Had awesome weekend! Friday night was the Magdalen Ball down in Oxford, where I went with my sister and wore the turquoise dress I bought on my birthday. It was pretty damn awesome, with a circus and dodgems and bands like the Pipettes playing and a chocolate fountain and fireworks. Though my dress was a bit uncomfortable - laced up bodice, just tight enough to be uncomfortable but not tight enough to free me from the constant paranoia from not wearing a bra - and that, plus general tiredness and cold, meant I gave up around 1am and went back to Becca's room, and napped on her sofa till she came back as well.

Saturday, I headed on to Sheffield, for the latest SFX weekend - the 3rd anniversary one, no less - and had the horrific embarrassment of finding out that one of the guys there was from Durham, and had actually been going to the Queen's Head pub quiz for ages along with me, only I'd never recognised him in either location. WAY TO GO, BRAIN. I THOUGHT WE WERE PAST THIS KIND OF EPIC SCREW-UP.

But both gatherings were great, with me getting to see people I don't see nearly enough. And shortly after getting home, marcus_felix came round and gave me the Presidential Sword of TT. I didn't even know there WAS a Presidential Sword! Now I HAVE to tidy my room, just to find somewhere good to put it.

... I graduate on Wednesday. EEK.

OK. I've either just had one of my most distinguished Kathed moments yet, or... something weird just happened.

So. I just handed in my dissertation. Brain is not functioning well. Stopped by Sainsburys on my way home to buy a cucumber to go with lunch and some toothpaste. (Partying hard already, oh yeah.) Put toothpaste and cucumber in already quite full bag, walk home.

Now, people who don't know me, my house is REALLY close to the Sainsburys. Like, across the car park and a street.

So maybe you can understand my utter astonishment when, upon getting in and putting some food in the microwave, I go to get the toothpaste from my bag... AND IT HAD VANISHED.

Seriously. I searched my bag, all over the kitchen and living room, I even abandoned my microwaving food and retraced my steps across the street and car park to Sainsburys in case I'd dropped it. Nothing. I even went into Sainsburys to ask, though by now I was half expecting it to turn into a Julianne Moore in 'The Forgotten'/ Jodie Foster in 'Flightplan' type deal.

"Hi, I'm looking for my toothpaste, I just bought it here, did I drop it?"

"... I'm sorry, ma'am?"

"My toothpaste. I've lost it, I was just wondering if I dropped it in here."

"But ma'am... you never bought any toothpaste."

"What?"

"You only bought a cucumber."

"WHAT NO I REMEMBER BUYING TOOTHPASTE, I REMEMBER MY TOOTHPASTE."

"I don't know what to tell you, you only bought a cucumber."

"BUT MY TOOTHPAAAAASTE!!!!"

And they'd show me the receipt and I'd see that, yes, indeed, I only bought a cucumber... but then I'd get home and find MY PENNY MISSING, THE PENNY I USED TO MAKE THE EXACT CHANGE TO BUY A CUCUMBER, AND I'D KNOW I WASN'T DELUSIONAL, THERE WAS SOME SORT OF TOOTHPASTE CONSPIRACY GOING ON, aaaand this is the sort of thing my brain comes up with after a large amount of stress goes away.

But seriously. I went into Sainsburys, no-one had seen me drop toothpaste. The woman who'd served me wasn't there any more, so I couldn't even verify with her that I'd bought it. I retraced my steps again. No toothpaste. Searched the kitchen again. No toothpaste. I even checked in the microwave while I was getting out my microwave meal in case I'd accidentally nuked it. Nada.

MAYBE IT IS A TOOTHPASTE CONSPIRACY AFTER ALL.


PS: ... Now I can't find the receipt. WHAT THE HELL.

NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

So I bought a gorgeous bag over the summer. And I mean, GORGEOUS. It's purple and some kind of leathery-suede and big and over-the-shoulder and carries a good amount of stuff and I love it like I have never loved a bag before. And it was only $20, which was just even better.

Thing is, it being leathery-suede, I've had to be careful not to get it wet. I never use it when it looks like it's going to rain (depressingly often in Durham) and don't carry water in it, even when I'm dying of plague. Using it automatically makes it a Good Day.

UNTIL NOW.

I woke up this morning to bright blue skies. These are incredibly rare in Durham, and I had a huge bowl of delicious sugary cereal and the new HIMYM episode (AWESOME) to make my day even better. Today, truly, was a day for the Awesome Bag. So I went off to my Latin lecture with a spring in my step.

Our Latin lecture is in the English & Philosophy department, where the two separate departments seem to have bred and spawned a confusing maze of rooms, which, while poky, at least are constructed around right angles, unlike the slanty Classics department. And the room where we have Latin (which was locked, this morning, so we were sitting cross-legged in the hall until a guy came to let us in) has a funny smell.

