Sorry for long time with no post. I haven't forgotten about this blog. Honest I haven't. I really want to post, but I don't have time. I have had time, in the last 2 or 3 weeks, and I've started a couple and saved them as drafts... But then they become old news and irrelevant, and right now I have no time to actually properly blog post.
I said April sucks in April, and May really does suck in May too. Usually when it gets to June, July etc April and May no longer suck, because you get a good grade for all your hard work and it was worth it. I fear that this year, come June, July etc, April and May will really, really suck. I haven't worked hard on my exams - when I think back to how hard I worked at A-Level and even on my degree last year, I feel like a total douche for lazying around so much. Motivation has really, really escaped me on these exams, and I'm sure come results time I'll rue these couple of months as potentially life-altering... If no 2:1 degree at lowest then when it comes to applying for jobs towards the end of 2009, I'll be untouchable, which means I won't be able to apply for jobs until after the results for my final year and I've improved them up to some recruitable level..
Which I know I can do. I got 1sts in my 3 core units last year, but this year I'm either 2:2s or 2:1s in most of my units, and possibly 3rd or 2:2 in one. I just haven't worked hard all year and really haven't put the foot down through the exam period. I've never really felt, for a decent amount of time this year, like this degree is what I want to be doing, and when it comes to stuff I don't want to do, I've always sucked. GCSE D.T. Graphics is the primest of examples.
I've got my final two exams tomorrow and Tuesday, then I'm done. The blog post will come after those, and it may be long. I might even scribble a plan down to keep me from blabbering on at random tangents too long, cos I guess there's a crud load to say about things.
Hope this update is well recieved.. Been keeping up to date on your peoples' blogs too which is bringing me much joy :) Hope your exams/deadlines are working out ok, and will most likely see you soon.
Sunday, 17 May 2009
Tuesday, 14 April 2009
april sucks
Hey, hope stuffs good with anyone who reads this thing! Was gonna name this post "long time no postage" but realised that's what I named the last one... apologies to my many many followers for the neglect i've shown my little page over the past few weeks.
Have kept meaning to update as I've done interesting things but became aware over time that I needed a BIG "what 've been up to since last post" sort of message, which was obviously growing with time, and the time I've got in which to do it is shrinking painfully the further we get into April.
Yeah, it's exam time. Shiiit. I hate it. Basically I've got 4 weeks off from Friday 27th March to Sunday 26th April then I'm back to uni, then got 5 exams between 1st May and the 19th May, and in this month I've got to revise the full year's syllabus for two or three of my four modules... Which is scary, especially considering the lack of enthusiasm and effort I've put in this year, especially in the first term of the year which obviously hasn't been documented in the blog.
I spent the first week and a half relaxing, and when I wasn't relaxing I was just doing things that I didn't really want to be doing to avoid tackling my work, like playing GTA doing races and pointless side missions that I'm not really that bothered about. As time goes on pressure grows until you can't avoid it anymore, and when
the discomfort you feel when you snap back into the real world beats the comfort you find from escaping the real world into a video game or movie for an hour or two you get this permanent uncomfortable feeling. It's where even enjoyable stuff isn't really enjoyable because you know you've got stuff on that's way more important, more pressing, and a shite load more scary... Which is why I'm spending less and less time in mission control (see the piccie... I love my telly so much:D)... My xbox hasnt been on for two days now I don't think, and my Wii isn't even plugged in :|
I've revised, to a really good extent, about one fifth of one unit. I need to do five fifths of two or three units over the next two weeks... That's not cool! It's gonna get really ugly through the rest of April, and especially through May. The time revision takes up in the day grows throughout the whole exam period, and no doubt by the end of this month it'll be 12 hours of revision a day... and when you're trapped doing that for a month stuff can get so shitty. It can be kind of enjoyable knowing you're tackling a huge task, but having left it a long time already, and knowing that the notes I've got are poor and need redoing means that the pressure's on big time. That's what makes it uncomfortable. The pressure.
Outside of the exams part of my life though stuff's pretty good. Me and my girl are great, seen friends from home a good few times over the last couple of weeks and had an awesome family day out yesterday. My mum, dad, bro and sis all went to Weston Super Mare for a bit of shop which was alright (the shopping, not the weston part, cos it sucks), then went to Cribbs Causeway and shopped in the mall for a bit then went to TGI Fridays for lunch... was soooo ready for some good lunch - got up at 7 that morning and ran the 2 and a bit miles around the local reservoir then came back and had a bowl of cereal... so after that and more hours of walking felt starved. TGI Fridays food is so good. Then went to the Vue Cinema there and saw 17 Again, new film with Zac Efron... comments later in the movie section (just cos I've seen a few recently)
Last Monday we had a footie match away in some place called Bishops Lydeard and I dislocated my other shoulder - my good shoulder! I don't think I blogged about my right shoulder ever, but I could always dislocate it since I was a kid - it was a bit of a party trick, then it just pops back in and it's all happy - no pain or anything, then I had a really bad accident in a match in August 2007 where it came out and I spent a lot of time in A and E with them trying to get it back into the socket and it wouldn't, then had about 6 or 7 months of physio with no progress - my shoulder would still come out of the socket all the time, when I was sitting at a desk or whatever, so in the end we went private and on part insurance money and part parents' money my shoulder was fixed following the op and two or three months of physio (with only the little scar on the front of my shoulder and two other keyholes on the back)
But yeah - this shoulder's always been fine though - my left one, so it coming out while I was diving for a ball last Monday was a bit of a shock. I finished the match and in not too much pain, but the next morning was agony and I barely had any movement, and the same for the next few days. That's when I got myself down the local gym. I'd always envisioned this Easter break being a balancing act of hardcore revision and stress-inducing thought about exams, followed by hardcore runs and workouts to relieve the stress, and losing football as something to do was a good kick to get me to join. I've been on a bit of a health-kick since then, gymming or running everyday, hence the 7am one yesterday morning.
The plan with the shoulder is to get it checked privately again - NHS don't really care about shoulder dislocations - if it's in the joint it's fine, you have to do about four or five dislocations before they consider fixing it. Letting this one get as bad as my right one was before the op isn't a good idea, and four or five dislocations is not something I want to go through, especially if it's as bad as the one I did on my right - most painful day ever. So yeah - checkup and if it's okay, I'll bulk it up over summer and carry on as usual after that, but if I need an op then will have to go through the two or three months of physio after that. It sucks, but at least that'll hopefully be the end of the problems.
Okay... so where else is this blog going... Music and movies.
Went to the cinema last week with my girlfriend, and once with my mates, and then on monday with my family. Saw The Boat That Rocked with my girlfriend, which was awesome. Absolutely loved the story and the laughs and especially the awesome 60s music - the atmosphere of the film was so good, top stuff.
