I just had to tell someone...

... so let me just tell the whole internet.

I've been away for a few weeks now (might write about it later, might not). Currently staying at a hotel in Orlando.

And I have the biggest crush EVER on the guy who works the front desk at nights.

There. I said it. He's so tall, and gorgeous. And he said my accent was cute. AND he said he liked my new t-shirt (it's MIB-inspired).

I still like my boyfriend. I promise.

But this man is just so good-looking. He has a good voice as well, deep. Southern accent. Just makes me want to ruffle my taffeta and my long skirts and invite him to my impossibly large mansion for lemonade on the porch. (Yes.)

Maybe I'm just starved of that sort of attention. So when I've not seen my boyfriend for a month and an attractive man comes along, does his job (i.e. he's competent and friendly) and tells me that English accents are cute, I'm going to notice him.

I didn't do anything though. Don't really want to. (Window shopping is much better.) Although when I asked him to help me find my brother in the bathroom tonight (he'd gone missing), there was a lady who was like "What's the problem?" and I'm like "There's no problem" and she's like "Suuuuuuure" and I KNOW she thought I was going to have one with him in the bathroom. That's kinda gross. (If it's going to be public, choose somewhere more hygenic, or more inventive, while you're at it. The gym? The computer room? How about a conference room?)

I'll forget about him soon, no doubt. He'll just be a gorgeous hazy memory after we check out on Friday.

But, it doesn't stop him from being some very good eye candy for the next day.

I want my boyfriend back. Sadface.

Hold your hats, folks!

At some point, I made a calendar of the last three weeks of term. I had planned for a couple people to come visit, as well as the Pride-y, debate-y things I'd hoped to do. Attend all the socials, read and gym in the gaps between.

What actually happened is some Tristan time, and lots of other random things creeping in. LGBT Midlands Coalition meetings, WSAF gigs, meetings with David Preiss (DAVID PREISS!), and so on.

In particular, the last five days have been particularly challenging. I suppose I didn't realise quite how challenging until last night, when, in a delirious haze of exhaustion and headpain, I made a cake and then fell asleep almost instantly.

So. This is what I have done recently.

Thursday: Meeting with David Preiss about 4th year project. To get ready for this, I'd had to read a 12-page document, and then read as much as I could about integration in general. On top of this, my brother had given me a piece of work to do too (writing some text for a website), due for Friday. So, already, the week had been quite full of writing and reading. The meeting went really well, then as soon as it was over, Tristan and I drove madly down the motorway to get to my brother's prize giving. After mingling and wine and dinner and "look this is the family house", we drove all the way back.

Friday: At some point in the early morning, say 3:30, we fell asleep. (I don't have a great deal to say about that bit apart from that it was both fun and amazing.) Woke up, eventually, got my brother's work done and emailed to him by the deadline, then rushed into the shower to see my housemate's band play their final ever gig, at WSAF. Came home, made food, went back out, Crash time. Oh, Crash. Drunken, dance-fuelled madness. Nick, Richard, Zal, Mash, Buzz, Engineering Matt, faces and crowds and wonderful things.

Saturday: Entirely unwonderful things, to start. Including lots of chundering. (I did party extremely hard). Hangover started to subside at about 4 or 5, just in time to rush into the shower AGAIN and get to campus in time for dinner in the Duck and watching more bands play at WSAF including the very fun Lilac Joke, and the ever-awesome Hot Magenta. Then, onto Last Exit. More bands, more dancing, and GUITAR HERO which was really good. I chose to play King Crimson. Seven minutes of guitar noodling at an almost impossible pace. Then, Matt and Buzz played Rush, "The Spirit Of Radio". LOL. That was hilariously awful. But, impossible to play. In the end, it turned out that Matt and Buzz had been looking at each other's corners, so they were playing the wrong stuff :P (Matt still won though). After a while, Tash and I crashed out, so Mash and I went home.

Sunday: A relatively relaxing day. Bus trips around the Canley area to pick up icing pens, since my local supermarket doesn't sell them big enough, and it was too hot to walk around, hence the bus. Finally got home, made some chocolate cake, watched England get thrashed. Iced the cake, decorated the cake, went to campus and back to give Katie a disc for the last acronym film social. Early bed time in time for the day ahead.

Monday: 6:45am start, for a 7:45am taxi onto campus, arriving minutes to 8, to await my lift. Why this horrifically real-person start? To teach debating at a school in the Banbury area! A full day with a group of Year 12s. I had a crib sheet, and it worked pretty well. I was nervous at first, but I grew to feed off their enthusiasm and really enjoyed watching the quieter girls grow in confidence over the course of the day. Lunch was 25 minutes, break was 10, the whole day finished at about 5 or so. Got to campus again at about 6 ish. Went to see Tristan. Began to feel kinda tired. Realised I had a cake to make for him. Took a taxi home, collapsed a bit. After resting for a while, I dragged myself outside to get Chinese takeout and then came home and ate it. I felt a bit better, so made the cake bases. By now, it was approaching 10. I realised I didn't have enough icing sugar. Left the house again to get it. Called home; a family member had died. I'm borrowing some of Mom's black clothes to wear for the funeral. (My first ever funeral, occurring the day before we go on holiday.) Mom'd also been to A&E, for some really bad allergic reaction she had. Got home eventually, icing sugar in tow, fell asleep for about 30 minutes. I couldn't help it, I was just so tired and hurty. All the lights and sounds of the house were just throbbing in my head and my eyes. However, I got myself up, took some Norah Jones downstairs on Audrey and dimmed the lights in the kitchen and iced the cake. After this epic set of manly endeavours, I went to bed and passed out.