Wearing shoes, I was none the wiser as to the cause of the smell... until it was too late.

The lecture ended. It had been fun, so I was still in a good mood. Until I swung my bag onto my shoulder...

... and felt... dampness.

The bottom of my bag was SOAKED.

I stared at it, in horror, trying to comprehend how this had happened. I didn't have water in there, or a small animal that might have peed.

Then I realised, and slowly bent to touch the floor.

It was freakin' damp. There must have been a leak in the ceiling. And now my bag had paid the price.

"NOOOOOOOOO!!!!" I screamed, "MY BABY!!!!!"

It wasn't even a small moist patch. About a quarter of one side was properly soaked. I mean, it wasn't soggy, because it's leather-suede (and GORGEOUS but SO FRAGILE) but it looked as saturated as it could get.

Visions rushed through my mind of it being discoloured, fuzzy or - horror of horrors - mouldy.

My bag. My beautiful bag. "YOU'RE TOO YOUNG!!!!" I wailed.

By now my friends had understood what was happening and, while clearly thinking I was crazy for being this upset over a bag, tried to console me and give me hugs. It is now on the radiator. I hope this can save it. Please, Jesus Petrelli, have mercy. I haven't even shown it to my sister for her to lust over yet.

God, I am SUCH a girl.

Sometimes* I get sick of being so freaking special.**

I mean, I know I'm good at some stuff. I can translate Latin (well, with a dictionary), I can be very diplomatic when I want to be and am good at knowing what to say to people, I can write, I can even integrate equations with more letters than numbers.

And yet I fail at the simplest tasks, which makes me look really dumb and, well, special.

Like just now, strangely enough. I couldn't figure out how to use trinityblack's washing machine. Well, I THOUGHT I was doing it right, but I evidently wasn't. So my poor mum gets a panicked phone call from her intelligent daughter, who has just completed a second year in her Classics degree at one of the best universities in the country, asking her what the hell she should do about a huge pile of sopping wet clothes with no tumble dryer.

She was very patient and lovely, and if she was trying not to laugh, she hid it well.

It's just - university has made me stupider, I swear. I make special mistakes and do dumb things a whole lot more now. People laugh and say it's cute/blonde/special/what makes me me, but it's actually starting to get to me. I'm sick of having to ask people to help me with things when I inevitably fuck them up.

Want a translation of Georgics book 4? I can totally do that, though I'll bitch about bees. Need someone to put clothes on a spin cycle? Oh no, that's apparently beyond me.

Medieval banquet for 100 people, with catering and entertainment? Easy. Remembering to attend a seminar? Ooh, I'm nowhere near organised enough for that.

Talking to someone upset long enough to find the root of their problems and helping them through it? Second nature. Being able to deal with my OWN? Not happening.

Grargh.







* Hormones are usually involved.

** That's "special", btw. Not special as in "You have a special place in my heart", but "Nononono don't eat the paste it's not nice."

One exam down! It could have gone better, but could also have gone much worse. I was very happy that I got to write about the Slut Boat and Tacitus: Boring or Bitchy?, but I could have done without the Cicero. I just wrote complete nonsense, I'm pretty sure.

On the way back up the hill, I phoned my mum and told her about it, and said about my hand seizing up halfway through ("Nooo! MUST WRITE ABOUT SLUT BOAT!"), and also somehow thought it appropriate to mention while walking along a busy road, "Hey, and I pulled a muscle in my ass somehow!"

"... Really?"

"Yeah! I don't even know how I was USING that in the exam!"

"I don't know. Maybe you were talking through it?"

I love my mum.




Also, Kathed Moment of the Week: I have two friends, both called Matt, who for this I will call Matt A and Matt B. Matt A, I'm currently half-living-with, and Matt B left Durham a while ago but still comes to visit this house sometimes.

Just after trinityblack, the sensible one of the house, left to go get chips, the phone rang. Somewhat tentatively I answered it.

"Hi, I'm returning a call made earlier to [random number]-"

"OK, who is this?"

"Mrs Matt B."

Here is the process that went through my poor, Tacitus-weary brain:

1. This woman has the same surname as a Matt I know.
2. I live with a Matt.
3. These Matts must be the same person.

So I went, "Oh, you're Matt's mum! Hang on!" I then called Matt A, who was somewhat surprised to have a call from his mum, and took the phone.

Not as surprised as Mrs Matt B to hear her son's voice had completely changed though, I'll imagine.

What made it worse was when she asked who it was, and he replied, "Matt."

.... *headdesk*

Seriously, this is how wacky mistaken identity comedies get started. We were lucky the mistake was caught so fast. Who knows where we might have ended up.

