Monday 7th August

Wow! I know! It's been over 2 whole weeks since I wrote! That must be some kind of record for me, but I've been really really busy with work and trying to organise going away and becoming another year older and driving to Blackpool and going to a Forest gt and all stuff like that. Plus work, natch.

Jen, Richard, Allen and I spent this weekend up north for various reasons. Firstly, we were going to Blackpool for my birthday, but because we decided to take the scenic route we didn't get there very early so we went bowling at the Trafford Centre instead and went to Blackpool the next day. It was ace - Jen and I went on the Big One three times in a row, with our hands in the air all the way. Well, apart from when I was trying to stop my shirt flying over my face, anyway. After that everything seemed a bit tame, until we went on Valhalla, which is this new ghost train/log flume thing they've got there. In the picture we're all wearing plastic capes - I have to say, we weren't being wussy, it was really really wet. You go all over the place getting heated up and cooled down and dropped backwards down steep watery slopes and it was actually quite scary, especially with Richard grabbing the back of my head and making me scream. Very good ride though. Speaking of scary - Jen and I went into the haunted house for a bit and ended up creeping round the whole place clinging to each other in fright, you couldn't see where you were going and this freakish looking bloke kept jumping out at us. Bloodbiter told us at the gt that the same thing happened the Jude when she went in there, and she got so hacked off she just turned around and told him to fuck off, but we were too scared. Say the girls who went on the Big One three times in a row and sat right at the back. We went on the Playstation ride too, which was stomach wrenching, and the Grand National and the Big Dipper, which are made of wood and go clack-clack-clack in a very discomforting manner, and the Mouse, which goes so fast you think you're going to tip over. We had the best day, ate candy floss and rock, all the important things.

The day before, of course, we'd driven up through those mountainy things in the middle of England....what are they, the Pennines? Anyway, so it had taken us hours and hours but the scenery was amazing. We went bowling in the Trafford Centre and then on the way out Richard and Allen started throwing grapes over the windscreen and Jen was groping around on the dashboard trying to find them....I was like, crazy girl, you saw it roll down the windscreen, how could it have been on the inside?! Then they started throwing mini Aeroes and Maltesers and muffin bars and all sorts over and Jen was laughing so much and trying to knock them off with windscreen wipers that she stalled the car at some traffic lights, which was one of the funnier moments of the drive up.

The GT was ace, there were lots of people turned up and we all ended up very merry. Roll call for anyone who wants to know was: Mod, Fod, Smiley, Ice C, Rikki, Hedgepig, Jude, Bloodbiter, Mod's mate Arlene, Richard, Jen, Allen and me. I spilled a bottle of beer in Rikki's lap, molested Smiley a lot and fell on my arse so it was, all-in-all, par for the course. I might add, about the falling over part, in my defence, I was walking backwards down a cobbled slope which was slippery from the rain in 5 inch heels and one of them was loose, so it snapped off. It had nothing to do with the 4 pints, 6 cocktails and 6 shots I had imbibed in the three hours previously. We went to some club called Ikon which was a lot of fun, and packed, and I had a song dedicated to me for my birthday which was ultra cool. In spite of mending my shoes, they were quite painful to walk in by the end of the evening so Rikki and I both took our shoes off and danced around in bare feet, which in retrospect wasn't a good idea because I kept dancing on broken glass, but I haven't sustained any permanent damage, I don't think, so it's all good. I just remember the day after my 18th birthday clubbing expedition when I ended up having my foot x-rayed for splinters in casualty. All good fun. I hooked some dodgy history and politics student on the dancefloor and everybody kept taking pictures of me, the gits. Do not expect those to be included in the GT gallery. It was nice of him to be so friendly, I spose, but I hardly ever get up to Bolton and I wanted to hang out with my friends, but c'est la vie. I should have just eaten that tuna and onion pizza with extra garlic sauce *before* I went into the club.

Everybody said I shouldn't go to America and they were going to miss me, which I must say does seem to be a popular opinion these days. Allen wrote in my birthday card, "Have a really bad time in America and come back early". I'm thinking of only going for 6 months now, because it will be easier to do and I will need to bring back a quite substantial sum of money for my Masters if I come back in September - whereas if I come back in March, I can work here for 6 months first. Who knows, only time will tell. I still feel the need to get away but the weekend was very restorative, Bolton's a great place. I walked around it for an hour on Sunday morning while everyone else was still asleep and I think I could probably live there - or somewhere in the mountains we cut through on the way. Me! In the north! How weird. Maybe by the time I come back I can move up there and everybody *won't* think I'm only doing it to chase a certain person.

