I dyed my hair yesterday. It's a woody red colour now, though not quite what I had in mind. Nice though. That took 6 hours out of the day as it was a henna dye requiring much cleaning and sitting about. So I didn't leave the apartment. I did my Japanese homework and vacuumed. I wrote a letter, and even researched options for the future (the FUTURE! Arrrgh!) MA - England, Canada, the US. I looked at Bennington College, which has to be one of the more interesting colleges I've read about. The creative writing course, though, looks extremely difficult to get on to. However, I spent the early hours of this morning musing about what needs to be done, so I shan't discount it yet.

I also looked at flight prices for a Xmas visit home... which clearly isn't going to be affordable. My Mum pretty much said: " Why bother coming home? We'll only piss you off." Quite true, but I want to see the cats and sort out the remnants of my life in my bedroom. And see my friends, most importantly. And eat fish and chips. And mum toast.

I was woken in the middle hours of the morning by thunder. The cool thing about being inbetween two mountain ranges is that you are in a kind of bowl, which makes thunder sound that much more spooky.I'm also on the corner of the apartments which means I get hammered by rain on three sides - also spooky in the middle of the night. It's just starting to let up, which I hope means I can go shopping as I'm woefully low on food, having not been shopping for two weeks in a bid to save money.

Other things to do today:

1) 1pm Japanese lesson
2) Return my Xfiles DVDs to Tsutaya
3) Do some writing
4) Clean the bathroom and toilet (oh joy!)
5) Work on my "teaching vocabulary" project. I have to put a presentation together for the end of August.

With the story I'm presently working on, I've started recording sections on my laptop and playing them back. Why I never did this before I don't know. Reading the story out is something I do, but actually playing it back is quite good fun (and no comments about loving the sound of my own voice!). If I can figure out how to do it, I'll upload one as a podcast for you to listen to.

Yesterday I also watched episodes 1 of "Death Note" and "Azumanga Daioh". Currently I like AD better than DN, because I think Osaka is stupidly cute. I shall have to get me another Moleskine so I can scrawl "Death Note" across the cover in a blatantly unoriginal fashion.

I noticed that the pictures of my bike on Flickr have had more views than any other pictures. So shall I upload some pictures from the end of my holiday in May? Wanna see them? Comment if you do.

Grrrr, weirdos. There's weird to a point, and then there's weird to punching point. Jenny took Naomi and I to Reading in Friday night though Naomi and I ran off the the 'goblin first for cheap-er beer and cathcing up with old chums. Got hastled by drunk people shouting "1-0!" a lot. Well done, you like football. Didn't one of the managers of TopMan say their clothes were all bought by thugs? Football and Topman. Anyway, went to Reading got hassled less. Went to pub and drunk black sambuca and got spoken to by drunk men in suits. I phoned Gideon as I suddenly missed him but someone was on the phone at 1.30am.

Missed last train home as 2.30 train was cancelled. Had to get taxi which cost £28 but we found two blokes to share it with so it wasn't too bad. Slept on a sofa and got woken up by road works.

Had hair dyed - it just looks...normal. Once we've saved it from complete destruction though we're going to put big red and gold slices through it.

Am going to attempt to switch computers over today as cannot read my emails properly because this computer doesn't load the page up properly. Christ, it's boring down here. Am going to go to village fete for donkey ride now...

Whoo hooo! I have

RED

hair and I mean

RED!

Sammy and I dyed it last night with two coatings of bleach, which seems to turned it to straw but hell, this is going to be the last bright thing for a while becasue " I have to find a career", and as my mother said to me on the phone yesterday " Now I know you don't want to hear this but,you won't find a job with funny hair." I suppose she has a point... but why should I want to work for someone who judges me on my looks and not on my infinitely fabulous qualifications.

Anyway, Whitby tomorrow, and if there's one place people don't mind funny hair it's the Whitby Goth Weekend! I wish I was going for the weekend but alas I have not the funds. Much CD shopping will take place tomorrow and maybe even some clothes shopping if I find anything I like. Ohhhh I love my hair! The soldiers at work are going to get a shock!!! I hope they don't shoot me!