Winter Days

I am glad that the snow has waited until today to properly start across the country, causing cancellations of trains, planes and road closures as it has meant that my weekend plans were uninterrupted. I was able to get to both my night in at a friends with a curry on Saturday and a Christmas house party last night - not bad all in all. However, it does mean that for the next few days I could be fairly housebound which will produce some trouble with regards to my Christmas presents. I have now resigned myself to the fact that many of my presents will not have arrived in the next four days and have resorted handmade gifts. Luckily I have already started work on some Christmas bunting for my mum and am thinking possibly a teddy bear for my sister and might be really cheapskate and make some cakes and burn some CDs for everyone else.

Movies and Musicals

After having miraculously and unbelievably landed a lead role in this years school play, We Will Rock You, I have very nearly completely lost my voice! I only auditioned for a laugh and partly because it is my last year but I have ended up with a none to small role to say the least. Not only have I been pushing my throat to its absolute limit with my six songs in the play but I also spend the majority of last week singing carols in preparation for the carol service. As well as this already fairly above normal amount of singing as part of our enrichment programme in the sixth form I have been rehearsing for a show at the end of next term. Therefore all of this coupled with a fairly bad cold as a result of the bad weather I will be lucky if a can still speak at the end of next week.

Snow and Moulin Rouge

Well, it is now officially December and the snow has arrived, all two inches of it! Covering everything with a blanket of loveliness, I am loving the crunching of the snow under my feet and it is the perfect start to advent and a count down to Christmas.

I also became more Christmasey with Christmas choir rehearsals today and am very much looking forward to the annual concert in the church as it always makes me feel properly Christmasey - it is just so sad that it is my last year. Cannot believe that I am in year 13 and that next year I will be at university it is so scary.

Do you really need another pair of shoes?

I went late night shopping today came back with some nice Christmasey fair isle jumpers but had a disaster shoe shopping experience and it reminded me of a writing competition I entered ages ago in Elle magazine with the title ‘Do you really need another pair of shoes?’ So I thought, as it obviously struck no chord with the judges of the competition, I would share it with you.

Do you really need another pair of shoes?

In short no. Not necessarily because they aren’t needed, because in reality I own a relatively small collection of shoes. I am most certainly not at the stage where if you open my wardrobe you are crushed under huge mountains of shoes or the stage where I have an extra walk in wardrobe with shoes on floor to ceiling shelves arranged by colour, but I’ve come to the point where I can’t physically deal with the excruciating pain of shoe shopping. I, as much as any one else, love looking at endless pairs of ridiculously high and over embellished shoes, the problem is that as a size eight, I have found it is basically impossible to buy a pair. It is said in that great classic film In Her Shoes that a shoe is so fantastic because it always fits. You would think for me, someone who is most certainly not a size zero, this would be a huge comfort that buying shoes will give you a boost that clothes sometimes can’t (especially if you have just eaten a large slice of chocolate cake) but this is certainly not the case.

Geeks and Nerds

Last week it became clear to me that I am most definitely a geek, a fully fledged nerd. This realisation arrived in my mind after several events of the last few weeks.

Not last Tuesday but the one before, I was ill and had the day off college. When I finally dragged myself out of bed I wanted to find something good to watch on the TV. After flicking through endless rubbish daytime programmes I resorted to Anytime TV. I found myself getting too overexcited by the programme Star Wars: The Legacy, on the History channel and did in fact watch the whole 3 hour episode - something which I am not hugely proud of. I then spent the rest of the day watching old repeats of Robin Hood and Merlin and finished the day with the extended edition of Lord of the Rings! Overall a very geeky day!

Paris and Julie and Julia

I finally watched Cédric Klapisch’s Paris today after having bought it last Christmas and I realised that it has been almost three years since I visited the beautiful city for the first time.
The film really is incredible; it is beautifully made and it’s just a simple, funny, warm film despite the heavy subject matter. Romain Duris is absolutely brilliant in it and I now want to watch everything he has ever been in. Most of all though this film just made me desperate to return to Paris.

The Social Network

Yesterday, I went to see The Social Network at my local theatre, in the tiny cinema for just £4. It was hardly packed out with just 5 people plus me and my two friends but I think that it is my favourite cinema, especially for watching more ‘indie’ films like The Social Network.

I really wanted to see the film and I thought that perhaps it had the potential to disappoint but it didn’t at all. There were loads more laughs in it than I expected and in parts it was hilarious, most memorable moment was perhaps the forced cannibalism of a chicken! Jesse Eisenberg was as ever great and I also thought that Andrew Garfield who played Eduardo, Eisenberg’s best friend who he ‘screws over’ was fantastic and his American accent was faultless. Justin Timberlake also proved to be good and managed to, for the most part, not just play Justin Timberlake in a film and he transformed from loveable pop star into a character who was easy to hate. Actually all of the acting was good and there wasn’t a moment whilst watching it when I wished for someone else to be playing the role. I also like the overall look of the film as most of the shots seemed quite dark and dreary which in many cases mirrored Mark Zuckerberg’s (Eisenberg) feelings and experiences.

Mange Prie Aime

I took part in a french exchange a couple of weeks ago and went for the first time to see a film in french minus the subtitles. I recently bought Elizabeth Gilbert's book Eat Pray Love and intended to read it before watching the new film with Julia Roberts but I didn't really have a huge choice when taken to the cinema by my exchange partner. However, I barley understood anything in the film and it was almost too painful to endure!!

The autobiographical story of self discovery set in Rome, India and Bali follows Elizabeth as she tries to find herself and love after a bitter divorce. What I've read of the book so far is both emotional and funny and already I can see it becoming a firm favourite. The film really was beautifully shot too and the settings were incredible, it was just a shame I couldn't really understand a word of it!! What I did understand of the film though I loved, especially the character of Liz and I am interested to see how Julia Roberts plays her when I finally get round to watching the English version. Also liked very much the idea of travel and discovery which was shown throughout the film and wish I was able to just up and leave to live in Italy for a bit!! Eating pizza, pasta, gelato and drinking lots of wine but also learning to speak Italian sounds like a pretty good way to spend the best part of a year to me. The soundtrack wasn't bad either and did prompt me to download a few songs.

Autumn and the fair!

This week was the fair in my town and I enjoyed two beautiful, lovely nights there! The proper autumn weather has begun and the cold crisp air meant that it was definitely the time of year to hang around the town centre eating rubbish and becoming incredibly dizzy on loads of fairly over priced rides!! It does look very pretty though, the town all lit up with the many different coloured lights of the rides and the crowds of people facing the cold all wrapped up warm in hats and scarves. The waltzers are by far my favourite ride and despite the pain of having your neck pushed back against the edge of the cart at a 90° and the dry ice filling up your lungs they are certainly the most fun, even though now, a day after, when I am regretting my third ride due to the large egg sized lump on the back of my head! With the ever looming UCAS applications and coursework hanging over my head it was quite nice to have two nights of autumn, which seems already to be slipping slowly into winter, to enjoy.

Hay Festival

Last Friday was my last day at the Guardian Hay Festival and I seem to have accumulated a rather large pile of Guardian papers on my bedroom floor. I kicked off the week with my first event, the incredibly brilliant Ed Byrne who was absolutely hilarious. His response to a drunken woman who heckled his jokes about feminism made me cry with laughter, as did his comments on why people treat animals, especially cats, better than other people and his own obsessing about things he should have said in arguments had me (please excuse the cliche) in stitches!