Quick weather report - due to that lovely Siberian weather front, it has been snowing pretty much continuously since Sunday afternoon oop North. And I can report that it does actually feel as if I am living IN Siberia, it is that cold.

This week I have been mostly doing ... lots of things!

I went to a Make Poverty History meetingon Wednesday and I am now part of the Leeds University MPH team. Woohoo! Pro-active! At the moment plans are all still a bit hazy, but basically, as well as doing lots of sporadic things throughout the year, we're going to do a MPH week, which I'm doing a project for. Me and a few other girls are taking over the Parkinson court (a huge hall-type place at uni) for one day of that week and we're hoping ot go into local schools and youth groups and get children to draw what they think poverty means, which we're going to use to make a bit of an exhibition, hopefully accompanied with talks, dramas and bands. It'll look good on my CV too!

On Thursday I went to my first ever yoga class. Through MPH I've made friends with a girl who's here on an exchange programme from Colorado. She's so nice! I've been friends with her for a few weeks now, and on Thursday she finally managed to get me to go with her to yoga. I didn't realise until I got there that it was an intermediate clas and was an hour and a half long. And I'm perhaps the most unflexible person ever. At several points I was thinking to myself "I can't believe I've put myself throught htis much pain voluntarily." I used muscles I never knew I had before. In the end, though, I really enjoyed it and hopefully will now go nearly every day with my American chum. If she's got anything to do with it I will, anyway.

This morning I made it to a STAR Saturday Club. You may remember that I made it to approximately one Saturday club all last semester. However, this semester its been moved to Harehills, (a LOVELY place *ahum*) and taxis are needed to get there. So I've volunteered my services as a driver, with the hope that it will make me go every week, which I really do want to do, but sometimes need a little bit of encouragement, as last semester clearly demonstrated.

And tonight me and the flatmates are off out into town. Inspired by the video to Jenifer Lopez' 'Get Right' we're going to some 'nice' bars and to Townhouse to see if we can see any celebrities.

Happy Valentine's Day! Don't you just hate it when February the 14th comes round again, and there's no card on the doorstep, no flowers delivered, and no one to snuggle up to while everyone else in the world is snuggling up to their some one. Don't you just HATE 'everyone else'?

Well, hate me!

Yes, I am one of those annoying people who has a boyfriend on Valentine's day (for the third in a row, may I add).

Here are my Valentine's plans, just so you hate me a little bit more.

Although me and the boyf are both very skint at the moment and had agreed we weren't going to buy anything more than a card for each other and celebrate the 'occasion' by just watching a DVD, the lovely man suprised me with a bag full of Lush goodies and a table reservation for a lovely Mexican restaurant tonight. Bless him. Simple but romantic and heartfelt. Hate me muchos?

Oh, and just to finish you all off ...

The first Valentine's day we were together, he took me to see the stage version of Chicago and for dinner in a hotel first. Last year, he whisked me away to Brussels in a really nice traditional hotel for the weekend.

But, to be honest, if I didn't have my lovely boyf, I too would be snearing at soppy couples and swearing at the postman for only giving me the gas bill. Just as I did for the other 17 years of my life.

Either that, or acknowledging the TRUE meaning of Valentine's day - its purely a commercial day invented by card companies like Hallmark. Or the Greek gods after that St. Valentine bloke? Or, um, in honour of that little cherub Cupid maybe?

But whatever.

HA!

First of all, to my lovely readers who have wished my hand a 'get well soon', plus those Armitagettes who have sent me RA cookies for the same purpose - thank you very much. Both me and my hand are doing fine, especially seeing as how it really was such a teeny tiny cut.

Right, down to the serious blogging. On the weekend I made a little trip home to the north of Wales and took my lovely flatmate with me, to give her a tour of the 'sights' of Colwyn Bay, as well as the Broadway Boulevard experience (judge for yourself if you dare!). I have to say, apart from being slightly worried about getting beaten up by the Bay townies that are absolutely everywhere and seem to have multiplied since I was last home, she seemed to find North Wales delightful.

On Monday night, back in Leeds now, I actually attended a members meeting for STAR. Regular readers (if there are any of you, that is) may remeber that this is a Student Action for Refugees Society that I joined way back in September. You may also have noticed that I have written zilch about it since. This is for the simple reason that I haven't actually attended anything. This semester, however, I intend to remedy that and get involved.

So I dragged my lovely flatmate along for moral support. We all played a lovely game called 'lets all pretend to be refugees fleeing from our country' (obviously, its not actually called that. That would be silly and take away from the gravity of the subject). We were randomly put into families (mine was an illiterate farmng family) and had to carry out a series of tasks to get us out of our country, through immigration and to safety across the border. At one point we all had to huddle, blindfolded, in a corner of the room and be very still and silent while people pretended to be dogs, growling in our faces and trying to sniff us out. Immigration and the border crossing was fun, seeing as how we couldn't read, write, or speak the national language. All in all, I'd say it was a very educational excercise, although seeing as how we were all already there, they were sort of preaching to the converted. The society intends to take the workshop around local schools and youth clubs to educate children on asylum seekers and refugees.

