bentleyton

I am no longer amused by the snow. Yesterday when I was sitting in my back garden building Mr. Snowman it was quite enjoyable and oddly not at all cold. When I have to walk to the shops, it is no longer pleasant. I am one of those unfortunate people who can't help but squeal when I slip so I was just walking down the road squealing consistently :( On a brighter note I have admitted defeat and bought the expansion pack for the sims 3, so tomorrow you will get to see my sims doing something a bit more interesting. Probably Gracie, I feel bad that I never do anything with her.

My essaying is going well. I have completed two of the ones that have to go in for January (technically - they don't have conclusions but I always do that last minute). I have done the design for the poster that has to go in on February but not actually coloured it in yet or done the write up about it. I have a plan for my my January Leadership & Management project and will start it in a little while. They are my priorities. If I get them done I'll start doing the three essays that have to go in in March, revise for the March exam, and start reading some of the books.

My mum has decided that she is bored with the constant chaos of living in the city and wants to move to the countryside. I do not want to, so we have come to the conclusion that if she does she will have all the deeds to do with this house transferred to my name to do whatever I want with. So obviously I would stay living here for now, and then when I get a job I can either sell it and use the money to buy something elsewhere, or if I get in the RAF sell it and GO MAD with the money. Or, you know, save it so I can buy a castle or something when my 9 year contract would be up. I tried to get the deeds for the house in Turkey too but she is fully aware of the fact that I do not like Turkey and will therefore just sell it immediatley so that doesn't seem to be happening, haha.

EDIT: Leadership & Management essay done. Sortof. It's over the word limit at the moment so I have to sort that out. Working on the presentation for it now while it's still fresh in my mind!

( SNOW )

As always, this is considered a severe amount of snow in England and all the transport has closed down. I expected all the planes to be grounded, but, as always, all the trains have been cancelled and there's no buses in sight. I'm not sure if my driving lesson will be cancelled or not, but if not this will be the first time I will be able to drive without a bus randomly attempting to drive into me. Bastards. The news is telling me it is dangerous to attempt to get to work, so I presume it will be cancelled though.

Also, LOL, I just got a lift to the post office by my mum on her way to work. As she dropped me off at the train station as it was the closest carpark, armies of random London business people came running over to us offering us up to £100 if we'll take them to London. I think maybe I will work on this driving thing; this could be a good business venture next year...

EDIT: There is a video of a logfire on Sky Anytime. Me and my mum just sat there and watched it silence. It is on their temporary Christmas channel and is exactly what it sounds like :S

I managed to run for fifteen minutes without stopping today. I was aiming for twenty but either way I'm pleased with fifteen, especially considering I don't think I've attempted more than eight in one go before. I could possibly have managed twenty as well, but the psychological effects got me. I tried covering over both the time and the distance because normally I constantly stare at it as I run, but today I stuck the towel over it. Which worked until I unveilled the time at about fourteen minutes and then suddenly I lost the ability to breathe and my legs lost the ability to run in a straight line and I had to really force myself to the fifteen minutes.

Still, my logic is that for the RAF, the women's time requires me to run the distance in around fourteen minutes. So if I stick with fifteen minutes but just slowly up the speed. There's been a recruitment freeze until at least April (Nothing till October 2011 for my second choice trade!) so it's not like I need to improve super quickly anyway..

Italian is still far too backwards a language for me to get the hang of. It's not surprising I'm struggling with it really. I studied French for five years, and I can now say 'bonjour' and that's pretty much the end of it. Everything else has completely gone and wasn't really there to begin with anyway. I studied German for three years, and I can hold up a pretty decent conversation in it. Italian is a romantic language, like French, so it's not surprising that I'm having issues with it - but I thought it would be different this time around since Italian was a language I chose, as opposed to French which was forced on me.

German is obviously going to be easier being that I know a lot of it already, and on top of that English is a Germanic language anyway so the sentance structure matches English for the most part. Italian is strange and backwards and all over the place and every word needs to be spelt in about five different ways depending on circumstances.

So, for example, the following. I know I'm missing various symbols or whatever else but I have no inclination to figure out how to do them on my keyboard.

ENGLISH: Is the car red?
GERMAN: Ist das Auto rot? As you can see, the sentance structure is identical. And the words are quite similar too, which helps.
ITALIAN: E rossa l'automobile?

IS RED CAR?! This bothers me. My mind does not work that way. The English and the German way, I immediatley know I'm supposed to be looking for a car, and then answering a question about it. With Italian, I immediatley look around for something red. Which is a problem, because the answer might be no anyway.

ENGLISH: Is the red car old?
GERMAN: Ist das rote Auto alt? Exactly the same sentance structure. Red randomly gets an e added to it, but other than that, it's logical.
ITALIAN: E vecchia l'automobile rossa?

