Hannah

Well, I survived. 

And actually managed to have quite a lot of fun too, which I had sort-of expected but the expectation of fun was seriously outweighed by the expectation of my imminent death, so it was almost like a nice surprise.

However I did spend a lot of time in the cold and despite wearing four jumpers and several t-shirts plus scarf and hat and gloves and coat and all the usual winter accoutrements, I was freezing the entire time. (Not helped by the fact my friends house, which is gorgeous in that lovely Victorian-terraced-London-house way and so filled with books everywhere that I wanted to cry, was almost as cold inside as outside, because the beautiful Victorian house look apparently comes with the price of totally shoddy central heating. And we were sleeping in the eves. Woe is me and waking up colder than when I went to sleep!)

And a result of all this being very cold means that my cold has snuck back and I feel horrible again. Not even the fact that there is now well in excess of a foot of snow absolutely everywhere and it's gorgeous and beautiful and shiny is making me feel better about this. So apologies for being a grumpy so-and-so.

Also had a lovely time seeing my friends, although they all managed to somehow bring their boyfriends so there was a point where I was sort of 'well, I'm spectacularly the odd one out here! Whose hand to I hold as we walk in the snow?' but they are all lovely people and none of them have that awkward PDA, overly-couply thing going on so it was fine. We all went and had hot chocolate and I declaimed how glorious it is to be single and not have your boyfriend/girlfriend steal all your whipped cream.

Anyway. Must go and tidy my room now which is in a ridiculous state of mess because I have no wardrobe space to put my clothes in and so am just piling them up (folded and neatly, I promise!) in corners at the end of each day, but then sadly knocking the neat piles over every time I rush downstairs to watch Doctor Who. So that must be sorted. Love to you all and hope nobody is snowed in!


ETA - Ooh any and all of you that might be in England with iPlayer access who are smart enough to love Mark Gatiss and/or Julian Rhind-Tutt, BBC are repeating Crooked House which I reviewed last year in a rambling way when I wasn't sure what I wanted my journal to be and also was a tragic loser with no friends. (Don't read them. Especially not if you plan to watch it as they're spoiler-filled.) As a scary story it's fairly appalling, but I urge you all to watch it simply for the JRT-with-a-ponytail eye candy.

GUYS GUYS GUYS.

GUYS.

HOW pretty and gorgeous and awesome is the cover for TDC? HOW huge is my very huge amount of want and longing for that book? To snuggle it and huggle it and press it against my TDL cover so Mae and Nick can have fun make out times? (Don't you judge me flist, Sarah does it too so it *must* be right! And also is the bestest thing ever to do with covers and posters and pictures of people in general.)

I...may have spent some time flicking between two tabs with a photo of each cover in very very fast. A Nick/Mae amalgamation-of-speed is sexy as hell.

Okay, I am making no sense. This is because I have spent the past five days highly drugged up, very very cold and sleeping, because of the worst cold in the history of the world. Which I actually hate as it has stopped me from attending a reunion that has been in the works since September to see people I love more than anyone on this planet. And haven't seen for two years.

Illness is crap. And now I am better, just as they all go home tomorrow. Hate my life sometimes.

( What I'm doing tomorrow )

If I do make it back, I'll try my hardest to update this week and the next with amusing and embarrassing anecdotes of Bristol, which I totally failed to give you all whilst they were actually happening. There may even be photos, if I can find any that don't make me want to crawl inside a hole and never come out again.

Love you all!

P.S. (If you can put a p.s. in a journal entry!) Is this not a sexy and gorgeous icon? Total love and win to Play for it! :D

I realise I am well, well behind on posting details of my life in general - in fact I'm well behind on everything remotely internet-y/fandom-based. But life has been mad and I've been in a very weird place mentally (not a bad place so much, so please don't fear for me, just a weird place whereby I find it very hard to do things I really ought to do, be those things posting about my life, tidying my room or researching for a very important essay on Constantine and the Nicean Council) and just been failing.

