Taking the easy way out…

I’m tired today. And once again stupidly busy (flat viewing this morning… then home to laundry, dissertation. Now it’s almsot time to cook tea…). But I feel bad that I’ve been neglecting my poor blog again. So I’m taking the easy way out with a meme that I meant to steal from Hails ages ago. You know you’ve been busy when you haven”t even had time for a cheat’s post! Ah well, I’m doing it now…

A. Attached or single? Attached. Although I prefer to think of it as “in a relationship”

B. Best friend? I don’t think I have one. I used to have one, but then my sister moved up to my dad’s and most of my friends suddenly realised they liked her better. Anyway, I live too far away from most of my friends now. And the people I know here are mostly just that… people I know. Three of them I would refer to as friends, but best friends? No. They already have one.

C. Cake or pie? Right now definitely pie. Preferably meat pie. I miss pie! And pasties. Why do German bakers not do pasties?

D. Day of choice? Strangely I think right now it’s Monday. I love my job (even though it’s stressful and tiring at times), Monday is early enough in the week for exhaustion not to have kicked in yet, and it gets me away from the dreaded dissertation of doom which is currently taking up every minute of my weekend that isn’t spent on housework.

E. Essential item? Train ticket, to get to work.

F. Favorite color? Red. But don’t tell my family, or they’ll buy me so much red stuff I’ll get utterly sick of it and never want to see it again. That’s what happened with my old favourite colur (purple). My old bedroom at my dad’s is still full of purple candles, purple ornaments, purple items of clothing.  Aargh!

G. Gummy bears or worms? Sour worms.

H. Hometown? Mostly Karlsruhe. Although part of me still thinks of the North East of England as home (I know that’s not a town but I just can’t bring myself to call the actual town I spent my teenage years in “home”. I was too pleased to get away from the place!)

I. Favorite indulgence? Eating ice cream on a cold day.

J. January or July? July. I love the summer (despite that fact that it hates me) and January is all dark and cold. At least in July I still get to see some sunlight… in January I leave for work in the dark and by home time it’s dark again.

K. Kids? Love them. I always wanted three, but with each year that passes the chances get slimmer (and my Grandma’s pleas to be made a Great-Grandma get louder…)

L. Life isn’t complete without? Friends, love and travel.

M. Marriage date? Possibly never.

N. Number of brothers and sisters? One sister. Two half brothers (who are not related to one another). All younger, although in the sister’s case nobody believes it.

O. Oranges or apples? Oranges I guess, although I prefer satsumas… which you can’t get here.

P. Phobias? Moths. Ugh.

Q. Quotes? Lots. I collect them. In fact, I have a whole page of them. If you really want to see a quote go there.

R. Reasons to smile? I love my job and soon I’ll (finally) have a flat with the boyfriend. Once the dissertation is handed in the smile will get bigger.

S. Season of choice? Spring, if it’s warm. I love summer, but it hates me (I get sunstroke reeeally easily). Autumn is nice for about three days (when it’s still warm and the trees are pretty colours), before turning grey and miserable, and Winter means Christmas which is not the favourite holiday of my family.

T. Tag 5 people. No. Anyone who wants to do it may feel free to tag themselves.

U. Unknown fact about me? Umm… what haven’t I already told you? No idea. Tell you what… anything you want to know, ask and I’ll write a post with answers. (And now it’s going to be really embarrassing if nobody asks anything…)

V. Vegetable? I’m not good with vegetables. Most of them make me feel sick. But I LOVE aubergines. Which is probably strange when you think about it…

W. Worst habits? Biting my nails. I’ve been trying to stop for years! Also, sarcasm. And an inability to stop buying books (curse you Amazon!)

X. X-ray or ultrasound? Huh?

Y. Your favorite food? Potatoes! Mashed, roast, baked. As chips, in soup. Prepare them any way you like, I will eat them.

Z. Zodiac sign? Leo, the lion. Which makes my birth stone tiger’s eye. Much better than my month birth stone, which is peridot.

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My Life According to Idlewild

Hails posted this as a note on Facebook and tagged me in it, so I decided to use it as today’s blog post. Yes, it’s another music meme.