Friday night we all went out to ULU which was amazing fun too, so many people turned up I felt dead popular and got really drunk - but not as drunk as Justine, natch. Even Emily came, I haven't seen her in ages. James Devine from uni was there, I was just drunk enough to tell him Justine and I had fancied him for the past year, doh doh doh, but he bought me a pint, bless him. He said if I downed it in one he'd buy me another (that sounds familiar) but I couldn't quite manage it. On the way home, we had to get off the tube at Golders Green and wait for another, and Allen and Dave (Allen's flatmate) were dangling off the beams and the station announcer said over the intercom, "We don't mind what you do, but just don't fall on the tracks!" and everyone on the platform cheered and clapped at us. How embarrassing *beam*

It's funny being 22, it feels like now I'm too old to be young anymore. That doesn't make much sense (grin) What I mean is, I like being silly sometimes, like sending text messages to Jen when she's sitting opposite me, and collecting wands, and having races to the tube platforms, and all that stuff, and now I'm 22 I don't feel as though I can get away with it. I know it isn't that old, but it feels like a watershed - now is when I have to start being a grownup properly, and I don't think I want to be yet. Sometimes it feels like I have to be so organised and together that it's nice to act like a 5 year old for a while, it keeps me sane. So, maybe now I'm 22 I'll just....go insane, heh

Tuesday 8th August

It is now obvious to me that the reason why I hadn't update my diario for a fortnight was because I was working days. Now I'm working nights and I suddenly have much more time to do stuff, even though I am sleeping until 4 in the afternoon.

Mother Hand called me yesterday to let me know that my results proper had arrived, and even though I swore blind I wouldn't let her open them, I've waited so long I told her to anyway. And the results are, in reverse order:
History of Russia and the Soviet Union from 1856-present day: 56%
Travel Writing - exam: 63%
Travel Writing - dissertation: 66%
(Pause for everyone who fainted then to revive themselves)
Free standing essay: 67%

Would everybody join me in a few moments of shocked silence.

Yes. It's true. I spent at the very least 8 weeks researching my free standing essay, squirreling out relevant newspaper articles in the British Library, reading article after article after article in SSEES library, reading and rereading the drafts, double checking the footnotes and all that stuff. The bibliography was 3 pages long, and I had actually read *everything* I listed - no word of a lie. In contrast, I spent about 4 days writing the essay for travel writing; I researched from a bunch of articles Peter threw at me when I turned up at his office with a panic-induced pallor; the bibliography was 2 pages long but I only skim read half of the primary sources and several of the secondary sources were "borrowed" from the research for my other dissertation; and it was only 7500 words. Either I am truly a very clever person and my dissertation was ground breaking and original (possible - who else has ever thought about writing on the creation of the Romanian National Identity through Travel Writing?), or they wanted to mark it up as high as possible to make the course look good, or I mixed the marks up and got 66% for the exam and 63% for the essay (I cannot remember which code denotes which). But even so, 63% is a pretty good mark. Oh well.

The Russian history is the worst mark I have had in my degree, but then I exerted minimal effort in the class for the whole year. And if you look at my overall marks, the courses I did best in were either 100% coursework - ie, the dissertations - or split 50/50 between exam and coursework. I think this will stand me in good stead if I ever find a decent research job to apply for.

And I got a high 2:1 for my free standing essay! When people rarely get a 2:1 at all! I de man

Thursday 17th August

OK, I have *lots* of soapboxes to stand on today so I suppose I had better get cracking...

Soapbox #1 - The Portsmouth Riots
British followers of this diary would be hard pressed not to know what I'm talking about here, since it was top story on the national news for several days last week. For 7 nights in a row, as a direct result of the News of The World's "Name and Shame" campaign against known paedophiles, the rabble of Portsmouth marched in the streets armed with their pushchairs to demand that these men be moved out of their areas. They overturned a car and set it on fire; they injured a policeman. They caused the death of one man, who took his own life, even though he had been moved to a safehouse by the police. Then, on Thursday, they just stopped. Must have been child benefit day - they were probably all down the pub.
Now, I know I'm on shaky ground here because I don't want to sound as though I am defending men who like tampering with 3 year olds, but I feel there are some salient points to be made regarding this. Firstly, I would like to know the ages of these women marching in the streets with their pushchairs. Then I would like to know the ages of the occupants of the pushchairs. With these figures, I would like to calculate how many Marching Mothers conceived their firstborn before the age of 16. Then I would like to point out that, according to the laws regarding sex with minors in this country, any man who has sex with a girl under 16 can - and often is - convicted as a paedophile and named as such on the register of sex offenders. I think it would be fascinating to find out how many of the Pushchair Occupants have "paedophiles" for fathers - how many Marching Mothers were actually unwittingly calling for the removal of their own other halves. I'm not claiming that most paedophiles are guilty only of sex with 15 year old girls, nor am I saying that sex with 15 year old girls is alright (although in my experience the majority of 15 year old girls - and a fair few younger than that - think it's more than alright). All I'm asking is whether it is OK to judge every book by its title.
Secondly, I would like to say that these riots centred on Paulsgrove, a well-known area on the outskirts of Portsmouth and one of the, shall we say, poorer areas of the city (I don't want to sound like a snob but the truth is, I went to public school in Portsmouth and if I had set foot inside Paulsgrove in my uniform I doubt that I would have escaped verbally, even physically, unscathed). The voice of the minority I'm sure doesn't represent the entire population of the city. I find it a major embarrassment that the home town I am normally proud of should come to national attention via such an event. However, it was pointed out to me some time ago that Portsmouth is full of nationalism and fundamentalism and ever since then this point of view has been reinforced in my head, so I cannot say that I am surprised that if such a thing as this was going to happen, it should happen in Portsmouth.
Thirdly, does this not prove that the News of the World are utterly irresponsible, not to mention utter bastards for printing not only the names but the photographs of paedophiles in huge double page spreads? A man has died, for goodness' sake. Who the hell died and gave them the power to play God with people's lives? Are they so inherently conservative that they believe that people are born with this and that they will all reoffend, given the chance? Granted, the riots caused one man to turn himself in, afraid that he would indeed reoffend, but he claimed it was because of everything that had been stirred up. And I do not believe that not even one of these men can be rehabilitated.
Fourthly, yes, I did watch the news to see if there was anyone on it who I knew. And I called Mother Hand as soon as I heard to check she had not been part of the original 150-strong mob (grin). It seemed to me that most of the Marching Mothers were probably only leaping onto the bandwagon in between getting their hair permed and buying a new pair of outlandishly large gold hoop earrings (Meow) As for the Pushchair Occupants and their older siblings - the ones we saw marching around with "Keep us Safe" felt-tipped onto their T-shirts - how many of them knew why they were there? "Come on, Wayne/Darren/Tracy/Kylie, if you wear this t-shirt you get to be on the telly! Maybe if your dad sees you he will actually come home from the pub of his own free will!" *Sigh* Even if this wasn't the case, this was how it appeared to me, and I lived there for 17 years - what about all the other people who saw it on the news?

