People in glasshouses...

Grow plants. Thousands of them. This is not merely a thing in the house in which I am residing but a national obsession.
Last year I did a tour of my house, this year doing a tour of the houseplants may be more relevant. When I arrived there were 3 in my room, I killed one the other was rescued and well the ivy plant seems to be a tough old bird. But just give me time...

I once read a blog by a guy who records his arguments with his german girlfriend, there in were several posts on just this topic. However I was reminded of one particular post (finding a potplant in the shower) after counting not 1, not 2, but 6 plants in the downstairs bathroom alone. There's at least 20 in the downstairs conservatory and more in the upstairs bit and I haven't bothered counting the rest, but they're endemic! And yes I meant endemic! It's the same in school! I can't walk up/down the stairs from the staff room without being assaulted by a tree!!!

I was asked if we had plants in our house in England. I laughed and replied "are you kidding me, I'm a plant murderer! The last thing I had was chives and they died because I watered them too much!!" I went on to say I think my mum has some but upon further reflection I realised they all died ages ago.

I'm pretty sure I live in a conservatory.
I have nothing against houseplants per se, but they are rather a thing that attracts wildlife, and that I can live without! Though here they still have red squirrels and there's one that lives in the garden he's rather a cute fellow I think he likes to watch us eat. Talking of eating...

Stuttgart is a magical place. A land if promise, flowing with milk and honey, or more accurately tea, bacon, Cornish pasties, proper sausages, Jammy Dodgers, Marmite, lemon curd, mince pies, Cadburys, birds custard, stuffing and all the things that this country lacks, however they can make kebabs or as they refer to them "kebaps" the "Yufka" in particular is a must. At home I wouldn't touch a doner kebab with a 100ft barge pole but here, well I know what I'm having for lunch tomorrow.

Now having made myself ridiculously hungry but hopefully having splurged my brain enough on the various cultural differences I have to remark upon right now I shall go dream about teaching Germans how to queue for the bus properly the mad surge for the door offends my sensibilities!!!

Nanight!
Bethxx

So far part II!

Its been raining so hard recently I could swear I was in Lancaster, but the fact being that I can only hear German it stands to reason I have simply brought the weather with me.

Anyway we left off with my failing to get up. My failing to get up on my first day of school. After completing my ablutions and having flung clothes on in the fastest time ever I arrived at school to be instantly the subject of great attention and kidnapped by Herr Steinmayer, because I was just what he needed to terrify his students. Like another great language tutor I know he enjoys torturing his students, but not with Morrissey.

Anyway after 2 lessons it was time to go on the teachers trip. Which started with a picnic lunch. And the most alcohol ever seen before 5pm. In response to my very British confusion as to the consumption of so much booze at lunch time one of the teachers told me "In England you have problems with binge drinking students, here in Germany its the other way round." I think he was kidding. I hope he was. 

Anyway after lunch we marched off through the mountains, and I spoke/heard more german than ever before in my life. By 7PM my head had imploded and I was only capable of vaguely English sounding gibberish, which left a large number of teachers as confused as I was, 2 hours later I dragged my carcass off to bed with very little idea of where I was, who I was, what I was doing here, upon which planet I was residing and   if in  fact this was actually one of my weirder dreams. All on absolutely no alcohol since lunchtime. ("What you have nothing to drink, let me fix that!", I honestly thought they wanted me to crawl up this mountainside!)

I woke up the next morning personality crisis resolved to the extent I spoke to everyone in English because it was far to early for German. Also to the weirdo who left the shower on Arctic Blitzkreig, I will never forgive you. I do not wish to be pummelled by hailstones at 7AM. NO ONE DOES. 

Anyway, this is where I stayed:

Yes People, I SLEPT IN CASTLE. 

I'm so cool. No. No I'm not I'm a giant nerd but never mind.

I then dragged myself up and down sheer mountain faces again, because apparently this is what German teachers do for fun. How a friend of mine runs up and down these things for fun is beyond me. 

Completely and utterly so.

The day didn't finish there though. No by the end of the day that felt like years ago. one bout of crying in O2, a Doner, which by the way in Germany are not only edible but also amazing, further crying because Oh my gosh way too much German, I really need my mummy now, I was off to a house warming party, at which I tried to spend the entirety hiding in the corner avoiding the, "Oh dear your glass is empty we can't be having that", that seems to be endemic, also it meant that I didn't have to think or speak German. My plan failed. But it would seem that I have a great competence than I thought and ended up speaking quite alot, though admittedly some of it did descend in to denglisch. Though that was usually because the Germans wanted to show off, most often when I couldn't remember a word.

The next day I moved in to the place where I'm staying for the rest of the year.

I'm living with a family who are absolutely lovely and are taking great care of me. Even if settling in and adjusting are taking some time. 

Seriously, even though I'm in an awesome situation homesickness is still an issue. Seriously, I want English food and I want it now. I want a mummy and a daddy hug and I'd rather like to be in Lancaster. But I'm not and it can be sucky to be reminded of that simply by sitting in the staffroom listening to German, of which you have no comprehension, especially as a large number of people round here speak Schwabisch by default, which sounds about as much like Hochdeutsch as does a particularly drunk Geordie to Standard English. Seriously I could murder bangers, beans and mash about now. 

