I hate the Atlantic Ocean...

because it kept me from being with my family today.
RIP Granda. You'll be sorely missed, but at least now you're finally at peace. <3

Miss you. Love you, always. <3

The Works.

This blog post is dedicated to Brittany and Nicole, who have just taken me out for what was possibly the best meal I've ever had.
Think of every possible combination of burger topping you could have, put them all on a menu, and you've got the Works. There were literally over 70 different types of burger you could get. It's amazing. And the sweet potato chips were amazing. And the onion rings were amazing. And the Oreo milkshake was the most amazing thing I've ever had. I was generally just amazed. And the restaurant itself was so cool. The salt and pepper shakers were light bulbs and the drinks were served in measuring jugs. It's just amazing. I'm going to stop using the word "amazing" now.
The other amazing (ok, maybe just once more) place here is Forever 21, where I may or may not have spent lots of money on pretty things yesterday... If I had the money, I would just buy the entire shop.
Can't think of much else to say. My week was pretty standard, just going to classes and whatnot. I've pretty much become addicted to Tim Hortons, hence my previous blog post. I haven't actually fallen in love with a lovely guy named Tim, unfortunately. I realise now that unless you understand both the scale of Tim Hortons in Canada and my weird sense of humour, you wouldn't get that last blog post, so apologies. But yes, my sixth form coffee addiction which somewhat subsided last year has once again reared it's caffeiney head. Pretty soon I'll be running purely on coffee, cream cheese bagels, pizza, cucumber and pink lemonade, with the odd Beaver Tail thrown in for good measure.
That's about it for now. Life in Canada is lovely, but not wildly exciting. Friday nights are becoming pretty good, and making the long week of classes well worth it. All musicy stuff is still wonderful. We're doing some Lauridsen in choir, which, as anyone who knows my choral music tastes well, makes Hannah a very happy bunny.
I now need to lie down for a while and bask in just how full of wonderful food I am. :)

I've made a new best friend.

His name is Tim. He keeps me alive during 8.30am classes. I think I love him.

My Shakespeare professor reminds me of Professor Slughorn.

I knew he reminded me of someone, and I couldn't think who, but it's finally dawned on me. :D
If you don't understand the reference, then get off my blog.
That is all.

Today I fell in love with Ottawa.

It turns out that there's nothing quite as wonderful as escaping the campus bubble and discovering a city on a sunny Sunday afternoon. I grabbed my bus pass, and hopped on a bus downtown, armed with my satchel and a camera. I soon discovered that my camera has run out of batteries, so I'm afraid I have no photos of one of the most gorgeous cities I've ever been in to share with you. Sorry. I will inveitably return soon, however, and then you can have some photos. Or you could just google images of Ottawa.
Basically, the thing that gets me about this city is that one minute you're surrounded by urban activity, but a mere two or three minute walk will surround you with trees. If you stand on one side of the parliament building, which is beautiful in itself, you're looking at busy roads and tall buildings, but go to the other side and you're overlooking a gorgeous canal and there's a beautiful park just around the corner. The city is wonderfully suburban, which seems like a very odd thing to say, I know. The downtown area is bustling and busy and a bit touristy, since it's still tourist season, but just a minute out of the centre and the houses are big and wooden and detatched and surrounded by trees. Although, in fairness, everything is surrounded by trees. Exeter's pretty heavily populated with trees, but this place definitely wins on the trees : other stuff ratio. There's also an amazing shopping centre, which I should probably never enter again for the sake of my bank balance. Forever 21 is just too amazing. <3
The other amazing part of town is the Byward Market. There are street performers and artists, and loads of crafts stalls and fruit and veg stalls and it just feels so much like a community down there, even though most of the people around are tourists. I bought some raspberries and saw a crazy acrobat guy who reminded me of John Barrowman. It was lovely. I also found some amazing tea shops, and a cheese shop that sells McVitie's Chocolate Digestives. I also ate another Beaver Tail. Hannah is a happy bunny. I'm glad I didn't wait any longer to explore, because the season is ending and soon it will just be cold and snowy and I shall do nothing but hibernate in the tunnels.
In other news, today marked the start of Orchestra/Music Week in Exeter. It strikes me that up until this point, I've been adventuring while everyone back home has just been sitting around at home waiting for uni life to start again, so I've not missed out on much excitement back home. Now, however, life in Exeter and elsewhere is going to continue as usual, and I won't be there, which makes me pretty sad, because I miss you all lots. I hope you all have an amazing week and, in fact, an amazing year (that goes out to everyone of you, not just Exe people, wrth gwrs). To those of you that I know who are getting ready to start uni, I hope you enjoy it. To those of you returning to uni, have a great year and maybe work a bit harder this time (I'm looking at you, Coldrick!). To everyone at home, I miss you and love you terribly. And to those of you back in Exeter, look after my darling city, look after yourselves, please don't forget about me, and make sure you keep me up to date with everything that's going on! Letters, emails, carrier pigeons, facebooks chats, telegrams, skype (Dakin, my Wednesday afternoons are completely free so post-Singers catch-ups can continue :D), I don't care what, just let me know you're all still alive and give me all the gossip s'il vous plait. I'm having an amazing time here, but I miss the people I love rather a lot, and I can't wait to see you all again soon. <3
And now if you'll excuse me, I've just spied a bug on my bed but I don't know where it went, so I must now promptly shake my duvet to death and do a little dance of terror. Goodnight.

