rubbing shoulders with celebs

It happened. (See my last post). I met Darcey Bussell and looked her fully in the eye and couldn't stop just saying 'Thank you'. I'm such an idiot. Forgot to ask for a photo and everything. But she did see the shoes and a sharpie in my hands and figured out what I wanted so now I have a pair of pointe shoes signed by my idol!! I'm still a bit in shock from it. My cousin Iain shared in the joy with me (right).

I was lucky enough to have another celebrity meeting on Friday night - I've been a fan of The Other Tribe for a while now and saw them at Queen's May Ball in summer last year. Turns out they were headlining at my own college ball and I managed to nab a photo with the lead singer. (Looking a bit dishevelled after four hours of #balling). I asked him to marry me but he didn't hear me. Maybe next time.

broth and ballet

I made quite a tasty chicken & asparagus & noodle & some other stuff broth last night - with these gorgeous large field mushrooms. I took a picture of the finished project but it made quite an ugly dish so it won't be gracing my blog. Tell you who will be gracing my blog though: Darcey Bussell. I'm anxiously sat waiting at the Union for her talk to begin tonight (got here 2 hours early, I'm very serious about this). When I found out she'd be speaking this term I packed my pointe shoes to come back with me, and they've been hanging on my mirror for 10 weeks waiting to be signed by one of my favourite ballerinas. Hopefully in the next post you'll be seeing pictures of Darcey and I hugging, exchanging loving glances, and my first pair of pointe shoes marked forever with her autograph. I've got to develop a plan over the next hour of how I'm going to achieve this. So nervous. So much pressure.

early summer

My first froyo from the new Chill store in Cambridge. Very tasty but this tiny pot set me back £4.80.
A store on the market this weekend JUST selling buttons. We need more of that in the world.

A bit of a phone-photo dump from today. More HQ photos to come: today was very pretty so SLR had an outing. After two full days of shows I've given myself most of today off to enjoy the weather (an early summer has hit Cambridge this week!) before hitting the after-show party tonight. The show was so much fun and I'm quite sad this was my first and last time in it. Friends & housemates came to see me on the final night as well, which made such a difference. The audience were a particularly rowdy one last night too. Tonight we're turning up to the club early to get them to play all our songs from our show so we can relive it..PSYCHED. I better get on with all the work the show has made me sideline!

shrove tuesday

I've just savoured my last piece of chocolate before dreaded Lent. I'm not even that much of a chocolate eater normally but ever since deciding flippantly to give it up for Lent I've gone crazy for the forbidden fruit. Today got quite out of hand, turning into be a day of utter excess and indulgence. I had two breakfasts and two lunches. My second lunch was at Crepe Affaire which has recently opened in Cambridge, and was doing a roaring trade today obviously. I got the 'Strawberry Delight' crepe and chased it with a mint chocolate milkshake. The best ever. I highly recommend. My crepe was pretty mediocre but Charlie's was pretty special: he went for a savoury Thai green curry crepe. An afternoon in the university library proved pretty productive, and I came home to invent a new pasta dish out of what was left in the fridge: chicken legs, an onion and half a tub of tomato&mascarpone sauce. I don't recommend. I don't know why I've had an urge to document everyday again on here lately..perhaps it's the lack of filming a second of my day everyday. It's been nice to not have the burden of doing that but I am beginning to miss it. It feels weird, like I've got a fifth limb missing or something. Thinking of starting it again on the night of Girton ball - would be a pretty spectacular start to another year's worth of footage. Hmm. Shut up Meg.

happy place

I'm the busiest I've been since I started my management course right now. I'm having to schedule writing job applications and reading in between dances at rehearsals. I gave a presentation in class this morning having had a video-interview at the crack of dawn, and now I have a couple hours homework time before I'm off to a 4-hr rehearsal again this evening. If you live in Cambridge and you know me you BETTER HAD COME TO THIS SHOW. So when I got back from class at lunchtime I let myself retreat into my happy place: watching Momma June talk 'bout her love with Sugar Bear over a bowl of Heinz tomato soup. I also indulged in some Kinder Schoko-Bons (these sweets caused many arguments between me and my sister..so we will always love them) as Lent is coming up (2 days left help me) and I'm planning on not eating chocolate for 40 days. (Apart from 14 March: 14 March is day of indulgence in the Girton calendar). Back to my Innovation coursework. Let me know if you'd like to do it for me.

emerge

I spent my whole day today at the Emerge Cambridge conference. The conference was conveniently in my department so the plan was to plug away in the Library all day and occasionally pop out for the highlight talks of the day. There were a few people speaking who I've been avidly following on Twitter for a couple years you see. Ended up going to EVERYTHING at the conference and doing zero work. Oops. The fact I have an all-day rehearsal tomorrow bodes well too. The conference was on Social Enterprise and where the sector's going in the future. If you know me at all you'll be aware that I'm absolutely nuts for this stuff. I've been involved with Social Enterprise for 3/4 years now and think it is ultimately where I'm headed. I had a great time: I was tweet-conversationing in real-time with people at the conference during each talk, so good! I actually ended up winning the conference's photo competition with the above shot and received a prize in front of everyone in the final keynote! The book's a signed copy of 'The Rise of the Reluctant Innovator' by Ken Banks, and comes at a very convenient time as my 'Business Innovation in the Digital Age' coursework paper is due in a couple weeks. So that was a £10 ticket and day off uni work well spent! I'm as happy as this husky:

bengali cooking

I've got three imminent coursework deadlines, too many dance routines to practise (don't ask), presentations to give, conferences to attend, and work to plan for a charity, and so obviously I decided to spend my entire Thursday night this week preparing and cooking a Bengali curry. Very smart. I can't even justify it as a de-stress activity because cooking instils an extraordinary amount of dread/fear/anxiety and raised blood pressure in me. I do however feel a sense of achievement: I've never cooked a curry from scratch before. The whole reason I went about this was because my pal Ella is half-Bengali, and her Grandma has a cool website full of amazing recipes here. I tried the Main Course-Chicken curry recipe and it wasn't difficult at all. Ella kindly gave me measures of the spices I needed for the recipe (me & the boys' spice rack extends to salt, pepper and ready-grated parmesan). Admittedly I was a bit heavy-handed with the extra-hot chilli powder but we survived, and if I do say so myself it was a pretty damn tasty curry. I took some action shots but gave up trying hard when I realised that this was probably the least photogenic dish I've ever made. Nevermind. Have a go at the curry though!! And peruse the website it's full of wonderful stories as well as recipes.

http://www.anita-pal.com/

Tip from Ella: make sure the onions are really brown and softened - this can alter the quality of the curry sauce.

And this was a lil thank you present from Jenny who came back to visit last weekend. (How sneaky is this bird). She kept saying she felt like she was on holiday here and to be honest I felt the same even though I still go here. KEEP COMING BACK JEN!