The rules:
Using only song names from ONE ARTIST, cleverly answer these questions. You can’t use the band I used. Try not to repeat a song title. It’s a lot harder than you think! Repost as “My Life According to (BAND NAME)”

Pick Your Artist: Idlewild
Are you a male or female? Queen of the troubled teens
Describe yourself: Younger than America
How do you feel: As if I hadn’t slept
Describe where you currently live: House alone
If you could go anywhere, where would you go: Make another world
Your favourite form of transportation: When the ship comes in
Your best friends are: You and I are both away
Your favourite colour is: Actually it’s darkness
What’s the weather like: (The night will) bring you back to life
Favourite time of day: I’m happy to be here tonight
If your life was a T.V. show, what would it be called: Mistake Pageant
Your ideal Birthday Present would be: Tell me ten words
What is life to you: I don’t have the map
Your relationship: Pleasure and pain
Looking for: I understand it
Wouldn’t mind: A film for the future
Your fear: To be forgotten
What is the best advice you have to give: You just have to be who you are
If you could change your name it would be: Roseability
Thought for the Day: Listen to what you’ve got
How I would like to die: Safe and sound
Soul’s present condition: Theory of achievement
Biggest secret: It’ll take a long time
My motto: Forget to follow

Now it’s your turn. Have fun!

I need your help!

Inspired by the wonderful Hails, I have decided to take part in Project Zero, aka. the 101 Things in 1001 Days challenge. I shall be posting my full list as soon as I’ve finished compiling it – which will hopefully be soon as I want to start it on my 26th birthday, 13th August 2009. But in the meantime I need your help with one very specific item on my list.
For one of my tasks I have decided on this:

“Assign a theme to each month of the 1001 days (e.g. numbers, water). During each of those months take 50 photos related to the theme”

I worked out (or rather Google told me) that there are about 32.8 months in 1001 days. That means I need 32 different themes. So far I’ve come up with 17! So I need your help. Give me some themes!

The rules are as follows:
1) Nothing that I have to set up first, so no teddy bears’ picnics or anything like that. Because that would mean taking all 50 photos on that day, which kind of defeats the object.
2. Nothing that would mean having to take picture  of people… so nothing like portraits or babies. I don’t know yet what I’ll be doing with the photographs, but just in case I decide to post them on the internet I don’t want anything that may compromise other people’s privacy.

Other than that anything goes. And just so you know, once I have the themes the rest is up to my interpretation. So if for water I decide to take pictures of a water melon, and ice cube and a lake I shall. Anything goes, as long is it somehow reminds me of the theme.

Post your suggestions as comments please. Once I have them all I plan to use the list randomizer at random.org to select the order of the themes.
Here are the themes I have so far, just to get you started. The remaining 15 are your responsibility.

1. Blue
2. Doors
3. Water
4. Food, Glorious Food
5. Planes, Trains and Automobiles
6. Man’s best Friend
7. From the Heart
8. Socks and Shoes
9. Looking Up
10. Snail Mail
11. Let There Be Light
12. Spots and Stripes
13. Numbers
14. Some like it HOT
15. Flags
16. Flowers
17. Signs

My red letter is…

Ages and ages ago Hails over at Coffee Helps was giving away letters for a memey type thing. It’s quite simple really – you take your assigned letter and write a blog post based around it. The idea is to think of ten things beginning with that letter that are meaningful to you.

My letter is T. Here are my ten things…

TRAVELING.
I ♥ traveling. Getting to see new places, learn new customs, hear new languages. How could anybody not love it? I’m not sure if it’s because I was brought up in an army family or what, but staying on one place all the time just sounds incredibly boring to me. As does going on holiday to the same place every year. I want to go everywhere. See everything. Experience as much as I can. And I love the fact that I’m actually living in an era where this is possible. No more 3 days donkey ride to get to the next village. No, I simple hop on a plane (or even a train) and within hours I’m wherever I want to go. It’s fabulous!

TOFFIFEE
Does anybody not know these sweets? They’re little cups of toffee with a hazelnut buried in nougat in the middle and a then a thick disk of chocolate over the top. I could eat them all day! It’s actually a good job there are only about 12 in a pack otherwise I could seriously make myself sick eating them. They were invented in Germany by the way. I knew there was a reason I liked this country…

THUNDERSTORMS
I adore thunderstorms. They’re exciting and awesome and slightly scary all at once. I especially love it when there’s forked lighting. Forked lightning is probably the coolest weather phenomenon. I also find thunderstorms strangely erotic. I always want sex when it’s thundering outside.
Wow, I can’t believe I just said that. On the internet!

TIGER’S EYE
Tiger’s eye is the birthstone for Leo, which is my star sign. It’s much, much nicer than the birthstone for August (my birth month), which is peridot. Peridot is green. A really strange pale green that reminds me of snot. Awful. Tiger’s Eye on the other hand is a kind of orangey brown. It has light bits and darker streaks, so it looks stripy like a tiger. You can also get red tiger’s eye, whch -as the name suggests – is a reddish version of tiger’s eye. Below you can see a photo of my red tiger’s eye necklace. It was a Christmas present from Jan and is my second favourite piece of jewellery. (My absolute favourite is a necklace of golden leaves that I inherited from my step-mum).

