My So-Called Life
the random and not-so-random musings of a twenty-something history geek
My So-Called Lifethe random and not-so-random musings of a twenty-something history geek |
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| About Lizzie: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Lizzie is a fully qualified history teacher having finished her course at Canterbury Christ Church University. She's also a geek who was secretary of the University of Kent Computing Society during her three year BA at the University of Kent. She is very much in love with her shiny Husband, though she is sad that he doesn't glow bloo :( More about her on her website: http://carina.org.uk |
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| Oct. 24th, 2009 @ 12:56 pm Eye test | |||
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Hiding out here: CT2
Yesterday was rather busy by my standards. It was the 6 year anniversary of Ben and I getting together and we went out for dinner at Cafe Des Amis in Canterbury - the first time I've been and it was yummy. I would highly recommend, though wish you better luck in who you sit next to. The people next to us started arguing and walked out half way through the starter. Exciting!Mostly feeling:  happyNow Playing: Buffy the Vampire Slayer S2 E1: When she was bad Ben was very sweet and got me chocolate, Season 3 of ER and some flowers. It was lovely and the flowers look so cheerful :) We ended up in town in the afternoon because he had the day off and I needed (was overdue) an eyetest and wanted him to come so I had some advice on what glasses to pick afterwards. Even if my prescription had remained the same, I needed new glasses anyway. Sooooo... previous eye test. New eye test: (Sph is my short sight, Cyl is my astigmatism) Right eye Sph: -1.75 Cyl: -1.00 Axis 20 Left eye Sph: -2.50 Cyl: -1.25 Axis: 180 So my astigmatism is marginally better in my left eye, and my short sight marginally better in my right eye, but this eye test has pretty much confirmed that my sight is settling down, which is nice. I suspect, short of laser eye surgery I won't have 20:20 without glasses, but I'm pretty pleased that it's at least not really getting worse any more. It turns out that with glasses I have superhuman sight! BWhahahahahaha - well, what I mean is, with my new glasses I have better than 20:20 vision (two notches better apparently). It's a pity that without them everything is blurry :( Will post pics of me with new glasses when I get them (on Thursday). These are them (and these are my new sunglasses). It's a bit scary how fast money disappears when you buy an eyetest and new glasses (even on 2 for 1). |
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| Feb. 2nd, 2009 @ 12:28 pm Bulldozers in the snow | |||
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There's still snow here today, not as much as most of you but a good inch or so, and more is falling now, meaning UKC is closing at 2pm, and a couple of schools are closing now that were open earlier due to worsening conditions. Our stairs, which have been swept and salted twice since yesterday are overwhelmed with snow again. It's all rather exciting ;) For readers elsewhere I should explain that here in the UK, especially in the South East corner (and I'm almost as south and east as you can get) we don't usually get snow, especially snow that settles enough to do stuff in due to the jet stream which keeps Britain warm, despite it being on the same longitude as Moscow (I believe). So when it does snow and settles it causes chaos ;) Our excitement this morning was doubled (or more!) by being able to have a proper play with ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} benc's Christmas present, Lego Technic set 8275, a Motorized Bulldozer in the snow.Research suggested it would work very well in the snow, as there are videos of the Lego development team testing one of the development models in the snow, but we still wanted to have a play ourselves. This most recent (and heavy) snow has given us the perfect opportunity. So we did. Here are the videos to prove it! First benc had a go while I filmed:Then I drove it while benc filmed:( Picture of ben playing with his shiny ) I think I can safely say that a good time was had by all :) |
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| Sep. 9th, 2008 @ 12:58 pm A disturbing trend and the solution to the UK's economic woes | |||
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benc has just come to a startling conclusion that I feel must be shared with the world. The last time the economy crashed Norman Lamont was Chancellor.  This time, Alastair Darling is Chancellor.  ( What do they have in common? ) ( Thus, the solution to the UK's economic woes is... ) |
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| Aug. 30th, 2008 @ 08:29 am Summer Holiday | |||
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We're off on our Summer Holiday today, heading up to Rosedale Abbey on the North Yorks Moors and staying in one of these. I'm looking forward to it more than I can say :D Yay Holiday! Yay Yorkshire! :D As with last year's trip to Skegness, this one covers our wedding anniversary. Believe it or not as of 3rd September we'll have been married for 3 years! :D If you need me then you can get my via my mobile (see Giant Floating Contact Details Post if you don't think you have it), but I won't be online till we get back next Saturday. Have a lovely week everyone :) |
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| Jan. 4th, 2008 @ 12:55 pm Book a Week Challenge 2008 | |||
