Rhymsicality

So for tonight's blog I think I will try to summarise my experiences today, in verse!

Twas the morning of Tuesday,
and all through house four,
students were sleeping,
until a knock on the door.

Ollie awoke,
to find in dismay,
he had missed his tutorial,
and slept through the day!

He looked at the clock,
a quater past noon,
which he concluded,
"a lecture I have soon".

So he brushed his teeth,
and carefully shaved his beard,
then jumped in the shower,
but something was weird.

Instead of a trickle,
great globs of water fell,
someone had taken the shower head,
"Damn them to hell!"

So still smelling of sleep,
to his lecture he did go,
and he sat and he listened,
as his neighbours nodded to and fro.

Back to Eastwood he went,
hungry and tired,
regretting how late last night,
he had retired.

He searched through his cupboards,
to no avail,
for so close to christmas,
he thought shopping was fail.

Then behind a pan he spotted,
what seemed to be,
some chicken, some noodles
and red thai chilli.

So he threw them together,
with his culinary skills,
and it tasted good,
(but not as good as phil's)

Full and content,
Ollie went out into Bath,
searching for gifts,
down the usual path.

He looked high and low,
but the gifts he had in mind,
try as he might,
he just couldn't find.

Tired and weary,
his eyes came to rest,
upon acceptable gifts,
which admittedly weren't the best.

He payed at the till,
and hoped in the end,
they realise he tried,
and would still be his friend.

Remembering next,
his cupboards were bare,
Ollie nipped into sainsburys,
to buy chinese for those back at the lair.

After an arduous journey,
up Bath hill,
three mince pies later,
snow did spill.

Back in the kitchen,
after the snow had ceased,
Ollie did cook,
a veritable feast.

With spring rolls, noodles,
prawn toast and chow mein,
duck pancakes and seaweed,
their stomachs did strain.

Feeling really quite bloated
they went to lie down,
putting their feet up,
after trudging through town.

Whilst Mark went upstairs,
Ollie and JD,
sat glued to the screen,
watching The Big Bang Theory.

Mark reappeared,
with a box full of cake,
and a bag of fudge,
which his dad did make.

After a slice,
they couldn't eat more,
so they watched more tv,
until Phil came in the door.

The band was together,
so JD playing guitar,
coaxed Phil into singing,
they didn't get far.

Eyelids were heavy,
and late was the hour,
so they said their goodnights,
before sleep did overpower.

Brushing their teeth,
and climbing in bed,
their thoughts turned to tomorrow,
and what lay ahead.

The small explosive hypothesis

Right, seeing as Christmas is almost upon us, and everyone is parting their separate ways, I've decided I will start to blog more, I will also dig out my camera over the holidays (or find the wire to hook up my phone - I have a hunch its located in the 'Man Draw' at home).

Here we have a sample photo of the 'Man Draw', to the sides of Mt.Entanglement we have the Light bulb Forest, through which a stream of allen keys, nuts, bolts and screws run, over which
the Phillips head screwdriver provides a crossing point, which will lead you to the (un)read brick path of instruction manuals, which will eventually take you to the shining halls of the great glass city of Spar Chainge, whose silver and copper foundations gleam brilliantly across the land of 'Mandraw'. (And now I see why Karys does this! this is fun!)

But back to the blog!

Primarily, as I will not be seeing the faces I have become accustomed to everyday for these past 3 months, this will be a means of hopefully keeping in touch via the blogosphere (and not being driven barmy by my parents). But before I list out the numerous tasks I have to complete this holiday, I will list out the numerous tasks I have to complete before going on holiday.
(This is mainly for my benefit, as not to forget stuff before I return home)

• Tuesday - Go to shops, buy small milk and a couple of ready meals to last till Friday.
• - Do tutorial sheet, go to tutorial, eat mince pies, go to lecture, forage, nap, go to shops for Xmas presents I still haven't got (!)
  
• - Try and get Gerald and Phil to eat out or do something as its our last evening together till next year!
• Wednesday - Go to lecture. Finish lecture. Jump for joy.
  
