h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Nice to meet you. How's things in New Orleans? It's somewhere I've always wanted to go, but haven't been to yet. I'm going to make my first trip across the Atlantic next year, hopefully, to visit Nashville, TN. (I'm from Leeds, Northern England, by the way).

Mundane as it is to ask, but since you're an English major, who are your favorite authors? What are you reading at the moment? I love reading: I'm currently devouring the book "Losing Gemma", a thriller about two backpackers set in India.

Who are your favorite bands, too? I enjoy listening to a mixture of American and British music. My favorite bands at the moment are "U2" and "Pulp". My favorite American band is "Semisonic" and I also like Dave Matthews and Eminem! I'd love to be more into music but unfortunately while I'm still a student my bank balance won't permit me.

ttyl - and if you want to wax lyrical about Louisiana, I'd love to hear about it!

Lizzy

hi there
just back from one of NO's wonderful eating establishments, kokopelli's, where you can get a nice burrito. unfortunately there's no good mexican food to be found in this city, i don't know why. sorry, that's not too lyrical, but maybe another time.
right now, and for the past god knows how many months, i'm reading Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses. i really enjoy it, unfortunately i don't have a lot of time to read lately and it is pretty long. but it's quite entertaining. my friend complains that salman rushdie is boring but she hasn't read the Satanic Verses so maybe it was just the book. i also like Bret Easton Ellis (American Psycho), Irvine Welsh (Trainspotting), John Updike (Rabbit Run), John Steinbeck (Cannery Row)... i like reading but i tend to spend more time watching movies, i don't know if my own writing will end up reflecting that or not.
i'm a crazy music consumer.. yesterday i just bought the best of The Stranglers. i probably listen to mostly music from the UK, my favorites are Super Furry Animals, the Beta Band.. i also like Nine Inch Nails though, who are based in this very city. i haven't been listening to too much of that lately. i'm hopefully about to start as a dj at my university's radio station so i've been exposed to all kinds of new stuff. sigur ros, interpol, um... well, take my word for it. lots.
eminem is pretty cool. you've seen 8 mile by now, no doubt? i liked it but the girl kind of grossed me out.
i should think about doing some kind of work now. talk to you later

Hi, thanks for replying so quickly! I'm just having my dinner now (it's 11.55pm here in Germany, but anyway). I've warmed up what was left of yesterday's pasta in the microwave...yummy . I've always wanted to read "The Satanic Verses", if only to find out what's so contraversial about it. I've heard very mixed reviews of Salman Rushdie...some people think he's great, some people think he's the most over-rated writer around. I've never read any of his stuff yet but he's big mates with Bono so that's got to count for something. Did you read "Trainspotting" in the original Scottish dialect? If so, big up you! I found the dialect quite hard to get used to reading and I'm kind of familiar with it, seeing as I don't live too far away from Scotland - well, in American terms of distance, anyway (in British terms it's a bit like going to Mars! ). That reminds me, one of my favorite authors is Bill Bryson. If you want to get a little acquainted with the UK, read "Notes from a Small Island" - everything he says about us Brits is true, I swear.

Good on you for buying "Best of the Stranglers" yesterday - like a lot of bands, I don't know all that much about them, but I do know they're good! I haven't seen "8 Mile" yet because it hasn't come out in Germany, yet (I hail from Leeds but am spending this academic year in Germany - check out "Lizzy's Page" for more details...). I don't know if I'll go and see it when it does arrive because more than likely it'll be dubbed into German. I shouldn't have too many problems understanding it, but I'm not sure I really want to watch Eminem "auf Deutsch"... I think I might just wait until I go back to the UK and rent the video!