Monday, Tuesday: School. Yr 6/7's are wayyy chattier than those in the years above, who are really just too cool for talking to the English girl. Though the second the essays come out they're all competing for no. 1 Fan. xD

Wednesday for those who are too young to remember/don't study German, was a german bank holiday as they celebrated being a whole country again. Having a bank holiday in the middle of the week turns out be awesome. Why? Because they then think, "Screw it! Lets have a 5 day weekend!" This is a concept behind which, I can FULLY get. So I relaxed Wednesday  went to my first basketball game - finally!had a bit of a poke about Stuttgart Thursday before running away to Heidelberg for a few days.

 Above: Bball obvs. Right: Moi et Markus hiding from the rain in Stuggart!

So yes, I ran off to Heidelberg. It started with Chloe Caswell and The Cauldron of Coffee.

Seriously, that mug was at least as big as her face!! The first day we mainly did shopping eating and getting me some form of bedding. We also ran into the lovely Marlen. Its weird seeing her in her native surroundings and me being the one out of context. Anne however was away for the weekend. :( Sad faces. ahh well 

there's time yet!!

The second day we did all the touristy things, by a great blessing we ran into the amazing local lady who basically sorted our day for us, by explaining to us that with the €3 mountain train ticket we could get in to all the awesome places in Heidelberg! This brought out a spontaneous burst of positivity from Chloe, who by comparison is really struggling - but then so would I in her situation. Shes all alone, in terrible accommodation, (she doesn't even have her own kitchen), miles from the city and uni and generally rather fed up, though thankfully uni starts next week so hopefully she'll begin to settle and with little bit of Birgit Smith get her accommodation sorted out! 

So we visited the Castle where we encountered the worlds largest beer barrel. Which we decided would probably keep Cartmel bar in stock for the next 40 years...

Shot of the castle from the town.

We also found ourselves in the German pharmacy museum which is in castle where we found these:

The Yellow box is  "Monday Morning Blues Remedy". We thought they were rather fantastic.

We did various things but mainly we just had an awesome time, eating what can only really be described as our bodyweights in chocolate (Blame the lack of kitchen!), before I headed back on Sunday.

Since then I have been teaching, napping extensively, opening bank accounts (despite forgetting my passport! Mark accused me of flirting my way around it... its a distinct possibility.) and reading Joseph Conrad because that's what the Oberstufe are studying. The English is hard enough for most natives! "Nowither", I kid you not! I'd never seen that word before and some of the structures and words are so archaic as to be museum pieces!! Though it has the distinct advantage over a book we had to read last year in that it adheres to laws of sentence structure and punctuation!

Anyway as I have to prepare myself for another long day tomorrow, I believe Mark has arranged a German/English pub date... 

And yet again I've forgotten about the washing I put on 4 hours ago...

So I'll leave you to sort my life out!

Bethxx

I'm still alive!

So I've been here a week and half. But its been rather busy and most of all knackering!
Speaking and listening to German the vast majority of  the time is really tiring.

Things I've learnt so far:

1. German efficiency is a lie.
2. Trains are numbered - DO NOT TRUST THE TIME!
3. They are constantly drinking water or coffee, also hard liquor, beer and Champagne are all acceptable at lunchtime.
4. Bureaucracy is everything.
5. Apparently 17/18 degrees is cold and I must wear a jacket.
6. Not wearing at least a pair of socks around the house is an offence against German common sense. (I have lost count of how many times they've asked me if I need a pair of sock/ begged me to take a pair)
7. English Sausages are vastly superior.
8. Mountain climbing is hard.
9. Mark needs Gibbs slapping more often.
10. Cheese and ham at breakfast will never be right.

I should probably start at the beginning yes?

So, trains are numbered? Who knew, ah yes all the Germans/ Germanophiles I know who never thought that y'know, that might be a hint I might need upon arrival!!!!

You know who you are!

It was in this fashion I let my train to Cologne leave without me.

When I finally arrived, in this fine Rhineland City I promptly got lost, this is because it was A. dark and B. the Germans put up street names in 1. very strange places and 2. only when they feel like it.

However I did eventually after throwing a tantrum with Google maps in the street (much to the amusement of a gaggle of drunk bystanders, it seems cold, tired, scared and anxious English women are funny) arrive at my hotel. It was gorgeous the staff were awesome the wireless free and they left cake and Toblerone in my room. However the shower was slightly broken in that the holder wouldn't stay up and I did end up causing a flood. Mark must have being using up all the common sense at the time...

After spending a morning wandering around Cologne, buying books in bookshops that look suspiciously like Waterstones, realising one cannot write in English and speak German simultaneously and still wind up with an ability to think at the end of it, and being chatted up by a very forward German student, (this seems to be normal for Germans, they keep telling me precisely what they think - it gets awkward, well maybe just for me, they don't seem to be to bothered), it was time to meet up with all the other assistants for the Altenburg Conference. Which is completely bonkers, some one ended up in hospital because they had an epileptic fit, there was far too much/not enough alcohol (on the final night 5 people bought most of it and then wouldn't share, no one had any sympathy for their hangovers), I learnt more about the commonwealth in 3 days than in the last 21 years, and perhaps a little bit about lesson planning.

