boombangbing

What the heck do you get pre-teen girls for christmas? I'm trying to get my cousins, age ranging from 7 to 11, presents, and they have to be sent off in early December if not before because they live in South Africa. If they were older or younger I'd be fine, but they're in that annoying age where I have no idea what kind of thing they'd like and can't just buy something marked 4-8 years.

In other news, life is still way stressful. Just when the doctors say that my grandmother doesn't have cancer, our estate agent start acting up. *headesk*

There's a christmas party on the 7th December at my college, and I would honestly rather eat my own foot than go - I don't really know anyone, and the head of the student union(!) freaks me out; he leers at me and treats me like an idiot. My teacher thinks I should make an effort to get to know them, but parties make me want to die especially if I don't know anyone. I really hate the mentality that almost everywhere has that if you choose not to do, or go to, something it makes you the odd one out, and then it's harder to make friends. For instance, this student union thing has been set up, and it's just a load of crap. They have meetings every so often and try to harry me into going when I have a lesson or expect me to stay behind and come to them after six pm. Sorry, but I'm one of those people who actually wants to leave at the end the day. When you're paying me to stay behind, I'll stay and not before. Not to mention I at no time said I had any interest in their bloody little club. And the email addresses and phone numbers that I gave to the college as contact information and one other person has been passed around. Seriously, don't give out my details without my express permission. And the aforementioned person I'm supposed to co-edit the magazine never emails about things like I've asked her (my life is busy and stressful; I'm resitting my English L&L Unit 1 in January, my entire family is falling apart at the seams, and we're being threatened over the dogs) but every so often comes and bothers me with vague requests at writing or editing or something else. Gah!

/rant

Happy things:
The Door into Summer by Robert A. Heinlein is really really good, if a tad sexist and creepy. I downloaded the audiobook on Saturday after reading an article on Heinlein in Locus, and I finished it this morning. I'm starting on Starship Troopers now, and looking forward to Have Spacesuit, Will Travel arriving in the post. Soooo many books to get through. :)

I've started watching The Drew Carey Show, and I actually really like it. I thought it might be like most canned laughter shows - dire, but it's really rather sweet. ^^

I have a new wintery layout - boombangbing!