Having said that and acknowledged how behind I am and how much I suck at everything, and having started a post, you could believe that I'm here to say I'm being good and updating you all on what is pretty much the past month of my life. But no, that's not what I'm doing! I am too tired and too full and still too much in a weird place to witter on about the random stuff happening in Bristol. So instead I want to share with you an article a friend sent me. I think much of my flist is with me in the Twilight dislike, or if not then they probably know of all the reasons I do dislike it. (The bad writing, the completely appalling messages it sends, the shallowness, the utter disturbing quality of the last book and everything within it...all these things and more.)

And these things still apply. And I still dislike it. But this article has given me some food for thought as to the reaction of society in general in a feminist sense. Because, and here is some small aspect of news from my uni life, since being here I have become a strong promoter of women and gender-equality. (I try to avoid the use of the word 'feminist' because it really has become a dirty word, and I refuse to join the feminist society here because they are doing things which to me seem ridiculous and futile, not to mention illegal. Their current plan, last I heard, was to go into Smiths and burn all the men's magazines which objectify women. I am not sure what their plan is once they end up arrested.) And although I absolutely do not think Twilight promotes women and that as a book and as a story it does very little good and possibly a lot of harm to the promotion of women and the breaking of gender-stereotypes. But the article did make me think about public reaction to the fans. And my reaction. Which I am now hugely, immensely ashamed of as someone who wants to promote the rights of women etc etc.

I'm very tired and not making much sense, so I will just give you the article and you can agree with it or disagree, or fill the comments with your love/hatred for the series, or just ignore my strange ramblings entirely and wonder how I ended up in your flist in the first place.

ETA - HA I'm so tired I forget to include it! Whoops! Here you go - enjoy!

And now I'm going back to bed.

Hello flist -  look away EV because I'm being a bad influence as a horribly drunk Hannah!

It's been a lovely evening though -  went out with friends from my course, drank huge amounts, had a lovely time clubbing (what do you know, it can be fun!) and met Alesha Dixon! Completely randomly she was in the same club, and we slipped past her bodyguards to say hello and hug her, which was ridiculously exciting! She is SO lovely! And the skinniest stick I ever met in my life, there's nothing to her! But she is gorgeous and lovely and even though she is a bit of a rubbish judge on Strictly, I forgive her because tonight she said 'aww, I love you!' to me!

Oh god I'm so in the thrall of celebrity culture...

It has been a frabjous night though, and I am very tired and very drunk and have the alcoholic munchies, so am scoffing bread. I've eaten four slices already and it's really not good.

On an unhappier note, I have an incredibly important Latin test tomorrow (26% of my overall grade for the year!) and have hardly revised! And of course, having drunk so much tonight I shall be in no fit state for last minute cramming come the morning. Ah well - hello first year, how nice to retake you...
 

I had an experience the past 24 hours which makes me want to write a long (or maybe not so long considering how little I actually have to say, but knowing me it'd turn into an essay of rambling) entry about the importance of self and personal identification and stuff, but that's all a bit deep (and also quite boring for everyone but me) for a Friday afternoon and the lovely lovely kohl_rimmed_eye had this on her LJ so I decided to totally steal it. As I've not done a meme in forever and I have so much work to do any distraction is appreciated:

( Random meme-y-ness )

That's a spectacularly lame note to end on! And now I've whiled away 45 minutes and the terrifying piles of work are no less terrifying and pile-y! But I have just been told that I can get free tickets to see Up tomorrow, but only if I can find four friends to go with. And everyone is going home tomorrow, so that is a plan for the afternoon!

Finally, after many long and dull days of lying around in my room, taking three showers a day out of sheer boredom and watching every episode of Doctor Who iPlayer has to offer, not to mention the entirety of Peep Show, if only to be able to relate to every single person on my corridor who seems to watch it, tomorrow I am to be freed from my prison cell and back into the real world.

