Welcome! Honest Lies is the personal site of a 26 year old graduate electrical engineer living in the UK. Covering every day life, books and various other randomness. Read more about me and the site here.

But a part of me sometimes wants

In the last entry I was packing up and about to leave halls. Let me continue from there.

Packing up took ages. My dad came fairly late, and we ended up only finishing up and leaving at about half ten, eleven-ish. The car was pretty full, but this meant I got to have a duvet on my lap for the entire journey back which wasn’t so bad (read: gloriously warm). We stopped at McDonalds on the way back and I was all :D :D :D whilst my dad was clearly just trying to stay awake. It was surreal coming back home- a little bit because I had gotten kind of used to uni, but mostly for the silly reason that it had been snowing at home whilst at uni there had been no snow. At first there was just a light dusting but arriving home there was a thick layer of snow on the ground. It was unexpected :o Unpacking took a much shorter time and I was soon curled up in my own bed. The next day involved lots of organising and lots of washing, and then soon it became the usual of sitting around wasting time. I was home.

And time has just flown past since then. I can’t believe I’m now on the last few weeks of my Christmas break. I have spent the last few weeks sleeping until ridiculous hours, taking forever to get ready for the day just because I can, attempting to revise but mostly failing at it and lazing about taking advantage of having unlimited internet to watch lots of dramas. It’s been wonderful being able to sleep in every morning, to have a long hot mould-free shower, to eat whatever I want and when I want it, to have my cat around me. Of course my room is in chaos right now, with boxes and bags everywhere waiting to be packed up again, but that’s to be expected. I don’t go out much, so I can leave most of it packed.

Christmas itself was fairly quiet and uneventful. My sister invited two of her Chinese friends to spend Christmas with our family. They were polite and kind and it was a lot less awkward than I had feared it would be. It’s actually very interesting to be around people from such a vastly different culture than yourself. For Christmas I got some awesome presents, ate a lot of awesome food, played monopoly with my sister and her friends and lost miserably… all fairly ordinary and nice.

New years was not as nice as Christmas. It wasn’t bad, but it was awkward and exhausting and I wish I’d spent it at home with my parents and my cat and the internet. I actually spent new years with my old school friends and I was dreading it from the moment I agreed to go, and I can’t say it defied my expectations. Most of said friends I’ve only once or twice since we left school, if that. And we don’t have much in common and they are all so much more mature than me. They’re all second years, with houses, with busy lives and normal hobbies that are not watching Asian dramas or fangirling over fucking Korean boy bands with too many members. It wasn’t so bad, but I felt awkward and out of place. No, I’ve always felt awkward and out of place around them, and its only gotten worse. I was ready to leave by about midnight but ended up only getting home around 2am because I had to wait for my one friend to be able to take me back. :/ I am fairly sure I said some things I shouldn’t, and did some things I shouldn’t, because I always do.

I can’t say I feel particularly excited about the New Year either, which probably contributed to my melancholy at the New Year ‘s party. All the new year really means is that I now have exams in just two weeks. That I have to go back to university in two weeks and deal with all that stress again. I’ve enjoyed the past few weeks, but I think these next two weeks aren’t going to be nearly as relaxing. Now comes the part where every day exams creep closer, and every day is filled with anxiety about said exams. Here comes the regret for not being productive enough, for wasting time. I have been trying to revise but I honestly don’t feel like I’m really taking anything in. Which is maybe worse. Because I’m trying here, but still I’m not sure I’ll ever get to the level I need to be to achieve the things I want. I want to get good grades, but I just…I just don’t think I can do it. I honestly don’t think I am capable of getting the marks I want and I fear these exams will turn out my A levels, and that is not a good thing.

It’s heart-breaking to grow to want something, want it so much, when you’ll probably never get it.

I should end this entry on a more positive note, shouldn’t I? A belated merry Christmas, and happy new years to anyone who reads this blog. May the next year be awesome for you :D


Boku to Star no 99 Nichi was a drama I was looking forward to since I first heard about it. A beautiful star falls in love with her average joe bodyguard? Hell yeah! I love these kind of uninspired plot lines, if done well, and will never get tired of them. I finally got around watching to it and while I can’t say this drama is anything amazing, I still love it. I like that its just a cheesy, cliche riddled, predictable little rom com and its not trying to do anything more. It doesn’t take itself too seriously and its not ridiculously angsty,  and I hope it stays that way. Thus far, it’s a fun series to kill time with. The acting is overall OK, the music is gorgeous, and its pretty to look at. Plus it doesn’t seem to be dragging plot wise which is always appreciated.

What really makes this drama though are the wonderful characters. I admit to loving fried tofu quite a lot. I’ve only ever seen Sasaki Kuranosuke in the serious role of Hancho, and I admit I’m finding it hilarious to see him as Takanabe. What a nutcase, but he’s so harmless you can’t help but love him. I love his friendship with Kouhei (although its probably not a good thing they seem to have more chemistry together sometimes than either of them do with kim tae hee…). I love Kim Tae Hee here too. Not only is she looking gorgeous, but I find her character adorable, and I really admire her for obviously putting in so much effort to speak Japanese. I also like the way they work in the cultural differences- her cooking and making the food too hot, or not understanding certain words sometimes. I think they’ve handled it well. I find some of the side characters a bit of a plot device (the kids mostly) and wish that they didn’t spend so much time on them but its OK.

