Me and Elizabeth decided to go for a walk again seeing as though we hadn’t since christmas time. It was a completely different experience to last time – then we faced freezing cold weather, rain, snow, and a dog… in our wellies, waterproofs and gloves. Today we went out in vest tops and shorts/three quaters and had a nice stroll in the red hot heat. We managed to find a different route to normal and ended up walking for miles – I was planning on mapping it out and working out how far we’d gone but I haven’t got round to it yet.

We met at foxy’s pond area and followed the path along the bottom of the fields along Eighton Banks and came out next to the golf course, then doubled around the back of where toddler’s used to be and down the winding path towards the angel, under the main road and down through allerdene …where the path rather annoyingly ended. So we cut through an estate and passed sainsburys, around the roundabout and along towards lamesly. That’s where it got annoying because there was no path, just a patch of grass along the road for us to walk single file and the speeding cars kept disrupting our convo – how dare they! We got suitably knackerd and failing to find a bench to sit on decided to sit on the grass at the side of the road – classy stuff. I think we chilled there for about half an hour before we managed to pull ourselves up again and found our way to our normal route up through birtley, under the a1 and back up to foxy’s area.

Instead of splitting off and calling it a day we decided to make a stop at the Bowes and went for a nice cold drink in the beer garden. This was the point where we realised we’d been out and walking in the sun for FOUR hours (and a lot of it was uphill!) and although Elizabeth had a brain and wore suncream… I didn’t. Ergo, Hayley has turned into a lobster. I have some beautiful pink/red shading accross my shoulders, chest and back that now matches the colour of my hair – but the best part is definitely the white marks left by my straps and rather epically…accross my chest from my bag haha. Well at least I look patriotic for the match tomorrow… where England will no doubt be dropping out of the World Cup. Oh well. Until then, Enjoy!

 No idea what to do now though. Someone tell me? I don’t really want a 9-5 job, I don’t want to be a psychologist (hello waste of a degree) but I’m not really passionate enough about anything else to know what I want to do.

As awkward as it sounds I know I want a job that’s… different. So when people ask me what I do I don’t start the sentence with ‘Just..’ like ‘just a receptionist…’, ‘just in a shop…’ ‘just in an office…’ I want to be able to tell people what I do and have them go ‘oh that’s different, how did you get into that?’. Now that’s decided all I have to do is decide what it is I’ll be doing that is different.

Recently I’ve really wanted to move to New York and live in a really weird but cool apartment that you can almost guarantee looks like no one elses, with some kind of weirdness that makes it stand out (for examples, see the beginning of Princess Diaries… or Definitely, Maybe…) and I want a job that I enjoy where I can make friends with the people I work with and go for drinks or ‘coffee’ after work in a nice lil New York bar or something… *sigh* If only.

There’s still my dream of going to Africa somewhere – possibly Kenya, South Africa or somewhere similar – to work with lions or elephants or giraffes but I’m far too scared to go on my own (dangers of travelling and living alone scare me enough without having to make friends on my own haha).

Oh well. If you think of something I can be or do, drop me a line. ‘Preciate it.

My parents are on holiday all week and now my brother’s gone to Scotland for the weekend so I have the house and the car completely to myself for a few days…and I have absolutely nothing to do!

I would have a gathering.. but erm.. I don’t have anyone to invite. The only person who would come round for a bit (Elizabeth) is still in Scarb so I’m left eating meals on my own and sitting watching TV or playing on my Xbox while everyone else is out having fun with their lives haha. I was supposed to be at work last night, at least then I would have some people to talk to and something to do but my shift got cancelled because there was too many staff in haha (normally this would be a good thing). I’M SICK OF BEING BORED! Someone do something with me?  Anything? Anyone? Hello? …Is anyone there?

Work:

I worked a really busy shift a few weeks ago – the darts. My brother was there and I had expected him to be coming over to say hi but he didn’t show his face until I was closing the bastard. I was inside for the first time ever, on a Fosters fast pour machine at the back of the floor. It was unbelievably loud and there was just me and an agency worker who’d never worked at the arena before along with a table, a till, a machine and 5 kegs of fosters. Once the doors opened and we started serving people we had a massive queue none stop all night and by the end of my shift I had made over £4000!! (an average shift is about £600 and a really busy shift can sometimes get you to £1200). Afterwards I went to Gotham with Gary and his mates for a drink which was actually quite fun haha. My next shift one of the bosses came over and gave my a free bottle of wine for making so much money that night – it’s a shame I don’t like wine and my parents ended up drinking it… Other than that work has been pretty quiet, I rang in sick two days last week because my throat decided it wanted to be 5 times its normal size.. Not fun. Only the second time I’ve ever ran in sick for a job ever – first time at the arena.

