hmpf

The most important part will go up f-locked later (sorry, lurkers).

But first:

1.) I am too stooopid to take a train to a neighbouring village and back. Seriously, I got ridiculously lost both on the way there, and on the way back today. A trip that should have taken three hours tops ended up taking six, and I spent most of them standing around on the platforms of godforsaken tiny village train stations in the middle of nowhere. I've navigated the public transport systems of London, Paris and Barcelona without trouble... but apparently little German villages defeat me. (What did I want in that neighbouring village? Yeah... well, more on that under the f-lock.)

Met some lovely people at the last of those train stations, though - in particular, a Thai woman with a very thick accent I could hardly understand, who simply stayed for half an hour so I didn't have to wait alone in the snowy dark. Sometimes people are just so lovely I could cry.

2.) (Apart from taking the train) another thing I apparently can't do is sing and play the guitar at the same time. Granted, choosing this as the first song ever to try playing and singing simultaneously was probably a tall order... (but it consists of chords I know, and the vocal melody is just beautiful, and never goes too high or too low for me...)

But, seriously... is there a trick of some sort, to make it easier to learn how to sing and play in different rhythms? Exercises one could do, perhaps? - Should probably check if there are tutorials for that kind of thing...

... were the two seemingly antithetical results of my short but 'intense' trip to Britain. The physical exhaustion, a result of travelling 18 hours by coach, showed as a desire to sleep through all of Monday, interrupted only by two hours of work in the evening. The - unexpected! - mental relaxation showed as sudden inspiration to vid and make jewellery. Granted, not the most intelligent thing to do when you have a deadline for your thesis and still no idea what to write, and I would probably have appreciated a sudden *thesis-related* inspiration more... But, having stifled most of my creative impulses for months now, until I eventually nearly lost them, I decided to give in to them this time.

Vidding didn't go too well (see previous entry *g*), but jewellery making did. I've started making a necklace for my mother, one I promised her so many years ago it's not even funny. She had these labradorite beads, and I wanted to make something really nice from them, but wasn't really happy with any idea I had over the years. I've now ended up using a very simple idea that came to me literally in my sleep. It truly is ridiculously simple, but I think that's why I like it - all the more 'sophisticated' ideas I had earlier just didn't fit the beads very well, but simplicity does. Plus, I get to melt lots of little blobs of silver for this design, and there are few things more relaxing and satisfying - nor more foolproof! - than melting metal. (Seriously! You try it! *g*) And then I get to hit the blobs with a hammer a lot - also foolproof and relaxing. (This is what goldsmithing-as-therapy would look like, I tell you.) The only thing about this necklace that may get the least bit tricky is the clasp, but I'll manage that as well, I'm sure. Maybe I'll think of a very simple mechanism for it... *g*

Oh, and I still haven't told you about the insane trip *to* Britain, have I? That really deserves an epic poem... I'm not sure I'm up to that today.

First things first: Peter Wingfield is almost as sexy as Methos is, and what's more, he moves in a way that no normal, mortal human being should have a right to move. It's a bit scary, truth be told. And sexy. Did I mention sexy?

I'm such a fangirl. Sheesh.

Well. I'm back. Britain was great, and not just because it would totally kick Australia's ass in a bare-chested knife fight (*waves to beccatoria*). This time, strangely, I did not feel like a tourist anymore. Which was nice, in a weird way.

Totally panicked on the plane, though. Need to find alternative method of travel. Seriously.

Con report of sorts coming later. (Also: Worldcon report, what I remember of it. If I can manage. It really has been far too long!)

Regrets: Not managing to see jazzymegster, elliejane, aminspace, torn_eledhwen and a bunch of other people - I definitely need to stay longer, the next time.

But I did get to meet fleta, beccadg, elbatsnud, beebee852001, tiniago, ommadon and of course beccatoria, so that was nice. Love you all. :-)

Now I'm very busy fixing some computer bugs and then trying to get caught up on all kinds of fannish duties - catching up on lj, beta reading, translating It's Walky, reading my mailing lists and doing moderator's duty at sf-community.de... it'll be a busy couple of days, I reckon, before I can go back to doing something for uni.

Also, I want to meet some offline friends in the next few days; that has a very high priority. There's people here in my hometown I haven't seen in 14 months, and that's just not right in a proper friendship.

So, that's the Quick Hmpf Update for now. More later.