It has only been three days, but I cannot quite imagine it. Eating meals with...other people? Hugging them when they come and when they leave me? Being able to talk to someone for longer than about a minute? What are these crazy ideas? Food is to be eaten from a tray balanced on the bed whilst reading a Deaver or The Thirteenth Tale not at a table! Seriously, there is some hyperbole going on here because it is fun but these things do seem very strange to me. Three days can be a very long time.

But my excitement at being free is not actually the thing that incited me to post. That is something I came across this evening, to fill my last dull hours before sleep and being able to get up for breakfast!

( Epic TV which you must all watch! )
Excuse me. I must away to finish watching. I have an episode and a half to go and hopefully by the time I'm done with that, episode the fifth will be uploaded on the site too.

Now you all away, beloved flist, and watch it too. Because it's freaking epic.

Woe, for I have the swine flu.

Well, suspected anyway.  I have been ill, very very ill, all week and eventually today I thought I really probably should go to the doctor. So I went. And then proceeded to feel horribly bad as it transpired that contrary to my assertions, I had a fever. Cue dragging me off to an empty room for quarantine purposes and everyone having to come and go in masks and gloves and aprons to keep themselves safe from me and all my yucky infectiousness.

They were very nice and understanding about it though. And the lovely doctor man I saw told me that I had either swine flu or some kind of viral infection, but it was too late for Tamiflu and if I went home to bed I'd probably be recovered by the end of the weekend.

Ironically, I now feel a lot worse. But I think it is because my horrible hacking cough is peaking, giving me a very sore throat and also a very sore head as my poor brain is rattled around inside it.

I shall stop whining about illness now.

I am very bored though. I'm not allowed to see anybody for fear of spreading illness, so I'm just sitting in my room, watching endless episodes of Green Wing and Jonathon Creek and deciding that I really am not in the mood to watch any of my films.

Owwweee my throat. I think I will go have another Locket and take a paracetemol and...find something to do. SO BORED it's ridiculous. And it will probably be at least an hour before the next Sarah Jane episode is up. Yesterday's was okay, not as good as it sounded from the trailer last week. But there is the loveliness of the Doctor tonight! Yay! David Tennant fix!

(ETA - so it transpires David Tennant wasn't properly in this one, but he will be in next week's! Hurrah! I bet you all a million euro that this episode, seeing as the title has 'Sarah Jane' in it, will involve the Trickster. Because originality = not this show's strong point!)

And I cannot have been the only one dreadfully disturbed by all the Clyde and Sarah Jane flirting yesterday.  I just have to hope that in my feverish state I was imagining it.

So.

University.

It is weird.

It is also very lovely, and very scary, and a few times it's been very horrible and very sad.  There really is a whole bundle of things thrown in there!

First off - huge and enormous apologies for being a friend/person fail and basically vanishing for three weeks. I am useless and you are all completely entitled to hate me and kick me off your flist and never ever speak to me again. Honestly. But if you do still care a little, I would like to tell you about Bristol!

We got here okay, watching Green Wing commentaries with my sister the entire way to calm my nerves. And then we unpacked and my room is actually lovely - it is bigger than my room at home, which is wonderful! I do have a tiny little cupboard of a bedroom at home you see. When I get some batteries (this is a problem with being at uni - money becomes the most important thing in the universe and spending it on anything at all is horrible) for my camera I will put up pictures! It is..a horrible mess at the moment. I overslept this morning and tore everything from my cupboard hunting for one particular top, and then tore apart my desk trying to find my passport. So everything is very torn up and messy and all things considered it is quite a good thing I don't have a working camera right now!

My room is on the second floor with a view of the tennis courts, which is lovely although also depressing to see all these very fit and exercisey people who are so good at tennis! I'm also next to the squash courts which freaks me out when I forget, and hear loud noises that sound ever so much like gunshots!