IS OLD CAR RED?! Which to me is an entirely different question. And takes me three times as long to find whatever the hell it is I'm supposed to be talking about. And the sentance structure flips around completely from the previous sentance unlike the other two languages and IT'S SO CONFUSING.

The thing that annoys me the most when it comes to writing essays, is that they tend to be more about how many people you can quote than about how much you actually know. I have lost marks before specificially because my bibliography wasn't big enough.

Therefore, my current essay is driving me mad. The very first textbook I read gave me 50 quotes and covered all areas I planned on looking at in my essay. So despite the fact I now have a good understanding and everything I needed, I still have to go and find other sources that say the exact same thing as the textbook I just read did :(

EDIT: The very first required text is 258 pages. Go away.

I went to another private dentist today about having the bottom teeth moved, and unlike the other private dentist I don't now wish her dead.

Though one of the first things she said to me was "Had you considered getting your front teeth fixed?" GEE THANKS. I don't know how I have gone this many years without noticing there is any problem with them when both private dentists have immediatley tried to get me to get them sorted. She said she didn't think that the clear braces I wanted would be good enough for my teeth (I just want the lower teeth moved forward a bit) but I could get the assessment if I really wanted. It was £200 just for the assessment, so I didn't.

She said that she would wait until I'd got my front teeth made a bit longer, because then they might cover up the fact that there is a gap anyway. She had a slight overbite too so I felt like she understood my worries, haha.

She's specifically qualified in cosmetic dentistry and making them longer and more tooth shaped. But also charges £125 per tooth. And has the advantage that the wait time is generally about three days. The appointment I already have with my NHS dentist isn't till January but is £45 for however many I want done. Hm. Not sure.

If you are like me and are easily confused, it's inspired who normally has all the rainbowy icons. And now we're over that...

I've had my business proposal for leadership and management approved - which is good, because the number of words I used to write up the proposal is actually more than the limit for the project itself. I think I briefly forgot I wasn't actually starting up the business because I really did get quite overboard, but oh well. The class is small, so hopefully if I go wrong and screw the project up she'll go easy on me due to how wonderful my proposal was, haha. Well, a person can hope.

I had a tutorial for Faith in Education the other day and that didn't go so well. I am doing Faith as a starred module, which means it's not anything to do with my other subjects but we're allowed to do one entirely random module anyway. Everyone who is doing it as a starred module had to have one, because the system they use is different. Whereas English is the cursed Harvard referencing system, FIE is....another one, I don't remember. I'd gone ahead and drafted out my essay anyway because I found the topic interesting so didn't mind doing it - it's on whether faith schools prevent community cohesion. He wasn't allowed to actually look at the essay but I'd written out my key points that I was making and he was allowed to look at that. He doesn't seem to like my points. He wanted me to go with the more obvious ones. So where I've gone with things like how children are likely to bully children who have to wear religious clothing - which definitley prevents any kind of community cohesion as the two sides will grow up reseinting each other, he was thinking more along the lines of how religious schools are likely to teach that being homosexual is wrong, which would then cause conflict. I didn't bother with points like that initially as I thought that's not really a fault of faith schools, that's a fault of differing religions. I don't know. I can't bring myself to re-do it just now.

I'm thinking I may have to give up with the RAF. I still hate running. After taking a week off because of illness I hate it even more as it hurts just as much as it did in the beginning. They now don't think my trades are going to open to 2011 and I can completely not wait until then. I'm still going to continue with my running though, and for my summer holiday plans I'm booking one place for three weeks, coming back to England for two, then another place for three weeks etc, as that way I won't be leaving the country in giant blocks again - if they had to appeal for me due to me leaving the country for too long previously, they're not going to be too impressed if I go ahead and do it again after applying, haha. That way if something happens and the trades do suddenly open up earlier I still have a chance.

EDIT: LMAO. I loaded up chatroulette whilst sort of doing my work. It's where you can talk and watch random strangers. I don't have a webcam on this laptop, but I do have a microphone. I hadn't used it before, but the person I was talking to did have a webcam - I just loaded it up and sort of creepily watched a random stranger in silence. LMAO. I couldn't think of a thing to say so I just stared at him for a while and then decided it was probably a sign that I should go and do some damn research.

After a long conversation with our current American exchange students, I was slightly amused by what they thought about England the UK.

SO, now I am going to be creepy, and test my friends lists knowledge.

Please, humour me! Fill out the below form (10 questions) with what you think the answers are. I'm curious as to how much people know. I will screen the comments so no one will be humiliated :D No cheating! If you live in the UK, go away.

<b>What country are YOU from?</b> <b>What country or countries is Britain?</b> <b>What countries is the United Kingdom formed of?</b> <b>What is the capital city for each country in the UK?</b> <b>What continent do we belong to?</b> <b>What currency do we use?</b> <b>Who is next in line to be King/Queen?</b> <b>Who is the prime minister?</b> <b>What number would you call in an emergency?</b> <b>What is the drinking age?</b> <b>How old do you have to be to get a full driving licence?</b>

EDIT: Though I'm keeping peoples replies screened I'm replying so don't cheat and look!