Soapbox #2 - Those Russian Sailors
Why won't these rotten Russians accept our help? Isn't the Cold War supposed to be over? Why are they risking up to 116 lives for political differences supposedly more than a decade out of date? WHAT IS WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE?! Personally, I hope that if they do not recover any of the sailors alive, the population will be disillusioned enough to either make their existing government work better for them, or get rid of it and find one that does, like the Romanians did to Ceausescu after Timisoara. Admittedly, a Christmas Day execution for Putin might be a little on the harsh side, but then after all, "the Romanians are a fiery Latin race, hot blooded and passionate, and prone to emotional outbursts, not at all like their Slavic neighbours....." (just trying to not get rusty).
I also want to know what exactly 2 American subs were doing in the vicinity of the stricken Russian sub shortly before it sank. There have been mid-ocean collisions between American and Russian vessels before - is it so unlikely that the same thing happened again? I have no doubt this will be hushed up if it is true, since Clinton will surely prefer not to be remembered as the President in power when the American navy was responsible for the deaths of 116 Russian sailors who had done nothing worse than got up that morning. No, Clinton will prefer to be remembered as the President good at relocating Cubans. Of course, I am talking about little Elian Gonzalez - what else? (look at sky) (whistle).

Soapbox #3 - Traiterous Students
I read in the Evening Standard today an interview with a recently graduated girl, aged 26, who had lived with her parents for the duration of her degree and was much happier for it. Well, happier is her word, really. SMUG is mine. She had the gall to say she was grateful that she didn't have to live in "a student hovel at the end of the Northern Line". Cheek! I'm a whole 2 stops up from the end of the Northern Line! And anyway that's my choice - I moved here because it was familiar, cheap, close to work and close enough to uni. And hovel?! She lives with her parents in a flat, above a shop. I live in a newly decorated 3 bedroom semi at the end of a cul de sac with a big back garden (and yes, I'm moving out in 3 weeks so it's up for grabs). It is most certainly *not* a hovel. It might not always be spotlessly clean but then neither is Mother Hand's house - neither is anybody's house, in my opinion, unless it is staffed with a cleaner or a career mother (or a student on vacation earning his keep - WAVE JIMBO!!) And would I swap my 8 grand's worth of debt for 3 years in the family homestead? I'm thinking, "8 grand? I got off light!"
One of the points of university, it seems to me, is to teach young adults how to stand on their own two feet. Struggling to pay my own bills and my rent and feed myself and all that other stuff has made me fiercely independent, to the point where I don't even like Mother Hand doing my laundry for me anymore. If you stay living with your parents...OK, I don't want to sound harsh, since I just remembered at least 3 very good friends of mine who have graduated and still live with their parents *beam* (although 2 of them lived out for a year...) (to the one who reads this - you know who you are, sorry I bit your hand and I hope you don't have rabies now!). But anyway. What was my point? (I had a point?! Times are changing...) Oh yes. If you stay at home you never really know what it's like to have to struggle. All these people who say they want financial security before they set up by themselves - what job in this day and age is going to guarantee you that security for the rest of your life? These are life skills that need to be learned - it's what makes you able to cope later on. What you learn now - or really, what you don't learn now - will be affecting you for the rest of your life. I'm not speaking blindly - I have been thinking about this a lot recently (maybe it's getting another year older).
Also, I have to say that if I had lived with Mother Hand whilst at university I would not have done one tenth of the things I have done. I would be a completely different person; I won't elbaorate (grin) just take my word for it.
Wow, that was a really pointless rant, wasn't it? But it's somethign I feel strongly about. And it pisses me off when students who have lived with their parents for the duration of their studies come along and say, wow you know what, I had it *so* *much* better than all the other students who lived out. Because I have had an amazing 3 years as a student, in spite of sleepless nights worrying about money, and I wouldn't swap it for all the tea in China.

