I moved my fish into their travel tank, they’re used to it they did this last summer!
Last year they spent 4 months in Kirkcaldy, this time they’re going to Glasgow! They even have a little suitcase for their worm treats and emergency medical supplies.
I know it’s old, but I didn’t bother watching the movie when it was new and it was on TV tonight and I LOVED it.
I loved the soundtrack just as much as the movie itself.
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Now that the semester is over, I have nothing better to do, so I watch a LOT of TV and daydream about summer. I even sat through the whole of Alien vs. Predator, that is how much free time I have.
Today I tried out the Sprinkles strawberry cupcake recipe! [click for recipe]
They were so fluffy, and a very light pink shade, very cute! I had to use Crisco in place of butter, because I didn’t have any in the fridge and I’m trying to save up for Italy, so this means cutting back on spending wherever possible!
Thankfully, I had a giant tub of Crisco in my cupboard from Thanksgiving when I had a couple of orders for pumpkin pie and apple pie… You can’t sell a pie and not make the crust yourself, it’s cheating!
I doubled the cake recipe, but used regular quantities for the frosting because I always find I have way too much frosting left over from baking? Hence the tiny swirl of frosting as opposed to my usual crazy mound of sugary cream.
The cake itself only had a VERY slight strawberry taste, but the frosting tasted like strawberry yoghurt with extra sugar! VERY yummy. Invited a few friends over for chicken & seafood fajita’s and nacho’s, and to test run the cupcakes, they were a hit. We even had a little drama at the end with people fighting over who got to take them home, always a good sign!
My exams are now over.
My final Arabic exam for this year went much better than I expected, it was my first three hour exam and I didn’t know what to expect! All my other exams so far at university have been two hours at most, because two hours is enough to write two essays. Our three hour Arabic exam involved an essay and 5 translation pieces with 5 short compositions to be written in Arabic.
I have the tiniest handwriting, so even though we were told 30-40 words in Arabic would be sufficient, when I had done that much it was only about three lines… which looked a bit pathetic. So I ended up writing double for each composition, just to make it look nice… and by the time I got to my essay, my hand was aching and my handwriting was barely legible.
But at least my exams are over! Now while NYBoy studies for his final exam on irregular warfare (what is that?!), I bake cake and quietly catalog his boxes of stamps according to their values.
Italy in about a week! YAY!
So I took an hour out of my revision time (final exam is Arabic Key Religious Texts on Friday!) to test out the clothes I already own.
Recycling clothes is not easy!!
I used to be skinnier, or shorter (maybe?) so a lot of my shirts aren’t very easy to tuck into skirts anymore! I convinced NYBoy to walk into town with me to pick ONE belt, because after paying all the preliminary trip expenses, it’s all we can afford.
True story.
I figured with at least one nice belt, I could use it to cover where my shirts come short.
My black shirt is the shortest so I tried that out first, with my new white skirt from BCBG, that I got over easter break in New York; when I knew I had an internship but wasn’t sure I could afford it.
I’ve known for a while, it took all I had not to open my big mouth and say something about it sooner.
The shirt was still WAY too short, so I hiked my skirt up incredibly high (Steve Quincy Urkle style), safety pinned it to my shirt on both sides, so I can move around without it falling back down, and used my new belt to cover up the frankenstein-like mess that was my first planned outfit.
Not half bad considering this was a shirt I would have otherwise thrown out!
Then came figuring out what to do with my new Zara dress, which I LOVE! but have never worn… it’s strapless, not very officey. But inspired by the new 80s style dresses out there that just look like tank tops sewn to skirts, I found an old Topshop tee to go under it;
And a cheap $5 cropped wrap that I got in Brunei;
PLUS I got my dad to send me a big box of random stuff I left. I don’t even think he looked through what he was stuffing into the Fedex box because when I opened it I found things like;
- An almost empty tub of TBS strawberry body butter
- Ballet flats with a hole in the bottom of one
- A cracked deodorant stick (?)
But there were also things like;
- My big box of cheap accessories and headbands!
- The shoes I bought in Nice last summer (see pictures above & below)
- A big box full of Redken Extreme Deep Fuel treatments and my Kerastase serum AND my Benefit That Gal primer, things I thought I had either lost, or had given away to my sisters without remembering!
Not to mention my Forever 21 black pencil skirt, that was a life saver for my internship last summer. This skirt goes with everything, and it only cost me maybe $20? I bought a pink Abercrombie shirt on clearance over easter break, which I later regretted because it has the light grey moose logo on one side, which I didn’t notice instore (damn you and your dark changing rooms A&F). But limited funds mean I have to make the best use of all the things I have so;
At this point you know NYBoy is trying to look calm, but secretly thinks his girlfriend has gone insane with the picture taking. If you look closely you can see his furrowed brow.
