i bang my own drum

Hi hi hi! Happy New Year, everybody! I realise I haven't been around except to ask for your addresses the better to stalk you, and things have changed! For one, I finally created a DW account in light of LJ's recent idiocies to secure my name. I imported my LJ and I will give crossposting from DW a try for a while. I'll still be on LJ (and mainly read and comment there, most likely), but I just like having a back-up, just in case. So, that's that.

I'll be sitting my Abitur/A levels in a little less than three weeks, so I should probably be revising, but I still haven't done a lot of that, since a good day of flouncing about just sounds so much better than a good day of revision. You could also say I'm taking it slow, which is either because I'm far too optimistic or far too lazy. Your choice. :D But let me tell you about the fabulous things I have been doing instead of revising!

1. I watched so much awesome tv! All of my shows are currently on hiatus, so I started watching Band of Brothers which I ended up having more feelings about than I would have expected. SO MANY FEELINGS. SO MANY PRETTY PARATROOPERS IN LOVE. *___* I still have two episodes left which, if I am correctly informed, are the ones starring Tom Hardy's Cock, so um... yeah. Looking forward to that. 

I also decided to give Doctor Who a second try since the first time I watched Rose, I ended up being all "wtf what is this" and not watching the show after all. But I have since reviewed my life choices, and Doctor Who is a most valid one. It's ~fantastic! It has its terrible moments, but asdjh;sldk so good! I am absolutely in love with Rose. Also the Doctor, even though I have yet to get used to David Tennant who just ~replaced my beloved Christopher Eccleston, outrage etc etc. I hadn't even realised I loved him so much, but now that he's gone, I miss him like whoa. D: I mean, seriously. Just look at him:


2. I went to Paris the weekend before last! We stayed at my dad's, which is always fun when there's one bed, five people, and a lot of controversy of who should be allowed to sleep in Just That Corner of the room, but we managed. We went to see The Sound of Music at the Théâtre du Châtelet, which was really really nice. I love the music, and the actors were all stunning and had great voices, so yay yay. After the show, we had dinner at a Korean restaurant, and I'm sorry, but there goes my coherency because OMG SO DELICIOUS YOU GUYS AKSJD;SDFLK. Kimchi! Seaweed salad! SO GOOOOODDD GET BACK IN MY FACE FOOD.

3. Christmas! Christmas was nice. It was, as always, spent with the family. On Christmas Eve (which is the day we do presents in Germany), we had raclette at home, and I made everyone listen to my Christmas albums. I'm a little sad we didn't go to church, but we always have to compromise because while I and my mum usually want to go, my siblings don't care much for church. But anyway, happy-making presents! I got a Wobble Clock (which I'd discovered the previous weekend at Nature & Découvertes, and just ~had to have), the Red Riding Trilogy DVDs (Andrew Garfield! Sean Bean!), Kraken by China Miéville, Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld, and The Flawed Master by Logospilgrim (essays about Snape! BEST EVER Y/Y?), which I've basically been wanting forever, plus some money and lots of chocolate. 

I caaan't wait to read these books. Right now, I'm reading Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. I understand about as little as I thought I would, but I'm also enjoying it far more than I'd expected!

And because everybody loves a meme, have one that is long overdue. laliandra gave me four fandoms, and I will try and tell you who my favourite characters are, ONLY I AM VERY INDECISIVE AND HAVE A LOT OF FEELINGS, so proceed at your own risk.

( but I like all of their faces )

You're not intrigued? EXCUSE ME? I can only guess that everybody apart from me leads a life of sin and wild and exciting adventures one should never blog about! For the sake of the children, I mean.

Anyway, I haven't been napping all the time since we last left off. On Monday, we went to the horse races that take place on the racecourse in a small and lovely town near us. It's the same town where we visited the market. It turned out we should have come a little later because we had to leave before any actual galloping or country cross took place, and we only saw the trotting races. Those are quite exciting too though. I don't have any actual idea about what is important, and I would never ever bet on a horse (knowing my luck, I would lose horrendous amounts of money!), but when everybody gets up and claps their hands and cheers the horses on on the homestraight, you can't help but get up with them, and you can't help but go "oh NOOOO" when a horse gets disqualified for galloping or something. There was one race where I was crossing my fingers for Sissi Impératrice, which is partly due to my obsession with musicals (there's one about the empress Elisabeth of Austria), and she was overtaking all the other horses, and then when she was ahead of them, she passed into a gallop for a fraction of a second... and was disqualified. Oh, and we also witnessed a false start! Though I have no idea what actually went wrong, because those starts always seem pretty unorganised to me.

