Friday 20 February 2009

Day 39 - Gradually declining...

Not much to say really.
Waited around for my first and only lecture.
Went to Taekwondo which was pretty good actually, a lot of sparring and fitness. Though Claire hurt my ankle when we both kicked at the same time and I got a huge cramp in my leg when in the Library for the social afterwards.
I'm back now and it seems a lot of people have gone home for the weekend.
Rich should have arrived tonight so am most likely gonna see him and Tom tomorrow, at least I hope I will anyway.
That's all for now.

Day 38 - Sweet and sour mint

A little side note, I'm beginning to lose intrest in writing these now. Mainly as nobody actually reads them anymore it just seems a bit pointless. I said that it'd be fun to look back and read, but after doing so even I get bored of myself really quickly.
At most I will only carry this on for my 1st year, for now it's all seeming a bit futile, ah well I'll carry like normal for now.

I was ridiculously tired for my 9am lecture as well as feeling quite ill. Worst idea ever. However as the day went on and I ate something I began to feel better.
I did take a huge nap as soon as I got back to Clarence Dock though. I met Tom at Uni who said that he and Tim were gonna be in the bar that night as there wasa DJ there and people we're going mint later on that night, met Sanders going to Uni too funny enough, so looks like I'd be doing that tonight.

After a few games of pool at about 8pm I went back to my room for a bit watching Scrubs as I didn't hear anything from anyone. I was planning on just staying in if nobody phoned.
However Sanders text me at 10pm asking me where the "fk" I was as he was in the bar with everyone.
As we're broke students we kept running back to C block, downing cider then running back to the bar.
Yep, running with a full gut of cider isn't all that comfortable tbh.
As the night went on I began to dance a bit and also met Jaz and Louise (not the E block one) in there. It was her birthday and they were trying to convince me to go to mint with them.
I said that I'd stay with Tom and everyone but after declining Jaz said "At least let me buy you a drink" and got me two VKs. I couldn't turn him down now haha.
Tom said it was fine for me to go so I went and got ready.
In that time (about 5 minutes) I got back to find that Louise was crying over something outside with Ellie (another N blocker).
I asked Jaz what it was about but he told me not to worry.
We went back to their block/kitchen (which was a state. There was even a notice on the door saying their kitchen was too dirty. Plates and bowls were everywhere, it was horrible).
Not sure how or why it happened, but Louise (very drunk) had some sort of arguement with Ellie as her bf might have been going to jail. Funny thing is Louise's short term memory was going due to her intoxication and she was unable to remember why they were arguing in the first place.

After much talk in which I was the only sober one there. Jaz ordered Louise and I a taxi as he and Ellie decided they'd stay in N block.
This kinda put me on the spot, as Louise really wanted to go out, but in the state she was in I'd have no choice but to look after her all night.
Damn...
It got to 11:45pm and our taxi was there. After Louise fell over walking out of N block, she met two other people (not sure if she knew them) that were also going to mint.
We decided to share a cab with them as it'd be cheaper.
Was £4, £1 each in the end. Cab driver said it was actually £5 but there were 4 of us and he couldn't be bothered to deal with change, what a nice man.
I had to hold Louise up till we got to the queue of mint, in which we met a French man who had a fluent conversation with Louise in French (she does French as a degree).
It was funny that she was able to speak French well and clear when wasted better than English haha.

However despite everything the night was actually quite good. Louise began drinking water as soon as she got there and sobered up quickly and I met some other people that I knew, as did Louise, so we didn't have to rely on each other.

I ended up walking home with Ben about 2:10am as I got pretty tired. After a randomer asking us if we had to touch someone's nipple whether it'd be left or right, I went to bed.

Thursday 19 February 2009

Day 37 - Scott

One lecture, got back, Mike late again, traffic, printed out the directions. Got there but two at a time. Stolen van, mcdonalds then stuck in rush hour. Went bar and got chlamydia test, then went in kitchen then to fav. Rage. Abi getting into fight. Walk back.


Although nobody even reads these anymore, for those that might do in the future (God knows why), this is a long one as my past few have been pretty short.
I only had one lecture today which was good. I'd have gone to the practical afterwards but wouldn't have been back in time to go and see Scott in hospital. This means I'd have to go to the 9am one the next morning :(
Straight after the lecture Ben and I went to the I.T. centre to print off directions on how to get to Hope hospital. As I had a feeling these may get lost, I printed off 4 extras so that there'd be one for each of us coming.

After doing some shopping I got home and waited till 2pm, the time we'd leave. I suggested to Ben that we leave earlier as the times we can visit are 3pm till 4pm, it takes 51 minutes to get there but with traffic etc it'd take a lot longer but Ben said that we were already leaving "10 minutes early" sticking to the idea that it'd take no longer than 51 minutes to get thrre.
Just as we were about to leave I knocked on Mike's door, no answer.
After phoning him it turned out he was walking down the street and would be there in about 15 minutes.
I began to think that we weren't going to make it again.
However, we managed to get in the car and be on our way by about 2:10pm.
This time Lewis didn't come as his brother is still with him so he couldn't leave him there.

After a long tense drive in which there was a huge stand still and a truck driver got out and walked up to another car angrily for some reason, we reached Hope hospital. We should have just printed out instructions last time as it's not even hard to get to.
We realised however that we knew Scott was in ward C2 but didn't know the actual room, although as soon as we walked in Ben saw his Dad.
I got a quick glimpse of Scott at first, he looked as though he was lying there motionless. The nurses then came in saying that only two people are allowed to be at a bed side at any time, so Ben and Mike stayed and Tim and I left with his parents.

They informed us on everything that has happened so far. Seems his long term memory is fine but short term might be gone or damaged as he shrugs when asked if he performed a certain task a few hours before. However he has something in his throat to stop him swallowing so can't speak atm which isn't a big help. He has attempted to walk about twice. He also has a wheelchair that he can go in but the doctors said he can only manage an hour (although his parents snuck him into the waiting room once and said he was in there for 2 and a half hours and was fine).
It also seems as though he had been going through phases. Back in Leeds hospital he went through a phase of sticking his middle finger up to everyone that came to visit him, even a priest.
He was also trying to send people really abusive text messages. For example Ben text him one time saying he was in the bar missing him and that he'd come to visit soon.
Scott was about to reply "Fuck u tosser" but his Mum took the phone from him before he could press send.
Whether he did this because of the brain damage, as a joke or is just annoyed though we're not sure.
In addition to this he has a tube going into his stomach for food as when the nurses put it in his nose he kpet on pulling it out to the point they had to bandage up his hands to prevent him from doing it. When asked by his parents if he promises not to if they take them off, he wrote "I can't promise anything". This was pretty amusing.
However the worse thing was that the van which had all his stuff in it was stolen when he was in Leeds hospital.
The keys had been left on the side and someone somehow got in and stole it.
Pretty weird seeing how they knew which van the keys belonged to, still though that's a mystery. Scott has no clothes now.
However this whole thing has affected everyone.
His parents said they're really tired all the time visiting him and knows he'll soon get fed up of only having them there. Also the fact that they have no idea how long it will take for him to get better means they can't plan ahead. If the hospital had given an exact date then at least you'd know after that it'd all be over.
Atm they have said that a recovery would take 3 years at max.

