Friday 31 October 2008

Day 40 - Epiphany in a flash

Had cheerios for breakfast but put too much milk in the bowl, now I know why it always gets used up so quickly.
Geophysics first again, with Jurgen, better known as "that German lecturer".
Once again, even though I didn't really understand what he was talking about (it was to do with GPS and lasers able to measure ground movement) the lecture was still pretty interesting. Makes me wish we had him all the time, even if I didn't learn anything at the very least it'd be enjoyable.
Had an hour break in which I checked over my Maths c/w again.
Got the maths lecture and it was here I had my epiphany,

"What was the answer to these questions again"?
"I found an alegbra website the other night that can do all this for you"
"Ah me too"
"I just got my mate to do it who does a maths degree".

Now finally, it all makes sense. How in lectures it seems 70% of the people don't know what they're doing yet when I saw the marks online they were all so high, most of the people in the class cheated! Dammit. In a way I'm annoyed I didn't think to do the same thing.
Eitherway, today's lecture was a lot easier. Straight line graphs. Remember it from GCSE so today wasn't so bad. Was also quite a laugh when a girl at the front kept talking and the lecturer said that if she knows it all already she can leave. Amongst the crowd of students going "Ooooooooo" someone yelled out "You got served"! which made me quake for a good 5 minutes.

Attended the maths help session and it did help a lot, funny enough. No idea how well I have done in this piece of cw, but hopefully better than last time, 44% :(

That was it for the day for me, however I still needed a costume for tommorow, Halloween. Went to a fancy dress shop but it was packed! They had some realy good costumes, Batman, Superman, Ironman, Captain America. Yes, they even had HIM, the flash. I couldn't believe it. Though they all cost £50. No way, not worth it (or is it).

Left and went to another shop, there was a really good bigfoot looking costume there for £35, but I realised if I was going to be partying in this, I would be sweating like a black man all night. So I needed a costume that looked good and wouldn't make me too hot, and preferbly cheap.
I looked round for things I could mix and match. Then it came to me. I'd go as Brooke the gentleman skeleton from One Piece.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brook_(One_Piece)

I saw a skeleton mask, an afro and a cane. Altogether only came to £12. Perfect. No point spending loads of money on something I will only wear once. Funny thing is, nobody (aside from Jack) will have a clue who I am actually meant to be, as I doubt anyone from Clarence Dock, or maybe even in Leeds watches One Piece. So to everyone else, I'll be a skeleton in a suit with an afro and a cane.

Got home and took a nap only to be woken up by Lauren knocking on our flat door.(there are loads of "L"s in Clarence Dock who we hang round with, Lauren, Laura, Luci and Louise. To make things easier we call Lauren LP, due to her last name being Pettifer, and also cos it sounds cool).
Sat in the kitchen for a while, had dinner then back on laptop and began my chemistry tutorial which had to be in the next day.

After a few hours I got hungry and whilst making a sandwich was met by Adam who wanted to make his fake blood for a party tommorow. Made it from Golden and chocolate syrup mixed with water and food colouring. It turned out so well. Actually looked real. Especially when he put it in his mouth, tilted his head back and made it drain out. Look like his organs had burst. Made bloody hand prints on the fridge and Adam wrote "Redrum" on it (I didn't understand cos I have never seen the Shining, but apparently this happens in it, Redrum, Murder spelt backwards).

After a few more antics we decided to wipe the blood off and try and prank some people tonight by spitting out fake blood suddenly to see their reaction. If it was on the fridge they'd be more aware we had made it hehe.
Though I might, just for a laugh, spit out real blood. Now THAT would be a good prank...I think....

Wednesday 29 October 2008

Day 39 - Is that really Chicken Curry Soup ?

Well, let's see. Had no weetabix this morning so finished off the Frosties that I had which had been there since my first week. Wasn't too nice tbh. Got to Geophysics only to find that it was ANOTHER Q and A session. I had no questions to ask really so was annoyed I bothered to come in for it, as was Ben who literally ran to Uni due to his lack of attendance.
Got to a computer cluster and did some revision for a chemistry test we had today. Had breakfast, came to £2.10. Bit of a rip off really. Wish I didn't get hungry so easily, am spending too much on food.
Next was the dynamic earth lecture. If there has ever been a lecture that I have been tempted to just not go to, it is this one. First of all, he dulls the lights, making you sleepy, his voice is boring, he goes through everything on the board though it's all in the book anyway, we could read it ourselves, and everything he talks about I already know from A level. People just use it as an extra hour of sleep now, however I used my time wisely, and did some revision for the chemistry test that was next.
It wasn't too bad really. Know I didn't do brilliant on it, but know it has gotta be better than any other test I have done since getting to Uni. Though was quite annoyed walking out of the lecture hall whilst Tom and Darryl were talking about it and I realised I had already got quite a few questions wrong which I thought were definitely correct :(

After this we had a meeting in the vis lab about our trip to Ingleton in a week. Not sure if that's how you spell it, but can't be bothered to check right now. Tom said he really hopes he doesn't go on the Monday, as he had booked train tickets home for that day, I didn't want to go Wednesday, as I got Taekwondo in the evening.
I got my wish :) however, Tom did not.
Also Heffernan is in my group, at least I will have someone to talk to that I know pretty well.
Looking through the list, I noticed thata girl was called Fanny. Who the heck would name their child Fanny ? Really wanna meet her now.

Walked back to Clarence Dock with Ben, got on my laptop when I heard Adam in the corridor asking if I liked his facebook comment. Basically there I am doing a pub crawl with Taekwondo class next Friday, the theme is legends, I didn't know who to go as, Adam said I should go as Blade lol.
Ended up going into this room while he taught me how to juggle and also taught me some Chinese strokes and how to do them. So glad I didn't take Chinese, looks so hard. Learning another language AND a huge alphabet. Adam is crazy.

Went into the kitchen with him when Charlotte walked in while Adam was making his dinner and I was standing there juggling. Although she lives with us, we hardly see her, she has a 9-5 day pretty much 5 days a week and when she gets home goes straight to the gym, so to actually see her is rare. Come to think of it, the past few days I haven't really left my room cos I been stressing out over Geophysics and Maths work, worried that I am falling behind and getting pissed off that I can't understand it. Because of that I hadn't seen any of my flat mates for about two days.
Anyway, Adam took his "dinner" from the fridge and said he hopes it's still ok to eat. It was Asda value chicken curry soup in a plastic container, or so the label said. It literally looked like someone had just vommed in a container and stuck a label on it saying it was Chicken curry soup.
Even when he poured it into the pan, it still remained in the mould shape of the container. What the hell was Adam thinking when he bought this vom in a can ?
Throughout dinner Charlotte and I were trying to put him off his meal saying how much we thought it looked like sick, after about 5 minutes it worked as he didn't want anymore.
I tried some and it wasn't too bad tbh. Just looked a lot like puke.

Evenings were getting darker and colder. I find it Funny that Mike (the Canadian guy) finds it funny that we all think that it's cold her because it is 3 degrees when in Canada that'd seem normal lol.
I had to wear two jumpers on the way to Taekwondo. Was a good session tbh. For some reason none of the committee members turned up though :S
Went to the Library afterwards for food and drink. Annoyingly two people who I won't name from the club took my food (We ordered at about 8:15pm, they got in at about 8:25pm and ordered. Food came at 8:30pm. Two burgers, they claimed them, but they were ours. We got there first)!
Eitherway, as soon as I finished my burger I headed home as I had work to do.

Got to the Clarence Dock bridge and noticed the gate was shut by the river, there was also a sign on the gate

"This path is closed due to power failure"

Shit.

This was the only way I knew how to get home without going back into town and finding another way in the dark. And exploring Leeds is not fun if you're actually trying to find a certain place. It can takes hours (or days even).
Luckily I saw some people who were in the same position as me. The gate had anti-climb paint, so we couldn't climb it. However we could go round it. This was dangerous however as it involved walking on a ledge which was only about 5cm wide, whilst grabbing onto the gate. If that wasn't bad enough, if we slipped, we'd fall right into the river. However I saw them do it, so I did the same.
Had to do it again when I got to the next gate. Was quite fun thinking back on it.
Got back to E block and warned everyone going to Halo PJ foam party about it and adviced them to get a cab before going into my room. Planned on doing some work when I got back. But tbh, I'm tired, I cba to finish the Geophysics practical if it's not even being assessed, and I will have to ask about the maths tommorow. Have had enough bads nights as it is just trying to deal with those two modules alone so would rather not have another.

I'll attempt to use skills week to catch up on EVERYTHING. Hopefully after that things should calm down a bit. If not, then my first year at Uni may turn out to be my worst of the 3 (or 4).


Fin.

Tuesday 28 October 2008

Day 38 - Struggling

Not in the mood to write an in-depth blog. Had a normal day of lectures, finished my computing work which is a huge relief. They were selling Krispy Kremes all round Uni today for charity, bought 3 of them. Spent all evening doing maths and Geophysics, and have gotten basically nowhere with either of them. I just can't understand any of it at all!
I'll be glad once all of this is over and I can choose the modules that I am actually good at.

Day 37 - Catching up

Still slightly annoyed and depressed from the night before, I now vowed to work harder than anyone so that there was no way I could do badly in anything, ever again. Only then, if I know I did everything I could and still do bad, will it be a REAL fail.
First lecture was Understanding Earth, felt a bit better we had done everything in the lecture at A level, which was to do with acid, basic and intermediate rocks that the types of volcanoes formed from this. At least I knew all of this stuff quite well. Had some food in my break and attended next lecture which was a chemistry one. Was a little tricky, as we were warned by the lecturer in advance, but wasn't impossible. Was all that shit about moles that you had to do in GCSE chemistry but never got right. Gotta do it all over again.
Then had a seminar in which the 12 of us in the class had to do a presentation on a topic of our choice, though preferbly Geological. Out of the 12, only 6 people turned up. Some were away ill as there is some nasty cough going round, even as I type this in the cluster, I can hear people coughing. Suprised I never seem to catch illnesses that go around, ever.
Seeing as people were nervous about the talks, I opted to go first, as I wasn't really nervous at all seeing as only 6 people were in the class and I had planned what I had to say.
It didn't have to be longer than 5 minutes and I think mine went pretty well. Was worried I would get marked down for not taking it all that seriously, such as having pictures of the squirrel from Ice age in a slide about glaciation and on my final slide as to why the study of the Permian extinction is important inserted a picture of Hiruma from Eyeshield 21 saying "Because it's fun" as my grand summary.
Nevertheless, I got 75/75 for the talk. SCORE!
Only thing he said I should improve on is projecting my voice, which is a problem I have always had, especially at school doing drama.
Had another break and then the final lecture of the day, can't even remember what it was on now...erm...hmm...Oh yeah, was on deformation. I remember the title, but not the actual lecture. Ah well, gotta look at those notes soon.
Was pretty tired so got back to Clarence Dock and went straight to bed.


