"Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?" ~Albus Dumbledore

Monday 31 October 2011

Dreaming of the Doctor


I know I blogged yesterday but I feel I have to share this. And no, it's not about Halloween. I'm sure you are already aware of the date but I don't particularly care about Halloween. Don't get me wrong, it's a great holiday but being British, I see it as an American thing and generally can't be bothered with it. Especially when I have essays to write and journal articles to read.

Anyway, just a little mini post this morning, literally just to tell you the dream I had last night. Before you start, it wasn't anything scary or weird or dirty... in fact, as my dreams go, it was pretty normal.

eleventh-doctor-matt-smith-7In my dream, I met the Doctor. Following on from my previous point, for a dream, not that weird. I mean, I've had dreams where I've had to stop Harry Potter from running over a cat in my garage! And following on from yesterday's blog, dreaming about the Doctor? Way nerdy!

Anyway, it was a short dream. I saw the Doctor walking along the path on the other side of the road. I crossed the road and called his name, he turned around and I gave him a big hug. My arms around his neck, I said "Thank you Doctor. Thank you for all the times you've saved the universe, even when we didn't know it." All he did was tighten his arms around my waist and bury his head into my shoulder. "And you're not alone Doctor. You have all this friends, all over the world, all through the universe and you don't even realise!"

And that was it. I think he might have let me go at some point and said something like "No one's ever said that to me before", in a kind of cute and pathetic way that made me want to hug him again. Kind of boring from a neutral context but when I remembered it when I woke up, it put me in a really good mood.

God, I watch too much Doctor Who! But I love it and I love him and even though he's a fictional character and it was my dream, just telling him he is wonderful made my day.

Sunday 30 October 2011

Closet Nerds

As quite a shy young woman, I do not broadcast my nerdiness. In fact, on the outside, I probably look quite normal. Until I open my mouth. But definitely not if I'm wearing my purple skinny jeans. Although I have been praised on my choice of trouser colours. Case in point, I don't look like much of a nerd. I wear normal enough clothes, listen to normal enough music, read normal enough books to appear normally average. But under this cover, I am a nerd. A proud one at that. I wear All Caps and Doctor Who t-shirts, I listen to Chameleon Circuit and The Parselmouths, I am obsessed with the Harry Potter books.

Yet, unless someone gets to know me, actually gives me a chance to talk freely about what genuinely interests me, most of the world would never know. And when I find that one of my friend's is also somewhat secretly nerdy, I love them even more. And looking around campus, I notice things. There is a lot more nerdiness out there than I thought. Some examples include a girl sitting on the bus in front of me, listening to All Caps, and a girl walking past me on campus wearing a shirt that says 'Keep calm and it will be totally awesome!' I didn't even get made fun of for knowing the name Buckbeak's would-be executioner! All this is making me think that there is a lot more nerdiness in most of us than we think.

Specifically, I am an English Nerd, so being good friends with Sophie is awesome! In fact, I have a blog because of her! Being her friend gives me a chance to discuss books. Because despite most of my friends at university doing an English degree, we don't generally talk books. So me and Sophie... yeah, it's probably not a proud thing to admit to but we have major in depth discussions on characters and plot lines from books that are not only not on our reading list but are probably too young for us anyway. By the way, I am talking about the Georgia Nicholson Confessions series and the Morganville Vampires series. And sometimes Harry Potter.  You know, when we're not talking about Glee or Bones or how much of a fool her housemate is.

At this point I would like to just ask if anyone knows what Minecraft is. Some do, some don't. Ok, so I got hooked because The Boyfriend plays it and even though I have been playing, ooh, at least a year, I am not very good. And by that I mean, I get blown up by creepers and shot by skeletons. A lot. I like to play on peaceful mode and build things. Generally it's little villages made of pine wood or cobblestone. But last week, like the huge nerd I am, I made a new world purely to recreate Hogwarts.

Yeah, feel free to laugh at me. I am even re-reading the books and researching Harry Potter Wiki just so all the rooms go in the right place. Oh God, I just realised how pathetic that is!

The point of this blog was to highlight that nerdiness is everywhere and in most inevitable. Pretty much all my friends are nerds in some respect and most are hardly aware of it. If anything were to come from this blog, it would be this: don't hide your nerdiness, don't be afraid to show it. Because chances are, there are people out there that are just as nerdy as you and you don't even realise.

Saturday 15 October 2011

To Make Love To Something Innocent

Now, just a warning, this blog will not have much of a point, it will undoubtedly be a ramble. You ok with that? Good.

And before you ask, the title is from 'Starstrukk', the song I had in my head when I woke up this morning.

The main thing on my mind at the moment is that today is my last day as a teenager. I am not really sure why I feel the need to tell you this but it seems appropriately eventful and scary to blog about.

Can nineteen even be categorised as teenager? Technically, I suppose so, it still has the suffix 'teen' but after eighteen, it doesn't feel as adolescent as sixteen or seventeen. Old enough to know better, too young to care! I love that expression and here, it is definitely worthwhile saying it.

I love birthdays. I have always had trouble sleeping the night before, wake up ridiculously early and open most, if not all, of my presents in my parents room before breakfast. This year, I probably will do all these things but I am turning 20!


You get that? Twenty! I am definitely not a kid anymore! I just cannot wrap my head around this, I feel old! And trust me, my boyfriend (3 months younger than me) will not stop stating that! Yes, I know I am turning 20! It feels weird enough without you annoying me!