( Of grumpy Frenchmen and Alan in a Brasserie. )

So, I'm almost done packing for our holiday in Normandy. I'm actually quite excited which has never been the case before (beach = boring, picnics on the beach when the wind is blowing = yummy, I'm eating sand). But this time, I have packed films and games and many many books and it will be fun! I plan on walking along the beach with my mum every morning, and we're going to go horseback riding which is always wonderful.

Packing was almost fun as well since my sister wanted to listen to Dracula with me and I was actually allowed to sing. She's been objecting to my singing a lot less lately. Yesterday, I even sang laliandra 's BOOMDEYADA Black Arthur song and translated it for her.

LITTLE SISTER: Oh my God. Who invented this?
ME: Lal did. (Everybody knows lal. I always tell tales about lal and blame her endlessly!)
LITTLE SISTER: You're all crazy! ... Tell her I like the song.

So, lal, I'm telling you!

Also, I still have to do this meme eternal_vows  did some time ago.

Leave a comment saying "MAKAPU'U IS NOT A NUDE BEACH" and I'll respond by asking you five questions to satisfy my curiosity. Update your journal with the answers to your questions. Include this explanation and offer to ask other people questions.

( Where I tell you about the plastic drawer of doom. )

...well, not really. But considering I'm in Normandy, this isn't too far from the truth.

But first, Another Scene From The Delightful Time Of Moving Into Our Flat, Cat washing the dishes in our kitchen the first time and me drying while the washing machine was merrily washing away on its first experimental run...

CAT: I keep thinking the water in the sink is running away because of the sounds the dish washer keeps making.
ME: That'd be the washing machine. Dish washer is you.

Now I'm in the North of France, as always at this time of the year. Normandy is alright, what with the rainy and grey weather and the narrow streets. The narrow streets, or rather the opposite of one, caused us to cheer in amazement on our way here.

CAT: Look, a two-lane road!
ME: Oh my god!
FLO: A two-lane road... do you not know what that means? We're in a real city!
MUM: Civilisation, hurray!
HOUSES: *fade away*
MUM: Alas, we're back in the wilderness again.
ME: Two-lane road! That means civilisation!

After that adventure, we had some trouble finding our holiday home.

MUM: That might be it!
EVERYBODY: *incredulously* Didn't you say it was house number 11?
MUM: Did I?
DAD: Well, yes. This is number 43.

Then we arrived somewhere with very nice, pretty houses and I thought "wow, that looks posh!" and my parents were arguing about whether or not Les Résidences de l'Archipel was the place we were looking for.

MUM: I'm not sure. There's no house number.
ME: There's an open door, I'm sure it's here!
DAD: Hum. Maybe you should get out of the car and -
MUM: I don't think this is it.
ME: *being very much ignored* There's an open door, I'm sure it's here and someone's waiting in there!
DAD: We could - oh, look, there's someone coming out the door.
MUM: *gets out of the car, talks to someone*
MUM: *reporting back* This is it, it's here!
ME: I told you all along there was an open door.

Then we unpacked the car and went to explore the house. And what can I say? It's all pretty and new and shiny and wonderful! I want to take this house to Germany and put it where our flat is. But, um, I think the owners won't agree to that, unfortunately.

My dad actually seems to have some trouble with the house's many doors.

DAD: *from the hallway* I keep getting lost in this house!
DAD: *comes into living room* See, again! Right now, I actually wanted to go to the bathroom.
FLO: With your laptop?

Today, Cat and I were on our own in the shiny pretty house because the rest of our family had gone to the beach. We were sitting in the garden when a car drove by at a snail's pace.

CAT: What do you think, why are they driving this quickly?
ME: Maybe they're looking for their holiday home.

After some minutes' time, the car came back and drove by at a snail's pace in the other direction.

CAT: Look, they're coming back!
ME: Hm. Should I ask them if they're looking for Les Résidences de l'Archipel?
CAT: We didn't know we were looking for that place, either, so I don't think this will do much good.
ME: Should I ask if they're looking for house number 11, then?
CAT: That might work.

Oh, and you mightn't have noticed - I have internet! I actually have internet here! Consider me a very lucky thing! :)
Also, I'm rereading mistful's Drop Dead Gorgeous and it's still as amusing and heart-breaking and brilliant as it was when I first read it. I'm so addicted to it, oh, new chapter, where are you?