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It's my birthday today. I'm 23 like old lady. I bought golden syrup cake to eat at work. There's only going to be three of us to eat it, but I'm sure we'll manage. There might be a celebration roast tonight, if I can persuade my flatmate to buy a chicken.

Have some gratuitous photos of what I've gotten so far, birthday wise:

Watch. Status: New. I bought it.

Book and bookmark. Status: I've read a few chapters already.

Suncatcher. Status: Needs more sun.

Cards and cards and cards. Status: Everywhere.

The weather has been really strange here lately. Sort of, torrential rain one minute, and then bright sunshine the next. Nearly everywhere in the country is flooded at the moment, even the archive that I work at looked like it was going to flood at one point. NOT AS PLANNED.

I went to see Theresa in Norwich for the weekend, and luckily the train lines I wanted to take weren't flooded like a lot of the others. It was a very pleasant weekend all round. We baked a lemon drizzle cake in honour of it being my birthday this Tuesday:

And because I'm in a very photo'y mood at the moment: here are some more photos of my weekend (sans cake):

I was reading this very interesting book that Theresa had, called Counting Sheep. It's one of those scientific books that are written for the lay-person to read, and is about the science of sleep. It's absolutely fascinating; I think I'm going to have to buy my own copy so I can finish reading it.
One of the main points of this book is that in today's electric light / 24hr society, no-one gets enough sleep. And if you think about it, you will rarely get the 8 hours of sleep that you're supposed to get, and you are always slightly tired during the day. We all think this is normal, but it's not. Sleep has been relegated to something that takes up time we could be doing something else, and is boring and lazy. Sleep should be enjoyable. Sleep is enjoyable. And necessary. We just need to learn to do it more. And so, starting from today, I am going to go to sleep extra early and not be tired any more. The plan is to get 10 hours a night for the next few weeks, until I've cleared my sleep backlog, and then to get the 8 hours a night that I really should be getting from then on out. Let's see how long it lasts before I start going to bed too late again.

Right, well. It's my bedtime. See ya.

Sorry, I've not written in here for a while. I went to visit my parents for the weekend, where I got my hair cut, and went to my cousin's wedding celebration barbeque (which actually had curry instead of a barbeque, but it's all good).

Today Linda is flying over from Luxembourg for her holidays. She's staying over at mine tonight. I'm quite excited because I haven't seen her in ages.

And I felt like taking some photos this morning, so here they are, including a picture of some cute little ducks that followed me when I was walking over a canal bridge at the weekend.

Right, time to go to work.

So it took 17 hours in the end. That's only 14 hours over estimate. Good.

I think I removed about 10 pints of water from that fridge (and it stank too; God knows how long it had been iced up like that).

I do feel accomplished though; there is that. But I don't know what to do with myself now. I should sleep, because I have to catch an early train home tomorrow. But I'm kind of hyped up on defrosting and now I'm too excited to sleep.

Bah.

So I've been defrosting the fridge for 12 hours now. I thought it was only going to take three. It turns out that the freezer compartment was completely solid with ice. I can get inside the freezer compartment now, and there's only about 2 inches of ice left.

I'll keep you posted on how it goes. If I don't lose the will to live beforehand.

The gas came back today! The gas came back today!
I took the day off work to stay home for the gas man too, so now I've got all day holiday! (I'm taking tomorrow off too.)

So basically this is a brief post so I can talk about Tsubasa RC and xxxHolic some more. Don't worry, I won't go into any spoilers. All I really want to say is that both this week's chapters were exciting, but, unusually, xxxHolic was more exciting in terms of overall plot than Tsubasa. I get the feeling that Watanuki is on the verge of something really big, and it's only going to be a few more weeks before we get an OMG REVELATION. I have no idea what that revelation will be yet, but doubtless it will have something to do with Clow/Sakura/Syaoran/The whole of Tsubasa, and possibly CLAMP-verse too. I am excited. And I love it when the chapters cross-over so nicely like this.