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The Chalet Bulletin Board is having a Book a Week challenge for 2008 and I have decided to take part. It would be a personal challenge to read at least one book a week so non-competitive, although I think the titles of the books read should be listed on CBB, along with author and a brief description or opinion if you felt like it. Rules would be: 1) No rereads allowed towards bookcount 2) As long as you have 52 by the end of the year, that is fine. A book a week means on average. As I read them I am also planning on saying at least a little bit here about each one. Perhaps more than a little bit if it takes my fancy :) ( A meme I have stolen from Phil ) Finally, a very happy birthday to my lovely husband, ben ( benc) (who has been featured in the LA Times this week!) |
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| Jan. 1st, 2008 @ 07:54 pm Weighted Companion Cube Cake | |||
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Ever since Portal came out in Mid October last year, my husband benc has been more or less obsessed with Moist Delicious Cake and The Weighted Companion Cube which are both "components" of the game. His Weighted Companion Cube Plushie arrived just before Christmas and he fell in love with it. I decided to make him a cake for his birthday on Friday. I'd been toying with the idea since the game had first come out in October, but with the arrival of the plushie version I had a 3D model I could copy. Today me and my friend rahslowe got down to work and spent the day making a Weighted Companion Cube Cake. First we went shopping for the necessary articles with which to make cake. No mean feat, given today was new years' day and only Sainsbury's was open (Morrisons and Asda being shut) and even Sainsbury's had very little in the way of what we needed. Luckily we just got more expensive stuff and managed to get everything we wanted.  The cake ingredients  and the icing ingredients. First we made two basic sponge cakes. The recipe we used was simple and easily scalable- 1 egg to 2 ounces of everything else. We used three eggs so the quantities were: 3 eggs 6oz Caster Sugar 6oz Butter 6oz Flour We chose to be masochists and mixed the cake by hand, then cooked it in Rah's rectangular Lasagne dish as we felt it was a suitable size. While the first cake was cooling we made the second cake. As the second cake was cooling we began to construct the cube. First we cut the first cake in half and stuck the halves together with Jam (strawberry, but you could use any that took your fancy). We used the second cake to continue the construction, also cutting it in half and sticking all the bits together with strawberry jam. Then we trimmed the sides to a greater or lesser extent to make a cube shape of what was left.  The offcuts.  The naked Companion Cube. While various parts were cooking and cooling we made templates from cardboard to cut into the icing around so we had the right shapes to decorate the cube with.  The templates with the plushie version which we were copying. Next came the really messy bit - making the icing! We used a large box of ready to roll royal icing and icing sugar to act as "flour" and stop the icing from sticking to the work surface. We added black food colouring sparingly to make varying shades of grey and some pink food colouring to make the hearts. These got covered in white icing sugar in the process of colouring and rolling it out, but a pastry brush and water took care of that and restored them to the colours they were supposed to be. To use the templates, just lay them out on top of the icing on your worktop and use a sharp knife to cut around them (much as you would with a pastry cutter). The thin lines of pink were writing icing. The hardest bit was getting the bottom layer of icing the right shade of grey and long and wide enough to cover the entire cube. Then we used water to stick the pieces of icing which had been cut from the templates onto the bottom layer. The consistency when wet was something like wet clay. Eventually it was done, but wet so we left it to dry while we cleared up the terrifying mess we had created. Finally it was more or less dry and looked like this: ( mmm, caek ) Unfortunately we only managed to make half a companion cube out of cake, but we're already making plans for next time, one of which (suggested by Ben) is to make two half cube cakes and serve them one on an orange plate and one on a blue plate. If you have played portal you will get the reference ;) All pictures of the event can be found here. I recommend getting a friend to help you, it would have been much harder without Rah's help. Thanks Rah and Happy Birthday Ben :) [EDIT] Cross posted to my website. How to make a Weighted Companion Cube Cake. |
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| Sep. 10th, 2007 @ 04:02 pm Holiday in Skegness | |||
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Hiding out here: CT2
As I mentioned in my last entry we went on holiday to Skegness/Chapel St. Leonards for a week in a fixed site caravan. We had a lovely time and selected photos are here and some different ones here. All photos were taken by Mostly feeling:  nervousNow Playing: Various programmes from the BBC archive trial benc (I was taking black and white pictures on a film camera which have yet to be developed).We did a fair bunch of stuff, though it was all sadly rather curtailed because the effects of my depression are such that after doing something for 3 or 4 hours I was so tired I had to come home and sleep. One of the things that we did that isn't in pictures is we drove an hour and a half to Stamford so we could see The Dam Busters (which had been cleaned up a little) on the big screen. Well worth it :D though I was dead almost all of the next day. When we went to Skegness we saw the Skegness lifeboat with its awesome tractor which pulls it down the beach to the sea and pulls it back out again:  It was sooooo cool :D I won a zippy toy at the "Hook a Duck" stall on Skegness pier and he "did" Skegness:  In Chapel St. Leonards we found possibly the most offensive building in all of the UK, the Golden Palm:  The pictures don't do it justice - the palm trees *flashed*. The shopping arcade owned by the Golden Palm also produced the worst curry I have ever had - sauce like water, sweetened with sugar and chicken so dry it had