With my buddies went to see The Fast and The Furious. Despite having a bone to pick over the name of the film it was awesome. (I mean... Why not The Fast And The Furious 3 or whatever, or ": the hatchback chronicles" or something. They're following the route of video games in getting the numbering of series all messed up. E.g. GTA, GTA: London, GTAII, GTAIII, GTA: Vice City, GTA: San Andreas, GTAIV. They should just call the next one GTA2010 and have it messed up completely.) But yeah - on the film, it was just the perfect teenage boy's wet dream of buff guys, fast cars and pretty girls making out with each other... Beyond that though was a really well made film, way better than F&F1 or F&F2, and the story was cool too with the double-agentness/good cop-bad cop. Also, the opening scene might be one of the best from a movie ever, just adrenaline rushing from the start.
17 Again was pretty much my least anticipated film of the three I went to see, partly because of the dorky disney-sounding storyline and partly because of tweenage girl heart throb Zac Efron. I came away loving the storyline - it was kind of 'honest' about the super naturalness of a 40 year old bloke being transformed back to his 17 year old and worked it into the film pretty well and the stuff that went on while he was his 17 year old self in present day - being at school with his kids etc, was actually really good - funny and perfectly awkward at the right times. Also, I came away really liking Zac Efron. I never watched a High School Musical film but was expecting him to be really irritating and kiddy, but I thought he was cool and played it really well, seemed naturally really funny at times too. So yeah, enjoyed the films and definitely looking forward to seeing them all again at some point.
Onto the topic of music..
While I was in that limbo between relaxing and then crying at how much work I had, where I was just doing things I didn't really want to do to avoid addressing the work situation, I spent some time watching music TV... which I never actually do because I really want to do it... it's just an easy way to get away from the important things in your head! But yeah... I saw Papa Roach - Hollywood Whore on Kerrang or Scuzz or something and thought i t was awesome, so downloaded pretty much their whole discography - other than Infest and Getting Away With Murder which I have and LOVE, especially Infest for it's "back-in-the-day"ness. And yeah - I've four- or five-starred so many songs on my ipod since I started listening to them. There's Hollywood Whore, I Almost Told You That I Love You and Lifeline from the Metamorphisis album and then - and omg - "...To Be Loved" from The Paramour Session album, as well as Crash and Time Is Running Out from that album.
The thing so awesome about this song... It's the theme music for WWE RAW (And by the way - WrestlemaniaXXV was absolutely amazing, watched it with a couple of friends live, best match was easily Taker vs Michaels, even though it was also easily my least anticipated match) but yeah - I always hear the theme music when Raw starts and always think I need to find out who sings it and download it, because its such an awesome song... then I was sat on my sofa with my ipod on listening through this Papa Roach album I just loaded onto it... the song starts playing and doesn't sound familiar, then as soon as it gets to the chorus I just freaked out, it was so good, I love this song! Last week on a jog I was about 2 minutes from the end, (lol, I just misspelled jog as job...) but it looked such a long way and I was dieing... Then I whipped out my pod and put To Be Loved on and as it was building to the chorus it was one of those moments where the hairs on the back of your neck stick up, and I just got this huge adrenaline rsh and sprinted the rest of the way, I love how music can do that to you... Just make sure you check out the embed above^^.
Anyways, that's music, movies and catch-up all sorted. April sucks. Some Papa Roach is helping me through the revision but it's gnna get so heavy - for pressure and stress. Can't wait til it's all done on May 19th. Visiting Abu Dhabi with my girlfriend again, sometime in June, because her Dad lives and works out there, so that's something to look forward to. Also got a job confirmed for the summer which I'll probably detail up on nearer the time and make a post, it shoulder be cool.
For now though, it's exams, April sucks already, it's gnna get worse. Take care people(s) and keep reading :) Will update again soon! And if you're blogging then comment your blog up too:)
__
Update: Wrote this early yesterday evening and was heading off to the gym, so was gonna do piccies and that jazz when I got back, so I'll add in a quick update. Last night's gym session was awesome, the Chelsea Liverpool game was on TV there so I spent about 35mins on a cross trainer so I could watch the first half, then went through tons of other stuff and ended on a crrrippling sit ups session, felt awesome and still feeling it today too. The football match was unbelievable, one of the greatest European games ever... The football we've had in the last 10 days or so has been out of this world. The late Liverpool win in the prem, the 3-2 "MACHEDAAAAA" ManU win over Aston Villa, then the Champions League games and the close Man U game at the weekend... and then last nights game... It's been awesome. I'm a Utd supporter (Manchester is the home land for my parents) so can't wait for tonight's game too.
Regarding my girlfriend and her Dad, he's propsed to his girlfriend so I guess that gives my girlfriend a step-mum in the near future and not sure how she feels about it just yet.
Done a little work so far today but definitely not enough. Going for a run now and going to try and squeeze in some work between that and the Man U game tonight.
But yeah - take care y'all, and apologies for the lack of piccies in the wall of text :(:( See you round
Have kept meaning to update as I've done interesting things but became aware over time that I needed a BIG "what 've been up to since last post" sort of message, which was obviously growing with time, and the time I've got in which to do it is shrinking painfully the further we get into April.
Yeah, it's exam time. Shiiit. I hate it. Basically I've got 4 weeks off from Friday 27th March to Sunday 26th April then I'm back to uni, then got 5 exams between 1st May and the 19th May, and in this month I've got to revise the full year's syllabus for two or three of my four modules... Which is scary, especially considering the lack of enthusiasm and effort I've put in this year, especially in the first term of the year which obviously hasn't been documented in the blog.
I spent the first week and a half relaxing, and when I wasn't relaxing I was just doing things that I didn't really want to be doing to avoid tackling my work, like playing GTA doing races and pointless side missions that I'm not really that bothered about. As time goes on pressure grows until you can't avoid it anymore, and when
the discomfort you feel when you snap back into the real world beats the comfort you find from escaping the real world into a video game or movie for an hour or two you get this permanent uncomfortable feeling. It's where even enjoyable stuff isn't really enjoyable because you know you've got stuff on that's way more important, more pressing, and a shite load more scary... Which is why I'm spending less and less time in mission control (see the piccie... I love my telly so much:D)... My xbox hasnt been on for two days now I don't think, and my Wii isn't even plugged in :|I've revised, to a really good extent, about one fifth of one unit. I need to do five fifths of two or three units over the next two weeks... That's not cool! It's gonna get really ugly through the rest of April, and especially through May. The time revision takes up in the day grows throughout the whole exam period, and no doubt by the end of this month it'll be 12 hours of revision a day... and when you're trapped doing that for a month stuff can get so shitty. It can be kind of enjoyable knowing you're tackling a huge task, but having left it a long time already, and knowing that the notes I've got are poor and need redoing means that the pressure's on big time. That's what makes it uncomfortable. The pressure.