Awoke about half 6 and had dinner, pasta bake. There is enough left for about 2 more meals I'd say, not bad considering the pasta was 19, sauce was £1.40 and baby corn was £1 and can feed me for four days. I forgot to include in my last blog about my shit day how my carrots had turned brown because I forgot to put them in the fridge and my onions had a soft centre since they had gone over their sell by date.
Everyone was going out clubbing that night it seemed, though I decided to stay in and study. Never was a big fan of clubbing tbh.

Had a nice long chat with Matt on msn whilst doing some of the Geophysics assignment, of which I actually managed to get some of the answers right :O!

I reckon my days will follow this sort of structure from now on. I used to only go clubbing since there was nothing for me to do. Now with my laptop, it provides academic and social fun! Still though, going without it for a month and doing no extra reading means I have still got a lot of catching up to do in all my modules *sigh*.
The pendulum continues to swing...

Monday 27 October 2008

Day 36 - Just another manic Sunday

Play on words from (8) Just another manic Monday, whoo-oo-oo, wish it was Sunday, whoo-oo-oo(8).

Right, so basically, I'd say this is the worse day I have had at Uni so far.
I had to do my washing as I had hardly anything else to wear, but noticed in the mail box there was a letter for someone living in Block F. Our keycards work in blocks D and F, so I figured I'd be a gentleman and take it to her.
Got to her block and looked in my wallet, no keycard. I had locked myself out -_-
After ringing the E block flat phone for a few minutes, someone opened the door for me. I put my clothes in the washing machine, put my money in and pressed wash. Nothing happened. I was doing this for ages. I put in an extra 20p for super wash as I thought that was the problem, kept pressing wash but still nothing. A boy next to me was looking at me quite strange. After a while, I realised the problem. THe washing machine door wasn't closed properly, that's why it wouldn't start. I must have looked so stupid.

I put my clothes in the dryer and while I waited for them I decided to check my online balance. My account, fine, though nothing has gone in for ages, just stuff coming out. Go to check student account.

-£1,180

:|

Oh shit, I've been hacked. Was my first initial thought. I knew that at the very least I had about £50 in that account, and should have had well over £1000 in the overdraft, so how had so much come out. I looked at the transactions and my student loan had been paid to the Uni twice! I phoned my Mum and she managed to get to the bottom of it. I had forgotten that I was on direct debit, meaning the Uni took the money when the time came. Me, thinking I'd be all organised, paid the loan manually. Therefore, now my student loan has been paid twice. It's so lucky I am not relying on it or I'd be so screwed. But even so, this is gonna take ages to sort out.

My clothes got dried and I was underway with my main task for the day. To complete a presentation for tommorow on the Permian extinction. Only problem, my laptop didn't have powerpoint so I would have to go to Uni to do it. Heffernan has the same laptop as me, a Vista, so had the same problem, we planned to go together. About 5 minutes before setting off, he text me telling me he had found powerpoint on his vista :S WTF!
He came round and tried to find it on mine, no luck, I had to walk to Uni in the freezing cold to do it after all, but on my own. Finally got there and managed to finish it to a good standard I thought. Then saw an e-mail saying our maths results were available online. I knew I hadn't done well, but still wanted to know what I got, or so I thought.
Went online and you could see everyone elses scores, it was by student number not name, lucky for me. Loads of people had full marks. Got to mine 22/49.
EPIC GOD DAMN FAIL!!!!!!
I was the 2nd worse in the class (3rd if you count the people that didn't hand it in and got 0), the only person worse than me was someone who got 21.
Everyone else had managed about 35+ on it. How come I'm finding this so hard even though I could do it at GCSE !?! Man I hate maths. Felt so depressed I began to consider whether I have even taken the right course.
Also because I got lower than 60%, I have to attend help classes now.
Got home and think I did some more revision, can't remember. I made some pasta bake that turned out pretty nice and spoke to some old friends on msn that cheered me up, espeically the pictures Emily and I were drawing which involved us in space and swimming with sharks :)

In conclusion, not a good day. Annoying things happened and I am failing a course which could be done by a 12 year old.

On the upside, all I have to do is work a lot harder, and with my laptop now, that shouldn't be too hard. Also, this maths course is not an essential one, meaning that I only need 100 credits out of 120 to pass, and even if I fail the maths one, I can still pass the year. The first year marks do not count for anything, and best of all, by the end of this year. I won't have to do another maths module :) (Though it'd be really helpful, though I'd rather have the next 2/3 years doing what I enjoy rather than struggling doing something which I think may give me a better chance of earning more money).

I guess in a way it's good this happened now. At least I know what I need to do to become better, to surpass everyone else, and achieve my original goal. To become the greatest Geologist of all time! Kishikishi.

Sunday 26 October 2008

Day 35 - Adam's family

Got up at midday, made a plan of things I had to do over the week. Went to Taekwondo training. We did another pyramid session but felt a lot easier this time. Even though I had to sit out for a bit since it felt like I ruptured something, must have been a cramp. Sparred with Daniel for a bit (would you know it, we had the exact same pads, again, must have looked gay. Everyone else has either red or black, we're the only two to have blue :S). After training there was a meeting in the old bar about a trip to Berlin during Xmas holidays. Would have liked to have gone, but haven't seen friends or family in ages so will have to give it a miss. Also before the meeting, Matt, a TKD blackbelt asked if I wanted to play pool. Somehow I managed to beat him :S
And he was god too. Though I admit, half my shots were really really lucky.
Got back to the Dock and had dinner with Adam and his family. They cooked a Korma, was really really nice. Best meal I have had since Uni. Went next door and played ring of fire and beer pong. Steve the subwarden came in since security saw Ben dancing on a chair haha. As he left for some reason Ben and Mia thought it'd be a good idea to start screaming and throwing alcohol over each other even before Steve had left the flat, he came back in and they got another warning. Pretty silly really.

Also we were making loads of toast to put on Abi's door as she is away for the weekend. This is kinda an in joke, cos of her Hull accent, she pronounced Toast as "teerst" hehe. Had a small toast fight and jelly cube fight. Jelly cubes were meant to have been for Scott's door but we never got around to it.
Then went into Luis room and had a small jam session. Me on bongos, Tim playing drums on a shelf and Luis and Mike on guitar. Was pretty mellow. Came back to my room when people were going to cover Lauren's door in newspaper. Was talking on msn for a bit and tried to play Spore but it's not working :( This Vista is useless. Doesn't have powerpoint either so I gotta go Uni to finish off work. Defeats the point of me having a laptop.

Not a bad day I guess, just couldn't be bothered to go into as much detail as usual as I got loads of work to do. Until next time...

Friday 24 October 2008

Day 34 - Trial and error (mostly error)

I ended up getting to sleep 4am the night before due to getting back from Laura's party so late and people being in the kitchen. Had a chemistry practical today. I knew I wouldn't do well in it from the start. Ended up working with a guy called Afi, no, he isn't English, he is from Brunei, as is Darryl, when I first met told me quite a few things I didn't know about it which I found pretty interesting. Don't read what is in the brackets if you have no interest in the history of the country.

(I knew Darryl was an international student, but had no idea where from. When he said Brunei, I had no clue where it was, though I knew it was somewhere in Asia, just not sure WHERE exactely. Think it's somewhere in China. Basically it was apparently quite arich area, though has a really small population. Our University is even larger than their town centre, and if kids or teenagers say they are "going into town", they mean the mall, as there is nowhere else to go. As it is quite a small village too, people seem to know everyone pretty well. For one thing, Darryl knows someone back in Brunei who is a prince and found it strange that in England the chances are none of us would ever even see the Royal family let alone become friends with them. There was loads more he told me, but I forgotten and it's really not interesting at all to just read in a blog. I found it all interesting, anyway, back to the day...)

We basically just had to do chemical experiments, putting different solutions into test tubes and adding different acids, writing down what happens, chemical equations. All those things you did at GCSE and hated were all coming back to haunt me. In the end we spent too much time on the first part and barely touched the last part of the practical which counted for about 60 marks. Also this practical counts for like 5 or 10% of my final grade for the module :( I'm really beginning to wonder whether I'm gonna pass m first year of Uni. 100% effort just doesn't seem like enough anymore, I need at least 1% talent!

Decided to stay at Uni since I had Taekwondo at 5pm and there was little point in walking home and back since I would have been there for about an hour. Ended up talking to Adam on facebook who said that tommorow night his parents were coming over and were ging shopping with him and making a Korma and that I was invited to dine with them. Of course I accepted. Has been a long time since I had a family meal, even if it's not my real family (though saying that, right now I see everyone that I live with as family ^_^).

Taekwondo came, I met a pretty cool guy called Basil who was from the French part of Switzerland and studying Economics and Chinese :S He's gonna have a fun 3/4 years here. Session was fun. Learned some patterns, and once again, Daniel and I ended up coming dressed the same. This time we were both wearing the same stripey H and M hoody, though his was red and black and mine was grey and black, I reckon people are beginning to think we are bum boys :(

The social was at the Library, as it is every week. Towards the end of the night however I felt a little down after a convo I head with one of the blackbelts there, James,

"You know cycling really reduces your flexibility"
"...Shit, I did a paperound for 6 years"!
"The chances are you'll never be flexible then, at your age, the only reason I am is that I have been doing gymnastics and Taekwondo since I was 7".

DAMN IT!

