Mishaps and misdeeds

It is damn cold outside. Seriously. I think the forecast says it's going to be -20°C outside over the next couple of days (plus, it's going to snow again - it won't be long now until the whole country's covered under a thick white blanket). It feels like I haven't been comfortably warm in forever and there's just no place I can go to to get warm! Right now I'm staying at my granny's and because it's one of those old houses the only moderately warm rooms are the kitchen and the living room - and that's not enough for me to get warm ... so, teeth chattering here I come (... I know, I'm an awful complainer ...)

Anyway, other than that Christmas went over really well. Surprisingly everybody absolutely loved my cookies, even though they were a bit burned! And my granny even went so far as to tell me they were better than hers :D! (I've no way of knowing. however, if the next second they didn't all turn around and spit it into a trashcan behind my back ... :)!) Considering that was my first try at baking I'm really pleased. And now I'm in the mood for more baking :)!

I'm really excited for Friday, because one of my best friends is going to give a party at her house. Her mom's out so we're going to be all alone with a  couple of others :), so that should be fun. Also, one of my absolute favourite series (which my brother and every other male I know absolutely hates) is going to start up in January again ... the fifth of January ... so I say let the new year begin ;)!

Okay, first things first: I think I may have passed the literature exam I've been meaning to take for half a year already! Thank god! I can now officially differentiate between an iamb, a trochee and an anapaest ... that's vital information I tell you ;)! M'i genius a ... :D!

On a family related note, my cousin turned eleven on Tuesday this week (he's so cute!) and today we had the family celebration at my aunt's (never mind that I wasn't informed about this until yesterday evening -.-). All in all it was really very amusing, as family gatherings like this tend to be (somehow we always end up talking about teachers and drugs ... though not necessarily in that combination) - I didn't even mind the three times I had to play Yu-Gi-Oh with my little cousin (by the way, if that doesn't tell you anything, count yourself lucky!). Let's just say, though, that as the only girl in a group of five cousins it was quite funny to watch the competition that went on between the males - even the little ones. At one point someone even pulled out the poker chips and we all had to play ... I was forced to participate by communal vote -.-. It was really funny listening to them basically headbutting each other with taunts ... most of which they had obviously picked up from their fathers and older friends. *sigh* Oh, the testosteron ... you could basically scrape it off the walls ... (By the way, it is needless to say that in the end I wiped the floor with all of them, isn't it?)

Finally, I'm almost done with my au-pair application! The only thing that's missing is the character reference that 'an authority' is supposed to write. I gave it to my former boss at the library and am going to collect it on Monday :D!

All right people, I'm truly agonising over my au-pair application here -.-! What the hell are you supposed to write in a letter like that? I really can't imagine a version of an introduction that doesn't sound absolutely atrocious! *cries* I don't even know where to begin ... but I have to get it done by tomorrow evening, otherwise I'll be stuck on this for at least another month, I just know it. (At least, I've filled out the application form by now - that took ages too ... so many questions!)

On a different note, I've got to get a proper birthday present for my dad tomorrow, because a new wallet just doesn't cut it. I've got no idea right now what I'll get him (he never really asks for anything) but I hope something'll turn up ... otherwise I'm screwed :D (which might be the case anyway, because I've got my first so-called 'inspection drive' scheduled for tomorrow ... let's just hope they'll let me keep my license ...)

And on a final repetitive note: There is snow outside! And it reaches up to my bottom in the deepest parts now :D!

So, I'm officiallly twenty now ... let's see how that will work out for me ... =). So far I've been attaked by a bird and stuffed myself with pizza :D!

You know, one of the weirdest things about me, in my opinion, is that I can't cry at movies. I just can't. No matter how sad and heartbreaking or horrible, there's never any water in my eyes. I do get horribly sad and tend to spend the rest of the day in a rather depressed mood unless someone distracts me, but ... I can't cry. What's wrong with me?!

Like today: I was watching Titanic (yeah, I know ... I'm such a girl) and I felt really horrified at all those scenes with people falling off the boat and dying in the cold water ... it made me feel really sick. But I couldn't do the obvious thing and cry. Come to think of it, I've never cried at funerals either - what the hell's wrong with me?!!

By the way, what a weird reaction: I had an exam in the afternoon and the first thing I do when I come home? Watch Titanic. -.- Veeery subtle, my beloved subconscious ...

Hooo, boy. Somebody should probably shoot me for this ...

So, instead of doing the sensible thing and preparing for my looming midterms I basically spent all day (well, alright - half a day) writing and tweaking this little drabble for a prompt on merlin100. I'm not going to regret this, though, because it feels really good to have finished writing something after so long - even if it is only a hundred words long ... and may be utterly horrible to read ;) (by the way, how hard is it to have both an interesting plotline as well as a really powerful scene in only a hundred words? I have a whole lot more appreciation and admiration for drabble writers now!). So, first time ever writing with a length restriction: here goes nothing :D!

