Sun, Glorious Sun!

It’s summer! The sun is out, it’s warm, what country am I in again?! Surely this can’t be Scotland, land of wind and rain. 

Oh don’t get me wrong, it still rains plenty, but we’re actually getting some half decent full-on sunshine too. Which is great for anyone suffering from a lack of good old Vitamin D. 

It’s been a good few weeks since I last posted, so I will bring you up to speed with my endeavours!

I will start with the exciting news I mentioned at the end of my last post. Mere days after launching the last blog post in to the “blogosphere” (I hate that word, and promise never to use it again, probably), I was accepted on to the University of Glasgow’s Access Programme. As my high school  grades are not super amazing and also about 8 years old, I need to put some more work in to getting back to Uni that your fresh-out-of-high-school-youngster. The Access Programme involves taking two evening classes a week over an academic year, and if I achieve good results I will be admitted to the University proper in my chosen undergraduate degree programme! I cannot tell you how excited I am, and I for one cannot wait for September, when my evening classes start. While I don’t regret leaving the course I attended when I first went to University, I do regret not thinking more carefully about other options. But that’s water under the bridge now and I’m really looking forward to the future. I suppose there are downsides to returning to full time study at this stage in life. It would likely involve leaving a public sector job unless I can get part-time hours, and there’s that biological clock to consider. I remember when I was around 20 years old, my plan was to either have no children, or to have had all of them by the time I was 30. Sorry past-me, that was not to be, but that’s just how life is! But I know other people have pursued their ambitions and faced even greater challenges than I will, while managing a job and little ones, so I’m just going to run with it. My job is just that, a job. It’s not a career, there are few (if any!) development opportunities linked to my current role, whereas with the degree I’m looking at, there are a few options available that tickle my fancy that could lead to a genuine career path, even in my mid-30’s. 

I feel supported in this decision by this magical Unicorn, that I discovered in a shop while in Edinburgh for the weekend:

It’s clearly a sign that I’m on the right track, after all, it’s not every day you find the softest, plushiest and oh-so-affordable (it was on sale, another sign!) Unicorn! My joy at the Unicorn discovery (I named him Fred, by the way) was boosted by finally seeing the Edinburgh trams in action!

Okay, so it took way too long for them to be built, and they cost way to much money to build, and the whole project was one gigantic mess after another, but now that they’re here, I kinda like them!

My Edinburgh weekend was amazing, it was a proper girly weekend with two of my friends. There was take-away food, there was wine, there was music and dancing. Oh, and we visited the Ting Thai Caravan, a pop-up restaurant that decided to stick around, offering up some delicious food. 

Near the end of June, MotH and I, along with a friend, let’s call her G, attended the Southside Shindig in Queen’s Park in Glasgow. It was a scorcher of a day, and the festivities were in celebration of the upcoming Commonwealth Games and diversity in general. There were wee performances and more delicious food! Mmmm, jerk chicken, so good! We ended the day with a pint of something alcoholic (naughty!) and a lovely view.

And I got my annual sunburn.

This happens every year, I step out of the door thinking “oh, it’s partly/mostly overcast, I’ll be fine”, and then the sun comes through and goes “hahahahahaha, fooled you!” It leads to an even redder faced me, along with tender arms (my legs on the other hand never see daylight). When I remarked on how warm my sunburnt skin was, even days after the initial burn, MotH replied with “it’s because you’ve trapped the sun in your skin!”, which I thought was quite adorable (awwwwww!). 

Despite all these outings, I have been a right hermit for pretty much the last half of May and most of June. A new MMORPG (that’s Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game for you uninitiated) has been launched by the name of Wildstar, and it’s awesome! Despite the “Multiplayer” aspect, I do most of my playing by myself, much to the dismay of MotH, who thinks I should be more social. The game is clever and witty and sarcastic, and doesn’t take itself to seriously, which are all good things in my book. The characters I’ve created are me, but more awesome and with enormous weapons. I feel like a ninja, an angel of death, and sometimes the power gets to my head, muahahahaha. I have engaged in small-scale socialness, like small group events and some general chit chat in the chat function. MotH doesn’t understand my reluctance to play large group oriented events. My main worries are those age-old fears that we all had as children (unless you were a psychopath/sociopath): “What if the other kids don’t like me?!”, “What if I don’t play well?”, “I haven’t done this before and I’m scared of doing it wrong!”. Considering that it’s a GAME, and that I’m 28 years old, I can see why these fears seem totally irrational. But it’s still a social game, and behind all the pixels are real people of every creed, gender (or non-gender), orientation, age, ability and so on, and I don’t want them to dislike me :-P But despite the non-socialness, the story within the game is really compelling, the graphics are beautiful, and it’s just awesome! It keeps me coming back, which I can’t really say for World of Warcraft (the Big Boss of MMORPGs that every other MMORPG gets compared to) anymore. I’ve slightly overcome my yay-it’s-so-shiny-and-new addiction, which resulted in a stack of dirty dashes, piles of dirty laundry and many missed bedtimes. What can I say, I was enthralled! If you’re in any way of the computer game persuasion, I can highly recommend it! In fact, I think it’s time I went back to play some more!