So, Hannah, what did you do today?

We all have those days where we feel a bit blah (not bad, not good, just blah) and we just need to curl up and be lazy. Today was that day, and it was lovely. Thankfully, the nature of the dining hall here means that I am forced to shower, dress and engage in human interaction every day if I wish to eat proper food, so I wasn't completely shut away all day.
So this week has been pretty good. I survived my first full week of classes, just about. I get a bit confused because I have the same timetable on tuesdays and thursdays, so I keep having to remind myself what day it is. It's also weird having a class so soon after the previous one. In Exeter, I'd have a to wait week or maybe even two before the next lecture or seminar came around. Here, it's constant. I have consumed much coffee (including my first ever Tim Horton's), learned that every single depiction that I've ever seen of a Native North American person is in someway offensive, sat reading in the quad, met new people (one of whom I'm pretty sure thinks my name is Megan), won the heart of my self-confessed anglophile Shakespeare professor just by saying words, turned up to class in my Exeter hoody to find that Jess was wearing an identical one, actually did all of my reading (to the extent where I took Joyce to dinner with me), and even engaged in educational discussion about James Joyce. No, really. Joyce has been less painful that I'd thought, and while I'd initially been dreading it, it could turn out to be one of my favourite classes. Except for the part where the class is 3 hours long. I will never grow to love that. Now, I'm aware that I'm only three chapters into A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, undoubtedly one of his easier books, and that as soon as I get to Ulysses, with it's 254 pages of footnotes, my mind is probably going to explode. But so far, aside from the 25-page hellfire sermon through which I had to drag myself, I'm quite enjoying it. Let's hope this optimism lasts. :)
Not only have there been good academic developments this week, but I've also had a wonderfully musical week. I went to my first choir rehearsal on Wednesday, which was wonderful :) The people were lovely, the conductor is a sweetheart, and the music is really pretty and all stuff I've never sung before :D While it was wonderful, I have to say that I've never felt as British as I did in a room full of people saying "New York" in Canadian accents, while I joined the chorus with a very conspicuous "New Yawwk". It reminded me of singing hymns in my Granny's church in Northern Ireland, which made me giggle. :) I also joined an orchestra this week. With the help of a very enthusiastic Ben, who went on a mass googling spree one night in August even though he's not in Ottawa, I found an amateur orchestra called the Divertimento Orchestra, and I think it's pretty safe to say that I've found the best amateur orchestra in Ottawa. The players are amazing, the conductor is great, the rehearsal was efficient, the repertoire is good (Sibelius 1 and Faure Requiem <3) the music already sounds good and it's only their second rehearsal and to top it all off, the people are LOVELY. Absolutely lovely. And they've got quite a few Brits, which is nice :) I can't remember the last time I was so enthused by an orchestral rehearsal. There was such a sense of community, but there was also such a good work ethic and sense of discipline during the rehearsal. Gordon, the conductor, knows what he wants and says what he wants and gets on with it, but he's still friendly and relaxed. If he says we're going to run something, we run it, even if things go wrong. I know that I'd be happy just being in an orchestra, but to be in an orchestra like this just makes me so ridiculously happy. It was just a wonderful atmosphere to be a part of, and I've got a feeling those rehearsals are going to be a highlight of each week, not least for the fact that it means I actually get to play my violin. :D This paragraph has rambled on a bit, and I apologise, but the music geek in me has been really happy this week, just in case you hadn't already noticed. :)
Other events of note this week include the aforementioned trip to Ikea. It was wild. Along with the most amazingly fluffy dog in the world, I bought some suitably colourful bedding, a corkscrew, ice cube moulds, some more pretty pictures to put on my wall and an artificial flower. Nothing frivelous at all... At least I didn't buy the wooden train set, which was very tempting. I also bought something amazing, but I can't disclose what it is because I'm keeping it to give to my amazingly wonderful sister for her birthday. Speaking of my amazingly wonderful sister, I got an amazingly wonderful card from her yesterday, which I collected from my personal mailbox (I have a special key and everything) and it made me smile lots and lots and lots and I miss her lots and lots and lots <3 I also got some books in the post. That was less smile-inducing.
I think I've rambled on quite enough for one night, so I'll shush now. I'm going to go exploring downtown tomorrow, so I'm sure I'll have lots of stories and pictures and excitment to share with you soon. :)