The one thing which I love doing at Leeds and I am at a huge disadvantage already! It does make sense though and even Daniel noticed something was weird when I couldn't kick that high and suggested I may have over developed my hamstrings, chances are I have :( Guess I'll have to try a new sport next year in which my hamstrings will actualy come in useful *sigh*

Man this is a depressing post.
Got home and went into the kitchen next door. It went from a conversation to throwing a load of poker chips at each other (mainly at Mia and trying to get them in Scott's strongbow). We then played a game where you stick the name of someone famous on someone else's head and they have to ask questions to guess who they are. Some where easy, others were impossible.
Luis - Bob Marley
Scott - Ali Baba
Tim - Jordon
Me - Clive Owen (I had never heard of him in my life)!
Mia - Whoppi Goldberg
Laura- Beyoncé
Max - Britney Spears
Heffernan - Jeremy Kyle
Robyn - Gabby Logan
Ben M - Samwise from Lord of the rings
Louise - George Clooney
Andy - Mr Gay UK

You can probably guess who managed to get theirs and who didn't.
Was a pretty quiet night in as most of E block have gone home this weekend. Sometimes I wish I didn't live so far away that I could pop home on weekends when I felt like it. Oh well, I'll see you all on the 12th December! (Might be even later than that now as the Taekwondo club are planning a trip to Berlin which will be on the 12th hehe).

Thursday 23 October 2008

Day 33 - Royal Birthday

If you didn't guess from the title, today was Laura's birthday. More about that later.
Had Geophysics first, was another Q and A session, he then went through the answers to the two practicals we had to do. I didn't finish them, they were just too hard. Definitely not doing any Geophysics as a module next year! Had breakfast in canteen on my own as I tend to do. Next came the maths lecture. Couldn't do a thing and was too tired/ill to go to the help class so dragged myself home in a state of depression and took a 2 hour nap (Personal note: When I'm feeling down, angry or sad, going to bed is the only thing that makes me cheer up for some reason, not alcohol or drugs. Learn from me).
Got woken up about 2:30pm by voices outside my room. Was Laura, Mia, Ben and another Ben from the flat next door (to save confusing, I'll call the Bens by their last names).
They were going to the royal armouries, so I decided to come along too. Was actually pretty good, it's only like a 2 minute walk from Clarence Dock. Had loads of weapons and armour from wars going back to the 1800s. Heffernan (One of the Ben's) knew loads about the weapons as he said when he was a child he used to be in his room drawing pictures of different types of armies he could control :S And I'm living right next to this guy basically.
The best part was when we got to see rea life props from the Narnia film and Lord of the Rings. Seeing as I have never really seen Lord of the Rings, I wasn't in as much awe as everyone else, but it was still prettyh good to see up close. We had the guy who set up the exhibit there explaining everything to us and how much they all cost etc. Lovely fellow.
After that we all walked to Weatherspoons and met Scott on the way. Pretty annoying I spent £2:50 on a Koppaberg and ended up getting a meal deal which included a drink anyway :@ No matter though. Me, Sean, Scott and Heffernan left to "go home" (we were getting Laura a present) around 5ish.
However, most shops were beginning to shut, and we had no idea what to get her. It was going to be alcohol, but the girls had already gotten that for her.

First, we decided to get her a strap on, though when we got to Ann Summers, none of the boys wanted to go in and ask, so I said I would, though Sean came in with me.

"Right, strap ons will be upstairs".
"Oh, sorry boys, upstairs is shut now"
"......Shit"

FAIL. Instead we managed to come up with the idea to get her porn, a book of drinking games and a card.
Scott was 100% sure HMV did porn (though this was Manchester he saw it) as he had seen a 60 year old man there once looking at about 6 different porn DVDs. We were looking for about 10 minutes, but found nothing. Once again, I had to be the one to do the honours,

"Excuse me...do you sell porn DVDs here"
*pauses*
"Yeah, over there behind the pillar".

Man I must have sounded pretty silly. Was pretty funny though when we were buying it and the same guy asked if we wanted a bag for it, as if we would walk about Leeds with a porn DVD in our hands, of course we wanted a bag!
In the end we never found a drinking game book, but found a card for her.
Got back to the flat and was on msn for a bit before going into the kitchen with everyone else. As Laura wasn't getting drunk, I thought I'd speed things up by getting out my Rum, but she wouldn't drink it. Instead I was "forced" to put some into the drink she already had. I put in like 2ml of it, yet she took one sip and said "Who the hell put rum in this"!?
Oops.
After that Sean, Luis and Abi started doing shots of it, though Abi looked as though she was gonna throw up straight afterwards. I warned her before hand she probably shouldn't have any as it is REALLY strong and even said to Scott I'd feel pretty bad if she ended up throwing up afterwards (which funny enough she did and Lauren had to take her home :( felt guilty the rest of the night).

The taxis came but there were not enough for everyone, so Luis and I decided to jog to the bar we were going, Tiger Tiger. Tbh, hardly anyone was really up for the night. We were only going because it was Laura's birthday. Most people were tired, had no money, or just generally couldn't be bothered, as for me it was a combination of the three.
On the jog there, Luis and I bumped into two (pretty drunk)girls from Clarence Dock who were amazed that Luis was half Morroccan and one was boasting about how her last name was hard to pronounce because she was half Italian :S
They walked (staggered)so damn slow though that Scott and Lewis ended up catching up to us as they didn't get in the cab either. In the end we left the girls to find the club they were going (Scott accidentally pointed them in the wrong direction when the club was literally within throwing distance away) and carried on into Tiger tiger.
There was no queue when we got there, never a good sign in Leeds. Whole place was dead, but the music was pretty good. Annoyingly people left when Superstition came on to go to another bar/club called Bar Risa.
This was wasn't all that either. Had more people, but music wasn't that good. Some of the songs on the playlist were exactely the same that was in Tiger Tiger too. After about 30 minutes Luis and I decided to go home, on the way talking about how clubbing has kinda lost it's effect now and that it's pretty much the same thing no matter what club you go to (it really is).
On the way back we bumped into more drunken girls who were about to cross the road when the red man was there and a car was coming round the corner. I actually had to shout "No, don't cross"! To prevent them from stumbling into the road, first thing they said in reply,
"Are you two from Clarence Dock"?
Haha.
Turns out one of them, also called Laura, is the the president for the social events at Clarence Dock. I knew there was a Clarence Dock night planned for tonight, and may have gone had it not been Laura's Birthday, but she insited to go to Tiger Tiger as it was a silent disco night too (it wasn't in the end).
Anyway, on the way back I walked with President Laura talking about how my night was pretty dry and how I wish I had gone to the one she organised instead while she was saying it was my fault for not following her orders as she was our president lol. Apparently the night she had organised was at a bar called Oracle, the same one those two drunken girls Luis and I bumped into were heading to. She said that drinks and entry were free for Clarence Dockers :@ Dammit! I could have gone to that and had a great time rather than the night I had which I actualy had to pay for too! Also she was clinging onto me the entire journey back as she was freezing and said I was warm, that was probably...no, it WAS the highlight of my night, the walk home was better than the clubs/bars :|
Another good part being her friend who was in heels decided to kick them off her feet, though they went straight up into the air, over the gate, and of all the places to land, right in the Clarence Dock river. I was in bits.
She was moaning about how it was her favorite pair of shoes, but it was her own fault for not taking them off normally really. Was stil funny to watch though.
Also bumped into Will on the way back, bit embarrassing as me, him and Laura were talking for the last part of the walk back and it was only when he got into his block that I actually realised it was him :/ and it was only because he said,

"I'll text you or something about that Green audit"

that I knew who it was. Man I'm bad with faces.
Like last night, this one too had it's ups and downs. But it could have been worse, so I'll quit complaining...

Day 32 - Equilibrium

Had a really bad morning. Set my alarm for 7:30am so I could take my time getting ready. Ended up somehow getting up at about 8:10am, so had 10 minutes to get changed and have breakfast and would still only JUST make it on time. Speed walking along the street, I saw Scott and Louise at the bus stop. Maybe things are looking up ? Not a chance!
The free city bus came round the corner much to everyones relief. It wasn't packed either. He turned on his signal, getting closer, you could see the anticipation on everyones faces as we'd get out of the wet and cold. I'll never know the reason however we he decided to just drive straight pass us all though.
"What the fuck is he doing, wanker"!
Were some of the many comments coming out of peoples mouths. By this time it was 8:45am. There was no way I was getting to Uni for 9am. By this point Louise predicted she would get there about 9:20am if she walked so ended up going home, which meant that Scott and I could walk a lot faster to get there (as well as having cooties, girls tend to walk slower).
On the way Scott was telling me how he was starving as he had so little money he couldn't afford to buy food (yet can afford to buy two bottles of Strongbow every night). Kinda feel sorry for him. So many nights he has been unable to come out simply because he has so little money, and this is only the 1st month! 30p bread and 19p pasta topped wtih 4p curry sauce from Morrisons is the only way for him, I'd say.
Got to the lecture about 5 minutes late (note: this is the first time I have actually been late to a lecture). Luckily today was just a Geophysics Q and A session where we just ask tutors any concerns or questions about the course. Went pretty well actually. There is some 45 - 50 year old guy in the class who asked some good questions which I hadn't thought of. He's also now part of our "Geology crew" which now consists of me, Darryl, Tom, someone else called Andrew and the Seth Rogan stunt double.

In my break I attempted the Geophysics practical (FAIL) and got the phone number for ISS so I could phone about my internet problems at home. Rest of the day nothing much happened. Had a dynamic Earth lecture that was so boring it was unbelievable. About half the class fell asleep in it. It is basically the most stereotypical lecture you can think of, taught by a guy with a monoton voice when everyone in the lecture just wants to get the hell out of there. Not to mention, it's Geology. If the teacher is boring, the subject is boring. Thank God Keith Oak exists (L).

Got home and phoned ISS about my internet and they managed to go through it with me on the phone. Thanks ISS! (Y).
Spoke to some people on facebook and uploaded msn again. Just like old times.

5pm came and I left for Taekwondo after eating weetabix for dinner as I wanted to save my cans of spaghetti and didn't think it'd be good to have it for the 3rd night in a row with toast again.
The session was another give it a go, though the hall had been double booked (AGAIN, THIS IS THE 3RD TIME IN A ROW IT HAS HAPPENED) and some chinese guys were playing badminton. Man this blog has a lot of stereotypes in it today.
After a while they left and we got really into it. I got in a group with a girl called Jenny and another guy who was a blackbelt. We were doing this thing where you had to do a side kick into a pad while the other person as holding it. I didn't listen to the master when he was going through it though and now regret it. I held the pad against my stomach, when it should have been the side, and forgot to breathe out when he kicked it. I got winded so bad. Before I could get my breath back, Jenny kicked it. She was ridiculously good. Looking at her you wouldn't think she was strong, but her technique was near perfect. In a fight I don't think I'd be able to win just unsing strength alone if I was against her. Even one of the instructors noticed her technique was good and asked what she used to do before Taewkondo, was Karate.

