Sunday 14 December 2008

Day 86 - The worst journey in the world

The title explains it all. But also because I can't stop listening to the tenacious D song - tribute that I figured I'd put in it too. "The best song in the world".
I reckon during this journey the devil DID appear and ask me to go on the worse journey in the world.
Right then.
The morning wasn't too bad, I packed everything I needed and used up all the food I could in the kitchen, washed up and was ready to go.
My bags were packed to the brim till I could take no more, I had two string bags tied onto my dragging suitcase, a packpack and my saxophone. It was VERY heavy and annoying to carry all of this.
I knocked on Flat 2.1 door to say bye to Harry and Magda but nobody answered. Guess they didn't hear or weren't up yet.
Oh well, I made my way to the bus stop anyway.
It took about 20 minutes in all. Dragging all that stuff with me. One of my string bags was being dragged along the floor too, which I stupidly ignored.

By the time I got to the bus stop, a huge hole had been torn in the string bag and also pretty much destroyed my camera case and scratched the camera quite badly.
I then text my parents asking if they could meet me at a train station as it'd be hard carrying all this stuff home, I then got a call from my Dad in which the main topic of conversation was how he thought I was coming home on the 15th not the 14th therefore was unable to pick me up as he and Mum were just about to go on a boat cruise across the Thames.
God dammit! I told them so many times that I was coming back on the Sunday!
I was quite annoyed at this point and it didn't really go away until I finally got home.
Finally the bus came and I had to put my own stuff on while everyone else got their's put on for them by the bus driver :S

The journey wasn't too bad. I began reading my Geophysics book wondering if I could read it all throughout the journey.
No chance!
Gave up after about 12 pages and went to sleep. It was so hot on the bus though, and I needed the toilet really bad.
Therefore I didn't eat or drink anything till I arrived at Victoria station. However, I forgot about the huge hole in my bag, when it was taken off the bus, a Kopparberg fell out and smashed along the floor.
I was furious at this point.
There was no way in hell I'd fine a 3 for £5 deal in Essex!
Luckily I had another one (which kept on falling out during the remainder of the journey), but still, it was such a waste!
Needed to urinate real bad so figured I'd use the toilets there, but nope, they were closed for cleaning.
As I was about the cross the street I was approached by some man who had one blue eye and one white eye who asked me where I was going, this is how the conversation went,

"Where you going"
"What"?
"Where are you going"
"Essex"
"Where in Essex"
"Upminster"
"What zone is that"
"It's the end of the district line"
"Well it just so happens I have a zone 6 travel ticket with me, you can have it for £7 etc..."

At this point the light had changed to the green man and I was in no mood to be patient, I walked away from him as he was still talking to me saying that I already had a travel pass (that was a lie, all I had was an oyster card and got no clue how much money is actually on it).

So I wandered through Victoria not having a clue where I was really going.
Lucky my parents had phoned me telling me I needed the district line so I just followed signs for that.
After sitting on the train for what seemed like hours I arrived at Barking.

There was no district line train going from Barking to Upminster so I had to change.
Whilst dragging my bag I noticed that there was something else scrapping.
Turns out the strap on the bag has been caught up in the wheel this whole time. So badly that I actually had to cut it off when I got home (the string bag was ruined anyway).

Not too sure where I should be, I asked a chav Mum and her daughter if this was the right plattform, it was. My only luck for the day.
The train arrived and it was packed. My saxophone and huge suitcase didn't help at all as I bumped everyone I walked pass.
Eventually I got back into Upminster, after heaving my bag up the stairs I met up with my Sister and we began the walk home.

It's weird. Nothing seems to feel different. It's as if I never left. Everyone from E block has been writing on facebook about how they find home boring and want to go back and miss everyone.
Without sounding unsocial and horrible, I don't feel that way at all, or miss anyone =/
Probably cos I know I'll see em all again pretty soon.
Though I gotta say I do miss Scott loads.
I spent the evening unpacking, watching tv and talking to people on msn.
The posters I bought for Mike, Jack and Matt have been crushed badly from the way in which I carried them home.
I drank my last Kopparberg so that nothing else could happen to it.
Did some maths revision.
Matt said next time we meet he'll buy me a Kopparberg for the one that smashed :)
Also have already arranged to meet Emily tomorrow at 5pm for a game of pool and eating Ramen at the noodle bar and also to watch the NFL with Mike at 1:30am, so will be sleeping over there.
At the very least, I am happy I got a warm welcome home.

It is now 2:36am, Heather and I are texting each other about our journeys home and I am just happy to be back. I gotta get out of my student body clock of going to bed so late though.

Well then, this is my last entry until the 12th of January I think.
Semster 2 will start with day 1, just so that is is easier to follow.
It has been fun guys.

Adios! x

Saturday 13 December 2008

Day 85 - Lone Loiner

I ended up staying up till about 5am in the kitchen talking to Mia and Laura about our time spent here. What's funny is how much things have changed. For example when Mia first got her she said she was really nervous and wanted to go home, during the middle of the time here she said she loved it and didn't want to go home, a few weeks on she said she really wanted to go home as she was missing friends and family as was I. But once the day came, her, as well as everyone, were actually all really sad to be leaving.
Everyone's status is about how they are home and just want to go back.
I have no idea what it'll feel like to be home again. I guess I won't be sad as I know I will be back sooner than I think and should make the most of being at home.
Anyway, I spent all of today packing, using up the last of my food and saying bye to people.
There are very few people left in the block now and I am the last person left in flat E1.2.

I spoke to Harry and Magda throughout the day asking what they were gonna be up to. Harry wasn't sure but in the end organised that we'd meet up a bit before I left for Simon's party. Not sure what Magda ended up doing as she said she wanted to go clubbing (bad idea seeing as there are hardly any students left) or cinema.
Anyway, John had left some sliced chicken in the fridge and I had too much food so made a pasta bake with basically everything on it. But it was too much, so I told Harry that he could have some as there was no way I could finish it all.

So, I did not dine alone that night (which is actually the first time in weeks that I haven't had dinner on my own). Harry and I just had a general conversation about going home, Uni, work etc. Turns out Leeds wasn't his first choice as he applied through clearing as before that he never even thought to apply to Uni. Only did 3 weeks before the start of term and just decided to do Maths on a whim.
Weird as he doesn't seem as though he'd have that sort of reckless attitude towards Uni.
Later on one of his friends came round to the kitchen and were going to go to Charles Morris for a gathering, luckily I got a lift out of it.
The trouble came however when I had to find Simon's road.
I knew I'd get lost, but it's worse at night and when it is raining.
Basically I got to a T junction and had no idea which way to turn.
But, as you may have guessed, with a 50% chance of getting it right or wrong, I take the wrong route. Ended up asking for directions in an Indian in which I was told I should be heading about 10 minutes in the opposite direction.
Damn it.

Eventually I arrived, there were just a few of us at first drinking and listening to a music playlist on youtube.
The night progessed, more people turned up, and funny enough, it seemed a lot of people there like weird al, which was good on my part.
After my 4th Kopparberg I began to feel a little ill so decided to stop. No point getting drunk and making myself ill a day before I am meant to be home or the megabus will seem like a really long journey.
It got to about 3am and I left as I need to be up for 10am tomorrow to get everything sorted.

