According to Livejournal, my last post was 10 weeks ago. A lot has happened in 10 weeks. Studying abroad in England, backpacking through Europe, moving back to Durham, starting classes, beginning to freak about the future- all normal things right? I kept a blog chronicling my trip on a different site, but I have lost the link. I'll have to dig that up sometime soon.

Right now, I am preparing for my NEWTs. Harry Potter reference much? Yea, I know. Me=Big Nerd. But if I compare something otherwise unpleasant to something I enjoy, it makes it easier to deal with.

By NEWTs, I mean the GREs. In the HP world, they take OWLs to decide which classes they can carry on with. That is like taking the SATs. And now the GREs are the next scary big test I have to take, so hence the NEWTiness!!

Since I am applying early admission to UNH grad school, I have to take the GREs at the end of September. I didn't realize I would have to take them so soon after returning to school, so I am a bit blindsided. I think I'll just wing it and hope for the best. That usually tends to work- except when it came to my terrible presentation in my 784 class last week. But that vomit inducing performance is not worth discussing.

Perhaps it won't be another 10 weeks for an update, but I make no guarantees. I am very busy and important. :-)

So, I only have a couple of minutes left on the internet, but figured I would write a quick blog entry!

I arrived in London yesterday around noon London time. I had a layover in Iceland which was pretty cool. The phones were down and it was 6:30 in the morning. Luckily it was a short layover. On the flight from the US to London, I got stuck next to a smelly fat man who's body oozed into my chair, and there was a family of 4 small screaming children in front of me.

I couldn't get my phone to work while I was in Iceland, but it was a short layover. I ended up sitting next to this really nice guy, James, from Australia. Instead of sleeping, like I should have, we spent the time chatting about lots of different things. I learned that Australians don't wear 'tank tops' they wear 'singlets'.

I have wasted too much time IMing, so now I only have 6 minutes left on the internet. I'm off with my new friend Steve (also from Australia) to go to the Wimbledon final. Yay Tennis!

Also- I've tried Marmite. It is SHIT.

The title of this post is a blasphemous lie. My bags are not even close to being packed! I officially leave for England in 1 week and 2 days and I feel so discombobulated over the whole thing, that I think I'm just going to drink until the magic packing fairies come and take care of everything!

Well, that probably is not a good idea at all, but a girl can dream, right? Plus- depending on the mixture of cold medicine and alcohol, it is quite possible I'll be seeing fairies at some point!

I am not completely unprepared however. Currently, I am home on Cape Cod, and I have lugged 4 loads of laundry back with me. My mother (who is the bestest Mommy is the whole wide world) did all of my laundry for me while I was out galavanting at the Drive-In catching up with my best friend from home, Heather. My grand plan is to fold all of my laundry tomorrow, and pack as much of it as I can so that I am somewhat prepared for my trip.

The scariest thing about my trip is that I'm going to be alone for the first two days. Without a phone. In a foreign country. Where I don't know a single person. Kind of scary, right? Yea, I'm nervous but I'm sure I can handle it. One of my favorite life mottos is: Wherever you go, there you are. And I'm going to be content to be right where I am. Hopefully. Provided I don't get kidnapped or robbed or anything!

I fly out Friday night and arrive in Iceland early Saturday morning. Then I have an hour to get to my next flight which will take me over to Heathrow Airport. No matter what, whenever I think of Heathrow Airport, the only thing I can think of is the fabulous movie "Love Actually." What do you think the chances of Hugh Grant waiting for me at the gate are? Slim to none, right? Well, it is a pretty popular airport. Maybe I'll spot a celeb at some point!

That Saturday night, I'll be spending the night in a hostel in London, then moving on to a hostel in Cambridge for Sunday night. Monday, I can check in at my program, and then I will be all set!

Having it written down and typed out makes it seem a lot less scary!

I finish up at the hotel this weekend until I come back in September. It's weird, but I'm really going to miss the Homewood! I feel like it's my second home. I guess I won't miss the drama, but it will be weird to be away for so long! I have spent every weekend there for the last nine months! Having my weekends free while in Europe will be WEIRD.

Well, I guess I should go to bed. Lots of laundry to fold tomorrow!

I'm going to try to write a blog post every day leading up to and while I'm gone in Europe. I'm not completely sure of my internet access, but I'll at least type one up every day and post them when I get the chance.

Also, I've made myself a special new Twitter account for my adventures abroad! www.twitter.com/SelinaInEngland Follow me if you're interested!

Wow- it's been awhile since I've been on! I'd like to lie and say I've been busy because I have been working a lot, but work is where I always write my entries, so I really have no excuse.

This past weekend was graduation for all of the UNH seniors. It's so weird to think that a year from now, I'll have graduated from college!! AHHH!!