I couldn't kick it for shit but was alright on the palm striking technique as I seem to have more upper body strength/control than lower back.
Went to "The Library" after that for a drink. Got into a really deep conversation about philosphy and life with Daniel and his views on it all (yes, we did include the matrix in the discussion).

I left after about 90 minutes as I wanted to get back to the Dock to go to a school disco themed night. However upon getting back got caught up talking to friends on msn and what not, and tbh was no longer up for going out since I wanna save my money and we would all be going out Thursday for Laura's birthday anyway. Got to bed at about 2am after talking to Lauren on msn about things back in Essex and sluts haha (well, just one in particular actually).

Shit morning, good night. The equilibrium was reached in the end.

Wednesday 22 October 2008

Day 31 - Upgrade to Error 404

Not a good day really.
Had a computing lesson in the morning where were doing stuff with excel like making graphs and what not. I couldn't do any of it :( made me feel stupid to say the least as these are things which should be pretty simple. I'm just crap with technology or anything that isn't anime it seems.
Next had a map drawing class, once again. Was nothing more than an epic failure. This is why you should always pay attention in lectures, otherwise you screw yourself over the next day.
Went on facebook for a while, wasn't really motivated to do work today. Finally had a minerals practical, guess that went a little better but still, I'm not doing anywhere as near as well as I would hoped I would atm :( Probably just worrying too much, I'd say..

Got back to the Dock, Adam had cleaned the entire kitchen. It was basically spotless. We then decided to mop and hoover the entire flat. We must have looked like a right gay couple!
In the morning I had got my laptop and brought it into my room but had no time to set anything up.
The internet wasn't working for some reason which was really annoying, as I had assignments to do. Lauren suggested I speak to ISS (something another student services, think the I stands for Information), so that's what I'll do tommorow.
Not many people went out that night as they were saving up money for Laura's Birthday on the 23rd October.
Instead I just went round the flat next door and played table tennis (yes, they have turned their kitchen table into a table tennis table just by putting a table tennis net on it).
Ended up making a fool of mself 3 times in a night.
1st being I am bad at table tennis.
Second time being when the ball got hit into Ben's lap, as I went to pick it up, he moved and instead my hand hit his mug of tea, which I caused to spill on himself.
3rd time being when the ball was bouncing off the table, both Scott and I went to grab it at the same time and ended up grabbing each others hand. We just looked at each other for about 5 seconds before he said,
"Let's never speak of this again".
Probably didn't help that I winked at him either hehe.

Over and out ya'll!

Tuesday 21 October 2008

Day 30 - Clean, Green CO² reducing regime

After only about 2 hours sleep due to my irregular patterns of sleeping when the sun began to rise from the past few days, I knew today would drag quite badly.
First lecture was alright, on rocks and minerals. I never seem to pay much attention in that class as I keep assuming I know it all from A level and that I should focus more on the classes which i find hard. Truth is, nothing on the course is easy. Just like at college, it's gonna take a while for me to get the hang of it all again.
After an hour lecture, went to refractory with Tom D, Darryl (my only real friends I have made in Geology) and some guy who looks like Seth Rogan. He is more friends with Tom and Darryl though, think his name is Adam...or Jason, ah, he's not important.
Anyway, breakfast was really good, only food you can buy at Uni which is good value for money I think, everything is pretty overpriced. Remember those bowls of pasta/rice you could get at college for £1 ? It'd cost about £2.45 here. Credit crunch crisis, I'd say.
During my free was just on facebook for a while, as the more work I am given, the less motivated I am to actually do it. Had my final lecture about drawing maps which I really should have paid attention to as it's not something you can just do by common sense alone.
Final lecture ended at 2:55pm, and I had a doctor appointment at 3pm.
Rushed to Leeds Student medical practice, booked myself in on a touch screen computer and waited for about 5 minutes. I then noticed a sign saying there was more than one waiting room. I ran back out to the touchscreen computer and tried to book in again but it wouldn't let me. It was about 3:07pm now and I was worried they might just give my appointment to someone else. Asked at the desk, turns out I was meant to have been on the first floor, not the ground one.
Ran upstairs and past this women who asked if I was Wesley Dixon, turns out SHE was my doctor and was just about to go down to reception to ask what was going on.
Anyway, she was pretty nice and seemed to know what she was doing. A lot more help than I got back in Upminster anyway. She even pointed out how the X-ray I got at Queen's hospital was wrong for the symptoms I had. Why'd they even bother to build Queen's in the first place ? I'd rather live with the constant discomfort I am in now than have them operate on me tbh.
Eitherway, she suggested to check whether I have the pylori helibactor bug, as being on antacids on and off for almost 16 weeks which little improvement means it must be something else (personally I think I have a hiatus hernia and probably WILL need an operation pretty soon since nothing else has worked so far).

Left the practice and had a meeting at 5pm about being a Green rep for my accommodation. During my free time I got my medication from Boots (on the way I saw Adam and Maeve walking into town, they kinda looked like a French couple) then wasted time on the internet again, was quite boring.
The meeting went underway, it was basically talking about how we should educate students at Leeds how and were to recycle, as it's not a case as to people being too lazy, but more a lack of understanding of the situation. I thought I'd be the only person from Clarence Dock there tbh. About 12 people attended, and 5 were from Clarence Dock :S
Met a guy named Will (who also lived at the Dock) and we spoke about ways in which we could Green up Leeds and should start with where we live. Pretty funny walk home actually as we were being over picky about everything we saw,

"Look, a red bull can on the ground, that's terrible"

*Guy infront of us puts a subway wrapper in bin, somehow misses, and just lets the wrapper go on the floor*

"What an idiot"

"No wait.....look, he's a bouncer. He's allowed to do that. All bouncers are twats"

It's true, it's in the job description.
Got back to the flat and found a note saying a parcel had been delivered for me. It was my laptop! Ran to site office to fetch it,


Clarence Dock site office
Open Monday - Friday, 8am - 7pm

*Look at watch*

7:10pm

Oh for fu...

Made me so angry, even though it was my fault for making a stop to Morrisons and tesco on the walk back. Had dinner while making some misleading posters as well as some of the posters I borrowed (took too many) from the meeting.
It had an A4 piece of paper on the front where I had written "Want free alcohol, then turn this pafe"? in huge letters, to get the attention of students. As they would turn the page they would see the environmental poster. Although there is only about a 3% chance they would read it at this point, it's better than the 0% chance that anyone would bother reading it had it not had the attention grabber first.
I put these posters all around my flat and block D (as I can get in there with my card).

Spent most of the night after that having a nap, making some notes on the Permian extinction for a presentation I gotta do on Monday and practicing Taekwondo patterns. After a while I got bored and decided to join everyone in the kitchen.
The subwarden came in AGAIN because of the noise which everyone (who were all pretty drunk) once again seemed to find funner and me being the sober one actually found REALLY annoying, since it was OUR kitchen people come into therefore WE are the ones that will get into trouble in the end :@
After much pointless arguing with him, everyone left to go to a club called Mezz while I did some more study, a little annoyed.
Like last night, I wasn't tired at all. So decided to try and make a 2nd green wave, this time spreading the information all around Clarence Dock. As I don't want anyone there to find out it was me (though I am writing about it in a blog that can be viewed by millions) I dressed in all black and put post it notes on the doors of each block. They had cheesey one liners like,

"It's hard work being a Mother. It's even harder to be Mothernature. So why not help her out".

Felt pretty sneaky after that. Mia was the only person who was in the kitchen when I was making the posters, therefore if anybody finds out it was me who was greening up the area in secret, as I think they might count it as fly postering, I'll know it was her that told someone hehe.
Got to bed about 2:30am - 3am (only to be woken by the noise of singing, doors slamming and laughing when everyone got back from Mezz)!

Monday 20 October 2008

Day 29 - Meet the deadlines

This will be my shortest post so far, I'd say. After going to bed at 6am, I awoke at about 1:30pm, my only plan being to use today to catch up on work, like everyone else usually did, as Sunday was hangover day.
I remember the night before I was talking to (drunk) Laura about going to church on a Sunday and she was saying how if it began at 11am she would actually go with me :s Didn't think she would have gone through that when she walked into the kitchen today not looking too good.
Basically all I did today was go to the library and spend about 6 or 7 hours doing assingments, revision, facebook and reading manga.
On the way home however a weird looking guy was talking to these two women on a bench. I could tell from afar something was up with him just from the way he was acting. I walked pass avoiding eye contact, then when I was about 100 metres away I heard a really loud bang. I turned round and he was just throwing a load of bins on the floor, for no reason!
Leeds is a dangerous and strange place.

Got home and did some more reading. Got to bed about midnight but just couldn't sleep. Ended up spending the night reading textbooks and practicing some Taekwondo patterns before finally getting a bad nights (or morning in this case) sleep at 5am!

Sunday 19 October 2008

Day 28 - Her name is Charlotte

Got up pretty late again being the weekend. All night I could hear doors opening and closing all around the block, sometimes it's hard to tell whether it your flat, the one next door or the one upstairs since the doors always slam loudy when they close.
While having breakfast with Mia at about midday, "new girl" finally walked in.
Turns out her name was actually Charlotte (which was the 2nd name on the list we all made). She takes Biology and used to live on campus, though the building she was in is getting knocked down so it was only temporary accommodation. I didn't know that.
Eitherway, pretty much all of us had some sort of work to be doing, so all went our seperate ways at breakfast. As for me, I headed off to sqaud training.

It wasn't as intense as it usually is, mainly because this session was aimed at beginners due to the class that was cancelled on Wednesday. Me and Daniel looked like a couple of queers as we were dressed exactely the same, a plain black t-shirt and white dobok trousers :S However I did meet a really cool guy there, think his name was Glen. He was about 23, mixed race, and had really long dreadlocks, the type I want. He kinda looked like this..


http://static1.animepaper.net/upload/thumbs/scans/Eyeshield-21/%5Bsmall%5D%5BAnimePaper%5Dscans_Eyeshield-21_eswaranma(0.78)__THISRES__187388.jpg

Our meeting was pretty good too,

"Hello, I'm Wesley. Am a first year here and have never done Taekwondo before".