The walk home was scary. I was tempted to actually get a cab.
It was full of drunkards, taxis, people shouting abuse from cars and police.
Having walked home sober every night, this wasn't a new thing for me, though for everyone else it seemed to be, as it is rare that people from E block walk home sober therefore don't tend to notice their surroundings.
As I got closer to Clarence Dock I heard two drunken Asian men shouting stuff out like "We hate Kenyans, we hate Jamaicans, we hate blacks".

Shit.

Needless to say, I picked up the pace.
Now I am back at the Dock, safe and sound, talking to Heather about how weird it is that everyone is going.
Ahh...
Tomorrow will be my last blog until I return in January, so stay tuned as it should be special (I hope).

Oh, and the word "Loiner" is the correct term for a person living in Leeds. Just thought I'd throw it in there.

Friday 12 December 2008

Day 84 - The anti-climax of semester one..

Right, so today I only had to be up for one reason. The chemistry test. Knowing I would do badly, I decided t go into Uni a bit early and do some revision for it.
What a waste of time that was.
There were only about 3 questions I understood in the whole paper, which when worked out would come up to about 16 marks if that (the paper was out of 100).
To make things worse, I completely forget te forumla for how to work out the volume of something.
Had I remembered this I would have done a lot better, Darryl and Tom said they didn't find it too bad but having this test in the morning as my last day of teaching was not really how I would have liked it to have ended. I guess the upside is that I can learn from my mistakes and this was only %5 of m final mark. Real thing matters in January.
Suppose I am lucky in the sense it seems most people in the first year are aiming to pass, not to do amazingly well. In my case I have to aim to do amazingly well merely to pass!
I thought I'd go cheer myself up by buying a student newspaper. I already checked for one before in the morning but nothing was there so guessed they hadn't been put out yet.
Walked back there again after the test.
YES! A new pile of papers.
As I walked over though I noticed the front cover was the same as the one from last week. Hang about, it WAS last week's paper.
Dammit!
Now what am I gonna do when I get home with no new newspaper!?!

Not a great start to the day tbh..
As I walked back I figured there might be some sort of celebration tonight involving alcohol, if not, I still wanted to take advantage of the offer Harry found on Kopparberg, 3 for £5.
After wondering around Morrison's for about 20 minutes I noticed that all the alcohol was in a seperate section. As I was queuing up some 4 ft 5 Asian women kept on talking to me as if she knew me :S Asking me whether the alcohol she was holding was stronger than the other one on the rack. Well, considering I hadn't looked at the one on the rack, and when she walked over she said it was 17% and the one she had was 14%, I don't see why she felt the need to ask me.
Even read the serving instructions saying "Lemon ? I don't need lemon, got some lemon at home".

A little weird, I just smiled and nodded like I do in most situations.
Got home to find a note left by Mike on facebook about his journey home. It was quite long, so will just give the basics.
Basically he was VERY late for his plane and after a series of event which involved him running from one side of the airport to another with his bag and guitar, having to take off his shoes so they could check for bombs in the x-ray in which he literally replied,
"You have got to be fucking kidding me"!
And arriving at the desk with only 5 minutes before his plane was about to leave.
Luckily he is safe in Canada now.
Also, more news on Scott, good news.
Ben M got a text (not sure who sent it though) saying that Scott has been able to respond to the nurses requests on demand. Which were when she told him to squeeze her hand, stick out his tongue and wiggle his toes, he was able to do it.
YES!
He is recovering :D Brightened up my day a lot.
Spent the rest of the day in my room sleeping before heading off to the final Taekwondo session.
Only about 11 people were there (more girls than boys which was weird).
It was a really fun lesson though.
First we were doing one kick each and I was suprised at myself that I could actually do a spinning hook kick as high as my own face.

Next was the best part, we had a small sparring tournement.

5 people on one side, 5 on the other.

First it was Jeremy against Anthony, both black belts.
In the end it was a draw but a good match.
Next, me Vs James.
Ok, now I am not making excuses here, as it's true, but I had a HUGE disadvantage from the start and the only reason I had to fight James was because the only other people in the group were girls and not all that confident at sparring. Not to mention I am a yellow belt and James is blue (which is 2 grades above me).
Needless to say, I lost, I got 2 points, but it's obvious they were given to me out of pity due to te unfairness of the match up.
Next the other girls fought each other, but in the end the other team won.

I was then called up again to fight James, but the instructor remembered I already had and asked if anybody else wanted to spar with me. I really wanted to spar with someone else, but Liz (who was on our team) began to moan that the match-ups were unfair as they had better people on the team and wanted to do something else.

So we ended up having a "pattern off". Basically had to do a pattern all together and the better group would win. Once again, Liz moaned that they had higher grades in their group so would be better (tbh since we had lower grades it should mean we are better as it is the first pattern and we would therefore know it better having practiced it more recently).

But the other team had more strength in it when they did the pattern and won. What happened next ? Yep, you guessed it.
More moaning from Liz about the teams being unevenly matched. They really weren't though.

After this we did some group pattern work in which we went through a pattern with 54 moves. Yes, it was hard to remember. Finally we did some self-defence. Was taught a really good wrist lock move, though in a real fight would be basically impossible to use due to everything you have to go through to get them into that position. Though it is a technique practiced by prison guards and policemen and usually used when the suspect is already on the floor. We were then shown how to do a thumb lock, with me being demonstrated on, yes, it hurt, a lot.

So, the lesson ended and we all went off to the Library. Had a game of pool with Matt, two actually. Lost both times, but not an epic loss.

On the walk home the atmosphere around Leeds felt weird, really tense, as if something was going to happen. I also noticed that there were almost no students around the town and it was full of middle aged people, the type you see in old man type pubs.
Even when I walked pass a group of men that looked about 40 odd, one of them stared at me as I walked pass shouting something like,
"Fuck off out of our town"!
(Funny enough that is exactly what I am going to do on Sunday, so everyone is happy).

Got home to find everybody scattered about E block, Mia and Laura were packing and Lewis and Ben H were in Tim's flat. Lauren, Abi and Ben M had already left, as well as Sean.
I spoke to Luis on facebook asking if he knew where everybody was, after informing me, he told me about a game called bloons defence tower.
Best game ever. Was playing it for ages before going up to Tim's flat.
Was just listening to music up there for a while whilst talking about what things will be like next year in the flat. Seems Tim and Lewis have a bit of a problem with Harry and don't really want him living with us next year which would be quite annoying as it'd constantely cause tension in the house if that were the case.

However at about 2am or so I decided to head off back to my room and play some more bloons.
So, wasn't really the most exciting way to end this semester tbh. I now got 6 Kopparbergs in my room and wondering what to do.
Bring them to Simon's party tomorrow, if I decide to go that is, stay in tomorrow and drink with Harry (me, Harry, Magda and Heather are the only people I know not leaving Saturday) or I could just take all 6 home with me.
Hmm....I will have an answer tomorrow.

Thursday 11 December 2008

Day 83 - Drawing to a close..

With only one lecture today and having got about 3 or 4 hours sleep, I walked in still really tired, endured a maths lecture, attended the maths revision class, walked all the way into headingly to sign for the house then walked home.