Outside of the exams part of my life though stuff's pretty good. Me and my girl are great, seen friends from home a good few times over the last couple of weeks and had an awesome family day out yesterday. My mum, dad, bro and sis all went to Weston Super Mare for a bit of shop which was alright (the shopping, not the weston part, cos it sucks), then went to Cribbs Causeway and shopped in the mall for a bit then went to TGI Fridays for lunch... was soooo ready for some good lunch - got up at 7 that morning and ran the 2 and a bit miles around the local reservoir then came back and had a bowl of cereal... so after that and more hours of walking felt starved. TGI Fridays food is so good. Then went to the Vue Cinema there and saw 17 Again, new film with Zac Efron... comments later in the movie section (just cos I've seen a few recently)Last Monday we had a footie match away in some place called Bishops Lydeard and I dislocated my other shoulder - my good shoulder! I don't think I blogged about my right shoulder ever, but I could always dislocate it since I was a kid - it was a bit of a party trick, then it just pops back in and it's all happy - no pain or anything, then I had a really bad accident in a match in August 2007 where it came out and I spent a lot of time in A and E with them trying to get it back into the socket and it wouldn't, then had about 6 or 7 months of physio with no progress - my shoulder would still come out of the socket all the time, when I was sitting at a desk or whatever, so in the end we went private and on part insurance money and part parents' money my shoulder was fixed following the op and two or three months of physio (with only the little scar on the front of my shoulder and two other keyholes on the back)
But yeah - this shoulder's always been fine though - my left one, so it coming out while I was diving for a ball last Monday was a bit of a shock. I finished the match and in not too much pain, but the next morning was agony and I barely had any movement, and the same for the next few days. That's when I got myself down the local gym. I'd always envisioned this Easter break being a balancing act of hardcore revision and stress-inducing thought about exams, followed by hardcore runs and workouts to relieve the stress, and losing football as something to do was a good kick to get me to join. I've been on a bit of a health-kick since then, gymming or running everyday, hence the 7am one yesterday morning.
The plan with the shoulder is to get it checked privately again - NHS don't really care about shoulder dislocations - if it's in the joint it's fine, you have to do about four or five dislocations before they consider fixing it. Letting this one get as bad as my right one was before the op isn't a good idea, and four or five dislocations is not something I want to go through, especially if it's as bad as the one I did on my right - most painful day ever. So yeah - checkup and if it's okay, I'll bulk it up over summer and carry on as usual after that, but if I need an op then will have to go through the two or three months of physio after that. It sucks, but at least that'll hopefully be the end of the problems.
Okay... so where else is this blog going... Music and movies.
Went to the cinema last week with my girlfriend, and once with my mates, and then on monday with my family. Saw The Boat That Rocked with my girlfriend, which was awesome. Absolutely loved the story and the laughs and especially the awesome 60s music - the atmosphere of the film was so good, top stuff.
With my buddies went to see The Fast and The Furious. Despite having a bone to pick over the name of the film it was awesome. (I mean... Why not The Fast And The Furious 3 or whatever, or ": the hatchback chronicles" or something. They're following the route of video games in getting the numbering of series all messed up. E.g. GTA, GTA: London, GTAII, GTAIII, GTA: Vice City, GTA: San Andreas, GTAIV. They should just call the next one GTA2010 and have it messed up completely.) But yeah - on the film, it was just the perfect teenage boy's wet dream of buff guys, fast cars and pretty girls making out with each other... Beyond that though was a really well made film, way better than F&F1 or F&F2, and the story was cool too with the double-agentness/good cop-bad cop. Also, the opening scene might be one of the best from a movie ever, just adrenaline rushing from the start.
17 Again was pretty much my least anticipated film of the three I went to see, partly because of the dorky disney-sounding storyline and partly because of tweenage girl heart throb Zac Efron. I came away loving the storyline - it was kind of 'honest' about the super naturalness of a 40 year old bloke being transformed back to his 17 year old and worked it into the film pretty well and the stuff that went on while he was his 17 year old self in present day - being at school with his kids etc, was actually really good - funny and perfectly awkward at the right times. Also, I came away really liking Zac Efron. I never watched a High School Musical film but was expecting him to be really irritating and kiddy, but I thought he was cool and played it really well, seemed naturally really funny at times too. So yeah, enjoyed the films and definitely looking forward to seeing them all again at some point.
Onto the topic of music..
While I was in that limbo between relaxing and then crying at how much work I had, where I was just doing things I didn't really want to do to avoid addressing the work situation, I spent some time watching music TV... which I never actually do because I really want to do it... it's just an easy way to get away from the important things in your head! But yeah... I saw Papa Roach - Hollywood Whore on Kerrang or Scuzz or something and thought i t was awesome, so downloaded pretty much their whole discography - other than Infest and Getting Away With Murder which I have and LOVE, especially Infest for it's "back-in-the-day"ness. And yeah - I've four- or five-starred so many songs on my ipod since I started listening to them. There's Hollywood Whore, I Almost Told You That I Love You and Lifeline from the Metamorphisis album and then - and omg - "...To Be Loved" from The Paramour Session album, as well as Crash and Time Is Running Out from that album.
The thing so awesome about this song... It's the theme music for WWE RAW (And by the way - WrestlemaniaXXV was absolutely amazing, watched it with a couple of friends live, best match was easily Taker vs Michaels, even though it was also easily my least anticipated match) but yeah - I always hear the theme music when Raw starts and always think I need to find out who sings it and download it, because its such an awesome song... then I was sat on my sofa with my ipod on listening through this Papa Roach album I just loaded onto it... the song starts playing and doesn't sound familiar, then as soon as it gets to the chorus I just freaked out, it was so good, I love this song! Last week on a jog I was about 2 minutes from the end, (lol, I just misspelled jog as job...) but it looked such a long way and I was dieing... Then I whipped out my pod and put To Be Loved on and as it was building to the chorus it was one of those moments where the hairs on the back of your neck stick up, and I just got this huge adrenaline rsh and sprinted the rest of the way, I love how music can do that to you... Just make sure you check out the embed above^^.
Anyways, that's music, movies and catch-up all sorted. April sucks. Some Papa Roach is helping me through the revision but it's gnna get so heavy - for pressure and stress. Can't wait til it's all done on May 19th. Visiting Abu Dhabi with my girlfriend again, sometime in June, because her Dad lives and works out there, so that's something to look forward to. Also got a job confirmed for the summer which I'll probably detail up on nearer the time and make a post, it shoulder be cool.
For now though, it's exams, April sucks already, it's gnna get worse. Take care people(s) and keep reading :) Will update again soon! And if you're blogging then comment your blog up too:)
__
Update: Wrote this early yesterday evening and was heading off to the gym, so was gonna do piccies and that jazz when I got back, so I'll add in a quick update. Last night's gym session was awesome, the Chelsea Liverpool game was on TV there so I spent about 35mins on a cross trainer so I could watch the first half, then went through tons of other stuff and ended on a crrrippling sit ups session, felt awesome and still feeling it today too. The football match was unbelievable, one of the greatest European games ever... The football we've had in the last 10 days or so has been out of this world. The late Liverpool win in the prem, the 3-2 "MACHEDAAAAA" ManU win over Aston Villa, then the Champions League games and the close Man U game at the weekend... and then last nights game... It's been awesome. I'm a Utd supporter (Manchester is the home land for my parents) so can't wait for tonight's game too.
Regarding my girlfriend and her Dad, he's propsed to his girlfriend so I guess that gives my girlfriend a step-mum in the near future and not sure how she feels about it just yet.
Done a little work so far today but definitely not enough. Going for a run now and going to try and squeeze in some work between that and the Man U game tonight.