First problem I have with that is that I have not found a serious boyfriend yet. I'm perfectly content being single right now, but if I don't find a husband in college, where will I find one? I feel like this is the blue print for the rest of my life and if I can't hold down a man right now, I'm destined to become a cat lady.

Second problem I have with that is loans. I'm going to have to start paying them back, and I'm not okay with that because I'm only an english major. I suppose I won't have to start paying them back if I go to grad school, but that means that I'll pile on more and more loans. As long as I go to grad school, perhaps my first problem is pushed off and I'll find a rich englishman.

Third problem is that I will have to become a GROWN UP. And I don't want to be an adult. I like disney movies, Twilight, Harry Potter, unicorns and stuffed animals too much to actually be taken seriously. Perhaps I should just check myself into a mental health place and live there in my fantasy worlds instead of facing becoming an adult.

I suppose those are my only problems I have with graduating. I mean, yea it is supposed to be happy and all, but it seems like more trouble than it is worth.

After watching all of these families flood into the hotels to go to their children's graduation, I have decided that I don't even want to go to my own graduation, and if I do go, I don't want my family to suffer and come all the way up here to see a bunch of strangers in black caps.

I suppose graduation doesn't seem like a huge leap or anything. I always expected after you graduate for it to seem like now your life can finally start, but seeing what some of my friends who just graduated are going through, I'd rather stay in school for as long as I possibly can.

Wow. The semester is over and to say it came quickly is an understatement!! While I must say that a majority of my semester was spent working 40+ hours per week, this was by far the best semester of college.

Right now, all I have left is 2 finals, and frankly, I could care less about them. I have A's in both classes, so even if I tank the finals, I'll be okay.

Considering this was my best semester, I am going to take some time to write down what exactly it was that made it so great.

1. My Friends- I have finally found a group of friends who I know actually like me (at least I hope they do) and who will listen to me ramble about fanfiction, will go to midnight shows with me and will willing drink every night of a specific month, just to say we did.

2. Alice- I am truly a premature cat lady. In the beginning of April, Sam and I decided to get a cat, and even though she is deaf, she is the sweetest most cuddly kitten ever! She is tied for 2nd as my favorite cat ever. Rocky, #1 favorite cat ever can never be replaced, so Alice is tied for 2nd with Charlie, my kitten who ran away after having him for almost a year last summer. :-( But Alice is wonderful and hilarious. She has a 5th sense (because she is deaf she only has 4 original senses!) as to when the toilet is being used and loves to watch it flush. Her favorite play area is the bath tub and my desk chair. A very cute little being she is!

3. Classes- My classes this semester were AWESOME. Granted, I was only taking 3, but I actually wanted to go to them. I think I only missed a grand total of 6 classes this semester, opposed to last semester when I skipped at least 2 classes a week!! I'm doing pretty well as far as I know and hope this seriously boosts my GPA.

4. Work- I may bitch about working a lot, but I really do like both of the jobs I have now. Piercing Pagoda was good for awhile, but that got super annoying really fast. Working at the Homewood and the Hampton now for 40 hours a week and the mailroom 32 hours a week starting soon is going to mean I'm making bank!! And I need it for the summer- see #5.

5. CAMBRIDGE!!- That's right, I'm studying abroad. Not one to ever think I would actually be able to handle studying abroad, but these 6 weeks are sure to be great. I'm leaving July 3rd, then coming back August 26th with Sam. She is flying out to visit for the last 2 weeks and we're going backpacking together!! I got my loans situation taken care of, and everything is all set. I just need to save up enough money so I can really enjoy myself!!

6. Boys- It's strange to say that boys have been a contributing factor to my happy semester, considering I am very single. But that is exactly why is it great. This is the first time in my college career that I have really been single and been enjoying it. Of course I complain about it, and being surrounded by my best friends and having my roommate have her boyfriend over 3 nights a week is kind of like salt in the being single wound, but I'm okay with it. I'm realizing now that I don't need someone in order for me to be happy, so I'm happy to be single.

7. Books- I hadn't really thought of this in particular, but 7 is my favorite number so I wanted a 7th reason. I'm trying to read new and different books instead of rereading my HP and Twilight books repeatedly (though I am still doing that, I'm just doing both. Multi-tasking!) and it is great! Currently reading "The English Patient" then moving on to Dracula. :-)

This was a great semester. I am excited for the summer and am excited to be going to Europe!! :-)

So, even though I personally don't graduate from my first 4 years of college for another year, and don't actually have to worry about finding a place to live and a career for another 2 years (providing I actually go to Grad School and graduate in the year it takes to do the program) I have been thinking a lot about where I would like to eventually end up.

The eye opening has just recently occured. I can go ANYWHERE!! I think I blogged about something like this recently, but I am still realizing that I can move anywhere and (hopefully) find a job and be happy.