Oooooh - on the subject of the commonwealth - so we had assistants from Canada, New Zealand and Australia with us as well. The most joyous moment of which was when Hannah said the word "out". My friends, they genuinely do speak just as "How I Met Your Mother" makes out. I was rather excited but 

it would appear that Canadians are now rather bored of this reaction. Sad faces.

Any hoo after 3 mental days in which i had perhaps a grand total of 8 hours sleep it was time.
I haven't the words or the mental acuity at this point in time to describe precisely how nervous I'd been flying out and arriving in Cologne, but Thursday morning it was back and with a vengeance! I don't believe that before last week i ever shook so violently with nerves before.

It wasn't even anything I could control! I have never been so pleased to see Mark - he had forgotten how violently I rant when tired, angry and fed up of course feeding me Mocha soothed my irritability and irrationality some what after we missed the connection from Stuttgart to Tübingen.

Eventually after two trains and pulling a proper English tourists abroad stint - who can be bothered speaking German when English is so much easier - we arrived in Tübingen where Goran came to meet me, and by extension Mark, who pretty much had to leg it to what it later transpired was an argument with the university international office xD! It was at this point that I tried to get in on the wrong side of the car much to Goran's amusement, (he spends far too much time mocking me! And is far too concerned about my lack of sock wearing!) before almost wetting myself in a fit of juvenile behaviour in regards to a dubiously named village. Unfortunately I have to go through this village every time I go direct to Tübingen after school. Hopefully, eventually I'll quit sniggering. If you're wondering what the name is (and are really that bothered), go Google earth Dußlingen or Tübingen and have a look around the local area.

After spending the evening doing the hardest listening exam ever - trying to converse with excitable but shy 4 yr old twin girls who obviously only speak German about everything from Pippi Longstocking to Hello Kitty
I went to bed, and failed to get up.

But that's going to have be another blog. because I'm unbelievably knackered still and my bed is calling me.

Be not afeared, photos are coming, but not until later.

Miss you all!!
Bethxx

A roof over my head :)

So I have some where to live! I shall be staying with a family from whom I shall be renting a room :). Though that wasnt all My Betreuungslehrer, Goran, had to say.

I shall be spending my first weekend in Germany not as previously thought hitting up Ikea with Mark but on the annual KvFG teacher's weekend retreat. There's nowt like being chucked in the deep end! Now if you'll excuse me I need some counselling, auf deutsch.
Beth xxx

1 Week, 7 Days, 168 hours,

and I'm, (to quote a friend), bricking it. Excitement, heavily laced with an overbalancing side of trepidation!

I spoke to my Betreuungslehrer on Friday and he said I should have a place to live by the end of the week, I also somehow ended up speaking to my headteacher, he seems lovely, but it was a terrible line and he was talking like an express train, unfortunately smiling and nodding doesn't work on the phone, I felt a complete idiot for having to ask him to slow down because I couldn't understand. Goran (my Betreuungslehrer), however has so far only ever spoken to me in English, thank goodness, but I suspect that'll change a week Thursday when we meet, which is probably a good thing.

Another good thing is Mark's announcement that he's coming to meet my train in Stuttgart, so we can travel to Tübingen together. This is a good thing, he has put fear in my heart over that station: "You realise half of its underground right?" I can cope with the tube, (more on that later), but I know the tube and its pretty simple and well signed. I will undoubtedly be completely knackered, stressed beyond belief- I do not travel well, particularly in an emotionally explosive state- and therefore my brain will be struggling to compute English let alone German!  Though this is probably nerve induced, hyperbolic rambling.

Ah well...

Last Sunday I went down south to see Hannah. Three things: 1.My feet are now giant blisters, 2.Hannah and I are still unstoppable, 3. My Phone mysteriously disapparated.

In relation to No. 1 - ballet flats are not a good idea for a long day of walking, let alone 2, also my blister went green, it was really weird, there was no rhyme or reason to it, its not green any more, just sorta shiny.

Warning never take a phone to London. They going missing in mysterious/suspicious circumstances. I never knew losing a smartphone could be so stressful, that little mini heartache you have when you think you've lost it? Bah! That's nothing. The unparalleled horror at realising "Pants, its REALLY gone!" then "ALL MY NUMBERS!" then "WHAT IF THEY FRAPE ME!" Before I can get home ring my network and bar my phone. Thankfully it went missing on the last day so it wasn't too bad, but until my new phone arrived on Friday  having to use a phone less technologically advance than my old 3410 ( at least that could access the internet! Sort of), was agony. But its over now.

So what did Hannah and I do? We went shopping (obviously), went on a really long walk, a fact we only noticed on the boat ride back, at the end of that walk tho was some very touristy activity and this:

Shouldn't be let out of the house me.

But then Hannah was at risk of the same thing.

The next day we went into London, coming out of Waterloo we naturally came to the London Eye, where we spontaneously decided to get on it!