"I'm so jealous! You're actually black, you have the type of dreadlocks I want AND you're called Wesley"

As silly as that sounds, he did actually say that. There is also a funny side to it that he said I was everything he wanted to be, but he was everything I wanted to be haha. Also to top it all off, he had a lisp! Definitely one of my idols!
Anyway, when it got to the sparring session it was actually really good. I got to fight against people who weren't 100 times better than me. My first fight (And win) being against a girl.
Now I know s0me of you may be thinking, but remember that Taekwondo is based on points rather than trying to knock the other person out. So in theory, she had the upper hand as she had done Taekwondo before.
After her, I sparred with a blackbelt who PWNED me. I got a swift kick to the liver and jaw, though suprisingly it didn't really hurt at all, maybe because of the padding (I did get kicked in the shins too as I forgot to put my shin guards on, big mistake).
I then went up against a someone who has done basically everything, boxing, kick boxing, karate etc. Quite funny as he tried to win only using boxing punches while Taekwondo is mainly kicking based, still though I think he beat me.
Finally went up against someone else who was about green belt I think. He accidentally (I hope) kicked me in the balls, but I carried on. We were both doing alright till I got kicked in the top of the knee and collapsed on the ground in pain. We decided to call it a day there.

I got back to Clarence Dock and decided to do some "work". It lasted about 10 minutes if that before I realised how tired I was and went to sleep for a few hours. Most of E block were still in my kicthen so I decided to greet them. Half were going to Nu bar, the other half were going to Leeds Academy for an Indie night. Originally I hadn't planned on going out, but after Abi convinced me to,

"Wes, you're not coming out tonight"?

"Nah, got work to do"

"No, you are coming out"

".....Ok"

I did.

She made us all super noodles and cheese on toast before going which was very kind I must say.

*Aside*
(I thought her accent was Welsh for some reason, but it is actually Hull. Hence why she tends to get picked on a lot by E Block).

Also her, Mia and Lauren worked for the academy handing out flyers so managed to get us in a lot quicker. Night was pretty good. My basis of "Indie nights" being my experience of Liquid, I'd say this was just as good. Despite the fact some huge shaven head guy walked straight into me, knocked half my drink out my hand, and didn't even say sorry. In fact he didn't even stop walking to look at the mess he had made.....Maybe he was blind. Also downstairs in the electro section I made a new friend.

"Hey......you got any pills"?

"....No, I don't, sorry"

"Ah...know anyone I can get some off"

"No"

"Ok....I'm gonna go this way now, thanks".

Why'd he assumed I had pills ?
Weird.

Night climaxed when rage against machine came on and a HUGE mosh pit started. Pretty strange as it was quite a rough one, yet I managed to come out not getting a single scratch or blow to the body. Weird how the bouncers didn't stop this, yet they gave Mia a warning for dancing with no shoes on.

When the last song finished (was about 3:30am at this point) we all ran (literally) out of the door or it'd take ages to get out. Had chips and gravy on the way home too. Was really nice. Abi's feet were hurting from walking in heels so I lent her my trainers as paybackfor making us all food before we left. Looked strange as I am size 11 and she is 8 though.
Everyone also had a talk on the way back about childhood shows like Arthur, Doug, Spider and Fly, Pepper Ann. It was good how some people still knew the theme songs for them all haha.

After sitting in the kitchen for a few hours listening to Laura's drunken tales of what happened at Nu bar, we all ended up getting to bed at about 6am.

End.

Saturday 18 October 2008

Day 27 - The Chemistry to Flexibility

I don't think I left the flat once today, which is a first since I have been here...no wait, yes I did. I just didn't have any lectures today, but DID end up leaving the flat (this is what happens when you write from the top of your head).
I got up about 12:45pm. I need my 8 hours or it gives me terrible crows feet beneath my eyes. Only other person up was Adam, who was going away for the weekend, I think, I should listen to him more :/ but for tonight anyway he was going away, to a hotel with his girlfriend (10 points if you remember her name) and her family.
Had my Taekwondo lesson later that day, though having only woken up at 12:45pm, I was still pretty sleepy when I got there. Whilst doing the usual drills and stretches, one of which involved attempting to kick the other person in the head, I realised that it may become a really big problem in the future that I have basically 0% flexibility. Anybody who knows me well would have seen (and laughed) at the fact I am unable to make my shoulders touch my ears so this might actually be something to do with my body as a whole rather than just my legs as I can think of other times back when I was unable to do other tasks that required a small degree of flexibilty. Makes me think whether I should have picked up another martial art such as judo, ju jitsu or maybe boxing, one which focusess on power and speed rather than technique, which is the area I always lack in.
Ah well, early days still.
The social after this was at the library (the name of a pub). What's good about it is all the TKD members get discount on food and drink there. Burgers and chips were only £1.50, or so we thought. An extra 60p if you want a cheeseburger, so next time I am doing the cheap thing and brining my own cheese.
Whilst I was losing to Daniel in a game of pool (he had one ball left and I still hadn't put any of mine in the pockets) I got a text from Mia which simply read,

"NEW GIRL"!!!!

YES! The new girl had finally moved in. We now had a complete flat....or we would have done had Adam not been away for the weekend! I stayed in the pub for about another two hours before walking home.
Everyone from upstairs and the flat next door were already in the kitchen. But it just didn't seem as "wild" as usual. Maybe because quite a lot of people had gone home that weekend and basically nobody was drinking. Does that mean you DO need alcohol to have fun ? I hope not.
I was hit by a blast from the past that night though,

"Anyone know how to play trumps"?

"What, top trumps"?

"Nah, the card game trumps"

"Oh, ok"

"Well....I have top trumps in my room"

WAYHAY! I first asked if they were Ben 10 top trumps and much to my suprise, Tim knew what I was talking about. Within seconds we ran into my room and I showed him my Ben 10 poster. Now nobody can say I am insane anymore. He actually likes Ben 10 too, saying his favorite was "that fast alien" (It's name is actually XLR8). Anyway, we played top trumps for quite a while, oh and did I mention...I won! Felt pretty tough after that.
In the end got to bed about 2am still happy about my victory but worried that I had failed my original plan for the day. To do at least an hour of chemistry revision for a practical I have got on Monday :

Friday 17 October 2008

Day 26 - VIP

I only had one lecture this morning, a maths one, it's just algebra at the moment, but I'm still finding it hard :S Also our coursework for it had to be in today, whereas maths is not like Geology where you can bullshit your way through papers with an assumed knowledge that the answer will be "quartz" or "re-crystallisation", I realised that I was pretty much screwed. So I had to attend a sort of help class for people struggling. I had avoided all of these up until now as I figured it was basically my own fault for not knowing what to do and I just had to put in more effort, also because I felt silly going to a help class about maths at a level which is covered at GSCE level while I'm taking a subject which can require it way beyond A level standard.

The class helped a little, but it got to the point where there was nothing more they could do that would help than actually doing it for me, so I handed my coursework in, knowing it was terrible. I need 60% or more to pass, but really doubt I managed to scrape that.

However, before I went home, there was an ISV meeting (International student volunteers, but ISV since I can't be bothered to write that out all the time).

Basically next Summer they are going to be sending students from the UK, Canada and America to one of 8 different countries, (Ecuador, Costa Rica, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Eastern Europe, Thailand or Domincian Republic).

The trip involves 2 weeks of volunteer work, such as helping to build houses and playing with children, and I know how that sounds. Followed by a two week adventure course, white water rafting, black water rafting (basically white water rafting in a pitch black cave), hand gliding..basically extreme sports with a high chance of injury or death. Though Thai Boxing will not be featured in the list unfortantely. It'd cost somewhere like £1,200 to go I think. Well, it was over £1,000. But you can ask people to sponser you for it, which is what I plan on doing. Having gone to a Christian church for 14 years, I know where I'm going to begin with this.



I reckon it'd be a once in a life time oppurtinity, PLUS, I wanted to do something like this back at Hall Mead, but was not selected as spaces were limited (annoying as now at Hall Mead there is no selection process whatsoever).

Not to mention it should look good on a CV, as apparently only 2% of Uni students do volunteer work, and I hope to soon be one of them. If not that, then I definitely want to join a group I got an e-mail about called "Green Reps".

I'd be a rep for my halls about greener living and recycling. When I told Scott about this he replied,

"Don't to it Wes, everyone will hate you"!

.......It's not Greenpeace dammit. All I'm trying to do is save the world (or preserve it for as long as possible till the Sun stops burning).

Eitherway, I would like to do one if not both the things I just talked about. Just being a student who did their 3 years and left doesn't really appeal to me. In the end it'd just be like going to college for 3 years except having to pay for it.



On the walk home I bumped into a black guy with dreadlocks and one of those Jamaican caps, not literally, just mean I had a conversation with him, he said,

"Wa'gwan rasta man" (How are you doing young man)

"Hello, I'm fine thanks"

"Y' doin' anyting Saturday"? (What will you be up to this following weekend)

"Got nothing planned yet"

*Gives me leaflet*

"Then come down to the faversham, der gwan be whole 'ep a pussy" (Please ciome to the faversham as there is a high chance a lot of female genitailia will be present).

Very nice man. I got home and met Adam in the kitchen. To make conversation I asked how his day was,

"Hmm..pretty weird actually, a guy died on the bus I was on during the trip home"

".....What"

"Well he was coughing really badly for ages then was just lying there for about 4 minutes motionless. I told the driver, we gave him a prod to wake him up but he didn't move. The ambulance came and they couldn't find a pulse".

"Wow, that's a sudden way to die".

"Yeah, I mean if it was an old man it wouldn't have seemed so strange, this person was about 25. Although when they opened his eyes his pupils were really dialated, so might have been a drug overdose"

"Man, shit happens".

"Yeah....so, what time is dinner"?

All that talk about death made me hungry. I made myself dinner with ingredients I had just bought from Morrisons. A pasta bake. So far this is the most complex thing I have made, and I didn't screw it up, even Laura was suprised when she tried some,



"Wow Wes, this is actually really nice. If I don't go to bed soon I might eat it all".