Ben and Mike got back and it was time for Tim and I to go and visit him.
He was in quite a strange state really.
As soon as Tim and I walked in he stuck his thumb up and shook our hands.
We were talking to him telling him everything that has happened and he was aware of what was going on as he looked at us as we were talking.
Also when we walked in he was looking at a TV guide and was trying to show us something, we weren't sure what it was though.
However as he didn't seem to react to most things we said it makes it seem as though he couldn't hear us (he could though, he smiled/laughed slightly when I told him about LP falling off a curb and fracturing her elbow).
I didn't see him when he was in intensive care, but according to everyone else he looks a lot better.
I said I only wanted to visit him once he had woken up as I don't think I'd be able to stand looking at him when he was still in a coma with everyone not sure whether he'd live or not.
For now he looks fine apart from the top of his head which is really swollen because of the surgery.
His parents said it was drained before but keeps on filling back up so it might be part of the brain that tells the body to drain the fluid that is damaged. If that's the case it means he'll have to have a tube put in his brain permanently to drain it which is ANOTHER thing to worry about which could lead to infection, not good.
On the upside though, he has improved quicker than expected and the doctors said it was actually better he was so drunk he was hit as had he been sober he probably would have tried to get up which most likely would have caused him to die :|

That's all I really remember for now, still though I really hope he recovers soon as it created a really big E block downer when it happened.
Had it not occured he'd be living with us next year, most likely with me, Tim and Lewis. He got on with Harry too which would mean that Lewis and Tim wouldn't have anything against him either saying that he is Scott's replacement. It'd also just generally be better if he were still here with us. I guess all we can really do now though is wait and hope.

Before we got back to Clarence Dock we decided to get a Mcdonalds. This was a silly idea as it was about 4:45pm when we left meaning we got caught in Rush hour BAD.
Also the windows kept steaming up so Ben had to keep on opening his side window to let air in which in turn blasted into my face.

Finally we got back and ended up in the Clarence Dock bar. There was talk about going to the Faversham that night as it was an Indie night. At first I didn't want to go as it's so far away and I had to be up at 7:30am the next morning. However I realised I could just sleep after the lectures were over so decided to go do it anyway.
There was also a woman doing Chlamydia tests at the bar. All you had to do was urinate in a tiny jar and you'd get free condoms, highlighters, pens etc. It was awesome!
So I decided to do it too.
I managed to convince all the other guys in the bar at the time to do it too as it'd be a bit of a laugh. Urinating in the jar thing though was so hard as it was small and WOULD get all over your hands. Feck knows how girls manage to do it.
We all compared urine colours too. Ben H's was the weirdest. I was more of a peach colour than yellow and wasn't transparent either, so we think that he has chlamydia.

Also the Dan's managed to blow a condom up by putting it over their nose. Probably the funniest thing I've ever seen. Especially when it burst, there was still some in Dan's hair (which he tried to get out but we told him had gone) and right after he said "Imagine how stupid you'd look going out with a Johnny in your hair haha".
After winning two games of pool against Lewis and his brother (fluke), pre-drinking in the kitchen and a visit from the Subwarden for being too loud (he came at 10:55pm meaning we still had 5 minutes, his excuse was "What if I come at 11pm and you're still making noise"....=/) we left for Faversham.
The taxi's picked us up at 11:45pm and we got there about midnight.
Was still a pretty good night though.
Rage came on and Tim and I went crazy.
Also towards the end of the night Abi almost got into a fight with a guy who kept on getting pushed into us, though she thought he was pushing her so kept pushing him back. He squared up to her and I had to pull her back before anything happened apologising to him using the "Sorry, she's really drunk" excuse.

I walked back to Clarence Dock with Tim and Robyn as everyone else got taxis back. Tim suggested we sleep in the 24 hour clusters, though whilst it seemed like a good idea, I knew that the next morning having to be up at 7:30am, in a cluster, I'd regret it, so slept in my own bed.

Tuesday 17 February 2009

Day 36 - Adventure in Dry Dock

A full day, it didn't drag as much as I thought it would which was nice.
In the morning I got a message from John asking what I was doing up so early. Turns out he is back now with his fianceƩ but went home Wednesday as he has been really ill recently. Still no sign of Charlotte though, I know she is back though as her window is closed. Bad huh?


I was convinced by everyone to go out to Dry Dock that night as it was £1 a pint.
It's not as if I was going to stay in and do work, I'd just watch Scrubs, so figured I might as well go.
On the way there however it seemed really strange, around 8pm, loads of groups of teenage boys walking around. It felt like I was in Romford or something, I could feel something in the air wasn't right. In the distance there was screaming and running about.
Turns out some old tramp looking man said that these 3 girls had stolen £100 from him. Not sure if they had, but they only looked about 15/16 and to be fair, the old man was ridiculously drunk.
People were trying to hold him back and calm him down, in his defense he wasn't getting too aggressive.
After the girls ran off, he began chasing them down an alley, we were all behind him and after a quick "C'mon, let's run too" and a warrior cry, we all sprinted after him and once again tried to calm him down.
I figured it'd be best we just let him go and carry on to Dry Dock but Ben H was there for ages grabbing onto his coat talking to him, he said later that he regret touching his coat as he might have caught some sort of disease.
Eventually the old man seemed to let it go (as well as change the story from £100 being stolen from him to £200) and we carried on towards Dry Dock.
Lewis' brother was with us too. I felt a bit silly that I didn't even catch on they were siblings, despite them being dressed almost the same and talking the same (hey, one has brown hair the other is bright ginger).

Anyway the night was pretty mellow really, depsite waiting for about 30 minutes to get served after which I got bored and decided not to buy anything.
Tim and I walked home together with Lewis and Kurt (his brother).
Hopefully tomorrow we'll actually see Scott without failing again!

Monday 16 February 2009

Day 35 - Mondaze

After recieving an e-mail stating that we would have a tutorial at 11am today, it meant that I'd have 6 hours with no break of lectures.
By chance my Maths lecture was cancelled as the lecturer was ill, still though, whilst in the tutorial, in which we were informed we will need to work in groups to make a poster titled "Geology of Pembrokeshire", we were told that we'd have a tutorial every week till the term ends.
6 hours is just too much to the point I'm wondering whether I should begin skipping the last two lectures or not as the registers don't seem to get taken anymore in them. Whilst waiting outside I was suprised that the person taking the tutorial knew my name, although I have him for vertebra evolution, there has never been a time when he would have actually spoken to me one on one let alone have heard and remembered my name.
Then I realised that he had a list with him that had everyone's name and photos on it. He even got a few people wrong asking if Andrew was Tom (they look nothiing alike).
I was hoping he wouldn't need to state the obvious in my case, but he did anyway in saying,
"Well I guess for you Wesley it's quite easy to tell who you are from the pictures".
*Awkward laughter*
Guess the only way he could have made the situation more awkward would have been to ask whether I was an African international student, luckily he didn't go that far.
To sum it up, the day dragged a lot. I couldn't stay focussed for most of the lecuters (hence the title, it's another pun if you hadn't noticed).

However people said they were going to elbow room at about 5ish. Ben H was too tired so went home. After getting really lost and retracing my steps I finally got to elbow room to find that nobody was in there!
Was well annoyed!

Anyway, although I had originally planned to go out this evening, at about 8pm I was just way too tired to do anything, so spent ANOTHER evening in watching scrubs and trying to beat Matt Darby's score on tetris so that I can once again be #1 in the score ranks.
Good times.

Sunday 15 February 2009

Day 34 - LesBarian

This is gonna be a short one.
It's Sunday and I didn't really have anything to do, in terms of workload. I guess I could "revise" but it seems a bit pointless at this early stage as it'll all be gone by the time exams come round.
Turns out last night Lauren broke her elbow too because she fell off a curb.
Yes, fell off a curb.
She wasn't even drunk either, only had 2 glasses of wine.
They called an ambulance and took her to A and E which was apparently full of people in blood stained shirts (Saturday night in Leeds = drunken violence: Bad times).
However Lauren, after waiting for a while asked if she could have some paracetomal for the pain, after which they moved her to the front of the queue and she got checked which was good (still though, part of me thinks that had this been a guy that had asked he wouldn't have even been given anything for the pain let alone be let infront of everyone else).
So now she has a sling around her arm, luckily it's left, but she can't move it :(

After a full day watching Scrubs I went to the bar to play some pool. Whilst watching a girl on 4th floor calld Emily play, I noticed she kept kissing the girl she was playing with. The first time it happened I just ignored it, thinking it was a friendly kiss. Second time it was on the lips and I began to wonder something.
For the rest of the game I stared at them and noticed they held hands on the way back to the tables.
I must have made it really obvious what I was thinking as Dan immediately whispered to me "Yes..they're lesbians".