We did lots of other touristy things which pleased Hannah immensely cos she doesn't normally get to!

Anyway,

until after I get there

Bethxx

Oh my goodness!

Conflagrations of giddy aunts!!  I’m going to Germany rather too soon!  However rather more pertinently I’m sat on an East Coast Mainline train to London eating skittles.  Why? Because I’m going to see Hannah!  Really looking forward to it after weeks of post camp boredom and work induced injuries, I’m treating myself to a few days away. Admittedly timing could have been better, I would choose the week KvFG go back and as such mean that all the important emails will start coming through. Hence why I’m blogging on a train. I have no other need for my laptop but unfortunately all the important bits and bobs are all stored on here and as suchI should probably find myself a reliable USB drive before I go. Prioritising isn’t my strong point though and as such the 6 DVD Avengers boxset – oh my inner geek is exultant- is far more important. 

At least malevolent  envelopes and parcels wouldn’t be shredding the skin around my fingers then. Or giving me RSIs, my thumb, wrist and arm are all sore.  But work means that I have money and can go to London, buy dvd boxsets, oh and y’know have some thing left to live off upon arrival in Germany.

I really just want to get there now as a lot of my class mates have already made it out there including Miss Chloe Caswell, and Markus, my Schwabian adventure buddies. Mark and I are living in the same Town. I predict entertaining times ahead.

I still have a lot of prep to do, including getting my phone unlocked and cancelling my contract. And with all this extra money I have deciding on how to get more clothes on to the Plane. You see, dragging two bags about would be awkward and something of a bind when on a schedule in a strange place, for instance Stuttgart’s notoriously complicated Hauptbahnhof, “You realise half of its underground right?” Mark could have just hampered my wardrobe.  If anyone tells me again I don’t need two coats and 4 jackets, I’m so overtired I will start crying.

Aside from panicking about packing, I wont even let myself think about anything else that could be a problem, like ooo I don’t know, language skills, it’d turn me in to a puddle of stress, and I let Mark get on with that, what have I been up to?

Camp! Yes  that was a thing that happened it was its usual mental self, fun, drama worthy of a soap opera, difficult children and too much sugar in spades. Also this happened:

Party night always produces moments of hilarity.

Steve’s outfit was so good his own son walked past him several times looking for his daddy not recognising the guy with hair.

This is me and Emibobs with The Dave:

Ooo and I had a new mini leader this year!  Cutie pie alert!

Hannah graduated to the role of Camper meaning that her position was left vacant, it was filled before dinner on the first day when Amy, Hannah’s little sister, came flying over to me and asked if she could be my mini leader because Hannah was a camper now. I agreed and Amy was very happy.

My tent partner Becky is camera shy. She's awesome and a brilliant partner in crime. I merely say dave's torch. xD

Other things that have happened: I got a job.  Sorting Mail for Royal Mail through an agency. In a warehouse in Leeds. In a sexy High Vis Jacket and super stylish Steel toe capped shoes. (Can you smell the sarcasm yet?)  Where I attract far too much undue attention, (how in that get-up escapes me!) , have the skin around my fingernails shredded and give my self tendonitis, which is making texting and typing a bit of a chore. I work every hour they give me, have blisters all over my feet, shift twice as much as the regular RM staff for half the pay, but at least I have new clothes and can be on this train atm.

Any way, until I have fun times in London town to blog about I shall toddle off

Beth x

Stuck in the middle.

I am precisely half way between camping trips.

Yeah, its that time of year again. I'm off camping because its time for camp, well come saturday.

This time last week I was recovering from helping to put camp up, We  have somewhere to cook, eat, wash and Sleep, indeed week 1 are probably using these facilities as I type, what with it being Week 1 and everything. Incidently I now have a small idea how much effort goes into making camp happen.

The campers remain in blissful ignorance of the whacked thumbs, rope burn, and cuts and bruises I seem to gained. Hitting yourself with a mallet of any kind hurts. Spare a thought for Joe who hit himself with a lumphammer.

At the start the field looked like this:

i.e. empty, the blue tents are our accomodation.

By the end it looked like this:

And soon it'll have 50 odd 9-13 yr olds running around it.

I'll be the one  hiding under a GIANT hat.  Well, maybe just a hat.

As for year abroad news, not much has changed since the last post, except I have reverted to my usual "I DON'T WANNA GO!" state.

Its all fine and well everyone telling me its amazing, I'll love it, it'll be a great experience, (the next person to do so is likely to get punched btw), currently, its terrifying, I miss my friends from Uni, it'll be even worse when I have to leave my family and friends here. Admittedly I get to take Mark, but to make him the first port of call for my every emotional wobble would be extremely unfair, particularly as my emotional wobbles are more akin to earthquakes than wobbles.

Living totally on my tod in a language in which I can just about communicate, should scare the pants off most people.

So yeah, feeling rather apprehensive at the moment. Hopefully, it'll die down a bit when I have somewhere to live. No doubt I will get round to liking it, but currently terrified is where I'm at.

The next update will be after camp.

so until I am next awake enough to blog!
Bethxx

The YA begins to get thoroughly exciting!

