1 & 1/2 bits of good news and an example of how awkward I find life.

1- I've been asked to guest post! These are available at the links below if you want to read them, I'm personally just really excited about the fact that they're even there, and it's just crazy that something I wrote would ever look that good and professional.

http://www.sdmmovies.com/2012/11/23/taken-2-movie-2012-review-more-of-the-same-in-a-good-way/

http://www.sdmmovies.com/2012/11/23/28-days-later-2002-film-review/

...and 1/2 - The lovely people at Expatica wanted to advertise with me, unfortunately because of the way Wordpress is (i.e. free) I can't change the HTML set-up etc. etc. so this wasn't possible (it's like a you can live here but you can't paint the walls kind of deal), but it was very sweet of them to ask and I hope I get the chance to work with them in the future.

And the example of how awkward I find life:

This happened when I was going to a gig last Tuesday (discovered an awesome band, there will be a video below).

So I don't um, pay for public transport here, basically they just have machines on the street/metro stations where you can buy tickets but they don't actually check if you have them and it's expensive and I'm poor blah blah. I'm going to defend myself here by saying that I can only use public transport about 3 times a week max. and I walk everywhere else I need to go every other time. Although realistically I don't actually feel that guilty about it because I watch basically everyone else who gets on the bus/tram/metro do exactly the same thing. Sorry STIB/the Belgian economy.

But sometimes they do have people that check tickets, and I thought I'd spotted one of these people, so I stood up to get off hoping he wouldn't check me if I was leaving the bus, but whilst I was stood up it came to my attention he wasn't checking tickets, just asking people where they were going to so the bus company could improve their services. However, because I have absolutely no control over my social awkwardness I obviously felt compelled to get off the bus anyway because I'd been stood by the doors for so long that if I just sat back down it would look weird. So I travelled about 20 metres and had to walk the rest of the way, for no reason other than not wanting to look weird in front of all of about 5 people. I guess that's what you get for cheating the system whilst also having no social skills.

This is the band I was talking about, I'm not really a fan of the bees myself, but almost everyone I've shown this to (and apparently everyone on YouTube) has disagreed with me, so enjoy.

[youtube=http://youtu.be/a_bAQZATCTM]

Also a lot of people have been sharing this around but it's so good I feel I should do it too.

[youtube=http://youtu.be/8nif01WZ9aI]

Have a lovely last week of November :)

xx

I was ill, but then I got better. So it was fine.

Private Jones: Mitch, I fucking got one!

Corporal Mitchell: What you want a fucking sweetie? Keep shooting you cunt!

This is why all horror films should be British; none of the ridiculous puns of American films, just lots of swearing. That's basically all I've done whilst I've been ill, I watched The Exorcist on Friday for about the 100th time, and no matter how many times I see it I can't help but feel a little annoyed that it kind of has a happy ending. Not that I'm against happiness, it's just not how horror films should be. Definitely not as annoyed as I am at The Texas Chainsaw Massacre though, in which every character is so irritating, I'm actually rooting for the silent serial killer. Seriously if you start walking when the killer is within grabbing distance of you, you deserve to be chainsawed(?) to death.

It's also come to my attention lately, that I have really weird taste in fictional men. Just stay with me on this, this isn't going to be about how hot the cast of 90210 are, I promise.

I've already proclaimed my love for Ryan Howard from The Office, and I know, I know he's emotionally void and he kind of goes crazy when he gets promoted and starts doing shit loads of drugs and embezzling money...but in the 'Grief Counselling' episode instead of telling a story about the death of someone close to him, he tells the story of how Mufasa dies in The Lion King -  and if your approach to grief counselling is to tell part of a Disney story, then we need to get married.

Nathan from Misfits is another one, because apparently if your one goal is to annoy other people and make ridiculously inappropriate jokes, then I will think you're the best thing that's ever happened to the world. He has completely irrational reactions to everything, and is therefore the love of my life.

Nathan: Are you asking me out on a date?
Simon: No... I meant all of us.
Nathan: Did you? ... I am not your whore!

Guy Secretan from Green Wing is probably the most prominent and unreasonable adorations:

Dr.  Dear: It is for a good cause.

Dr.  Secretan: I don't do good causes, OK? A charity shag maybe, but certainly not to raise fucking money for medical equipment.

