So, I have nothing to blog about.

Literally nothing has happened that would be even remotely interesting in the last few days. There are a few small things, but not enough to really make a blog about. What the hell, I’ll type about them anyway.

I cut my finger on a knife. It hurt a lot, and it bled quite a bit, Hannah (she lives in my block) had to rescue me with a plaster. It didn’t really have an effect on my day.

I made enough rice to feed me for 6 days. Yes, 6. I think I need to work on portion sizing a touch. It is delicious though, which is good, because I’m going to be eating it for a while.

Last night I went to the pub with a few people. Nothing particularly interesting happened, I forgot my ID so I couldn’t even drink anything other than fruit juice. Made it cheaper at least, but it’s not exactly fascinating.

I went into town to buy food. This really was a boring thing to have to do. I found a street fruit market that was selling things cheaper than Sainsbury’s, so now I have food again. This is a good thing; I like food...especially cheap food.

The rest of the books for Creative writing cost me £32.50, and that’s only because I split the cost half and half with another girl in my class. Otherwise it would have been £65.00 and that’s a lot of money to come out of my account. So there’s that, it happened. It’s just not that interesting.

Now I’m sat here, thinking about going to the pub, then remembering that I have no money. I might get some reading done tonight, because to be honest there isn’t a lot to do. I don’t even have to cook for myself for a while. I might make Goulash tomorrow and freeze it, because that way I’ll have to cook even less often. I have some meat that really needs using up. No lectures tomorrow so I may as well spend the whole day cooking. Saves time in the evenings.

So yea, sorry this wasn’t the most exciting blog. But nothing has happened so I really don’t have anything to blog about. I’ll have to do something fascinating soon so that there’s something to write about.

Lectures and a night out

So, lectures have officially begun now, and I have a ton to do. So much so that it’s been keeping me from blogging as often as I would like to. I was expecting there to be a lot of work, I really was, but there’s a fair amount more than I was expecting for the first week. I don’t honestly mind the amount of work we have to do; I enjoy the subjects so it’s not an issue. I just need to re-learn some time management skills! For creative writing, by Monday 10^th I need to have written the first 5 pages of a prospective novel (double spaced that’s about 500 words which doesn’t sound a lot but when it’s on a totally random idea you pulled out of your arse in 10 minutes in class it’s tricky) and alongside that I have to read and note my responses to A Clockwork Orange by the 17^th. I have had the misfortune to have struggled through A Clockwork Orange before, and I am not looking forward to having to read it again. It’s one of those books that I can honestly say I cannot stand. I will happily read things even when they’re not in my favourite genre, but I draw the line at a limp plotline and made up words. Nobody should be permitted to make up so many words without even including a glossary. I mean really, it’s stupid. I hated this book at GCSE and having gotten to chapter three this time around, I know that I’m not going to like it any more than I did then. It’s not even that well written! So yea, Creative Writing is looking to be a lot of work.

Religious studies hasn’t been that heavy yet, though I’m pretty sure it will be. We’ve had a lecture on Sikhism which was brilliantly interesting, but there’s been no work set outside of lessons other than reviewing the lesson schedule and making sure we pick up at least some of the recommended books on the reading list. We don’t need all of them and we can use the ones in the library as much as we want during essays anyway because it doesn’t matter if we own them or not. So long as we include them in the Bibliography we’re laughing. It’s good because religious studies books are pretty darn expensive; if I had to buy all ten of them I would be properly broke. Well, more broke than I am now. That said, at the moment money isn’t so much of an issue as it could be, though I’m fully expecting it to get a lot worse as the year goes on.

As much as there is a lot to do, I took last night off and went to a club in Bath with the people I share a kitchen with. There will be pictures at some point, I will put them in a later blog (if I remember) they’ve just not been uploaded to Facebook yet. It was a really fun night and I’m so glad I decided to go; I wasn’t going to join everyone originally. Once we had finished in the club be and my Roommate decided that we wanted chips, like you do. We walked to a burger van ensuring everyone else that we would get the next bus and be home really soon. You can already tell that THAT plan failed. The first, and only, burger van we found had a massive queue. We were slightly tipsy so we were prepared to wait. We were so close to getting our food when a homeless guy decided to attack the van, smashing a window and making the man owning the van close up. So we started walking up town to see what else we could find. About half an hour and some conversations with random people later we found a Kebab shop and the chips we wanted. At this point I should mention that I was wearing 4 inch heels and I had been standing / dancing for a good few hours. From the top of town we then walked back to the bus stop. About 3:30am we stumbled back to campus, I had taken my shoes off and I think that was the better option. This morning I discovered that not only were my feet black, but that I had a blister on every toe. Needless to say it hurts. I have no idea what would have happened to my poor feet if I’d kept my shoes on any longer.

