In which Demi wishes everyone...

A very merry Christmas :)

♥

It's not even cold here, which is the only problem. We've never known such a mild Christmas!!  My grandparents are over, and we are all feeling very blessed and loved after vegging out watching Christmas films after my mum's deeeeeelicious dinner. I look forward to Christmas dinner take two tomorrow night!

More later in the week, but for now, I hope everyone has/ has had a really wonderful time, whatever you celebrate :) xo.

A tired Demi, after a lovely day. Wearing my lovely Primark jumper dress, which is both festive and dressy!

In which Demi is delighted :)

I have packed up my life temporarily and relocated back in t'North, as my dear Fryn would say. Home for Christmas, and I couldn't be happier. Only 36 hours in, and I've already had a delicious roast dinner and gone to buy our Christmas tree! We went to three different vendors, only to return to the first (and nearest) place after all! We'd tried to hide our potential tree, but someone had spotted it and snatched it up :( The one we ended up with isn't too bad though :) Mum has announced that this year's colour scheme (yes, we're a house that does colour schemes... and no, we're not allowed tinsel. My Mum's one of those types, who think it's tacky. Pfft.) is silver and gold, which looks quite nice, although I like a bit more colour to be mixed in, personally.

Christmas jumpers and tiger onesies galore in our house :D

My second reason for being delighted is that my favourite couple, Harry Judd and Aliona won Strictly Come Dancing last night!!!!!! Yeahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! I was a fan of theirs from the very start, and it was brilliant to find out I'd also pulled the pairing for the sweepstakes that our family friends were running. I won £20, which I'll be using to treat myself in the Christmas sales :D

 

Marry me Harry?

AND, as the cherry on top of my little happy cake, I'm seeing my darling Elf for the first time in months tomorrow, for a coffee date and a much needed catch-up :)

The term ended on a lovely high, with an addition to our house (a vibrant blue plush crocodile, by the name of Nigel. Don't ask.) and a lovely house Christmas, where we exchanged Secret Santa gifts. Thankfully I seemed to tick all the right boxes with my gift of an OPI nail varnish, which Sugar had been eyeing wistfully since the summer. I received a lovely mug (regular readers will know of my immense love for tea by now!), with the slogan 'Brew up and sleep in'. Everyone laughed (an almost embarrassing amount), as I have become rather infamous for my love of tea and lie-ins in the house. Perfect gifts all round. My particular favourite, as I think everyone's was, happened to be Sugar's gift of a Cliff Richards calendar to lovely Fryn. Yes, it might seem a bit strange to gift her with a calendar of a wrinkly old singer (who I'm pretty sure is being cryogenically frozen every night to keep going...), but given her love for Christmas, and in particular Cliff's Christmas CD, which she likes to sing incessantly around the house once October hits... it was the perfect choice :)

In the run up to Christmas, I hope to polish off the shortest of my three essays (which, at 3000 words, is still hardly short), finish off my Christmas shopping, and have a catch-up with my girls from home.

I'm finally feeling festive... I hope everyone else is too! xo.

In which Demi is geeking it up.

Tonight's fun-filled activities? Reading criticism of the character of King Arthur, while trying not to lose the sensation in my fingertips. Nottingham has turned icy cold, along with the rest of the UK. At least we're not under a foot of snow, like this time last year.

It's hard to believe that there's only this week and next week left at Uni! Then one more semester, then THAT'S IT. Finito. Crazy times. I can tell I'm going to be running around like a mad hatter.

Today, the latest issue of the Uni magazine FINALLY arrived! We put our super duper PR helpers to work stocking the immediate buildings around campus, with the plans to spread out and cover everywhere by the end of the week. And what's that? The editors are calling for another social before the end of term? Erm.... we'll see....

Finally, I've been listening to a mixture of Lord of the Rings and Star Wars soundtracks to keep me focused on my work... only to be distracted by the gorgeousness of some of the songs. I was listening to this medley of The Fellowship of the Ring's soundtrack, and kept getting distracted by visualising what was happening in the film when the music was being used. I'm hopeless.

Also, would it be too ridiculously geeky to have the beginning of this featured in my wedding? I think the answer is yes, but I'm pretending it's not for now.

Yes, I am a massive geek for these two film franchises. So sue me :) xo.

In which Demi has slept all day and now can't sleep.

Since my current illness rendered me unconcious for the majority of the afternoon, followed by a slobby evening of Sex and the City with the housemates since our going-out plans were scuppered by said illness, I am now feeling both groggy and unable to sleep. Fabulous.

No better time to blog, clearly!