Take care and have a cup of English on me.
Get in touch again soon! Liz

hi again
this is one of those odd days where i'm not sure what to do with myself so i find myself coming back here between whatever tasks i can think up. i'm a bit hesitant to actually do any of my schoolwork. there's a lot of it though.
yeah, i believe i've read all of irvine's books, in scottish and everything. it was pretty weird at first... and every time i actually watch the movie trainspotting i understand a little bit more of what they're saying.. i love that movie. i'm getting his latest book for xmas, from my parents who are very understanding and even supportive of me reading books with titles like Porno. so i'm quite lucky. i may check out that Bryson book you mentioned, i have what is regarded by some as an excessive love of about anything that comes from the UK as far as t.v., music, books, movies... i'm neither proud nor ashamed of that fact.
the idea of eminem 'auf deutsch' is hilarious. i really can't envision how they'd do it, there's so much freestyle rap in it... i think i'd love to see that even though i wouldn't understand a word.... my second and third languages are spanish and now french, which i've just started this year.
i may just have some of that soon... mmm, earl grey.

Sorry I didn't reply last night, I was late-night surfing and really tired. I've been doing the same as you though, surfing "h2g2" in order to put off my schoolwork. I'm taking a class in "Australian Literature and Cultural Studies" and I have to write a presentation on post-colonialism. And today, I'm really going to get cracking on it!

Which is your favorite Irvine Welsh book? I've only read "Trainspotting". I've seen the movie too, which is brilliant. Which authors are you having to read for your English courses at the moment? I'm taking a few English courses here in Germany, but as they're for people who speak English as a second language, I'm mostly having to read excerpts and articles from a reader. I wish they had the good sense to teach German Lit like that back in Leeds. I'd learn so much more, as when I'm faced with a 300-page novel, I just think, "sod this, I'll read the English translation!" Maybe that's just me, though.

I studied French all the way through High School and went on a two week exchange trip to Paris, which was fantastic. Paris is the best city I've been to in Europe. I want to learn Spanish too, as it's a very important language. Is Spanish spoken very much in New Orleans? Do many people still speak Cajun?

Have you been to Europe, yet? If not, have you traveled anywhere else outside the US? If you like flat plains, then you should go to East Anglia in the UK and to Holland. I like mountains too (as long as I don't have to walk up them!), but I think that when land is totally flat is also has a special kind of beauty about it. I'd love to go to the prairies in the US (if only so I can see a prairie dog, heehee!).

Oh, and have a piece of to go with your earl grey . When I come over to the US I'm looking forward to trying ice cream cake - yummy!

ttyl, Liz

right now my main worry as far as classes is getting this thing together for Old English... i have this poem (in old english) which i have to translate, make a glossary and introduction for... i'm pretty much done, just the introduction left. but i've been so late getting everything in so far i'm afraid it's really going to have to be good, plus the professor was nice enough to tell me that it's one of his favorite poems.. i'm hardly in any actual english classes yet, i've been mostly getting my general requirements out of the way. i did take a class called literature of environmental justice last year, which was interesting. we read some william faulkner, also Tracks by Louise Erdrich, and.. some other stuff.
Oliver and Company is on... i hadn't seen it in ages and it's so cute! especially Tito.
my favorite Irvine Welsh book has to be Marabou Stork Nightmares. it's pretty experimental, he does some interesting stuff with the text. have you seen the movie of the Acid House? i had to order it from amazon.com and then get it transferred to vhs...didn't understand the whole PAL thing. but i thought it was pretty good.
my parents did take me to europe when i was little, and i went to spain a couple years ago, like you did, on a school sponsored kind of trip, right? i don't remember if it was a whole two weeks, maybe just one. due to plane problems we did get to stop in england, i'm afraid i don't remember where we were, wherever gatwick airport is. yeah, we saw some castle... kind of embarrassed that i don't remember. i'd like to go back sometime. i've also been to japan, when the Lincoln Municipal Band, which my mom is in, got invited to play in matsusaka city... how the hell that happened, i still don't know. but it was a cool trip. except for being extremely hot... i also went on a small cruise to mexico about 5 years back. sounds glamorous but it was with my girlscout troop and we had to clean apartments and sell lots of crap to do it.
i feel like i'm rambling because i can't quite pull myself away from the movie. and i'm going to have to eat lunch (at 3 in the afternoon... i sleep late) so i think i'll say bye for now.
mmm. they don't have ice cream cake in the uk? how odd. i've only had it a couple times but it's certainly not bad. as good a reason as any to visit the US.