I think I would like to move out of the country, or maybe to the west coast. I'm not really sure. I know I don't want to go to Asia- too much of a language barrier! Australia is too remote, and the slavic countries are too remote, but anywhere else is fair game. Thinking about Canada and the UK currently. Any other suggestions??

School ends next week. Well, technically. The last day of classes is Monday the 11th, but I'm going to be home spending some much needed time with my mom celebrating Mother's Day.

My mom and I have been talking a lot more, and with the craziness of my sister and her bad life decisions (dropping out of school with 2 weeks left... really???) things have been better. Plus, with me leaving in 2 months and working as often as I possibly can until then, free days are far and few between.

And so it has begun. The summer of working hell. Though I shouldn't classify it is "summer" as a majority of my summer will be spent lounging about on the great island known as Europe.

In preparation of my adventure, a fabulous 60+ hour work week has beckoned. Starting next week I'm up to about 40 hours at the Hilton between 2 properties, and after exams, I'll be at 32 hours in the mailroom. Lots of money for me! However, I do need to work on actually saving, versus spending it all on things I "need" for my trip. Example: I have bought at least 7 dresses in the past week, convinced that these dresses will automatically make me seem less like a tourist in Europe. Correct logic, right??

I was even thinking about trying to tack on a 3rd job, but I really just don't think that my body could handle that much lack of sleep! Plus, I am taking a summer class, so I'll have to focus on that as well.

I ordered the books that I think I'm going to need for one of my classes abroad. I'm planning on reading all of them before I get there so I can pull my "Hermione Granger Syndrome" out of it's temporary retirement and put my know-it-all habit to good use.

Today was my friend Elizabeth's 21st birthday. To celebrate, I mixed her a drink to enjoy during our Shakespeare class (I celebrated with her and brought my own mixed drink of the stronger variety) and then took her out to lunch. At lunch, she was too hung over from the night before, so I proceeded to drink both of our drinks (Sex on the Beach- delicious!) and amble over to Fiction class decidely drunk. There I proceeded to dump half of my flask of Peach Schnapps into a delicious orange juice, and giggle throughout most of the class.

Shame on me, right?? Wrong. Why?? Because I had fun, no one got hurt, and Elizabeth had a memorable birthday. Plus- it was my turn to get my story workshopped, which meant people were saying mean things about my writing, so I needed something to cushion the blow.

The week so far has been great! My scooter is running, the weather is beautiful and I am working lots and lots, and therefore will be quite rich in the near future!!

Happy sailing!

Love is a very powerful word- and it ought to mean something, right? Lately I have found it more and more difficult to utter the words to anyone other than my new kitten, Alice. I guess I am fulfilling my destiny of becoming the proverbial cat lady I knew I would.

Love is a word that is thrown around so casually. My sister always "loves" her new boyfriend after dating for a week. My friends and I often use it as a farewell over the phone. I use it to describe my immense attraction to a slew of hot celebrities.

It was just yesterday when I realized that I have become a cold hard unloving wench after I got off the phone with my mom. She always tells me she loves me before she hangs up, and for the past few weeks, whenever I do talk to her, I just answer with, "Okay, bye." My cold heartedness was further proven this morning when I spoke to my sister for the first time in a week or so. I did the same thing- she told me she loved me and I just said "Okay, bye." To her credit, she said again, waiting for me to say it back, but I didn't.

What does that mean???

I think in my singleness and my realization that I am not where I would like to be has put me in this funk where I don't want to get too attached to people, and by expressing my love verbally, that would just be a weakness. Or at least I think that is what is going on in my subconscious mind.

I have told a grand total of 4 boyfriends that I loved them. Looking back now, I know it was not love, but something else- be it lust, the desire to be in love, the sense of obligation to say it back or just a drunken ramble that seemed like a good idea at the time.

I'm not ready to be a crazy cat lady just yet, so I'll try and not be such a cold hearted bitch. We'll see how that works out...

As I am a self proclaimed R-Pattz fan and a complete fangirl, when I found out there were tickets for a movie screening of his latest flick "How To Be" I whipped out my nearly maxed out credit card and bought three tickets on the spot. I didn't care that I didn't know much about the movie, and I didn't care that it was on a random Thursday night. All I knew is that I wanted to go see this screening (with appearances by the director, composer and 2 of the actors from the film) with my 2 best friends, Sam and Christine.

I booked the hotel and made the plans with everyone and we were all set to go down. Sydney ended up getting a ticket too, so we headed down to Boston yesterday night.

Every single time I go into Boston, something always goes wrong. We had a bit of a late start due to a meeting I had with my professor, and that put certain members of the party in an angered state. We went to a place to have some photos taken, and then we needed to head to my ex-boyfriends to grab me stuff- which he conveniently forgot to tell me would not be there. Tons of wasted time!! BOYS SUCK- especially EX BOYFRIENDS!!!