It's not like I don't know what terrible 'real life' partners these people would make, they basically live to be infuriating and find it impossible to take anything seriously and/or be emotionally capable, and to be honest that's really not what I should be looking for. BUT, they are about 20 million times more interesting than Edward Cullen/any male lead in those films where the someone dies/I don't even want to talk about (500) Days of Summer.

In other news, the key that has the comma on it fell off my keyboard, so I keep accidentally typing full stops instead, I've tried to correct all these grammatical errors, but sorry just in case. Oh and I broke a mug, fused the lights in my room, and spilt tea on my floor. The last two I did within the space of like an hour. I expect a serious injury within the week.

And I'm more than a little frustrated with living here right now; all I've wanted is blueberries and cookies from a supermarket bakery, but to afford the former I'd have to sell my organs and the latter just don't exist apparently. Way to go Belgium, way to go.

But good stuff has happened too! I received confirmation that I'm getting my Erasmus grant at some point in time so I'll be able to afford food (but still not blueberries) and stuff which will be a nice change. I successfully changed the light bulb in my room and overall everyone's been really nice whilst I've recovered from being poisoned by some food. So that's nice :)

I went to a lovely event hosted by my friends at CBI, and today I went to a seminar where the John Harris, editor of Politico, spoke. Politico is basically the nearest Washington gets to un-partisan journalism, so that was pretty cool. And I was persuaded to go out on Saturday night, so we danced on tables for a bit and the learned played chess in a bar until it closed.

I haven't really chatted about work so far, and just as a warning that's probably not going to change because I'm absolutely convinced I'm going to accidentally let something really important slip and initiate a crisis/lose my job.

Au revoir!

xx

I've stopped getting those 'WELCOME TO...' texts from my network when Icross a border.

Which is probably the biggest 'stop doing these ridiculous coach journeys' sign you can get, if my own phone company can't be bothered to acknowledge how much I'm moving around, then I should probably stop doing it. At least for a little while.

But yet this coach is always full, who is doing this journey from London to Brussels in the middle of November on a Sunday night? Apparently the answer to that is shit loads of people. And the guy sat next to me on the journey to London apparently found it acceptable to do a mini work out next to me. So many hours in the day and you couldn't just not do weird breathing exercises for those 2 hours? Really? But on a happier note London looks beautiful now all the lights are on, and I'm lucky enough to drive down the street with both the Harrods and Harvey Nichols Christmas windows on them, they're amazing.

I also met someone on the coach who said my accent made me sound intelligent, something I'm still trying to process to be honest.

And I need to find somewhere else to travel from, so I can stop being harassed in the train station. Just a heads up,  if I've told you I don't understand a word of French (lie) and from the little English you understand I've also managed to tell you I have a husband and a child (also lies). Then you need to step back, and stop hitting on me. Cheers. 10/10 for persistence though, I'm not saying you didn't try. Just that you didn't really realise when you'd failed.

So a quick update on my day, it would appear that I am ill, so today has so far been spent watching Alex Day read Twilight on Youtube. Now no one can attack me for saying I hate it and not having read it, because now I sort of have, at least in the sense of watching someone criticise it chapter by chapter. What got me in particular was that there seems to be a real interest into why Edward saves Bella from being hit by a car,; does that really need an explanation? Isn't that actually a pretty normal thing to do, would you really sit there and wonder what potential sinister motives they could have? Also apparently in Twilight it's totally okay to start talking about marrying someone when you've only known them for 2 weeks, and in the same conversation discuss how easily they could crush your skull. Don't even get me started on the 'forgot to breathe' thing when she faints.

Anyway, my weekend was awesome, it started off with a Post-Election Party, during which I watched a man who looked like an older Hugh Grant dance very well.

Dear whoever you are, I'm modelling my future husband on you.

It continued with a trip to Lydney to see Alex, who for some reason left her summer in Sydney to do winter in the South West of Britain, but I'm very glad she did. For some reason I've only taken about 4 photos from the past 2 weekends so I can't even show you what we did, something we did do is make sweet potato at like 10pm on Friday night. The lesson there is that watching too many cooking programmes set in the English countryside will give you irrational cravings. And then I went to Bath for half a day, and Bristol for about an hour and experienced my Uni life again and as a result was pretty sad to leave and come back to reality. But on the upside we've started house-hunting for final year. I'm still in that stage where I'm looking out houses I clearly can't afford, in other words, I'm looking for a house in Bath.

