Back at college...when did THAT happen?

Having two weeks of blissful freedom has really driven home how much college sucks ass these days. I mean, I have to once again get up stupidly early, and ride through horrible traffic, to lessons which at this point are mostly useless, spending money I would really rather save, all in an attempt to pass a few exams to get me into Uni, where I will keep on working until I’m totally burned out, to move into a job which will consume the rest of my life. Now, like every other student out there I understand how very important university is. It’s the start of your future, and if I work hard now I will have a better life then and bla bla bla bla. Honestly? I would rather study at home, get to eat, sleep and pee whenever I want, and still (maybe) pass my exams and get to university life a lot further away from mental exhaustion. Sure I would have had less fun (debatable) and met less amazing people, but that doesn’t excuse college for the amount that it sucks.

Take today. Today is a Wednesday, nothing much really happens on a Wednesday because I only have one lesson, with a useless teacher, and only about 8 people ever actually turn up. That’s on a good day. It’s now gotten to the point of ‘revision lessons’ which means that we copy out of books while the teacher makes very little effort at all. Literally, for an hour and a half today, I stared at the same page full of statistics that she has never bothered explaining wondering why I had bothered getting out of bed. I learned nothing and when the lesson was up I went home. Is that productive? I think not. Nobody gets anything out of those lessons, and our exam results suffer from it. We all stressed about the Psych exam so much in January because half our lessons were spent learning nothing. I was lucky, and I did ok, but it might not have happened that way.

Tomorrow will be another strange and annoying day, because I will have from 3:30 till 6 doing nothing at all. I could go home, theoretically, but come on we all know how expensive petrol is and this broke ass student wants to buy a plane ticket to Maine this year! So, I wait about. But I’m not allowed to wait in the library unless I hide myself away, oh no, the library isn’t somewhere students are allowed to go to be quiet. What the hell is the deal with that? If I want to sit and read a book I have to play nice with the young curly librarian and hope he ignores me sitting between the German and French course books. It’s not like anybody needs to go down those shelves. If, however, I was part of a large group of people sat at the tables all doing no work at all, listening to music and watching videos on the internet being generally loud and disruptive, I would be able to stay there no problem. College, you really have got it backwards there. I want to be quiet in a Library, they are being noisy, and you try to throw ME out?

Summary? The early mornings suck, the lessons are mostly pointless, there is too much work, no time and it’s all getting really very stressful!

Adam's House, what an adventure!

I'm at Adam's house!

It was rather a trip to get here, rather than the normal traveling on the back of his bike, or even in his car, I decided to ride my own, small GS125 the 90 miles north. Adam decided to come and meet me, he wasn't entirely happy about me making the ride all the way on my own the first time. I'm not sure why really, I could have managed it, but I guess he worries about me.

For him, it's about a 2 hour trip from his house to mine on HIS bike. I knew that it would be rather a longer trip than that, but I had not been entirely prepared for just how long it would be. My dear old bike doesn't do much more then 55mph, 60 when I'm really going for it. With everything packed away safe in my top box we set out just after 10am. By half way I had realised what a foolish thing I had decided to do, I had been vibrated to within an inch of my life, I could feel neither my hands, nor my feet, and I was questioning whether my ass was even there anymore! It had been quite a lot of fun, but the difficulty of keeping such a rickety old bike at such a speed was wearing me out rather.

It was taking it's toll on my little bike as well. From that point on I think she was starting to get tired as well, she didn't like going up hills so much anymore, and 60 seemed much more of a struggle. By the time we had finally reached our destination she was close to giving in, she was making a terrible ticking noise and pulling away was much slower than she had been. I think she was as glad to stop as I was when we eventually made it to the house. That was yesterday. Today, after an oil top up and a quick clean she is still tapping. We don't think it's anything serious, and we're pretty sure that if I ask her nicely enough she will get me back to Home alright on Monday. I'll let you know how that goes.

For now I'm just relaxing somewhere different to home.

Googling yourself

This is a BAD idea. Just for fun I thought I would Google a regular user name of mine along with some key words. I didn’t think much would come of it, and I was curious. SO MUCH INFORMATION, like seriously, someone could stalk me with that. Well, it was only one forum that I’m currently a member of, but still. It’s a fair amount of information. From there anyone could get to my blog and see even more about me and my life and then to my twitter and they could see my friends and more than likely find out where I live and then they could come to kill me!

Ok, so maybe not that bad, I can’t think of why someone would want to kill me really. I’ve pissed a few people off in life, but never THAT much. It’s still a little bit of a sobering thought though that anyone could find me so easily. All the information I got came from a couple of minutes looking, if a person was to actually want to spend some time looking god only knows what they could possibly find out. I’m not saying that I’m going to paranoia out and delete everything that links me to the internet, because...well...I like the internet. I am, however, going to be rather more aware of how easy I am to find.