• - Do some washing so I actually have some clean clothes to go out in, this evening.
• -Go town and have shakeaway before Gerald goes home ( sad panda).
• - Somehow go to gv fire session if its on, go for a drink with Giles in parade, and have our tutorial group party.
• Thursday - NO LABS! WHOOP! kick back, socialise, pester Phil, recover from Wednesday night, pack most of my stuff I'm taking home, then go to social Xmas party (yes, another one).
• Friday - Recover from Thursday night, go to the one lecture I have (damn you Price!) meet brother and mother in town for lunch, then go back, load up the car, and finally after saying goodbye to the remaining housemates.... go home!.

And then when I do get home:

• Course revision, including writing up a full set of neat notes on each and every unit and topics so far.
• Meeting up with mates for drinks.
• Be cooked food!
• Sleep.
• More Sleep.
• Practice Guitar
• Sit on the sofa, alot.
• Zonk out in front of the big plasma tv.
• Watch the rest of the BBT
• At some point celebrate Christmas.
• Eat much turkey.
• Regret eating much turkey and start a new years excercise regime which last approximately 1 day.
• Find gameboy, and pokemon cartridge.
• Catch them all.
  
• Find Camera.
• Play computer games. Then play some more.
• Remember about revision the weekend before coming back to Bath.
• Panic.
• Come back to Bath and see the people I was missing over the holidays.
• Update Blog.

Oh and incase you missed all the Big Bang theory references or are wondering what that's about, me and Gerald, watched season one over the last couple of nights. It was epic, I'm hooked

.
My brain is melting and my face is falling asleep on the desk, so I think its time to switch off the blog, and go to the land of nod.

Peace out yo!

Oli

P.S I think I speak for both Phil and I when I say: 'Chocolates Sophie? Really, you know us far too well! Thankyou very much, and merry christmas......*scoff* *rustling wrappers* *scoff*'

Not so homeward bound.

Well, after a pretty deep low, the tail end of this week really picked up and I was having a great time. (My thanks goes out to all the ethanol out there).

And so I get woken up by a phone call this morning, (well some minutes past 12:00), which is my mother calling to say that molly got put down last night.

Now, I've had a multitude of pets over the years (seeing as I live on a farm), horses, cats, dogs, guinea pigs, a parrot and have looked after peoples hamsters/rabbits/African snails/rats/mice/chinchillas/tortoises/reptiles ...etc etc. Invariably, as most of these predated me, they kicked the bucket at some point during my lifetime, many times I was there at the time, and so I am well accustomed to the loss of a small furry animals life. In, general, I usually feel that for whatever reason they have died or had to be put down, there was nothing I or anyone else could have done, and it was their 'time to go'.

This time, is different, I wasn't there when it happened. In fact I haven't seen Molly for approx 1.5 months and was quite excited about the prospect of seeing her again and watching her tail wag violently in excitement as I get back from uni. Now, I haven't had the chance of saying goodbye, If I hadn't been at uni, she still would have had an inoperable tumor on her bladder (well, financially inoperable, 7 grand for a specialist operation at a veterinary college) but at least I would have had the chance for a final goodbye before she set off on a final voyage to the vets.

I was told about my grandfather dying in the same way, he died from salmonella from a bad goose egg, I knew he was ill and I got to see him, but I didn't know he was so ill that I wouldn't see him the next day. At the time I was about 7, really the only memories I have are being bounced on his knee and helping him grow veg in the garden. But I remember that when I got woke up the next morning and my mum told me he had died, I wasn't particularly upset, but I didn't realise what was happening at that age, I just went to school and everything was the same as normal. My other grandad died before I was born, or when i was very small, because I have no recollections of him.

But that's straying away from the main point that, I wasn't there when it happened. My dad, must be in bits (at least on the inside), because he has always had a 'one man and his dog' relationship with any big dogs we had. Jimmy (before my time), Jilly, (first weimaraner), and molly now. My dad has always been the best provider, making sure the rest of the family has everything they want, and keeping happy fixing things around the farm, running with the dog and looking after the horses as things to occupy his time between working at home. I just hope he is ok.

and for those who don't know what a weimaraner look like:

A weimaraner puppy (with a docked tail, which we never did to ours). I always remember the summer we got molly because we got back from picking her up, and the man to install sky tv arrived. Was one of those amazing days, when you get a puppy and a broad range of awesome tv channels!

