A little about me, for new people

Just a few bits of info about me, so you new people can get to know me a bit better. In no particular order.

• I'm 26, blue/grey eyes, brown hair, glasses, about 190lb, 5'6". I'm trying to lose about 40lb.
• My birthday is November 13th, so I'm a Scorpio (with Virgo rising). I do sort of fit the description.
• I'm a student at the University of Sheffield, England. I'm reading psychology, but have enjoyed taking classes in ecology, genetics, and evolution. My particular interests are evoltionary psychology and behavioural genetics. I'm currently deferring my second semester first year exams until August, as I missed a lot of classes due to illness.
• My health is not the best - I have Type 2 diabetes, essential hypertension and fibromyalgia. The fibro causes fatigue, muscle/joint pain, impaired cognitive function, sleep disturbance and occasional low mood, but it's not really bad, and I'm pretty much okay most of the time.
• I live with my boyfriend Michael in Chesterfield. We've been together for 4 years. We don't have kids, and don't plan to have any. We've talked about getting married when I graduate.
• I have a black Labrador called Summer, two guinea pigs (Jack and Stan), two chinchillas (Ted and Dougal) and five giant African Land Snails.
• Last autumn I rescued three wild hedgehogs which were too small to survive hibernation. Melissa unfortunatley died. Rosemary had to have an operation to amputate her back leg which had been partly bitten off by another animal - she recovered well and recently escaped from her pen in the garden. I didn't want to release her because of her disability, but obviously she had other ideas! Basil was very sick but pulled through and will be released very soon. Most nights I watch hogs and other animals on people's webcams all around the country.
• This year I've started birdwatching, and I'm really enjoying it despite not really knowing much about birds and being terrible at identifying them. I also feed the birds in my garden.
• Although I'm a scientist at heart, I like to be creative too. Occasionally I write poetry and short stories, and I knit (but only small things, I get bored easily) and sew. I love to cook and bake and I spend a lot of time reading.
• I have a 21-year-old brother who's studying at the University of Derby, also reading psychology (copycat!). We get on well, even though he's much cooler than me.
• I sing with the University of Sheffield Singer's Society (SingSoc), in the main chamber choir, the smaller Socii Cantorum, and the even smaller Ladies' Choir. I'm an alto, but occasionally sing tenor when I fancy a change. At the moment I'm working hard on my sight-reading, as it's not my strong point. I'd like to get a singing teacher but at the moment I can't really afford it. I really love to sing.
• A couple of weeks ago I was part of The People's Choir, a project which was organised for a television documentry of the same name. 800 people turned up to learn, rehearse and record Tallis's impressive 40-part Spem in Alium in a single day. It was incredible, one of the best experiences of my life, and we sounded absolutely stunning. The programme will be broadcast in the autumn.

Enough for now I think!