Learn something new everyday.
As for me, I've learned nothing new today, well, apart from the fact that I really enjoy watching Scrubs.

Saturday 14 February 2009

Day 33 - Murphy's Law

After a bad night's sleep sharing a bed with Tim, I awoke to a text from Sanders wishing me a happy Valentine's day, this was at about 7am.
He was currently with the Leeds OUTC training for the weekend.
After we had all got up, we decided to go underway to visit Scott determined we knew where he was.
We had gathered last night that he was in Salford in Hope hospital and the directions given to us were by the girls who had gone to visit him about a week before.
However time got tight again and a few people thought it'd be a good idea to stop for Mcdonalds before hand.
Finally after much driving and following signs, we found "The Manchester general infirmary".
I said that there are no signs indicating that this was Hope hospital but was assured by everyone that the name had been changed.
After walking about for ages a nurse asked us where we were going.

"C2" we replied
"...There is a C3 and C4, but C2 doesn't exist".
"...Ah".

After phoning the girls asking if C2 was the right ward, we then went on a wander to fid reception which took another 15 minutes or so. We now only had 15 minutes left to find him.
Finally we found a woman who worked in admissions, we gave the name "Scott Mulligan" and she checked the computer only to find that it didn't come up.
You can probably guess where this is going..

"Well he has been in hospital for about a few months now, are there any other in Salford"?

"Yes, Hope hospital, and you're not in Salford, you're still in Manchester".


¬_¬

Yes, after 20 hours of searching and arriving late, we had gone to the wrong damn hospital!
The worse thing was Ben basically lived in Manchester and was certain that we were in Salford!
Everyone found it funny but I was so annoyed.
I had missed two Taekwondo training sessions for nothing!!!
Whilst in the car we said that we shouldn't tell the girls that we went to the wrong hospital as we'd never hear the end of it, especially being Valentine's day and them being on their MRC spree.
However upon arriving back to the flat all the guys found that the girls had left them a little present on their doors:

Ben Heff: MRC in lip stick and loads of adds from the Yellow pages about alcoholics, anxiety, male breast implants and a letter from the University saying he had been thrown out. I never witnessed this last part, but apprantely the letter looked so realistic he actually believed it and looked as though he was about to cry to the point it got beyond a joke!

Ben Mann: MRC in lipstick and a piece of paper saying that more is yet to come.

Mike: Nothing, they didn't even know he was gone.

Tim: MRC in lipstick.

Luis: "We like you" in lipstick.

Me: MRC in lipstick, ketchup and MRC in salad cream as well as a 4 leaved clover made out of paper saying "Wes loves the Irish" (reference to Una).

Tbh, I as well as everyone else actually found all of these hilarious.
I got them back though.
Smeared cheese, toothpaste and kitchen spray on Mia's door and ketchup, toothpaste and kithcen spray on Laura's door.

Later on whilst confronted about it, turns out they found my prank funny too and wanted to make sure that all the guys knew the whole MRC thing was purely a joke (tbh we spent the weekend talking about how the girls seem to be taking it really seriously to the point of being unessecarily bitter).

I let them get on with their night whilst Tim snuck in and took his spices back, which had been taking from his cuboard. Also when trying to clean the ketchup off my door I realised it was harder than I thought. Best technique so far is spraying it then trying to scrap it off with a knife. Is gonna take ages though :( (longer for Laura!)

Finally, whilst speaking to Matt on msn he asked if it was alright for him and Jack to come visit me for 26th Feb to Sunday!
Of course it was!
Luckily he told me before hand as they were originally gonna just come and suprise me but had I not known then they may have come all this way for nothing.

So with that to look forward to as well as Rich coming down on the 20th, I'd say Murphy's Law didn't totally screw me over.
Happy Valentine's day!!!

Day 32 - Hospital Fail

Whilst sat at my laptop waiting for my only lecture of the day. I got a text from Ben H asking if I was still up for going to Manchester to see Scott.
We'd stay over at his (Ben's) house then leave the next day.
I figured this might be the only chance I get to go see him so decided to accept the offer, even if it did mean being cramped in a car for ages.

Today was Friday 13th but I found £10 literally outside my flat door! Was well happy. This makes a grand total of £55 worth of money being found on the floor whilst in Leeds haha!

After the lecture we got back and I got things ready.
Mike really wanted to go but had never really said anything to anyone that day and almost didn't get to come.
Only reason he did was that Ben M decided last minute not to come.
Now Scott had annoying visiting hours. Had to be between 3-4pm and 6 - 8pm.
We planned on leaving Clarence Dock at 6pm to get there ontime.
However as we asked Mike last minute and he had to get ready, we ended up leaving about 6:30pm.
Whilst on the motorway I worried we weren't going to make it in time.
Especially as Ben actually had no idea where he was going.
For some reason he didn't bother printing off any google map instructions and was just going to rely on road signs to tell him where to go. Our first and probably most stupid mistake.
Things made a turn for the worse (literally) when about half the motorway got closed off because of an accident, meaning we had to take a detour.
After driving a bit more we realised we weren't going to make it in time so instead made our way back to Ben's house.
However whilst doing this we saw a sign for the Manchester general infirmary.
"It's was right there the whole time" we thought as we drove pass.
It was too late now though.

We got back to Ben's house and it was pretty fun actually. Mike got really really drunk and ended up throwing up. Lewis went to bed as soon as we got there as he was really ill. Ben was on facebook to Luci most of the night and Tim and I watched the Longest Yard.
When it was time for bed we all ended up stripping down to our boxers and taking really gay pictures, so gay we can't upload them onto facebook. They were that bad.
I was in an Aussie hat, Ben had sunglasses, Tim had a cross bow and Mike was in a hoody and boxers haha.
I ended up sleeping in a double bed with Tim, well I say sleep, it was 4am by the time we got to bed and neither of us really got that much sleep (not in a gay way).
However we just decided that we'd go see Scott tomorrow from 3-4pm, making sure to leave enough time before hand.
Or so we thought...

Thursday 12 February 2009

Day 31 - Scrubsin'

With only one tutorial today being on the chemistry of enthropy and why some substances react and others don't which in turns determines whether an endothermic or exothermic reaction will take place, it wasn't too hard.

I decided to buy my stuff for Pembroke from now. I thought, at most a pair of thick gloves would be £20 and that a proper hiking bag would be about £20 too.
I was sadly mistaking.
We needed a 40 litre bag for Pembroke, 40 litre ones ranged from about £60 - £120!
For some reason though I found a 60 litre one that was £50 so ended up buying that, hoping it will last me the rest of my life. I don't see why it was so much cheaper than the others when it basically looks identical to them =/
Also after annoyingly losing my gloves I had to get a new pair, the cheapest I could find were some from Millets for £24.99 (There was some climbing ones that were about £80!!!)
However as I came to pay, it turns out these gloves were actually £15 not £24.99, was well happy about it. A nice suprise.
I wondered whether I should invest in a flask too as the shitty one I bought from Tesco before Uni ended up being useless as the metal lining began to chip off on the inside after only using it once meaning that I may have drank a lot of it without noticing.
But having spent loads of money this week already and having to spend another £70 for the food at Pembroke as well as more spending money (There are no free ATM machines where we are near) which will be at most another £70, I reckon I should try and save while I can.

Once I got home I ended up spending about 3 hours or so in the kitchen with Mia and Laura. They were talking about how great Saturday (Valentine's day) is going to be as all the girls are planning to come into the kitchen eating pizza and ice-cream and talking about how much they hate men. They said they needed a girl film to watch too, as a joke I suggested Spice girls the movie, to which they both began screaming and said that was a really good idea =/
It's a terrible film.