OK, I have to go use my day off to go defrost the fridge now.

Haha. So the story with my flat isn't over yet. And I thought it was!

My ex-flatmate, who we paid deposits to, paid our deposits back to us when he stopped having anything to do with the flat. Only, it turns out that the cheques he gave us didn't go through. THEY WERE STOPPED. And now he's not answering his phone, and we have no other way of contacting him.

I don't think I've ever been this angry with someone before. Seriously guys; I don't think I trust anyone anymore! I'll keep trying to contact him though; I'm not giving up that easily.

In better news, the new album from Justice is kind of super. I love the track DVNO. As soon as I heard it I thought, 'That's the song for Yagami Light'. I've got a bit too much Death Note on the brain at the moment, but how can a mixture of disco and arrogance not relate to Light?

Also good news is that I started drawing again yesterday. Next on the list is SSSSSSSSoubi. Clematis comes later.

I signed a contract with my landlord yesterday. I get to stay in my flat for the next three months at least, and the bills will be included in our rent during that time.
My internet might still go off. I tried to persuade the landlord to speak to the internet provider that we're with now and get a MAC code so we can get it transfered with as little downtime as possible. But, well, we'll see; it might go off for a week or so while they reconnect.

I should be more happy than I am, but I'm just tired. And I'll feel more certain once I know that my internet is here to stay, and we get our hot water back.

In other news: I watched the Tour de France in Hyde Park yesterday. And today James made me a lovely moussaka and let me use his shower. Thanks Jim!

Ah, I'm so tired. Let's hope I can draw a little next week...

My internet still works. Rejoice!
I'm still expecting it to be cut off any day though.

Nothing is much more settled than it was on Monday. We are waiting to speak to the landlord again on Saturday and hopefully sign contracts. After Saturday I should know if we are going to get kicked out of the flat or not.

Oh man. I was loving drawing last week. But I'm not in the mood to do it this week. I'm not in the mood to do anything really (not even put my clean clothes away).

The good thing that has come out of this, is that we realised that we have been living with HRH EIIR all this time! And we never even knew!

If only you could see it in real life. It's shiny and everything.

@Mariya:
I'm kind of tempted to draw Soubi with a kangaroo now. Like really tempted.

So today was a great day. You know, like really great. I was having lots of fun, for no particular reason.

Then it turned into the worst day in the world.

It turns out that this whole deal with the gas goes a lot deeper than I thought. I was told that I had to move out of my flat by tomorrow evening.

NOT AS PLANNED

It's a long story, and I don't have time to get into it. But the landlord came round later and we all had a chat, and it seems like we shouldn't have to move after all. We'll talk tomorrow evening and things should be settled then.

Bills and things will be transfered from one person to another, so I might not have an internet connection for a bit, while they switch things over.

Everything's a bit up in the air at the moment, but looking better than it was a minute ago.

I really need to sleep now.

We still don't have any gas.

Oh hay, there's a new page of Clematis up.

Golly am I slow when I can only manage a page a fortnight. Anyone that reads Clematis must either be very patient, or going out of their minds! I'm really pleased with the new page though, which is always nice. I've been drawing a lot lately (still not drawing that doujin) and really enjoying it.

Drawing is like the best thing in the world. I get so much pleasure from it. Sometimes it feels like anything else that I do is just wasting time before I can draw again. I seriously don't know what people who don't draw actually do, because without it I'd be empty. I get a big sense of pride whenever I draw something, especially when I look at how I've improved over the years; of course, I know that I've still got a long way to go before I can draw well, but that in itself is exciting too.

Haha, and my Dad draws comics too. I didn't set out to emulate him, because fruit rarely wants to fall close to the tree, but I just sort of started drawing comics without giving it too much thought. Hah, that's nature and nurture for you.

An insight into my mind for you there!

Now, onto some biochemical geekery. This animation is kind of cool. It's well interesting to watch, but it's also fun if you turn off the sound, play some music in the background, and just watch it go.

aghgjhgfjdsdj I won't have gas until Wednesday. Gyaaaghnnn! This is like that time when I didn't have an internet connection for a month. Only, much less traumatic. Going without hot water is fine, going without the internets is not.