I know I said it was a bad idea, and it will be slightly scary, but type your name / username into Google sometime along with some random words like ‘writing’ or ‘blog’ or  anything really, just see what comes up. I’ll bet it will be more than you might imagine.

Music

So, like a lot of people out there in the world I really struggle with the question ‘what kind of music do you listen to?’ because honestly the answer is I’ll listen to most things. I find, increasingly, that people don’t like a lot of music. In fact their tastes are rather limited. This isn’t a good thing as far as I’m concerned. Sure everybody has particular songs that they don’t like listening to, myself included, but I think discounting a whole genre of music is frankly foolish. Only when somebody has listened to every single song in that genre, and wholly disliked every single one of those songs can they definitely say that they do not like listening to that music style. Until then, I really think that we should keep our minds a little more open.

So far I’ve not found myself disliking any genre as a whole. I like everything. For example, I really like the old classic rock. I was taken to see Thin Lizzy for my 18^th birthday, and that was awesome. It’s the music I grew up with.

I’ve been playing piano a lot of years, which has given me a love and respect for classical music.

I also enjoyed going out into town recently and dancing away to the new club hits, most of which I didn’t know the names of. When the opportunity arises, I thoroughly enjoy going to see folk singers like Maddy Prior and Steeleye Span.

Since I’ve been belly dancing I have listened to a lot more of the Arabic style music and again, I’ve really liked it.

 Music is something that is totally subjective, we all like and dislike different things, but I still don’t think it’s worth hating a whole style of music because there’s one or two songs you don’t like.

As much as I do like most music, there are some things that I really can’t stand listening to. Not whole genres, just songs. Umbrella is a song that I simply cannot stand, not because it was on the radio so often when it first came out, but because I find it a musically lacking, lyrically strained tedious load of crap. Sorry if you like it, you go on liking it, just don’t make me listen to it. 

 I’m equally not a fan of the later Michal Jackson works. Somewhere along the line I think he just something and his music reflects that. This one especially. I don't know why exactly, I just can't stand it.

I don’t like Sean Kingston’s beautiful girls mostly because it pretty much stole the bass line from Ben E King’s Stand By Me, which was an amazing song.

I like rock, but I don’t like any of this screamy crap. “Singing” like that will destroy your vocal chords eventually, and until it does that we’re all stuck being subjected to the torment of that travesty trying to call itself music. I’m not even going to apologise to anyone who likes that stuff. Nor will I have it on my blog.

So there’s a little insight into my musical head. It’s a very little one, going through everything I listen to would take hours, and it would get boring really fast.

Men are just idiots.

Another rant on its way. Just to warn you all now.

Firstly I should say that I am not generalising this to ALL men. There are lots of them out there, I’m sure, that are wonderfully lovely (I’m dating one of them, hooray for me) but most of them just seem to be dicks. They don’t think with their big brain and they seem to understand nothing at all when it comes to us women. A good example comes when a woman says ‘I’m fine’ in that tone we all know; most other women are sucking air through their teeth like a shifty mechanic, but the man will just say ‘okay’ and assume he’s no longer in the crap. Good tip for you men: you’re always in it, only the depth varies.

One particular man is sparking my annoyance at the moment. He was a fairly good friend, though I never fully trusted him, but a good enough friend that I thought it would be a good idea to introduce him to one of my other friends. The woman in question is one of the best people I have ever known, she’s totally up front and honest, no falseness or back stabbing there. We all had a fairly fun weekend together, they got on really well, we had a few drinks. It was really a lot of fun. Over the weekend they did get a little closer than I might have recommended, but actually I figured this guy was one of the better ones so I didn’t step in and interfere. Their lives after all, it’s not like she did anything that I would have said was way too far, she’s not like that. Respect the third date rule. The weekend finished, he went home they kept on talking, everything was peachy. Until she said that she wanted to slow things down, that she wasn’t ready for what he wanted. A perfectly reasonable thing to say right? Apparently not. From that moment he has done nothing but cause her pain, pain that she doesn’t deserve at all. He’s called her some really horrible things that I don't want to repeat, he said that she led him on, he even went as far as calling her a slut. So much bull has come from him in the last few months I’m struggling to keep up with it all.

