Hi, neglected blog :)

Like the title? It's arguably the most appropriate right now. So, was back at college last Monday, had all of the Amnesty stuff to deal with and then it's been fairly quiet so far. Although, exciting news, the Amnesty group *were* at 27 on the Youth Raise Off table with the last piece of post we received, and that's before they received the rest of our donations for the year. I'm excited to see our final placing when it's all finalised at the end of June.

I go to Poland this Wednesday through until Sunday, so unless I can access the internet in a café or something, I won't be blogging then either. As with Croatia, I'll be keeping a diary then typing it all up and posting it afterwards though. We're visiting Auschwitz, Schindler's Factory and a few other places, plus going on a ''hilarious'' ghost tour, apparently. I met one of my room buddies today for the first time, so that was nice, plus she seems lovely. Luckily we both know our other room buddy, Sarah :)

Today was RIDICULOUSLY hot. College was literally like an oven all day. Except for the language lab which is always cool because it has air conditioning. I was in there twice, thank goodness! I spent the afternoon sitting on the floor in my dad's office reading puntoycoma and reading all about one random man's experience of visiting Iran. I probably added to the insanity of the Wakefield Decorator's office, to be honest. I've got a bunch of rock my uncle gave me earlier in my bag, actually, I dread to think how melted it is...

I may be back tomorrow, if not, have a good week and I'll see you when I'm back from Poland :)


Besos ♥ 
Rachel

Back to College

Monday was 'back to college day'. Meh. I hate that place with a passion. Apparently, one of the SLT just left to open a B&B for gay people. The place is also literally just a building site at the moment, D block is having building work done, A block is having building work done and, better yet, C block is being...demolished. Wow. It really is an ancient building though, and everything is just yellow. Ew.

I don't really have anything interesting to write. I've just finished a class presentation on D'Nash that me and Amy have to present tomorrow period 1 :) James (@Juicioo on Twitter) listened to the songs we were considering for our ''lyric quiz'' and I think it's safe to say he likes them, haha :) I have, however, had 'A-Amanda' stuck in my head since Tuesday. I personally think instead of presenting the PowerPoint, we should just teach everybody the dance moves from the video, but whatever...


Oh, yeah, Amnesty office. Ha. What a joke. Basically, next year we have to share it with the Geography department. I wouldn't mind as much, but one of the staff in the department is none other than my tutor, Tim. Awkwaaaard. We've had to move loads of stuff down into an unused classroom while Geography moves in a bit and then we'll have to move it all back. What a farce. Especially since Jade and I go to Poland next Wednesday and then Tim goes to India with World Challenge on the 4th. None of us have planned this well...


Other than all of that, this week had been both rubbish and dull. I'm thinking of making another appointment with the counsellor because I need to vent and have nobody to vent to. Hmm.

Besos ♥ 
Rachel

 

13 Questions

Quick second post today with my 13 questions (saw it on some random blog as a tag and decided I'd join in seen as I have nothing better to do...except watch Lee Mack's All Star Cast)

One: What do you order at Starbucks?
Caramel Cream Frappucino. Gorgeous.

Two: One thing in your closet wardrobe you cannot live without
Hmm. Possibly my black jacket, I wear it over everything even though all of the buttons need sewing back on.

Three: One interesting thing most people do not know about you
Well, this one very much depends on what people deem as 'interesting' or not... I suppose one interesting thing could be that I've interviewed both Jason Manford (comedian) and Dean Smith (Phil Ryan in Waterloo Road) via email for the school newspaper and college magazine respectively.

Four: Name one thing you want to do before you die
Travel the world/return to Croatia/visit Sweden - kinda all count as the same thing, right?

Five: What is the one food you can't live without?
Pizza. Shameful, I know.

Six: What quote/phrase do you live by?
Buy the ticket, take the ride. Reminds me that if you choose to undertake some form of journey, you have to run with it even if it gets tough. I have it stuck above my bedroom door.

Seven : What do you like/dislike about the blogging community?
Like - Having somewhere to release my slightly bizarre thoughts and getting nice feedback.
Dislike - Nobody ever seems to comment on my blog, which is a little sad, even though my Stats show I get a lot of visitors :/

Eight: What is your most listened to song on iTunes?
Washed By the Water - Needtobreathe

Nine: What kind of style would you define yourself as?
Lots of people have told me ''ethnic'' before...I guess I just go with what I like but my style does generally have some foreign elements to it.