TGIF.

Never did I think I would be the kind of person who lives for the weekend, at least not while I'm a student, but for the first time in my life I can honestly say TGIF. The "G" stands for "goodness" of course (hi, Dad).
Anywho, after fifteen hours of classes in four days (I have Mondays off), I am in need of some relaxation time. So, while I promise to you great tales of Ikea, dinner dates with James Joyce and wonderful musical adventures, they will have to wait for now, because I'm off to have a glass or two five of wine. I truly am my mother's daughter.

We went to Ikea.

That is all. :)

Today, one of my professors said "he could care less"...

... I died a little inside. He's clearly never seen this:

This is same professor who made me feel like a decidedly bad Brit, as he took the class through a brief history of Britain in the 18th century, and I realised that most of it was news to me. Now there was the odd name that I recognised, or a war that sounded vaguely familiar, but other than that, I was as ignorant, if not more so, than most of my Canadian classmates. The only fact I did recognise was the premiere of Handel's Messiah in Dublin in 1742, so at least I know the important stuff.
The only other news I have to report is that today it finally rained. The rain has been imminent for a while, and after a day of confusing grey-and-windy-but-still-warm weather, the heavens opened while I was finishing off my dinner. Now my initial reaction, naturally, was "Oh fiddlesticks, I'll have to walk home in this treacherous rain" (or something to that effect). I then, however, in a moment of sheer joy, remembered that every building on this campus is connected to every other building by a series of underground tunnels, which means that I never have to go out in the rain or the cold or the snow. Genius. I love this place.

Books are expensive.