Here I am with Chepstow Castle.

I'm not one to absorb joy - Jon Richardson.

I know how you feel babe, I know how you feel.

xx

I'm still too tired to think of a witty name for this

I think I realised exactly how excited I was to go home when Wednesday seemed to be the SLOWEST DAY IN THE HISTORY OF TIME. I'm actually writing this bit before I've even left to go home, so that's where we're at, I'm blogging about my weekend at home before I've even got there. I watched Homeland, an episode of Civilisation, painted my nails, packed, ate large amounts of food, showered, straightened my hair and, in true Halloween spirit, watched Friday the 13th (the original, of course) and it's STILL not time for me to leave.

Now the acting in Friday the 13th is terrible, there's a massive overreaction to one of the group pretending to drown - even if he was actually drowning it would be pretty unnecessary to jump in AND use a boat AND a lifebuoy when he's, at most, 2 metres away from the platform you're on (although this pales in comparison to the ridiculous under-reaction of the guy in A Nightmare on Elm Street; who remains relatively calm whilst his girlfriend's blood-covered body is dragged across the ceiling).

But it remains a classic nonetheless; it's a film with all the questionable moral messages of a American slasher. If you have sex, well, I hope it was good, because it's the last thing you'll ever do. Smoking weed? Better enjoy that joint, because you're about to be stabbed in the face. Although the only surviving character does smoke weed and flirt outrageously with the especially 80's looking summer camp owner. All this whilst one of the first characters to die is a guy who couldn't be less in line to get laid - so what's the message here? Flirting with middle-aged men with disgusting facial hair is fine, but being a socially awkward teenager isn't? Is that what we're saying? I just don't understand your angle here Paramount.

And I'm back.

Okay, so I got back on Monday, but I've only just sorted my sleeping pattern out, just in time to do it all again tomorrow night, where did these last 3 days go?

So since these two weeks of my life seem to have revolved around coaches, it's only fair I share a little about what I've learnt about coach etiquette.

1. It's totally fine to spend like 20 hours with someone and never learn each others names,. To the couple who I befriended on the way there and then met again on my return - thank you so much for making those journeys bearable, and for buying me breakfast! I will always remember how much we all hated the Border Control staff and how angry we were when they started playing music in the bar we were trying to sleep in on the ferry. This also goes out to the girls I made friends with on my 'moving in' journey; thanks for making the whole thing seem a lot less scary, and for the tea. I hope my next set of coach friends are just as nice as all you guys.

2. Apparently if you're a fairly short female, any guy who sits next to you will assume you don't need your leg space and just use it to make their legs more spread out. Now, whilst this might be correct for some, even most girls below 5' 6", it is not true for me, and you should not assume it's true for anyone. For someone who's pretty short, I have pretty long legs, so I'm struggling to get comfortable as much as you are, and if I can't straighten out my knees for 5 hours, then neither can you, so back off my half of the seat.

3. If someone accidentally falls asleep on you, it is not okay to fall asleep on them back to make everyone more comfortable. What is okay however, is to sit there awkwardly and text everyone you know to tell them about this guy that's fallen asleep on your arm. I don't know this because I've actually tried to do it, I just know it isn't okay to intentionally fall asleep on someone you don't know. I can just imagine it would go down badly. But it shouldn't be that way, I think we should just agree that it's fine to sleep around each other, so everyone can have a more comfortable journey. As someone who basically always makes these journeys overnight, and by myself, I think it's difficult enough to sleep on coaches as it is without spending the entire time trying to sleep as far away from the person sitting next to me as I can. Because it isn't actually comfortable to sleep with my face on the window.

Also nice work America, you totally pulled that one out of the bag! I'm not going to delve into all things political here, and it's safe to say Obama isn't exactly living out all of my political dreams. But if you imagine you have to run a marathon, and then just before you start running, you take a machine gun to your feet...the political equivalent of that would be Romney being President.

Have another good weekend and I promise next week's post won't be about coaches.

Well, probably not.

xx