I began to revise for chemistry as I have a test tomorrow and know I won't do all that well in it. Met John in te kitchen who informed me that Scott is going to have permanent brain damage :(
Hope the doctors have got it wrong and that he doesn't.
Then spent 4 hours sleeping catching up on the sleep I should have got had Heather not come into my room, thrown everything about and began to spray my oust constantely.

It was Abi's birthday on Saturday, but she was leaving Friday. So we all celebrated it in the kitchen. Basically just drank and listened to Christmas songs.
So it's getting late and reckon I should get to bed now.
Everyone is still making loads of noise in the kitchen playing pictionary. Suprised a subwarden hasn't come in yet and te whole of E block must be able to hear us, someone's status is even set to,

"I wish the people downstairs would shut the fuck up"!

Oops..

Hopefully the Christmas break will let them cool off...

Wednesday 10 December 2008

Day 82 - Pass under my belt...

Just like to point out, the title is a bad pun.

So anyway, had Geophysics in the morning. My last ever one, sort of. I gotta say, it was really interesting. I mean, the lectures always are, I just can't apply the maths and physics to the subject so find it hard. If I could understand it then it'd be such a good subject to take.
After this I had a two hour break in which I did some revision.
Then Dynamic Earth ¬_¬
Probably the most boring one yet. I think I actually began to hallucinate as to how bored I was and wanted nothing more in the world than to just go to sleep. I really don't understand why it is only his lectures this seems to happen in. It's the same with everyone. Ah well, chemistry was next. Did the tutorial and handed it in though couldn't finish the 4th question.
Straight after was the final Geophysics session with Dr. Neuburg.
Definitely one of my favorite teachers, he is so indepth, and also pretty funny, AND he is German.
Not to mention this lecture was on Volcanoes.
Everyone loves Volcanoes. He had a running gag about how if a pyroclastic flow flooded through a holiday resort the owner would get pissed off.
They were all "you had to be there" things but I enjoyed the lecture. No more now, ever :(
Kinda sad. Have already actually passed the exam too, but no excuse to slack or I'll get a 3rd, how embarrassing :S

Decided to walk home as I had time and did some work for a bit before going back to Uni to Taekwondo. However, whilst home I saw a message from Lewis,

"Wes, you didn't sign one of the contracts".
Damn, I gotta go back tomorrow now, it's such a walk too :(

In the lesson everyone got their new belts. Seems everyone who graded passed. People can fail, but not sure how bad you'd have to do to actually fail.
So, now I'm a yellow belt :D
Did loads of self-defence stuff today which was also good, getting out of headlocks and mounts. Wonder if a fight will occur and I ever have to use it in real life hmm..

After a great session a few of us went to the old bar for food and a drink and were talking about drugs. As how they are illegal but people still do them but if, like in Holland, they made them all legal, we as a nation would be too stupid and irresponsible and end up killing ourselves.
These were all Matt's opinions btw, though I agree mostly.
"You never see German's walking around the street throwing up do you".

We are kinda the laughing stock of most places. Well known for our behaviour on holidays. Oh dear.


Got home and was on facebook and noticed Magda's status,

"I can hear something really horrible outside".

Asked her what it was and she said it was two people making out.
YES!
I raced up the stairs as fast as I could and knocked on the door. Had it been wedged open I would have just ran in and cock blocked haha.
Turns out it was Ben and Luci. Making this the 3rd girl Ben has gotten with this semester, though this time she isn't drunk :S
Magda did say she heard someone say,

"You know, I really like you".

Haha, how corny. This is all too hilarious, gonna lead to tension 150% and I will sit back and laugh at the complexity of human nature.
Anyway, they were all off to Gatecrasher, at 11:40pm, no thanks.
Gonna be packed.
As Lewis and TIm walked out they were saying how they didn't want to live with Harry as Lewis spilt some drink on his top and Harry got annoyed.
FFS!
If Harry had been here from the start nobody would have a problem with him, there is really nothing wrong with him. Tbh I think this whole house thing is a huge mistake. We have put our money down WAAAAAY too early and don't think we should all be living so close together.
Oh well, next year it might change. Guess I should be grateful I actually have somewhere already with people who I get on with (mostly).

Was in my room for hours doing chemistry and maths when I heard a voice outside calling my name, I could tell from the accent it was Heather.
Not sure how she knew I was in, my curtains were drawn, unless she saw the lights.
Anyway, she was in a really bad (and VERY drunk) mood and asked to come to my room to cool off.
Needless to say, this was a really bad idea, on my part.
She was in my room for about 2 hours saying I was a liar and that I didn't really listen to weird all or watch anime or act the way I do and do it only for a show :S

Didn't mind at first but soon got annoying, as this was the first time in ages I was in the mood to do work, and she kept throwing my stuff around the room. It got to 3am and I was getting annoyed as she was hard to deal with being so drunk. I grabbed her handbag and she followed me. YES!
I threw it into the outside hallway, as she went to pick it up I pushed her out the door and locked it. She could neither get into the flat nor my room haha. Success!

Got a call from her 10 minutes later. Can guess what the content was. Swearing, drunken laughter etc. I stopped speaking after a while and she hung up.

Man, it's now 4:30am, I have stayed up for no real reason. Only got maths tomorrow so will catch up on sleep later. For now though, it's Heroes time :)

Tuesday 9 December 2008

Day 81 - The realisation of student life..

Computer class, finished and handed in my work. Had a break for an hour in which I did some work, I think.
Got to 12:30pm and we had to have a meeting at picard's housing about signing and getting a place.
Basically the entire thing was pretty disasterous.
Half the people hadn't even been told which houses they were allocated to, which caused a lot of anger. For example, Harry has been put in our house, although he doesn't know many people in ours and knows more in the other one.
Sean wanted to live in the other house but had been put into our one.
Lots of different problems occured over personal and friendship matters. It got to the point when the picard workers wrote a letter and signed it saying we were allowed 4 switches between houses and they wouldn't charge us for it (usually it'd be £75).
Atm, the houses are.
9 bedroom - Laura, Luci, Louise, Natalie, Luis, Ben H, Ben M, Sean
7 bedroom - Me, Mia, Abi, Lauren, Harry, Tim, Lewis.

I'm not too bothered as to which house I live in, but, our houses are about 30 seconds away from each other anyway which was done to prevent this very sort of thing becoming a problem in the first place so basically we wasted about an hour arguing for nothing.

It got really stressful in the end. Also we had to pay a £155 deposit.
We worked out this house is costing us £500 more a year than Clarence Cock.
It is £77 a week, but is being rented out for 52 weeks instead of 42.
That means it is costing us £4004 a year in rent alone, ontop of that is food, entertainment, books etc.
It has now hit me how easy it is for students to get into debt and have very little to no money.
We're all definitely going to have to get jobs.
What made things worse was that Mia and Robyn decided not to turn up for some reason so were unable to pay deposits. Luckily they said we didn't have to do it that day, otherwise either one of us would have to pay it for them (£310, in which would take ages to be paid back) or we all put in about £23 each now.
However, Mia said she only has £90 to last her till 12th January, and considering she lost her bag yestetrday which had everything, means that she will have to spend about £150 or more on new stuff as well as the £155 deposit. Bad times for her (still though, she gets the full grant of £1500 as well as student loan which is more than what everyone else gets so not sure how come she has less money over all :S).