Today I spent over $250 on books, and I still haven't bought all the books I need for this term. Searching for discounted/used books, only to find that even then you're still paying $50 for one book is pretty soul-destroying, as is paying $35 for 6 Shakespeare plays, when you know fine well that you've got a nice little 3-volume collected works of Shakespeare sitting happily on your bookshelf on the other side of the Atlantic. Money aside, however, I do love books, and the fact that I now have more than two on my bookshelves is making me quite happy. :)
In other news, I've officially been here a week! It feels like longer, to be honest, because I feel like I've done a lot, even though nothing is really springing to mind when I ask myself the question "What have you done this week?"
On Friday night Jess and I hit downtown Ottawa withmy suitemate Brittany and her friends. We went to a classy establishment named "Tila Tequila" which is apparently the most promiscuous bar in Ottawa according to a delightful chap named David who took it upon himself to strike up a conversation with Jess. "I'm not saying everyone here is cheating on their other half, but if you were going to, this is the place to do it." He was quite the charmer. It was actually a pretty good club, and we danced the night away. We were then dragged out for some standard post-club fast food. Brittany told us that we had to try Poutine, a special Canadian dish. Poutine, as it turns out, consists of chips, cheese and gravy. It's hardly groundbreaking stuff. It was, however, a good end to a good night. :)
Yesterday we ventured out to Walmart again, which was less stressful this time. I bought cutlery and a plate and food and a $9 hairdryer. They had Ben & Jerry's for $3.33. This made me very happy. I later ate said Ben & Jerry's with a fork, because Walmart didn't have any spoons for sale. I also purchased a Canadian cell phone, so I can now keep in touch with my multitudes of Canadian friends. So far I have 5 numbers in my new phone. One of them's mine...
We also discovered the best place on earth yesterday: Bulk Barn. It's like a pic 'n' mix sweet shop but with everything. Sweets galore, chocolate, flour, sugar, salt, tea, pasta, rice, dried fruit etc all just in big plastic bins, and you just scoop out as much as you want/need into a bag and pay according to weight. For anyone who likes to bake (such as myself, and many of my friends from home) it was heaven. They even had an entire section of cake decorations, including large quantities of edible glitter in every colour imaginable. It was AMAZING. They also sold pinatas in the shape of nearly every major Disney/cartoon character. And they had a few shelves of British goods, such as gingers nuts, Galaxy, Yorkie and Penguins. Since I am incapable of resisting Penguins, for both their chocolatey, biscuity goodness and their unquestionable wit, I had to buy them, even though they were $5. Bulk Barn also allowed me to acquire tea of various types, so it pleased me greatly. :)
Tomorrow is Monday, which means I don't have any classes :) It also means I'll actually have to do some reading :( Got to make the most of all that money I've spent, and somewhere along the line I might even become a good student. Emphasis on the word "might".

James Joyce and Basketball.

So, I acquired me some pep and went to the basketball game...

Look at me. I'm so spirited and peppy and Ravens-loving. The game was pretty good. I chanted and cheered and got a little bit bored when we started to lose, but perked up again in the final quarter when we were winning again. :) My one problem with the game, however, was that in true British fashion, I felt like we should have been at least applauding or acknowledging the other team's achievements, just to be polite. They were from somewhere in the US, and had very few, if any supporters with them. Everytime they scored the room just washed over with awkward silence and a general air of disapproval. I found it a bit unsettling. I'm clearly too polite and British and not competitive enough. I'll have to work on that. I have, however, got the chanting down, although my low and (relatively) well-spoken British tones aren't ideal for enthusiastic yelling. And the chants have been stuck in my head all day. Another good part of the game was when Rodney appeared. He's a babe <3