The people on my corridor are...pretty nice. I reverted into my fourteen-year-old self and became horribly shy and awkward the first week, partly due to homesickness I think, and they were all very, very party-hard. Which I am not, at all. I like getting a good night's sleep and talking to people, which are impossible to do when you go out clubbing! But now I am used to them we can chat and it's lovely, and of course we all go down to meals together which is a fantastic bonding activity!

My course is absolutely lovely. I was terrified that I'd been a total fool to pick a subject I've not actually studied since year 9, (that's when I was 13, for any friends who are not so familiar with the UK system of schooling!) but it is wonderful. I did have a huge amount of drama at one point though, because I was signed up for an open unit in Classics, which meant I had to go and queue for an hour and register for it. So I went and I queued and I registered and I signed forms and then I was given a timetable for the classes:
 

( The general disorganisation of the humanities department! )

Ohhh epic tale of angst and woe that got ridiculously long! My apologies beloved flist! But right now I am absolutely starving and really craving chicken cordon bleu, which is weird as I really do not like it. So I shall instead eat some fruit cake and an apple and berate myself for remembering to buy wine for formal dinner tonight but forgetting to buy actual food.

I have missed you all dearly. And I think I am working my way back, slowly but surely, as I get a handle on university life and time management. Something I've never been very good at, but I'm starting to learn! I hope you shall all bear with me. I love you. :)
 

 

Okay. So. In...eight hours I shall be on my way to university.

Naturally, this is terrifying.

So to take my mind from this fact, I have settled down to watch this week's Merlin. I'm...ten minutes in? And already I am in love.

Firstly because it is basically like watching fanfic! Seriously, I swear I read this story somewhere - Arthur pretends to be a peasant in order to be treated normally and there's someone out to kill him but nobody is protecting him because they don't know he's himself! FULL of adorable Arthur and Merlin moments, Arthur seems to be out of super-prat mode this week so hurrah for that! And I say that even though I have been a bad fangirl this series and totally jumped ship to Arthur/Gwen. I want them to be adorable and awkward forever, and marry and have lots of babies! Although also for her to marry Lancelot because they were adorable too.

I think I just love Angel Coulby and pretty, pretty men!

Also, Adrian Lester with awesome earring being generally great! And Arthur making up a beast as Merlin sniggers! That was the most entertaining thing ever.

And then...'here is a farmer we shall pretend is a knight!'

HANNAH: Huh. Kind of recognise you, scruffy peasant boy.
SPB: *is cleaned up* 
HANNAH: Oh...there are words appearing unbidden in my brain!
HANNAH'S BRAIN: *unbidden* 'All this time...I just had to meet you.'
HANNAH: OMG OMG OMG IT'S GILBERT! IT'S ALEX PRICE, IT'S GILBERT, OH FREAKING YES!!!

I love Alex Price so much. His episode is my favourite of 'Being Human' and now he is swaggering around going 'Polish my armour!' and laughing in the most adorkable fashion and ohhh it is wonderful!

And although my room is scarily bereft of things and I am seriously scared for tomorrow (today!), right now I am in an awesome mood.

I love you BBC. Thank you so, so much for Merlin and for Alex Price and for general awesome!

(Also - HOW pretty does Gwen look in that dress? I want I want I totally want!)
 

ETA - Okay so now Arthur has pinched Gwen's bed without realising so poor love she has to sleep on the icky sacks. Two things strike me about this. One - did she not have a bed prepped for him anyway? Seeing as how he is the prince and she keeps calling him 'my lord' even though he wants to pretend to be a peasant and all. Two - didn't she used to live there with her father? So...there must be two beds. I distinctly remember her dad lying in a separate bedroom when he was sick last year. Which makes this situation make NO sense, unless the BBC are trying to tell me she used to sleep in the same bed as her dad. Er, no, don't think so!

This is my pretty new layout. Isn't it pretty?

*twirls*

It is gorgeous and I love it. Although...there is no facility for moving to the next/previous entry anywhere. Which distresses me because that is an important tool for me. So if anyone knows if there's a way for me to add that on I'd be eternally grateful!

