A Study in Contradictions

How is everyone? Surviving the second Friday 13th in as many months?

I? Am totally a Domestic Goddess!

Ok, that's a terrible lie, seeing as I am The Messiest Person Ever, but I have been cooking many exciting things.

I made a massive dinner for me and Nat on Wednesday, admittedly with his help. We had lamb chops and new potatoes and peas and gravy and sweet potato mash. And nothing went wrong! It's a culinary miracle, people! I'm a student. I'm supposed to be subsisting on noodles.

Also, I decided to make cupcakes. We had most of the ingredients and I had the urge. Plus Colline had the urge too, and you shouldn't go against The Hive Mind. I'm not usually that into cooking, it's something I do because I have to eat and I like to eat nice things, but it's not a passion. At all. I am a great disappointment to my father in that regard.

But baking, now there's something I can get into. The whole process makes me very happy, and I can actually produce delicious baked goods. I have few skills in life, but cake is definitely one of them!

So I made vanilla cupcakes with pink icing, lemon butter icing and also butterfly cakes. There were also many hundreds and thousands (or "sprinkles" as I believe you colonials call them) used and scattered about the kitchen.
( Proof! )


Also, hilariously

You Are a Vanilla Cupcake

You are very sweet and mellow. You are easy going and easy to like. You are drawn to those stronger personalities. You get along with powerful people. You are like a cupcake because you appeal to almost every type of person. You are friendly and accepting. You bring out other people's best qualities.

I am home, home on the Isle! There is a roaring log fire, my dog is sitting at my feet and my Dad is making stew with dumplings for supper. Life is pretty damn good!

Look you guys, look see the pretty and oh so smart icon that luchalibrarian made for me! I have never had an icon made for me before, I bow down before it.

So Micie tagged me in a music meme, and I am a slave to her wishes.

The RULES
Shuffle ur Ipod, pick 5 songs and look for them in YOUTUBE. If you can't find them in youtube shuffle till ya do.


The Killers - On Top. I picked this video version because it has subtitles that I found kinda fascinating. I am totally a languages geek and love to see how people translate stuff.



Goldfrapp - Tiptoe. Oh ,she is so cool. And effortlessly sexy.



Ash - Girl From Mars. Finally, itunes has picked a song by an artist that is one of my favourites! Tim Wheeler wrote in when he was 17. So unfair!



Judy Garland - Embraceable you. So Judy Garland isn't the version I have, but who can resist her. Its a beautiful song, and a beautiful version and she is so lovely it breaks your heart, and there is some delightful dancing later on.




That was fun! Though it does remind me of the sad loss of my ipod :(. But, you know, try it.


And now I have started memeing I cannot stop.

Oh look, a test!

The Life Experience Test

Overall, you have partaken in 63 out of 169 possible life experiences. Your average life experience score is therefore 37%. The average score is 51%, making your experiences more than 13% of the people who have taken this test. The average for your age group (18-25) is 45%. Broken down by category: Art: 9/17 (53%) Career & Work: 3/13 (23%) Civics & Technology: 2/7 (29%) Crime & Disarray: 1/11 (9%) Education: 11/18 (61%) Fashion: 3/10 (30%) Fitness, Health and Sports: 3/7 (43%) Life in General: 6/14 (43%) Relationships: 5/14 (36%) Religion & Politics: 1/4 (25%) Social: 11/22 (50%) Travel: 3/20 (15%) Vices: 5/12 (42%)

Take the test and see how YOU compare

Pinch and a punch for the first of the month! (and no return)
Merry November. It is not a month I have ever been particularly fond of, containing all the woes of December without any of the joys, bone numbing cold with no snow, Christmas stresses with no Christmas etc. And for half of this one my bf is jetting off to Sydney, which I am trying not be bitter about, but failing. Nevertheless! I am determined to be cheerful. And buy some amazing gloves. And demand a really good present.

I blame frantic_mice entirely for the following. She linked me, well, her flist, to this absolutely gorgeous picture community.livejournal.com/hd_fanart/117259.html of Steampunk Harry and Draco. And then when I told her how much I loved it and what I thought was going on in it she TOTES encouraged me to write a drabble. The fact that it is faaaar too long to be Drabble is no one's fault but mine.
I have never really written H/D before, not proper slash anyway, and there are some connesieurs of the form on my flist, so I am very nervous about posting this. Please, tell me what you think! All opinions welcome, even if its 'please to never be doing this again'.
But I hope you like it *runs off to drink soothing peppermint tea*





I realised when I had it half written and went to look at the picture again that the cage is too small for people to stand up in, but I liked my kissing scene too much!
The Luddites were a group who went round the English countryside in the 18th century smashing up machines they thought were unnatural and taking their jobs.

I need a disclaimer, don't I. The characters are of course, not mine, but JKRs. Cobalt the little blue mechanical bird is, however, mine and the artists, and I'm not sharing him!

My life has been busy, and very filled with Harry Potter related randomness. Which can only be a good thing I think.

Firstly though, I need help. I have finally finished the first chapter of a long fic I've been planning for a while. It could probably do with someone to read through and check my grammar (I have comma issues) and general plotting ( I may be more confusing to others than to myself!). Does anyone know anywhere I could ask for someone to do that? Or would be willing to? And then I would really like to post it some more places, are there any fic sites people would recommend? It's at times like these I really miss The Sugar Quill. It seems to have totally gone away, and this makes me quite upset...

Anyway, back to tales of how Harry Potter has taken over my life, but improves it, really!

On Tuesday I worked a crazy 14 hour day, leaving home a 6 and getting back at 8. The job mainly involved sitting in a field, so I got a lot of reading done, some for university and then a re-read of Havemercy because it makes me happy. I found Havemercy because it was written by one of the writers of the Shoebox Project, one of the loveliest, funniest, cleverest pieces of writing, never mind fanfic, I have ever encountered. I also listened to various things from the awesome longcarrides - The Shoebox Project and other things read aloud by the most talented Colline. It pretty much saved me from dying of boredom. I was also very much amused by the fact that one of my co workers was called Miss Amber Snape, who sounded so much like the heroine of a bad Mary Sue fic that I spent a lot of time in her company suppressing bad jokes. It’s not my fault, I function badly on little sleep! When she mentioned her father was a teacher I may have laughed, ever so slightly. It brightened up a grey, dull, cold pavement at 6.30 in the morning. See how HP makes life better.

Being on my own in the middle of the countryside was also very conducive to writing, so I finished my chapter and finally got round to writing something for sq_drabblers  , a community I try to write 300 words for each week. It's a great little group. Finally, I started a sequel to this - http://community.livejournal.com/thremedon/13758.html. Because it makes me all happy and smiley and romantic. Although its schmoopey.

However this did mean that throughout the whole evening a sizeable section of my brain was taken up with trying to untangle a plot point. And this made conversations rather difficult, and my entire contribution to supper was leaning on a counter, waving a spoon towards my boyfriend who was cooking in his suit with the shirtsleeves rolled up and saying "aesthetically pleasing." And the other part of my brain went, ‘that would be a great scene. I'm pretty sure people would appreciate the cuteness.’

And then yesterday I got home from another long day at Fresher’s Fair, explaining the 3 main points of the Leeds Tibet Society to people and giving out flyers. And going “No, we are not Free Tibet. Too single issue and militant. The free pizza is over there.” To sooth me I read a lot of sarahtales . Maya!fic makes me feel better, and the discussion all over the place makes me feel better about being this obsessed. I.e obsessed enough to make this entire post… Also I love to analyse.
So, in short, Yay fandom! Yay Harry Potter!