TREGARRICK
Tregarrick is a book by Keith Chatfield. It’s not my favourite book nor has it ever been my favourite, but my copy is special to me because it’s signed. My Auntie, who knew my ambition was to be a writer, had it signed for me and gave me it for my tenth birthday. The dedication that the write wrote in the book is wishing me luck with my dream. I haven’t achieved my ambition of becoming a writer yet (a couple of poems published by Forward Press doesn’t really count)but maybe I shall one day. And it’s nice to know my Auntie believed in me back then.

THIRTEEN
I’ve always loved the number thirteen. Not only because I was born on the 13th, although that is part of the reason. I’ve just always been fascinated with the fact that people believe it to be unlucky. As a child I remember wondering how a number could be unlucky. I mean, it’s just a number, right? Any anyway, obviously it must have been lucky for me. After all, I did come into existence on that day. The 13th is still my favourite number even now, and Friday 13th my favourite day. If it was up to me every Friday 13th would be a holiday. (And employers around the world breathe huge sighs of relief at the fact that I am not in charge…)

TERRY PRATCHETT
What can I say, the man’s a flipping genius! How could you not like the guy that invented Death of Rats? And Granny Weatherwax. And the luggage. At least three of my favourite books were written by him. He’s just so funny, and all of his observations are absolutely spot on. Plus, how could you not love somebody who describes being diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s as “an embuggerance”?

TEN THINGS I HATE ABOUT YOU
There are so many things I like about this film. The soundtrack (Letters to Cleo! Semisonic! Sister Hazel!) The fact that Heath Ledger looks pretty darn fine in it. (I still can’t believe he’s dead. The guy was only a few years older than me. People my age aren’t supposed to die!). The poem. The bit where Bianca punches Joey. Yes it is probably a chick flick and yes it is cheesy in places but I really don’t care. I love it.

TOMI UNGERER
He is a French artist. He illustrated the Flat Stanley books, among other things. He also wrote and illustrated some children’s books of his very own. He also does political and erotic art. The erotic art makes me laugh – a lot. Here‘s a picture by Tomi Ungerer. And here‘s another one. They are good, no?

TEA
I always have lots of teabags in the house. Both ordinary black tea and the fruity kinds (which are technically infusions because they don’t actually contain any tea). There’s nothing quite like curling up on the sofa with a good book and a nice hot drink when it’s cold, rainy and windy outside. Coffee is good too, but it takes so long to make (unless you use instant which sort of defeats the point of a nice hot drink) and in my world hot chocolate is only for bed time – or for drinking in cafes where you can get them to put a mountain of cream on the top. So a nice hot cup of tea it is, or even a pot if I feel that way inclined.

OK, I think that’s 10. Phew. That was hard.
Now it’s over to you lot. If you want a letter just leave me a comment and I shall assign one to you. Let the memeing begin…

And the winner is…

One of my friend sent me a request on Facebook to take part in something called Dragon Wars. The only comment I feel I can make to that is why??? Some people clearly have too much time on their hands…

So today is not Friday. Yes, I’m sure you’re all aware of that. I just thought I’d remind myself. You see I’ve spent all day convinced that it was, then feeling incredibly disappointed whenever I remembered that I actually have one more day at work before the weekend. *Sigh*. I like my job but I could really do with a holiday. A proper one I mean. One where I actually get to relax, rather than a 3 day trip home, complete with 9 hour stay at Dublin airport and 10 billion activities to cram in to 72 hours.

So apart from not being Friday today has been a rainy day in the land of the Deutsch. In my part of the land anyway. Actually it’s been chucking it down since 11 o’clock last night, which was ok when I was indoors. Not so good when I missed the 12 minutes past 5 tram home and had to wait 10 minutes for the next one. Luckily I was catching my tram from the side of the station where the roof doesn’t leak. Unfortunately it was that type of rain that’s so slanted it’s practically horizontal, meaning I got wet anyway. So that was fun.

On a brighter (but not necessarily more sunny) note: I got an award.

Look! Isn’t it pretty!

I got it from the very lovely sleepyjane whose blog you can visit either by clicking on her name or using the link on my blogroll. Go on, go. You really should, she’s very entertaining.

And now I believe I’m supposed to pass it on to other people. Sooo…. Katyboo, Welsh Girl and Hails, this one’s for you. Go share the love.

And now I have to figure out what I’m going to make for tea tonight. Whatever it is there needs to be another to feed me and the boyfriend with some to spare for tomorrow’s lunch…