Soapbox #4 - Ally McBeal: The New Series

Series 3, currently airing on Channel 4, makes me want to yell a couple of things, and since this is my forum for yelling stuff, here it is. WHAT THE HELL HAVE THEY DONE TO HER HAIR?! Was it the intention of the make up people to have her look like she has been shagged through a hedge backwards? Do they want us to think that the sex she had in the carwash in the first episode was so damn good that when she emerged soaked through at the end of it, she decided never to brush her hair again as a permanent reminder? Good grief. If I can brush my hair every day when it is quite 3 times as thick as hers, surely she can keep it neat.
My other whinge (wow, I'm just full of those today, huh) is her age. I love the series, it's one of the 2 things I will not miss on TV (the other being new episodes of Friends), and I loved the whole angsty, 30something, on-the-shelf desperation demonstrated by Ally and her cronies. It didn't exactly speak to me in my early 20s, but some parts did, and the insight they give into relationships is remarkable. But then they revealed 2 episodes ago that Ally is only supposed to be 27. Now I can't take it seriously. 27?! Who worries about being left on the shelf at the tender age of 27?! For my part, I damn well *hope* I am still on the shelf at 27! The woman is a psycho!
Bernie pointed out to me, when I expostulated this to him, that she is supposed to be a psycho, and that's why she's so desperate at only 27. But this doesn't explain the behaviour of her supposedly-sane friends, who are all presumably the same age. Billy and his mid life crisis? *AT 27?!* Renee getting back with her (married) ex-boyfriend on the sly just in case she never had a chance of happiness again? *AT TWENTY SEVEN?!!* Richard breaking up with Whipper because he was worried she was his soul mate? Now that, at 27, I can understand. The rest....whatever. It still amuses me though, so I will keep watching. What's cool is that the new series of Friends and Ally Mcbeal will be starting on American television in the autumn, so when I come back I will be a year ahead, and I won't need to bother with a TV.

Soapbox #5 - Happy Bunnies

Not all bunnies are happy *all* the time. Thus the expression "as happy as a bunny" doesn't really mean anything. That's just by the by though, what I wanted to say was, would you credit it - first the majority of my girlie mates get boyfriends and desert me. As if that wasn't bad enough, now a whole bunch of my guy friends have revealed girlfriends! It's not even bunny syndrome, because bunnies are by nature not faithful creatures. Oh no, this is worse. This is LOBSTER syndrome - like lobsters, they are settling, or attempting to. Not one, not two, not three but FOUR (count 'em) blokes have been exposed as guilty of this in the past fortnight. It's just sick and wrong. I still like being single, am I totally weird? Answers on a postcard....

OK, soapboxes finished with. I'm writing a bumper issue today to make up for the length of time it has taken me to get round to updating this. I wanted to write last weekend but I was busy with the latest Forest GT pics. For anyone confused about what a gt is, it simply stands for get together. I also have a whole bunch more pictures to upload, mostly of me (big surprise!) but that can wait until this weekend, the first weekend since June that I have had to myself. Last weekend Mother Hand was here; the one before that we went to Blackpool; and the 4 before that I was working. I enjoyed Mother Hand's visit, she took me to see The Witches of Eastwick at the theatre (top, top, top show, I really enjoyed it) and then we went to eat at my favourite restaurant, Wagamama, and then we sat and drank champagne in the garden in the dark and talked until quite late. I think I will miss her a lot when I am in America. She says she thinks it will be a good adventure for me, but can't quite see how it will be helping my future career. I think I'm a bit young to be gearing my every action towards my future career. Plus, I'm planning to either write a novel, win a fortune or marry a Flying Elvis while I am there, so maybe it will turn out to be a good career move after all.

I would like to close this time with a quote from my good friend and big fan Lisa, who sent me the following paragraph after reading my worries about acting like a kid at the age of 22. Thanks Lis - see you soon, I hope, and forgive me for publishing your mail in part without prior consent (giggles)
"Oh yeah - and it's o.k. to be 22 and still behave like a twelve-year-old sometimes. I'm 34 and I still do it as often as possible! Now I do it with my almost-17-year-old-daughter :o). Really, Renee and I (she was my best friend since we were 12) would do exactly like what you described in the car and at the train station all the way up until I left Florida at the juvenile age of 30!"

Friday 18th August

You'll all be happy to know that today I have decided to abandon solving national and international crises and will just be writing about happenings in my own life.

Kasi at work informed me today that she is 22 weeks pregnant. This came as something of a shock to me because the last I heard it was just a bladder infection but, my *god* that's a bladder infection and a half. Strangely, a few weeks ago, we were talking about babies and I asked her if she could be pregnant, and she said, "NO! Don't jinx me!" And then *twilight zone stuff* she was....of course, I didn't know her 6 months ago, and you can't just get 6 months pregnant overnight, but still. This is actually the second time this has happened to someone I know, since there was a girl in my year at school who was told she had a cyst on her ovary, went in for the operation and turned out to be 7 months pregnant. I have to say, if that were me, I would have no clue what to do. Kasi is trying to be happy because she doesn't have any options, but I don't know if I could be that brave. This is that whole, "What would you do if you were pregnant?" debate which was a favourite at work last summer (Bernie, stop screaming!) I still maintain that I couldn't have an abortion, although I might have it adopted out, since maternal instincts are not my forte and babies are not compatible with my future plans, well not the plans for the next decade, anyway (and no, that doesn't mean I plan on having them after I'm 30, it just means plans for after I'm 30 are a bit thin on the ground because it seem like forever away, *OK*?!). However, if it were really happening to me, who knows how I might feel.