Uni:

I had my last two exams EVER. I probably didn’t revise as much as I should have for the first one, or I didn’t revise in the right way. I had to write two essays, one on depression and one on schizophrenia and they’re so similar that when I got into the exam I couldn’t remember which studies and what data went with what…so I more than likely messed that one up. For the second exam I used different coloured paper for each semester so it was so much easier for me to think back and remember what was on what colour paper so I knew which essay to write it in. Think I did quite well on that one. It was also quite sunny on the second day so when I left the exam 20 mins early I just sat on the path outside listening to my iPod in the sun. Was actually quite relaxing  haha. So now I’m finished uni, only have graduation left… then what do I do?

Everything else:

I paid off my holiday, (£1644.50 added to the deposit of £200..or was it £220?) only 74 days to go now! Also, I’m not very impressed that all my favourite TV shows are finishing at the minute (well mostly last week) now that I’m off uni and have plenty of time to do absolutely nothing I need things to watch!  Some of them are never coming back either - Heroes, Flashforward They shall be dearly missed. What’s with USA cancelling all their best shows? I totally don’t understand it, it’s like as if the BBC cancelled Eastenders. It just isn’t right! Hmm.. what else have I done? Oh, a few weeks back was a fancy dress night at Krash with a ‘superheroes and villains’ theme. I went as Jessie from Team Rocket because it was the only thing I could think of with pink hair (OH YEAH! I dyed my hair bright pink, but it only lasted 3 weeks because it faded really fast and I couldn’t keep up with the redyes so I’m back to red now), Emma was the Black Cat from Spiderman, Noddy was his usual slipknotesque randomage and I managed to convince Cate to come join the party and she came as Invisigirl from the Incredibles.

My parents are away this week so I get the car and pretty much a house to myself and 16 fish and a cat to feed. I imagine my brother will be in and out a bit and expecting me to play taxi but I’m going to see Alkaline Trio on Tuesday and I have some plans for other days too so he can’t be expecting too many lifts off meeee. I’m staying up tonight for the LOST finale at 5am, hopefully I’ll manage to stay awake long enough before and after so I can tick off ‘stay up all night’ off my checklist haha – can’t believe I still haven’t done that! The worrying thing is I’m already kinda sleepy it’s miles before I’d normally even consider going to bed too :S Oh well.

Think that’s about it, can’t think of anything else and if there is anything it mustn’t be important. Enjoy!

Grace – Eliza Bennett 

This one was really easy as I 100% agree with Maggie’s choice. I loved her in inkheart and the personality she protrayed in that film is how I imagine Grace is. She’s independant and sure of her own mind, has the cute factor without looking too young and innocent and comes with a natural beauty that suits Grace’s personality perfectly.

 Sam Roth – Steven R. McQueen

This one was a lot more difficult. As someone who is eternally annoyed by Arcitc Monkeys I found it really hard to imagine their frontman while reading Shiver so I looked for inspiration elsewhere. A lot of the actors I see on TV fall to one of two sides of a see-saw – either they’re obnoxious players or pathetic dweebs and it was difficult to find someone who could balance the see-saw evenly in the middle. I had noticed Steven R. McQueen a while ago and even included him in my House of Night castlist but now that I’ve read Shiver I think I made a mistake with that as he suits this kind of character a lot more than where I previously had him placed. Watching the Vampire Diaries it’s really easy to imagine the way he portays his character on there to be a simple step to Sam Roth.

Beck – Sean Bean

Yet again not an easy choice. I wanted to find someone who could play the father figure who was intelligent but could hunt and handle himself well in a fight. Someone who was manly but with a big heart that often resulted in morally grey decisions – even if they were for the right reasons. I first thought of Gerard Butler but he’s recently been typecast as a totally different kind of actor and I think the inclusion of him would bring in the wrong kind of audiences and they would be disappointed with a lack of killing and womanising. I came accross Sean Bean when I was looking for someone for Paul and I liked the idea of him but didn’t think he suited the part of Paul very well… then I realised how perfect he would be for the human leader rather than wolf leader.

