Seven Days

I can hardly believe that only one week ago school broke up for the summer.


In the last week I have organised, vastly enjoyed and tried to assist with the fallout of one of my dearest friend's hen nights. This involved zorbing, vast amounts of 'ribena' and a tea party fit for a beautiful bride before descending into a night of many, many shots of hard liquor, somewhat blue comedy and the famous superhero, Mr Muscle.


This experience further cemented my deeply held belief that the people about whom we care are the most important aspects of one's life. Yes, zorbing was terrifying, yes, Mr Muscle was exceptionally and not enjoyably friendly, but someone who is very special to me had an amazing time, saw almost all of her friends together in one place (no mean feat) and got absolutely trashed with hilarious consequences.

What a winner.

The mid point of the week took rather a dip, namely in the diagnosis of a wildly inconvenient malady which is really rather tiresome.


However, the latter-half-of-the-week-upswing came in the form of my graduation which was yesterday. It was a lovely day complete with the wearing of ridiculous polyester gowns (yes, I did a number of Snape impressions), the nerve-racking walk across the stage and neglected practice of general bitchiness which only happens when a group of girls who get along famously are left with no other pastime than to watch other girls and comment upon their outfits. There were some absolute gems.


The day was, of course, tinged with the bittersweet as it is the end of a course which in itself would have been largely unbearable had it not been for some of the people I met through it. Some of them are picture below in a picture which preluded my mortorboard narrowly missing one of the photographers.

Thus, I will finish where I began, with the overwhelming feeling I have of my luckiness in the people who surround me and whose friendship is my proudest possession. 


Now I'm off to sob into a large cup of earl grey.


Lizi xxx

Harry Potter and The Best Week Ever

Hello all,


This week has been quite the emotional rollercoaster. Sure there were dramas at work, sleep deprivation and a mysterious illness but that's not important right now.


This week, (or rather, the last nine days) I have been to see a Harry Potter movie every night. Eight of these were at the cinema. All of them were amazing. The cinema in town made the genius marketing decision to show each of the Harry Potter films in order, culminating in the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 on Friday. 


We spent a week at Hogwarts, transported to world of Hippogriffs and Horcruxes, Dragons and Dementors, Slytherins and Snarfaluffs. It was magical, in every sense. Every night a new adventure was waiting for us, an adventure that would shape the characters that grew up before our eyes and form the relationships between them with a subtlety and deftness that can only be truly appreciated when watching the films in order over a short period of time. I was captivated, completely immersed in this world which is so like reality and so crushingly different and I found, as the week went on, an overwhelming sense of melancholy and, dare I say it, dread.

Don't get me wrong, I did not leave the cinema on Friday hysterically wailing that, 'I just can't believe it's all over!' But the end of the series is more than that to me, and to so many other fans of the books and the movies. I am 23, so was 9 when the first book, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, was released in 1997. Although I only read it in 1999 after my brother had brought home The Chamber of Secrets from school. I was 11, therefore, when I, like Harry, entered the magical world of Hogwarts, Diagon Alley and Platform 9 and 3/4.


So, with the last film comes the end of my childhood, I suppose. There is no new Potter to look forward to anymore (at least once the DVD has come out). It's a strange, sad feeling, a feeling which was only somewhat ameliorated by how jaw-droppingly, heart-stoppingly gorgeous Ron was in the final film. Gosh.


Mischief Managed.


Lizi 

The Continuing Adventures of Ugly Naked Guy

My interest in Ugly Naked Guy has developed into an almost daily sighting and comment. Earlier this month, this daily sighting uncovered a somewhat disturbing turn of events.


Ugly Naked Guy is often naked. In his kitchen (the only room I observe him in). This is peculiar in itself, because of all the rooms of the house (or in this case, flat), I would say the kitchen is the one in which nakedness is the least conducive to productivity. Also, the first sighting of this was only a few days after my initial declaration of non-dangerous obsession with UNG, prompting worrying thoughts that I was able to predict the future.

This, upon further thought, is not the case.


Tonight I learned something else about UNG. He does not enjoy the music of Elton John, who is currently belting out all the hits (and more) in the nearby cricket ground. It's a cultural extravaganza, I'm sure you'll agree.


But (not) Ugly (sometimes) Naked Guy would not agree. He has closed all of his windows and retreated beyond the kitchen, one can only presume to escape the Crocodile Rock. 

I know, Elton, I can't believe it either. 


