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(My ratings of what's been cool and gruel in life this week.)

Yay is...

1) PURPLE LAPPYTOP. A late Merry Christmas to all those who I havent seen over last week...I guess the best thing about it for me is that I finally got my very own laptop, yay! Now, I'm really not one to brag about gadgets and things of a general financial value, but with this, I'm gonna. Its my new baby. Its a Dell Inspiron. (You're thinking of the "Lollipop, lollipop..." song now, right? :p) Although it is mainly for university use of course (lol) I'm really looking forward to msn-ing and watching stupid stuff on Youtube to my heart's content. Woohoo!

2) CHRISTMAS PREZZIES IN GENERAL. I did actually manage in the end to find everyone a suitable gift and wrap it appropriately (I get better at wrapping each year :D) and from what I could tell they were each happy with what they got. Its also nice when your friends get really cool gifts, too. Jake got an Iphone, my friend Adele 2 got her driving test and Jordan "Sue" Kennie

got an XBox so he can finally join us in our mad mad world (Xbox Live). I got some really awesome clothes and some wonderful converse from Jake (I'm kind of a Converse fiend and I've been on shoe rations for the past few weeks as they were all falling apart). So my friends and I were all pretty pleased, and I hope you guys were too :)

3) CHRISTMAS (GOOSE) DINNER. I'm a massive food lover, so the annual Christmas dinner is a big thing for me personally. There's just something (aside from the turkey obviously) that makes this dinner taste differently to every other roast throughout the year, like the vegetables and everything I mean. This year my brother suddenly claimed he didn't like turkey and suggested we get a goose instead. (I know what you're thinking - "Is this the 1800s?” It really did taste good though.) My sister and I weren't prepared to give up our turkey & stuffing sandwiches so we ended up getting a turkey and a goose. Was a bit of an awkward trip to the car from the butcher's, but was worth it.

4) COOL FILMS. Two specific films I've been to see this week are Avatar and Sherlock Holmes. Avatar is amazing, so much better than I thought it was gonna be. The storyline is really well thought out, and involves events that could well be real in the next decade or so, once we’ve mastered the art of extracting fuel sources from other planets and whatnot. With breathtaking colours and animation it really makes the foreign creatures believable as well as the battle scenes throughout. I actually really like this guy’s review of this film in 3D, go take a look here.

Sherlock Holmes was certainly different to the Basil Rathbone renditions I’ve been used to growing up, but was really cool in its own way. Robert Downey Jr. is great portraying the wit, sarcasm and high observational nature of the original S.H, and Jude Law is well-suited as Dr. Watson. However I guess the producers just thought to throw in an attractive woman and a few explosions then tada, you’ve made an old classic into a movie.

5) SNOW. Its melted now and turned to ice and grey mush, but I’m just really surprised it stayed for as long as it did. :)

A little south of yay is...

5) FEELING SICK. You really do start to become sick of Christmas food after a few days and start to crave stuff like Chinese food. Or is that just me? My parents bought box upon box of mince pies and all of this brandy cream so now we have to shovel down as many mince pies as we can to use up this high calorie cream before it goes out of date. Yummy.

4)  SHORT DAYS. The reason Christmas itself goes soooo fast is ‘cause you get stuck in a time continuum where only one 12 o’ clock exists and that’s midnight. Late nights lead to late mornings – sorry, no mornings at all – and that’s why we wake up and its New Year’s Eve already.

3)  TEMPTATION TO SLACK OFF. Exams start in like, a couple of weeks, and I’ve done zilch work so far, thanks to socials and the exclusive time continuum mentioned earlier. But who seriously has time to revise with all of this frivolity going on? See I said frivolity. I’m still educated despite living in a festive bubble.

2) LACK OF FUNDS. Christmas leaves a serious hole in your pocket, especially for us students who are poor at the best of times. I have worked several hours to fund my gift-giving and have some left over wrapping paper and a fistful of receipts to show for it. It was completely worth it though. Now I just have to get down to some serious saving.

1) PARENTAL POLITICS. I already know that my ‘rents can be highly strung and rather over-sensitive, but for the last couple of years they’ve placed more and more negativity on Christmas, saying how stressful and rushed it is. They seem to try to make the rest of us feel guilty. This Christmas has actually been the most fraught of them all with tension and a negative atmosphere for a lot of the time. Its at times like these that my parents’ ability to get irritated over the tiniest and often most innocent of actions comes to light, and this holiday period has been no exception. They can be hard to please, contradictory, and hypocritical, but right now I won’t digress. This aspect of Christmas this year has definitely made the bottom of the scale this week.