It was a good night out though, and I’m glad I went. Bit knackered today though. Ah well, such is Uni life.

Ugh

Warning, this will be a little bit ranty. Well, maybe a lot ranty.

Everything in uni itself is going really well, worry not dear followers, it’s everything it should be. I just hate that it’s all so expensive. I bought 5 of the books on my required reading list and it cost me more than a weeks worth of food...on a bad week. So I’m fairly glad I had some money put aside before coming here for books and things or I’d be living off literally nothing at the minute. I could maybe see the expense if I had bought them all new, but half were from the Oxfam book shop! I don’t have all the books I need yet either, so if anyone has Speak Memory by Navokov, Larry’s Party by Carol Shields or Elephant by Raymond Carver and they want to lend them to me, I would be grateful! I can more than likely get the rest from the Library. Hopefully.

 I just don’t see how the university expects us to be able to buy these things right away. It’s not like we have a lot of money to spend on books. Perhaps there should be a book section on the student loan or something, I don’t know. They should definitely put something aside for academic materials. I guess the government don’t understand how short money is when you’re 18 and jobless. I’ve been looking for jobs don’t get me wrong, but most of the ones out there are either while I have lectures or need me to have a car. I don’t have a car and I certainly can’t miss lectures to go to work. So I guess for now I have to keep looking while hoping for the best. Something will pop up eventually; it has to, even if I end up as a librarian in the university library. It will be better than nothing at all.

At least lectures are good. Creative writing seems to have attracted a brilliant group of people. I don’t think I’ll get on with all of them, but the majority are very lovely. It’s fairly interesting content too; the book list has some interesting things on it...as well as some pretty awful things. We’re starting out with A Clockwork Orange. I really didn’t like it at GCSE so here’s hoping it will have grown on me by next week. We don’t stay on one book for long though so it shouldn’t be too bad. There are a fair few to get through after all. I’m trying to persuade everyone in the class to take part on NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) not sure how many will but you never know. The entire month of November I’ll be blogging about NaNo (if I can stay away through the long nights) so I won’t talk about that now. Religious Studies is also proving to be interesting. We started with Sikhism today, there are a lot of Indian words dotted about that I’m struggling with a bit, but it should sink in eventually. It’s just terminology at the end of the day. I like that we’ve not started with a western religion, it feels like I’ve done them to death in my years at school, though at the same time it’s strange to be starting out with something that I literally know nothing about. Ah well. At least it shouldn’t be boring.

Time to curl up on the bed with a book again; I have so much to read in the next two weeks I don’t think I’m going to be doing much else! Hmm, that wasn’t as ranty as I thought. Hurrah!

Lectures and Societies

I have, as of today, experienced my first two lectures as a university student. Oh dear lord. To say that they were dull would not entirely be correct, they would probably have been interesting enough were it not for the fact that it was about 100 degrees in the lecture room (even next to the window where I was) add in easily 50 plus people and you have what is essentially an oven.  I found myself looking out the window, hoping and wishing for a breeze, even a slightly warm one, to float its way into the room. For goodness sakes, it’s September and the weather is carrying on like we’re in the middle of July! Equally making the lectures less than simple was the fact that the topics were completely obscure, it’s like they were related to nothing at all. It felt a bit like we had been thrown into lectures more than a week in without any warning and the assumption that we would catch up. Maybe they’ll all be like that, and I’ll always be shell-shocked in the afterhours. Who knows? I’m hoping that the prose workshops / lectures will make much more sense to me than the poetry ones at least. Prose makes sense to me a good amount more than anything poetry related, so I will live in that hope.

After a few sleepy hours of lectures it was time to choose my societies, once I managed to escape a very excitable rep for the cheerleading society that is, who seemed convinced that she could persuade me that I had always wanted to jump around in very little clothing waving pom poms. She seemed put out when I told her that I really wasn’t cheerleader material...twice. The societies fair was pretty interesting though, you can apparently become a member of as many societies as you like, but I have stuck with two. I first joined Knitter Knatter (the knitting society) which seems to be entirely made up of girls so it should be a lot of fun; they give me free wool and needles just for becoming a member. Membership was only three pounds! It seems like a good deal to me. There are no trips planned, no strange excursions, just weekly meetings where we sit, and chat, and knit away to our hearts content. Hopefully there will be large amounts of pattern swapping and technique sharing. I still need someone to teach me how to cable knit.