".....Why are you so suprised I actually cooked a nice meal"?



My lunch and dinner for the next few days is sorted!

Also, Today was Sean's birthday and we planted to go to a strip club. He lives in Block C, but spends more time with the E block than his own, his Block was pretty strange looking though. At least twice the size of ours.

After much anxiety from Mike as to when we were going to get to the strip club, we arrived at about 11pm.



"Alright everyone, we're finally here"

*Walk in*

"What the fuck is this !?! It's dead"

"Did we come on ladies night or something"?



Yes, literally nobody was in there. We had forgotten that people who attend strip clubs tend to be losers as opposed to clubs, who tend to just be students mainly. Nevertheless, we all put in money (By we I mean two people put in £5, I put in nothing) and Sean got his own private dance, as well as a few other people. I didn't get one as I didn't plan on spending £10 on something I could easily see for free on youtube, but they were apparently quite good,



"It's great, within 30 seconds they are completely naked, though it's weird since you have to sit there with your hands on your knees since you're not allowed to touch".

"Yeah mine was quite good, strangly enough I didn't get an erection though"

".....What are you, gay"?



Like most strip clubs, some of the girls/women were quite attractive, while others were not at all. A Chinese woman of about (no joke here) 45 years old worked there and asked if anyone wanted a dance :S She must have had a boob job since they did not go with the rest of her body at all. However the main highlight of the night was when we saw a girl working there who actually lives in Clarence Dock! All her flat mates already knew she was a stripper, but upon walking in, she had a sort of "What the hell are THEY doing here" look on her face.

We all debated for about 10 minutes whether one of us should go up to her and ask for a dance so that it'd would be an awkard year after that, but none of us did in the end.



The night didn't end there, oh no. Our next stop was mission. This was the same place we had gone to a few nights back when we were not let in despite having VIP tickets, so it brought back bad memories. At first the night seemed a little slow, wasn't really getting into it. Made it worse when everyone walked into the VIP area despite a topless guy there checking people for wristbands and when I tried to get it he stood in my way and said I needed a VIP wristband :S
Nobody else (from Clarence dock that was with me) had one, yet he didn't say a word to them. Son of a bitch!
So I stood there for about 10 minutes waiting for everyone to come back out of the section. After that however things picked up a bit. Scott got a shoulder ride from this super huge mixed race guy. He then saw me high fived me and said he "fucking loves my hair" ^_^

After an alright night out, me, Scott and Laura walked back to the flat while the rest got a cab back (pretty silly as it's literally within walking distance anyway).
We then sat in our kitchen for a good 3 or 4 hours (it got to 5am when we got to bed) talking first about Star Wars, then Harry Potter, then Pokémon (which sadly enough I seemed to know way too much about).
Also a letter came for the new girl that is moving into our flat, we saw that her initials were CJ Morris. So we spent some of the night writing her a note describing everyone in our flat and on the back a list of every single girls name we could think of that began with C. We got to desperate as to guess if it was Cleopatra haha.

At the end of all of this, Scott had to be up at 8am for lectures, while Laura and I had none the next day. We slept very well that night I'd say...

Thursday 16 October 2008

Day 25 - You don't mess with the Subwarden.

Btw, if nobody got it, my title is meant to be a parody of a film. 10 points to the first person to guess which one.

Day began with Geophysics. Usual lecturer wasn't in, so we had this German man instead who is stereotypically called Jurgen Neuburg (Had it been Hans I never would have been able to take him seriously). He was actually pretty good. He didn't assume we knew it all and went through it and allowed us to ask questions. Though there was one person in the class who ALWAYS asks questions, mostly pointless,

"Sorry to bother, but I was just wondering, what's the difference between a rock and a stone"?
*silence*
"There isn't a difference, stone is just a slang term for rock"
"Ohhh".

Even the lecturer who said he likes when people ask question during it said that this mystery person, I'll call him Zaiym, had used up his question asking tickets,

"But if the magnitude is times ten there and the energy release is 32 for magnitude 5, then what is it for 6"?
"It's also 32"
"No, it should be 42, shouldn't it"?

For Zaiym, I suggest he checks out this site,

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2216613701

The rest of the day nothing interesting happened really. Did another late nighter, collecting books for a talk I gotta do in a few weeks, spoke to Jamie Lee on facebook about old times at JD and a new job she's got where the starting pay is £18,000 a year : (Bare in mind tax, cost of living and credit crunch though and we worked out she is only really getting £300 a month spending money though. Reality bites). Also my Taekwondo lesson was cancelled due to the Hall being double booked, not sure how though, Taekwondo is always on a Wednesday so in theory we should have priority to whoever else booked it out, but ah well.
When I got back to the Dock I did some shadow sparring and worked on becoming more flexible since atm I can only kick as high as someone's stomach but need to be able to do head shots if I wanna earn more points when it comes to grading. I also need to work on a finishing move or a special move which I become famous for, like a Chuck Norris round house kick. But think I might actually need a grading belt before I can even think of doing that.

It was Sean's birthday on the 16th (today was 15th). So we all decided to stay up till midnight. It was a usual E block night in, playing ring of fire and getting into arguments over nothing. However at about 11.10 the subwarden came in saying that we were too noisy and there had been complaints.
OK, now let's look at the facts.
We were on floor 2.
Nobody on floor one would complain about us, since most of us who lived on that floor were up there anyway, AND floor one and 2 are quite friendly, and would only tell others to be quiet if it was still really loud at about 2am. It couldn't have been the flat next to us, either, as most of them were in this one. It couldn't have been another block, since we'd have to have all windows open and blare out music for them to even hear us, let alone it be loud enough to actually complain. Which means it must have been people on either floor 3 or 4.
Annoying, THEY are the ones that ALWAYS make noise, playing Queen or drum and bass till about 3 in the morning. The subwarden didn't tell us who made the complaint but we'd like to know so that we could talk with them and make an agreement. If it was bothering them, why didn't they just tell us themselves instead of getting a subwarden ?
Makes us believe he just made the whole complaint story up.
Eitherway, this was the 2nd night in a row a subwarden had come in due to us making noise, so it was getting serious. We convinced the subwarden to let us stay as long as we kept it down and it got to midnight. Sean turned 19, celebrations.
After Laura and Robyn played a game where they tried to throw pieces of paper into cups, they decided to go outside and play football. Anyone could see that this was a stupid idea, as it was night, they were drunk, ball games aren't allowed on site, AND we already had one complaint, but none of us thought to say anything.
Within minutes Robyn came back in saying a subwarden had told them off,

"He told me off for bouncing the ball on the ground, even though we were going somewhere else to play".
"Prick. Hey, where's Laura"?
"Oh, when the subwarden shouted out at me I ran off and left her".

Think you can guess what happened next. She had led him straight to our flat. The first subwarden that had told us off as well as a campus guard came in and had a chat with them. By this point it was now 1:30am so we all decided to leave and go to bed, well I did anyway.
Everyone seemed to find the whole thing pretty funny, though tbh I actually found it quite annoying, especially since after the first warning everyone went into our kitchen, which means they'll keep an eye out for our one now.
Well, guess there was ONE funny part to it,

"Shit, the subwarden is coming in again"
*For some reason Sean hides in the cupboard*
"Right, you two who were playing football, come with me"
*Laura and Robyn leave as well as the subwarden, he then comes back in*
"Also, tell your friend to get out the cupboard"

Haha.

Wednesday 15 October 2008

Day 24 - Cock in Clarence Dock.

Tuesday is a day of practicals, may sound more fun than a day of lectures, but it really isn't in my opinion.
Began with a 2 hour computer class in which we learned how to use excel. Although that sounds sarcastic, I never DID learn how to properly use it (by that I mean the shortcuts to adding everything up in cells or how to do graphs on it), so this class was quite helpful.
Also I realised I was behind on my assignments. I had already missed one, as I couldn't find it on the Uni website. Had I known the assignments actually go towards your final first year grade (an assignment a week and in all they count for 5% of your final grade, so missing one is like...0.25% of your mark) I may have looked harder.
I attempted the Geophysics assignment again, I somehow did worse this time than last time, BUT, managed to get one of the questions right where I worked out the wavespeed of a refracted wave travelling through a ground layer of rock from a seismogram reading :D
My last lecture was at 5pm, so I decided to stay at Uni till about 9pm (that's when the cluster shuts) doing revision, but mainly talking to Matt on facebook about what I am missing out on being so far up North.
After walking home in the cold and wet I arrived at our flat. Adam was the only person in. He had given the kitchen a complete make over. Had cleaned and hoovered it. Bought a drying rack for the plates and a drying rack for clothes. But best of all, XL gloves for me (as until now we have all used Mia's washing up gloves, and she has tiny hands). He also informed me how Laura and Mia were in the next flat making a poster of naked men.

*Long story coming up*
There is a reason for this poster being made. You see, flat 1.1 in Block E have their kitchen opposite Block G, so you can see into the other Block's kitchen. One night, some people in Block E snuck up to the Block G window at night and jumped up and scared everyone in Block G. As revenge, that night Block G made a poster with loads of naked women on it, and taped it to Block E's window, facing inwards so that we could all see it. We knew it was them as they left a message saying "Good Morning, love from Block G".
Follow so far ?
So now in Block E kitchen (we took it inside) there is a huge poster/collage of naked women. So the girls in Block E floor one decided to make another poster for the kitchen, but instead it is full of naked men. I have to say, I was pretty impressed with it. They said it took 3 hours to make. They had to buy a gay magazine and men's fitness magazines to make it. They also have loads of words like "Hard" and "Cock" printed off from word art and have that stuck all over it. I'll take a picture and upload it when I can.
But the best part of all, I am on it! A picture from when all the boys in the block were out clubbing, and randomly, everyone there began getting topless, so we all did too. So now we all look gay, on a poster with naked men and us at the bottom, all sweaty and topless, smiling. This is student life.

As the evening went on, we began playing ring of fire. I had no alcohol so had to play with water and apple squash. It all went smoothly at first, but once the "no swearing" and "no names" rule was introduced, most people were drinking every 5 seconds. Adam definitely got it worst, as he was drinking straight gin and was the drinking partner of Laura and Robyn, who both had sieve like memories about the name and swearing rule.