Title: Battle
Genre: Gen
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairing: Arthur, Merlin
Length: 100 words
Spoilers: Umm… Merlin and Arthur exist?
Synopsis: Arthur is looking for Merlin
Author’s Notes: written for prompt #90: chaos at merlin100. I hope I did this right …
Disclaimer: The TV series Merlin is property of the BBC and Shine. I do not make a profit out of this.

( Battle )

Gah! Noooo - I just got rid of my cold about a week ago ... and now I've caught one again -.-! It's my own fault I guess. I probably shouldn't have gone trudging through the mud in the cold on Sunday ... while only wearing a tank top and a jacket. But it was the last opening day of the archaeological park at Carnuntum and I'd promised a friend that we'd go. Back to coughing my lungs up and sneezing and feeling like I might suffocate in my sleep -.- (have I mentioned how much I hate this?).

The trip itself was really fun, though! Ever since the takeover they've begun rebuilding some of the Roman houses, so that some of the visitors who're not quite as gifted at imagining whole buildings with only the foundations to go by can actually get a sense of what the city would've looked like in Roman times. By now they've rebuilt one of the houses, a villa and are in the process of rebuilding the bath houses :D! They're trying really hard to only use Roman constructional engineering, too. Apparently they're even baking their own bricks using Roman methods! And it really does look gorgeous! I mean, just look at this for example: Great hall of the villa.

In other news, how awesome was Merlin on Saturday?! ( Cue Spoilers for Episode 8 )

Well, I'd better get back to bed now ... and continue reading that stuff about Chinese history ;(

I am so unbelievably tired ... *yawn* Memo to self: Don't ever fill out your days till eight p.m. again if you still want to seem human ... ish at the end of the day -.-. But I'm proud of myself, because I did get much done today: I inscribed at the university sports centre, went to a lecture on Chinese literature, went to my Chinese lessons and then finished off the day with a salsa dancing lesson :D. Yay for energetic-me!

I did get to meet some very interesting people, too ... though some of them were ... a bit weird, to say the least :). During the salsa lesson for example I had the fortune to dance with a guy who was quite nice in the beginning - but then our chat turned into a horrible conversational nightmare. It went something like this:

"So, when was the last time you took some dancing lessons?"
Me: "Oh, some time four years ago ..."
"So ... when you were in primary school?"
Me: ?! WTH ?!

I mean, I get that I look young compared to some of the other women there - but primary school?! I'm bloody nineteen, not twelve! *goes and sulks in a corner*

I'll put it under a cut, in case I'm not the last person to have seen it - which I seriously doubt ...

( Merlin Series 3 squee )

Otherwise I'm pretty much enjoying my last week of holidays now as university will be starting again next Monday - I've got mixed feelings about that, because on the one hand I really enjoy going to classes and learning new stuff ... but on the other I just hate studying for exams (and usually I have to do it overnight, because I keep pushing it off. I'm a horrible student ...). I am looking forward to the start-of-term parties that are going to be held all over Vienna though ... =) Yay for student life and booze!

By the way, I'll be staying at my granny's the next couple of days, aka the wicked lands of no internet. Hopefully, when I'm back I won't have gained like ten kilogramms this time around ... ^_^ (you know how it is with cooking and granny's).

Because finally he seems to have done his job and taken my headache away (or rather my bodyache - why does the aftermath of being drunk always feel like I've just finished running a marathon?).

The party was quite nice, even if a bit awkward at first, because I didn't know anybody there - well, except for the friend who'd taken me to it. In the beginning they were all kind of either ignoring me or like "Who the hell is that?" - both in not necessarily a nice fashion. Aaaah, socialising ... you gotta love it. I did manage to strike up some interesting conversation at some point, so it wasn't too bad - and then another friend of mine arrived to spare me the trauma of running out of interesting stuff to say.

Between the three of us it was quite fun - we laughed at ourselves, did some stupid things, talked about university ... so, of course, as Murphy's law dictates, I had to go and ruin it all by asking my would-be boyfriend out -.-. *sigh* I think I did kind of know that he only viewed me as a friend, but ... well, I obviously get very stupid when I'm in love -.-. He was really nice about letting me down, though, and it looks like I've at least not ruined our friendship in the process. Rest of the weekend was hence spent in one corner of my room, clutching a blanket, a book (Secret Diary of Adrian Mole ... how fitting) and lots of chocolate. *sigh* Sometimes it feels like I'll never find a guy ...

Wow, this sounds depressing - I'm really okay though, as of now =)