Countdown to the German History and Culture exam: only two full days left. Number of hours of revision done: 0.5. Number of hours of revision planned for tomorrow: um...

Yes, it's exam period up here. It feels proper weird not to be out on a Saturday night. The main nights out here are Tuesday and Saturday, and neither of them have happened this week. It's all very, very strange. Everybody's constantly locked in their rooms, revising away solidly... Yet I can't quite find the momentum.

In a pure, procrastinating revolt against the revisionness, me and J went down to town today to buy stamps and ended up hiring a rowing boat and going up and down the river for an hour. It was a very happy hour. j was actually really good at rowing, but I was crap. Beyond crap. Every five seconds she was shouting 'pull on that one! we're going to crash!' though we only actually DID collide the once... or twice... or something...

We're planning to get all ten of our lot down to the river one day after exams, you can get boats which fit up to seven or eight people in so a couple of them and we'll be sorted. Ahh I can just imagine it now... all the other guys take the piss out of D all the time, so we're planning to put him in a boat with T, M and G, just to see the hilarity that will definitely ensue. They'll probably push him out or something.

As I tend to document my daily food intake in here, I should probably mention that I had roast chicken with roast potatoes (yay!) and carrots for tea today. Lovely. I should probably talk a little less about food... Though saying that, I do have a pack of sushi, chopsticks and some wasabi on the desk next to me at this moment in time. Whoever said it was wrong to eat after about eight in the evening obviously has no life and no gastronomic (is that even a word?!) sense in the slightest. Food tastes best after midnight!

Right I'm going to go back to my 'revision' now... OK, fine, my determined ploughing through of Skins Season 2 on 4OD. Hey, I have a roughly 60% average on my essays so far, the exam won't be all that disastrous... Ahem. Maybe. Oh look, it's D flashing up on MSN. Perfect: more procrastination!

Misty x

I think mini eggs should be illegal after Easter. I saw them in Topshop this afternoon and nearly had a heart attack. Mini eggs! In May! I had to buy some. Three packets, to be precise. I've only eaten one so far... With the help of D, of course, and E and F, two more of the people who live here in the Block.

I can't believe people left comments about my random ramblings last night! Now I feel all warm and fuzzy and happy *grins like a six year old*. I might leave some of my actual fiction up here some day, just to gauge reactions. I write absolutely anything, by the way - one of the novels I've actually finished is a fantasy-quest, the other one is chick-lit. I've also got chapters of various horrors, thrillers, detectives, satires, erotics, gothics... you name it, I'll have written it at some point! Though I can't do poetry. Ugh, it just never works. I peaked at seven with my wonderful 'Autumn' poem and have gone downhill ever since.

Finding it hard to believe I'm still writing this, actually. TWO whole entries?! What's going on here?! We'll call it therapy and leave it at that, I think. Though my best therapy came last night - D came down to my room to cheer me up. Ended up performing a dance routine of 'Bring It All Back' by S Club 7 that he'd choreographed with his friends in Year 6, complete with hip wiggles and spins. I literally laughed until I had to pee. ...As I did today when I found out he shaves his feet. I mean, what?!?!

I had to do quite a bit of counselling for D today, actually. We went down with F to pick up some summative essays today, and it turned out that in the module we both do, I got 63% and he got 50%. Admittedly I was so surprised at my mark that I nearly fell in the river with pure shock. But he was really depressed about his. Even my news that I only got 38% in a translation test he'd got 59% in didn't cheer him up (though I've never actually got the marks back for that particular test - I was skiving. Had to try and make him happy somehow, though).

But he seemed to be feeling better when we had an impromptu chocolate fondue party in his flat this evening. J brought a fondue thingy up from home, I provided bananas and grapes, F donated marshmallows and fudge. After a brief debate where D insisted that apricots are actually dehydrated peaches, the party was in full swing, wine, Pimms, chick-flicks and all. A good night.

I should probably go to sleep. Sleep is always a good thing. However, I can still hear F in the kitchen. Well, more to the point, I can hear F's boyfriend, who has been out tonight, clattering drunkenly round the kitchen while she tries to lure him to bed. I've got Skins on (thank you 4OD!) to try and drown them out. The episode where Maxxie is being stalked by Sketch. I love Skins.