Kasi also said she has been craving cheese a lot which brought up the interesting subject of cravings (well, it was more interesting than work, anyway). Predrag-the-supervisor said his mother craved raspberries when she was pregnant with him, and ate tonnes of them, and now he has a raspberry shaped mole on his side. Mother Hand craved grapefruits when she was pregnant with me - whole ones, she used to peel them and eat them like oranges - which has left me a little tart (groan). And apparently, if expectant mothers crave something but don't give into it, their babies are born with more moles than normal. How freaky.

That might just be opinion though. Ah yes, opinion. I have had cause to wonder, today, why opinions matter so much. Of course, I understand why they are important - learning from how other people see you, and all that. Elaine once said (this was one of those episodes of Ally McBeal that didn't do much speak to me as shout at me) "It's easy to appear happy - you do things which make people happy, people see you as a happy person, and you see yourself through their eyes, and it's easy to envisage it. It doesn't work for lonely...but happy is easy." So obviously opinion is terribly important in shaping perception of oneself, but does this mean that the opinions of some people matter more than others? And how do we decide which opinions are more important and which don't really matter? Do we decide based on how much we like what we hear? For example, if I got an email from one person saying they liked my diary, and one from another saying it was crap, which opinion would I pay more attention to? Actually, since this is me and I am a bit paranoid, I would probably discount the compliment and spend ages getting all neurotic about the criticism, and not write again for a month. So if anyone wants to shut me up, you now have your method (smiles)

I was asked my opinion of something today. I was more than a little (pleasantly) surprised that it mattered enough for the other person to ask....well, I suppose the party concerned didn't actually ask, but it was in any case mentioned in passing and it set me thinking. One of these times where I pay far too much attention to a trivial aside, I suppose, but what can I say, that's just my opinion *grin*

Right, now that I have talked myself into a big knot any sailor would be proud of (arrr, I'm a naval girl at heart, still) I think I'll finish before I get cross eyed rereading it.

Sunday 20th August

And so the time has come, I have *finally* got around to filling in my visa application form, much to my shock I discovered it will take 10 working days to process, at the very least, and since there are a mere 14 working days between now and the date I was planning to book my ticket for (nope, I haven't booked my ticket yet either) I am a bit nail-chewy about it, but then as I have said before on occasion, life would be so boring if I got everything done ages in advance.

Anyway, I really wanted to share some of the questions on this form with you people. This is particularly for the benefit of those who have never flown to the States or who live there themselves. Everyone else will recognise the howlers from the visa waiver form - indeed, we were discussing it last night at Kez's party which is what put me in mind to write about it. So, we have -
Have you ever been a controlled substance trafficker, or a prostitute or procurer?
Do you seek to enter the US to engage in export control violations, subversive or terrorist activities, or any unlawful purpose?
Are you a member of a terrorist organisation?
Have you ever ordered, incited, assisted, or otherwise participated in the persecution of any person because of race, religion, national origin, or political opinion under the control, direct or indirect, of the Nazi Government of Germany, or of the government of any area occupied by, or allied with the Nazi Government of Germany?
Have you ever participated in genocide?

There are a few more but those are the classics. I just want to know - how many Nazi war criminals are there left alive out there? And how many of them would ever actually admit to it? Likewise, who in their right mind is going to board a plane to America and tick "yes" to the terrorist question on their visa waiver forms a mere half hour before they land at their destination? Can anybody guilty of genocide really be trusted not to lie if given a choice between a yes and a no tick box? I mean, really. I can just imagine it, some nasty ethnic cleanser saying, "Well yes, I mean, I bake the babies of my enemies in ovens to ensure that the race does not endure, but lying? Good grief no, I don't want to go to hell."

I am left, then, with the theory that the US government asks these questions because, if the respondee ever turns out to be guilty of any of the above offences and has not admitted it in their paperwork, the US government can boot them back to their country of origin faster than you can say Long Live the IRA. (That's not my sentiment, it's just a joke, Mr US Visa Processor, I love your country, please let me in and process my visa in the next 10 days so I can see my daddy for his 50th birthday, please, please). In which case, their forethought is commendable, I suppose, but will always provide a laugh for all the visitors to the US who don't fall into any of the above categories. I do, however, think that the part about Nazis is rather outdated.

Justine and I were supposed to do - on her whim - an all-night something last night, involving marvellous plans for bar crawls and then this club and that one and then Chinese food and then an internet cafe and then champagne (or wine-in-a-box) breakfast at my house. In the end, we went to Break for the Border (which was heaving) and had a bottle of wine, then we went into a sex shop so that Justine could show me the digitally enhanced dicks on the covers of the gay porn (how she can know they are not real when she has never seen a real one is beyond me, she kept going on about the colour and the texture, and I am *still* wondering what cause she had to be examining the front covers of gay porn publications so closely, even if she *is* a fag hag). Then we wandered half way around the West End looking for a free strip show (look, she's the daddy, OK, I was just following her orders) and then we went to see X Men, where Justine fell asleep with her head on my shoulder and then claimed that she hadn't, they'd just missed out the last half hour of the movie. The movie was *good*, I want to be an X Man now. We picked names, during our post movie Chinese: Justine decided she would be Busta Boo, myself, Hysterica. Our superhuman powers will be revealed in due course, once we've got those leather catsuits sorted out for the photographs.