So, it all got sorted and I was off to my next 2 hour practical which I was too tired to really pay attention to.
Got home and did some work.
Spoke to John for a bit before having dinner, giving my secret santa present to Laura then going to the kitchen for 9pm to open them all.
Gotta say, some of the presents were pretty funny.

Ben M - a man thong and electric beer glass
Ben H - a t shirt with muscles drawn on and a message on the back saying he doesn't need to take his top off anymore.
Mike - Mr man book. Mr Tall (running joke about Mike's height which isn't worth getting into on here).
Harry - hand held pool table (pool was free at Charles Morris).
Lauren - Ben 10 top trumps (from me).
Me - 3 bottles of Kopparberg (for £5! Wish I knew of this deal earlier).
Laura - Ms. Santa dress.
Mia - Gin, condom and chocolates.
Natalie - alcohol
Louise - tampon and a framed picture.
Sean - a book about sex
Luis - a bread bin (Tim was gonna buy him a spice rack but they were sold out, so got the item next to it, a bread bin haha).
Lewis - a remote control helicopter (seriously, it is so fun to play with!)
Tim - a t-shirt
Luci - a dummy, baby bottle and bib (running joke from Laura about how Luci looks like a baby)
Abi - Toast and plasters (since Abi pronounces toast in a hull accent).


Think that's everyone.
We all laughed about them and told each other who we had (won't make a huge list again, but Harry bought my one).
After a trip to Tesco for cakes I decided it was time for bed as I need more than 3 hours sleep and have a long tedious day tomorrow.
Also, Mike is leaving tomorrow for Canada so will see him next year.

Night x

Monday 8 December 2008

Day 80 - Puro Mayhem

WAYHAY! It's my final week of semester 1.
Man it's gone quick. Hard to believe I have been here for 11 weeks already.
What's even harder to believe is how little it seems I have actually learned. Though I guess that's always the case whatever eh ?
Right then, down to business. Had my last mineralogy lecture which was good as always.
Had an hour break in which we all checked our marks for Geophysics after the practicals. I got 78% for the first one and 83% for the second, meaning my overall mark is 40.25%.
Yes, I have already passed a module. The hardest one. Although this is a mere scrape, it does take a load off. Still though, don't plan on slacking on it as I plan to pass all my exams anyway. Maths and chemistry are gonna be the tough ones.
Had my chemistry lecture in which we worked through tutorial 8.
Chemistry is weird, the stuff we do isn't actually hard at all. We just all assume it is and therefore make it harder for ourselves or expect something really complicated when really it's just simple maths or equations.
Ah well.

No lectures left, walked home. Spending too much on the way, bought an American Football, a pump for it and Lauren's secret santa present, Ben 10 top trumps, as well as some food. Came up to £20 in the end.

Whilst having a nap I was awoken by loads of voices from the kitchen, none that I recognised. They were all Charles Morris people, John and Charlotte's friends.
After they left I found out from John that a girl he knew has already dropped out of uni doing biological sciences because it was too much another girl he knew doing medicine dropped out also as it was too stressful.
I knew people drop out, but not THIS early. Hasn't even been a single semester. Me personally, I don't think I will do all that well this year, just average at best, but am still prepared to stick it out a full year. Guess everyone is different.

After an evening of doing very little, we had a meeting about houses. Basically we have found the place we will live in. It's about a 20 minute walk away and is £77 all bills included. One 9 bedroom, one 7 bedroom. I haven't seen it yet in person, but have seen pictures. Although we were advised not to start booking and deciding so early, we have anyway as it's unlikely we will find a better deal for such a large number of us.
Also we gotta pay a deposit of £140 by tomorrow!
ARGH! More money being spent!!!!


Withdrew the money and got ready for Puro. The main reason for this night was for Mike as he was leaving Wednesday, though at the last minute he decided he wasn't going to come out :S Ah...

We wanted to try and get there before 11:30pm so it'd only be £2 entry.
No luck, even with the time we left, the queue was so long and so many people were pushing in we had to pay £4 as it got to about 11:50pm when we got in.

Night didn't go so bad. Good music, brought my hat which is always a treat as well as a babe magnet. Although strangely Mia seemed to vanish after like 20 minutes.
At about 2am I got a call from Heather. Couldn't hear a thing she was saying so asked her to text me.
She text back saying that Mia is at Clarence Dock crying as she has lost her handbag that had everything in it and can't get into her room and for someone to come back asap.
Damn, seeing as I was the only other person aside from Laura that could get into our flat, I gave my hat to Tim and literally ran back. Lusky Puro is only about 10 minutes away.
Got there to find Mia still crying and Kate trying to comfort her.
To cut a long story short as I am tired, Mia thought it'd be a good idea to just leave without saying a word to anyone after she had lost her stuff despite have no keys to get in. Heather saw her wondering about and noticed she was in a state so let her in. I waited with Mia till the subwarden came and let her in her room as she was saying she didn't mind just sleeping in the hallway.

Everyone is still at Puro and can't find her handbag :(
Bad times.
Now I gotta be up for 7:30am, to be in for 9am, go to a house viewing at 1pm, then have a test from 3pm to 5pm, which I have done shit all revision for.
More Bad Times...

Sunday 7 December 2008

Day 79 - The lazy log problem..

As predicted, woke up about 3:05pm.
Last night just as I was about to watch Naruto, I got a call from Heather, although she hung up right away. Maybe she was doing that trick where you call someone, hang up, then wait for them to call back so that it won't cost you anything.
If so, her plan worked perfectly.
I phoned and asked what she was after, she just asked if I was up (it was 4am) and came round to hang out.
Felt a bit bad inviting her in as my room was a state to the point you could barely see the carpet (although that might actually be a good thing considering the colour of it).
Like any student up at 4am, she was off her face. Told me a story about how she went to some west indian club and think she is a bit high off fumes now.
Also she kept asking whether I was the mystery person who kept phoning her :S
I'm not THAT sad to do that.
She ended up leaving at about 5am cos she needed water and I finished watching the double episode of Naruto, it was a good episode, the one when Shikamaru defeats Hidan and when Naruto finally shows up using his new rasengan attack. WHOAOAAOAOA!

So anyway, after last night, realised if I was going to invite people into my room, I should at least make it presentable. So proceeded to clean it up.
Was doing so for about 10 minutes when Tim came to my window and asked if I wanted to go with him and some others to Hogshead to watch the football and have an all day breakfast for £2.99.
I didn't care about the football, but was up for the breakfast, so decided to go along with him.
Once outside met Will and we walked there talking about the events of last night.
Tim said that he and Ben ended up taking K and were feeling really mellow. I also so someone else who must have had a huge overdose, as at the end of the night he needed 3 people to carry him up the stairs and was a mess.
I mean he was in such a state he'd make a 15 year old girl who was unsure of her limits and drank loads of wine for the first time in her life look stone sober.
Yes, THAT bad.
Heather even said there was an ambulance outside that same night, so wonder if it was for him :|

So, we got to Hogshead and saw a load of people from Warwick in there who were on a mystery tour. Our breakfasts came (they were actually £4, Tim lied!) and so did Ben M, who stayed for about 5 minutes then had to leave as he had so much to do.

As he was walking out a goal got scored by Aston Villa (24 seconds into the match).