I could really ramble about this drama for a long time. I’m enjoying it, cliche’s and ridiculousness and all.

roomTonight my Dad comes to pick me up as I am going home for the holidays. Living in university accommodation means I have to pack up all my stuff and move it out of my room for the holidays, even though I will be moving back into the exact same room next year. FUN. The picture shows my room after some cleaning/de-cluttering, but before I started to pack. My room may look messy there but believe me, it got worse. My room is in chaos right now. As I sit here behind me are boxes of my belongings scattered about. I have so much stuff to take back: my clothes, my two drawers, my chair, my computer, as well as a load of other things. Getting all this in the car could be interesting! The car was jammed packed when I moved here and I now have even more stuff so I suspect my dad may have to leave me behind to get the train home XD

I am just about ready to go home tbh. Even though I know that the holidays leading up to exam period are a hard part of being in education- having to motivate yourself to study, instead of having a set timetable to drag yourself out of bed for- I look forward to the comforts of home. University accommodation leaves a lot to be desired (oh the mould, mould everywhere!), and I”ll also be glad to be free of lectures and labs for a while. I really do have a tonne to work through for my 5 exams though (6, if you count my Japanese Exam). And I am still struggling with my degree. I do try and study, but even as I start to understand it I still don’t think I am at the level where I will get the grades I want on my exams and I worry that I never will be. I am scared of my exams turning out like the mess that was my A levels.

Right now I am a little stressed, a lot tired, and I want to be these things at home. I wish my dad would come get me already. I”ve had to watch other peoples parents come get them/other people go home since yesterday. Have been very jealous as I only finished uni at 3pm today! Oh, I am so ready to get out of here. Have been since Monday. Back to packing I go!

Shower

I have taken to using a rinse of Rosemary Essential Oil and Honey on my hair. Not because it’s particularly fantastic, but because it is easy to make up and it seems to do an OK job, a better job than anything else (tea, on the other hand does too good a job- gets my hair clean, and turns it to straw too). Washing my hair has become such a chore though. Just, finding the time and the energy you know? I don’t have time in the mornings when I typically shower so I have to take an extra shower at night to do so and it’s such a pain. Showering in student halls is far from a pleasant experience, and who really wants to do it twice? Also, even though the rinse I am using now is fairly simple it is still annoying having to make it up. Why can’t I just grab a bottle of shampoo and go? Why do I have to scrub my scalp and why oh why do I need that final cold, cold rinse? I just find myself disliking how much work no poo is. (And that cold rinse. It’s fine at home cos I can step back and just wet my head, but here in halls there is nowhere to go, and I end up having to have a cold shower too) I’m tired and lazy and it’s cold.

I guess I better suck it up and go shower…

Also: how am I going to explain the jar of honey, the bottles of dried rosemary and parsley and the bottle of lemon juice to my dad when he comes to pick me up on Friday? Me having these things makes no sense, and it’s not like I am about to tell my parents I’ve not been using shampoo for the past 9 months. I don’t want them to get all judge-y on me.

(Yes this is pretty much an entire entry with me whining that I want a good, hot, clean shower and I want it NOW. But is it such a bad thing to want to feel warm and clean after showering, not cold and…icky? This is one of many reasons I really cannot wait to get home. I may end up spending 20 minutes in the shower every day, just because I want to.)

He was sitting there where she had left him. He had the cup upon his knees. There was water in it, and he peered into the water as if to see something that moved there. He did not look up as she approached. So she dropped the flower into the bowl under his nose, and knelt beside him to kiss him on the ear. He was startled. Then he laughed. His fingers picked the flower slowly out the cup. […] “How are you?” he asked gently. “Better,” she said. “At least for a while. I want to tell you that you are wonderful. And wonderful things happen, as well as terrible things. And when we die, all that happens is that they stop happening.”

John Dickinson, The Widow and the King

I have finally gotten around to reading “The Widow and the King”. I don’t read much anymore; I just can’t concentrate anymore. I tend to go through phases where I read a lot, and then I read very little. In a way if there was one thing I miss about commuting is that it was, in a way, one of my main reading times. However I’ve not been feeling well this week, which meant a lot of not doing my work and lazing around reading instead. Not good for my studies, but good to finally get through my rather large to be read pile. Anyway.

“The Widow in the King” is the second in the medieval trilogy, following on from The Cup of the World. Like its predecessor The Widow and The King took a while for me to get into. I loved Ambrose, and I adored the glimpses of the old characters like Phaedra and Aun, but Sophia was insufferable. I hated her. I read on, hoping she’d be like Phaedra- spoilt and entitled at first but growing into a mature and admirable person. She kind of did. As the book progressed Sophia grew on me, and I began to get drawn into it and I admit to enjoying it quite a lot. I have cried twice, the first I did not quote so you get the second moment which reduced me to tears (though I’m not sure how this quote works out of context :/)The writing in this book is really quite lovely, and the atmosphere of the book is much like the first: dark, and sad, and painfully romantic at times. I continue to love the way the author writes his characters- with all the flaws that make them human, and believable. The book is admittedly a little slow paced, but I find I like that about it. Very nearly finished this book, and then it’s on to the final in the trilogy “The Fatal Child”. I’ll be sad to let this world go. It’s one of my favourite fantasy settings- because sometimes I want a fantasy that is not the Chosen One vs The Evil One(s), with magic and wizards and monsters.