat Stratford/Julia Stiles in 10 Things...(which I just bought, along with MSCL), and her, Claire Danes as Angela Chase.
I vow, when I make it big in the writing world, to revive this amazing tv series, or at least try to come as close as I can to it. Nothing can touch MSCL. It was the Nirvana of TV. And that means it was rad. lol

I made amazing eggs with chili sauce. Try it sometime.

I wrote roughly 950 words of my short story today. Coming along nicely...

Today I thought I was beautiful. And two people told me so today as well!

Love is still alive. This is sort of a 'read between the lines' thing BUT! I will say it again, because it's also true the way it's written here. Love is still ALIVE!

SUDDENLY SUNDAY

This week flew away a lot faster than my last, I must say. Very productive week all the same.

I went to that journalism workshop, which was brilliant, and expect to hear back from my one-day tutor with feedback on my breaking news story. I'm reasonably proud of the outcome.

I still haven't found a job or any work experience but I have a couple publications in mind to apply to in the Middle East so I can have something to do when I head back home for summer vacation. And when I say 'something', I mean other than swaddling myself in sheets, laptop to the left of me, ipod to the right and television straight ahead with 'Beaches' coming on next.

I'm in the middle of watching Stephen King's 'It' right now. I wish my brother was here to watch it with me. He is probably one of the few people I know who appreciate it because we welcomed it as our first horror movie experience back when we were 'chisai'(that's my japanese word of the day; 'small'. Just making sure I remember). None of the real scary bits have come up yet, however, minus the awesome beginning where the kid with the sailboat gets lured in by 'It', who is talking to him from the little drainage space in the road. HOW CREEPY!? Can't wait to post this sucker and see what happens next.

I've started using my window ledge as a mini fridge. My Brita and a can of coke are out there at the moment. It's a very seasonal mini-fridge though and I dread the summer day when it will no longer work. We're only allowed one 'chisai' shelf of space in the flat's fridge and I just did my groceries, so bare with me while I write about this small miracle. It means a lot to me. I'm sure you'll understand and appreciate this a lot more when you start living in dorms.

In other news, my mother says she's going to call me today! Another small miracle when you live on your own in a foreign country. It's a good thing too because I just pathetically signed myself up for a Stardoll account out of boredom, and have been decorating my suite and living in a 'chisai' virtual world with uber fabulous clothes. The people on there are 12!

For the record, I am not completely loser-ish, only in small doses. But I went to (*clears throat*), no, was specifically called up and cordially invited to, a house party last night and drank loads of cider in response to the popular drinking game 'Never Ever', so HA!

10 THINGS I LOVE ABOUT TODAY

1. HAPPY Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transexual month! Here's a pic of two of my lovely hunnies for ya! (warning to homophobes) 2. HAPPY BIRTHDAY ANDREW!!! My uber eclectic hunny and wayfarers companion. Hope you have a great day 3.I finally bought the complete series of My So Called Life! Majorly anxious to watch it later. 4. Got my Starbucks fix because I thought I deserved a reward for staying on the treadmill for an hour today. Did 6.57 miles. YAY!

5. I'm okay with not attending Cave Man/Cave Woman BOP party on campus because I am going to Liquid with my girlie!

6. I found a Banksy-esque attempt on a wall on campus today. Check it out!

7. I created an awesome outfit today while being hyper and jumping up and down to Jacques LuCont's "What You Waitin' For?" remix.

8. I'm in love with the eco-friendly re-usable box of Andrex moistened tissue!9.After all the years of watching it on VHS and muttering the entire script to my friend's annoyance, I finally got 10 Things I Hate About You on DVD; in homage to Heath Ledger.

10. I also bought IT by Stephen King on DVD, after a painful choosing battle between that and Labyrinth. It's my first childhood horror experience.

DRUNK IN BRUNEL

It's after 7am. I am all the way in Uxbridge at Brunel University visiting a dear friend who is worrying that she might've gotten a urinary tract infection from the flat's one toilet. THAT is why I have an ensuite dorm. But not a very clean one at that. I'm worried that today is the day the cleaner comes and she's going to see my room's filth. I'm currently still living out of two suitcases from my recent trips to Abu Dhabi and San Jose, CA. And truthfully, I will probably still be rummaging through them for a pair of pants come february. *sigh*

So three of us got drunk, after her smashingly good seafood pasta, off of some Budweisers and Southern Comfort with Orange Fanta. We talked about our exes' penises, the process of piercing the clitoris, watched her do a pathetic rendition of the Soulja Boy dance, and even (because we are SO modern) prank skype-called her friends. Without realising it, this night might've been my very first drunken Girl's Night In; seeing as the last time I had one of those I was about 11. Fun stuff.

She told me that when she went back home for Christmas vacation, she fell for her friend's brother...hard and didn't know what to do. They got to know each other pretty well, and before she left she arranged for him to receive a dozen red roses anonymously. He told his sister, who then forwarded the message to my friend, that he was stunned and flattered to receive them, and couldn't guess who might've sent them. The only thing was, the messenger came and delivered them to him at a scrapyard while a bunch of muscly hard-backed men watched on quietly bemused. hehe. Chivalry exists with women too.

P.S. did you guys hear about the man they 'supposedly' saw on Mars? Check out yahoo's main page today.

LE DAY

A lot of things happened today. And what I'm going to say is going to make my life sound rather glamorous, but it isn't. It's just that I received my monthly salary from dear old dad a couple days ago and I had no class today.

I went to RoeActive, my university's newly opened gym; the one without any ab machines in a predominantly female institute (WHAT IS THAT?!) I sat on a bike with a copy of 'This is the Beat Generation' reading about artsy people cutting off their fingers with garden shears because their gay lover lived a separate life of modelling and prostitution, and because they lived next door to each other, he could hear him fucking other people (William S. Boroughs). I looked up two large chapters later and saw that an hour and 160 calories had passed. COOL!

Then I rolled around on the floor for 20 mins. with an exercise ball trying to make up my own ab exercises. I hit the weights next. For some reason I couldn't manage for long with the 5lbs. I have never used 5lbs that felt like 10. I stuck to 3 (or RoeActive's 5lbs) and learnt that for several months I had been doing my lunges wrong. GREAT!

I rounded everything off with 20 mins. on the treadmill grooving to Britney Spears. I knew, then, that two hours of gym work deserved a trip to Starbucks. At Sbucks now, I sat there reading a stack of those weekly pop culture mags.

NOW LISTEN! An article talked about a woman's partner getting more and more sexually frustrated because she became too tired to have sex nightly anymore. She didn't understand why he was getting so upset. It wasn't her fault she was exhausted after a long working day. He explained to her that she had been waking him in the night with her heavy moaning and squirming as she masturbated. Seeing this, he then became aroused and tried to initiate sex. And she would shrug him off. The next morning she would have no recollection of it, only wondering why her vagina felt slightly sore the next day. Turns out, there are people out there who sleep masturbate! With orgasms too!

SO! After that, I decided to head home. Boy was I in the wrong place at the wrong time; the bus stop at 5pm. I can't tell you how many packed buses flew past my hollering hand. And when I thought one bus driver was gonna stop and pick me up, he merely slowed down to admire me in my sportswear and wave! But I managed to squeeze onto a number 72 about an hour and a half later (!!!!) so no worries.

LESSONS LEARNT TODAY:
Learn the right plunge when you lunge
Try sleeping with one hand in my trousers
Don't get stuck at a bus stop at 5pm if you really fancy going home.