 I have also signed up to the BSL (British Sign Language) society. While I had planned to join some kind of knitting group I hadn’t really considered joining a signing group, as I only know the basics of sign these days and even then my precision is, well, imprecise. The group will offer lessons and teach us all a bit about the deaf community. Might even be some volunteering work in it, who knows. I think it’s pretty darned important that people learn at least enough sign to have a conversation with someone who is deaf, even if they’re with speech. I’ve just felt a little rude expecting them to lip read all the time, expecting them to cater to us. So I’m doing something about it. Maybe enough others will do the same someday and we can finally move towards some kind of worldly equality. Ok, so I’m not entirely hopeful about that bit, but it will be good to learn all the same.

I think it’s now time to make myself a cup of tea, then snug myself up in bed with a book and read till I pass out. No mad parties for me tonight. I’m just too tired.

University Life

It struck me today that I’ve been rambling on about being at uni without actually taking any pictures of the place. So today is going to be a photo blog! I will try to make these more often, with pictures of nights out and other interesting things, but I’m not great at remembering to take pictures so this might not be a regular thing.

The campus is seriously beautiful, there are trees everywhere, and the buildings are old and really quite pretty. There’s even a lake!  I’m pretty certain I’ve walked the whole campus by now; I’ve found a few nice places to sit and read (as well as a few trees to climb). I guess all in all I’m settling in quite well. I’m still without a roommate, I might get one at some point later in the year, or I’ll just get really lucky and not end up with one at all. That would be nice. I’m still not certain how well I would do sharing a room with another person, I guess I would manage but sometimes it’s nice to be able to shut the door and not have to see anyone. Especially when you’ve not had a great deal of sleep.

So this is my little room. It’s twice the size of everyone else’s room, but there are two beds and two desks in it so the actual floor space available is pretty small. I’ve managed to squidge everything in so far, but it’s not very tidy! Though I never have been a tidy person. Some of the things in here could go upstairs now that I know and trust my flatmates, (well mostly trust), but I’m used to having it down here now. If I took it all upstairs I would only forget what I had done with it. All I need now is a tiny fridge so I can have a pint of milk up here. Tea first thing in the mornings is definitely a necessity.

That’s it; this is my world for the next year. Lectures start properly on Monday and I will just have to let the wind take me. I might just find something interesting to say one of these days.

Nights out and Freshers Fairs

So I wasn’t planning on going out last night. My housemates had other ideas. After about half an hour of persuading I was escorted downstairs by three girls and they helped me choose my outfit. I ended up in a red flowery tube thing, with heels...and makeup. There are thankfully no pictures of this venture. When I walked back into the kitchen one of the guys that I live with didn’t recognize me for a minute. Thankfully everyone has decided that tonight will be a quiet night inside. I might even get some time to work on the book, something I’ve so far not managed. While the student union is awesome, and the drinks are cheap, I don’t think it’s something I would be able to do every night.

We had introductions to the courses today. Everything seems to be what I expected, though philosophy and religion aren’t joined, I have to pick one. That’s a bit of a strange concept, I’m not sure that it’s really possible to ever fully separate philosophy and religion. Maybe that’s something we’ll cover during the course. The groups seem to be a good size though, not overly large. I don’t think a huge class would be a good thing. The tutors are all nice people, they seemed happy to answer even the most obscure questions about the running of the course. I think a few of the people in the classes themselves might end up annoying me, but that happens with anything. I think the first year will go pretty much as was planned. Now all I have to do is pick societies. I’ve been told that there’s a knitting society which might be worth a look. I really love knitting!

Just chilling in the kitchen now, listening to some music, thinking about what to have for tea. Such big decisions we students have to make!

First night

So I survived my first night at Uni. Hurrah. I am so far sans roomie, but that might change today. More people are apparently moving in so we never know. Everyone else in the flat seems to be nice, though they’re all somewhat hung over this morning. Makes me quite glad that I don’t really drink that much, I don’t entirely think I would want to be in the same state as them this morning.

Last night was pretty good fun. Went down to the union to see what it was all about, and actually managed to have a fairly good night. There was a jazz band on who were seriously brilliant, even Charlie danced. Charlie never dances. There was some kind of plan to drink but we gave that up after one shot of Tequila. Note to self, I really don’t like tequila. I ended up being fairly boring and coming home about one. After a day of moving boxes and sorting things out I was pretty shattered. Not sure why I thought I was going to be able to sleep, everyone was still partying around me. Eventually I managed to drop off; with the duvet over my head. It almost felt at home. It quietened down about 2am. I really should have taken some pictures of the night. Would have been a fun start to the year. I’ll remember that for tomorrow’s blog.

Time to have another tidy up, just in case the roomie does arrive today; I don’t want her thinking I’m too messy. I have a lot of stuff to fit into a fairly small space though...

I'm BACK

What’s this? A blog post?

I know I know, I’m a terrible blogger, and it’s been forever since I made a post. I promised I would up my game, but...I didn’t. This will change!