Shelby – Juno Temple

I hadn’t really heard of Juno Temple before this search, she was suggeted to me by a friend and after checking out some more photo’s and reading about what she’s done I decided she was great as my Shelby. I was looking for a girl who could look really pretty and girly if she wanted to, but chose a more tomboy look which matched her slightly aggressive personality. Juno seems to tick all the right boxes.

Jack Culpeper – Jake Able

This is an actor I had in mind while reading the books. He first caught my eye in Supernatural and then later in Percy Jackson. He’s good at playing the agressive and obnoxious teenager without making it seem over the top or unnatural. I wanted someone who had played these type of characters before as someone who usually plays ‘nice guys’ wouldn’t convince me of his human agressive side. A nice guy would make you automatically think the anger came from the wolf side – despite what you were told.

Olivia - Magda Apanowicz

As far as I’m aware, Magda is quite unknown which is something I was looking for when considering Olivia. I bacame a fan of hers while watching Kyle XY and when reading Shiver it was her who inexplicably came to mind at the mention of the character of Olivia and I haven’t been able to think of anyone else playing her ever since. I’m not entirely sure what it is that made me think of her as Olivia, I suppose it’s the quirky not-quite-normal character she played on Kyle XY that I think matches well with Olivia’s character.

Rachel – Emma Roberts

This was another character I had difficulty with because when I read the books I tend not to have a mental image of her… just a ‘feeling’ about her personality etc and it’s hard to put a face to a feeling. I’m not sure if I’m entirely happy with the choice of Emma Roberts, maybe I need someone more bouncy and loveable and happy…?

Isabel Culpeper – Taylor Momsen

This is another one I’m not entirely sure if I’m happy with. I know she can play the bitchy rich girl but I don’t know if she can pull off the ‘girly Paris Hilton wannabe’ look without it looking false. She’s may be too much of a rock chick at heart for it to look convincing. Perhaps this casting could be interchangable with Juno Temple/Shelby?

Paul – Timothy Olyphant

This was another difficult one as I couldn’t find a detailed description of Paul in the book. I needed someone who could pull off being a leader (pack) but without looking out of place with someone else leading (Sean Bean/Beck when human). I figured it was logical to have someone slightly younger as it would make sense that the pack leader was younger and stronger and faster but the human leader was older and wiser – that is how life works isn’t it?

Ulrik – Mads Mikkelsen

I’m aware he’s Danish and not German but I think he pulls off the whole mysterious European (being from the UK I hate saying that but I don’t know how else to put it) very well. He reminds me of someone who handles well in a fight but has a love for the gentle things in life – such as the poetry Ulrik teaches Sam. Seems perfect yes?

Salem – Steve Buscemi

If he isn’t the perfect Salem I don’t know who is! He’s amazing at portraying those who aren’t quite there and would easily convince us that he’s Salem. ‘Nuff said.

Well that’s all I have so far. If I’ve forgotten anyone important – I don’t think I have! – let me know and I’ll get on it ASAP. Please leave your comments to let me know what you think of my choices, who you agree with, who you don’t, who you would prefer, did you think of these? Would you put any of them as other characters instead? Also, here’s a video montage of my choices with a few extra photos, Enjoy!

We didn’t know what was goin on, half the staff had gone home and we were jst refilling and serving stragglers until something happened and hundreds of people came back out demanding drinks! We were so busy they had to try and catch staff that hadn’t gone home yet and get them to clock back in to help us serve, it was busier than it had been before she went on! It died down a little bit after about 10-15 mins but there was contstantly people going home and booing her and I can’t say I blame them, she sounded like utter shit and she barely even sang and when she did she missed the high notes!

I finally got to go at quarter to 11 (or so I thought). I got to the mini staff car park (under the redheugh bridge at the bottom of the stairs) and there was like 80 taxis going absolutely nowhere just parked up EVERYWHERE blocking all the roads, I couldn’t turn right and go along the back lane, I couldn’t turn left then infront of the arean up to the top, I couldn’t cut up through to the big car park, I couldn’t even go down to the river and along the front. To be honest, there was so many of them I couldn’t even get out of the car park. It was an absolute joke! I was talking to one of the car park people and she told me to pretty much give up hope.. so after an argument with a foreign taxi driver who was getting right on my nerves I parked again and went back inside (I very very nearly went over to the police to tell them to sort it all out!)