I guess I'd be excited too if I could have a similar guys night. However with everyone either going home or being with someone they are in a relationship with, it turns out that Tim and I will be the only boys left, cock it!
When I first told Mia and Laura this they then said that they actually felt quite bad now as it's as if I am being left out as they were saying that no boys are allowed in the kitchen.
Yet I found it funny/ironic how they are devoting a night to how much they hate men yet when I told them that I'd be on my own, literally, on Valentine's day they got sad about it haha.

Ah well, looks like a night of Yu-gi-oh or Scrubs for Tim and I on this shitty commercial holiday.

That brings me to my next part.
One of the topics that was brought up during this 3 hours was Mia saying that she had watched all 8 seasons of Scrubs since she got here and now wanted to find another show similar to it to watch.
I have always liked Scrubs but have never watched it from the start.
So why not eh ?
Have already watched the 1st 3 and because of megavideos gay rule about having to wait 54 minutes between every 72 minutes of watching videos, I am using that time to write this blog.

On a side note, Valentine's day sucks!!.....Unless of course you have someone to share it with, then it's probably quite a festive, fun and emotionally satisfying day..

Day 30 - Space

Today could have been VERY long. Well it was, but not as bad as I first thought.
Basically tonight was the night Louise planned a night for her business project at Space so we all, being the good flatmates were are, decided we'd turn up.
However I had a 9am the next morning so instead when to the practical on Wednesday instead of Thursday morning.
This meant that I had 3 hours non-stop of Geology related topics.
After an hour of nothing, I then had to wait around for another 2 hours in which to sort things out for the Pembroke trip.
Turns out Pembroke is in Wales, not Scotland, oops.
Also although I had planned to go on week 1, it seemed more people wanted to go on that day than week 2.
The lecturer said that a few people had e-mailed him and reserved spaces for week 1, about 22 people, he asked those people ONLY to come down and sign.
It was when about 60+ people that went down to sign for it that I realised that I should have just been dishonest too.
Though to be fair, either week is as inconvienient so I'm not too bothered about going during the 3rd week on the 2nd trip.

Turns out I am sharing a dorm with Ben, Tom, Darryl, Charlie, Lewis and Greg.
It got a bit complicated as there were 10 of us there and some would have been left out, we thought about two rooms of 5 but that'd take even MORE organising.
But seeing as the plan is to get up at about 7am each morning, being on the field doing work all day till 6pm, having dinner then spending two hours summarising the day til 10pm. It seems that you'll have to go to bed literally straight away to just about get 8 hours sleep. Therefore it doesn't matter who you stay with all that much.

On the field I am working with Charlie, Lewis, Ben and Darryl.
They actually said that any international student has to be put into a group with English students as the style of teaching would have been different.
That's not the case in our group as Darryl didn't even do A level Geology. In fact Ben and I are the only ones in the group that did. But rather have someone we know well in it than a random person who was forced to be with us.

Finally everything got sorted apart from money (having to pay £70 for the catered food and we have no option in it as it's the deal that was made with the hostel staff. Seeing as I could easily live on £20 a week for food, I'm gonna make sure I get what I payed for and take the piss, even bringing loads of food home with me.

At this point it was now 5pm, I didn't go to Taekwondo tonight from 6-8pm.
I'd have been too tired and would have been at Uni too long. Am a bit sad as it's the first session I have missed since I got here but didn't want to get back and be too tired to go to Space afterwards.

I got back and had something to eat but everyone was planning on drinking in the bar and watching the football. I don't like paying for drinks when I can get it cheap from shops nor do I like football all that much. Which meant I had to drink in my room alone like an alcoholic. It was still pretty fun though, ended up singing along to all the songs I had on quite loud.

Eventually everyone came to the kitchen and after I got my balls out a few times for no reason we were on our way to Space.
It was freezing and everyone was walking ridiculously slow, luckily the girls had got a taxi so didn't have to wait for them, but still they were slow.
So I basically full on sprinted to Space in a drunken state.
Kinda regret it when I got there as I was knackered, but ah well.
It was a pretty good night.
Although I missed it, apparently Abi's boyfriend, Alex threw up on the bar after 8 tequilas and still asked for 2 more beers after that haha. Abi wasn't happy at all but everyone else finds it hilarious hahaha.

Eventually the night got to an end, me, Tim and Jackson walked home again taking photos on the most obscure objects we could find like bins and a giant ball near the Dock that water comes out of.

I got back to find Natalie and Mia in the kitchen eating wedges and talking about what happened that night. No drama whatsoever! First time in a while.
In addition to this, Space made twice as much as they would make on a Friday.
Pretty good considering that Space never opens on a Wednesday so how so many people managed to find out about it I don't know.
They made a £1000 profit which Louise and her group will get, awesome!
All in all, a good night, and I don't have to be in for 9am tomorrow either, sick!

Tuesday 10 February 2009

Day 29 - Eldon International

The first part of today wasn't very good tbh.

Turns out it was actually the two Dan's that put the pedestrian sign outside E block not anybody on the 4th floor.
As I left that morning, making sure my room was really tidy, I noticed the smell of smoke and passed Una and one of her friends walking back to E block. They looked pretty hungover/stoned and didn't even seem to notice I was there even though I said hi and literally walked straight pass them, was weird =/
After the first few lectures I was really tired, the 4 hours worth of practicals dragged on for AAAGGES!
It was just so boring and depessing having to do 2 hours of practicals followed by another 2 hours, especially when you are only about 20% sure that you're actually doing it right.
Anyway after only getting 2/4 (which is shit) on my second practical I got a text from Sanders asking if I wanted to meet him in Eldon with some international girl students.
I agreed as I didn't really have anything to do once I got home, or so I thought.
After waiting for what seemed like ages and witnessing some chavs kick a football (maybe on purpose) across the road and into a family of Asian people who were not pleased to say the least, I got a call from Will asking if I was coming to the Environmental meeting tonight at 7pm.
It was 7pm now and I was till at Uni, no clue that there was even a meeting taking place. Guess I should have checked the facebook group about it a bit more, oh dear.
However Will said he will inform me of what it was that was actually said there.

Eventually Sanders called me saying that he was in the Eldon.
At first when I got there is was a little awkward, well ok very awkward. Combining this with the somewhat bad day I had I was tempted to go home.
Also Ben Fyfe was there. Never mentioned him before but somehow loads of people in E block know him, I have seen him about but never spoken to him, is quite a nice guy actually in B block taking chemical engineering.
However, today it was £1.50 drinks from 7pm onwards and having not eaten basically all day I got quite drunk after 3 pints =/
This was quite embarrassing as Sanders was saying I am one of the biggest lightweights he has ever seen and I denied this a lot. However I guess in the long run being a lightweight isn't all that bad, saves shit loads of money.
After an evening of Ben and I telling random facts and comparing difference in culture (one of the girls was from Canada, another from Pittsburg and another from Australia) it got to about 10:45pm and Ben and I decided to leave.
As we were walking back Ben got a text saying that one of his friends that he met in there that was with us for a bit actually believed that I was a Jamaican exchange student (which is what I said before, despite not having the accent haha).
In addition to this it turns out Ben was also part of the Leeds OUTC, hence how he knew Tim. I realised I should have just lied and said there was nothing wrong with me, as he himself has to take antibiotics everyday. Still, wonder what it'd have been like had I joined...hmm.
Best part of the walk home was a girl coming up to us saying she was a student and not a hustler (yes, her words) that had lost her student metro card and couldn't get home and needed about £3.70 from us to get home. I asked where she lived and she said Wakefield.
First of all, she looked too old to be a student, if she was one, she wouldn't be living in Wakefield. She had her bag with her so how could she only lose her student card, also if that's all she lost then is she really saying she doesn't have £3.70 in her account ?
Ben and I said we have just been to the pub and had no money to give her and carried on walking saying you should only give people like that money if they really won't leave you alone, which he has had to do before lol.