At least, if I don't go to sleep I should probably be revising. German History and Culture exam on Tuesday (the one I do with D) and I know nothing about Luther. Or Bismarck. Me and J went to the Botanic Gardens to revise this morning. Fat lot of good that was, we spent the whole morning sunbathing among the flowers. Of course, my hayfever was going bonkers, but that can be ignored if it's sunny enough. J's caught the sun and actually can't put her legs out straight without wincing at the red patches on the back of her knees, but I haven't changed colour at all. At least I don't burn very often, just go straight to brown... eventually!

By the way, potato product of the night = gnocchi. I made it for me and J today, with chorizo in tomato and mozzarella sauce and sliced avocado. Made it for the first time on holiday in Portugal last year with my friends, felt like I'd discovered a miracle. J loved it too. No such thing as typical student food, in my humble opinion! Pasta my arse. Maybe tomorrow I'll do a mini-roast chicken. Roast potatoes... mmm. The best kind.

Right, time for bed I think. Or at least, time for lying in bed waiting for sleep, perhaps watching another episode of Skins... perhaps going out and helping F get her boyfriend into her room before he passes out on the industrial red chairs that are supposed to serve as sofas. They're not very comfy, I speak from Freshers' Week experience... That pirate party really was a blast. First time I'd ever been properly drunk - my very first hangover the day after!

Misty x

God, how much do I hate writing 'first' anythings? Blogs, pages in novel, paragraphs in an essay... Let's face it, they're all annoying as hell.

So, I suppose I should say something about who I am. I'm eighteen, studying French and German at a lovely Northern university. I've lived on a very crappy, dull island all my life, though I don't anymore - when I'm not in the UK, I'm in a wonderful country in the EU where my parents decided to retire. Did I say wonderful? Sorry, I meant wonderfully dull. I love it, don't get me wrong... it's just very boring when you're stuck in the middle of the country with nobody but PARENTS to keep you company!

What else is there to say about me? I live with some very lovely people - there's my J, who's definitely my best friend up here. She shares my obsession with musicals, Friends, hot chocolate, Starbucks... Then there's D, who kids himself that people don't guess he's gay. Yes, darling D, when people see you coming towards them daintily in your pointy shoes, flicking your straightened hair out of your eyes, your hips swinging elegantly, they think 'there's a heterosexual all the way'. God love him.

I can't be bothered to go into the details of my lovely best friends, suffice to say nine of them live with me/in the blocks around me and I love them all to bits. It was T's twentieth today, actually; me and J made him a cake in the shape of a pair of legs with iced pants around their ankles. He has a habit of stripping when drunk..

Of course, I don't define myself by my friends, much as I adore them. I suppose I do that with my writing... Yes, *stands up* my name is Misty and I'm an unpublished author. Let's face it, who isn't these days?! But I'm not all that bothered about the unpublished part at the moment - I've promised myself I'll get published by the time I'm thirty. Eleven and a bit years to go, I've written two books since I was fourteen... Sorted!

What else is there to say about me? Not a lot I suppose. Just your average penniless student, trying to stretch the student grant to cover a hefty strawberries and cream frappucino addiction and a serious problem passing shoe shops without being sucked in. The only reason I'm writing this blog is that it's just before midnight and I can feel a wave of depression coming on, and if I cut myself again D will not be happy (he's my agony aunt). Yeah, whatever, I cut myself, I get depressed - although I'm happier now than I ever have been in my life, sometimes I start to feel randomly numb and feeling something is better than nothing.

Ah, shit, I'm talking in paradoxes again. But I don't believe in deleting things I've typed (apart from spelling mistakes: grammar fiend). So I'll let that lie. I fully expect this to be the least read blog on this website, purely because god only knows if I've managed to set it up correctly! It can be a way for me to babble on and pretend people are reading. It'll make me feel smug...

Right, I'm going to go and make myself a jacket potato now - I'm a hungry insomniac, nothing wrong with that! And I like potatoes, a lot. Whoever said baked beans were the best student food was a madman, potatoes are the way forward. I've managed to lose half a stone on an all-carb diet, god knows what's going on there...

Who knows if I'll write on this again? Every time I've started any other type of diary I've given up after about ten minutes, so fingers crossed for this poor thing!

Misty x