Our first weimaraner was a particularly clever dog. Molly wasn't, she was a bit dim, but nevertheless very affectionate and loyal. She knew when she had been naughty, because she makes a face like in the picture above where she wrinkles her forehead and makes the most innocent puppy eye look imaginable.

These aren't pictures of molly, but they are of similar looking dogs. Some wiemaraners are quite stocky and powerfully built where as molly was thinner and more greyhound like, she also had a longer and thinner face.

She also liked to sing of (course!). If you sang a song near her she would start howling in a (very roughly) similar fashion.

And there was the one time she was out for a run with my dad, and she chased a squirrel through a barbed wire fence ( >.< ). Which my dad had to carry her back home and then go get her stitched up at the vets. Was a really nasty gash that sliced right down the side, but it healed remerkable well and there was only a very small scar left.

I could reminisce for ages, but im sure you're terribly bored by now.

Merry christmas peeps o/

The good, the bad, and Oli

Mood status: Sunk to the bottom of the abyss where light cannot reach. Its dark, wet, cold and its a good thing there arent any sharp objects near me.

Guitar Hero

So, apparently, I'm in a band! As lead guitarist! Now this raises some points that need to be tackled:

• I need to learn to play the guitar...
• I need to learn how to learn music (again, there was a brief stint when I was about 7 or 8 when I played the keyboard and sung in the choir, but I distinctly remember being able to read music)
• I need to see if I can acceptably sing... (probably not)

Right, now I have learned to play The Pirates of the Caribbean theme song, and The Good, he Bad and The Ugly today. This is a good start, I can tell I made progress because my fret fingers hurt!
Our .... ukuleleist (?!?) Phil, now has a ukulele, this is win, and will definitely help the band. JD and Phil have been busy working on their first songs, where as I, have been more worried about being able to play the guitar than start rewriting my cover song (hush hush top secret). I will definitely have this done by the weekend.

I'm in a band! I have band mates! Life is good! Apart from terribad questions for physchem tutorial! But I ate KFC tonight! So life is still awesome! *gets increasingly high pitched until inaudible to human hearing, but the mice are impressed so its all good*

Last note on this update goes to Karys, uber thankyou in advance for doing your magic artist voodoo to make The Half Time Pies' wonderfulicious graphics! <3

Y T?

So tonight I was made an expertly crafted chocolate broastie by JD, and a cuppa. Now I've never been keen on drinking tea or coffee and since I hadn't tried either for a very long time, I thought maybe my palette had changed.

Apparently not, it tasted like someone had mixed some dirt into hot water (No offence meant to JD it was a 'good' cup of tea, certified by veteran Phil). So to be polite, I kept sipping away at my cup of tea, I think Phil and JD picked up on the signs that maybe I didn't like it. However, I then suggested maybe adding some sugar to it, wrong move, apparently sweetening tea is blasphemous in the hot beverage world. I added two spoons of sugar, this definitely took the earthy edge off the tea off and made it slightly more pleasant. However by this time the tea was getting cold, so JD noting the situation quickly disposed of the tea (seemingly forgetting I had added the sugar, much to his disapproval) downing the last 1/4 of the mug in a few seconds.
Sorry guys, I guess Tea just isnt my thing.

Update on the Monster (Mash...du du du da)!

17:01 - Awake and and attentive during tutorial, chatty and talking faster than usual afterwards, met some nice Greek people in Nat's (chemistry tutorial group) flat on parade.

Side note its funny watching Greek people who haven't acclimatised to English weather (mwahaha, that's what you get for living in a hot country)!

Will now go to last lecture of the day, hopefully energy levels will not sharply drop during the oncoming lecture, leaving me incapable of maintaining consciousness!

Giggidy giggidy! :D

18:33 - Energy lower - still perky all the way through lecture, got to play with liquid nitrogen at the end of the lecture ( UBER fun ). Hopefully caffeine low will not hit until I go to sleep.