In more freaky coincidences, we were waiting for our night buses home, when Jen and Richard walked past on their way to the night bus stop; then when I got off the N5 at the end of my road, another one pulled up behind it and who should get off but Zoe. I'm obviously developing my mutant X Man powers and one of them involves attracting my friends to me.

Now, I know it sounds like I'm getting delusional or hysterical (so named....) due to my imminent departure but I have to say, I am really going to miss those night buses. Cross section of society and all that. I reckon that if you sat at the N5 bus stop in Trafalger Square for long enough, you would see the whole world go past. I know the route like the back of my hand, and when I use the bus regularly I know which houses are for sale in Belsize Park and which one is top of my list to buy, and I'm always the only person who gets off at my stop, unless somebody I know gets off with me (gets off the bus! the bus! put you hormones away!) or unless the bus driver ignores my stop and doesn't halt the bus until we get to the station, which always pisses me off because I have to walk all of an extra 100 yards. Anyway, it's a well known fact that you can't get around very easily in America without a car, unless you live in a sprawling metropolis with an underground system, so I think it's safe to say I'm going to miss public transport a lot.

NOW, because I have a weekend travel card and ten quid left to my name, I'm going to the Prince Charles Theatre in Leicester Square for their Sunday night showing of American Beauty, that movie which everybody saw without me. I like going to the cinema alone, nobody steals your popcorn. At least, that's my story and I'm sticking to it

Tuesday 22nd August

The first time we met, he glared at me malevolently from the bath. John the Old Bloke in the Little Room pointed him out to me, and I thanked my lucky stars Jen was not home to happen upon him and fill the bath with napalm or cement or something else deadly. No bother, I thought. No matter that this spider is the size of the palm of my hand (women - larger than yours; men - you mean you don't remember?!) with 8 long, hairy, brown legs and (imagined) fangs that would do damage to a small rottweiler. I'm not afraid of spiders. So I went and got my tweezers and picked him up by one of his waving furry legs and dropped him out of the window.

Or so I thought.

The clever spider, as I noticed at the time, started spewing out web the second I touched him and so instead of falling to the garden, he merely abseilled some way down the wall and hung there, crouched against the brick, plotting his next attack. This attack came 4 days later; he ran with glee across my bedroom floor from the direction of the window, hopping from one of his wriggly legs to the other, crouching against the wall to avoid capture, until I finally trapped him under a pint glass. And BOY did he jump. The noise of his brown body hitting the glass was practically deafening. I mean, we're talking about a BIG spider here. I conquered my mild arachnaphobia when I went to camp and had to murder thousands of helpless spiders to ensure the brownies slept at night, but I have to admit, this was a scary spider. This time I threw him as far out of my bedroom window as possible; since my bed is directly underneath said window, I wanted to remove any possibility of waking up to find myself staring this big, brown tarantula in the eye as he took a morning nap on my face. So, end of spider.

Or so I thought.

Yesterday, Jen was just telling me about a similar spider who had scared her and Richard witless in Richard's living room; I related the story of the spider from hell to her. She left. Literally 2 minutes after she had gone, the evil spider from hell was BACK! This time he had the audacity to run over my foot. "Look at me! Look at me!" he squeaked, "your worst nightmare! Back from the dead! This time I'm going to hide in your room and crawl up your nose while you are asleep HE HE HE..." Oh, but, readers, I was too quick for him, yes I was. I trapped him under the pint glass AGAIN, only this time I unfortunately caught one of his limbs in the process. So, he crawled around under the glass on 7 legs, with droplets of water clinging to his back, and glared at me with the kind of spite only someone whose leg one has recently broken could muster. "Of course you realise," he whispered, "this means war." I carried him downstairs and gently placed him in a flower bed in the FRONT garden, as far away from my room as possible, and decided that with a broken leg he would never survive in the wild. I felt guilty for about 3 seconds, then I breathed a sigh of relief since I would never have to deal with the killer spider from hell again.

OR SO I THOUGHT.

This very evening, as I perched on the sofa watching 16 Candles for the 600th time and eating peas, something caught my eye. Something in the multi-coloured carpet had MOVED. I stared. I concentrated. And there he was. The killer spider from hell scuttled across the floor straight towards my feet. In my shock I actually screamed (thank god no-one was in, I'm so ashamed) and stuck my feet above my head to stop him from running up my leg and sinking his fangs into a major artery. And this time, he really was too quick for me. Before I had time to think, he was gone, disappeared under the sofa in the direction of the (closed) windows. And no amount of poking around the the remote control for the VCR would tempt him back out.

So, I am writing this as a kind of goodbye note, in case I don't wake up tomorrow. The killer spider from hell is in this house; no doors closed to his disgusting litheness, no wall too smooth for him to find a foothold, no skin too thick for him to pierce, no blood too hot for him to drain....in fact, I think I hear his elephantine footfall on the stairs now. If I survive the night, I will be a happy bunny indeed.

Thursday 24th August

OK, the killer spider from hell hasn't got me yet, maybe he has happened upon me while I have been asleep and decided I look so angelic he has secretly made his peace with me and let himself out of the house. Well, I hope so.