Hi Jane!

Don't worry about sleeping late, I do too when I get the chance! I woke up bright and breezy at what I thought was this morning, only to find out it was one o'clock in the afternoon! I hope you managed to get your project about the poem in Old English finished. I'm now about half-way through my presentation on post-colonial Australia, which is the main millstone around my neck at the moment - in fact my only millstone, as I'm here in Germany on the European Union student exchange scheme, which means that the courses I'm taking here don't actually count towards my degree. Do you prefer Old English to more modern texts? I must confess I've never studied Old English, though I did go and see a play of Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales" (a High School production!). I really enjoyed it and thought the stories were really funny, especially the miller's tale.

I haven't seen the movie of "Acid House" - actually I hadn't even heard of it until you mentioned it to me! It must be a very cult movie. I'll look out for it next time I'm down the video store in the UK. I haven't seen "Oliver & Co." either, to my eternal shame, though I do remember it coming out when I was little (we got "Oliver & Co." toys in boxes of cereals!). What are your favorite movies? My favorite movie is "Taxi Driver" - believe it or not, ever since then I've wanted to visit New York! I like Stanley Kubrick films too, esp "Clockwork Orange" and "Full Metal Jacket". I also love "The Wedding Singer" - if I'm sick or in a bad mood or something and have the time, I'll stick it on and watch it, because it always cheers me up! A really great British movie is "Peter's Friends", a comedy-drama starring Stephen Fry, who is a delightfully eccentric English gent. It was written by the American woman who plays the horrendous Hollywood wife in it, so us Brits are not responsible for that portrayl!

Did you go to Spain on an exchange? I did four exchanges in High School: one to Paris, France, and three to Bonn, Germany. I stayed each time with my exchange partner's family. I also did work experience placements in a primary school in Paris and Bonn, and in the Bonn town hall admin offices. Where did you go on your school sponsored trip to Spain? What was the favorite place you've visited?

I'd also love to go to Japan one day, especially Kyoto, to go and see the ancient city and the geisha. I think though I'd like to go and live there for a year - perhaps by teaching English. I'd like to make it to Mexico one day, too. Basically, I just want to see everywhere in the world - it'd be quicker for me to list the places I don't want to go! The most "exotic" place I've been so far is Vietnam. I traveled down the coast of the country from north-south for three weeks this summer with my boyfriend.

By the way, Gatwick airport is near London. Could the castle you went to see possibly be Windsor? If it was one of the Queen's (many) pads, then it probably was.

I'd better go now as it's quite late and my friend wants his computer back so that he can do his homework! Here's a and a to help you along with yours.

I'll be off to bed now, I guess...

