Oh. Hello. Still here? Poor you. Hope you haven't been waiting too long. I'd love to say I've been too busy to blog, but the truth is I just forgot for a while. Sorry 'bout that.

Incidentally, the fact that I am blogging again has nothing to do with the fact that I have an Italian assessment to do and am desperately trying to put it off. OK? Just so we're clear on that.

Cool. So now we've cleared that up, and got the Happy 2008 formalities out of the way, a quick update on what's going on...

1/ My flat still isn't finished. This is a combination of my fault for not chasing people, and the fault of non-showing-up-for-weeks-on-end tradesmen. Mostly their fault, in fairness, but still. It's very close to being done, and more than live-able in, so I'll settle for that for a few weeks more.

2/ I am working dayshifts this week! I am learning about a wonderfully exciting (!) new system that's meant to be coming in at work, so I can then impart this knowledge to my colleagues. This means 10am starts, and more excitingly, such things as lunchbreaks at lunchtime and finishes in the early evening, allowing me time to go out! I am, in fact, writing this paragraph in Beanscene... I'm just that excited about the whole thing.

3/ I want to go back to Australia. That's not really going on, I just thought I should mention it.

4/ I am learning Italian. I may have mentioned this, I probably haven't mentioned the difficulty I am having finding any time to study it outside classes. The only thing I can currently remember from the past few weeks is "how is the watermelon?" - which, just for reference in case you need it, is "com'e l'anguria?". That e should have an accent above it, but I can't figure out how to do that on my laptop. Hey-ho.

5/ I went to a party dressed as "the sheriff of stationery village" from the Mighty Boosh. This mainly consisted of my sticking post-its, paperclips and Pritt Stick to a shirt in the most hastily conceived party costume ever. Looked good though, until I lost my sheriff's post-it note badge, complete with star, and wrote myself a new one (I had pens stuck to my person too, you see) which said simply "I am a sheriff ". Yes, complete with web-style smiley. Had a two-day hangover after those exploits.

6/ I have web work to do. As in, stuff that will make me money. I am also putting this off, for no apparent reason. I did spend 12 hours on it on Saturday night/Sunday very early morning, in fairness, so I reckon I'm due a couple of days' break.

7/ I got woken up this morning by the power box across from my flat catching fire...

8/ The island on the Great Barrier Reef which I visited was featured on the telly last night, in the very good series "Tropic of Capricorn". I mean, they were being all serious and examining the threat to the ecosystem from global warming or climate change or something, but I simply watched and shouted: "I've stood there! My room was just round that corner!" and so on.

9/ Erm, to be honest I can't think of anything else. I'm sure there is more but I've procrastinated long enough and it's time to start writing some Italian. It may be difficult to crowbar any mention of watermelons into 100 words of describing someone, but I'll give it my best shot...