The internet does work! This morning, just as I was drifting off to sleep for teh second time, around 9am (the phone woke me up again the first time), the postman banged on the door and delivered to me one one-way ticket to Las Vegas via Detroit for September 19th. I like my postman - he was very chatty and drew me a diagram of something he wants from America - something they have on the front bumpers of their cars - which he wants me to bring back for him. I hadn't the heart to tell him I wasn't coming back here...who knows, maybe I will make a fortune and come back and buy this house. But I digress. I was most relieved to get the ticket, it does prove that dropping 270 quid into a hole in the internet is not, in fact, totally stupid. Now all I need is my passport back with the visa in it. Quite scarily, if for any reason they refuse my visa, I am up the proverbial creek without a paddle, sail, or indeed, a bottom to my boat, since I can only use a one-way ticket if I have the relevant visa. But why would they refuse me? Let's think positive about this - if everyone thinks positive, it might just work.

I dropped the application off in person on Monday; on the way back I found a lovely house for sale, 4 storeys, window boxes, iron railings outside, spitting distance from Hyde Park (where I have never been - although I saw it from the top of the bus on Monday) and right on the corner of Park Lane and Grosvener Place, practically next door to an Aston Martin dealership, ha ha. That's one for when I am a highly successful career woman, but to be honest, the only job I can think of that I am capable of doing which would make me enough money to afford such a place would be as Madam to the Stars.

The saga of my broken phone continues. In spite of the fact that I picked up Kez's old one2one phone on Saturday, after a full month of a phone without a display, yesterday Kez's old phone threw a hissy fit and now that doesn't work either. Better and better, I gave Kez my old phone, so I am down to my last option - Jen's old phone, which needs to remain plugged in 23 hours a day in order to retain some charge for an hour. But, it's either that or play musical sim cards with people at work so I suppose it's better than nothing. I might buy a cheap payasyougo package when I get paid. The man at one2one said I couldn't have a new phone because they're freezing my contract for a year, which I (grudgingly) have to admit makes sense. When I come back I'm going to threaten to defect until they give me something state-of-the-art for free.

All pictures from Blackpool and my birthday are now available for your perusal, here and here respectively. See what Allen really looks like hanging from a beam!

Friday 25th August - some horrendously early hour

I have two startling pieces of news to report since I wrote yesterday's rather mundane entry and then forgot to upload it before I struggled off to work.

The first is that last night Mother Hand rang me to inform me that, in an unprecedented display of the integrity of the bureaucratic process, my visa had arrived. Yes, a mere 3 days after I applied for it, it arrived back in Portsmouth, complete with a visa that expires a full eight years after the passport itself does, on August 21st 2010, to be precise. I immediately emailed Father Hand to let him know that he might be faced with the delightful prospect of me living with him until shortly after my 32nd birthday (I was of course joking - I'm going to come back as soon as I'm sick of peanut butter M&Ms, or after a year, whichever comes sooner). Then I did a happy salsa around my bedroom to demonstrate my euphoria. Ticket and visa on the same day? Fate.

Alas, the second piece of news is not quite so joyful, since it relates to the killer spider from hell, to be known hereafter as the Killer Spider from Hell with Mysterious Supernatural Powers, or KSHMSP for short. I hadn't seen leg nor hair of him since he ran under the sofa on Tuesday, and in spite of the fact I nearly gave Jen a heart attack by leaping up and yelling last night when she was sat nearby me (I had forgotten to set the video for Ally McBeal), I was beginning to hope that the KSHMSP was gone for good.

Oh, but let us recall - ticket and visa on the same day. Coupled with the end of the KSHMSP saga? Nobody is that lucky.

I was loitering in the ladies' toilet this morning at work, waiting for the clock to tick over to 7am so I could leave, when what should go scampering across the floor? You've guessed it. "HE HE HE," he sniggered, waving one of his long, brown, furry legs at me, "Now I not only know where you live, but due to my Mysterious Supernatural Powers, I know where you *work* too. Be afraid, be very, very afraid," he threatened, crouching underneath one of the pipes to avoid capture and all the while grinning nastily at my quivering form, scrunched up against the wash basin. I considered running out of the toilets screaming, which, as a particularly girlie thing to do (but therefore definitely not me), might have endeared me to my supervisor (which would be a very, very good thing, and you would agree if you had seen my supervisor, or more particularly, my supervisor's eyes, his eyelashes, his arms...*cough* *cough*) but I decided it was too out of character and so just opened the door as wide as it would go and leapt through it. I related the whole story to my supervisor, who laughed a bit, and when I decided to go back in and catch him so that none of the other girlies in the building got scared and killed the KSHMSP in the course of the day (which might have been bad luck for me), he said he would come with me, just to see this beast. But when we got back in there, the KSHMSP had vanished. I am expecting him to turn up back in my house, since he obviously has the power of teleportation. But I suppose I have to thank him, since I spent nearly a full minute poking around odd corners close enough to my supervisor to...mmmmmm........

Maybe the KSHMSP is really my guardian angel.