probably been sitting under lights for hours. The curry places around Skegness were all very special. None of the ones near to us did "Curry". They all did Curry/Kebabs/Pizzas/Burgers. Really we should have known better than to buy from there. On our last day we went to the beach, as it was the only day really nice enough for it. I buried Ben:  We worked on a sandcastle:  Which had a working moat :D  Thus, our work was done:  (Mine is the blue spade). Finally, ben brought me a giant Eeyore for an anniversary present:  He's pretty awesome :) Today I have called the Job Centre plus in an effort to apply for Incapacity benefit as advised to me by Payroll at UKC. It seems very complicated and I have no idea if I'll be eligable but I don't loose anything by applying. I have also been abusing the BBCs archive trial and now have about 12 tabs of things to watch. Ah well, will keep me busy! And finally, the reason I chose the icon I did: we got back from holiday to a letter from our Letting Agency saying they'll be coming to inspect the flat for the first time in two years on Thursday. It's a routine inspection but I'm bricking it and utterly convinced we'll be evicted despite saner voices telling me I'm being a muppet. I'm sure on Thursday I'll be able to come back and tell you all that they were right. Until then I suspect I'll be a bit of a nervous heap. |
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| Aug. 31st, 2007 @ 11:11 pm Dalek Toy | |||
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I found Dr Who Operation in Asda (aka, shop of evil) earlier and immediately thought of bethanthepurple (who probably wants one for Birthday/Christmas/$random celebration), though I knew it may well interest any of you other Dr Who addicts out there who happen to read my LJ. Picture below. Sorry for the crappiness, I took it with my cameraphone :S  In other news, I'm off on holiday tomorrow, to that most romantic of locations*: Skegness (actually, a fixed caravan in a caravan park in a place nearby called Chapel St. Leonards. It's in this lovely location, where benc used to spend his holidays, that we will be celebrating our second wedding anniversary. Doesn't time fly!Completely gratuitous picture of the wedding below. This one isn't crappy cos it was taken with one of Jibbler's uber cameras.  Be safe while we're away. Contactable on my mobile if it's urgent. If not, sod off - second honeymoon don'cha know :P* Will be without internet till we come back, which is next Saturday at some point. Byebye for a week friendslist! *despite how I sound about this, I am actually incredibly excited...or will be, once the packing is over! *This doesn't include you, family...and certain friends, I think you can guess who you are :P |
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| Feb. 28th, 2006 @ 11:52 pm Love | |||
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Mostly feeling:
I think I'm in love with a man. I think he loves me back. Someone would have to love me an awful lot to spend time making me an icon with real glowy npower orbs from their adverts which I have taken a real shine to. happyNow Playing: computer noises benc made me  this! He rocks so much :D*melts* |
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| Oct. 15th, 2005 @ 01:32 pm I feel mistreated | |||
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Mostly feeling:
:'( cheerfulNow Playing: Ben getting ready to go out My husband just called me "very nice". I'm his wife - surely he should think of me as more that just nice?! :'( Clearly a copy of the Oxford Thesaurus of English is a fitting Christmas present then ;) |
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| Feb. 19th, 2005 @ 01:31 am Compsoc | |||
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Mostly feeling:
Ah - yes... Compsoc :P happyI am now officially society Secretary for the rest of this academic year. Meeting minutes from the sgm are here for the interested. Been busy sorting things already. Am busy and happy :) Handed essay in today. Have another overdue :( Hopefully get that done over the weekend :) Belated valentines post - Ben made me cry by surprising me and also being very sweet. Still ups and downs and the downs can still be very nasty, but the ups are definately dominant and much more up :) Yay! |
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| Jan. 4th, 2005 @ 11:31 am Mwhahahahaha | |||
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Mostly feeling:
Today I have achieved the dream of every myopic... bouncyNow Playing: Once Upon a December My eyes have started to get better :D My last eyetest brought up the following results: Right Eye sph: -2.25 cyl: -1.25 axis: 15 Left Eye sph: -3.00 cyl: -1.50 axis: 180 This eyetest the results were: Right Eye sph: -1.75 cyl: -1.25 axis: 17 Left Eye sph: -2.50 cyl: -1.75 axis: 4 My astigmatism in my right eye got slightly worse though :( But overall I've improved :D Which is why I've been having headaches in the evening cos according to the optician when my eyes get tired they're less able to compensate for the over correction. So when my loan is through it's new glasses for me... :) In other news I have a new LJ icon - this pic :) Oh.. and it's my other half's ( benc) birthday today.
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| Mar. 12th, 2004 @ 11:24 pm bleh | |||
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Mostly feeling:
Ben just gone. Today sucked horribly. It started bad and I just spiralled down. I hit bottom at 1:30ish adn slowly crawled out of my hole again. Ben had afternoon off and I spent most of it in the most atrocious mood. annoyedNow Playing: Starsailor on Jonathon Ross Got back and jibbled some...ended up falling asleep and napping most of the evening. So on ben's afternoon off which was supposed to be so nice I was i. horrible to be with and ii. asleep. Nice going Elizabeth. He so diserves someone better than me >. |
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accomplished