Planet Beth is going to Germany or more specifically Karl von Frisch Gymnasium, Dußlingen, Baden Württemberg.

At last I have something to get properly excited about :) and have as such spent most of the day fighting the internet trying to get to Cologne for the Altenburg Konferenz.

90 odd quid later we've managed it and I'm rather looking forward to meandering around Cologne city centre for a bit in the morning, I've always been told its beautiful and I want to check it out for myself.  Getting flights to Cologne is a hassle though.
And finding hotels even more so!

And I haven't even started looking at trains to Dußlingen for the end of the Konferenz! But thankfully I have discovered that Deutsche Bahn also works in English, which is reassuring because I get twitchy when travelling and like to have everything nice and ordered and having to add extra energy into working out the German site would only make it worse.

Having now checked into various train times and prices, I now have to Google Earth Stuttgart Hauptbahnhof to work out how on earth one station can have 101 (at least) platforms! Also I feel fleeced by the Deutsche Bahn, when a country is as large as Germany, it is therefore a long way to anywhere and prices should be less! I suspect this particular rant may feature a few times!

The most worrying thing about all of this excitement is that come Monday morning I actually have to ring my school and talk to my Betreuungslehrer (What kind of a word has 2 u's in it consecutively!?)
Grammar is going to get mangled and great whopping misunderstandings will take place. I dislike telephones. They're not good with sarcasm or foreign languages. But then the German's aren't good with sarcasm...

I can see this going terribly wrong xD

Terribly, terribly, hysterically wrong.

For you see this person:

ubiquitous beanie and all will be in the next town!

This is very reassuring, well for me, that noise you can hear is Tosh wringing his hands and hoping Germany survives.

Right,

I've run out of words here.
Bis später!
Bethxx

What happens on holiday.

Not a lot happens on holiday thats what.
Darn I'm sooo bored. and this is only the end of week 2 and already I'm climbing the walls. Only 8 more to go. Admittedly one of those weeks is Camp which will take about a week to get over, its a wonderful if very exhausting week.

Last week was not boring.  I returned home on the Friday, from where followed an awful lot of cleaning, because Anne was coming :)

We went to York, and Betty's which you just have to do, I mean look!

Even if I'm not sophisticated enough to be in a tearoom (Lucy was tempted to facepalm many a time - yes the lovely Lucy-cakes was there!)

We spent the whole time getting intermittently rained on in monsoon like downpours and drying out in glorious sunshine enjoying Yorkshire's finest city, taking some rather touristy shots, (Despite some of us living there xD), and generally having a rather good time.

 The typical look we're on the walls and that's the Minster!

 One is in Betty's ones Pinky is nowhere near ones teacup

The Shambles, funny I thought that was me...

Obligatory shot of Clifford's Tower.

The next day we stayed at home went to the castle and went shopping oh and Anna became entirely addicted to The Hunger Games. She finished it by the time we got to the wedding on saturday. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

(at this point I went to bed)

Anyway where was I? I have important things to say but have rather got to finish this bit first. Bother.

So yeah. I turned 21.

I got 2 birthdays. One in Lancaster, with all the surprises:

Left: Surprise Party       Above: Surprise Ladies Lunch :)

And one here where I went out for a meal with the usual suspects and Anne and then came home to a birthday tea :) Where there was lots of Cake. I like Cake.

Then the next day it was up and at 'em to catch an 8.20 train (who knew that time existed on a Saturday), to get to Andrew and Laura's Wedding. Which was a beautiful day and wedding.

A gorgeous event followed mainly by moving out catching up with Mark, Amy and the legend that is Tosh before interminable boredom set in, in the space of 4 days. 

BAH!

Anyway This is only blog one of 3 for today and Shakespeare will require my full attention. 

So till the next Blog!

 Bethxx

Things Wot Smell Fishy, rambles from a train.

And so here it is. Second year – over.  Packed away, nothing but mere memories, much treasured. Its been amazing, Met many amazing people, some of whom I miss A LOT.  In 9 weeks I will fly to Germany to begin the scariest chapter of my life so far.  What mentalist goes  to live in a foreign country for the sheer hell of it, when they have so much back home?! Linguists who want a degree apparently.  I’ve surprised myself in not crying at all this week, not that I’ve time to. One was kept rather busy particularly by some rather sneaky individuals, but we’ll come to that.

So, Planet Beth is going to Germany, Specifically the south western Bundesland of Baden-Württemberg. But you may have guessed that from the rather manic post below, which I hworfed out in my mindless excitement on Monday. The excitement, I’ll admit was fuelled in large part by relief in finally having a placement, and most reassuringly put to bed any of Birgit’s “Well if the worst comes to the worst you can always study”, at that point one would have become a single honours English student with a minor in German.  Studying is hard enough work in English let alone in German, when you then add my 5 minute attention span and 3 hour block lectures that are beloved of German universities the result is some seriously chewed up nails on my part just trying to contemplate the sheer horror.  Especially if you consider that my A-Level tutor refers to my German essays as a “Form of carnage more familiar to Dresden in 1945”, my issues with cases have thankfully lessened somewhat since then,  and are now unlikely to unteach anyone German as Tosh was once convinced would happen to him.