I then stood inside for 25 mins and decided I might aswel wait for Cate to finish work and offer her a lift home (I’d be diverted so far I was practically at hers anyway) when we finally got out  the traffic was still shit, so we tried goin up through the big car park like I had planned earlier but  the gates were closed so turned around and came back down and the road infront of the arena was also still closed so all we could do was go down the back lane still full of taxis which didn’t take too long (but long enough) we then couldn’t turn right at the centre for life due to epic traffic so went straight along (PAST THE ARENA AGAIN) but then 2 taxis that were driving infront of me just stopped in the middle of the road without even indicating to say they were pulling over – next to cars already pulled over (I broke the horn out for that one). We then carried on going to the corner where about 5 cars just randomly pulled out of the junction infront of me – my road follows round and theirs is a junction so they shouldn’t have – I should have tooted again (Cate was like “WHAT IS GOING ON? CARS DONT LIKE YOU!) we finally got to the roundabout in the right lane and some fucker in the wrong lane just stopped and blocked my lane (she was trying to go around and then join stand still traffic later than she should have) – this was another occurance I should have tooted. When we finally got passed that, we went up passed newcastle college and down towards St James’ blvd. I turned left to go up to Cates, and straight away saw blue flashing lights…

It turned out someone had been run over at the next set of lights, we got passed but it was obvious I wudnt get bak down because they had been hit on that side of the road. There was about three ambulances and four police cars – crazy stuff. I dropped Cate off then had to find an alternative route home. I thought I knew where I was going and turned right at St James’ Park and headed through the west side of the city… but I got totally fucking lost think I went in a really big circle at one point but I did eventually find the A1. At first I thought it was closed it was so deserted but I was so happy to be at 70mph and getting somewhere in the direction of home! I got halfway there and the roadworks started… from Lobley Hill all the way to the Angel was one lane traffic at 50mph where I was stuck behind a stupid lorry doing about 35mph!

I did finally get home at 00:09 …I had clocked out of work at 22:46!

FML

Rather than a list of random ambitions of things I havn’t done before I thought I’d do a checklist of things I want my year to include, even the little things! (including the same things as the previous post plus a few more)

• Get my tattoo 11/01/10
• Go to America 24/08/10
• Graduate 20/07/10
• Lose half a stone 12/10/10
• see blink-182 live 30/08/10
• Go to the beach 12/07/10
• Sledge in the snow 06/01/10
• Read 10 books 02/06/10
• Go to a country I’ve never been to before
• Meet 10 new people 26/06/10
• Do something I’m scared to (crowd surfing) 30/08/10
• Sing Karaoke
• Sleep in a tent 30/08/10
• Ride a horse
• Bake a cake 08/02/10
• Go to a Newcastle match 05/04/10
• Go out in fancy dress 20/03/10
• Have a picnic
• See a stand-up comedian
• Stay awake all night 23-24/05/10 – LOST finale night
• Change someone’s opinion on something important
• Get some photos printed off 26/06/10
• Take 1,000 photos 31/07/10 – 1,044
• Laugh until I cry 17/04/10 (at the way me and my mam laugh haha)
• Cry until I laugh
• Turn 21 with style
• Get 100 followers on Twitter
• Meet someone famous and have a conversation with them
• See an African Elephant and name it Lancelot 24/08/10

That’s it for now, I’ll come back and edit it when I think of more/complete some. Today’s song has been used before, but it’s definitely an apt song for the day Robbie Williams – No Regrets ♫ http://blip.fm/~j1gam Enjoy!

 When I went shopping with my mam yesterday I realised that my usual size for things wasn’t fitting anymore. This was not a good sign. It also meant that all my old holiday clothes don’t fit anymore either and I would have to spend even more money rebuying things I already have. So today I decided I was going to exercise and lose that weight.

I’m no good at weights, or cardio, or anything that tires me out to be honest, so I decided a nice long walk was the way to go. Elizabeth walked down and I met her on the bridge over the A1 (weird place to meet, I know) then we headed round passed The Bowes and onto ‘the path’. It’s just one long straight path from here down to god knows how far away. The weather could have been better but we’d been sensible and dressed for it relatively well so it wasn’t that bad. It was actually a nice walk and reminded me of when I was 16 and we used to go down there quite often (radgies). We explored a few forks in the path but always doubled back onto the same track and managed to get all the way to kibblesworth. By then we thought we should head back as Elizabeth was heading to her Nanas at about 4.