While they probably went to bed drunk, I went to bed with a belly full of squash and had to go to the toilet every hour till morning.

Tuesday 14 October 2008

Day 23 - Nu York State

First time I have actually gotten up late today. I set my alarm for 7am, so that I could do my clothes washing and still have time to get to Uni. The best time to do it, according to Mia, is midday, as nobody is around. But as like the other 99% of people at Uni, we have lectures at that time, so the other ideal time would be about 3am in the morning. Seeing as there are 610 students at clarence dock, and only 8 washing machines and dryers, one of which tends to flood and another which takes your money, it can get pretty busy in there.
After a day of lectures, I got back and washed my clothes straight away, as some had been there since my first arrival. I couldn't be bothered to seperate my whites, as they'd never get done otherwise, so just threw them in with colours and hoped they wouldn't run or I'd be on the football field with a pink Bucs shirt.
I found it quite funny but worrying at the same time when a girl walked into the laundry room (sounds American) and had somehow lost her clothes. Reminded me of Jack,
"I'm sure I put them in this one".
Never did find out what happened to them as I went back to do a 2nd load, as I had too many clothes to fit in only one washing machine. I reckon I'm just gonna buy more boxers and socks, as I only wash my clothes when they (the underwear) runs out. It's £2.60 a wash too, so I'd be saving money by buying more, I hope.
After I set my first wash I had a 34 minute wait for it to clean, so went back to the kitchen where Mia was cleaning it up (she said it's because she hates messy places but I'm guessing it was more out of bordem). Feeling bad just sitting there eating my pasta and chicken (which had gone off, though I hadn't noticed yet) I helped. Also Adam and Laura had made everyone angel delight randomly, mine was in the fridge, it was really nice, never had angel delight before. In return I said I'd make them my salad cream suprise dessert (the suprise is salad cream).
Man this story has no structure does it ? Anyway, I went back and put my first load of clothes in the dryer and put my 2nd load in, put in my money and went back to my room for 30 minutes. Annoyingly I came back and saw that the timer was still on 34, I thought I was the victim of a practical joke, but turns out I forgot to press "start" to begin the cycle :$
Anyway this messed up my plans as I had to be gone by 7:15pm to see a Jazz band at the Union, but I now had to put my 2nd load into the dryer, leave it there and take it out when I got back, hoping nobody would steal or do anything to them.
I cooked my dinner, the chicken and pasta I made but there was an odd smell. Another stupid mistake, since I had made it, I forgot to put the whole bowl in the fridge, so the chicken had gone off. Quite a waste really. I still ate the sink tasting pasta though, but will learn from this mistake. However, Nu York State awaited me.

On the way to the union, I approached 4 people, 3 men about 50 - 60, and a slightly overweight woman who looked about 40 and I think she was crying. As I walked up to them they all got up and began staring at me,
"Mugging a black man, big mistake"! I thought as I got into my taekwondo roundhouse kicking stance.
As soon as I walked pass the oldest of them called me back and began asking if he could have 17p for bus fare since they all needed to get back to Hyde park which is really far from where they were (It really wasn't) and they had loads of bags too. He went on to say how other people were ignoring him etc. I was a bit weary at first, as I thought this might have been a trick or something, that I'd take out some money and he'd have someone else come up behind me and take everything else from me, including my virginity. So stayed a safe distance back and took out 20p and gave it to him, still weary of what he was up to.
"It was 27p I needed not 17".
:S Unless his accent was really strong, I recall him saying it was 17p, since he repeated it more than once. Ah well, I gave him the money and he said I was a real gentleman. At the time when he stopped me and began talking to me I would have felt bad/scared to just walk away as he didn't look like someone who would take too nicely to it. Hopefully he was telling the truth as to why he needed the money and they all got home safely now with a big statue of me (gold platted of course) in their living room.

Finally I arrived at the Union. I met up with Luke (a fellow jazz society member) who was already pretty pumped up for the night. After waiting for about 30 minutes for a keyboard player to arrive, we were let in. We all got a table and were talking about jazz related things for a while. I got annoyed that I spent £3:10 on a bulmers to see if they are nice (they're alright I guess) when seconds later Luke got back saying how they do a blackcurrent soda for 15p :@ I got one and they were nice, a lot nicer than Bulmers!
No matter, the night of jazz soon made up for it.
The first two bands to play were students from Leeds and Leeds Met doing music, but compared to Nu York State they sounded like year 3 pupils playing recorders.
They are without doubt the best live band I've ever seen. There was a guy playing bongos who had dreadlocks which I really want, he could rap really well over jazz songs, and he was white! But at heart was blacker than me, so he has made it to my idol list, just wish I knew his name.
They also somehow did a funked up version of Superstition. Considering that it's already a really funky song, the fact they cranked that funk up even more is beyond belief. There were a few other Stevie Classics thrown in too, and had they played Sir Duke my head probably would have exploded. They also did a jazz version of crazy in love as well as a jazz version of Billie Jean and American boy.

By now everyone had long hit the dancefloor. I tried to catch the eye of a tiny white guy who had some pretty sweet moves as I was quite up for a black off (In my eyes he was black), but he seemed too interested in dancing on his own at the front of the stage so I left him be. But at this point it was all getting too much for me. As musicians know, the brain has a limit to the amount of jazz it can process at a time, just like your liver can only metabolise a certain amount of alcohol, too much and you get drunk. The same applies for Jazz/funk, it was just an overload to the point I got drunk with it.
You can't neutralise it with water either like you can with alcohol, you gotta neutralise funkxins (play on words with toxins) with music you hate. But there was none there, so still drunk with funk, I danced my way home way over the legal limit, so lucky I didn't get stopped by the funk police. When I got back to Clarence Dock I checked the washing machine and dryer, someone had taken them out of the dryer and left them on the chairs. Thank you whoever that was, rather that than them being left in there and causing people to have to wait due to my lack of preparation.

All in all I'd say it was one of the best nights out I've ever had. There is also gonna be a jam session this following Sunday at another Union bar. I played in the last gig (even though I never one knew what key we were meant to have been in) and the standard was pretty high. So hoping this one will be even better.
Long live funk!

Monday 13 October 2008

Day 22 - Pasta strain

Today is was the latest I have woken up so far at Leeds since I ended up having my breakfast at midday. Usually for dinner I make a huge pot of pasta with mince meat or any other meat I can find, this morning it was chicken. The advantage being that for lunch and dinner I then don't have to keep on preparing things. The pasta usually lasts about 3 to 4 days. Also it saves money. However when it came time to strain the pasta, I had no colander to do it with. I think Mia and Adam were the only two that had one, and they were already dirty. Instead I thought it was a good idea to put the lid on the pan and tilt it so the water drained out but pasta remained in it. My plan half worked. I got all the water out, but the lid slipped and all the pasta fell out into the sink too.

I had two choices, make more, or eat the pasta anyway. I was pretty hungry at this point and hardly had any pasta left to make more, so had to take all the pasta out of the sink (which still had loads of dirty plates and pieces of food in it), boil it again to get rid of some germs and just eat it anyway. Didn't taste that bad actually, though I did keep finding tiny bits of food (I hope) on my pasta and chicken which was a bit worrying.

After this I ventured to Uni to find a computer to finish some assignments. It's getting quite annoying not having my own laptop now, as when I do get to Uni, I'm so tired from the walk I can't be bothered to do any work. Ah well, guess in a round about way this is all my own fault. I got a call from my Mum just to see how I was doing which is always nice. I guess she is worried about me as she once said that it is my destiny to find carry on the Dixon family name if anything huge happens in Upminster, such as a chlorine bomb. Jeez, no pressure. Straight after I then got a call from my Brother just to see how I was doing. This is quite strange as it's about the 3rd time he has done this, and considering he only ever phones home to ask for money or complain, I always wonder whether he really DOES phone me just to talk or if he is secretly building up our brotherly friendship to ask for a huge favour in the end. Probably best not to think about it too much.

I got back to the flat and spent the night watching Fear and loathing in Las Vegas with Adam. I gotta say, it's the weirdest film I've ever seen. A true story about two guys who are on a buisness trip but are always high on drugs. Didn't see the end of it as Adam needed to use his mac to talk online, though personally the film didn't seem to have any real plot and I didn't really care too much for the ending anyway.

As Laura had returned today from her wedding, there was a small E Block gathering in our kitchen, though it ended at about midnight as everyone was tired and had lectures in the morning, mine at 9am again :(

Oh, also I guess I should point it out or the title won't make sense. I strained my neck bad during Taekwondo training. Think it was from bad technique doing sit ups combined with an earlier strain I got months ago when Tim Brown tackled me in American Football. Hopefully it goes away soon or I'll be bored shitless for weeks waiting for it to heal when I could be out getting beaten on by people better than me at the sport :D YEAH!

Sunday 12 October 2008

Day 20 - 21 - Kitchen Rave

I realised that I have some how messed up the day count in this. I cba to find out where, but basically two weeks have passed since University.

Day 20 - I didn't do anything during the day really. Just had a seminar. Had Taekwondo in the evening though. It's from 5 till 7. 5 are advanced classes, 6 is beginner classes. Though you can go to both, to get my moneys worth, I go to both. I had to sit out of some of the parts of the advanced class, as they were doing different patterns, and I know none. However it was fun to watch. Then came the beginner class. There were a lot more people there than the week before. I partnered up with this small looking chinese guy who said he had never done Taekwondo before. However when it got to the mitt hitting session he punched the mitt so hard it caused my arm to be flung back and I ended up punching myself in the mouth,

"Are you sure you've never done Taekwondo before"
"Well...I used to do a little bit of martial arts".

Bullshit a little bit! I did wonder why his technique seemed really good when we were going through the different stances. Anyway, I'd rather there be really really good people in the class as if I spar with them it'll help me to improve too. By the end of the year I'd like to be able to smash my head through a block of ice (even if Taekwondo is mainly kicking based).
I got back to the flat and found a letter saying that a parcel had arrived for me. It was my training gear. £80 in all for the gloves, head gear, shin guards and shoes, which is pretty good really. Now I can spar full contact!
There was nothing really planned for the night, so Mia and I (Laura was at a wedding) went to the flat next door for some drunken fun. It ended up being a funny night. Mainly taking the piss out of a girl who has a strong welsh accent and getting educated about America and Canada by a Canadian guy called Mike staying in the flat,

"Look, I made some Jelly shots"
"Jelly ? Do you guys have Jell-o over here"
".......Yeah, Jell-o and jelly are the same thing"
"No, Jell-o is actually company that makes jelly, but it's so large people tend to mix jelly and jell-o up"
"Oh, like how people call vacuum cleaners hoovers, while hoover is actually just a brand, not the universial name for the product"?
"Yeah, just like that".