So Mariya sent me a little doughnut:

I went home to see my parents on Wednesday because it was my Dad's birthday. We went to a talk at the local museum about '20s and '30s clothing, which was super interesting, and boy do I want the coat they had on display. Then we went for a walk, regardless of the fact that it was raining when we left. 'Oh, it'll clear up' we said. It didn't. We got completely soaked. I was wearing wellies, but my feet were completely sodden by the end! I almost got trench-foot! But, because it was wet, no-one else was out walking, which meant there was loads of wildlife to be seen. We saw tons of rabbits, a hare (it was jolly fast) and two (count 'em) two foxes! Not town foxes, but country foxes! They were bright red; it was super. Then we got chased around a field by a bunch of cows. NOT AS PLANNED. They were just hungry though, and thought we were the farmer. I hope.

As soon as I got home I had to watch Death Note 37. This was a brilliant end to a brilliant series. Death Note has been well done and very enjoyable throughout. I was so emotional throughout this episode that I had to stop eating my dinner and laugh until I cried. Super. Read more for spoilers.

Full story »

Courtesy of Nick. This made my evening.

Oh Aaron Kwok, you and your pink spandex!

*don't hold me to this

1 Kettle + 4 pans + cooker + boiling water + bath = I DON'T NEED NO GAS! YOU'RE NOT THE BOSS OF ME!

Man, it feels good to be clean again.

On the subject of Death Note (I'll stop posting about it when I stop laughing):
School Note is, to steal a phrase, made of epic win.
Will Light-o ever pass that maths test? Will his sister ever give up the drink? Does anyone care? Awesome.

So yesterday I went to Seven Dials, which was pretty cool, because I've read all about its shady history, but I've never been there before. Although, according to James, it's actually called Seven Brides for Seven Sisters and involves a lot of lezzing up around the monument. Who'd have thought?
We then went to Tuffnell Park (I still don't know why) and walked to Camden. But it's always good to visit places you've never been before right? (And the tube stations around there look really cool, because they're covered in shiny red tiles). While dining in Camden we tried to estimate how clever we were against the other people in the restaurant (which is a horribly conceited thing to do). I concluded that I gained intelligence points by having listened to Radio 4 earlier in the day, but I lost points by not really knowing what ephemeral means, so it kind of evened out in the end.

It turns out that I did know what ephemeral meant (thanks dictionary.com!) but because I wasn't sure if I was right or not, it still counts as not really knowing what it means (what?).

And a final point:
Darker Than Black is seriously the best thing I am watching at the moment. I love it. And Hei is the kind of awesome that only fictional characters are allowed to be.

Dear flatmate. Please pay our bills. It's not that hard. We pay you so that you can pay our bills. We now have no gas. WE HAVE NO GAS. Jesus.

The rest is all fannish news today because I spent all day at work COPYING AND PASTING and it was so boring that I don't think I got my full quota of 8 hours, just the same 10 minutes over and over again. My brain is numb.

So I watched Death Note 36 yesterday. It was absolutely hilarious. I don't think it was meant to be. But everything was so over the top. What with all Mikami's craazy eye (and who thought writing could be so exciting), and Light's 'JUST AS PLANNED!!!1', and hahaha, it was all brilliant. To celebrate, have some text on a picture that I found:

Re: The Daft Punk that I missed.
It looks like it was absolutely amazing. I love the pyramid. This is the sort of thing that should be broadcast into space for the aliens to pick up; show them that we know how to get down! I think the robot costumes are getting to me. I want one. Hey Steve, do you still have that robot helmet? You should wear it to work one day. Don't mention it at all though, and see if anyone notices.

Annnnd about Tsubasa. Is it really just me? But why is FWR speaking out of a huge vagina? Is it an aid for him to show his masculinity? As if the bum-chin wasn't enough!