As most of you know, I worked at a summer school for international children over the summer holidays. I hated most of the kids, haha, but I have stayed in contact with a few of them. Two of which are Italian brothers Romeo and Luciano - Romeo is the older of the two, who I help with his English homework sometimes and in return he is (doing a terrible job at) teaching me Italian. Luciano doesn't speak, ever, but still.

Anywhere, Romeo and Luciano's mother randomly emailled me this earlier:

Hello, I am Giovanna, Romeo mother. I know you talk to Romeo and have helpful been with teaching him for his homework. Antonio and me have thinking been of hiring someone to live us with, and to help Romeo do work, and to teach Luciano so he can English speak. Romeo would like you to come, so we would like to know if you would like to live in Milano with us and to help them? We do not need you to speak be able to Italian, in Milano there are many schools so you can if you would like to learn, and we would provide a room and a food for you. Please let me or Romeo know if you would come like to, and we would need to know if you are full United Kingdom as otherwise I do not know if we can provide a job certificate.
Thank you,
Giovanna

I presume the last sentance is referring to the fact that the UK is in the European Union. For those non Europeans who do not know, basically if you have a passport of any country in the European Union, you can basically just get on a plane and move to or work in any other country in the European Union. So I can randomly go and work in Greece if I wanted to, but an American couldn't.

Now I have a sudden desire to go and do this. I went and announced it to my mum. Of course, this would be if the RAF said no - if they don't like three months in America, they aren't going to like a year in Italy. I know, I know. I already have a PGCE offer. I should do the damn PGCE. I would accomplish nothing in Italy because the pay would be terrible, but I would learn Italian properly, maybe get a proper job over there (Yes I'm joking, I have a feeling the Italians are even worse than the UK when it comes to wanting ITALIAN PEOPLE FOR ITALIAN JOBS) and maybe meet a sexy Italian man. KIDDING. Sortof.

I informed my mum that before I settle down with a career for life, there are other things in my life that I wish to acheive. This is true, I just don't know what they all are yet. But I figure this could be one of them. One was visit at least 25 states and I have managed that, but I'm sure I had more than one Life Goal (TM).

I have discovered a significant problem when it comes to learning Italian. I cannot roll my R's. Well I sortof can but it sounds very strange when I do it and there is always a pause beforehand, I can't do it naturally.

Yes, I went with both German and Italian because I couldn't choose between them. At the moment it's fine because I know all the German words already so I'm not confusing between them. I know, you guys voted for Spanish, but, well, I never wanted to learn Spanish, so though I tried because I had no inclination it didn't go anywhere, haha. I figure this will give me even more sentances to angrily mutter to myself. I'm the only one in my family who speaks any German, so whenever I'm pissed off I go and angrily mutter it. I am generally saying things like "the dog is brown, white, and very stupid" but in German, obviously, but no one knows what I'm saying and German is such an aggressive language to begin with that it sounds much worse than it is, haha.

On a related Italian note, where is Gino?! This Morning promised me Gino. I have been watching for two hours and NOTHING.

My leadership and management lecturer has approved my project so I can get on with that! I was about half way through the write up when I figured I should actually get it okay'd before I do the whole thing then get told to change it.

EDIT: Got my £7 Harry Potter. Also got hugged by a giant man dressed as Hagrid in order to get it, but it was worth it.

EDIT 2: I decided that since I am focusing on my Italian, I would read a website in German - obviously I was looking for websites aimed at young children as they would use more simple words. Absolutely hopeless. I could basically understand every fourth word :(

My mum spent most of the morning complaining that she didn't want to have to cook Christmas dinner for me. After about twenty minutes of this I finally got fed up and said that actually no, she did not, as I had already agreed to have dinner with some of my friends. At which point she immediatley flipped to the opposite and began to try and make me feel guilty by holding a conversation with the dog about how it was going to be just the two of them. STFU.

Coraline arrived yesterday as part of my DVD subscription service. I asked if she wanted to watch it. She said no. So I went and watched it in my room. Cue five minutes ago when I was putting it back in his envelope when she suddenly flipped out saying that she had been looking forward to seeing Coraline. THAT'S NOT WHAT YOU SAID EARLIER. I asked if she wanted to watch it now as I had enjoyed it and did not mind watching it twice. Cue flip out about "NO, THAT'S FINE, JUST SEND IT BACK." So I did. Bloody hell, I asked if she had wanted to watch it, twice, and either way it is me who pays for the DVDs to begin with!

By the way, Coraline is a very good movie. I would definitley recommend it! Probably the most disturbing film I have seen all year. Which reminds me, Harry Potter is out tomorrow for £7, so hopefully I will remember to go and get it!