Last outfit I tried on before I got bored was my £3 (yes, THREE!) shirt from Primark, it’s lasted me three years and is possibly my favorite shirt ever. Not to mention you can’t tell how old it is when my $10 Forever 21 vest covers it.
Not bad considering some of the things I’ve had for so long! Thank god for NYBoy driving me around to go shopping in New York over easter, and my dad sending me my body butter old clothes and shoes!
I have to admit I did buy a few new things a few weeks ago, before we found out how much Italy would cost us! NYBoy brought me to Edinburgh to celebrate my new (and confirmed) job by bringing me shopping for some very cute clothes! I try clothes on and take pictures so at the end of my window shopping period, I can sit down with NYBoy and decide which pieces I absolutely NEED to buy.
@ FCUK
Why does FCUK UK size 6 fit really loosely on me? I get away with buying size 6′s everywhere else… I loved this dress, so upset it didn’t fit well 
@ Miss Selfridge’s
BOUGHT THIS! I’m going to pair it with sheer tights and a shirt for work.
@ Topshop
Wish I could have bought this, but the smallest they had was a UK size 8, not for me.
BOUGHT THIS! It’s a little short, but again with the sheer tights.
Left this one, it made my arms look like sticks.
Looked too similar to the first dress I chose from Topshop (and had a broken zipper)
BOUGHT THIS! I love this jacket. I wasn’t looking for a jacket but this one was too cute.
Yes, my name is Hannah, and I am a shopaholic.
I’ve been talking about it long enough… and I’ve managed to get together enough money to guarantee that I am in fact going to work in Italy this summer so here goes…
I’m going to be working in Florence.
Image © Florencephotos.com
[http://www.florencephotos.com]
More specifically, I’m going to be working for a big fashion company on Via de Tornabuoni (“the epicentre of Florentine fashion” according to the Telegraph)…
Image from mberry@Flickr
[http://www.flickr.com/photos/mberry/129295663/]
And the fashion company is…
Image © Florencephotos.com
[http://www.florencephotos.com]
I am not kidding.
When the CEO of Ferragamo came to give a talk at the university, I got to meet him as a Management Society committee member; and long story short I got a summer internship offer directly from the CEO. Niiiiceeee.
I have been trying so hard to keep myself from blurting it out prematurely, because I didn’t know if I could afford it, but between me and NYBoy getting loans from our parents; we have barely made up the money for it! I paid my rent deposit today for an apartment over summer, and I paid the language school where I will be taking individual Italian classes for a couple of hours a week.
PSYCHED!
Florence is such an expensive city, I don’t have much money left over for new office clothes, but I invested in a really cute belt, and my dad Fedexed a box of accessories over; so if I mix and match things I already have I should be able to get by 2 months of working!
We’ve booked flights from Edinburgh to Pisa, leaving on the 30th of this month! And my internship runs through until the end of July.
I wanted to go into fashion, but this is an opportunity I never even imagined would come my way.
First exam down and one to go!
Corporate Finance went much better than I had hoped. I hate morning exams, I’m usually not awake by 9.30, forget about being mentally awake enough to do an exam. So I went to bed at 10pm last night, about two hours earlier than usual, and woke up at 4.30am – to give myself a false start to the day. 5 hours later walking into my exam at the Quad at 9.30am, I was so ready.
Since summer is almost here, waking up at 4.30am wasn’t as much as a shock as I would have thought. It wasn’t dark outside, the birds were chirping, and if I hadn’t had checked my watch, I wouldn’t have known it was any earlier than 8am.
To celebrate the end of my first exam, and my confirmed internship (now pending financial details!) in Italy, tonight is the night of the Dempster Pizza mini-party! Mini-party because most people are still cramming for exams on Monday, so we only invited about 6 people.
Homemade peri-peri pizza & oatmeal raisin cookies after. Yummy.
It will take my mind off the financial turmoil that is my Italian internship.
Homemade pizza dough
+ Homemade pizza sauce
= yummmm.
I was craving this so much. My mom keeps promising to send me the household recipe for it, but keeps forgetting! So I googled it, and found a recipe on the Singapore Tourism Board website.
It turned out really well! I made a few minor adjustments;
- Used my hand blender to finely mince the garlic, ginger and chili for the chili dip
- Doubled the amount of ginger I put into the chicken before placing it in boiling water
- Used garlic paste rather than finely chopped garlic for the rice, I didn’t want people to be getting mouthfuls of garlic chunks in their rice
and I served it with some broccoli stir-fried with garlic, ginger, sugar, soy sauce and a little bit of apple juice… I made up the stir fry bit because I forgot the broccoli until the last minute, and it’s customary for me to force the boys in this house to eat their veg.
Invited a couple of friends over for dinner, and it was just enough for 6 people (with seconds!).
Tonight it’s home made pizza’s, maybe?