He hasn’t taken any hints that she doesn’t want to talk to him anymore either, because even after all this he’s trying to get back in with her. Is he stupid? Well actually yes he is, he thinks what he’s done can just be swept away and it will all be fine. He doesn’t even see that he’s upsetting her, he doesn’t get that she doesn’t want to talk to him even when she doesn’t reply to any of the messages he sends her. If it was me, I would be telling him quite plainly where he could go, with some men you have to be as blunt as a brick to the face. Unfortunately she’s far too nice and polite to do that, and she doesn’t want me to do it because it could cause problems elsewhere. Personally, I don’t give a crap if the knob hates me forever. He deserves to be in much more pain than he is at the moment in my opinion. Pain that I would quite like to cause.

Gah. So much idiocy, so few bullets.

Painting the kitchen

I like painting walls. It seems a strange thing to like, but whenever I set about painting a room something funny happens. So recently we have had plasterers in, which was confusing for me when I stumbled downstairs in my pjs to find strange men in the kitchen, but I remembered why they were there fairly quickly, made a cup of tea, and left them to it. So now we have nicely plastered walls in the kitchen. Hooray! Time for paint.

When painting new plaster you have to put on a base coat, with lots of water in it, so that the plaster can absorb the water and then won’t absorb the actual paint when you put it on. It’s fairly simple really. Rather than buying crazy expensive base coat, you can buy cheap white paint, water it down by half, and get with the painting. Saves money in the long run. The first time we (mum and I) tried this it was a disaster. The paint had gone off and it was all lumpy like cottage cheese, and when we tried to water it down and put it inside the special roller that smooshes (yes this is now a word, live with it) it out onto the walls it didn’t work. What ended up happening was us slipping with the special roller and pouring about a pint of cottage cheese paint on the carpet. Thankfully, our carpet is old and grey and with the help of a tea towel you can hardly see it now. It still rendered both mum and I useless from giggles for about 5 minutes because somehow we had poured paint everywhere.

Time to get new paint. This would have been easy if the car wasn’t away being fixed. So we had to go to my grandmothers, borrow her car, take that to B&Q, buy paint, come home, and try again. During all of this the MOT place called and said that mum’s car was ready to be picked up. It took the best part of an hour to buy paint in the end. Once we got home it was easy to water down the paint and start working. The first job was painting around the light fittings on the ceiling, with runny paint this is harder than it sounds and within about 5 minutes I was in a giggle fit again with paint running all the way down my arm and into my armpits. It was very VERY cold. I had started, so I was determined to carry on, but by the time I was done it looked like I’d been attacked by a toddler art session. There may well have been more paint on me than on the ceiling at that point. So I decided to move to the walls.

This is where we discover that I am not good at using a roller. Getting paint even on a wall is actually quite hard. Lesson from today, I’m not good at painting...but it’s still a lot of fun.

Party, yay! Hangover...Oh Dear Lord

So I’ve not blogged in AGES! Sorry about that, been busy busy busy, mostly planning for the awesomeness that was partying on Saturdays. Now, I’m not normally a party goer, in fact I really try to avoid them because they involve a lot of people. I don’t really like people. But it was a very dear friends 18^th and so I made an exception. It was actually a lot of fun.

We spent the good part of half a day shopping with the intention of looking for the right dress, I’m picky about what I wear, but she’s even pickier when she has to be seen out with me. We actually found an amazing dress in the first shop we went into, in the sale, for half my dress budget. It was a good start to the day. Then we mooched about for a while until we decided that I really needed some shoes too. I know I know, I’m a woman, I need shoes. Again, first shop we tried, first pair I saw and liked, they were perfect. We still had budget left! At this point we are both very happy, and both certain that it is lunchtime.

Kate, being the genius that she is, took us to this little café place tucked away in a corner that sells THE BEST SANDWITCHES KNOWN TO MANKIND. We spent some time there, munching away on meaty deliciousness, but it soon became time for jewellery shopping. There is only one place to get cheap and tacky jewellery that you don’t mind getting lost in Swindon, and it’s called Aura. Their stuff can be pretty good, sometimes, but most of it is plastic and awful. Regardless we went in to have a look, and ended up coming out with some jingly bangles which would look pretty nice next to the dress. A quick trip to M&S for some hold ups and shoe gel inserts and we were done. With everything bought, it was time to go home and use the next 3 hours to watch comedy shows get ready.

For any girl getting ready to go out is a long and complex process. It started with a quick shower, so my hair was wet, so that Kate could take to it with straighteners and half a can of hairspray. After about an hour I had wonderfully straight hair (it stayed straight all night too, that’s a first for me). There was a lot of chatting in between each step of preparation but I have cut them out for the sake of time. Getting dressed took little time at all; we already knew what we were wearing so it wasn’t much of an issue. Makeup took about 20 minutes for the pair of us and we were all set. Out the door by 8 and being driven into town. Let the party start.