Have a continued lovely day, everybody!

Now.. How Long Until Easter?

Hello again, Friends!

I hope everyone has had a thoroughly enjoyable Christmas and New Years Eve. If you haven’t, then chin up! There’s plenty of time to make it better for next time round! :)

I had a most excellent time back with my family who live in Norway. My mum has three dogs, each with an enormous capacity for cuddles, so needless to say I was covered in dog hair for most of the trip. Luckily I don’t care about that sort of thing :)

As per usual Christmas included the development of the additional Christmas Stomach. There is no logic or science behind this, but it is clearly the only way that much food can exist inside a person. Now, for me the stuffing of my face is partly due to the fact that I can’t get some of this food in Britain. At least not without taking a picture of a pig to a butcher and going “yes, that bit!”. It’s a bit more effort than I normally would make, so Christmas (or any trip home really) is an ideal excuse to eat ALL the food I can’t get here, from roast pig to snacks and yes, even a type of breakfast yoghurt! 

Our dinner table on the 24th (when we celebrate Christmas in Scandinavia)

Apart from the dogs and the food my trip was excellent, which made the idea of going back to Edinburgh and back to work all the worse. But I survived! As we often do, despite the end-of-weekend/holiday fear. 

New Years Eve was also lovely! My Significant Man Person (we’ll call him SMP for short, shall we?) came through to Edinburgh and we had a lovely dinner. It was not the dinner I had planned, but it was still delicious! Breast of chicken stuffed with slices of chorizo, with fried potatoes. Cheesecake and ice cream for dessert. The New Year was laughed in with stand up comedy DVDs and snuggles. New Years Eve doesn’t really do much for me as the first of January doesn’t really feel very “new” :P SMP and I slung back and relaxed with excessive violence, watching Starship Troopers and then onwards to the cinema for a showing of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. Excellent film, but there were scenes that made me very uncomfortable, and it is most definitely appropriately rated at 18. Having said that, I can recommend it, both Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara did very well, and I love Stellan Skarsgaard, so it was two thumbs up from me! :)

New Years Quests

Resolution. Res-o-lu-tion. Rez-uh-loo-shuhn. 

According to the Dictionary, the definition of the above is as follows:

1. A formal expression of opinion or intention made, usually after voting, by a formal organisation, a legislature, a club or other group.
2. A resolve or determination.
3. The act of resolving or determining upon an action or course of action, method or procedure, etc.
4. The mental state or quality of being resolved or resolute; firmness of purpose.
5. The act or process of resolving or separating into constituent or elementary parts. 

Yes, there will be a short test later! Hehe. 

If you add the word New Year’s before Resolution it essentially translates in to: “Stuff I told myself I would do last year which I never got round to because I was so busy doing that life things”. Or perhaps, like me, you were exceptionally vague in your last years resolution that you aren’t satisfied with the result and need to repeat the experience. An example from my life is putting “Lose weight”, but never adding the pressure of stating how many kilos or pounds need to get trimmed off before I stuff my face with Christmas food again! 

Sometimes I get an overwhelming sense of deja vu and I think some of it is partly due to magazine headlines. This time of year they are all the same! “How to stick to your resolutions!”, “How to drop a dress size by Valentines Day”, “Tone your flab so the ladies will love you” (I’m obviously (or hopefully) paraphrasing). Without fail these headlines appear in publications both frivolous and supposedly serious. Maybe they should be honest and write “We know you hate yourself a little right now, so here’s how we can re-inforce this by pretending to help you!” What a boring way to spend my year! I’ve decided to keep important lifestyle decisions separate to jolly New Years wishes. I’ve also decided that I am renouncing the depressing resolution style that reads “I wasn’t good enough at something last year, I need to do better this time”. 

So, in keeping with the blog in general, I am making some New Years Quests instead. These will be fun things that will require some effort and money on my part, but I am certain I will enjoy! If I enjoy them I am more likely to actually carry them out, hehe. 

A few of them include:

1. Host a Christmas party (so I have some time to plan, haha!).
2. Complete the cross stitch pattern I bought because it reminded me of a friend (I’m not telling too much so it’ll still be a bit of a surprise! :P).
3. Go on a Scottish holiday with SMP.
4. Take at least three singing lessons - because singing is great and makes me feel good.

I haven’t finished thinking up all the fun things I’d like to do, but it’s certainly enough to start with. I want to make 2012 fun, not kickstart it with a guilt trip about the pretty good year I have just had! 2011 was good to me, but I suppose it helped that I was good to me too! :D

I am going to finish off now, with best wishes to you all for a fabulous new year. Live it wonderful and live it well, we'll never get a 2012 again! :)