I then told Will and Tim that if Villa win this game, I will support them, as up until now, Sean has tried to convert me to Man U, and Scott to Man City, and wasn't sure who to pick.

Eventually I had to leave too to tidy my room and left with the score being 1 - 1 (other team was Everton).

So, I cleaned my room, which actually took a lot shorter than I expected. In the proccess I even found a whole bottle of salad cream that has been there since day one, haha.
Then I had to wash my clothes.
I counted up all my change but was 10p short, so tidied up some more and foun 50p worth of change.
YES!
Set them to wash and it was time for work.

Or so I thought.
I wanted to do maths and chemistry, but both of which involved the use of logarithms.
However, I have a crappy calculator that can't seem to do them properly which meant I was unable to do anything.
So I basically spent the whole day doing nothing and now need to buy a new calculator for £7.

Gota call from parents too, thought I'd add that in there, as well as a text from Will saying that Villa won 3 - 2.

I'm now a Villa supporter!

So yeah, tbh I have gotten really really lazy. Just cba to do anything which doesn't need to be done. As Geology work load is very little compared to other subjects as it seems everyone else is really busy whilst I haven't once been too nailed down with workload.

At least, I hope that's the case, if not them I am on a one way road to fail land.
Also remembered I got a mineral test on Tuesday and have done shit all revision for it, so should be fun.

Think tomorrow night is either Puro or gatecrasher, eitherway, should be fun.

Night x

Saturday 6 December 2008

Day 78 - Arc Ball

Right, I am in the mood to be quite descriptive no, so will try and remember everything about today.
Got up sometime during mid day and made it to squad training.
But whaddayano ? We have been double booked, (FOR ABOUT THE 4TH TIME)!

Turns out that sports hall 2 was needed, all of it (we only use half on Saturdays) for a huge Ju jitsu session. However we had been moved to sports hall 3.
Guess things are improving as last time we just got told a load of shit about how there was nothing they could do and we ended up using hall 3 anyway which was also "booked out".

The training session was a killer. We had 4 different stations and had to do a different thing at each. First was press ups for 30 seconds. Easy right ?
Not when you have to do them on your knuckles AND have to hold them half way for 2 seconds, down for 2 seconds, half way for 2 seconds, then up for 2 seconds.

Next wasn't so bad, had to lock legs with partner and sit with body at a 45 degree angle as to work on abs.

3rd was the worse. Had to sit facing opposite direction of bench and push yourself up and down. Tricep work outs. Not sure if my technique was bad or what, but it hurt so much that my arms ached for hours after.
Not to mention this was just the first set, we had to do all this again but hold everything for a minute afterwards!
Won't bother going into detail about the next set of exercises but they were real hard too.
Did some sparring with Joe. I got in a decent body shot but he managed to land about 2 face shots and a head shot, so he definitely won the spar. After 5 minutes we were both too tired to carry on. Also I found out from him that we actually double graded on Friday which is awesome (meaning that the patterns we learned was actually for yellow belt, not yellow tag).

4:30pm came and it was time to leave. The plan was to meet at Headingly taps for 6pm for drinks then head to Arc for 7pm for the TKD meal. There was no way I was getting there for 6pm though.

By the time I got back it was 5:10pm so realised there was little point in rushing. Had something to eat, got changed but kept meeting people I knew along the way which slowed me down. After about a 50 minute walk into Headingly I met two other beginner girls who were heading to the meal and had a cab and said I could go in it with them.
One of them said that she said hi to me in the street the other day and I ignored her :|
Oops.
Seeing as I am bad with faces I probably do this quite often.
I got in the cab with them which was pretty pointless as we were literally about 50 metres from the pub, though they had no clue where it was and had this taxi before hand so I only had to pay 5p.

By this time it was 6:45pm. Got into the taps and it was full of students dressed up in different costumes, from animals to robin hood.
Soon after we got to the arc and got our seats. Everyones food began to come but mine wasn't which I was finding weird, I had ordered the buffet (only me and one other guy did) as it was cheaper and looked nicer on the menu.
However, by buffet, I assumed it meant all you can eat.
I was wrong.
Turns out they just put the food on a big dish and you take what you want.
In all fairness, it was quite nice, but it didn't really fill me up all that much (not as much as £13 should anyway).
I got a text from Tom (one that lives at Clarence Dock) saying that the ball at Clarence Dock was pretty good and that I should come down.
It was 9:30pm and people had finished so I decided I might as well make a move, said bye to everyone and got a cab back which was £8:70.
Not bad considering I have been charged £7 just from the Uni back to Clarence Dock and the taps is A LOT further.
As this was also a formal event, I was already dressed for the occasion.
However, I didn't know a single person there.
This is why you should talk to as many people as possible during your first few weeks.
After about 30 minutes of standing about and talking to some people that were friends of friends although it being awkward, finally some of E block arrived!
Things began to liven up at this point.
First bit of banter, us texting Heff asking why he wasn't coming, assuming he was masturbating then barging into his unlocked room. He wasn't there, but for some reason his matress was up against the wall :S
Next was me and Harry complaining about every song that came on, saying we were unable to dance to it, that was until Superstition came on :)

Night turned out to be pretty good in the end.
Ended up talking to loads of different people.
One being a girl that does Taekwondo but rarely turns up. Was introduced to her by a friend, expecting her to say "we have already" met though I looked stupid as I stood there looking at her hoping for a reaction.
After I said to her "you don't recognise me"? and figured that there was no way this was the wrong person, eventually asked if she did actually do Taekwondo in which she remembered me instantely.
Jeez, first time that has ever happened. Whole reason Tom and I became friends is because he remembered my hair (and skin colour most likely).

Also I met a girl called Louise that I talked to WEEKS back in the laundrette. Were both in there waiting for washing to be done, two other guys came in and tried to get some crips from vending machine but it got stuck. In the end we spent about £4 or something between the 4 of us trying to get the crips out, as each time a new one came, the one in front for closer and closer.
After shaking the machine, 4 packets fell out.
Success!
Suprised I remembered her face tbh, and even more suprised when I talked to another girl who I asked "You were the one that kicked your shoe into the river"!? and was right.
And this was because I recongised her voice of all things, sounded French but don't know haha.

Kopperberg was only £2.50, bargain.
And the guy that started a fight with Ben and Harry was there too. To everyone's suprise despite his threats to Ben, when they met, they actually shook hands. He shook Harry's too, and mine, saying he remembered me from that night and is "scared" :S
Not too sure what he meant by that though.

Ball came to and end at 1am but people were up for an after party.
First up, E block.
Just talked about Scott and how it is weird he is the only one that got hurt as all night all of us were running across roads whilst being really drunk though in the newspaper it makes it out to be that it was due to the busy road he was crossing.
It was more our fault. Even Tim said he would have run into the road too to the next pub had it not been for his gammy leg.
Were also saying it is kinda ironic (and in some sense funny) how it happened, as had Scott not been so intent on finishing the enitre Otley run this may have never happened, as we skipped those two pubs but he went in with Tim.
Eitherway, his operations seem to be going well and the pressure in his brain has gone down so he is recovering :)

Got a call from Tom asking if the E block party was any good. Wasn't really, so went with him and a few others into an M block kitchen.
Was no music and no alcohol.
FAIL.