But yeah - take care y'all, and apologies for the lack of piccies in the wall of text :(:( See you round
Friday, 20 March 2009
long time no postage
Apologies for the lack of postage, I'm eager to be writing another post soon, a proper looong one, but can't this weekend.
Just on the way to my girlfriend's at the moment which, in case you didn't know, is in Southampton. Just on the train as we speak, it's stopped at Basingstoke for some reason, fugg knows why. I got a train to Clapham Junction - towards London and away from Southampton, just to hop on a train to take me direct to Southampton so as to avoid the changes at Reading and Basingstoke. I don't mind the Reading change, I do it every week going home for football anyway, but Basingstoke's pretty much just a downer. And I say that fearlessly because I can say, with about 99.5% certainty, that no one from Basingstoke will ever read this blog... And that's cos no one reads it full-stop, lol:P
Anyway, my train's due to arrive in Soton Central at 21.15ish so gnna get into a book for a bit.
But yeah - in sum up, no big postage this week, apologies, but Monday, when I'm getting back from my girlfriend's, I'm sure ill get round to doing one, especially seeing as it's been a pretty cool week.
Take care y'all - talk soon :)
----*-*-*-*----
THAT (^^) was written last Friday evening on my mo-billy, but I think because the uploader thing is java my phone wasn't having it... I need to sort out on-the-go blogging properly. That was sposed to be a little blog to carry me over to the next one, which I said would be Monday... and it's now Wednesday night... and the post still isn't happening, and I've got a lot to say too!!
Just wanted to let anyone reading know that I haven't totally lost interest in posting though, I'm looking forward to doing the next one! If not tomorrow night then I'm sure I'll get stuck in on Friday evening, when I'm back home for a mooonth for Easter :D But not all smiles seeing as I've got so much revision to be doing :/ ...
Hope stuff's all good your ends too though, talk soon =D
Just on the way to my girlfriend's at the moment which, in case you didn't know, is in Southampton. Just on the train as we speak, it's stopped at Basingstoke for some reason, fugg knows why. I got a train to Clapham Junction - towards London and away from Southampton, just to hop on a train to take me direct to Southampton so as to avoid the changes at Reading and Basingstoke. I don't mind the Reading change, I do it every week going home for football anyway, but Basingstoke's pretty much just a downer. And I say that fearlessly because I can say, with about 99.5% certainty, that no one from Basingstoke will ever read this blog... And that's cos no one reads it full-stop, lol:P
Anyway, my train's due to arrive in Soton Central at 21.15ish so gnna get into a book for a bit.
But yeah - in sum up, no big postage this week, apologies, but Monday, when I'm getting back from my girlfriend's, I'm sure ill get round to doing one, especially seeing as it's been a pretty cool week.
Take care y'all - talk soon :)
----*-*-*-*----
THAT (^^) was written last Friday evening on my mo-billy, but I think because the uploader thing is java my phone wasn't having it... I need to sort out on-the-go blogging properly. That was sposed to be a little blog to carry me over to the next one, which I said would be Monday... and it's now Wednesday night... and the post still isn't happening, and I've got a lot to say too!!
Just wanted to let anyone reading know that I haven't totally lost interest in posting though, I'm looking forward to doing the next one! If not tomorrow night then I'm sure I'll get stuck in on Friday evening, when I'm back home for a mooonth for Easter :D But not all smiles seeing as I've got so much revision to be doing :/ ...
Hope stuff's all good your ends too though, talk soon =D
Thursday, 12 March 2009
third blog
I appreciate I'm going to need to start coming up with more original titles for my blogs, but up until five or six I reckon I might get by. (Actually I just checked this and realised I'd titled the blog "third blo" ... lol, whoops)What a bad week. I mean, it's not had anything that's made it a distinct negative, it's just the lack of any real positives. I went to bed late sunday night from making the last blog, and I slept through my alarm... My phone's got a real nice speaker and everything but it needs to play the tone a little louder, or I need to find a more brutal one, because I remember waking up to music and knowing I hadn't put any music on, but I just went back to sleep for ages with my alarm carrying on.
This is a debate that's been raging in classes, particularly morning ones... Just what is the best alarm technique? If you're reading this and you've got a regular job with regular hours you probably have an alarm, but you're probably in a routine and giving yourself a decent amount of sleep every night. Even with the best intentions, at uni it just can't be done, I'm sure of it.
That is what makes this debate so important. We need these alarms to get us up. A decent 10 or 11pm bed time cannot be sustained, so I don't find myself just automatically coming to at about 7.30 the next morning. That's my alarm's job - it has to get me up. I've always been an advocate, and an activist for the "phone alarming by bed, roll over, press snooze on phone and press play on ipod and get into a couple of songs before getting up" mentality. Admittedly this has failed me many times. It's too easy to think "I'm awake, I'm fine" and turn off the alarm, only to fall asleep again. It's also too easy to fall asleep and just keep snoozing. I think this technique relies too heavily on a "softly-softly" approach - all the effort has to come from you - you have to want to get up. As the majority of my coursemates can attest, a feeling of wanting to get up is not a feeling brought on by a 9am 2hour Macro lecture.
No, another approach is needed. One friend's pointed out the merits of setting the alarm on extra loud and putting it over the other side of the room, forcing you to go and turn it off... and then you're up. In theory this is gold, but as you turn around and look back at your room, the appeal of your bed is often too much. Many a time when trying this technique when I was in school, I collapsed back into bed and drifted off.
Some people allow themselves two or three snoozes, psyching themselves up for the day with each snooze. I think I'm too weak. "Just one more". Of course, the thing that's even worse about this problem is that you don't HAVE to be in the lecture anyway. Its alright to skip it. the notes are online. The lecturer just skims over stuff anyway, all the real detail's in the text book... It's almost a waste of time going to this lecture, right? I can stay in bed, get up in a bit, and do the work then, right?
I need to sort my sleeping out basically. Last night was good - I was in about 10.45 and asleep within about 20 minutes. My only lesson today was at 1pm, so I could have laid in until whenever. I woke up un-assisted by alarm at 7.45 and had a really good morning. Good sleep is the way to go, and it's now a personal aim of mine. The world just feels better on good sleep.
Ok, I feel like I've f'd this blog up. The tangent to alarm technique was quite a big one. And probably uncalled for. It's not even relevant if you're working on good sleep - only if you're going to bed and getting 5 or less hours a night. In this blog I was gnna talk about missing those lectures on Monday, staying up late to finish my deadline for tuesday, handing the work in for the deadline, but going home and skipping that lecture too. I didn't go to a class until wednesday morning this week. I only missed 4 hours, and I genuinely will be better off working from the textbook than just having gone to the lecture, but skipping lectures like that just breeds such a bad attitude. I felt so shitty all through those two days, and through the rest of wednesday since I had no plans until the Utd - Inter game in the evening.