I got back to my room to find that the flat had passed the inspection, the only note saying to clean under the microwave. Oops, that was me that made that mess the night before microwaving spuds but hoped it wasn't noticable. Also as I was walking outside E block I could hear nothing but Irish accents coming from the 4th floor from all of Una's friends haha, I found it pretty funny, probably cos I was drunk.
There was also a message from Abi in the E block facebook thread saying that her, Lauren, Natalie and Louise went to visit Scott today.
He can't speak atm as he has a thing in his throat helping him to learn, but it able to hear what is going on. He can throw his little football around and even waved bye to them as they all left.
This was sad but also annoying as all the guys have been planning a trip to see him ever since we got back but nothing was ever confirmed.
However by the looks of things it seems we are going to be going there Friday at about 6pm. I'm hoping to go too as I haven't seen him once since the night of the accident and am not free most nights. Even on Friday I am missing Taekwondo, first time I'd have ever missed a session, but if all goes to plan it'll be worth it..

Monday 9 February 2009

Day 28 - Low Pass

I seem to be getting more used to the 5 hour block of lectures I have on a Monday. Ben H on the other hand, is not, as he took about 7 pro-plus tablets in the space of 3 minutes then said he felt as though he was going to be sick. Not suprising seeing as you're only meant to take 4 maximum a day and leave about 2 hours between each one.
After a full day of lectures we ventured down to Elbow room for some free pool.
We got a tournement going with all the people there and what do you know, I go out straight away after playing Ben. Almost got 7 balled too, was well embarrassing (but predictable).
As we were about to leave Ben said he reckons that he can pass this semester easily without going to any lectures as he passed Natural hazards with 54% without doing anything for it and finds the chemistry and computing stuff that we did today easy.
Fair enough, he did do A level maths and what we were doing in class today in computing, statistics he has done before, but he never went to the chemistry classes in semester 1 which were MUCH harder, so not a good idea to base an entire semester on 2 weeks really.
They all left and went to Weatherspoons while Mike and I walked home talking about how you take home cooking for granted.

I got in to find a letter from my parents about an interview with Rick Astley from the metro and an article about an Aussie who tried to smuggle baby pigeons onto a plane by tucking them into his trousers hahaha, gotta give credit for originality.
There was also a letter about some sports thing I signed up for (only because it goes on for 6 weeks and you could win £50), though looking at it now I dunno if I can really be bothered with it. I'll see tomorrow.

In addition to this, John is back (still no sign of Charlotte though) but is pretty ill. Mia and Laura cleaned the entire kitchen and I did all the washing up so inspection should be alright for tomorrow.
I checked my results for my modules online too.
I passed, but that's about it really.
63% in Understanding Earth, 58% in Chemistry and 50% in Maths.
Baring in mind Understanding Earth was 90% of the module mark, Chemistry was about 75% and Maths was 35%, meaning I still got semester 2 exams to do on them as well as the coursework, so it's not all over yet, but the dream of getting a 1st in something might be...damn.

Still though, better than a fail. To see the maths marks you go on an excel spreadsheet in which the mark is next to your student number, so you can see what everyone got, the marks actually ranged from someone getting 100% to a few people even getting 0% =/

Someone even got 9%, so I guess I shouldn't dwell on the past. I'l try and do better and learn from my mistakes.

I was pretty tired this evening so took a nap from about half 8 till 11pm which has messed up my sleeping pattern bad.
In that time I heard a load of people walk into Clarence Dock screaming and shouting then the same voices go back out again. I'm assuming this was the 4th floor people as I could definitely hear Una (How can you not notice an Irish accent) calling out to Eileen, who also lives on the 4th floor.
There was also a pedestrians --> sign at the front of E block too which I am assuming was also them.
Such a stereotypical student thing to do hahaha.
Everyone has gone to either Mezz or Chilli Whites tonight, as for me, I am going to go Space on Wednesday for a traffic light party as Louise is promoting it as part of her business course.

Now then, what to do with the rest of the night...

Sunday 8 February 2009

Day 27 - Black Ballin'

Got up about 2pm today then didn't do much else besides finish my maths coursework and sit on facebook seeing what comes up. Much to my suprise, as earlier Mia said she would make me clean any sugar in the kitchen for deliberatly pouring some on the kitchen top, she clean the whole kitchen, assuming on her own.
The only things left to do now are the floor and the washing up, I opted to do all the washing but she said to leave that and that we'd all do the floor and rest tomorrow, though saying that I am not sure what time John is getting back and Charlotte who I haven't seen in about 2 weeks (not even sure if she is here or went home) definitely won't help.

During the evening I played some pool with Lewis, Ben H, Sean and Tim. I managed to do an impossible shot getting the blackball in which, due to Ben H's theory, was that if a ball hits the side of the table 6 times it will always go in.
Everyone burst out laughing but Sean got really annoyed, as he was on the other team and it looked as though they had the game in the bag.
I did a few more really lucky shots as the evening went on but didn't win any other games.

Also Ben Mann has got back today after taking a week off to go skiing. Seems weird, ever since he left, things kinda got a bit out of control with everyone. Well, for me it's just funny to watch people get worked up over nothing.
But maybe it's true that your personality and mood depends 90% on the people around you, if that's the case, Ben Mann is the only one who is able to maintain peace and stability throughout E block..

Day 26 - Pet Sounds in Eb

A side note about the title, the "b" is meant to be a musical sign for "flat".
Pet Sounds is the name of the night at Leeds academy, get the pun ? It's really not a good one to be fair...

Today was the first day since Freshers week on a Saturday when I hadn't been to a Taekwondo Saturday training session. Not because I was lazy, there just wasn't a training session today.
I spent the entire day doing shit all really, talking to people on msn and what not. I did some more of the simaltaneous equations maths c/w and actually mananged to understand quite a few of them to my suprise. Seems I am an elimination guy as opposed to a substitution guy, who'd have thought eh ?

However the plan for tonight was to hit Leeds academy as it was Dan Cuff's Birthday (well his Birthday is actually on Monday 9th February but we were celebrating it now).
After going into his flat on the 3rd floor in which it had been done up quite well complete with coloured paper over the lights to give a party feeling and balloons stuck to the wall with the help of some static, things began to get underway.

The taxis came at 11pm and I got in one with Charlotte, Kimberly and Kerry. However we arrived at the cash machine first in which the queue was really long, it was freezing cold and I had already withdrawn money before hand to prevent this, shame nobody else did :(
I somehow managed to get into a conversation with the people infront of me in the queue whilst waiting there and ended up meeting them again that same night in Pet sounds after they referred to me as "IT'S ATM GUY"!!
Tbh I didn't even recognise them when I saw them the 2nd time, pretty bad.

After queueing for money, turns out the 3 girls wanted to go into Walkabout before Pet sounds, however I wasn't up for paying another £3 to get into walkabout then £4 to get into Leeds academy, so, fo some reason, just walked into Leeds academy on my own.
Not sure how I managed it, but whilst standing at the urinal met a chinese guy named theo who stereotypically was taking computing and some other scene kid who I can't remember his name, but he introduced me to his friends and I was with them for the first part of the night.
They wandered off somewhere and I met two other randoms and began having a 3 way dance off with them too.
Luckily I managed to catch sight of Jackson, one of Andy's mates who was with us tonight, and with that ended up meeting everyone else.
After having a bit of a dance, things got tense when Luci got with some random guy. We were all expecting Heff to either start a fight or storm off and he and Luci are in a "it's an open complicated" relationship, if that makes sense. No it doesn't does it.