yes, windsor was the one. i'd reallly like to travel more too. i think life will just generally be better once academia is out of my life. kind of a sad thing to say but i've always been averse to work and research and sitting in desks, even though i've managed to do pretty well at all of that over the span of my life.
my trip to spain wasn't really an exchange trip, but it was school-sponsored, which meant i had to go with a bunch of girls. i was about the only one looking forward to leaving the group for the family stay, just because the group was so damned annoying... but i still got stuck fairly close with a dumb american since my spanish girl was best friends with her spanish girl. so on one hand it was nice to have a little group with someone who i could speak english to, on the other hand, she whined about missing her boyfriend and made us go to the Hard Rock Cafe gift shop in madrid. how lame is that?! not even the actual cafe, just the gift shop! besides madrid, we stayed in a smallish town called El Alamo which was basically kind of a suburb.. we also visited a really pretty town whose name i can't remember, damn me, but it had a castillo and an aqueduct and was just generally gorgeous. we also saw Valle de los Callidos which was really awe-inspiring and creepy, a monument to those who died in the spanish civil war, built by franco where franco is also buried... just a giant, unimaginably huge cross built out of a mountain, and a big, dank sanctuary or whatever you call it. it was a cool trip.
good for you that you did so much travelling in high school. i had a friend who spent a year in germany, consequently i got to know the german guy who came on exchange and he was pretty cool. i was in germany as a little one and i have a few memories of it but naturally not a lot. i don't know when i'll get around to going again. i don't really know what my favorite place was. i thought japan was really neat though. my parents and i really felt like ugly americans there though, despite the fact that everyone was really nice to us... we're just so...big, and white... and i was pretty frumpy in my early teens.
i guess Acid House is pretty obscure... kind of cheaply-made too as you can see from the production value, a bit grainy and there's a talking animatronic baby which is a bit disturbing to look at... but it was pretty suited to the lurid subject matter. it has two of the same actors as trainspotting though, Spud and Tommy. different roles. i have seen Peter's Friends, it was on one of our cable movie channels over the summer i think, i was excited to watch it since i love stephen fry, a lot. i had no idea that american lady was the writer. good for her! shows a lot of character. she was the one who raided the fridge in the middle of the night?
Trainspotting might actually be my favorite movie, at least in terms of the significance it has had in my life. i'm not sure i really realized how much i enjoyed movies with things like junkies and lou reed music before i'd seen that. i can't really explain it but it changed my life. ever since, i've been seeking out ever greater levels of depravity in film.
well, i had just popped in to take a break from my Old english research. that is just a class i'm taking, incidentally; generally i stick to modern english, the kind i speak and write myself. it has been an interesting class though.

Hi Jane

Hope you're OK. I'm fine here. It was really interesting to hear about your visit to Spain. I'm hoping to go to Madrid some day, it looks like a really cool city. I may get the chance this academic year, as my best friend is American and he wants to see as much of Europe as poss before he goes back to the US. I'm going to off on my travels again this weekend, as the Anglistics Dept is running a day trip to Amsterdam. It's not an organized tour so once we get there we can do what we want, though we've been asked to steer clear of the city's more hedonistic side - I'll only be doing caffeine in the coffee houses anyway. I'm hoping to visit the Anne Frank House when I'm there. I read her diary as a teenager and found it very inspiring, so I'd like to see where it all took place. I guess it'll be very moving.

I have a fair idea of what you mean about sticking out somewhat when you went to Japan. I had a similar experience when I went on holiday to Vietnam. It wasn't so bad for me as I'm only 5' 3'', so I didn't tower over everybody - in fact I wasn't bothered by it at all until I looked at myself in a shop window or something and then I thought, "God, I look different from everyone else round here!"

In the meantime I'm stuck doing this stupid presentation. I know what you mean about academia - University-style learning does nothing for me. Which semester are you in? I'm in my fifth semester of eight; once I've finished my year in Germany I've still got another year to do. The final year is *the big one* at English University, full of dissertations, trying to pull up your grade and deciding what to do next!

Which other movies/ TV programs have you seen Stephen Fry in? I know him mainly from the TV: "Blackadder", "Jeeves and Wooster", "A Bit of Fry and Laurie", etc (if that means anything to you!). I also saw him in the movie "Wilde" - did you see it? It's pretty good. I've read his autobiography, too. It's called "Moab is my Washpot", but I think it may have gone out of print. Check out if you can get in on "Amazon", it's well worth a read. Oh, and did you know he runs a charity to save the Peruvian spectacled bear? You used to be able to find a link to the website for it thru the BBC website search-engine. Incidentally, yes, "Peter's Friends" was written by the actress who plays the woman who raids the fridge in the middle of the night!

Hope your Old English research is going well.I'd better get on with my research for my presentation.