We got to the hotel and got ready and then headed to the T. Due to strange circumstances, we had to sit around and wait for a good 20 minutes or so, finally board, then instead of getting off at Kenmore, get off at Copley because of more problems!!!

We finally get to where we need to be, and any thought of dinner is out because it is already 9:30, leaving that member of our party still mad at me- because it was clearly my fault that the T was not working properly.

The movie was good, then we got out and of course, everywhere we want to go is closed!! This member of our party is FURIOUS with me, so we end up talking our way into an expensive bar and ordering food.

I guess I'm just overall pretty pissed that this person was blaming everything that went wrong on ME, even though I coordinated the whole trip to try and make sure everyone had a good time.

We left this morning early because we needed to be back on campus by 10 for Christine's class. I had work at 9:30, Syd was going home and Sam had a breakfast date. I guess leaving early was good so nothing else could get blamed on me. :-( It's like that stupid fight with my mom all over again- except with my friends.

A quality that I really like in myself is that I am always trying to find something new and exciting to do that I think my friends will like. But now I give up. What is the point anymore???? If my friends are going to get mad at me over something silly like the T not running on schedule or leaving 30 minutes after what time I expected because a meeting with a professor went a lot longer than I thought- then I just am going to give up trying.

No more trips to Boston, no more fancy cheap hotel rooms and no more planning on my part. I'm a natural planner, but I just don't care anymore.

Title: This is the Life
Rating: PG
Pairing: Draco/Hermione
Warnings: AU, but what DM/HG story isn't?
Summary: A short fluffy one shot about why Hermione Granger's friends won't let her leave a seedy restaurant. And exactly what is one Draco Malfoy doing in her flat?

( This is the Life )

Title: All This Over Coffee?
Pairing: Draco/Hermione
Rating: R- some language and very poor smut
Summary: Draco and Hermione find themselves in a tricky spot after drinks, upon a nude cruise!
Warnings: Very American and written before HBP or DH, so AU as well

And here we are- the end of this interesting piece of fanfiction!! Hope you enjoyed it a little bit!

( Part 10/10 )

Title: All This Over Coffee?
Pairing: Draco/Hermione
Rating: R- some language and very poor smut
Summary: Draco and Hermione find themselves in a tricky spot after drinks, upon a nude cruise!
Warnings: Very American and written before HBP or DH, so AU as well

( Part 9/10 )

Title: All This Over Coffee?
Pairing: Draco/Hermione
Rating: R- some language and very poor smut
Summary: Draco and Hermione find themselves in a tricky spot after drinks, upon a nude cruise!
Warnings: Very American and written before HBP or DH, so AU as well

( Part 8/10 )

Title: All This Over Coffee?
Pairing: Draco/Hermione
Rating: R- some language and very poor smut
Summary: Draco and Hermione find themselves in a tricky spot after drinks, upon a nude cruise!
Warnings: Very American and written before HBP or DH, so AU as well

( Part 7/10 )

Title: All This Over Coffee?
Pairing: Draco/Hermione
Rating: R- some language and very poor smut
Summary: Draco and Hermione find themselves in a tricky spot after drinks, upon a nude cruise!
Warnings: Very American and written before HBP or DH, so AU as well

( Part 5/10 )

Title: All This Over Coffee?
Pairing: Draco/Hermione
Rating: R- some language and very poor smut
Summary: Draco and Hermione find themselves in a tricky spot after drinks, upon a nude cruise!
Warnings: Very American and written before HBP or DH, so AU as well

( Part 4/10 )

Title: All This Over Coffee?
Pairing: Draco/Hermione
Rating: R- some language and very poor smut
Summary: Draco and Hermione find themselves in a tricky spot after drinks, upon a nude cruise!
Warnings: Very American and written before HBP or DH, so AU as well


( Part 3/10 )

Title: All This Over Coffee?
Pairing: Draco/Hermione
Rating: R- some language and very poor smut
Summary: Draco and Hermione find themselves in a tricky spot after drinks, upon a nude cruise!
Warnings: Very American and written before HBP or DH, so AU as well

( Chapter 2 )

So I am coming out of psuedo retirement to post some of my super OLD fanfiction on here. Most of this stuff was written 5 years ago, and instead of editing it, I'm going to simply post it on here, then start posting a lot of my newer stuff that is (hopefully) a bit better.

My attempts at smut make me absolutely cringe- especially since I was still a virgin while writing it- so enjoy if you can!

Title: All This Over Coffee?
Pairing: Draco/Hermione
Rating: R- some language and very poor smut
Summary: Draco and Hermione find themselves in a tricky spot after drinks, upon a nude cruise!
Warnings: Very American and written before HBP or DH, so AU as well

( All This Over Coffee? Chapter 1/10 )