Anyway he just seemed to ignore it.
Later on whilst upstairs it seemed ANOTHER arguement broke out in which all the girls went to the toilet but didn't inform Nat who accussed them of "leaving her" (although me, Jackson, Robyn, Andy, Tim, Mia and Lauren were still present at the time, so she wasn't exactly left on her own).
They were gone for about 2 minutes if that which was enough for her to storm off and not be seen for the next 2 hours or so.
For the rest of the night Tim and I were basically waiting for Rage against machine to come on as we were in the mood for a mosh pit.
It did finally come on, but there was no real mosh pit :(
It was more about 8-10 guys jumping around into each other including one middle aged skin head who looked as though he'd be racist and not into indie at all, not trying to stereotype or anything, but he really did.

It got to about 3am and Tim, Jackson and I left. All the girls were getting a taxi home but it wasn't far at all so the 3 of us walked. I made a powerthirst reference in saying that the girls should just walk there or run as fast as kenyans, in which Tim immediately got the reference causing us both to get really excited.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whT6xeIFFYM

If you wanna watch all three editions, though I also found this new one today which was also pretty good.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BP-l3WVFEGo&feature=related

Anyway on the walk home we began singing the song from Family Guy, Bird is the word (can't be bothered to put a link for that) and also went to subway.
I couldn't believe, a meatball footlong for £3.58, YES!
When Jackson was buying his subway some random shaven head guy threw a pastie at him from the door, though it missed and hit the ceiling.
Shaven head guy found it ridiculously funny while everyone else in the shop was looking at him with a "....I could imagine this guy would get annoyed pretty quickly once you get to know him" look.
What was even weirder was when he said "Actually I still want that", picked up pieces of the pastie from the floor, ate it and left.
Gotta say I DID find that part quite funny.

The 3 of us got back to E block to find Laura and Mia sitting in the kitchen talking and eating garlic bread of which I was going to take a piece but Laura licked it so that I couldn't.
Me, Tim and Jackson then went into my room and watched Powerthirst as well as an Americans getting really easy questions wrong on who wants to be a millionaire on youtube, was well funny. Especially when it always popped up with "OWNED" everytime they got it wrong.
Jackson even made a reference to dragonball Z for some reason, man I wish I could have met him sooner, he's actually a really cool guy.
Ended up getting to sleep at about 5:30am, was a really good night out.

Oh, but on a side note, I think I might have/be gettig a throat infection as for the past few weeks I keep coughing, I have a wheezing sound inside my body/lungs and kept on coughing up yellow mucus throughout the day :(
Bad times, gonna leave it another week then visit the doctors, though tbh I'm so sick of going to doctors now for illnesses I am tempted to just hope it goes away on it's own seeing as John told me a story of a man who made his cancer cells recessive by eating loads of brocolli.
Anyway, I digress....

Friday 6 February 2009

Day 25 - Block Party

I knew that someday I'd have this as a title, the pun being how people say I look like the Bloc party lead singer, so might as well throw it in there now.

It was Friday again and with only one lecture to go into, vertebra evolution, it was pretty smooth sailing.
Taekwondo also went quite well as I sparred with Phil a bit who managed to show/teach my things about sparring such as what to do and when to do it.
Having sparred with Basil the most times, who is also a yellow belt, I can really feel the difference when sparring against Phil who is Red belt, really fast and pretty strong. He was also the first person I ever sparred and this was only the 2nd time I have sparred with him, I still couldn't really lay a finger on him.

I also sparred with Daniel as last lesson he didn't have his pads and I said it was a shame as I wanted a fair fight. After his reply being "Fair fight !? I'd kick your ass"! We said that next time we have the chance we'd spar with each other.
It was pretty good actually.
He said that I was pretty good with my hands, which is true, I prefer punching than kicking in sparring as it's faster and more combinations can be done.
However one of the punches I threw was pretty hard considering this was meant to be light contact free sparring. I apologised straight away and Daniel said it was alright and that he should have blocked but I could tell that it must have hurt a little bit.
After the lesson he told me that I had actually busted his lip when I hit him which to say the least made me feel even more guilty :(

I didn't go to the pub as I was really hungry and wanted to go to the E block kitchen night that we have planned for so long.
Since semester 2 began there has been a slight divide between the boys and girls.
All the boys do stuff together, Laura, Natalie, Luci and Louise always do stuff together and seem to neglect everyone else at times, including pre-drinking in seperate kitchens even though we were all going to the same place.
This therefore leaves Lauren, Abi and Mia to the side.

First everyone was playing jenga (and were pretty shit at it I must say), as I didn't have a seat it was hard to play and kinda boring when sober, Tim felt the same too.
So we went back to his room and watched an episode of Yu-Gi-Oh then went to the bar for a game of pool then came back when we thought everyone might be a little bit more wasted. No luck.
After having a game of twister on our own everyone else joined it.
Forgot how hard it was actually.
I was the spinner for the girls and began to just say colours that'd make it really awkward for them, however I didn't realise Luci was really flexible making my plan fail.
At this point Lewis had drank half a bottle of southern comfort and was pretty bad. He said he was feeling ill so went back to his flat, none of us saw or heard from him the rest of the night haha.
We then began to play pictionary.
The other team were about halfway across the board before it was our turn, of all the people to go first on our team it was Luci, for some reason.
Her things to draw was Butler.
Though she thought that a Butler was a cobbler so began drawing feet and shoes.
It was at this point we realised we weren't going to win.
Halfway through the game Laura and Louise wandered off into the corridor and taped up Ben Mann's door as he is away for the week.
Nat got quite annoyed at how they just got up and left mid game but I didn't mind as we were losing anyway haha.

Sean then came in and asked for some frozen peas. We all wondered what it was for.
Turns out Ben H had punched a wall for some reason and then after throwing a hoover across the room stormed off.
Shouldn't laugh but I tend to find his little outbursts quite funny tbh. Apparently it was over Luci (no suprise there).

Tim and I then went to the 3rd floor as there was a small party going on up there.
Dan Booth made a joke about there being a "Black out" in Clarence Dock although I shouldn't be worried as he was recaptured, which immediately led to him being batwinged/ball hit.
Not sure why, but a man having his balls out always makes people laugh. Mark walked into the kitchen and just saw me with my balls out and was in bits for ages.

The rest of the night involved more drinking and going to different floors and partying. There was also a spontaneous jam session with Luis on the guitar, Tim on bongos and me on accordian, it was awesome, even if I have no clue how to play an accordian. Also had a really deep talk about racism on the 3rd floor haha.
Ah well, was a good night in I'd say..

Thursday 5 February 2009

Day 24 - 3x = box (COD)4

Couldn't do the maths. Sanders texting me about York.
Got back, washed my clothes, couldn't all fit. Took a nap.
Went Tom's flat and played some Xbox, Beat person on pro evo. Then played COD4.
Halo 3. Racing game.
Tequilia but I didn't go.
Got back and decided to clean entire room.
Fungus in the bin.

After this I will only have two more 9am starts, YES!
The 2 hour practical was pretty easy as it was just naming carbonate rocks. We don't even have to hand our work in at the end so for the whole two hours Darryl and I sat there pretty much talking about what we did last night and how everyone in Darryl's block seems to have gotten together to make really unlikely couples.
However things took a turn for the worse when I went to the maths help class and was unable to do a single question on the piece of coursework.
Even more annoying as this was simaltaneous equations which I used to be able to do with my eyes closed at GCSE and now can't do shit all.
There was another girl in the class who seemed to be in the exact same position as me and was close to crying as she kept on muttering to her friend how she used to be able to do them and feels really stupid not being able to do these.