Next went to an A block kitchen.
Their entire flat was so weird though.
As in all over the walls they had pictures, posters, newspaper, magazine cut outs.
It was what a student flat SHOULD look like.
Were in there for about 30 minutes but everyone was getting tired.

Not sure who's idea it was, but in the corner there was an inflatable santa and we thought it'd be a good idea to take it. So using our cunning (we just picked it up and ran) managed to sneak it out the block and run and hide it in G block haha.

Ah fun.
Got back and went on facebook for a bit. Talked to Jen for a while about how Uni is going for and when she gets back (she has an exam the 18th so gets back 20th, sucks to be her haha).

Still though, only about a week left.
Really missing everyone.
4am, tomorrow is a Sunday meaning I have nothing to get up for and no real work to do (besides "revision").

Now though, it's time to watch the new episode of Naruto :)

Out ya'll.

Friday 5 December 2008

Day 77 - The beginning and maybe the end..

Had chemistry tutorial, wasn't all that hard but I was still unable to do it that well.
Darrly and I went to canteen to get food and got the free student paper.
Front page article,
"Accident horror".
It was about Scott.
Turns out the road he got knocked over on is quite dangerous and numerous accidents have happened there due to the blind bend and location of pubs so close to the road.
There was a quote from someone in the paper saying,
"That road is so dangerous, it's a suprise the student didn't get killed".
Not a nice thing to say really.

Got back to Clarence Dock and had some food.
Laura knocked on my door a few minutes later as she too had seen the article. She said she went to visit Scott today. Nurses and doctors say that he is having another operation and they are gonna try and sit him up but he still hasn't woken up.
His parents are with him too.
Personally I don't want to visit him if he is in that state as that will be the image I have of him if or until he gets better.
When he wakes up I will defnitely go and see him.
Even so, his Mum said to Laura that she doesn't think he will ever come back to Uni :(

Nobody knows what is going to happen so this waiting game is getting annoying.
It's such a huge loss, for everyone.
It seems impossible for a full recovery to occur, but at the very least, I hope he retains his personality, that even if he has to remain in a wheelchair, he will still be the same Scott as before.

Basically just wasted some time until it was time to go into Uni and grade for Taekwondo. I'm getting really lazy now.
I planned to do at least an hour of revision each night for different topics. But now it all kinda seems a little pointless, that if I only need 40% to pass, and that these marks don't seem to count for all that much that it is not worth the effort to do loads and loads of revision from now.

I seem to learn more from doing coursework and assignments, so as long as I do those and know the basics I hope I am fine, even though I do feel bad that I am losing motivation to do anything.

Eventually 5pm came, Taekwondo time.
The grading wasn't bad at all. Infact, it was basically like a normal lesson, but marked.
When sparring came I went up against Matt, who I have never sparred with before. He is also a white belt. I thought he might be timid, man was I wrong.
He was fast AND strong.
At the end we were both really worn out and said that we were both fun people to spar with haha.

Met up with Daniel at the Library with some others and stayed there for a few drinks before heading off home.

As I got back Heather said that she got a voicemail from "Johnny" saying "brapp brapp brapp" and a text saying he really wants to get to know her haha.
Really though, who is this guy ?


Rest of the night I spent watching Heroes (Which was epic I must say) and wasting time with anything I could find.


A lot of other things happened today (tiny things such as it taking me 3 attempts to find an ATM machine that worked and Magda calling me useless for not being able to help her with her maths or having safety pins she could borrow despite her being equally as useless for not having them either haha) but I don't feel like including them.

Well, tomorrow is likely to be a long one.
Training, Taekwondo xmas meal, banter and drink, drunken banter, then either heading to fruity, Clarence Dock bar or hifi. Probably another messy night.
Hopefully I'd have cheered up a bit by then, hopefully....

Thursday 4 December 2008

Day 76 - Oceana storm

As I am writing this, I am pretty f**ked. But I need to incase I forget anything tomorrow, and unlike others, can still spell properly when drunk.

Right then, forced myself out of bed and it was freezing. I was having nightmares the night before for some reason :S
Noticed that when I lay on my back I tend t have weird dreams, had one that someone kept on coming into my room, I knew it was a dream, but just couldn't wake up, it wasn't nice. Guess this is how Adam must have felt every single night, damn.

Got to the kitchen, looked out the window, what did I see ?
SNOW!
YEAH!
Had breakfast real fast and went out to see the snow. I was first out of E block that morning as there were no other footprints so wrote my name in the snow and carried on to Uni.
However the walk there was horrible.
While the dock was covered in fresh snow, Leeds city centre was nothing but sleet.
My jeans and trainers soaked through like a bitch.
I should have worn my Geology boots tbh.
So, I got there a little early as I wanted to check my maths coursework grade. I had a good feeling about it this time round.
Checked it online.
87% - which was 26 out of 30.
NICE!
I am no longer a dumbass.
I also decided to check my e-mails, lucky I did, as I stumbled across one which ruined my morning,

"Roger is unable to make it to Leeds today due to snow, therefore the morning lecture is cancelled".

DAMN!

Got up for a 9am lecture for nothing.
Saw Neil who is the olfd guy that takes Geology and told him that the lecture was cancelled,
"FUCK"!
He shouted. Always funny to see old people swear.
To make matters worse, this e-mail was sent 10 minutes before the lecture began, meaning nobody would have been able to read it.
Out of curiosity, I went to the lecture, to find everyone sitting there, and had to explain to them how they had all got out of bed for nothing.
Tom, Darryl and I then went to a computer cluster and played some online games.
Talked to Magda for a while who said she is so tired she is considering dropping Uni just so she can get sleep as her work load if huge, 3 assessments and 2 c/w pieces in for next week. Ouch. She soon went offline as I think I was annoying her and preventing her from doing work.
Heather came online later and told me some random guy keeps phoning and texting her. She has no idea who he is or how he got her number. Therefore I was telling her what to reply to him when he text one liners such as "suck it".
Was quite funny.
Next up, maths.
Lecture wasn't too bad.
Finally found out the name of one of my "friends".
He is Australian and I sometimes sit and talk with him, but figured it'd look bad to ask his name in week 10.
It was David.
Was trigonometry today so not bad.
Although there was a question in which is stated how you would find the height of a tree on a sunny day.
Obvious, measure shadow, do some trig. Done.
However you had to measure your own shadow first and work out the increase.
Though you can't measure your own shadow, it'd change when you go to do it.
Lecturer said that you would get your friend to help, in which David said that at this point you would have no friends anyway haha.
Also he records all his lectures so he can refer back to them, good idea actually.
Had my maths examples class and finished the c/w after finding out my calculator is crap as it can't work out e properly.
£7 for a new one.
Also had to write out entire c/w again as mine was "scuffy" apparently and I'd lose marks.
Handed it and got home after getting some food from Morrisons.
As I was eating at the dock, got a text from Mia,

"Wes, have you been messing with my phone ? Hmmmmm".

Well, funny enough, I hadn't.
After a long explaination and some flase accusations, she told me what was wrong with it. It said "I love Nat" in her messages.
Obviously Laura wrote it so not sure why she suspected me as I never ever talk about Nat and her (Nat) and Laura are basically best friends. They are married according to facebook.
Anyway, did some work (I think) then took a nap.
Got woken up about 9pm by Mia as I had to pick a name for secret santa.
I got Lauren, no idea what I am getting her yet.
Then joined the girls in the kitchen in which they were saying how and when they stopped believing in santa haha. Was real funny.