Yesterday was another exciting day. I've been wearing a white 'Make Poverty History' band for a few months now, but yesterday was the first day I got involved in anything to do with it. It was the launch of Make Poverty History in Leeds University and a Hunger Banquet was held. Its idea is to demonstrate that its pure luck which level of income you're born into, so everyone who attended was randomly assigned an income. If you were high income, then you were waited on for a three-course meal on the top table, which was on the stage, and if you were low income then you ate rice on the floor. There was a middle income somewhere in between. I was high income (yay!) and got a lovely three course meal. It was very powerful and educational and I'm hoping to get involved in the campaign in the university this year. Also, it was on BBC news last night! Famous!

Oh, and I served Charity from Emmerdale last night. Twice. She was really really nice. Obviously I was all cool and pretended I didn't recognised her.

Tim Westwood on Wednesday night at work. I think its safe to say I wasn't looking forward to that one too much. However, I clearly need not have worried. The club has a capacity of over a thousand - and only about 400 tickets were sold. It was full of 'homeboys', but thankfully it wasn't frantically busy or anything. In fact, I was even on a till on my own, yet wasn't run ragged. The boyf had bought tickets for himself and our neighbour/close chum who had agreed to accompany him, yet he knocked on our door after he finished work and said he couldn't go because he had a meeting early the next morning. Bless the boyf. He spent the rest of the night in the pub (apparently - I wasn't there, being in work, obviously) trying to ply him with pints to get him drunk enough to trick him into going. Alas, it did not work. But hurrah! The boyf did manage to pursuade one of our lovely flatmates to go with him (reluctantly) instead. The ironic thing is, she ended up really enjoying it, and he was not too impressed.

Now last night at work, however, was another matter altogether, which again is ironic, as I had not really given last night a second thought.

It all started about 3 hours before I actually got there. I was having a nap, as I was shattered from one night's work and facing another one in a matter of hours. In the middle of my nap, I was woken up by a loud bang outside, but as I was half asleep and things bang a lot in my neighbourhood (I do live in Woodhouse, after all), I thought nothing of it.

However, come 9.30, as I was getting ready to leave for work, I came face to face with my rear car windscreen - shattered. Yes, one of the lovely neighbourhood children had smashed it. Smashed my window - yet had taken absolutely nothing, not even my radio. Bastards.

After calling the police (who said there was nothing they could do) I left for work in the boyf's car. Upon my arrival, I noticed that my hand was covered in, and dripping with, blood. Yes, I had cut my hand when I checked inside the car to see if my radio was still there, and hadn't even noticed.

So here I was, 45 minutes late for work and covered in blood. The bar manager had a bit of a shock. A lovely American girl I work with insisted on giving me first-class first aid, and bandaged my hand up so tight I kept losing feeling in my little finger. The lovely bar manager put me on the quiet bar, as I was obviosuly not having a good night.

And then the fun began.

It was a drum and bass night, and it was absolutely packed full of pillheads. Glass collecting was a nightmare, and the 'quiet' bar was mayhem. I eventually got home, stinking of beer, covered in sweat and all bloodstained at 3am. And then couldn't get to sleep for ages because I couldn't stop stressing about my taped-up car.

But it is all fine now. A car window repair man is on his way, my hand is all fine now (TINIEST of cuts - how did it bleed so much?) and I'm all rested up. Phew!

I'm having a night in on my own tonight, as one flatmate has already gone home, boyf will be going home, and t'other flatmate is working (ha! - in the same place as me - ha!) so I'm going to go to bed at 8 with a Galaxy bar and my North and South video. Can't wait.

Not a whole lot to report of at the moment, I'm afraid, hence lack of bloggage.

Let me see. Well, I worked in the union on Friday night. I worked in the small bar upstairs and it was very quiet all night, although when I was glass collecting in the main room I did get elbowed in the face when YMCA came on. No, not the most safe song to be wandering around during.

Um, I've started the age old History student passtime of frequenting the library again. Oh yes, tis a hub-hub of activity there.

I was going to go to out to a club on Monday night, but the boys went out and got wine and beers, and after we'd all had just the one drink, and probably also because the heating was on full-blast, we all got sleepy, and that idea went out the window. Ooh, the excitement!

I'm working again tonight and tomorrow night, and Tim Westwood's playing tonight, so it should be interesting, to say the least. So, you never know, I may SOMETHING interesting to write soon enough.