I filled some of the time by eating some retro sweets my Sis got me from America for my xmas bundle. Nerds... And a little cotton bag of gum - "nuggets" < / tangent (which gives me an excuse to put some images to break down the wall of text)>Thursday was better, although a bit of a mission. I had 5 hours from 10 til 3, but it was more a "work hard, play hard" kind of day... Got back and watched tv for a while - the OC to be precise... although Season 4 is pretty poor tbh... Compared to the first three seasons at least. Then played GTA IV... Completed the story mode - very cool, love it. Fooled around on it some more just cos there's so much more to do, then cooked dinner and watched Phone Booth - film with Colin Farrell talking on the phone to Kiefer Sutherland (sp??) in a phone booth... Awesome, I love it! Highly recommended if you haven't seen it.
Anyway, at this point in time (14:38) Im back from my lecture, got my bag packed, minus my laptop, and just waiting for my 14:57 train to roll into the station - going home for the weekend for football as usual. Game against local rivals Winscombe, or Winscum as they're more affectionately known. Meeting ma girlfriend after that, think she's coming over and we're gonna cook some foodage and hang out for a while, it should be cool =D Then will drop her back home Sunday morning and get my ass dropped at the station probably... May end up blogging on Sunday seeing as Ive got a half draft about just random stuff that's floating around my head. Less random than alarm technique, but more serious too. Self-reflection stuff, you know? It could be quite interesting, or it could read as some shitty self-big-upping post, hopefully it'll be interesting and, ideally, you'll be able to relate it back into your own life... It's just something in my head that I'm always tripping over I think.
Anyway, It's now 14:42, I haven't got time to add a load of shitty images to break down the wall of text so I'll post this this evening when I'm home.
P.S. I love you
*saved*
Ah nice, got home with my pops and went in my room to dump my bags, and found a nice little asos delivery on my desk... This awesome tshirt that I ordered earlier this week. Nice!Also, joined Xbox Live earlier on today and downlaoded The Lost And Damned (GTA IV add-on) and the Resident Evil 5 demo too... Which I played for about five minutes, and omg... It's awesome. If you've played it - that cutscene with the axeman and the beheading, then the army bearing down on you... Awesome. I know it comes out today but I've decided to wait until I break up for easter in a couple of weeks until I get it. Seriously though, cannot wait! Resi4 was probably my favourite game ever, and I think Resi5's gonna be up there alongside it. IGN's feature on the history of RE is a really cool read too... building the anticipation very nicely.
Recently Listening to:
- Fall Out Boy - just been dipping in and out of various albums, especially liking the older ones at the moment - take This To Your Grave mostly. An aside relating to Fall Out Boy and my second blog too, Christopher Gutierrez who's staying at our house the evening after his reading/speaking in Bristol can be seen in this video - which is an acoustic of "his song" - Grenade Jumper. He's the guy middle-fingering the camera on the "hey Chris" chorus!
- Linkin Park, especially the feat. Jay-Z album... Numb/Encore is an absolute classic =]
Talk soon guys - thanks for reading. And feel free to leave a message re: alarm technique :P
^Chris Redfield, Mr Resident Evil 5
Sunday, 8 March 2009
the second blog
Hello again all, hope you're well, and thanks for coming and reading my little blog [/ official-sounding intro]
It's been a good weekend. My last blog (as in my first blog) was last Tuesday, five days ago, and yeah, its been a pretty good few days in all. Wednesday-day was particularly unevenetful, I think I overslept and missed my 9am seminar, which I went to later in the week... but it meant I had a day off pretty much, so that was cool. It's easy to feel bogged down at uni, even with such an empty-looking schedule. Each hour of lectures normally entails a further 2 or 3 hours of work, not to mention the revision of last-terms material that I need to start going over, so despite a fairly bare time table time can be pretty tight. Having said this, the day was mostly relaxed away. I had a huge football match to look forward to Saturday, and unlike any match since as far back as junior football I was getting butterflies and those excited/nervous feelings as much as a week in advance of the game... But more on that later in this post.
Wednesday night was very cool. I'm in an Investment Society at uni, which I know sounds obscenely sad, but its something that Ive always been interested in as far back as I can remember - when I'd be sat watching tv with my mum as a kid and she'd flick onto teletext to check share prices. When I was doing my a-Levels I started reading books about the stock market, and when I heard on coming to uni that there was an Investment Society I definitely knew it was something I wanted to be involved with. I loved it in the first year, and got involved for this year by getting a position on the committee. I enjoy it. It's cool. But anyway - regarding wednesday night, our sponsor for the society is a really interesting guy - he's pretty much been there and done it in the financial world, and nowadays his income comes from day-trading his own money... basically trading as prices swing throughout the day. He has some really interesting views on the current economic crisis, which you definitely don't need to be studying an economics degree to be aware of. He claims it's one of the most mis-reported events we will ever come across, so he spoke for an hour presenting his views on the crisis, trying to convert people to the cause basically... and his arguments were pretty compelling. I might outline them later in another blog because I really find it to be some interesting stuff. If this is a sentiment you remotely share, I advise you read his blog left today at 10.48am (Sunday 8th March).
After being given this pretty damning outlook on the current financial state of the world, I went for a drink with 3 friends - a quiet old-man drink where we watched football, talked about stocks and debated various other things in the world. The fun stuff.
Thursday's my buiest day in terms of timetable, I had 5 hours of classes between 9am and 2pm, then I dashed home. It was a pretty relaxing afternoon, I packed and got ready for my Dad to come pick me up. Like I said in my first blog, I go home at weekends to play football. I normally get a train back on Fridays but my dad was working in London on thursday so I hitched a ride back with him. We picked up my sister from High Wycombe (who's also at uni) on the way too, so we ended up getting home about 10pm or something. It was a pretty nice journey. I've got to admit I'm a pretty bad one for kipping in cars - as soon as we hit the motorway I'm out like a light. Time flew.
Friday was a cool day. My mum and sister went out shopping in the morning, my brother was at school and my dad was working again. I got up at a decent hour after a really good night's sleep, I watched Raw (really enjoying WWE at the moment - haven't done since I was about 12 or 13 but loving it at the moment), I think I may have catched up on some corrie and stuff too. Now, in our lounge, we have this beautiful log-burning fire. We get a truck-load of logs delivered at the start of summer, they dry out over the summer, we burn them over winter and get more next summer. But, thanks to the wonders of the British climate, we seemed to have a winter that started in about July last year so we got through way more logs than expected, so we had a delivery a Thursday. Guess whose job it was to sort them off our driveway! I actually quite enjoyed it, there was something quite theraputic about it. I transformed the pile of logs in the 
first picture to the beauutiful stack in the second. There were approx 987 logs. I counted weelbarrows of 30-50 until I had 250 then I stacked them, then brought through another 250. I'm cool. But I wasn't finished - it was such a good day and I'd seen some neighbours mowing their lawns... so I thought Id do ours too, house-husband style. That was another hour or so seeing as the grass was so bastard long. It was a nice day. Very relaxing ahead of the big match, although probably not the best preperation my back could have gone through.
Now this match on Saturday has been built up over the past few weeks as the biggest match in the clubs history. For a club 117 years old you don't take that too lightly, and out management team made it clear to us that it was the biggest match theyd been involved in through 30 years of playing in and managing teams in the club. We'd basically made it through to the semi final of the the County Cup, which involved all the amateur (and some semi-pro) 1st teams in Somerset... So getting to the final four was something the club had never done before. Friday night was cool, my lovely girlfriend came over and my parents cooked a roast dinner, real sunday-afternoon stuff. Beautiful. We watched corrie with my prents and my brother then I dropped her home. Mind on the game now. Slept well, really well. Got up around half 8 on Saturday, which in hindsight was too early. I was doing things to take my mind off the game. Cleaning my own boots is quite a rarity, but I even cleaned my brothers to pass a few more minutes.