Ben and Lewis came round saying they were going to the bar. I was up for pool so went with em. Met Tim and Will in the bar as they were watching the Aston Villa game and ended up getting 2 free games of pool as the guy there was fixing it.
I lost everytime but don't mind as I didn't pay a penny for any game haha.

It got late and Tim said he and Will were going to a Geography party. I had slept already and was up for going. Would have gone with John to the Charles Morris party but knew people would know I wasn't from there.
I went to my room and got changed.
Got a call from my brother asking how I was doing and a text from Heather saying mystery guy had phoned her again haha.
However, I was feeling rough at this point.
Really bad cold.
Went to the bar to tell Ben H I wasn't gonna go to the Geog party but saw Tom (another one) in the bar with some friends. They were going Oceana, £2 in, 80p drinks all night.
YES!
Phoned Ben saying I wanted to do that instead and he was alright.
Waited with Tom and Co at bus stop for a bus which never came so had to get a cab instead.
Got to Oceana and was £5 to get in but with 80p drinks is no problem.
Tom bought first round, 2 VK apples each.
Night went on like this with a new person for a round each time, so things got messy real quick.
Things I remember from the night:

Being in the toilet, some guy standing there with his cock and balls out saying I am lucky I am black as he is 2cm on the flop. His balls were huge but cock was tiny. I was in bits.

Dancing with some girl who said something to me but had no clue what it was. Asked if I wanted a drink and bought me one. Tasted like shit. Danced with me more then went out for a fag but think she wanted to get away from me.

Losing everyone then meeting some random people who I was with for most of the night, we tried to pull but failed everytime.

Dancing with some 5ft Asian guy and 4ft white guy.

The bouncers telling me to come with them. I thought they were gonna throw me out as they thought I was too drunk. Turns out that someone had been stabbed with a needle and I matched the description, whilst getting searched, there was a huge bang on the door, Laurence (a german guy who was with us) was closest so they pulled him in and began basically telling him that it was him who did it.

"Why did you boot the door"!

"Boot the door"?

"Don't chat shit, you booted the door"!

"I didn't, I don't know what you're talking about".

Went on like this for a while till the bouncer realised Laurence was calm enough to not let himself get thrown out. I got let off too. Met the guy outside who had been stabbed who was apologising to the max for what happened as he said he knew it wasn't me but since I matched the description he couldn't stop the bouncers.
I didn't mind, it made more drama for the night.

More stuff probably happened, but as I say, it was a very messy night.

The night ended and as I was walking out I noticed one of the guys I met and danced with earlier had a huge cut under his eye.
"Some prick" was his answer when I asked what happened.
Clubs can be very scary.
After Andy got a pizza and a pissed Tom took the notepad from behind the till and began writing down orders for other people who he didn't even know, we went back to Clarence Dock.
After much talk, I might be going Fruit on Saturday instead of Clarence Dock bar.
If these same 4 are going, then I will too, otherwise will stick with the bar.
Tickets are only £2 anyway so might as well get one tomorrow.
That's all from me folks.

Hope I don't have a hangover tomorrow as I gotta grade.
Till next time....

Wednesday 3 December 2008

Day 75 - 16 hours

Was a cold night. Have a terrible cold now and probably will for the rest of the week.
Anyway, still managed to get to Geophysics ontime. Should really have a shower one of these mornings, but it's so cold when I get up I really don't want to.
Lecture today was actually pretty funny.
He kept getting really pissed off with people coming in late and walking right infront of him. I don't get why people do that when there are about 12 doors to the side you can easily sneak in through haha.
Also he told us two stories about Geophysics.
One involved some people wanting him and his students to map a farm to find were metal poles and concrete were so a farmer wouldn't hit it when ploughing. Though it turned out that they actually knew where all this was but wanted someone to go and prove that the people who had laid it all down had done a really bad (illegal) job of it.
Another one involved reflections and how in a Darren Brown book all the Geophysics in there is bullshit (his exact words) as Brown stated how it was possible to see someone's face through relfection seismics which isn't possible as it can only sense disturbances, not actually show exact images of what it is relfecting off haha (oh wow, I really am learning something).

Had a free for the next hour in which I carried on with my coralDRAW.
Dynamic Earth next. Let's just say I realised why I began to not go to this lecture. Was so boring and this Asian guy wouldn't shut up. For some reason when he talks in lectures, he doesn't do it in a hushed voice, he talks normally, so EVERYONE can hear him. To the point it's off putting.
I would have liked to have a thrown a cup of shut the f**k up in his face tbh.
Chemistry next, it's getting tough now.

I would have gone home at this point but had a Green meeting at 3pm.
Did more coralDRAW.
Had the meeting and turns out some people have actually done quite a lot as reps. Such as writing to council for bins etc. Me personally, I have made some leaflets about recycling bins for kitchens and gonna post them around E, D and G block.
Hopefully people won't screw them up this time.
Also although I shouldn't laugh, the talk of the Green meeting was given by a woman who has that thing when you can't pronounce the letter "s" and instead it comes out as "kssh". Gotta hear it to understand but I thought it was kinda funny, though I shouldn't.

So, finished my coralDRAW in the time remaining then went to Taekwondo for 6pm. Last training session before grading. Without sounding cocky, I am not at all nervous. I know all the patterns inside out and this is for yellow tag. Basically anyone can pass. Just wanna get this over with and start working on higher belts tbh.
Found it amusing too how some of the beginners who were unsure of things, such as whether a block comes from above or below always came to me for the answer haha.

Sparring was good too. Either I got worse, or everyone is getting better. This time I sparred against Dominic, who is also a white belt. He was really good though. An offensive fighter who had me on the defense all the time.
He was fun to spar with.

We didn't go Library as they wouldn't have food at this time so went to the Old bar instead.
Suprise suprise, the kitchen was closed there too.
So instead went to the Terrace.
Ended up staying there till 11:20pm. In that time, saw a lot of hot girls, Jeremy explained how the grading is done in groups of 6, making me even less nervous that I won't be up there on my own. AND saw two wiggas play a game of pool.
One was white, other looked hispanic. Though I gotta give it to them, everytime they got a ball in and started breakdancing on the floor it did look pretty impressive.
Just find it funny that I actually saw someone like that who was wearing a huge T-shirt and low batty but was white hehe. And no, I'm not racist.


Walked back though was tempted to get a taxi as it was late, cold and VERY slippery. Leeds ambulances have been really busy the past few days with people slipping over and breaking things, Jeremy said there have been 5 crashes on his road in the past 2 days too.
Ice = Bad Times.
In all, I have been at Uni for 16 hours today, from when I left to when I got back. Long day.

Got back and went on facebook in which all of E block were chatting about houses next year. There was a meeting at the bar about it but only 3 people went. Basically, best time to look is Jan/Feb, but there seems to be A LOT of options atm on places to live. For me, somewhere closer to the Uni where we won't get robbed would be nice. But will have to wait and see.