Instead I am spending the summer revising the latter half of 203 so as to be able to explain my innate English grammar to Germans come September, a thought that simultaneously fills my mother with dread and hysterical laughter.

Hopefully I’ll know which school I’m going to soon enough, though my entire family and friends from a certain time will all laugh if I end up at the school I went to in 2004 on exchange.

How this train is quicker I don’t think I’ll ever know, it stops at every village between Lancaster and Leeds with a functional train station!  But the Website clearly states that it’s 42 minutes quicker.

Tangents aside.

So what have been doing recently other than sleeping badly and packing? A week today I turn 21. A small thing, that my friends weren’t going to let go uncelebrated.  Though they rather gave the game away when I attempted to plan my own birthday shindigs and Amy rather vehemently suggested that it was unnecessary and to leave well alone.

(One is in Yorkshire.)

Anyway, Monday started with a migraine the size of Texas and a refusal to remove ones self from bed because moving was guaranteed to be a very bad idea.  During this time I received some peculiar texts and Phone calls, all concerned with my whereabouts and plans. Something was beginning to smell fishy, particularly as nothing had been mentioned on the Birthday front and Amy was leaving the following day. Being all nauseous and migrainy however one didn’t dwell on it too much and opted for further snoozing. Eventually paracetamol and Imigran made enough of a dent to make making a brew and mindlessly staring at the gogglebox a viable activity. Activity being used very loosely here.  Anne then popped around and dropped off stuff for her visit to the right side of the Pennines next week and treated me to a massage, because they’re good migraines. She then left to catch her flight to Ireland.

Amy returned from excursions of a sneaky nature, (I wasn’t aware of this at the time), and was again very concerned about my plans for the day, and whether getting dressed was on my to do list at all. Her eyebrows wiggled worriedly when I announced it wasn’t likely, this was followed an hour later by Hannah Brown demanding I quit moping, get a wash, get dressed and, come shopping.  Apparently pyjama days are a waste when there are shoes to be bought. Or when Housemates need you out of the house.  I was convinced that I was being turfed out, and was pretty sure why. Hannah only smiled weakly when I announced that something smelt fishy.

Hannah was all too good at distraction and got me there ½ an hour late. It wasn’t necessary to act surprised, far too many Party poppers going off for that. An evening of much frivolity then began.

An evening for reasons that I will never understand I decided to check my emails.  And found out I finally had a BC place.

Hannah Dengate slept over. And in the morning announced we were having a girly dress up day because why not?!  That should have been the first clue. However my attention was focused elsewhere which meant that the very devious Hannahs Brown and Dengate  got me to The Borough without me questioning anything. When we arrived and I put the phone down:

HB:“Fancy lunch?”

Me:“Yeah why not”

*walk in to borough, cue best face Emily says shes ever seen me pull”

Me: “(squee) AS IF! HOW? YOU DID NOT JUST PULL THIS ON ME!”

Ladies Lunch FTW.

Amy then sought to assure me that there would be no further attempts to cause me a heart attack.

With great relief I trotted of to Henry’s birthday BBQ for dinner all fears of further shock allayed.

Tuesday also brought something that would, under normal circumstances, warrant its own post. Lucy has returned. She is back in Lancaster, she is back in Britain. Major wootage!

And as such we all gathered at Emily’s for a much needed brew and catch up.

The rest of the week has consisted of packing, a pharmaceutical farce of proportions only obtainable by the NHS (National Halfwit Society) and Boots and procrastinating with Hannah Dengate.  I now find myself on the train home for a mummy hug an ‘UG and a cooked meal (whatever that is.)

So I’m going to go enjoy the view, readjust to a single bed, scare the living daylights out of Anna, prepare for other Anne (it’s German, pronounced like the English Anna) to come on Tuesday, and prepare to change at Leeds.  Till next week!

Bethxx

PLANET BETH GOES TO GERMANY!!!

BADEN WÜRTTEMBERG,BADEN WÜRTTEMBERG,BADEN WÜRTTEMBERG,BADEN WÜRTTEMBERG!!!




ARGHHHHHH! YES! YES!
WOOT!

I swear I'm not procrastinating ...

...Well, not much.

Ok I totally am. Last night I got so bored I tidied the tip I had laughingly been calling my bedroom. It looked like a combination of Primark during the sales, clothes flung everywhere, and an explosion in rymans, or whatever stationers you prefer.
I'd even taken advantage of the glourious weather and washed my bedding which I was gonna put straight back  on but for the discovery of THE GIANT BEASTIE SPIDER! that made its home in the nice neat pile I'd made.

We also discovered that my shoe collection is rather large. I'll post the photo on my twitter later, because my camera is at home and I am in the LZ, eating a healthy lunch, which was extortionately priced, but has the effect of not making me feel like the pig that ate 3/4s of a tub of ben and jerrys last night.

Hannah also went home yesterday. And we went to the train station to see her off, good job we did really. We literally has to load her on to the train.


She had 4 bags, only the teeny weeny beige suitcase had any clothes in.