Wednesday 30th August

What a liberating experience it is to be this close to payday and not have to pay rent. It actually freed up enough money for me to go and buy a new pair of shoes, more suited to the desert climate, and they are sensible and clumpy and I like them so much that I am considering wearing them to bed. I also spent the Fenwick vouchers which I got for my leaving gift, on a new bag, which looks like the old bag (grey, woollen, schoolish) apart from this one is a backpack and the other one was more like a satchel (the other one lost a fight with a bottle of wine on my birthday and ended up with a big hole in the knitted part, through which my biros (I always carry at least 3) have a tendency to poke and draw all over my clothes). I also bought a new purse, which is gingham to match my *other* bag (my scouring of teen haunts for a transparent purse with the word "Flirt" on it, identical to the one I have now, was in vain, but then I suppose it's a bit much to expect Miss Selfridge to carry the same lines they did 4 years ago) and big enough to not only hold a mirror but a lipstick *as well*, which is an improvement. Well, actually I suppose it *would* be an improvement, if I ever wore lipstick. I guess I can keep Chapstick in it. I'm trying to invent a new fashion trend, "Geek Chic" - I'm going to start carrying around my navy mac and wearing my glasses at all times. Maybe I will get braces fitted.

/Reread what I have written....wow, just call me Madam Stereotype (grin)

Sunday was supposed to be my official last shift at work, but I ended up working until 7am yesterday and then going back in at 5pm because they were short-staffed, euch. Well, I volunteered, it's all money. My last, LAST shift is on Saturday night, Carole asked me to cover and I agreed out of the goodness of my heart, it has absolutely nothing to do with who the supervisor on duty is that night, and the fact that it will be just me and him, for the whole night. Nothing at all. Anyway, they've all been very nice about me leaving, I'm assured I can get a job with them when I can come back and they gave me a card and a box of those hip-expanding chocolate seashells which I haven't opened yet, on account of the fact that once I do, I will scoff the lot without actually noticing. I was really touched, I've only been there a few months, but everybody seems genuinely sorry to see me go. Maybe it's because I never call in sick, I never mind sharing my cigarettes and I love to gossip. Then again, maybe it's because I always have a packet of Haribo Star Mix in my pigeon hole.

Have started compiling a list of "Things I Must Do Whilst In America" - if anybody has any suggestions, or would like me to act as proxy for *them* doing something in America, please mail them to me. Similarly, please mail me if you know how to create a mail link and specify what appears in the subject line, because I can't work it out.

In web page news....this web page will shortly be moving to a new site, since this one can only be updated via a Freeserve dialup and that might prove somewhat expensive. I have not yet decided whether to move the entire site, or whether to just move the diary and create a US Bunnyland for the duration of my stay, but since I'm constantly updating so much of the page, I suspect I will opt for the former. Maybe I'll write a special America section or something, although whether the country deserves both a special sub-Bunnyland *and* my company for twelve months is debatable.

SHOCK news of the week....I had a text message this evening from an unknown number and so I eventually dialled it when my curiosity got the better of me. It was a male voice, and thus ran the conversation....
Bloke: Hello!
Me: (thinks) err.....who?
Me: (says) (with as much enthusiasm as I can muster) oh, HI!
(Note - this is my normal reaction, since I get no end of people ringing me up and saying, "Hi it's me!" and I always pretend I know who it is because I can usually figure it out by the next thing they say. *SOME* people ring me up from work during the day and I know who it is even before they say anything because of the noise in the background...yes, I mean you, Darth Vader...but I digress)
Bloke: I bet you didn't expect to hear from me again did you!
(Takes ambiguous route, and the voice isn't quite familiar)
Me: Errr, ha ha ha, you got that right!
Me: (frantically doing process of elimination to try and work out who it is...work, nope; uni, maybe...)
(Bit of a pause)
Bloke: Well, we kind of lost touch there for a few months, I know that was my fault, sorry about that
Me: Well, no, I mean, it couldn't be helped, it's not important
Bloke: Well Steve said....
Me: (Lightbulb city)
Simon: ...that you were going out to Los (sic) Vegas for a year and that you were leaving in about 2 weeks or something and I couldn't have let you go without speaking to you again, that would have been really bad of me
Me: (thinks) we haven't spoken in almost a year, what difference would another year make?
Me: (says) Oh it's you! I was wondering for a minute there!

Gitboy, indeed, phoning *me* after all this time. I cannot decide whether he was actually ringing me up because I'm going away for a year and he didn't want us to lose touch completely, in which case, well, that's quite sweet and maybe I'll stop calling him Gitboy for a month as a reward; or whether he wants to come and visit me with New Girlfriend (for their honeymoon, yuck yuck yuck)/me to send him American things in the post. It's all very curious. Anyway, he was driving at the time and his driving is erratic at the best of times so he said he'd call me back tomorrow. From the love nest, probably (dark look). No, really, I'm not bitter. I'm sure plenty of men break up with girls on the premise that they need to get out and do some oat-sowing and that they are not ready to settle down, and then go and move in with some bird they meet from the internet personals 6 months later.

Sorry, that was a bit handbags at 10 paces (grin) I don't bear him any ill-will. But I do appreciate a bit of honesty and it amuses me when people's lies find them out, even if they are lies told to spare someone's feelings. It was nice to hear from him again, I'll concede that. And I suppose it was 18 months before Colin and I were on speaking terms again...in fact, curiously, shortly after I broke up with Simon. Now there's a thought....

What interests me, mind, is how he happened to have my mobile number after all this time, and not my home number, which hasn't changed. (Measured gaze in direction of Luton) Steve, if I wasn't feeling guilty about putting my fag out on you last time I saw you, you and I might be having some words!