I'm not sure exactly what possessed me to ignore everything my body was telling me, so I could finish that cake. It's like I found a strength somewhere. I'm glad I did it though. Not sure I'd have forgiven myself if I hadn't. Cake is SRS BSNS.

I guess people do crazy things when they're in... summertime. Yes, when they are in summertime. (That is clearly the word I want to use.)

West Coast Smoker

I've always wanted to visit West Coast America. California, Oregon, Washington. In fact, I just want to do all fifty states at some point. There's probably something cool to see in all of them, not necessarily all as sparkly and mental as Las Vegas or New York, but still, something quirky and interesting. Like, Connecticut has Yale, that might be cool to visit. California has California girls, so DEFINITELY worth a look there!

My parents always like to take us on holiday to the same places every time. New York, Florida, Caribbean. New York and Caribbean aren't for the touristy thing though, we go for family. So, that hardly counts as a holiday - you get to spend a couple of weeks in other people's living rooms instead of your own, except they don't get the BBC and all their TV is interrupted every five minutes by adverts of erectile dysfunction and weight loss pills if you're Stateside, or every ten minutes by soft drink and carnival ads in the Caribbean. Redeeming feature: the carnival ads have pretty girls wearing next to nothing dancing. (Apparently it's okay to say that cos I'm not a guy.)

Anyway, the point is, they go to the same places every time. It's nice, and I quite like it, but I get bored. But, I guess they like that we go to the same places every time. Like, you know what you'll get, if you just go to I-Drive every other year and go to the same Disney/Universal theme parks.

I remember last time though, things had changed a bit. The first time I went, I was about 8 or 9 when I went the first time, so it was like a fucking paradise. Last time I went was the summer before university so, I was 18 and a half. I guess I just saw everything as an exercise in using pester power to line the pockets of some CEO somewhere.

I can see why they'd choose to the same places every time though. You don't have to worry about the culture being too removed, you don't have to bring phrasebooks, you can recognise the letters and the signposts. It's just like being at home, except people say "candy" and "elevator" and the bacon is too crispy and inedible.

You do miss out on exciting stuff, though. Trying new foods, learning a language on the fly, adjusting to unusual social customs; there's the chance of learning lots and gaining funny tales to tell later when you get home (even if they're anything but funny at the time!)

So, you have a choice. Safety and the potential for mind-numbing boredom, or mild terror and the reward of finding out something new you actually quite like.

I'll take mild terror for $200, Alex.

Travelling in Holiday Fortnight.

Before I launch right into another post, let me explain Holiday Fortnight.

This holiday period is the perfect example of Holiday Fortnight, since there is a very neat Monday to Sunday fortnight encapsulating Christmas Day and New Year's Day. Sometimes, you get Holiday WeekPlus, especially if Christmas falls in an awkward place (like a Monday). But a great deal of people really gear up to Christmas Day in the three/four days before Christmas, take the week between Christmas and the New Year off and sometimes indulge in a day or two after New Year's Eve to recover.

This post isn't about the semantics of Holiday Weekend. This post is about what happened when I tried to travel at the beginning of Holiday Weekend. Lovely Boyfriend Face is travelling to see me at the end of Holiday Fortnight, with the added bonus of weekend travel, so I imagine he might have quite the journey.

I went Up North on Monday and came Back Down on Wednesday, last night. Both journeys require three legs. The first two legs are largely similar, except the third leg offers me a choice: either I take a slower Northern Rail service to make the journey from Sheffield to Leeds, or I take the fast Cross Country service that is part of a behemoth voyage from Plymouth to Edinburgh.

On the way there, I decided to take the Cross Country to save time. So I stopped the second leg short of Sheffield to take that train through Sheffield and onto Leeds.

There were no seats. None.

I was standing for about an hour before we got to Sheffield, where luckily one seat became available. People filled the aisles, the hallways, it was difficult to get in and out. It was one of the worst train journeys I've been on for a while.

What had exacerbated how I felt about it was the fact that the first two legs had comfortably half-full trains: not ram-packed, but not eerily empty. (Mind you, I did start my journey at 9, maybe it's to be expected).

Coming back, I learnt my lesson. I opted for the slower Northern service. The best part of that journey was that the first two legs of the journeys begun where I was getting on, so the train is sat at the platform for a good 15 minutes before it set off, and you can always get a seat. So, my journey back home was rather comfortable.

Now I don't have to do any big travelling until Boxing Day, when we're going to London for a party with a family friend with an OBE. He got it several years ago, but it's still a massively big deal to me.