She is not amused by this photo. We couldn't help but giggle. Which is bad of us, she was going home because she's ill and stressed, but still when the ruck on her back is almost bigger than her it tickled our collective funny bone.
Brecht is very dry and very dull.
I may go back to my IPA flash cards; though I'd have to sit on the floor because everything about flash cards reminds me of carpet time in Reception and learning to spell.
I may have to go buy wotsits, I'm still hungry and they're excellent revision food.

Bah, I shall have to go revise now!

I shall leave you with a sign that sits next to the main bus stop on campus, which had clearly been ill thought out:

Much love,
Bethxx

My Apologies..

..for my extended leave of absence.

A lot has happened many good times have been had and now I'm drowning in revision.

What fun!

Key points of Interest to note:

Easter holidays happened: A wild Josh was sighted:


A very rare event indeed and therefore worthy of a mention.

Emily and Ollie came to visit to see Becky and Seth:

Seth made a lot of cute faces and ate his bodyweight in formula. 

My Parents celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary

And my grandparents their 60th!!!!

The return of the Lucy is but 5 weeks away, Camp is but 13 weeks away which quite terrifyingly means in 15 weeks I... I... I have to do something scary.

Oh and I did something crazy.

My mother is displeased.

But for now I will return to the oblivion of yacky Studying. My exams are trying to kill me and The British Council STILL haven't told me where I'm going!

However this is for those of you procrastinating... a lot like me:

Avengers is awesome and if you haven't seen it; SORT YOUR LIFE OUT! xD

Much love
Bethxx

Wise Words of Wisdom...

"Next time you hear someone's going to spend some time abroad, here's a list of things not to say:

1) You're going to have the time of your life.

2) You should make the most of it.

3) Oh can't be bad, going to live abroad for a while! Wish I could get away.

4) A year-long holiday! Lucky you!"

©Lucy Fisher 2012

Dear readers, 

I apologise for not having blogged in forever, don't worry as soon as I've finished these darned essays, knitting this blanket and generally run away from the fantastic mental brilliant busyness that has been 2nd term 2nd year. don't worry next term is third term and 7 weeks of revision. It will be blog central. I'll catch you all up at some point.

But in reference to the quote at the top.

Should anyone of you say ANY of these things to me again, I WILL PUNCH YOU IN THE FACE or fine you, seriously. You have been warned. 

These get so boring, very quickly and have very little to do with the terrifying idea of me being unleashed upon Germany for a Year. Yes I'm excited, yes its going to be awesome but please, find something less clichéd to say.

Now I leave you with a ridiculously cute picture:

 

And a quote of the week:

"Laura Puges Cevenini: next year I'm turning down all my Masters offers running away and joining the circus. In Timbuktu.

Me: I can't see that. I just can't imagine it.
Laura: DEAL WITH IT! ITS HAPPENING!"

Until the madness ends! 

Bethxx

In which a familiar face is in a familiar place.

 

This face 

Has been found in this place

 Yeah thats right, I came home for the weekend.

Its very, very cold. Its warmer in Lancaster. Without a shadow of a doubt. I'm writing this wrapped up in my duvet. Earlier however I ventured outdoors.

It has snowed here, and now its frozen solid. :(

It was however worth it. Even if I did have to change nappies.

 This is Seth. You've met him before. 

He's 6 weeks old on Tuesday. 

Today I held him for the first time.

He's amazing , a tiny bundle of joy.

And very hungry, he polished off his whole bottle.

Before giggling as he pooed whilst sat on my hand -Definitely a boy. 

He doesn't like cold baby wipes and whilst him wiggling away across his blanket to get away from said cold wipe is very funny, it makes cleaning him up difficult.

He's very wriggly and prefers fingers to dummies, as I found out.

I wrote that on saturday, then I got distracted by Star Wars and Knitting, I have a baby blanket to finish.
Then on Sunday I got to take Seth to Church with me. Well... Becky came bringing Seth with her.
In his giant blue snow coat:

This little Boy melts my heart. And his mummy will be pleased to hear that many, many people have told me how cute he is, and marvelled at how he doesn't look like an alien. Because apparently babies look like aliens. I've never seen an alien looking baby...
It also made me feel somewhat broody, I even changed his nappy unprompted. having never changed a nappy before in my life. For a brief moment I felt like I was made to be a mummy. and then I remembered that cute bundles of joy grow up into mardy teenagers and instantly found myself cured.
Although I'm still tempted to steal Seth.
Anyway I must drink coffee with Hannah and then actually do some work seen as none got done this weekend.
Bethxx

OH MY GOSH A BLOG!

Sorry. I think I'm avoiding doing work...
I nearly didnt make my first lecture.
Since then I've come home picked up something in town, cleaned downstairs, (I stopped short of the washing up, the floor in the kichen- now clean- was just too cold to stand on any longer) and emptied the bins, a task that involved far more effort than it should ever required to move waste from A to B but hey this is lancaster and i have 7 waste receptacles and as I refuse to carry waste bins through the house I have to walk aaaaaaaaaaaall the way round several times when a week after bin day the bins are still out front along with the food caddy, a title that only makes sense if you're a rat with a penchant for partially mulched food waste.

