Top five things I'll miss about living with someone:

1) Waking up next to (or occasionally draped across) someone warm, soft and familiar, feeling protected and like I could just stay there forever (without anyone minding).

2) Having a reason to cook fancy dinners, keep the flat tidy and dress up on school days. Having someone to spoil, and occasionally, someone to spoil me.

3) Having someone there to share funny and interesting quotes, songs or YouTube-clips with when we're both sitting with our MacBooks in the evening.

4) Our enormous joint collection of books and CD's. Hundreds upon hundreds of marvellous pop recordings, and what probably amounts to three gargantuan bookshelves full (even though we only have two).

5) Absolutely everything.

These first few days of school have been almost perfect. Not in that 'skipping through fields of wildflowers with all my new-found soul mates and a copy of Waiting for Godot in my back pocket' kind of way (for one thing, I don't really ever have pockets), but more in the sense that I kind of have a feeling as to where this is going, because there has been a bit of everything already. I've met some lovely people, at least one of whom I'm sure I'll make great friends with, but also some of those who remind me why I need to toughen up a bit and not be so bloody nice all the time. Which is a shame, I suppose, but I'm coming more and more to terms with it: Some people just aren't worth the energy.

This thought was hopping about in the back of my head when I was picking out frames for my new reading glasses the other day. Yes, that's right, I am not the genetic 20/20-visioned miracle I thought I was after all. Personally, I don't consider this to be a disaster, because ever since my mum got her new frames a few years back I've actually kind of wanted glasses. I mean, they suit me, and I'm a sucker for anything that can so completely transform my look with little effort, like lipstick, or a nice hat. Anyway, the first frames my optician suggested fitted me perfectly: they were a gorgeous colour, the perfect shape and made me feel like a princess with a tiny Chanel camelia detail on each side. Unfortunately, that was exactly what was wrong with them. That whole 'sweet, fragile' thing is so very last season, dahling. My single New Year's resolution this year is to gather all the threads of my tattered self-confidence, and try to stitch it back up into a person I actually like being. And that is going to take more than just a camelia.

It took me a week but I finally found them, and they're so stylish it hurts.

Moreover, these will help prevent shortsightedness in the future.

Which is just too ironic.

There is a strange sort of optimism connected to the first days of every term. I don't know exactly what causes it. It may be the first lectures of exciting new courses, books that make that first cracking sound when you open them, seeing old friends for the first time since before exams or making first impressions on new ones. It may be that fresh feeling of cleverness that always accompanies the promises you make to yourself about great working, eating and socialising habits. It may also have something to do with the fact that this early in the term, no-one is 'worse than'. You still have a shot at becoming one of the good ones, and more often than not a genuine hope that this year, you'll make it.

Whatever the reason may be, I'm going to enjoy this feeling for as long as it lasts.

I cannot recall the last time I was happier for a year to be over. I have finally broken it off with 2007. Now all we need is closure.

It started out well enough. Life was good, or at least it was stable. I hated my job, my boss, occasionally myself, but more often than not the sheer predictability of it all would be comforting (though of course also frustrating). Summer came, and I spent an amazing month in Germany catching up with my old friends, Adventurous, Optimistic and Fun-Loving, whilst filling up all the holes which my mundane 8-to-5 job had left in my soul with copious amounts of culture and caffeine. Then came autumn, and the structure I had spent so many years developing - myself - fell to the ground.

I have not cried so much in years, and must have saved a fortune on eye make-up remover. The break-up was followed by a breakdown (you know, for the sake of balance). I lost it, and by 'it', I mean 'almost everything'.

In many ways I'm still stunned by how quickly it's all happened. I have to start over now, and I am not ready at all, which means I'll have to do what I despise most: 'just' take the plunge and see what happens.

And so 2007 came to an end. Always true to form, I got my grand finale of heartbreak and utter humiliation on New Year's Eve, but by then I was too exhausted to look back. It's 2008 now, and I got a ridiculously expensive make-up remover for Christmas. How's that for a sign?

So, 2007, it's over. There is no more 'us'. And it's not me, it's you. Goodbye.

Reply to this post and I'll

1. Tell you why I friended you.
2. Associate you with something - fandom, a song, a colour, a photo, a word etc.
3. Tell you something I like about you.
4. Tell you a memory I have of you.
5. Ask something I've always wanted to know about you.
6. Tell you my favorite user pic of yours.
7. In return, you must post this in your LJ.

Ugh, so much stuff going on at the moment. Two more days, then freedom. I'll be singing along with David Hasselhoff in no time.

I'm in study hall. I'm never in study hall.

Hours: 8
Espresso shots: 5
Pages read: 200
Breaks: 1 (very) long, 2 short.

I knew I had it in me somewhere.

If there is such a thing as a previous life, I'll bet I spent mine as a bear. I notice it every autumn: I spend the whole season trying to control the urge to EAT! EAT! EAT! And then, around this time of year, all I want to do is stay in bed under a warm, fuzzy duvet and sleep. Or, you know, do other things that one does under a duvet - read, cuddle, blog - so long as it doesn't involve anything even remotely resembling foot-floorboard interaction.

But, as it happens, I have a life. One filled with things that need to be done, like exams and coffee dates and wondering whether or not my bum looks big in this (the answer usually being 'yes, but in a good way'), activities with which hibernation does not mesh.

I really have no idea where I'm going with this, but I'll tell you: This getting-out-of-bed crap had better be worth it.

Goodnight!

"Failure is always the best way to learn", according to Kings of Convenience. Well it's a bit late for that, don't you think?

I'm not going to stuff your pretty heads full of useless information about my exam, but it did not go well. And now we're done talking about it. My brain is an absolute mess due to frustration, exhaustion, sleep deprivation and possible malnutrition, but I am glad to be finished (in oh so many ways).

Now then, which day is it today, Thursday? Things I Love Thursday, you mean!

(OK, enthusiasm is giving me a headache. Let's just... not do that right now.)

So I can honestly say that I ain't  feelin' the lurve for very much at the moment. You'll have to make do with three things, as opposed to last week's ten, because right now I just need sleep. Buckets and buckets of it.

1) I love my computer.
You can see him in the photo in my last post - that's my Macbeth right there. Actually, pretty much my whole life as I know it is in that photo: my favourite coffee cup (the perfect shape, size and design for my tiny hands), my previously mentioned Marimekko notebook (it's very pretty, with yellow flowers on the cover) and my all-time favourite poster (which unfortunately belongs to Arne, and will therefore disappear after Christmas), my Sex and the City DVD box set (no explanation necessary) - this is, quite literally, my little corner of the world. Welcome.

2) I love tea.
Yeah, I've become a tea-drinker again; I keep ending up right where I started, and I'm beginning to think that maybe I really am a tea person. Which is a frightening thought, really, seeing as it would totally ruin my hip urban image.

3) I love my friends.
I know, what a cliché, right? But seriously, these are some patient people! Thank you for putting up with me, even when I act like a self-absorbed child. You know who you are. You're fabulous.

Tomorrow I've promised myself a Macbeth--free day, but that means that by Saturday I'll be practically bursting with amusing entry topics. And if not, I still have to introduce you to Basil, my mutant basil. He's such a charmer, you'll love him!