Hellooo there everyone,
I really like this idea of introducing ourselves again - and I too will probably write much more than first time round! I tend to start chatting to people on here without actually knowing the first thing about them, so I have been learning things even about the people I thought I knew!
My name's Nicola (obviously - I have no imagination when it comes to picking usernames - I am Nicola on every website I have ever been on, except for 2 where it was already taken!) and I am 25. I live in Warrington (northwest England, about half-way between Liverpool and Manchester) with my parents and my 16 year old brother (and soon also my two sisters when they get back from uni for the summer - there won't be room to move in the house!!!) I can't wait to move out, but first of all I have to get a job. I am seriously thinking that I will be stuck in temp jobs and living with my parents forever the way things are going though!!!
Until December, I was living in Japan for two years. I studied French and Japanese at uni and went back out to Osaka to improve my Japanese. I had hoped to come back and get a nice job using either French or Japanese, but it is proving impossible to find anything that doesn't require "five years marketing experience" or "an indepth knowledge of the technical terms used in the ballbearings industry" etc etc etc. So instead, I am turning into the eternal temp jobber!
I have a boyfriend, James, who is also 25. We have been together for 8 years. Fortunately he has been more lucky than me on the jobs front and he will be starting his training as an Air Trafic Controller next year!
I love reading - I will try anything, but especially like Maeve Binchy, Rosamund Pilcher, Nicholas Sparks, Paulo Coelho, John Grisham, Agatha Christie, Moliere, Apollinaire and of course Harry Potter! I read books 1 - 4 back-to-back in the summer of 2000 and loved them (having first pinched them from my brother) but it never occured to me to find an HP website until I spent 2 and a half days in June last year solidly reading book 5 - and then was desperate to talk about it, but my friends either hadn't read it yet, or didn't really want to discuss it much further than "it was great, wasn't it!" I looked around on the net for a few days, then eventually settled on the Snitch as being the most lovely place to post - and I was right - everyone is lovely and friendly, and at least most of the discussion going on here is fairly intelligent!!!
I am a budding writer - I was really put-off by the concept of fanfic at first - but a friend at work convinced me to start reading, and within about a month I was writing myself! Unfortunately my fics were lost when we were hacked, but I had decided to take a break from them anyway. I have tentatively written down the first couple of pages of something original... but I doubt it will ever come to anything!
I love travel - I have lived in France and Japan and have also travelled a lot in Europe and a bit in Asia and the USA. But there are still lots of places to see!
I love languages - French and Japanese are my main ones, but I do know some German, and am trying to learn Spanish (although need more motivation!)
I love music - I used to play the flute although am a bit rusty now. My favourite bands are mostly (but not all) British: Pulp, The Bluetones, Mover, Mull Historical Society, The White Stripes, The Strokes, The Manic Street Preachers, Travis, Blur, The Charlatans, Ed Harcourt, Franz Ferdinand, The Darkness, Ash... the list goes on!
I also like drawing and painting - and as soon as I manage to transfer it from one computer to the other I will post my one (rather dire) piece of fanart - but it's taking me forever to make it burn onto a cd!!!
Ok, I think I've said quite enough (or probably too much - you may have realised by now that I talk far too much - in fact that is the one thing that people always remember about me - even my own mother tells me to slow down and catch my breath!!!) so I'm going to get back to the jobhunt... grrrrr...
See you all around!!!