The game was followed by an outdoor screening of Toy Story 3, and as much as I tried to convince myself to be a responsible student and go to bed, the thought of Spanish Buzz was too much to resist, so I went and sat in the cold until gone midnight eating candyfloss (NOT cotton candy) and drinking pop. It was fun. :)
Getting up for my 8.30 class was less fun. The class was Aboriginal Literature. I think it's going to be pretty good, and it's not something I'm ever likely to get the chance to study at home, so I'm looking forward to it :) The one problem is that I'm the only non-Canadian in the class, and I'm clearly going to have massive gaps in my knowledge when it comes to general info on Canadian and Aboriginal history, so I'll have to turn to my good friend Wikipedia for some background reading.
Then came the big one. James Joyce. I'm still quite sceptical of the class, especially since the current plan is to spend four weeks on Finnegans Wake. Four weeks. It's going to be tough, but the professor's a little bit awesome and isn't some great Joyce expert, so can relate to our overwhelming confusion, rather than looking at us like idiots. We'll give it another week, and we'll see how I feel after a few chapters of Portrait.
Other events of note include my lovely choir audition, in which the new director marvelled at the Wesh national anthem and was generally absolutely lovely. :) I also went to the pasta bar in the Caf today. You pick what you want in it and they make there and then. It's amazing.
Tonight we're going to investigate downtown a bit, and just enjoy not having anything to do, which I know won't last long.

Go Ravens!

We won. Yayz. And there was the added bonus of the outdoor showing of Toy Story 3 after the game that I'd forgotten about. However, it is currently 12.38am and I have a class in less than 8 hours, so a full update will have to wait until morning. Sleepytime now, once I've removed the smudged red lipstick from my cheeks. And my hair.

Education.

Today, my satchel and I went to our first classes. I set off at 10.25, giving myself plenty of time to grab some food and find the building for my 11am class. Turns out the class was actually at 11.30. Silly Hannah. With an extra half an hour on my hands, I found myself, Starbucks in hand, sat under a tree in the Quad. Yes. The Quad. I felt thoroughly North American.
Class no. 1 was Shakespearean Drama. I think I'm going to like this class. The prof seems lovely, although he basically worships Shakespeare, which, as anyone who took the first-year Shakespeare module in Exeter will know, is a rather different attitude from the skepticism with which we were advised to view Shakespeare. Nonetheless, he's clearly very passionate, and I love Shakespeare, and it'll be nice to view the great bard from a different perspective.
I promptly ambled my way across campus for History of Ethics, which was simply a brief introduction to the course and then we were let out after half an hour. Unexpected hour-long breaks are wonderful things. Anyways, that class looks set to be really interesting, and I finally get to study some philosophy, so I'm happy. :)
Final class of the day was British Literatures II. For someone on an exchange in Canada, I still seem to be doing an awful lot of British classes. Oh well. Stick to what you know and all that. Another class that I think I'll enjoy. Not quite as enthused by it as Shakespeare, but we'll see. We're covering a lot of texts, so it'll be a lot of reading but also a lot of breadth and variety, which I like. :)
Tomorrow brings Aboriginal Literature at 8.30am (kill me now) and a three-hour class on James Joyce deceptively named "20th Century Fiction". The jury's still out on whether or not I'm going to stick with that one, but we shall see.
Before that, however, I have a choir audition, for which I have no music, so I'm going to sing them the Welsh national anthem, because I'm awesome. Then later tonight I'm going to watch a basketball game. Don't laugh. I'm actually going to go, and attempt to enjoy it. Somewhere, deep down inside of me, there is a sports fan waiting to emerge. I'm sure of it. Kind of. Ish. Not really. We'll see. I can but try.

Guess which society I joined...