Town involved a lot of dancing, a lot of drinking...and a lot more drinking. In total, looking back, I had about 20 shots...possibly more. I didn’t even feel that drunk! Though again looking at the pictures I definitely was. Oops. We danced ourselves out, got in a taxi, and went home to bed. I don’t think I’ve ever fallen asleep so very quickly, I don’t even remember getting undressed, I remember giving up trying to get all my makeup of (and yes I looked like a panda in the morning) but I don’t remember actually getting into the bed that Kate’s mum had made up for me. I woke up in it so I will assume I got there myself. The morning, for about 20 minutes, was blissful. I felt brilliant. Then the hangover struck like a few tons of bricks. Everything was suddenly horribly bright, and very loud, and I wanted to curl up into a very small ball and stay in the dark for a few years. This I could not do, I had to take the walk home. It was not a walk of shame, but it sure as hell felt like it. Once I was back in my own house I passed out on my bed, in the dark for a good 4 hours. It didn’t help. All of Sunday was a headachy blur to me.

It was worth it for an awesome night, but I don’t think I’ll be doing it again any time really soon.

Why do I not have more money??

Argh there are so many things that I want to do at the moment that I simply have no way of doing, all because of these silly little pieces of paper we all call bank notes. Seriously things should be less expensive! I’ve recently been to Iceland, and yes that was amazing but it cost a lot of money, and I will soon be taking my bike test which will again take money. Paying for general life is not as cheap as you might imagine it is for a student (what? Coffee is expensive alright!) especially now petrol is getting more and more expensive even for someone on a little bike like mine. Damn you British economy!

I have recently started planning a very far off trip to Maine, because I have awesome friends there who I really want to go and visit, I will have time in the summer during which I can take this trip, I have a place to stay and the friend in question will even pick me up from the airport. So why is this trip going to be an issue? You’ve guessed it, money. Plane tickets are really expensive even if I want to fly in the worst and most uncomfortable seats possible and being over there will more than likely not be cheap. Then there are the little things like needing to actually own a swimsuit and possibly a different hat to the usual one, or even just getting a big enough suitcase. Going over there for a week would cost somewhere close to £1000 which is just too much for a broke as crap student to manage. So I have a plan.

My exams are all over and done with by June 21^st, by this time I plan to have already passed my bike test...hopefully...which will leave me free to make money to do what I want with. If I can get enough saved up for at least the first half a year at university I am going to start putting money away to go to Maine. Yes people, this WILL happen. It might take me till October, but I’m determined that I will get there, and it will be awesome. What’s the fun of never doing anything that you want to do just because something stands in your way? I can work 18 hour days, heck I will have a 7 hour flight to catch up on sleep. The system tries to screw us all over by making everything horribly expensive, well screw YOU system, I’m going to do what I want to do whether you like it or not.

It will be a lot of hard work, but hey I’m a woman, I can do anything. Maine, it’s not quite here I come but keep a look out. I will be on my way.

Parents evening and awful drivers

Tonight was another slightly painful parents evening full of frowns coming from Papa as every lecturer tells him that I work well but I’m too chatty. I’m sure he already knows this but time and time again they feel the need to tell him. Surely it would be easier if they just told me to shut up? They never do. He’s pretty pleased with my grades at least (though not so much with that one U, one time, in an irrelevant psychology test that will never matter ever again) so I shouldn’t have to worry about nagging. Though he will be watching me like a hawk now making sure I revise. Bless him, I know he only does it because he wants the best for me; it is nice to know that it all matters to him. Maybe I’ll get him to test me on Kantian Deontology, or the pros and cons of the Ontological Argument, really confuse him! Once all these exams are out the way I’ll be much much happier.

The other thing really bothering be in the world at the moment is other drivers. Now I am quite obviously a woman on a motorcycle, with learner plates. I know that this makes me a huge target. I still don’t see the need for all other drivers to act like total dicks every time they get anywhere near me. Are they so impatient that they don’t want to stay at 40mph down the road? Because last time I checked that actually was the speed limit. Similarly, why would you want to undertake me only to slam your breaks on so that I have to do the same and end up in a nice sideways skid? For starters that seems a little bit rude and while I will happily hold the horn on for a very long time and shake my fist at you it’s not the way I would choose to ride home. Car drivers need to learn bike awareness on their tests and have it re-enforced every 10 years or so just to make sure they remember to stop trying to run us all off the road.