Gotta say, I learned more that night than I have in my 2 weeks of lectures so far. At about 11pm all the boys randomly went into the car park and began throwing an American Football around. I was quite annoyed as I had seen this ball lying in the grass a few weeks back, but didn't take it as I thought someone may have left it there and planned on picking it up later. But nobody did, and the flat next to me now owned it :(
I got too into it however, playing as QB. Shouting American Football jargon and always getting angry when passes weren't completed, even though it was always my fault for throwing shit passes. Mike also found it funny that he was the only other person who knew what I was talking about when I was shouting different pass routes. Though he was actually a pretty good player. Also, not that anyone will care, but he is also a fan of the Bucs, as am I ;)
We returned later to the flat after getting a warning from a subwarden that we could break something. The night ended up turning into a huge drunken arguement involving a girl's boyfriend going to a strip club and whether or not it was acceptable to let him go to a talk about sexism and how girls hit boys but boys are not allowed to hit girls. Me being the only sober one I found the whole thing ridiculous and hilarious. It was even funnier in the morning when nobody could even remember the entire thing apart from me and Mike who took the initiative to film it all, hehe.


Day 21 - I ended up going to bed at about 3am the night before, I wanted to get in my 8 hours though and woke up late in the day. Also, today was Taekwondo squad training. Last week it wasn't too bad really. Just some running and stances, then the next hour is sparring, so it is a 2 hour split session really. Today however was a killer. We had to do a pyramid.

5 press ups then a lap of the sports hall
5 sit ups, lap
5 squat thrusts, lap
5 pike sit ups, lap,
5 squat thrusts then jump into the air, lap.

It went on like this, except increasing by 5 each time, till we got to 30. Also when it got to 20 of everything, we than had to do two laps of the hall instead of one. Once we got to 30, we had a minute break, a drink, then had to go all the way back down the pyramid, 30, to 25, to 20, to 15. At 10 and 5, we had to do all the exercises one after another. And yes, it was hard. Don't think I've ever had such an intense session in my life actually. Not even the instructor could do it properly (by 30 you were so tired and numb at most you could only manage about 6 of each workouts). This whole thing lasted for an hour. The next hour was sparring. Having just gotten my shiny new gloves, I was ready and rearing to go. Only problem was that everyone else there was about blue or blackbelt or had done some form of martial arts before : I was fucked.
Every person I went up against I worked up a huge sweat, put in 120% and they didn't even look as though they were trying. One even showed me some taunts to do mid fight, such as leaving yourself unguarded or pointing to the floor hoping the other person looks down, then you kick them in the face.
Anyway, in the end it was actually good to go up against people way better than me as they pointed out where I was going wrong. Such as making it obvious when I was going to attack, to look at my opponent's face, not their hands and to never stop moving.
I was pretty sore the rest of the day. The Clarence Dock block E flat were all going to a club called cockpit that night (though we call it cock bar as it's situated on the gay district). A few brave people were doing shots of my Jamaican rum (it's 63%) whilst Adam after drinking martini straight from the bottle was mixing my rum with coke and got himself wasted in a matter of minutes.
In the end we all left and got to the club at about midnight, but after much confusion as some people needed the toilet and some needed to withdraw money we all ended up splitting up.
I met up with Adam again but in the queue he said he was feeling a bit ill after what he had drunk and loud music wouldn't have done him any good so wanted to go home. I didn't really want him to walk home on his own in the state he was in (and by this time it was almost 1am so didn't really feel like clubbing either) so we both took a slow walk back to Clarence Dock to bring an end to our night.

Day 12-17- Muesum + Freshers ball = training

I figured I'd write about all of these days in just one post, as very little happened during each day and I am unable to remember them in any real detail.



Day 12 - I woke up quite late due to going to bed at about 1am the previous morning. The only person up and in the kitchen already was Mia who was pretty annoyed at the mess and amount of dirty plates and washing up as her parents were coming over that morning. I felt quite guilty since some of it was mine (though most of it was Adam's as he had cookeda stir fry a few nights ago) and also her and Laura had cleaned the entire kitchen the night before and Adam and I managed to mess it up within a night :

Eitherway, we then made a rule that everyone in our flat is only responsible for cleaning up after themselves from now on. Which is better I guess, at the case used to be that whoever did their washing up would just do everyone elses too. After that I just walked to the University to return a Geophysics library book that I didn't get round to reading. Tonight was the freshers ball too. I didn't bother to buy a ticket, but it was £17 or so. Spent the night in doing...something.



Day 13 - It was about 11am and nobody in the flat was up. I had nothing planned for the day so decided I would go for a walk around Leeds. I never noticed before, but Leeds architecture is actually really good (well, nice to look at). I felt like one of those stereotypical tourists you see walking around London with Maps and huge backpacks. Though had I lived in Leeds my entire life I probably never would have gone on a walk like this. After about an hour, I found the Leeds city museum. I haven't been to a museum in YEARS, and they were having a special exhibtion today, so I decided to go in. It was great in there! I was really tempted to spend £20 on a book which was basically an encylopedia of everything you didn't know or used to know and forgot (that was the actual title). They also had things like ant biscuits and sugar covered crickets in the shop which I was also going to buy. On the bottom floor they had stuffed animals which looked so life like. I was suprised nobody was taking pictures as they were really well done. After I took about three I was approached by a member of staff who said I am not allowed to take photos unless I have a license. Oops. Lucky he didn't take my camera (phone) from me. That was basically the highlight of my day. It would have been more fun to have gone with someone, but meh. I only really explored about 13% of Leeds that day, and hopefully by the end of the year will have explored the rest. That's 87%, I just checked.

Day 16 - Average day. Lectures, ate, cried, lectures, ate somemore. Signed up to the gym today so that Taekwondo lessons will only cost me £1 instead of £5 with membership. (Leeds Uni gym membership is £50 for the year and an extra 50p each time you use any of the suites, or you could pay £95 for the year and everything else there are no extra charges. Not that I'm trying to advertise or anything).
Come to Leeds.
There was no Taekwondo training that evening however there was still a social at a pub called "The Library". There was a poster outside saying how Thursday is funk night, it had a picture of James Brown (even though he sings soul not funk) and it said "Funk-tion". I thought it was pretty funny/clever myself. However, a few members of the club came down for a drinks. After about an hour loads of Leeds students were in there with plain white t-shirts with a load of pen on them like you have on the last day of school. Sean (Bad Bach) and I were even talking about this a few days ago, how while it begins with people writing messages on your back, by the end of the night it is a competition as to who can draw the most cocks on other peoples shirts. This was definitely the case that night. What was stranger was that it was the rowing/sailing society and there were about 40 people there :S Didn't think it'd be so popular. Anyway, the TKD crew were going to go to a club called wire later that night, but I didn't really feel like it so walked home with Daniel. Watched some funk/jazz videos with Adam on his Mac when I got back then went to bed.

Day 17 - Already wrote about this in "3 weeks 2 late".

Saturday 11 October 2008

Day 11 - Jam sandwich

So I have basically had my first week of lectures. Not so bad really, aside from the fact I have to be up for 9am for four of them and 10am for th Friday one :( Oh yeah, I did mention I would talk about the timetables of my roomates too in an earlier post about how they have it easier, guess I'll do it hear. Mainly, it seems as though Mia has it the easiest. At most, she only ever has 6 hours of lectures a week, and gets two of the days off during the week. Seems pretty good, but then again, the rest of us are at lectures during the day meaning she is home alone most of the time, and her course is mainly reading and research she has to do on her own, and the other day she brought up quite a good point,

"I don't really think it's fair I'm paying £3500 for a year, the same as everyone else, but I get even less than half the teaching time of everyone else and the teachers basically just make us go off and do it on our own".

Guess I'd find it a little annoying too to come to Uni and for the teachers to just give us a reading list and make us read and research most of the course on our own. I've already taken out quite a few Geology books and tbh non of them have really helped me in the slightest, so I really feel sorry for her situation.
Besides that, it was Friday, my best day. Only one seminar session, and if you do the work before hand, you can just hand it into the teacher at the start of the session then go home, pretty good. Tonight at 5pm was also the first Taekwondo taster session. Having dropped out of American Football and wanting to join at least one physical society as I am already out of shape, this was my last hope. I gotta say, it was REALLY good. The instructor was pretty funny (I thought he was anyway) and the society as a whole seemed really friendly. I met someone called Daniel who I partnered up with for the session who did Taekwondo about 10 years ago, but since then he's become quite a good friend here at Uni. He is 23 (although looks about 18/19), does Civil Engineering and is in his 4th year, as he spent his 3rd year studying in Hong Kong, I thought that was pretty immense.
The training wasn't really tiring, but it did require a certain amount of flexibility, which I don't have, so will need to be something I work on. As well as that, like with everything else, I had no real grace or technique in anything I was doing (if you've ever seen me run or play pool you'll know what I mean). Nevertheless, I'd quite like to stick with the TKD club and despite my disadvantages so that one day if I ever DO get into a fight, I can kick ass in style and a badly dubbed voice over.

On the way home I met Laura, Mia and another student from Block E, Lauren, who were all out "buying dessert" :S as the only dessert we had in our flat was Mia's 19p Asda value rice pudding. So Adam and I were left alone in the flat. Somehow, after a few drinks (he had brought up some really nice vintage cider from home), we both ended up having a jam session in the kitchen. Me wih my Sax, Adam with his guitar. Things got funky/jazzy. He introduced me to a funk band I had never heard of before, called Parliment, they were so good I passed out. The rest of the night we were playing over different songs from artists such as Mark Ronson and Coldplay. Then I almost spat out my mushy peas and mashed potato when he began playing don't let me be misunderstood on his guitar and iPod speakers. Made me have some nice flashbacks of the days when I was in the OneC5ones during our round the world tours. We jammed away till roughly 1am when the jazz just got too much for us and we fell asleep with our instruments by our bedsides.