At the same time, it's not like I am miraculously going to turn into a responsible adult overnight. I'm not saying I'm not already when the time calls for it but for the most part, I am incredibly immature. I'm not going to change just because I will be 20 years old. I will still be the same random, weird, nerdy person I am right now.

Right, I think that is quite enough rambling for now. I do apologise for this fail of an entry. Wish me a happy birthday for tomorrow and I will see you when I'm 20!

Sunday 9 October 2011

The Wedding of River Song

As promised, the review of 'The Wedding of River Song'. Note: I am re-watching it while writing this, as I have kind of forgotten the episode! But, in theory, this means that the review will be more fact-packed and opinionated. But we shall see!

I loved the random, messed up time of London, with balloon cars and Dickens on BBC Breakfast. Also, I imagine the pterodactyls as giant pigeons. And Churchill? Love him, in a strange way. I liked how they bought him back as an important character. One thing, what does SPQR stand for?

The Silence has always interested me. At first, I thought they were a species, but even after Robot Amy told the Doctor they weren't, I have associated the tall green men in suits as the species. But the eye-patches are used to remember their image, which is very clever. However, it did still creep me out a little to see Amy and Rory wearing them, as I have associated the eye-patch with the evil midwife.

Oh, it did make me sad and incredibly happy that the Doctor mentioned Rose and Jack. And the Brigadier! I welled up a little. So sad that the phone call was what it took for the Doctor to realise it was his time. 'My friends have always been the best of me.' Oh Doctor, why does it take your death to realise that you are never alone? You have all these wonderful friends who love you. And will not let you die.

I'm not sure I will go over every detail concerning the Doctor and River at the Lake but I will just say this: the Doctor's face when he is expecting to die is hilarious!

Amy and Rory. I do love them, even though a lot of the episodes lately seem to revolve around them, which is growing tiresome. But the train-office? Awesome! For a genius, the Doctor really is quite slow sometimes, isn't he? How do I look? Cool. Really? No. And the drawing of Rory? That just cracked me up. I loved how even in the wrong time, Rory still protects Amy to the death and, of course 'Die one last time and know she will never come back for you'. But she did!

Save Madame Kovarian because the Doctor would? No, because the Doctor is not a mother who had his child taken from him. Amy did. I don't think she made the wrong decision at all.

I have to say, in this episode, River was almost genuinely likeable. I really felt for her because who could kill the person they loved? Even if not killing them meant the end of time. The only thing though, I am assuming that during the Doctor's running away, he had that 200 hundred years with River. So her loving him is justified and they have somewhat made up for lost time, if you catch my drift and ignore the pun? Oh, I love a good romance! The Doctor and River's wedding, a match made across time and space, the circle is complete and other clichéd nonsense. 

I liked the ending. Because through the whole series, it almost seemed like River didn't care but she did, she just couldn't tell them, so I loved that River came back to her current time line and filled Amy in with her Tardis diary.

Re-watching the episode has made me realise: the answer was there all along! How didn't I see the twist with the Teselecta? It makes me both angry at myself and proud of the writers. It also made me realise how did the Doctor go back to the Teselecta to be a robot if while he was running, he went to the version where River doesn't kill him? Did that make sense? Probably not. Oh, I just thought, maybe all the way through the story, the Doctor telling Churchill and the wrong time-line and everything, he was the robot? That makes more sense!

Yes, this episode wasn't as good as others but it was necessary to answer the questions, fill in the blanks and so on. So, all in all, I loved it. The question is 'Doctor who?' yes? So, my question is, why is the Doctor so important, so dangerous, and so suddenly, that the Silence tried to have him killed? See, more questions than answers with Doctor Who, but that's the way I love it! And now, of course, he has to be quiet, step back into the shadows, essentially not be such a show-off. I wonder how long that will last?

Tuesday 4 October 2011

You want to stear but I'm shifting gears

Holy crap it's October! Double holy crap, university has started in full swing! You know what that means? Probably not. To me, that means that the pressure is on, the work load will start to mount up, reading is already something I am beginning to dread and student services screw us over.

Seriously, the timetable is something that surely they would have organised by now, seeing as we are technically two weeks into the term. I mean, come on, they had all summer! But no! They have to completely bugger it up and split some modules in half when they shouldn't be, give some students two tutors instead of the normal one, and then, give some of us completely new timetables just when we had wrapped our head around the first one.

Oh yeah, I got a new timetable this afternoon. Even though I knew where I was this morning, I went into my classroom knowing I was supposed to be there and after all the confusion of different seminars timetabled, I was ok. Because I was supposed to be there. So when my tutor emailed us all to check and see if student services had updated our timetable, I didn't think I had anything to worry about.

NO! I was moved! They took my day off, where I would have had a long weekend and put my seminars there instead!

Ok, so really, I don't have much to complain about. Yeah, it's confusing because now I need to remember different rooms and times but, as The Boyfriend pointed out, I now have the same day off as him now, which is nice. Also, I come in later than originally timetabled, which is awesome. The only thing, well two things actually, is I now don't know who my teacher will be or who will be in my class. And I am no longer with my best friend anymore :( That sucks.

Anyway, with that out the way, let's move on. First week back at uni going well apart from that little hiccup. I've only had two of my five new classes so far. I have two brand new modules tomorrow which I am looking forward to but am also kind of nervous: I don't know who else will be there. Plus, it's my longest day tomorrow: 9 until 6, with a 5 hour gap in between. Yeah, student services, why couldn't you change that around a bit?

I believe you are due a Doctor Who finale post, which I had kind of forgotten about until now (sorry about that). I will get right on that. And by that I mean, you will be lucky to get one at the weekend. So until then, goodbye and wish me luck! <3