Lizi xx

My Ugly Naked Guy.

Just to be clear, the man we're talking about here is neither noticeably ugly, particularly fat or at all naked. This needs to be understood with the utmost clarity before we move on.

There is a man who lives in a flat opposite my study window. He is a man of regular habits and often, when I am trawling facebook of an evening or watching endless make up video blogs, he is scrupulously drying his dishes and cutlery after an early dinner which I imagine to be both nutritious and reminiscent of meat and two veg.


As you can see, I have become obsessed in a small way with this man and his habits and am therefore perplexed today by the appearance of some swimming trunks suspended from the window of his bathroom (obscured glass, dear reader, worry not). Is this a flag of sorts, declaring to the outside world his summertime feelings? Is it a haphazard surrender (they are partially white, after all) to who knows what? Is this display a regular occurrence, perhaps weekly? (Having only lived in my new abode for 9 days, I cannot be sure).


It is a mystery.




Love,

Lizi xxxxxx

Royal Wedding

So, I was pretty non-fussed about the Royal Wedding before today. But as I settled to my breakfast, thinking idly that I would just watch the coverage for the next 20 minutes, I was captivated. I watched it for about 3 hours. I laughed. I cried. I had forgotten a central facet of myself.

I love weddings, most ardently. 

I cry at any and all weddings, up to and including the wedding on Glee, the impending BT advert wedding, the wedding in any book I've ever read. I love weddings. And Will and Kate's was beautiful, romantic and wholly, unashamedly British, in the most natural sense.


I'll leave you with this image, soon to be plastered across every website, newspaper and romantic's psyche for evermore. I challenge you not to well up.

Lovely.


Lizi xxx

Harry Potter and the Order of the Frickin' Phoenix

So, I know, either you're like, 'yeah, I've read that loads of times, the plot is inscribed upon my heart and will be inextricably linked to my childhood, I have a Harry Potter tattoo, why are you writing about it?' or 'you're a grown-up, why are you reading Harry Potter?'.


If you fall into the latter category, you may as well leave now. Go on, make like a tree. Also, we probably can't be friends.

Are they gone? Are we safe?


I love Harry Potter. I read the books when I need something comforting, familiar and amazingly entertaining. Some people have teddies or keepsakes that comfort them, I have books and the Harry Potter series included in there. Sure, it's less cuddleable, but in terms of pure escapism, it can't be beat.


The Order of the Phoenix is the first of the darker, more ominous Potter books and the point where the reader starts to worry about what's going to happen at the end of the series. The foreshadowing throughout all of the novels, but especially this one, is subtle and underlies much of the minor events of the plot. This interweaving is one of my favourite things about J.K. Rowling's writing style; every time I read one of the books I discover something else that I hadn't noticed before.

In terms of characterisation, it's also the point where Ginny, Neville and Luna really come into the story and become main characters. Neville is my favourite character in the books (Ron takes the biscuit in the films, but that's another story) because he's got the charming vulnerability yet tenacity of the underdog. 


Neville's backstory also comes to the fore in the Order of the Phoenix and makes not empathising with his character impossible but he is still providing the comic relief that has been a part of his role throughout the series.


I think this is the Potter book that I've read the most times and, having just finished it again, I already want to go back to the beginning. 


Have a lovely long weekend!


Lizi xxxx

Hard Times

by Charle Dickens


So, I read this book. This shouldn't really come as a surprise seeing as reading books is kinda my thing.  I recently finished this at the same time as finishing writing an essay about the changes to assessment in English laid out in the government's most recent white paper. They illuminated each other, to say the least.


I expected it to be difficult as pretty much everyone has told me that Dickens is, but, as I found with his other books I've read, this was a completely enjoyable page turner and hugely topical. 


The story revolves around Thomas Gradgrind, his family and acquaintances. Thomas Gradgrind believes, above all else, in the importance of facts. That is, until his daughter, who is highly educated in his 'system', falls into a crisis that brings Gradgrind to question his philosophy. Dicken's prose, though famously circuituous and with so many tangents you'd think you'd wandered into a maths nightmare, is enchanting, with a rhythm and security that wraps you up like a warm blanket. 


However, Dickens was 150 years before his time in terms of his message: a warning against the mistreatment of the environment and the humble and an admonition about the dangers of too much reliance on facts rather than 'fancy'.


Everybody even distantly involved in education should read this, especially Michael Gove.


Love


Lizi xx