[I do feel quite bad actually, since my updates this term have been sporadic at best.]

So, what's been happening in the world of Demi? A lot of my time has been devoted recently to my role as PR rep for our Uni magazine. Pretty much as soon as my essays were handed in my attention was directed at selling as many tickets for our first launch party of the year as possible. The very first issue of the year was assembled over the summer holiday, so this was a chance for the new contributors, as well as the editors, to celebrate putting together an issue together.

Nikki, my co-manager, and I eventually settled on what most people agree to be the best cocktail bar in Nottingham, Coco Tang, as our venue. If you're ever in Nottingham, I would DEFINITELY reccommend a drink there. Their unique cocktail recipes range from tasty treats, such as the Haribo and Krispy Creme inspired recipes (the Toblerone is to die for - including a little chunk of the sweet itself balanced on the glass edge!), to delightfully whimsical sippers such as a Dirty Cinderella and the gorgeous Cherry Blossom Martini - all served in a super sexy underground bar reminiscent of the prohibition era.

Evidence that I need to start working out again!! But my stomach aside, I think this is a cute photo of me and my co-manager :)

A couple of hiccups aside, the night seemed to be a success, with lots of people from the mag thanking me for such a good night, which made me feel a lot better. Next up: distribution of the latest issue. Submitted to the printers a week behind schedule, we're now getting sliiiightly antsy, after some of the pages had to be re-printed following an ink bleed. Our posters, proclaiming the new issue to be out the end of November, are now essentially worthless, as we are STILL waiting on the delivery, and people are starting to ask where it is, and whether they've missed it. Not good. We'll just have to be totally on.it. when the issue finally gets delivered.

I'm also starting to worry about graduate applications for PR. To London or not to London seems to be the main question, followed swiftly by to go travelling next year or to put it off for a bit, and wait until I have some more experience. I've got a while to think about it, and sift through which cases make the most sense. Also, freaking out somewhat at the weird creative questions they're throwing into the applications: Describe yourself in rhyming couplets. What would the title of your autobiography be? Apple, hero or villain? - discuss. WHAT?!

Next problem jostling for attention in my head is our latest release of essay questions, due in January. While that might seem forever away, I've had two years of experience now as to how little work I manage to achieve over Christmas, what with everything that goes on. See this post for evidence of my essay misery from last year. The bad news is that I have even more words this Christmas than I did last year - 10,000 words compared to last year's 8,000, but at least I have no exams to revise for.

SO, my master plan is to have all of my reading and planning done before I leave for Christmas, and to have at least started one of them. Fingers crossed it'll all go according to plan. I get the results from my mid-term essays this week, and I am preeeeetty terrified, as my Arthurian Literature essay was shoddy at best. I felt like emailing my tutor and apologising, because it's such a bad representation of what I know and enjoy about the module! Gahhhh.

So, essays at the forefront, yes? Not quite, since I still have two weeks of reading to finish up as well. I've really loved my modules this term, especcially my Post-Millennial literature module, where we've looked at the effects of 9/11 on literature, at genre cross-overs, at style experimentations - and all of it written in a fresh, modern prose a million miles away from stuffy 19th Century writing. Yeahhhhhh post-modernism. I've absolutely loved reading What I Loved by Siri Hustvedt recently. Something about it really stuck with me, and I'd thoroughly reccommend it.

I've also had a mini book-swap with an English Studies friend of mine, where we've swapped short stories that are both, coincidentally, being adapted for films in the coming year. I received The Woman in Black, which I've already heard terrified reviews of. My friend A. refused to return to the second half of the play, having been too freaked out in the first half. I'm not good with scary films, and I'm not sure I've ever really read a scary book, so this should be... interesting. I gave her The Great Gatsby, which is pretty much my favourite book ever :)

In film news, we've signed up for a trial of Love Film, so hopefully we'll get to keep on top of seeing all the films we want to watch! I recently caught London Boulevard on my laptop version of Sky Movies the other day as well, which I surprisingly loved. I thought the dialogue was sharp and witty, the characterisation excellent, and that it was much more than your standard London gangster film. ALSO, I had no idea how amazing Colin Farrell was at accents! I think I've fallen a little bit in lust with him. Weird, I'm like 10 years later than everyone else, right?

I think it's the eyebrows that does it...?
Source: http://magiclanternfilm.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/farrell.jpg

Next up, to 'lull' me to sleep, is The Fighter, which I managed to miss in the cinema. Hopefully I haven't overly built up my expectations, like I did with Black Swan.

Off-loading over... Have a good weekend everyone :) xo.