Eventually I got down there, around 12.15, and we sat as a team for a while. It was good, then we went down to the changing rooms and got changed and started the warm-up. More and more people started pouring down to the game and it was clear that the messages about it being a big game for the club had been read by a lot of people in our little local paper. There were probably 150 people there, so it was a cool. I'll spare you the details of the game, but I'll probably post a link up to a match report when one gets published, but in the end we lost 4-2. As a goalkeeper (the guy in blue up there) it was a bit of a bummer to let in four, but they were a good team - they deserved to win. There were some cheap defensive mistakes for a couple of the goals but the attackers on their team forced the mistakes - they were well-organised and knew what they were doing. It was a good game and I felt proud to shake hands at the end of the game, congratulate them and wish them luck for the final. I enjoyed it - despite losing a big game it was a good afternoon.
I stuck about for a drink after the game with the guys, then dashed off with my girlfriend. I had a shower then we drove over to hers. Evenings at my girlfriend's are generally very quiet affairs. At mine there tend to be a lot of laughs, my parents probably spend too much time making jokes and telling embarassing stories, then the two of us play some Wii or she goes on GTAIV and kills prostitutes. At hers we tend to sit in the lounge with her mum and watch tv and chat a little. It's cool - I do enjoy it and I've got a cool relationship with her mum, but with her being a pretty quiet person and me being the same it can be difficult. We had dinner - so good after the match, and then watched The Shining. What a film! I love it, so so cool. If you've not seen it then do - although it's a bit bare on giving an actual explanation behind the super-natural sort of events (which I'm sure the book does) the it's still classic.
We watched some Mock The Week because my girlfriend can't go straight to bed after a scary film (lol)... And then today... Today's been a weird day - travelling mostly. Listening to country music in the car - my dad loves it and frankly me and my sistter have gotten pretty hooked on it too, lol. The top song is possibly this one, at least at the moment... Think I've loved it since we had a holiday in Florida when I was around 12 and we had no cds or tapes so just bought this "best of country" tape that was in a service station... This kind of music just seems to have happy memories attached to it for me... Even if most of the songs are about divorce, alcohol or maiming through horse-riding accidents.
The week ahead presents nothing of interest really. I just need to get back on the ball with working for lectures really, it's easy to get thrown off by other deadlines or exams coming up. Having said that I do actually have a deadline for some shocking essay on Tuesday - details possibly in another post.
Anyway, apologies for this long post. I've had a ncie week and it's been good recalling it. I think the next three weeks are just about getting into as much revision as I can. After that, I'm home for a month for easter, then back at uni for a month tops for exams, and then it's summer. Right now the next three weeks are the least attractive part of the bargain, so it'll be nice as these disappear into the past.
Kind regards to you all, and thanks for reading. The next post won't be so long. I promise. Take care, and post some links to your blog if you're blogging :)
Matt.
Currently Playing:
It's been a good weekend. My last blog (as in my first blog) was last Tuesday, five days ago, and yeah, its been a pretty good few days in all. Wednesday-day was particularly unevenetful, I think I overslept and missed my 9am seminar, which I went to later in the week... but it meant I had a day off pretty much, so that was cool. It's easy to feel bogged down at uni, even with such an empty-looking schedule. Each hour of lectures normally entails a further 2 or 3 hours of work, not to mention the revision of last-terms material that I need to start going over, so despite a fairly bare time table time can be pretty tight. Having said this, the day was mostly relaxed away. I had a huge football match to look forward to Saturday, and unlike any match since as far back as junior football I was getting butterflies and those excited/nervous feelings as much as a week in advance of the game... But more on that later in this post.
Wednesday night was very cool. I'm in an Investment Society at uni, which I know sounds obscenely sad, but its something that Ive always been interested in as far back as I can remember - when I'd be sat watching tv with my mum as a kid and she'd flick onto teletext to check share prices. When I was doing my a-Levels I started reading books about the stock market, and when I heard on coming to uni that there was an Investment Society I definitely knew it was something I wanted to be involved with. I loved it in the first year, and got involved for this year by getting a position on the committee. I enjoy it. It's cool. But anyway - regarding wednesday night, our sponsor for the society is a really interesting guy - he's pretty much been there and done it in the financial world, and nowadays his income comes from day-trading his own money... basically trading as prices swing throughout the day. He has some really interesting views on the current economic crisis, which you definitely don't need to be studying an economics degree to be aware of. He claims it's one of the most mis-reported events we will ever come across, so he spoke for an hour presenting his views on the crisis, trying to convert people to the cause basically... and his arguments were pretty compelling. I might outline them later in another blog because I really find it to be some interesting stuff. If this is a sentiment you remotely share, I advise you read his blog left today at 10.48am (Sunday 8th March).
After being given this pretty damning outlook on the current financial state of the world, I went for a drink with 3 friends - a quiet old-man drink where we watched football, talked about stocks and debated various other things in the world. The fun stuff.
Thursday's my buiest day in terms of timetable, I had 5 hours of classes between 9am and 2pm, then I dashed home. It was a pretty relaxing afternoon, I packed and got ready for my Dad to come pick me up. Like I said in my first blog, I go home at weekends to play football. I normally get a train back on Fridays but my dad was working in London on thursday so I hitched a ride back with him. We picked up my sister from High Wycombe (who's also at uni) on the way too, so we ended up getting home about 10pm or something. It was a pretty nice journey. I've got to admit I'm a pretty bad one for kipping in cars - as soon as we hit the motorway I'm out like a light. Time flew.
Friday was a cool day. My mum and sister went out shopping in the morning, my brother was at school and my dad was working again. I got up at a decent hour after a really good night's sleep, I watched Raw (really enjoying WWE at the moment - haven't done since I was about 12 or 13 but loving it at the moment), I think I may have catched up on some corrie and stuff too. Now, in our lounge, we have this beautiful log-burning fire. We get a truck-load of logs delivered at the start of summer, they dry out over the summer, we burn them over winter and get more next summer. But, thanks to the wonders of the British climate, we seemed to have a winter that started in about July last year so we got through way more logs than expected, so we had a delivery a Thursday. Guess whose job it was to sort them off our driveway! I actually quite enjoyed it, there was something quite theraputic about it. I transformed the pile of logs in the 
first picture to the beauutiful stack in the second. There were approx 987 logs. I counted weelbarrows of 30-50 until I had 250 then I stacked them, then brought through another 250. I'm cool. But I wasn't finished - it was such a good day and I'd seen some neighbours mowing their lawns... so I thought Id do ours too, house-husband style. That was another hour or so seeing as the grass was so bastard long. It was a nice day. Very relaxing ahead of the big match, although probably not the best preperation my back could have gone through.Now this match on Saturday has been built up over the past few weeks as the biggest match in the clubs history. For a club 117 years old you don't take that too lightly, and out management team made it clear to us that it was the biggest match theyd been involved in through 30 years of playing in and managing teams in the club. We'd basically made it through to the semi final of the the County Cup, which involved all the amateur (and some semi-pro) 1st teams in Somerset... So getting to the final four was something the club had never done before. Friday night was cool, my lovely girlfriend came over and my parents cooked a roast dinner, real sunday-afternoon stuff. Beautiful. We watched corrie with my prents and my brother then I dropped her home. Mind on the game now. Slept well, really well. Got up around half 8 on Saturday, which in hindsight was too early. I was doing things to take my mind off the game. Cleaning my own boots is quite a rarity, but I even cleaned my brothers to pass a few more minutes.