Get in touch again soon - cheerio!
Emily

Woops, sorry, Lizzy - Emily is the name I use in another conversation forum!

must get confusing having to remember who you are...
i guess i first saw SF in Wilde, which i loved.. i've seen him on blackadder as well since we recently got digital cable at home which offers BBC America. basically if i come across anything with him in it i take a look, he is ever so charming. i read his book The Hippopotamus but i don't think i was even aware of Moab is my Washpot(?) i'm guessing that's an anagram or something. made me laugh, though. i like hugh laurie too, i presume that's the laurie you were talking about. i'd only seen him in that jane austen movie, i think Sense and Sensibility, but then he was pretty funny in blackadder as well.
Madrid is pretty cool. it's kind of a strange idea that you can just get on the metro and go to another country... the only thing around here other than america is mexico, and i imagine it's not quite that easy to go to and fro across that border. i did cross into canada once which was quite boring. the town was Ft. Francis and there was nothing there and it smelled weird because there was a paper mill. also, when it comes to school-sponsored trips, it's cool that they're letting you loose. i probably mentioned i was less than thrilled about being stuck in a group while i was in spain. it'd be fun to tour around with a couple friends but having stressed-out teachers wrangling you and a bunch of chattering girls... ick. have fun in amsterdam! i'd like to visit there someday too... well, yeah, the list of places i don't want to go would be shorter. starting off obviously with anyplace i'm likely to get killed for being an american..
mmm, coffee... i always get up too late in the day for coffee it seems.
spent about 7 hours in the printmaking studio last night, makin' prints for my final critique. these were especially important since they're also for exchanging with the class so this'll be what they have to remember me by. and this was an extremely cool class, even though there was only one guy. he was incredibly hot though. so one was enough. but i'm glad i got that out of the way. i do have a lot of work to do for old english. i'll probably be doing a crap job and handing it in just because i'm sick of thinking about it. that often happens. i do my best but i have my breaking point.
hope your presentation is going well. once again i should probably start considering work. ....or lunch...

Hi Jane

Darn, I've just spent ages writing to you and it's got lost in the maze of me skipping forwards and backwards over the internet pages.

By the way, what does "dj" stand for in "dj exam"? What prints were you making in the print-making studio? (And what of?). Good luck with your Old English schoolwork. If it's any consolation, I'm still wrangling with my presentation. I'm going to my friend's house tomorrow so that we can work on piecing it together ready for Friday.

I'm falling asleep here so I'd better go to bed... Here's a and some to help you with your schoolwork tomorrow.

Ttyl, Liz

DJ=disc jockey. i thought everyone knew that. means i get to play music on our college radio station. i'm all set to kick ass at it.
it is agonizing when these projects drag themselves out... my old english thing is finally due friday as well, and i too shall be piecing it together as best i can. it's nice that you have help though. as much as i usually dislike working in groups i wouldn't mind having someone to shift some of the labor onto... but thank god, for better or for worse (probably both), friday is the end, no more old english no more. i don't know why i'm so paralyzed when it comes to writing the introduction, it's only like a page or 2! blah blah.
printmaking is over now, and i'm sad because i won't get to stare at or talk to the tall, thin boy with freckles anymore... though i think he has a thing for a guy who lives in my building so who knows, maybe he'll be around... anyway, the other night i was just making up my final edition, i had to combine two different printing methods so i had an engraved copper plate which i was printing over a monotype... there's a detailed description of monotyping in my journal somewhere.. i only recently discovered all my past entries were still available to look at.. so anyway, it was basically a pair of hands superimposed over a mouth. and for the final we got to exchange prints so i now have a portfolio of everybody else's, which i can take out and look at and cry over anytime i want now...they were cool folks. if i'd signed up for the etching class next semester i would probably have gotten to stay with them but the truth is etching involves acid and well... i'll pass. studio art is so stressful anyway. and i have requirements to get out of the way.
hell, it's after 8, i should really think about getting stuff done now. i've been scurrying around all day and i'm tired..but i don't want to be in trouble come tomorrow when it is once again the last minute. so enough out of me.
good luck with that presentation!

Oh. Right. Yes, I did know that DJ=disc jockey. I just didn't realize you were taking an exam in it.

