I guess I didn't hate January.

The never-ending saga of my moving house has finally come to an end. This also means I've achieved probably my only really serious New Year's resolution: to stop putting up with things that annoy me. Which unfortunately meant my landlady had to go. Or rather I had to go. Because she owns where I was.

I'm failing spectacularly with the other ones by the way, although I am now mentally berating myself for forgetting my glasses every time I leave the house, so that's something.

This victory didn't seem so sweet on Tuesday however; because cleaning nine flights of stairs rarely screams 'I've won!'. Being told to clean the last flight again even less so. And no, I'm not the sort of person who cleans stairs just because someone tells them to, but this woman has my money, and without a common fluent language between us, argument is just too tiring.

That doesn't mean I wasn't angry, and it certainly doesn't mean that I didn't vent to everyone I know. I mean the stairs, why do the stairs have to be so clean? Also why is it such a surprise that they don't look that great even after I've cleaned them? They're covered in years old linoleum and 5 people walk up and down them every day, how nice are they ever going to look. They're not even covered in the same linoleum all the way up. And the bottom flight are just badly painted. I'm not an interior decorator, and unless you're planning on using the stairs to eat from then I'm pretty sure they're fine.

But my new place is so nice I don't really care. It still doesn't have an oven though. Why do I never live anywhere with an oven? It's near an Aldi too, so maybe I'll be able to afford to eat all 5 food groups now.

Claire, I wouldn't eat meat from Aldi, you'll get ill.

Yeah well I've already had food poisoning since I've been here and I haven't cooked red meat in about 4 months. So quite frankly, Aldi can come at me.

I also have a double bed for the first time in my life, so I can now sleep alone in more space than someone of my size could ever need. Hurray.

This is all sounding a little bit too good isn't it? Probably a good time to mention that the walls have that 'distressed' look about them which makes it look ever so slightly like the house from The Blair Witch Project.

But I've got my own sink so, you know, whatever.

January didn't just mark the end of everyone listening to me complain about my landlady though, it involved planning things to look forward to, some really good films, some really great nights out, a lot of The Sopranos and it shouldn't be forgotten that I spent the first week of it at home with a lot of the people I love.

Oh and Justin Timberlake released a new single. So you know, it was a pretty good month actually.

Happy February everyone.

xx

Happy New Year/I'm back

Today I’ve nearly been in Brussels for 4 whole months, and I’ve got 6 months left. I don’t know how that happened, and I’m pretty concerned that it means I probably don’t have an excuse not to know where things are anymore, and that my French should be far better than it is.

Okay so this is a bit late, apologies, but I hope you’ve had a good first week of 2013 and haven’t already given up on those New Year’s resolutions.

Usually when people ask me if I’ve made any I just reply with ‘get my shit together’, which I like because it allows me plenty of scope, and because it’s an ongoing process and will clearly take longer than 12 months no one can say I haven’t achieved it.

I very rarely make proper ones however, for the same reason I never made revision timetables, or set myself deadlines, or planned my essays properly. Just because I ignore myself and because I can’t shake the knowledge that there aren’t actually any consequences if I don’t keep my promises to myself. That maybe doesn’t apply to the essay planning one; I think that’s more stubbornness, and I’ve gotten a bit better at it, but not much. We’ll see how serious that one actually is when I fail my degree.

But my actual New Year’s resolutions, although I only thought of them in the past few days, are as follows:

1. Stop pretending you don’t need glasses – i.e. stop never taking them anywhere and then just telling everyone that you can’t read things like signs and bus timetables. Just take your glasses with you and actually be able to see.

I have no idea why I do this in the first place but since I moved out here I don’t think my glasses have moved from my desk. I certainly didn’t take them home with me, so I’ve just spent the last three weeks repeating the phrase ‘I haven’t got my glasses on so I can’t see’.

2. Stop looking at things that you know will annoy you – I’m not really sure why I do this either, and I mean this one actually makes no sense, I don’t know why I hate myself so much that I feel the need to irritate myself on purpose.

So I’m going to stop following people on Twitter when I know everything they say annoys me, and I’ve definitely hidden a few people’s updates from Facebook in the last couple of days.  I guess you just like some people better if you never have to hear what they have to say.

I’m also going to stop looking at any links anyone posts to anything from the Daily Mail/The Sun online; because then I really do only have myself to blame.

3. Find a way to clean your laptop screen/underneath the keyboard – it’s pretty bad. I’ve tried to clean the screen a million times but whatever’s marking it is beyond the cleaning power of mere face wipes. I’m 99% sure it’s just coated in hairspray, making it 100% my fault.

I’m writing this on the train and the guy who was meant to be sat next to me all the way from Retford to London sat down for all of 10 minutes and then got up and left. That was about 40 minutes ago and I don’t think he’s coming back. The guy opposite me also just caught me looking over at his Uni notes trying to work out what he was doing, so that’s good. Maybe resolution number 4 should be get some social skills.

Au revoir!

xx