After an hour I only got about halfway through but only because I had to ask for help with every question, cock it!
I had already done the chemistry tutorial the night before so just handed it in and left.
I met Ben H in there who went out the night before so missed his 9am lecture.
I'm not sure what's more stupid tbh. The fact that he's on attendance report but still doesn't bother turning up to his 9am lecture when he knows that he's really close to getting thrown out, or the fact he knew he wouldn't be able to make it into the 9am lecture if he was out the night before but still went out in the first place.
Eitherway it's unlikely he'll be here for long as his plan for if he does get thrown out is to live with us next year anyway, work in Headingly taps then go to the Marines the year after that.
Yes, we all burst out laughing when he told us that.
Though you shouldn't laugh at ones dreams, it seemed unrealistic that he was unable to turn up to lectures yet wants to join the marines of all things.

On the way home I met Sanders who asked if I wanted to come to York with him tomorrow with Tom and some other girls.
Really, I guess I could have gone, I'd have only missed one lecture. However I declined. They had no reason for going, just felt like it.
Was only £8 by bus for a return ticket and the place they were staying was £13 including a breakfast in the morning.

I got back to E block to find that a note had been left on the kitchen door saying that there will be room inspections on the 10th February.
Ah great, was my first thought.
My room was a state, there was some sort of fungas growing from my sink and bin which I never noticed till I began cleaning them later that night. Not nice.

Before this however I decided to do some washing. Annoyingly not everything could fit in and I didn't want to pay £2.60 for another wash, meaning I had to sacrifice washing my duvet cover and go another 2 weeks or so sleeping without one and just the duvet. Looks really ghetto.

After this I got a phone call from Tom who asked what I was up to and if I wanted to go to his flat and play some Xbox.
YES!
Sanders, Andrew and someone else who I have met before but can't remember their name, think it's Dom, were already there.
Turns out Tom couldn't fix his Xbox last time it went redbox so bought a new one 2nd hand for £120 which I think its pretty good.
Ended up playing Dom on pro evo 2009 and beat him 1-0 haha. First time I ever played it too.
Then had a few games of COD4 with Tom and Sanders. Sanders being in the army was able to comment on things that were realistic and unrealistic about the game. Such as how quickly they were able to re-load guns haha.
This was followed by a quick match on Halo 3 then a driving game, can't remember the name of it.
Sanders had also cooked some spaghetti bolognase for us all which was really nice and tasted really good too so I didn't have to worry about dinner.
It got to about 10pm and Sanders and I left, he had to be up at 8am the next morning and I was thinking about an early night.

Ben H had text me before saying that people were gonna go to Tequilia and asked if I wanted to come but I declined as I wasplaying Xbox so spent my evening cleaning my room and bathroom. Took about 3 hours in all. Bathroom was so filthy it was unbelievable. No idea how I let it get that bad.
Once I was done I noticed that Ben H was on facebook, this was about 1:30am.
Turns out nobody went to Tequilia in the end meaning I didn't miss out on anything!
SCORE!

Day 23 - Sugar Ray Knockout

It seems when I first used to write these they were ridiculously long. Whether it's that things have gotten less interesting or I just don't bother putting as much detail into these as I used to I'm not sure. Ah well, I try to include only the parts that are somewhat interesting to read about and leave boring things out.
I'm writing this a day late meaning I don't remember a thing about my actual day at Uni or the lectures. Therefore nothing of interest could have happened.

However I got home and began talking to John in the kitchen. I remembered how the night before Mia was annoyed that there was sugar on the side of the kicthen top and blamed me for it as I "always have sugar in my cereal".
Now this was quite annoying seeing as I have crunchy nut every morning and DON'T put sugar in my cereal, we live with 5 people meaning it could have been anyone, and looking around the kitchen the majority of the mess was actually hers.
I figured it was time for some sort of psychological protest against this as today John said Mia had a go at him again for more sugar being there.
Although it was a bit childish of me, well, very actually, I took a huge handful of sugar and purposely put a pile of it on the kitchen top for her to see.
John and I were gonna go as far as to actually spell "Mia" in the sugar but then she'd know it was us. Though tbh it's obvious it was us anyway.

About an hour later as I was doing nothing much, I got a knock on the door, I thought it was John but it was actually Mia who asked whether I purposely put sugar on the kitchen top haha.
I tried pretty hard not to laugh at the situation actually, but I admitted it was me.
I never told her the reason why but did make it clear how it WASN'T me that had made the mess the first time so I think she got the message that I was annoyed and that this was mainly to annoy her.
I cleaned it up afterwards though and things got back to normal.

The evening came and it meant Taekwondo training.
It was our final give it a go session for the year tonight.
At most, I figured about 10 people would turn up, as if I didn't do Taekwondo I wouldn't have had a clue that the session was even on.
We were all amazed to get there and find that about 40 people, maybe more had turned up for the session.
Not being stereotypical, but it was obvious what had happened. About 60% of the people that were there were Asian, as in Chinese, Japanese etc.
Now anyone that has been to Uni will know that Asian people tend to stick only with other asian people and don't even acknowledge anyone else.
Obviously a few people had found out and told others who told their friends who told their friends.
Most of the other people there said they had done some form of martial arts before though.
There were even a few blackbelts there.
One, called Jimmy (yes he was Asian) was a 3rd Dan :|

(For those that don't know how the system works, which is probably everyone, it takes about 4 years to get a blackbelt, it then takes 1 years to become first dan, 2 more years to become 2nd dan, then 3 more years to become 3rd dan. That's 12 years in all, meaning he must have been doing Taekwondo pretty much all of his life. He was ridiculously fast too and was only about 5 foot tall haha.)

However the highlight of the evening was the demonstration Simon did with Andy, the instructor (side note: Our instructor has been training 20 years and is a 4th Dan, meaning Jimmy is only one down from him).

Both Simon and Andy were practicing self-defense in which what to do when someone tried to throw a haymaker at you.
However when Andy blocked it, Simon's wrist hit his elbow with full force.
Andy asked Simon to do it again but Simon just stood there.
At first we thought he was just deciding which arm to use till Andy waved his hands infront of his face and there was no reaction.
Turns out he had actually knocked him out slightly as there are pressure points on the wrists.
It's the same as if someone were to whack you on the side of the neck.
Simon said the only thing going through his head was not to fall over infront of all the new people as it'd be really embarrassing.
It's funny to laugh at now, but at the time it was REALLY weird to see.

Eitherway, this was a really successful give it a go session and I hope most of the people that turned up will join.

After hitting the Fenton pub for a bit I left and got back to the Dock.
Have no idea what I actually did when I got back now, but can't have been that interesting really...

Tuesday 3 February 2009

Day 22 - Bright future

No more snow had fallen over night, which meant Leeds was now covered in nothing but slush and ice.
Yes, I did almost slip over when walking to Uni more than once, but managed not to go down luckily, I was dreading the walk back at 6pm.

The day was pretty long tbh.
First two lectures and break was alright, but 4 hours straight of practicals is just too much. Especially when you have no idea what to do in them. I finally got home to walk into John who had only just got back that evening due to the snow stranding him in Essex.
I spent most of the night with him just talking and catching up till about 11pm when I decided I might get some sleep. Before this however I decided to buy a calender from Abi for £6 as she had to sell them as part of her business project. It's a calender with naked Rugby players on them, what better place for me to put this than on my window where everyone can see eh ?

After a few minutes I heard more voices outside to find Dan Booth and Cuff, Ben H, Tim and some others smoking. Might as well join them.
However they were just about to go back up to their flat for a few drinks.
As I walked in I realised I didn't know a single person in the kitchen really.
One of the girls was called Steph and was new, she had Heather's room. Someone else called Sam who was pretty cool. Another girl called Hayley who had been there the whole time and I didn't even know existed.
And Billy and Anthony who I knew but got pretty negative vibes from tbh.
If you remember back a few blogs, Billy was the one who punched and broke the letterbox, threw a glass bottle at Laura and I and always plays loud drum and bass at ridiculous times.
In short, I don't like him.