One of these days I'll remember what my degree is actually in, but for now the music geek in me will continue to reign.
Today we had academic orientation. We weren't sure if we actually had to go because we're not freshman, but we thought we'd go anyway, if only for the free tshirt. It turned out to be a couple of hours of waiting around as they piled 4000 students into one room for convocation: a weird event involving bagpipes, the national anthem, a very anecdote-happy guest speaker and pledging to be good students and not let ourselves die. It was strange. We planned to hang around for the free food, but the prospect of standing in a massive queue for the sake of a burger was a bit much. Instead we went to Chicken Chicken, which is next to Pizza Pizza. They really go for ingenious company names here.
I spent the afternoon lounging around eating Malteasers and watching Chalet Girl. Ed Westwick makes me happy, although in my head I think I spent the entire film thinking of him as Chuck Bass. <3
Later came the Expo (freshers fair/squash) where I considered joining the Quidditch team, before realising that no amount of Harry Potter references could make me run around a field on a broomstick chasing someone in a yellow tshirt. Although it does slight worry me that it's the actual running around and not the general ridiculousness of it that's putting me off.
We then established that Carleton really doesn't have talent. Really.
The big event of the day was a talk from MTV's The Buried Life. For those of you who don't know (I certainly didn't) they're basically four guys who travel around trying to complete their bucket list, and trying to help other people do things on their own bucket lists. They've done some pretty cool stuff, like sneaking into the Playboy mansion, riding a bull, playing basketball with President Obama, as well as helping people reconnect with long lost children etc. It sounds amazing, and not at all like anything you'd ever associate with MTV. They spent the time talking about what they'd done and encouraging people to do what they want to do and to make dreams a reality. I'll be sure to take them up on that advice once I've figured out what my dreams are. Anyways, listening to these guys talk and hearing students share the things on their bucket lists was really interesting and gave me a lot of respect for Canadian people. In true British fashion, I've been pretty cynical so far with regards to the passion and enthusiasm that these people have, but I actually think that it's lovely that these people are so happy and open. Yes, the screaming and cheering can be a little a lot terrifying and I find myself missing the reserved and repressed ways of the Brits, but the spirit and pride that these students have for their school, their country and just the fact that they're alive is something to be admired. Having said that, an entire song about how much they hate the University of Ottawa (culminating in a chorus of "Fuck you Ottawa U) is a bit much.
Classes start tomorrow, which means I should probably get some sleep, since tomorrow alone I have almost as many hours of classes as I did in an entire week in Exeter, and I'm not sure how well reacquainting myself with education is going to go.
And yes, that is a Carleton University bandana in my hair. Go Ravens!

Today was good day.

I slept, watched Doctor Who & Outnumbered, properly unpacked so my clothes are no longer sprawled all over the floor (that won't last long), ate a Beaver Tail (first of many, I predict) and watched a pretty light show on Parliament building. Today did not involve pep. Hannah is content. :)

Curled up in bed with this man...

Hurrah for iPlayer, VPNs, duvets and chocolate! The only thing that could make this better would be a cup of tea, but since I have neither a kettle nor any tea bags, that could be problematic. Never mind. Matt Smith is more than enough to keep me content. :)

In other news...

I said "parking lot" earlier. I nearly disowned myself. Bad times.

Pep rallies are terrifying.

I am tired. Very tired. Travelling yesterday was interesting. After they boarded us over an hour after the flight was scheduled to leave, we then sat on the plane for an hour before being told to get off. Then they gave us free food vouchers (win!), so we knew we'd be there a while. It was lovely though, because I made some friends, and during the flight the four of us found an empty row at the front of the plane and proceeded to talk and giggle and flash lights hilariously and obnoxiously, and I could think of no better way to pass the time. :) We finally boarded for departure over 5 hours later than scheduled, and set of on the 9-hour flight.  On the plane I watched Glee. As the name suggests, it made me happy. A later connecting flight meant that I arrived at Carleton at about 12.15am. After an hour of wandering back and forth between Prescott House and Res Commons, I finally actually got into my room and promptly slept badly due to a lack of bedding and warmth. It was stressful.
Today was better. Today I saw Canadians being Canadian and crazy people helping people move in. And I saw a chipmunk. It made me happy. I went to Walmart, which was less exciting than aniticipated because it was busy and confusing. Apparently women's spray deodorant doesn't exist here. Who knew? I did, however, buy comfort chocolate to ease my tired soul, which was gratefully received by my stomach. Speaking of which, the food hall is AMAZING. There's just food everywhere, of all different varieties, and you can eat as much as you want. I had bacon and maple syrup. I felt thoroughly Canadian. Soon, I shall turn into a moose. A very fat moose.
This evening, we went to a pep rally. There were (not very good) cheerleaders and chanting and stunt men/acrobats and cheering and massive beach balls and a crazy woman screaming nonsensically on a stage and a video of Rodney the Raven pissing on the University of Ottawa. It was an interesting and sweaty experience. We tried to be enthusiastic, but we reserved Brits just don't have the spirit of these high-on-life Canadians. In true British fashion, we proceeded to the pub, only to find that it was shut for Orientation. This was not well received, but we were all too tired and jet-lagged to care.
So now you're all caught up, I'm going to go and be unconscious for a while, because 10.30pm is just about justifiable, in spite of the fact that I've been tired for hours. Tonight I get to sleep with an actual sheet, pillow and quilt, rather than a towel, a folded hoodie and a not-quite-big-enough blanket. Yay. :)