Today I was kind of productive. I cracked open my printer and loaded the ink cartridges (almost entirely by myself, I was so proud!) and made sure it worked which was good. I was supposed to buy my internet today but I kind of...forgot. GOT to do that tomorrow!

I ALSO went shopping this afternoon and had a bit of a last-minute shopping spree for those random tiny things that I'll need. I bought:
-Running trousers
-Blu-tack
-Hole punch
-Tin opener/bottle opener
-Air freshener
-Whiteboard and pen
-Other stuff I can't remember.

AND I finally bought myself some boots! They are not the sexy beautiful boots I have been meaning to buy for ages, just regular ankle-high leather boots for everyday wearing. Because I am a fashion fail and apart from in the summer when I break out my immense sandal collection, I live in trainers. Trainers and jeans, that is my default. So it is good to have some pretty, smart shoes now! Although I did get home and realise that I also should have bought a smart blouse and some sexy smart heels for going out and also interviews. And a dress. I really need a pretty dress.

Thankfully my mum managed to find her old graduation robes of beauty and swoopy-bat-wing awesome so I do not need to buy more. STUPID pretentious accommodation which makes robes a requirement!

I am also watching Question Time right now and finding it really annoying. Stupid members of the public being annoying and politicians being obnoxious and avoiding questions. Uh oh, someone mentioned the BNP positively! NOT a smart move! It is interesting but would be much better without all the people and the yelling! They also all have stupid hair. And Harriet Harman has a nice jacket but a horrible necklace that is supposed to look modern but actually looks cheap.

I shall stop judging politicians on their appearances now and turn it off. Ohhh bed, I must make the most of you in my last three nights! 

Today has been a funny old day.

Had a nice time in chat this morning until my firewall decided to wage war (again) upon firefox and I kept losing connection. Sorry I never came back after lunch guys - the constant requirement to restart was just too much. I appear to be in a period of calm now which is lovely, but I really have to remember to get a new firewall before Sunday. I feel I should get McAfee back because it was so very good, but it is really expensive! If anyone has any other suggestions, please do make them! (Mention ZoneAlarm and I start screaming - it is the nightmarish firewall that is messing me up so at the moment!)

I also finally managed to sort out my registration for Bristol so I am definitely allowed to go now! Hurrah! All I have to do now is make sure I have the money to pay for my accommodation and pay for my internet and then I am SORTED.

Well, still haven't even begun to pack yet but the administrative stuff will be SORTED.

Just finished making a whole batch of ravioli for dinner. I am in a cooking mood at the moment. So I had a very nice time with my mum making pasta and squishing parcels together and generally getting in as much bonding as possible before Sunday! I love my mum so much it's ridiculous; she means the world to me. There are a lot of things I can't talk to her about but so many other things I can and I know that ultimately she will always be there for me. I will miss her so much it's ridiculous.

Moving on from this topic of sadness, I just went on an icon hunt seeing a I have space again (yay!) and found some lovely pretty new ones! Yay! Is this not a very pretty Being Human one? I like it. :o) I have so many very rubbish icons from when I first got my LJ and didn't realise there were places to go to get pretty icons, and didn't work out for ages how to save icons so they came out all funny and grey-looking. I need to get rid of them and then go back through my journal putting pretty icons everywhere. A task for another day!

I also think I should get a new layout. I got this one because it was reasonably nice and one of the first I found and never really thought about changing it. But it's kind of annoying and very...green. I am in the mood for something lighter. So that hunt shall be added to the list!

This is a post of rambling about nothing. Next week, when I am at Bristol and have a life again, my posts will hopefully start to get more interesting!
 

Who was it? Oh goodness, who was it? Whoever you are, you've made me cry RIDICULOUS quantities and I love you so, so much. Thank you. Thank you so, so much. You don't want me to know who you are and I respect that but ohh...I wish I did know so I could thank you properly instead of just sobbing all over my keyboard and hoping that you see this message of unbelievable gratitude and appreciation.