Simon's Cat

Be ye a cat lover or not, take a gander at these...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s13dLaTIHSg&feature=related

Caffeination 4 d Nation

There has for about a week been a rather large can of ominously painted energy drink in the fridge, which no one has dared to drink. Today, I shall boldly attempt to consume, and note the effects of thon drink on my energy levels thoughout the day. Aparantly there is 28mg of caffeine per 100ml, this is a 500ml can, so a nice total of 140mg of caffeine. To put that in perspective:

Choc bar: 35mg

Coke: 45mg

Coffee: 80mg

Stay-awake pill: 100mg

This may, or may not, allow me to stay awake in the 4 hours of lectures and tutorials this afternoon.

Its time to 'Unleash the Beast!'

P.S. If I don't make it, tell my housemates... the kitchen is going to be a complete tip!

Note to self #1

When coughing violently in bed, make sure forehead is adequately away from the edge of the side table.

BLEURGHK!

... is the exact phrase I used this morning as I rolled out of bed. The entirety of my nose,mouth and throat had been cemented with phlegm overnight. There's feeling rough, and then theres feeling rough as if you shaved with a cheesegrater...

Ceilidh A.K.A Irish speed dating

Generally, as a human being, I try my utmost to avoid any event in life which could cause social embarrassment to befall me. But tonight, for lack of anything interesting to do, I decided to tag along with Phil and JD to Irish Dancing.
I followed P and JD sheepishly down to the cath soc, where we were led out of the university and into nearby Claverton's village hall.
Now, I haven't been in one of these halls since I was yeigh high, for birthday parties and confirmation sessions. As soon as I entered, I could almost imagine being back in junior school, pulling up a stool, with a handful of other kids and listening to biblical stories (or dancing around to awful cheesy songs and eating jelly and ice cream whilst playing stick the tail on the donkey).
However, this time, there was a band at one end of the hall, strumming out a fairly Irish beat as we looked around to size up the potential others we would be jigging with. To my surprise, (most of) the girls there were actually very good looking. The same could possibly be said for the guys, but seeing as I was there, I dragged the average look score down to a -3 (on a scale of 1-10).
Now really cheesy scripted jokes aside, the band, 'Haywire' were pretty good. The violinist I thought was amazing. I may be slightly biased, as I love the sound of violins, but still.
(Personally, 'Hayday' may have been a better name for their band as they were quite.... not young)
If dancing awkwardly in a room full of a whole bunch of random people you have never met wasn't daunting enough, being partnered up with a member of the opposite sex and then made to hold hands, dance (and try desperately to remember their name, even though you will switch partners in about 10 seconds and then have to try remember their name) whilst simultaneously not stepping on peoples feet, REALLY takes the biscuit (or did Phil take the biscuit *checks for a trail of crumbs leading to Phil's room*). It was basically speed dating for people who like to dance strangely to almost Irish music.

For my £7 entry fee, I also received a ploughman's dinner which consisted of bread, cheese, crisps, salad and some cherry tomatoes (yuck), and optional relishes and pickles (also yuck).
JD, saw thon (Don't say I never try to learn stuff) tomatoes as small spherical projectiles capable of being juggled, and subsequently I tried this too. Now, way back when, my mother always told me not to play with my food, and I gleefully obeyed. Oh, how wrong I was! Playing with your food may be bad table manners, but boy is it fun!

During this brief interlude of food, JD(being JD), managed to get talent scouted by the violinist (or something like that). Me (being me), came to the conclusion that some people are just innately awesome and opportunities like this are akin to me receiving junk mail in the post.

*warning* - From this point on the blog descends into the inner workings of my mind and possibly a side of me you would rather not read about... but I need somewhere to write this stuff .

Also at this point in time, I made another profound development in my cognitive processes: I am a depressive social leech. On my own, I am nigh on always depressed about something, around other people I can mask this (not particularly well) but enough that a smile will make it seem that nothing is wrong. This however leads me to be quiet and generally an unwilling participant in most social interactions.

The last few weeks I tried to change this, by emulating someone who is by defacto 'awesome'. This seemed to work, I was meeting new people, making new friends, learning new things and then I realised that no matter what I do I will always be me. Therefore, intrinsically boring, unhappy, unfulfilled and eternally lonely. Human contact is something I rarely experience, and to see the disgust on peoples faces (peoples initial reactions are clearly visible for a fraction of a second before they think about covering them up) when forced into holding hands with me is something that I may be projecting onto others (or not), but is still something that causes alot of pain.