Somehow we managed to walk back up quicker than it took us to get down (no idea how that worked) so we decided to have a walk around Foxy’s Pond to see if we could see any frogs. It wasn’t the same as either of us remembered though The weather had raised the water level quite a bit and someone/something had been in and dug up all around the back so where there used to be grass and bushes and stuff it was just mud. We walked around the path along the edge of the pond, but because the water was so high the path was quite narrow in places so I decided to climb up a little way and walk along the mud (we had wellies on anyway), the thing I didn’t take into consideration was what water does to mud. Think I managed about 2 steps before my leg randomly disappeared haha. I was literally knee deep in mud. With a little bit of help from Elizabeth I managed to free my leg and stand on a plank of wood, but rather stupidly while freeing one leg I’d managed to make the other one sink – pretty badly too. Took me about 10 minutes, a lot of laughter, some sticks and some more planks of wood (and possibly a pulled muscle) and I finally managed to dig myself free of the mud…well apart from the thick layer of black mud that was still caked around my wellies (Are you proud I managed to free them too? I wasn’t walking home in my socks haha). I then climbed down and jumped into the stream to clean myself off a bit, but there was still a load of mud on my jeans and it really stank so we decided to call it a day. Walking back home the horses were giving me some really strange looks. I think they knew.

When I finally got home we’d had a  fish fatality One of my favourite ones too – sad times. That’s two this week! Hopefully no more will die though, at least not the sole remaining Angel fish – he really is beautiful!

After a nap and warming up I decided to strip the colour from my hair. I was sick of the faded red with roots look. I didn’t really expect it to work because Emma had used it recently and it didn’t really do much to her hair but I did my usual trick of leaving it on longer than it tells you to and it turned out…wait for it… BLONDE! Eek. I can’t decide whether it looks ok or horrible though haha. I have to leave it for a bit though because I have no hair dye and I was wanting to get it done properly anyway. I just can’t afford it right now. Hopefully I’ll be able to get something done before I go to work on tuesday…

Strange day, yes? Enjoy!

 Today just kept getting worse and worse.

I woke up at 10:09 – late. I then stupidly quickly got dressed and left the house at 10:16. I was planning on going to the post office before uni (due to missing my bus by seconds yesterday, I missed the delivery I was expecting by 20 minutes) so went to the other side of the road for the bus stop (it was really weird, I didn’t have time to put my iPod on so I could hear the world – I’m really not used to that). I was at the bus stop by 10:24 but by 10:33 the bus still wasn’t there, it was that shitty rain and severe wind that umbrellas were no use against so I was getting soaking and at that side of the road there’s no shelter. It got to the point where I wouldn’t have enough time to go to Chester Le Street before I had to be in town for my meeting so I ran to my normal side of the road and luckily the bus came rather soonish.

I was in town about half an hour early so went to ask my tutor if we could move my meeting up.  He claimed he was ‘in the middle of something’ (although it looked to me like he was just checking his emails) so told me to come back at half past like we’d planned… So I went and checked my emails and facebook then sat outside his room until half past.

My meeting lasted a mere 7 minutes. Why did he not have time for that half an hour ago? I figured with the post office not closing until 50 minutes time I could get there today isntead of waiting until tomorrow to get my delivery. Practically ran down Northumberland street and luckily a 21 came quite quickly. According to the timetable it took 40 minutes to get to Chester Le Street. The post office was due to close in 42. The Top Gear Challenge commences.

It was looking like I wasn’t going to make it, we were only jst leaving Birtley and I only had 6 minutes left. I had planned on getting off the bus at the top of the main street but the drivers decided to swap at the bottom so I got in a huff and got off and pretty much ran up the hill – in the rain. I finally got to the post office, ran to the back where collections were and luckily it was still open. When it was my turn I handed over my card, signed for the big box, and turned to walk away. Out of sheer habit I checked to see that it definitely had my address on it. Oh it had my address on it alright….AND MY BROTHERS NAME! All that hassle for a delivery for my brother? It was at that point that I realised MY delivery could have been coming today…about now… while I was in Chester Le Street. I was actually quite lucky and the 25 was due any time now so I got home pretty quick (more rain) but the post had already been. This time there was no missed delivery card though. I still can’t work out if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. On the one hand, I didn’t miss it and hopefully it will come tomorrow – on the other hand, I wanted to make my brother go to Chester Le Street to pick it up in the morning.

Bah. Such is life.