(Of course, some cases of mistaken identity have great results..... I miss you, Mylar.)
</lj>

Recently I've been becoming steadily more girly. First there was the shopping trip, where I bought skirts and dresses and make-up. Then came watching 27 Dresses in cinemas - twice. NOW, I use girly bodyspray every day, I wear skirts to lectures - I even have a freaking SKINCARE REGIME.

I was worried I was becoming all grown-up and a giiiirl. And that I might be losing geek points.

Then, today, I kept dropping things. Keys, a glass, books - stuff fell down around me. It was a Kathed day. I started wondering whether gravity was particularly focussed around me today.

Then I nodded and said, "Hmmm, the Force is strong with this one."

AAAAND MY GEEKINESS IS BACK.



In other random weird pointless news, I'm currently engaged in a random conversation in the comments section of one of reasonablycrazy's Facebook photos (in her security guard uniform, looking HAWT) with a guy she works with. It was weird enough when it was just me insinuating that the reason I knew so much about him (I asked if, since he was American, he wanted to blow shit up) was because I was actually part of his own psyche - but now other people are WATCHING. They are following our conversation and occasionally adding comments about how either the two of us must meet, or must forever be kept apart.

We just want to talk about how awesome Wolverine is. It's randomcakes.

I will be writing more Sylinder later this evening, once I've done LOLwork. No crack till my essays are done. Shambles the Kitten glares at me if I disobey.

(Shambles is a toy kitten I bought for TT last night, and now get to keep. It's tiny and ginger and adorable. I did toy with calling it Mylar, Sendhil, Sylar, Lyle or even Mr Muggles, but in the end I settled on Shambles, because since I used it as a dog's name in a story I've wanted to use it as a name in real life too. Anyway, I've decided it's the visible personification of the Work Side of my brain, and when I look at it it reminds me to work. Aaand so this pointless aside comes to a close.)

Life continues as usual. OMG work, OMFG Banquet, OMGWTF muesli. But I'm actually really enjoying this whole healthy-living thing - there's a certain satisfaction in it. Plus, the wholemeal tagliatelle from Sainsbury's is NICE. No chips after TT on Monday kinda sucks, but I'll deal with it.

Just a few little things I wanted to record:

1. On the Heroes imdb page, the plot keywords are 'Blood Splatter / Depression / Super Powers / Cheerleader / Gun Shot.' This, to me, is hilarious.

2. The other day I was having a really geeky conversation - figuring out ways to get Star Trek terms into TT - then summoned all my dignity and said "I'm leaving this conversation before I embarrass myself any further!" Then walked into a door. Cue laughter track. I mean, seriously, my life is a sitcom. My friend Sophie said, "Stuff like that JUST DOESN'T HAPPEN in real life!!"

3. Tennant-lecturer today told me I was a 'sunny character'. He said it in tones of slight astonishment, too. I think it was because, despite having walked all the way down to the Classics department to be told my essay was missing and I'd have to re-send it, I was still beaming and ending all my sentences in exclamation marks. But it was nice to hear, because I thought he hated me and thought I was stupid. Who knew? Anyway. So I'm a sunny character. I guess that's nice.

4. LECTURE GUY CUT HIS HAIR. THIS IS SUCH A HORRIFIC SHOCKING DAY. OK, little explanation needed. There's a guy in a few of my lectures who always seems to end up sitting in front or to the side of me. And he has the most AWESOME hair - kind of like Mystery Sock's, only his head is smaller, so it's that much more noticeable.

Or rather, he USED to have awesome hair, BUT NOW HE'S CUT IT OFF! He has a boring haircut now! I was so upset.

Aaand I've finished eating my healthy healthy dinner now (actually, it was soup with a sandwich, so not really all that healthy at all) so I have no real excuse not to work. Boooo.

The police came round again, and this time I had to give an official statement. It was simple enough - 'I got a call from Lloyd's in October asking "Did you buy this stuff?" and I said "No"' - but I was still kind of nervous. Because I also had to sign agreements to go to court and everything if they ended up prosecuting anyone to repeat my statement (not that it was likely I'd be called, the officer assured) and for some reason I had visions of some high-drama court scene.

"SO! You were PHONED about this, were you?"

"Er, yes."

"Where is this phone NOW?"

"... um?"

"Do you even HAVE a phone?"

"Er, not on me-"

*SHOCKED GASPS FROM THE GALLERY*

Letting my imagination get hyper is just one way I'm passing the holidays. I'm also watching clips of the Heroes cast on youtube (or rather, mostly Zachary Quinto - seriously, he's so adorable with Kristen Bell!! AND THE DOG. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUB4hj-C4ZA&feature=related and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6z5Y2wcamXU) and spending far too long on the Heroes message boards.