Anyway.

There seems to have been an explosion of Uni memes.... hmmm I have the attention span of a goldfish.

Back to the important stuff.

This is Me and Hannah. We'd just got new hoodies.
If you're reading this from Lancaster uni its likely you saw a lot of these hoodies last week.

The CU did events week.

It was AMAZING. Really well attended and very encouraging.

God really blessed the whole week and loads of people were asking really good questions.

I keep seeing every day how awesome God is. MYC really helped me in this.  It lifted the lid on things I'd barely even scratched the surface on.
I know alot of you think I'm crazy or deluded. I'm not really bothered.
I think that before you start to knock some thing you should look at the evidence first. Thats what events week was all about.Uncovering the truth. Looking at the evidence. And free lunches.Theres another tomorrow. :D Fylde common room at 1. (Shameless plug - its my blog!)


In other news the shopping ban isnt going well. I dont even have to leave my computer to spend money.
Thats how this happened:

d'oh! On the other hand they look awesome we're only £18 and give me a 3rd option of winter footwear #feetwhyyousocold?
Another problem I seem to have developed is Twitter. Whilst i suspect my facebook friends are quite pleased I'm aiming my endless gibberish in another direction I should probably tweet less. I blame Anna, it wasnt this bad before; but then she blames me for her increase in activity.

Also Afyer looking at my bank balance I imposed a Greggs ban. Sadly they sell Strawberry Milkshake doughnuts. I think they have an addictive substance in them. My love for them is  getting slightly rediculous.   must enforce willpower! 
Talking of will power I'm sure I have some work to do. Y'know that stuff that I came here to do in the first place. Rather than waste time looking at memes, tweeting, blogging, cleaning.
Then if I did the work when I was supposed to I crush all student stereotypes and there would be no meme. hmmm This is a vicious, vicious circle.

Byeeee
Bethx

In which I remark on how not to blog and things I have noticed of late.

It hasn't really been perishingly cold this winter.
Not after last year.
I have too many essays this Term. 9 is just too much
2nd year is code for how many times can thoughts of YA and too much work reduce Beth to tears?
I hate cold sores.
I haven't blogged enough.
I am currently blogging to avoid having to think about 9 essays. This is a vain attempt to wake up.
I'm already worn out and its only tuesday week 2.
I have the cutest godson ever.
Whom I have now met :)

He is ADORABLE.
And he has pretty awesome Godparents

It broke my heart to have to leave him behind :( Though he was inducing unhealthy levels of broody into my system.


To counteract this, the terrible trio reconvened.


For Markus turned 21 and a day of our particular brand of crazy was therefore absolutely mandatory.


Though there was a shock in store.

Anna had done something drastic. Her hair seemed to have taken leave of its senses and jumped off her head into the not so loving embrace of the stylists shears.
(This seems to be a recurring theme, I have today experienced a similar shock when I arrived in the zoo to discover Mudge had also had a rather drastic meeting with some scissors too.)
On a theme of drastic happenings:

Mark is wearing a bobble hat. A BOBBLE HAT. I nearly fainted! Some miracle worker had parted him from the ubiquitous beanie.


I miss these two so much.

But the lesser spotted Anna having credit helps. (No kidding, shes actually adopted that name, I got a text from someone claiming to be such a creature this afternoon.)


Its was an awesome day, it had been far too long. I need to get skype on Anna's comp so we can conference call.

And that was the end of my holiday.

The next day began with a bump.

followed by a crash,

bang,

thud,

rattle,

and a clatter.

At 8AM.

The scaffolding men had returned to remove the construction that they had put up so my parents could stick solar panels to the roof. (Note: no parents ascended scaffolding and no glue/sellotape/blutack was used)

As at the time the plan was to go home on the Wednesday, I was less than impressed that the final day of my holiday was started in such a fashion. But noise cancelling sennheisers are good for more than just helping me concentrate on work.

Shortly after breakfast i was informed that the plans had changed and I should probably start packing seen as I hadn't started.

I loathe packing. I always have too much stuff and never enough room.

And to have to do it in a hurry?

Some how I remembered it all.

I will never know how.

Then came the petrol station. Never ask me to fill your  car for you, I will waste precious petrol on the floor because despite it being idiot proof as a process my mother's overfangled piece of french discombobulater makes it rather difficult. 

Then we got lost, because the sat nav refused to work and my father who is secretly part homing pigeon wasn't driving. His knack for knowing precisely where he is is disconcerting. My brother is also showing these bizarre tendencies.

They must have studied the A to Z maps.

Its the only rational explanation.

Getting lost wouldn't have been an issue. 

However the car refusing to turn back on stranded us in heaven only knows where for an exceptionally long time. I was somewhat displeased.

The day was finally capped off in the worst possible way. 

I burnt my pizza. A pizza that was short on cheese to start with!

Oh and I had to unpack. 

Unpacking is possibly worse than packing.

I haven't yet decided.

What I have decided is that is enough to keep you going till tomorrow when I will tell you all about the following 4 days and a rather busy first week back. 

Right now its bed time. 

Night!

Beth xx