Faith and hope are not things that I posses in vast amounts; I have little hope, and I have little faith, in myself and in others. Without either of these, chances are slim that I will ever meet anyone willing to overlook physical flaws, and with which I can connect on a deeper level.

In conclusion, this is why I will never go speed dating....

I have reason to believe one of my housemates is a...

... Pogonophile!!!!

My highly acute skills of deduction have deduced that at least one amongst our house is, in fact, a pogonophile. A person with an irrational love of facial hair. My suspicions were first alerted when a 'Beard competition' was announced by a certain housemate, who at this time will remain anonymous. We shall allocate said housemate a randomly selected letter of the alphabet to protect his identity: 'J'.

There are many reasons that have peeked my suspicions; we shall list them as follows.

1. Housemate J, is known to bring up the subject in random social interactions, members of the Christian Society have witnessed the aforementioned behaviour whilst giving J free toast and another housemate we shall call 'P' can attest to this.


2. J is known to be partially incapable of developing his own facial hair. This is yet to be confirmed as the stem of his psychological condition.


3. Other housemates have been put under strict beard questioning which we will refer to as 'The Great Beard Inquisition of 2009'. J will gain as much information as to the facial hair behavior of other housemates, often lulling them into a false sense of security by showing them his sideburns. Housemates soon discover that these sideburns are in fact FALSE! Such lies from a trusted housemate, I was in total shock when I discovered this sordid secret for myself.


4. J has also been spotted fraternising with many non housemates with ...interesting hairstyles and beards.


5. The accused when question makes no attempt to disguise the fact that he likes facial hair...

... this readers, leads me to believe that J has no remorse! Authorities are yet to comment on these stunning revelations, and with the Pogonophile Register still under hot debate, there is clear uncertainty as to whether this perpetrator will get away with his crimes against innocent beards.

So readers, if you too have sizable facial hair and are travelling through the Eastwood area, make sure you are aware and...

...keep watching the skies!!!

Its not Woking properly!

Ok, so a tip for anyone in Eastwood DO NOT USE TUMBLE DRYER 4!! It does not dry anything and I came back 50 minutes later to find that my stuff was still wet....

Pyromaniacs Anonymous

By far the best night of freshers was spent with gravity vomit on Wednesday evening. The fire n glow session was spectacular, and sated my deep desire for watching fire and shiny things!


Although I hadn't expected to be able to play with the fire that evening because I had only picked up a staff the night before. But to my surprise all those years of twiddling random sticks at home had paid off, and I was actually fairly good at it!


Now, the slow capture photos are not the best indicator but the first thing I learned was how to burn off the excess paraffin. This consisted of rolling the staff between your hands and flicking it up into the air and bringing your arm down on the staff. My attempts at this were a bit lame and often wonky, but some of the more experienced members kicked up some pretty big streaks of flame into the air. You could feel a wall of heat pass over you as people did this, which on a cold evening felt very good.

But the most attractive prospect of wielding a staff burning at either end is most probably the high you feel from knowing that you are playing with something dangerous. You have managed to tame this raw element of fire into doing what you want it to do (and of course make you look good whilst doing it!)


So in short, bring on next Wednesday!

Freshers week - the end of the beginning

This week seems to have occured outside of the space time continuum. It seems months ago that I was sat, nervous, about the prospect of moving to a different part of the country and knowing absolutely no one. I almost didn't come but I am SO glad that I did.

At college I was never one of the crowd, tending to shy away to the outskirts of social circles. However, I took away a handfull friendships that will last a very long time.

Quality > Quantity

Now, i'm not going to admit to being the greatest of conversationalists but apart from the alcoholic slur, im doing pretty well (sobriety and silence seem to go hand in hand with me). So already i've made more amazing friends in a week than I did during the whole of college!

Shout out to: JD, Joe, Mike, Gareth, Phil, Tom, Harry, Sam, Dickson for being the best housemates in eastwood (and possibly westwood in Mike's case).

Fresher's Week will forever be regarded as one of the best weeks of my life.
This may only be the start of many new experiences, but if everything is this exciting. Bring it on!