Also spoke to Heather a bit as she is considering leaving as she really doesn't like her course. Can't have another one leave :(

And Magda asked if I took maths as my status had a logarithm in it due to a chain letter game I was playing on msn.
Had a chat with her for a while as she thinks all of us don't really like her as she is quite busy and shy, which isn't true. Also I found out she has about 16 - 18 hours of lectures a week as opposed to my 8 hours of lectures, 6 hours of practicals (which is now only 4) and another 2 of seminar and tutorial.
She is doing chemical engineering so does explain why she has so many hours.

Well, is 3am atm. Ben H said he will definitely be in tomorrow though I doubt it. I got about 4 hours sleep to have now and WILL have a shower when I get back in the day....maybe....probably....won't bother.
Hehe.

Tuesday 2 December 2008

Day 74 - Cryogenic Sleep

So, only got about 2 hours sleep in the end. Not enough at all.
Today is my longest day too.
I let by 8am, but it was really really cold this morning, and really really icy.
From the dock to the town I had to halve my usual walking speed otherwise I would have slipped. Every guy walking along that part of the street looked like a queer, on their toes and walking with their arms out.
I even saw a girl jogging to Uni, in heels! The slip factor was beyond belief, although I didn't see her do it :(
Got to the cluster and managed to send my report to Rob after it had been converted to a word file. Thanks Sean :D
However, the rest of the lesson was VERY stressful. It took me about 90 minutes to simply upload a map onto coralDRAW.
Basically I had copied it instead of importing, meaning that it was pixelated when it appeared on coralDRAW, 2nd problem I found was that everytime I saved it, it would just cause the computer to freeze. In the end I had to import maps that had already been made as I was so far behind and nothing was working.
I hate this class.
Turns out the reason it wouldn't save was because I had too much on my M drive.
Oops. So deleted some files and managed to save it, luckily the task at hand is dead easy. Simply gotta draw on geological boundaries and features using coralDRAW.
Something I can actually do.

Got to the end of the lesson, decided to go to another cluster and waste some time. Did some more of my coralDRAW whilst I was there too. Got persuaded to vote against two motions the Union are having when this girl came up to me and explained it all out of the blue then had a meeting with Ivan.

Was our 2nd one of the semester. Was pretty good, basically he just asked how I was doing etc. Boring stuff.
Then asked how I was getting home,

"Oh, I'm taking the megabus"
"The mega what"?
"Megabus, can travel for as much as a £1"
"You're joking right, what is the website"

*Goes on megabus website*

"Jesus Christ! I can get to Oxford for £3"!

Good times.

Finally 3pm came and had my last practical. Was really easy again but was struggling to stay awake as the tiredness was kicking in really badly.

Eventually I got home and decided to have dinner straight away as I needed an early night. John came in shortly after looking very wet and cold.
Made my special tonight "Pasta, with everything in it".
Atm am trying to find as many things as I can that tastes nice with Adam's greek yoghurt. Pasta is one of them.

Mia came in shortly after and the 3 of us had a conversation. She also had a go at me saying that I am responsible for using up most of the washing up liquid because I put too much (it's about the size of a pea) on the sponge :S
Though considering we have been here 10 weeks, this is only our 2nd washing up liquid we have got onto, we haven't even began to use mine, hers or John's, AND that nothing else in the kitchen that is shared is even hers (Laura bought the toaster, Adam left his kitchen towels and I am the only person to buy kitchen roll), I don't see what the real problem is tbh.
Annoyed me a little more than it should have done though.

Anyway, John went to visit one of his friends in C block and I got back to my room and did some trigonometry.

It is now 20:17pm, and I am going to bed. That's how tired I am.
Bet it will be even colder tomorrow :(

Monday 1 December 2008

Day 73 - Man Vs. Machine

Yet another day which was ruined by this thing that we call technology.
First up had a mineral lecture which was fine.
Main problem was my eyes were stinging due to the lack of sleep I got the night before and from watching Heroes till early in the morning.
Met Tom D who had got back from London (literally just got back) and still had his cases with him as his train was delayed.
His trip seemed quite funny actually. Said he and his friends went to an Indian resturant where complementary wine was served, although a girl there was not eating and Tom was only getting starters which caused the waiters to get really angry and start shouting at them.
When it came time to pay they wanted £4.50 service charge despite their service being terrible, everyone tried to run out without paying it but two got caught and had to haha.
Next up had a free and decided I would print off my report that I worked so hard on.
Only problem was I had microsoft works on my vista and that is different to microsoft word 2007/2003, therefore would not load up onto the computer from my laptop.
This was incredibly annoying.
I then tried to upload some maps I needed for a computer practical tomorrow morning as I was too lazy to do it last week. However I could not do this either as I didn't have the documents telling me what I had to do. This therefore means I'll have to get up about 30 minutes earlier just to go in so I can get that part done before the lesson.
Luckily, Rob, my chemistry teacher is also the person who takes my tutorials, so I explained the situation as to why I didn't have my report and he was fine with it.
The lecture was not too bad after that. Despite "the question guy" once again making a cameo appearance.


"Hello class. Sorry if I seem slow. I am half asleep at the moment as I am running on Canadian time at the moment"

"Oh, where did you go"!

"......Canada".

Moron.

Anyway, got to the tutorial and had to do rock descriptions for an hour. Once again, this wasn't too bad, by my eyes were stinging even more now.
I should have gone home, but needed stamps and an envelope to post a letter to my parents. It was about 1pm, the worse time to go to a post office.
I arrived and the queue was so long it was coming out of the post office.
This may take a while.
Luckily, by the door, they actually had a stamp machine, and it only cost me 36p.
So that saved me a good 45 minutes.
I then walked into Wilkinson to buy some envelopes and posted the letter back at the post office.
Success!
I needed the toilet before I went home and was taking a short cut to go to the Union, when who do I bump into ? Tom Richards.

Walked with him and one of his maths mates, Ryan to the Eldon and got ourselves a pint.
Tom and I were going to take advantage of the 2 meals for £7 deal when we noticed that a burger cost £3.45 anyway which means using the deal we'd actually be spending more money, therefore got things that were more expensive.
Meanwhile, Ryan was on the slot and quiz machines. He brought about £50 worth of money out for some reason when he was on them and probably lost all of it. Although on the deal or no deal quiz he DID manage to win £10 (which he then put back into the slot machine and lost).

Ended up leaving about 5pm, got home and went straight to sleep.

Got woken up about 8:30pm by John knocking on the door as he still has one of the Lord of the rings discs. Since I was up, we decided to have a game of pool. Yes, I lost, but I am improving. We then needed to withdraw some money. The ATM at tesco was out of service (again) so we had to walk into town to find one.

After eating dinner and talking for a while it got to about midnight and John went to bed while I noticed an e-mail from Rob saying that the document of m report I sent him did not open and that he needed it in word 2003.
Cock it!

Once again, I tried to use the website ultimatesteal.com in which you can get microsoft 07 for just £40, yet for some reason, it just doesn't work for me anymore.
Everytime I click "buy now" it says my shopping cart is empty :S
Very annoying as this is probably one of the best deals I will ever get in my life.

However, I managed to find a site in which you can download microsoft 07 for a 60 day trial.

After a lot of annoyance and messing about, I ended up downloading 3 programs which I would never even need to use.
Wasted about 4 hours of my night basically though in the back of my mind I knew that this would all be for nothing...