Mostly because I’m going to university tomorrow! I know! Managed to pass my A levels, 5A’s and a B. Oh Hell Yes. So I’m carting my arse off to Bath Spa for three years. Religious Philosophy and Creative writing, it’s going to be something of a rough ride, but it will more than likely be fun. Everything is packed into the Mother’s car, except my pc...because I’m typing on that...and tomorrow morning we’ll set off for my new life. Hurrah. I’m excited, but I’m nervous. I mean, living away from home for the first time. Sharing a room with someone for the first time, that’s probably not going to be fun.  Well it might be, I don’t know. So much responsibility, so little time.

Choosing what to take and what not to take was a bit of a cow.  I bagged up SO MANY CLOTHES to go to the charity shop along with bags and books and those little bits that I didn’t really need but wanted so badly to hold on to. Still, it’s all gone, all in the past. I couldn’t take everything with me, so it was a case of deciding what’s really important. Needless to say, all my shoes have been packed. No shoes will be left behind. Equally all of my corsets have been packed, I don’t care who disagrees with me, corsets are vital if I am to survive three years in uni. I have also stuffed all the blankets I own into the car, I figure if I have to choose between heating and food I can still be warm. I’ve had to leave a lot of knitting behind for the time being. – Insert sad face here – I just haven’t got space for it all. So until I figure out how to get it all into my fairly small shared university dorm room it will be living with Papa.

So that’s that. Tomorrow I set off for a new chapter in my life, and I will do my best to drag you all along with me!

EXAMS ARE OVER!

So everyone, I am back from exam hell and blogging again. Sorry I’ve been away so long but there’s only so much a person can do, and juggling work and exams was pretty damn hard work. Thankfully they are now all over. Huzzah!

So what exciting things have been happening in my life? Apart from exams there has been friend setting up, camping with Papa, quite a bit of gun usage, lots of stress, some piano playing, very little knitting and the consumption of GALONS of tea. I think that sums it all up...oh one last thing...I’M FLYING TO MAINE IN 2 DAYS!!!!

From the exact moment that I am writing this (22:25 – 21/06/2011) it is 24 hours until I am on a plane and flying away to a country bigger than all of England with a smaller population than my little town. It’s going to be so very amazing, with lagoon swimming, fishing, BBQ ribs and happy happy friends. I’m just so very excited. All my clothes are packed away, my hand luggage is even packed, I have an ESTA and tomorrow I will be getting my dollars and reserving an aisle seat for ease of walking to pee. For this trip, I have even bought a Bikini. No, you cannot see it.

More exciting news, once I’m back from Maine I will be keeping myself busy with lots of things, which I will keep you updated on nearer the time, and then on August 8^th a dear old friend of mine will be travelling down to stay with me for a week! It’s going to be so very awesome, and something tells me we’re going to me mischief making most of the time...there is a possibility that this will involve drinking...

So that’s that, eight exams later I couldn’t be happier that I’m back. I will keep you all updated as much as I can while I’m in Maine, and there will of course be a chronological string of photos from my trip for you all to enjoy, just like there was for Iceland 2011. This summer is looking to be a good one!

Exams

I am sadly absent due to my exams. I will have many interetsing(ish) things to post once they are all over and done with.

Sorry guys!

Viva La Diva!!

Yes it was awesome. The day show was incredibly fun, walking about with Stacey looking at clothes (I bought a hat! Hooray for hats) and having Fish pedicures (which by the way was awesome). Something that I wasn’t entirely prepared for about those fish is how much they tickle when they’re nibbling away at your feet! The guy actually took a photo of me because I was laughing so much he thought it would make for good advertisement. It was a lot of fun.

The fashion show was a bit strange. Most of the models didn’t seem to know how to walk in heels, and it would appear that they were told to have no charisma at all! Still it was interesting to watch while my manicure dried. Honestly, I wouldn’t advise going to Tutta Bella for nails, they were pretty terrible. I also came away from the day with a BEAUTIFL pair of shoes. They are truly the most beautiful things that I’ve ever had on my feet. Real leather, nice heels, and only £10...I think it’s the best pair of shoes I’ve ever bought.



4" heels and I'm still tiny!!



The evening party was equally awesome. Corset, serious heels and a 50’s style swing dress, good friends and great music is really a recipe for one of the best nights ever. Admittedly after a good few hours the corset was getting slightly tighter than it could have. Still, it was worth it. I managed to find out that even in a corset and 4” heels I can get one foot up onto the bar, which was interesting! We also found out that I am totally incapable when it comes to swing dancing. I can still down a double of Jack Daniels no trouble though!

All in all, it was a good day. I met awesome people who I will hopefully be spending more time with soon enough, and had rather a lot of fun!

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.