Ten: Favourite number?
14 - I have a thing about odd numbers where I just hate them. Yeah, weird.

Eleven: Two hobbies?
Jewellery making and baking, and no, that wasn't supposed to rhyme.

Twelve: Two pet peeves?
People that just wear clothes because their friends wear similar ones (this includes hairstyles, make up, accessories etc actually), Facebook's latest hideous ''your the one'' and ''LPC'' craze. It's ''you're''. GRRRRRR.

Thirteen: Guilty Pleasures?
Eurovision, The Lizzie McGuire Movie, phrasebooks, IKEA

Besos ♥ 
Rachel

Open Days

OK. Wow. I made it. Sheffield @ 10am - Manchester @2pm without being late or missing anything. We got lost everytime we turned a corner but...you know...we survived...

Overall, I was much more impressed with Sheffield than Manchester. The lady who gave us the talk at Manchester just went on about how amazing the university as a whole is and barely spoke about the courses at all, in fact, she only mentioned 'Single Honours', 'Dual Honours', another that I can't remember and one that doesn't exist at the moment. Hmm. Great. Good job I didn't want to go there anyway really.

Sheffield was a lot more impressive as I learnt that I could study three different languages, yay :) I'm thinking Spanish and Portuguese for sure and pondering about the third if I decided to apply for Sheffield. I have Leeds next Saturday, York on the 6th (I think) and I need another really, but none of the registration forms worked when I tried booking. Grrrr.

And now...

GRAMMAR ALERT!

This evening I've been reading 'The English Language' by David Crystal for English Language. Yes, it's dull. No, it probably won't be of any use in class. Yes, I have Jonathan for making our class read language books when none of the other classes have been forced to. Anyway, there were three bits that caught my attention, I considered photocopying them all but I couldn't be bothered so you're all going to get a quick grammar lesson 'cause I wanna document the bits from the book somewhere to later add to my languages file (because I'm strange like that).

From, the book, I gathered a bit about pidgin and creole languages. Apparently, a creole is evolved from a pidgin. Yeah, I didn't understand to begin with either. Google it or something... There was a little grammatical explanation of how Tok Pisin (pidgin language spoken in Papua New Guinea) use pronouns...
Tok Pisin                English Origin               Modern Meaning
mi                          me                               I, me
yu                          you                               you 
em                         him, 'em (them)            he, she, it, him, her
yumi                       you + me                      we, us (inclusive)
mipela                    me + fellow                  we, us (exclusive)
yupela                    you (plural)                    you
ol                           all                                they, them
mitupela                                                    the two of us (excluding you)
mitripela                                                   the three of us (excluding you)
yumitripela                                                the three of us (including you)
yutupela                                                    the two of you


See the similarities to English? I was surprised too.


And if you're interested in conjugating verbs in Latin, the book also featured this...
amo - I love
amas - you love
amat - he/she loves
amamus - we love
amatis - you love
amant - they love


There was also a section on English words with foreign origins that most people are probably unaware of (except things like sauna being Finnish, quite a lot of people I know seem to know that). However, I'll avoid posting all of those for you ;P
 
Besos ♥ 
Rachel

My Morning in 'Sweden'

So, today I visited Sweden IKEA - one of my absolute favourite shops. My favourite part of the entire store is the IKEA Food shop. Every time I go I always make sure to purchase these >>> They're just like gummy mushrooms like you find in a cinema pick & mix or something, except they're Swedish so they're obviously cooler ;) I was also intrigued by the Elderflower and Lingonberry Juice Drinks but in the carton form (see above for the bottle version). For the second time, I bought some KEX biscuits. I have a thing about dipping them in icing so they go a little soft, I really love them like that for some reason (I did have a picture and then it deleted it and wouldn't post so I can't be bothered going to find another...)


Tomorrow I have two uni open days (Sheffield and Manchester) to get to, ugh, can't wait... We're at Sheffield in the morning and Manchester for the afternoon. I'm going to need coffee and an interest in the talks we're attending to survive, though I imagine the interest won't be there when it gets to the boring bits/the talks are an hour in. Yayyyy...


Hope you all enjoyed the jewellery tutorial last night. Have any of you ever tried any IKEA food? Anything you recommend for a cheese-hating vegetarian?


Kyssar ♥ 
Rachel