Time to look in again... I made a day trip to Oxford and was quite fascinated. I just missed Harry Potter (he escaped round the corner and I did not catch him on a photo) but did believe all stories about wizards and magic. People did run around in this crazy robes, dining halls do exist but I was too afraid to visit the library, the librarian could have been a huge ape and the library could have swollowed me. I did however see the oldest English stained glass window, the shop where Alice in Wonderland bought her sweets and now know that her father was the dean of the Christchurch College and a professor in Mathematics. Gorgolytes got a quite new meaning. But, look and see for yourself.

Next Tuesday I will be one year wiser and did invite some people over for tomorrow afternoon. So I did go to the city yesterday and had a nice outing at the market and fishmarket and, yes, did some shopping. It is beautiful weather, a bit frost and sunshine. I did buy a lachs filet that is now becoming graflachs in my fridge. Today I cleaned my flat, once again sorted my endless flow of papers and it looks really nice now. Just now I had a calory light dinner, Icelandic shrimps and octopus rings with some onion and a tiny bit of garlic (tiny because of the smell) and rice and is was delicious. That did remind me of a time our family was in Mallorca, for about six weeks I think and I was about eleven years old. I loved the spanish food and specially Paella. Once I went with my father to visit some friends in another hotel and they were eating ordinary food, like roastbeef with gravy and I felt so sorry for them. I did not understand why they would not get the "good" food. Poor suckers.
My work is going well and I am quite happy. I even have time to knit and read "not university" stuff. What a better life could one wish for.

Time is passing - as it should. I am getting f. f. (fat and flabby) and I do not like myself, but probably this is an universal problem (not liking oneself extremely much). I have started eating whole rice and beans and will not buy any more bread. I also started again my rope yoga, on the floor in my flat, I did take my ropes with me from home.
Today it has been snowing all day long, fat, nice round flakes and I have heard that the traffic around me is more or less down. I have not looked at it myself. Today the muse kissed me and I got a good spell on rewriting my assignment. Thus, work does go as it is expected to go and after a difficult first week I have settled well in again. I did knit me a nice cap (picture will follow very soon) and have read lots of books, both private and for study. I did buy this little gadget for my computer and it works beautifully, I spent one morning, when I woke up at half past 5 and ran my filmes through. Of course I do not find the most important one, or I took over it.
But I did pass all three of my autumn assignments and got A for two and B for one. I hate Bees!

Having gone once again into the city of Birmingham I did not yet get a connection from my camcorder into my laptop, but now I do know where some of the computer and camcorder shops are. I did learn: I do have a firewire I will have to connect and a simple USB connection will not do me any good. I would have to get a new port which I can add by buying a PC card. Furthermore my computer will accept a Type II PC Card and I also found the PC Card slot. Got it? So my next step will be to go back to the last shop in the - oh, I forgot the name of the street - and get me such a card and hope that it will work. The card alone will cost around 27 Pounds. But that will be money well spent when and if it works. I could take my laptop to the shop, but I would like to fix this by myself and the laptop has a weight of I think 3 and a half kilos so I do not really want to drag it with me down town. The bus was very friendly to me today and was on time too. There is so much SALE down town, luckily I am too lazy to go and try on clothes, but I did use the trip to get me some more food to store away. I do start to wonder: I am a food hoarder?

Today I ventured out of my flat again: Please notice: The second day in a row. It was less cold than yesterday, still my eyes were teary and my nose was leaking. So I walk around campus crying and sniffeling. At least I did not attract any attention. I did buy the Office Package, for about 10.000 Ikr. what I find too much but satisfactory and had it intsalled on coming back to my flat. It works properly so I am satisfied. I did not get a connection from my camcorder to my computer and will have to go to the city for it once again. I did look in the internet for it but do not know exactly what I need but I will not rest before I solve that problem! I went to the library, brought books back and got new ones, 10 to be exact, but no, I do not read them all word for word but look for passages that are of interest to me. My first assignment is running nicely, as I do have "Word" now I can even write on.

When the world smiles at you don´t smile back too soon: I had a nice outing down town yesterday and did buy this and that, mostly food. When now I go by foot or bus I don´t think so much about how expensive things are - that goes by itself - but how heavy they are and I am always quite happy when I got home with all that stuff. That was nice and then I chatted with lots of people and was ready to smile but then my computer went blank and had me worried. I do try not to worry too much, but... I wenr to the computer help desk today, with my laptop and this nice boy there got it going again in no time so I felt very lucky and happy. I did get the tip to load down "AVG free anti-virus software" and did that and am quite happy now. The computershop does close at 4 o´clock but tomorrow I will go and buy me the Office package so up til then I have a good excuse not to write anything. It is cold outside, getting colder each day.

Slowly I am getting used to being alone again and adjust to my student life. I did have some more trouble with my allergy and coughing, but now I have my two windows open at night and during the day I use my cooking hood a lot, so that helps.
I did go to class and most of the people I did expect where there but not yet all of them. I am reading and have to go down town to day as I need one more cable for my computer. I was terribly frustated yesterday when I found out that when copying old videos to my computer in the Christmas holidays (for hours and days) I did not get the sound, so some day I will have to do all again. Thankfully it does not hurt me now, I can live without sounds for the time being. It is cloudy and drizzling outside but not very cold.