Eventually I got down there, around 12.15, and we sat as a team for a while. It was good, then we went down to the changing rooms and got changed and started the warm-up. More and more people started pouring down to the game and it was clear that the messages about it being a big game for the club had been read by a lot of people in our little local paper. There were probably 150 people there, so it was a cool. I'll spare you the details of the game, but I'll probably post a link up to a match report when one gets published, but in the end we lost 4-2. As a goalkeeper (the guy in blue up there) it was a bit of a bummer to let in four, but they were a good team - they deserved to win. There were some cheap defensive mistakes for a couple of the goals but the attackers on their team forced the mistakes - they were well-organised and knew what they were doing. It was a good game and I felt proud to shake hands at the end of the game, congratulate them and wish them luck for the final. I enjoyed it - despite losing a big game it was a good afternoon.I stuck about for a drink after the game with the guys, then dashed off with my girlfriend. I had a shower then we drove over to hers. Evenings at my girlfriend's are generally very quiet affairs. At mine there tend to be a lot of laughs, my parents probably spend too much time making jokes and telling embarassing stories, then the two of us play some Wii or she goes on GTAIV and kills prostitutes. At hers we tend to sit in the lounge with her mum and watch tv and chat a little. It's cool - I do enjoy it and I've got a cool relationship with her mum, but with her being a pretty quiet person and me being the same it can be difficult. We had dinner - so good after the match, and then watched The Shining. What a film! I love it, so so cool. If you've not seen it then do - although it's a bit bare on giving an actual explanation behind the super-natural sort of events (which I'm sure the book does) the it's still classic.
We watched some Mock The Week because my girlfriend can't go straight to bed after a scary film (lol)... And then today... Today's been a weird day - travelling mostly. Listening to country music in the car - my dad loves it and frankly me and my sistter have gotten pretty hooked on it too, lol. The top song is possibly this one, at least at the moment... Think I've loved it since we had a holiday in Florida when I was around 12 and we had no cds or tapes so just bought this "best of country" tape that was in a service station... This kind of music just seems to have happy memories attached to it for me... Even if most of the songs are about divorce, alcohol or maiming through horse-riding accidents.
The week ahead presents nothing of interest really. I just need to get back on the ball with working for lectures really, it's easy to get thrown off by other deadlines or exams coming up. Having said that I do actually have a deadline for some shocking essay on Tuesday - details possibly in another post.
Anyway, apologies for this long post. I've had a ncie week and it's been good recalling it. I think the next three weeks are just about getting into as much revision as I can. After that, I'm home for a month for easter, then back at uni for a month tops for exams, and then it's summer. Right now the next three weeks are the least attractive part of the bargain, so it'll be nice as these disappear into the past.
Kind regards to you all, and thanks for reading. The next post won't be so long. I promise. Take care, and post some links to your blog if you're blogging :)
Matt.
Currently Playing:
- GTA IV
- FIFA 09 (As the mighty Nott'm Forest (random team choice) lost the Charity Shield on penalties to Man City (in 2011 season) after a John Arne Riise (??) style last-gasp own goal conceded.. shocking)
Watching:
- This man's dvd "The Make Your Mark Tour" - Christopher Gutierrez
- Frasier Season 6 - just finished today. Will have to borrow a new season off ma gf now.
Tuesday, 3 March 2009
the first blog
So I'd guess the first blog is the hardest. I mean, if I post again in a few days then I need to tell you what's happened in the last few days... do I need to tell you what's happened in the last 19 years in this post?Resisting the temptation to do that in a tiny font, I s'pose I'll just start by going through where I am... what I do... who I'm with, these sorts of things. Im sure the picture will build up as I keep posting... or like Catch Phrase those little tiles'll disappear... Revealing more and more of the weird little picture beneath. And as our journey progresses we will, I'm sure, find the picture beneath to be quite a weird one.
I'm at uni - Royal Holloway University of London - in Surrey. I study economics, which is pretty interesting stuff for the most part, although I could live without regressions and so on [reference for econo-nerds]. I've got a beautiful girlfriend, and although we're only 19 and 20 (i'm the younger!) we've been together almost four and a half years now... Times can be tough with her being at uni in Southampton but we generally see each other every week or two... And when we aren't seeing each other often, there's always MSN, webcam and so on. Long distance hasn't been too bad in my experience.
Going to see her in Southampton is always a nice trip. She's one of those people who just seem to be able to make anywhere feel really nice and homely, so being at her uni house is a treat. Mine, on the other hand, is quite a way from perfect. It's not the worst - it's a big enough room, but everything's old, it's usually cold and even though I keep it tidy old stuff in a grubby house just can't feel too homely. The feeling of impending doom hangs over me in this house too... quite literally. In august, a month or so before I moved in, the ceiling collapsed above my bed... some furniture got destroyed and it was pretty ugly apparantly! The landlord fixed it himself... which isn't great news. And since the rain started theres a growing wet patch in the beautiful designer wood-chip wallpaper where the wall joins the ceiling... and again - right above my bed.
This is part of why I love visitng my girlfriend, and a factor in my decision to go home at weekends. Yeah, it's a 2 hour train journey to Bristol Temple Meads, followed by a 15 minute walk and a half hour car journey, but its the home cooking, the warm house, the comfy bed - they keep me sane. I don't think I could stay in this house for weeks on end without a trip away like I could in our nice house last year. Also last year I was out of sport because of a shoulder injury, so this year I play for my team back home at weekends. I'm happy with the set up - I enjoy the football and I've got a lot of friends through it, being home keeps me sane... and I get to watch all the TV I Sky plussed in the week.
And if you mouse-overed that link, you'll see I'm a big corrie fan. I love it. Maybe it's because its technically the mother land for me or something, even though I have no northern accent or anything, or maybe its just quality television. My guess is you disagree with the latter of the two reasons. Most people do. I don't - I love it. I generally also catch up with WWE while I'm home, sitting up with my brother on a friday night and watching monday's show followed by friday's when it starts. Yeah, my fridays are pretty dull. This is partly compulsory - the football management won't have hungover players - and partly by choice... I just love a lazy evening at home.