Thank you.

Thank you so, so much.

I really don't deserve this. I love you. Thank you.

Right now I am not in a happy place at ALL, so I'm going to steer right away from any talk of my life before I start crying/depress you all/get whiny and annoying.

Basically this is a post because I feel unbelievably, heart-breakingly lonely right now and can't bring myself to go and be merry in chat (if there is even anyone there) and so posting here is the best thing I have right now to feel...less lonely!

(This is so pathetic and angsty, I'm fairly sure it is mostly just middle-of-the-night, sleep-deprived, run-of-the-mill 2am depression which, when I get up in the morning, will seem stupid and ridiculous. So please don't worry about me, I'll be fine. (: Sorry for the smiley theft Play but I was going to close my brackets and didn't want two going the same way!)

Anyway. I know a few of you are in Merlin fandom so I figured I'd rec you something very epic and amazing. It's a fic written for reel_merlin, if any of you know that comm. ( Based on a film called Push, very much not EV safe )

And now...I do not know! I have just finished reading The Other Hand which is a book I bought the other week solely because of it's pretty cover and the awesome, awesome cover flap.( I am so unbelievably swayed )

I also finally finished Doublecross,( if that is actually what it is called )

I think I need to re-read my Lemony Snicket books. ( They are so very amazing. )

And now I shall stop this endless wittering and...find something else to do. I may go and trawl through Google for references to this film coming out hopefully at some point this year called Meant to Be which sounds wonderful. It is about a woman who has a guardian angel. Except her guardian angel falls in love with her and has to give up his 'wings' to go and be human and try to make her fall in love with him, or he'll become a fallen angel. It's all very Little Mermaid and it sounds completely adorable and it stars Julian Rhind-Tutt so will of course be fantastic. AND Santiago Cabrera of Heroes and Merlin general awesome is in it too so you know...overload of pretty! Plus Kris Marshall, who I have a fondness for with his affable adorableness.

Title: Behind the Cushion (I suck at titles okay? And I have called this 'TV Fic' for so long it was impossible to think of anything else.)
Pairing(s): None, all very boring sibling relationships here I'm afraid!
Rating: PG. U?
Warning/Spoilers: Possibly a teensy hint of a spoiler.
Summary: Alan's sneaking to get there first.
Disclaimer: Oh how happy would I be if the characters and world were mine...but sadly it all belongs to Sarah Rees Brennan. Buy her book, make your day. :)
A/N: This was written in June, just after the first chat. THAT is how long it has been collecting dust on my hard-drive for! Written for sarkysnarky and the other fish after televisual fic after revelations over exactly what goes on in the Ryves living room.

 

Random, very short post but I had to squee about this somewhere!

Have been re-watching series 2 Torchwood, because it is love and adorable. And today I watched 'Fragments' and 'Exit Wounds' (*wail*) And in all the scenes of Victorian Torchwood, I was saying 'I know you. I recognise you. Who are you?' to one of the awesome Victorian ladies.

And then, finally, in the shot when she's listening to Jack telling them to freeze him in the morgue, I figured it out:

HANNAH: I know that expression...
*penny drops*
HANNAH: LIZZIE! YOU ARE LIZZIE! YOU ARE LIZZIE WITH THE LOVELY HAIR FROM DESPERATE ROMANTICS OH YES GO ME I WIN!

So that was very exciting, because I spend much of my time when watching TV/films thinking 'who are you and where have I seen you before?' It is very important to me that I know who they are, I am not sure why, and it bugs me like heck when I don't.

AND I WORKED IT OUT! HUZZAHZLES!

And now I have to go and cry and complain to Bristol because my online registration says I do not have accommodation in halls EVEN THOUGH THEY GAVE IT TO ME. So that must be sorted as I am supposed to be moving there in seven days time.