Packing.

Over the past 12 months, packing has become the bane of my very existence. This time last year came the great university adventure, which involved packing suitcases and boxes with my mountains of stuff and transporting it 99 miles south. As any student will know, unpacking your life into a box room and a tiny kitchen cupboard is no easy task. Pots, pans, baking equipment, clothes, shoes, a keyboard, a violin, a bassoon, a printer and all sorts besides were somehow found a home, much to the distress of my dear mother, who was handing me plastic storage boxes left, right and centre.
Then, over the course of the year, came the trips home, where one weekend in Wales would require hauling a massive pink suitcase onto the train in order to accommodate the number of clothes that needed washing. And let's not even mention moving home, when I made perhaps my biggest packing faux pas. The plan was simple: Dad would take most of my stuff home in the car, leaving behind only what I needed for the next two weeks, which I would then bring home on the train. Simple enough, except when you forget to send your large hardback dictionary home in the car, and you end up dragging a suitcase, two holdalls, a rucksask and a handbag around a crowded train, while strangers comment on the poor girl who was "carrying her whole life around".
And then came the summer, during which I have essentially lived out of a suitcase, not really bothering to unpack and repack during the sporadic days at home between adventures and holidays. Now, once again, I have to pack. This time for Canada.
Now, I know that I should be grateful that I get to travel and go to university in another country and all sorts of excitement and that I shouldn't complain, but I really don't like packing. Some people are good at packing, and organised with packing. When my dad's colleague went on holiday, he was packed a good week in advance; a man from church is known to do a practice pack a week or so before he actually has to pack; one friend of my sister, when packing for two consecutive trips, even drew up spreadsheets. That's far too organised for my liking. I much prefer to just wander around and pick things up and decide whether or not it's going. There's one slight problem with this method: it has turned me into a notorious overpacker, for, I reckon, these reasons.

1. I'm indecisive. Really indecisive.
2. I like my clothes. Now, don't get me wrong; I'm no fashion icon, but I do like the clothes I have, and I have a lot of them. I'm not the kind of person who just buys clothes because they're cheap or in fashion or whatever. Everything I buy, I really like, which makes choosing all the more difficult.
3. I'm the queen of "it might come in handy one day". I look at everything and imagine its potential purpose, however unlikely. Not long ago, I justified keeping a top that I haven't worn in years because it might come in handy if I ever have to dress up as a zebra. Yeah.

And as a serial overpacker, the likelihood of me fitting a year's worth of stuff into one 23kg suitcase is very slim, so it looks like I'll be paying the extra $50 for another case. Bye bye money.
So, in less than 24 hours I am leaving for Gatwick, and this is my progress so far:

Now, while my boots and free Exeter University hoody will come in handy, I might need a bit more, so I should probably stop rambling in this blog about packing and actually pack (I'm also very good at procrastinating, which will become apparent over the course of the year). So I suppose I should probably get to the big questions such as "where's my toothbrush, is there room for the Welsh flag, where's the donkey going to go and is my giraffe costume really necessary?"