Even worse than the car drivers are the cocky little ped boys that think they’re so amazing trying so hard to stick to my arse. They ride these little things that have about the same power output as a ride on lawnmower, and then they don’t even wear gloves! If you’re going to ride like a dick at least wear something to protect yourselves from your own stupidity. They weave about the road, with their feet on the pillion pegs, trying to impress their friends I suppose. Good way to get yourselves killed there lads. I equally hate the way they all rev their little engines while sitting at lights or under a bridge. That just makes you look like a twat, so stop doing it ok? Eugh, mopeds, I really don’t think they should be legal at all, they’re just not safe or sensible.

To end on a high note. A few weeks ago I was pulled over by a police man and breath tested. Ok, so it was like last month, but it still makes me giggle. I had had...a few coffees (ok like four in a row) and was a little hyped up for the ride home. I ended up sat at a set of traffic lights that I know take FOREVER to change so I thought I would make the wait slightly more interesting. I put my bike into neutral, took my hands off the bars, and started dancing. No I was not listening to music. Whilst I was dancing I failed to see the police man pull up behind me in his big white and yellow police car. Once we started moving I did see the blue lights telling me to pull over. Balls. He was really very surprised to find that I was not in fact drunk and he sent me on my way with a warning. The joys of being an eccentric loon, I guess it keeps life interesting.

Anniversary and Pac Man.

Last weekend my boyfriend and I celebrated 4 years together. 4 years down the line and we’re still happy, I think that calls for a hooray us. He’s such a sweetie, he bought me perfume and a pair of gorgeous earrings then we spent a whole evening snuggling on the sofa watching TV. Not the most romantic thing I know, but it was just perfect. Without sounding too mushy, he really is wonderful. Plus, my parents and my friends all like him, definitely onto a winner. Now I’ve flaunted how awesome my relationship is, onto the slightly crazier part of this entry.

So as we have already seen I am a great big nerd, I play computer internet spaceship games and like to spend my time knitting and crocheting. To most other people it’s a massive waste of time, time that could be spent at parties with actual people, but I like my life. Out of this massive nerdiness (is that a word? It is now!) sometimes comes a wonderful thing, I have recently created one such thing. Crocheted Pac Man! I know I know, it sounds a little mental, but it really is awesome....honest. I had a pattern for a flat Pac Man that you can knit into clothes and it just wasn’t enough, so out came the thinking cap and from this we produced (as I am calling him) Pac Man 2.0. He’s such a fun little guy isn’t he!

I’ve managed to make the ghosts as well. They’re pretty tricky little things but I managed it. I totally love this, I’m combining nerdy with nerdy to make some crazed hybrid super nerd me! I tend to get a little excited about these things, but this time it really is worth the excitement. Presenting...Pac Man! I’m thinking I might set up an account on a craft website I frequent and sell the little guys, could make a small amount of money I guess, that’s always good. Might be able to make enough to go to Iceland again next year! Well maybe not that much but it might be a nudge towards petrol.

So watch this space and tell the world, Pac Man is on his way.

Aaah so much college work!

Why is it that college teachers will set you no work for weeks on end, then suddenly all of them will set you an assignment in the same week and expect it due in the week after. It’s like they all think that none of us have anything better to do with our time than work on things for them; at the same time they each individually think that their subject is obviously the most important and that their work should take precedence over everything else, this includes subject essential coursework and even exams. This really frustrates me.

Like many college students I have a part time job, mostly so I can afford to get myself to college and back, but not one college subject takes that into account. They will all set work and say, I want it in for this time and I might say to them, well that’s impossible because I can’t do everything at once, but all they tell me is that I will have to manage. Seriously? That is their brilliant solution? A classic example of this comes from the New College Sociology department who in their infinite wisdom have decided to rerun the massively unpopular talk about the exams, given by a chief examiner. Last year this was an entire day’s worth of torture, from which most people escaped half way through the day, it was too terrible to sit through. We all told the Sociology Department what we thought of their day and despite our comments they are running it again and telling us that we have to miss lessons to attend. Stuff you Sociology. Not only would going to that lecture make me miss some lessons that are actually important but it would also send me home an hour later than normal meaning that I have to miss work. No thank you.

Nobody gains anything but stress from the amount of pressure that college education adds to the general turmoil that is life as a teenager. If anything it makes the entire transition from child into adult so much harder, who wants to grow up when it turns out to be such a ball ache? As it is I’ve decided that this weekend I will do no work at all. I know that there is work due in but I’m going to do it on my terms and spend my anniversary weekend with my boyfriend rather than doing some crappy piece of homework that will not benefit my life in any way. Perhaps if you decide to make the work worthwhile I will spend more of my valuable free hours giving a damn about it.

For now, I’m going to finish crocheting Pac Man and the ghosts that go with him.