Print-making sounds really interesting. Are you taking a minor in art? My degree in Leeds is very specialized in that I study German and nothing else. I have to take the language course and then have to choose a certain number of cultural courses from a selection. Being able to study whatever I want here in Germany certainly makes a nice change. I'll have a look at that journal entry of yours to find out what monotyping is. When do you finish for Christmas? My classes here finish Dec 20; I'm flying back to England on Dec 21. Are you going to be spending Christmas in Nebraska?

By the way, I think your poetic journal entries are really cool. Do you want to be a writer some day? I'm always toying with the idea at the back of my mind, though not terribly seriously. Better get some more life experience first. At least I can practise here at h2g2.

Well, I'd better go, time is really ticking on. It's now 2.10 and I'm meeting my friend at 6.00 - in the meantime I have to write the final piece of my part of the presentation. Good luck with your DJ-ing, when you start. I'm sure you'll rock.

Roll on the weekend!

ttyl, Lizzy

i promised myself i wasn't going to sleep half the day away but here it is the ungodly hour of 3 in the afternoon and i'm just starting my day. i can't really stay up too late, i'm going to have to be up by 7 tomorrow so i can make it to my first exam and turn my old english thing in... i think i'm going to want some coffee.
i'm not minoring in anything, though i guess i could minor in art with all the classes i generally take just for my pleasure... i took drawing last year which was quite unpleasurable actually. i have some artistic ability but it doesn't amount to much more than being able to draw well. i can do that and i enjoy it but i'm not serious about it and don't expect to distinguish myself.
writing on the other hand is pretty much the basket all my eggs are in. it's basically the only thing i care about enough to put effort into. i've been at it most of my life already, i've written 3 or 4 short novels which are all pretty bad considering i was and am just a kid who knows not a lot about anything... though i have high hopes for what i'm writing now as it is closer to what i know: me. it is long and boring and full of angst and neuroticness. yay!
i'd better get back to my friggin old english thing. your presentation must be nearly finished by now, you're undoubtedly ready to wow your whole class tomorrow.
i will be home for christmas break (leaving next wed. morning), but we're actually going to spend christmas day in Arizona with my mom's family. which will be fun. i love AZ.

Hey Jane

Just wanted to say 'hi' quickly before going off to celebrate getting my presentaton over and done with. Congrats again on getting your Old English finished by the way, too.

Gotta go.

Liz

well, for my celebration i got to take a huge french exam and miss seeing Drumline! .oh well. there's a funny movie on t.v. let the relaxation commence!

Hi again Jane

A French exam is not much to celebrate, eh? Well, I hope it went well and that you had a great evening chillin' out in front of the TV. You certainly deserved it.

Drawing tends to be my forte in art as well - usually with pencil, although I did start using charcoal when I went to life-drawing last year. I was really good at art when I took it as a GCSE. I don't know if you know about GCSEs: they're seriously heavy qualifications, which you do in Britain from aged 14-16. At the end you have to take enormous numbers of exams for each subject. If you don't have any GCSEs, you can't get a job. Anyway, at that time my speciality was portraits in pencil. Portraits are also my favorite thing to draw, though I quite like drawing the whole human figure as well. I also like sculpture, especially clay. What's your favorite thing to draw?

I'm so impressed that you've already written some novels. I struggle to write a short story. I'd really like to read some of your work - have you put any of it on the internet? I haven't done any creative writing in such a long time, I really should have another go at it. At the moment I tend to try and just keep in practise by writing to people and now by writing stuff here at h2g2. I also read quite a lot.

What's Arizona like? One word springs to mind: desert. -So yes, basically, I know nothing about the place. What do you do at Christmas? Do you go to church? My parents are athiest so we don't, we just celebrate it culturally, ie with decorations and presents and food. It's the best time of the year in England! What's the weather like in AZ at Christmas time? We hardly ever get snow at Christmas in England any more - usually just rain, fun fun. But Christmas tends to be a very indoorsy occasion anyway, so it doesn't really matter.