And speaking of lazy evenings... that's exactly what Ive got planned for toni
ght. Going to make pasta and meatballs for dinner I think, or maybe bolognese and get comfy and watch a movie. What movie? I'm not sure but I've got a decent selection to choose from... On the shelf behind me I've got TWELVE sealed DVDs... twelve! When you go into supermarkets for the weekly shop there's always the dvd shelf, and there are some real bargains there... I always see a few films there that I've wanted to watch for ages, and they're all like three or four quid... so I end up picking one up everytime I go in, forgetting that I never seem to have the bastard time to watch them. Another thing contributing to the twlve-stack is Woolworths. The mighty retail empire. The day the one shut down in Weston Super Mare over the Christmas holidays I'd had to drop my girlfriend off at the shop she works at for highstreet opening time... So i was conveniently placed to have a scan of the Woolworths shelves before everyone else got in there. I've never watched a Bond film, and I take a lot of stick for it... But they had those special edition ones in there RRP £13 or something like that, but they were all £3, so I got the five different ones that they had... I've just not watched any of them yet. Then there's also Christmas presents too which has added to the pile. I'm not ungrateful! I love presents! And they're awesome films, or in the case of the last link, just awesome... I just don't make time to watch them!
So tonight, I might get the pasta and meatballs (seen left, minus the meatballs/mince) and watch Phonebooth, which I bought a couple of weeks ago, awesome film and only and hour and a half long (how much longer could you make a film about a phone booth??). I think I'm webcamming with my lovely lady later on MSN too, which will inevitably lead to checkers and solitaire showdown, complete with taunting from the winner and rude gestures from the loser... So I'll probably be gesturing.
Girls should be worse at games! I still do't understand how she beats me so bad at Wii Play, even though I introduced the game to her ages after I started playing! Oh well =[
I'm getting peckish now and need to squeeze the film in before we chat so I'll end my first blog post here. If you have any opinions on either a) my life or b) the dullness of my blog [or c) the dullness of my life] feel free to leave them as comments or whatever the norm is.
I just felt the need to start this blog because I have a lot of thoughts that I wouldn't mind putting down on paper, especially recently, and because I've started reading a few peoples' blogs recently and quite enjoyed them.
So yeah, that's it for now. Will see you all soon..!
I'm currently/recently:
Feeling: relaxed, blue
Watching:
P.S. - apologies Kermit for taking inspiration from your blog a little! And thanks for the FB tag earlier you bbbbb..
I'm at uni - Royal Holloway University of London - in Surrey. I study economics, which is pretty interesting stuff for the most part, although I could live without regressions and so on [reference for econo-nerds]. I've got a beautiful girlfriend, and although we're only 19 and 20 (i'm the younger!) we've been together almost four and a half years now... Times can be tough with her being at uni in Southampton but we generally see each other every week or two... And when we aren't seeing each other often, there's always MSN, webcam and so on. Long distance hasn't been too bad in my experience.
Going to see her in Southampton is always a nice trip. She's one of those people who just seem to be able to make anywhere feel really nice and homely, so being at her uni house is a treat. Mine, on the other hand, is quite a way from perfect. It's not the worst - it's a big enough room, but everything's old, it's usually cold and even though I keep it tidy old stuff in a grubby house just can't feel too homely. The feeling of impending doom hangs over me in this house too... quite literally. In august, a month or so before I moved in, the ceiling collapsed above my bed... some furniture got destroyed and it was pretty ugly apparantly! The landlord fixed it himself... which isn't great news. And since the rain started theres a growing wet patch in the beautiful designer wood-chip wallpaper where the wall joins the ceiling... and again - right above my bed.
This is part of why I love visitng my girlfriend, and a factor in my decision to go home at weekends. Yeah, it's a 2 hour train journey to Bristol Temple Meads, followed by a 15 minute walk and a half hour car journey, but its the home cooking, the warm house, the comfy bed - they keep me sane. I don't think I could stay in this house for weeks on end without a trip away like I could in our nice house last year. Also last year I was out of sport because of a shoulder injury, so this year I play for my team back home at weekends. I'm happy with the set up - I enjoy the football and I've got a lot of friends through it, being home keeps me sane... and I get to watch all the TV I Sky plussed in the week.
And if you mouse-overed that link, you'll see I'm a big corrie fan. I love it. Maybe it's because its technically the mother land for me or something, even though I have no northern accent or anything, or maybe its just quality television. My guess is you disagree with the latter of the two reasons. Most people do. I don't - I love it. I generally also catch up with WWE while I'm home, sitting up with my brother on a friday night and watching monday's show followed by friday's when it starts. Yeah, my fridays are pretty dull. This is partly compulsory - the football management won't have hungover players - and partly by choice... I just love a lazy evening at home.
And speaking of lazy evenings... that's exactly what Ive got planned for toni
ght. Going to make pasta and meatballs for dinner I think, or maybe bolognese and get comfy and watch a movie. What movie? I'm not sure but I've got a decent selection to choose from... On the shelf behind me I've got TWELVE sealed DVDs... twelve! When you go into supermarkets for the weekly shop there's always the dvd shelf, and there are some real bargains there... I always see a few films there that I've wanted to watch for ages, and they're all like three or four quid... so I end up picking one up everytime I go in, forgetting that I never seem to have the bastard time to watch them. Another thing contributing to the twlve-stack is Woolworths. The mighty retail empire. The day the one shut down in Weston Super Mare over the Christmas holidays I'd had to drop my girlfriend off at the shop she works at for highstreet opening time... So i was conveniently placed to have a scan of the Woolworths shelves before everyone else got in there. I've never watched a Bond film, and I take a lot of stick for it... But they had those special edition ones in there RRP £13 or something like that, but they were all £3, so I got the five different ones that they had... I've just not watched any of them yet. Then there's also Christmas presents too which has added to the pile. I'm not ungrateful! I love presents! And they're awesome films, or in the case of the last link, just awesome... I just don't make time to watch them!
So tonight, I might get the pasta and meatballs (seen left, minus the meatballs/mince) and watch Phonebooth, which I bought a couple of weeks ago, awesome film and only and hour and a half long (how much longer could you make a film about a phone booth??). I think I'm webcamming with my lovely lady later on MSN too, which will inevitably lead to checkers and solitaire showdown, complete with taunting from the winner and rude gestures from the loser... So I'll probably be gesturing.Girls should be worse at games! I still do't understand how she beats me so bad at Wii Play, even though I introduced the game to her ages after I started playing! Oh well =[
I'm getting peckish now and need to squeeze the film in before we chat so I'll end my first blog post here. If you have any opinions on either a) my life or b) the dullness of my blog [or c) the dullness of my life] feel free to leave them as comments or whatever the norm is.
I just felt the need to start this blog because I have a lot of thoughts that I wouldn't mind putting down on paper, especially recently, and because I've started reading a few peoples' blogs recently and quite enjoyed them.
So yeah, that's it for now. Will see you all soon..!
I'm currently/recently:
Feeling: relaxed, blue
Watching:
- Frasier - a morningly episode with the breakfast
- WWE
Playing:
- Half Life 2 (Orange box) - 360
- Fifa 09 - 360
Reading:
- Enter The Dragon; Autobiography Theo Paphitis
- The 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People
- Robert Peston blog
P.S. - apologies Kermit for taking inspiration from your blog a little! And thanks for the FB tag earlier you bbbbb..
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