I hate universities.

I have had SUCH a productive day!

Never start an entry with a lie, it just depresses you. My day has been spectacularly UNproductive, not least because after staying up until 5am doing ridiculous things and wasting time I slept until almost 1pm which is so stupid. I have got to get out of this cycle of screwed-upness.

So anyway, got up and ate lunch as breakfast time was long past, and then I turned my Moulin Rouge video into a DVD using our snazzy new TV hard drive thing, as I want to take it to uni but cannot take a VHS player. And then...I didn't do much. Watched some more random DVDs because that's all I seem to do now, did a little beta work, listened to Disney songs and the entire soundtrack of Prince of Egypt because after it aired on BBC the other day I've not been able to stop. I've even learnt the Hebrew bits off by heart, it's ridiculous.

And then I drank tea and ate scones and then had dinner and then I watched Fantasia on the internet because my family were using the TV and then I spent an age trying to find just the right music for my shiny new phone to have as a ringtone. Having never had a phone with such capabilities before it is very exciting.

And after much rearranging and downloading and various other things of questionable legality, I have a segue-track from Green Wing as my text-tone and the theme tune from Monarch of the Glen as my ringtone. Why yes, I am very lame with a strange taste in music/TV.

I also decided today vaguely which societies I'd like to join - a drama one, a dance one, judo and also RAG because although they scare me quite a lot you do get a 50% off Dominos card when you join. And I also kind of want to join the Falstaff society because that seems to involve discussing books and going to the theatre which is awesome, and possibly some sort of rowing. Because I love boats and the water. But that would involve very early starts for training so maybe not...

Anyway. That was my day of totally no productivity whatsoever. Tomorrow I am going to get up early, fix my bike, go for a ride, register online for my course, send off my 'yes I would like a bar crawl t-shirt' form (sigh sigh I think I have to) organise my room and write a definitive list of everything I need to pack/buy.

And then I may feel slightly better about totally wasting today.

Am going to bed in about two moments, (trying to be a good Hannah again!) but I have had a surreal couple of hours and feel I need to express this.

Found out that in my corridor in my halls in Bristol I am almost entirely surrounded by guys. Which is absolutely fine, as long as they are nice people I do not have a problem with this, but it shall be very strange. I will be living in a world of testosterone and I think I shall miss the nice girly hormones of oestrogen and progesterone and all those lovely things that stop us from being so smelly and loud and big. We shall see how that goes!

I also got a message from a really good friend of mine, someone I used to be fantastic friends with but then she went to uni and I moved away and we were both too poor to visit each other. So although we message one another sometimes and consider ourselves good friends, we're not the same 'love you love you let's talk all night!' friends we used to, and I haven't seen her for two years, which is tragic.

Anyway. She sent me a message to say she's just gotten engaged, and inviting me to her wedding.

Wowee. Obviously this is TREMENDOUSLY exciting and I'm so, so happy for her but...wow! I feel way too young to know anybody going to be married in the next year or so (as is their plan) and the fact that I've barely even met her fiance is kind of sad. And it is all very strange and surreal and also glorious and I really want to phone her up and squee with joy, except I don't think I have her new phone number. All of which mix together to leave me feeling somewhat punch-drunk with sadness and delight and it's weird.

(I am also being very cross because there is a 'please, we're so desperate for blood, give blood, we need it! Love and kisses the NHS!' advert flashing beside me as I write this. And I have been forbidden to give blood because for some stupid reason it always makes me woozy and they think that means I react badly to it. I loved giving blood, it was wonderful. And so an advert trying to guilt me into doing something they've forcibly prevented me from doing is angryfying.)

Right - bed. If I can sleep past my crazy feelings of woah!