I hope Uni is giving you a break and the workload is beginning to lessen.

Take care - Merry Christmas!
Lizzy

hi there
yeah, portraits do seem to be the most interesting thing to draw. or people anyway. i'm not at all serious about it so i just tend to doodle and sketch from my imagination. when i took beginning drawing we drew nothing but still lifes, pinecones, dishes, bleh, boring. it was not a very fun class. and there was not as much bonding as there was in printmaking, probably because printmaking was just a really small class, like 7 of us. the drawing professor was pretty much a harda** too. so if it wasn't just so, you'd hear about it. bleh. i kind of refused to learn anything in that class and just did as good a job as i felt like.. i might take some kind of sculpture or painting next year, though i'm so bad at painting.
yeesh. gcse's sound pretty stressful and obnoxious. all we had to take were SAT's, PSAT's, ACT's, i dunno, i didn't tend to be too bothered by them so i'd just show up and take it. i don't even know what my scores were. but SAT's have to do with getting into college. i guess mine were good enough to get me some scholarship money here.
i struggle to write short stories too, i can't master that length. i can write poems and longwinded fiction but i've only ever written one short story that i liked. but i don't really trust the internet with my work, i don't know why... i generally keep it well hidden under a bushel anyway most of the time. i keep meaning to go to the campus poetry readings but i'm too shy. maybe i'll put something up in my journal sometime.
reading is good, i don't do enough of it. except in the summer where i have about 3 months to lie around... it saddens me that life won't always be like that.
Arizona is a beautiful, beautiful state. it has got a lot of deserts but it also has mountains so in those areas you actually get snow. that's where most of my family is. i've spent a lot of time there over the course of my life. that's where the grand canyon is, and also the London Bridge in fact... my grandpa lives in lake havasu city, that's where the bridge is. it's near the california border and it gets extremely hot there.
i've pretty much taken it easy this weekend, but now i have to write 3 or 4 pages (actually 4 or 5 but i'm thinking of writing it in spanish so i probably will shoot for 3.5) for film class. but i just got back from a big lunch and i'm sleepy so maybe i'll take a nap first. i've been up all of 2.5 hours.. oh well.

Hi Jane

Yes, still life is not so much my cup of tea either.If I do draw still life, I like to draw just one or two objects, rather than a whole bunch of them, so I can concentrate on getting the detail right and not have to bother so much about one object relative to another. Whoever thought that it was a good idea to get art students to draw pine cones needs shooting...

Yes, GCSEs are stressful. In fact, now passing thru the whole British education system is stressful, as the kids have to take SATs every year of their school career. I was lucky in that the Government hadn't brought all of that in while I was still at school, so I only got caught by having to do SATs when I was fourteen. They're not supposed to be a very big deal in that they're just meant to show how each kid is doing (and they don't count towards college or anything), but believe me, they are: esp the ones kids take at 7, 11 and 14 years old. You must have done pretty well in your SATs to have got a scholarship.

I tend to write short stories because then I can concentrate on one idea and a couple of characters rather than having to deal with the whole plot of a novel. If I've written more than I intended it's never been more than 20-30 pages anyway. It's cool that you can write poetry. I can't - I just can't. The form just doesn't suit me at all.

Thanks for telling me about Arizona. I really must go and visit it one day, it sounds fantastic. My parents and some other relatives of mine have been there to visit the Grand Canyon - it's one of those places that's on every European's 'wish list' of places to visit in the US.

I read your most recent journal entry and I think it's fantastic that you can write so well in Spanish. I wish I could write as well in German. I'm much better at speaking and listening to it than I am at reading and writing it - with reading, forget it. When I had to take some German lit courses last year I read all the books in English - I was able to get away with it because the exam was in English, so I just borrowed the German version out of the library and looked up the important quotes to memorize (by referring to the English version!).

Oh well, I'd better go. Merry Christmas!
Take care, Lizzy