OK, my conscience is glaring at me. To be specific - the Heroes HoYay boards.

We're not just fangirling! Honest! We're practically writing our own sitcom now. It's Sylar and Mohinder having wacky adventures across time and space. And there's also Adam, who keeps trying to kill them (the REAL reason he was trying to release the virus) and they've also adopted Lyle, who remains happily oblivious to what Sylar's like, hence the catchphrase "Dad doesn't verb objects, Molly."

This is turning into an embarrassing entry. I'll go now.

I forgot to say - the afternoon I got home from uni, my sister told Dad and I that a policeman had been round earlier, wanting to talk about a family member, and had said he'd be back that evening. Understandably, we were a bit alarmed, but mostly confused. I think both of us were thinking, "What have I done now??"

Anyway, he turned up that evening, and did sound quite serious, and I was pretending not to be eavesdropping like mad when my dad took him into the kitchen and asked about what was happening.

"I've just got a couple of questions to ask," I heard him saying, "concerning some ceiling materials?"

OMG.

All pretense dropped, I ran into the kitchen, and said, "Er, ceiling materials?"

I'm still not sure whether the policeman was just looking for information, or whether he thought I was actually the one ordering all these ceilings online. I rather suspect the latter, considering at this point he gained a slight surprised expression of, "My God, the Serenity T-shirt wearing ceiling thief is eager to confess."

My dad saw his expression and explained that it was my debit card details that had been stolen to buy ceilings. "Ohhh," said the policeman, in tones of dawning comprehension, "But - you're not called Kathed?"

Only when I walk into lampposts. "No... Katie."

"Right."

He went on to explain. Lloyd's Bank had contacted Leicestershire police as soon as I told them about the invoice, and said about this person going by the name Kathed using stolen details to order ceilings. Leicestershire police had gone on to investigate with the ceiling company, and the delivery address - and also contacted the police in Faversham, saying about how the thieves had given their address as mine, and how they were calling themselves 'Kathed Logan'.

I think they may have got confused into thinking I was a suspect, not the victim.

He also said how the thief had been going around making other purchases in the area with the name Kathed. Dude, it's an official alias. He got some details off me, then left, promising to be in touch.

And I got a phonecall today. They have a suspect! I hope they make a point of his Epic Fail in the trial.

Another classic Kathed moment for the ages.

I was wandering along the road to Tescos, thinking about my NaNoWriMo. Apparently, I was very VERY deep in thought, because -

*THONK*

I walked headfirst into a pole.

There was actually comedy *DOONG* noise as I staggered backwards and fell over. I didn't quite see little birds flapping around my head, but I spent a good amount of time sprawled on the ground holding my head thinking, "What? Huh? OW! What happened? Pole - from nowhere! What?"

Finally I managed to get my thoughts working again and got up, and carried on going to Tescos, a little shaky on my feet now till my brain was fully functional again.

I mean, seriously. I walked into a POLE. I wasn't even looking at my feet, I was gazing vaguely off into space in front of me while I thought about whether Jamie aka The Pretty should be a serial killer mercenary for a demon/vampire.

That... is a very special moment. Witnessed only by a postman.

It was my physics teacher who first noticed this, years ago. It was year 11, our school was having a Clown Dress-up Day, which, understandably, sent me into fits of terror. So my friend Gemma and I dressed as the Anti-Clown League, in all black with sunglasses. My physics teacher saw me, and laughed, and said, "You can't do anything normally, can you?"

And - no. No I can't.

I already thought my debit-card-information-thieves were pretty incompetent. I mean, they spent £1000 on a CEILING. Possibly one of the hardest things to hide. I mean, you can't exactly throw a blanket over it, or put it out in the garden when the Fraud Department comes calling, can you?

Turns out they not only bought a ceiling. They bought a ceiling - without realising the invoice would be sent to the address on the card.

Which is, oh, what? MY ADDRESS.

So today I got an interesting letter addressed to 'Kathed Logan'. Hmm, Kathed. Hadn't thought of that as a nickname. Anyway, upon opening it, I discovered this invoice for the ceiling, and at first just rolled my eyes at the reminder my details were flitting around the internet somewhere.

But then I noticed something very interesting. A little box, with 'Deliver to' in it, with an address for somewhere in Leicester.

.... are my debit card thieves SO RUBBISH that I now have their address? I can't think of what else it could be, it's not my address, it's not the 'return to' address on the envelope, it's not the address of McDonald's ceilings. I think it must be theirs. Which is just... they SUCK. I can't do anything normally - even my debit card thieves have astronomical levels of specialness.

Incidentally, the name of the town they got the ceiling from? 'Failsworth'.