I was just about to make a long and rambly post about London and how lovely it was, when I suddenly wanted to check something in the last episode of series 1 Torchwood.  So I (very wickedly and illegally but the DVDs are downstairs and it's night!) found a part 5 on YouTube and watched it. (Doubt anyone reading this who hasn't seen it will care but anyway, epic spoilers coming up. Just warning, just in case.) And I forgot that I hadn't actually seen any Torchwood at all since Children of Earth.

Now, I never got around to posting about CoE. I'm not going to now, but I will say that I thought it was amazing. And I also didn't actually cry at all. I was really, really sad but something stopped me from crying. Which is weird beacause I sobbed my eyes out at the end of series 2, but it was all so sudden and strange I was shocked into dry-eyes. And I've not cried at all about it since.

So anyway, watching the last scene, from the point where Gwen kisses Jack, walks off and then hears him coming back to life. Then she helps him walk back into the Hub. And Ianto is fixing something and Tosh is moving stuff and Owen is down below and they all run and hug him and kiss him and he tells Owen he forgives him. And they're all together, and they're so happy, and I started crying and crying. I still am. Suddenly I can grieve for all of them and for everything and it's tragic and also kind of lovely. And I remembered how much I loved the silliness of this show. CoE was epic and amazing, but it was very serious. Unbelievably so. And the happy craziness of series 1, where nobody died and everyone was gleeful at the end, is so gorgeous. Oh my poor Torchwood team...

Okay. Recovered somewhat now. So - London!

( Epic tales of London in minute detail because it was love. )

And it was all glorious, even though it meant I missed the SRB chat, but actually I do not mind. Because I would not have missed my lovely London trip for the world. Even more especially because I found the box set of Green Wing for £20 in HMV, and that was so flipping cheap that I gave in and bought it. And I keep squealing with glee at having it on tap, without stupid 4oD adverts in the way and having it decide to stop streaming every five minutes - oh YES! I am a happy Hannah ce soir!

Even though it is so late. And I am failing to sleep. Because I fail at this lately. Sigh sigh why am I so screwed up and unable to sleep like a normal human? Woe.

Now I shall shush and go finish my work like a good beta. It is currently my most favourite thing to do - anyone ever has anything they need beta'ing, I am here! (Bearing in mind I am a grammar and spelling pedant, and get really picky about syntax and spend my life saying things like 'this word is better!' 'put this bit first!' and feeling very bossy. My writers probably do not like me very much, but the work seems to come out quite shiny afterwards, which is good. And it is glorious experience for editoring!)

I AM SORRY I WROTE SO MUCH!

Okay. Promised an entry today so here we go. Only I didn't get any sleep last night. Um, at all. Well, that's not strictly true, I did get about ten minutes. But basically no sleep at all for varying reasons which needn't be gone into, so I probably won't be that coherent. Sorry. If I remember later, after sleep, I shall edit this.

So. Life of late has consisted of university madness. Bristol sent me an email just before A level results day to let me know that I'd get my offer of accommodation 'between the 26th and the 28th'. So naturally I spent three days checking my email completely obsessively every ten-to-fifteen minutes (or less, depending on how desperate I was feeling at that moment in time) and it didn't come in until Friday.

( Random university wittering. There is a lot. Sorry. )

( The woe and trauma of choosing units... )

No languages for me then. Ah well. I'd probably have failed it anyway.

(On a random note related to the music I'm listening to right now, I was terrified to discover the other day that had Taylor Swift and I gone to school together - I said it was random - we'd have been in the same year. She's only five months older than me. This scares and disturbs me so much on so many levels.)

So I have gazillions of stuff to post about which will all come tomorrow, I PROMISE, but for now I am totally consumed by one thing and one thing only.

This thing is the next of Sarah Rees Brennan's short stories, accompanying her trilogy 'The Demon's Lexicon'. It is the best yet - it is beautiful and tragic and not at all spoilery for the book, so you can go and read it first, realise how awesome her writing is and how great her characters, and then go buy the book! Yay!

So here it is, in all it's amazing and poetic glory - The Arundel Tomb

Read it. Now. Go. I can wait. :)