Luckily him and Anthony left soon after and it left us all in there to talk.
Dan Cuff still had a video of me from the night at Oceana when I was talking black.
I don't get embarrassed easily, but I REALLY did not want to see this video, ever :(

It got to about 1am and they all went outside for a cigarette while I was about to go to bed.
However after having recieved information that the new season of Heroes was out, I couldn't help but watch it.

Was such a good episode, and with new Lost episodes in the making too, I'd say things are looking bright for the future :)

Monday 2 February 2009

Day 21 - Snow problems here

This is my 100th post. Wow.
Well then, the snow is still falling quite heavily.
2 of my lectutes were cancelled today.
Felt sorry for Ben who got to Uni at 10am only to be unable to find where he was meant to be. He had to wait about for 3 and a half hours till his next lecture haha.
After a day of fun I walked home with Ben who said how with his coat hood up he could only see right infront of him,
"No matter cos it's a good view of her ass" he said pointing to a girl infront of us who was wearing leggins with no skirt, she must have been freezing.
As we were about to cross a road I was about to say to Ben,
"I don't understand how girls can wear so little in the snow".
However stopped as the girl in leggins was right behind me.
As she carried on walking across the road she stopped and looked at us,
"Are you two from Clarence Dock"?
....WTF!?
Was my first reaction.
Long story short, she somehow knew I was in E block as she had seen me about (she added she wasn't a stalker, hence only remembered me cos I am black) and is also an Earth scientist doing Earth system science and meteorology.
Yes, Ben did do the "then how long will it snow for"? joke, and it went down pretty well.
We walked home with her the whole way getting to know each other, turns out her name was Hayley and she lives in D block but was previously living in Charles Morris hence doesn't go to Clarence Dock socials and has never once been in the Clarence Dock bar.
As she walked into her block Ben said "Wes I think she likes you, I got that feeling".
Though the only feeling I got was that she was a nice person haha.
Eitherway we both tried to find her on facebook but it was a fail, guess asking her last name would have been a bit weird though it'll be embarrassing I know, as I won't remember her face from just seeing her once, especially since she had her hood up.

As soon as I got in, Sanders asked if I wanted to help him build a fort. I saw no reason not to, after getting involved in another Clarence Dock snowball fight we began building a fort. It was tiring and we were soon knackered after about 20 minutes so called it a day.
Spent the rest of the evening inside doing some maths coursework and not much else really.
The E block thread that we have made is now 500+, so will get to 1000 in no time.
However, from talking on it, I had no idea how, not to sound mean, but brainless Luci actually is.
What's even weirder is that she takes maths of all things :S

It began with Mia and Nat were talking about MRC and BAC (Men are cunts and Bitches are cunts). Mia said that MRC refers to a certain someone and, as a running injoke from earlier on, I suggested that this person was Ben Mann for going skiing for a week and not coming back.
Luci believed me that he wasn't coming back.
Anybody else would have known right away I was making it up considering I said he explained to me he has decided to stay there to become a ski instructor as that is his life long dream.
Unfortantely Nat ruined it by telling her I was lieing :(
She also didn't know what the word "innuendo" meant which I found quite weird, but just goes to show there is a huge line between common sense and knowledge.
Anyway, atm things seem to be going fine (hence the double pun title, there aren't any problems really, but at the same time the snow IS a problem causing lectures to be cancelled as it just means having to cram more in later during the semester).

*Sigh* if only it were the same as school or college being cancelled, ah well. Guess in the end it's a big inconvinience for everyone.

Sunday 1 February 2009

Day 20 - Serenity snow

Being Sunday I knew that for the most part the day would be pretty boring. There was a jam session at 7:30pm that evening but I really couldn't be bothered to go.
My day consisted of watching the film Serenity, which I admit is actually really good, and sleeping and even trying to revise.
But we have done so little this first week there really is nothing I can actually "revise" as such. Oh the irony.

It got to about 9:15pm, Ben and Tim knocked on my window asking if I wanted to go to the Clarence Dock bar. However as soon as I got out I saw them walking back saying the bar was closed so they were going to go to Shisha instead.
However at this time it began to snow, really hard.
Mike had already text me saying he had heavy snow, now we were getting it too.
It ended up turning into a huge snowball fight between all the blocks in Clarence Dock. It was so fun. However I wore too many layers and within minutes was ridiculously hot and sweaty. After we made a snowman on the 3rd floor E block balcony I got changed and went with Tim and Ben to get food before returning here.

Day 19 - Nu and weird

I woke up today still aching loads from Taekwondo the evening before.
Nevertheless still decided to go into training anyway.
We did a pyramid again and as usual, it was ridiculously tiring, still not as bad as the first time I did it though.

I then ventured back to Clarence Dock and awaited by my laptop to see what was going to happen that night. We ended up that Nu bar it was so after some pre-drinking in Tim's flat in which he pissed out the window and there was some rotting chicken in his fridge, more people from the flat joined us.
I went to the toilet and proped the door open hoping no subwardens would come.
Just my luck eh, as I walk back up I see two there writing a warning note, cock it.
One of them came in saying that security said that it was too noisy (it was a Saturday night and 1 minute passed 11pm ffs).
We all handed it well but Lewis who was pretty drunk insisted on arguing back until his name was taken down haha.
In addition to this, Ben H had been drinking whiskey which makes him violent as he then, for no real reason, threw a glass at a wall, smashing it and caused Sean to have to calm him down.
Tim and I almost didn't bother going out as we felt the night was ruined but was persuaded into doing it anyway.

Nu bar was quite good once we got there. Good music, also met Una in there again, suprised I was able to recognise her considering how bad I am with faces tbh.
However towards the middle of the night Mia began crying as she had lost her phone (again).
Tim and Lewis had gone home without telling anyone. Ben had an argument with Laura and kept telling me he hated Mia and wanted to punch her then hit Sean in the ribs and shouted at him after looking for him for ages, to which Sean burst out laughing to.
It was a weird night.
In the end Lauren and I took Mia home as she was crying.
As we were walking out two guys said,
"So ladies".
However after telling them I was a man they lost interest.
By the river two other guys said,
"Girls can we ask you a question"
"No" replied Lauren and Mia in succession.
However I asked what it was they needed to know, which was the way to the Royal armouries.
However they seemed a bit dodgy and who would want to go to the armouries at 2:30am ?
So I pointed them in the wrong direction as we didn't see them again haha.
On the walk back Lauren was arguing with Mia saying she shouldn't be crying over a phone as she gets a £1500 bursary and people like her (Lauren) and Abi are poor but still have nothing haha.
Was funny to listen to.

I then got a call from Heather who told me that she was in Kerry's flat in E block so I went up to visit her.
She ended up phoning Saeah and I was speaking to her for a while even though I couldn't hear/understand a single word she was saying.
As we walked into the kitchen, Charlotte said something about going to York, which then turned into a group trip in which everyone would go to York, at 3am, for no reason, then stay in a hostel for 5, though there were 10 of us.
Heather had a go at me for not being spontaneous enough to do it. I replied with explaining how there is a difference between being spontaneous and just being reckless and stupid, as this idea was. They only had 20 minutes till the last train too.
They all left and I went back to my room, although Tim knocked on my window soon after and chilled inside with me for a bit.
Explained how he had been on a bit of a downer since he had returned from Manchester the night before and didn't want to come back to Leeds hence why he left Nu bar so early.

It got late and he went back to his room while I saw on Heather's facebook status that she hadn't made the train so everyone went back to her house haha.

The past few days I have had a really bad cough. It comes and goes, but is always there when I am about to go to sleep, is a tickle in my throat.
Tonight was the worse it has been.
I just couldn't get to sleep.
I ended up getting a call at 5am too from Nu bar that someone had handed in Mia's phone. RESULT!

Second time she lost and recovered it haha.
Hope my cough goes away soon, my diaphram is really starting to hurt.