pw134

Hi all!

 

And as I start this edition of "This is my life" in the most formulaic of ways, I'd like to say "hi" again after having not "blogged" in a while...  Whilst many believe it to be a stress relieving/therapeutic/selfish way to make everyone see your point of view I am back again with avengence!  In much the same way as Guy's novelist side which has surfaced once more!  Well, at least there's something getting me through the exams (cheer's Guy!).

 

Ah... Where was I last time?

 

Hmmm... >well< since then, quite a bit has happened, although nothing to extreme.  First there was the Easter holiday break, and now there's the exams.

 

Ok, in a little greater detail now:

 

1) My Easter Holidays!

 

Week 1

This was marginally more eventful than I hoped in some respects, less so in others...  It started off with Dad driving me home on the thursday, and a relatively uneventful weeken ensued.  I got my nice shiney Hyundai Q70U 17" TFT monitor, and a lightscribe DVD-RW drive.  Then on the following Tuesday I met up with Craig to go to a barn in the middle of t'Yorkshire Dales.  Sam and his girlfriend organised it, and about 28 people were there until the Friday.  That has to be one of the more enjoyable weeks I've had to date!  Also the first time I've had a proper hang-over and also seen a man dressed up in a bunny costume ride a matress (single-handedly) down a flight of industrial grade stairs.  I have the photo.  It was also when I happened to go to the hometown of Wensleydale Cheese (think that's spelt right...) and checked my balance at t'local ATM machine.  "£60".  Ok... Should be >marginally dearer than that... like, 10x... Well, I withdrew £20 and went on my merry way till the next week.  We also discovered an '06 reg. Corsa can take a 50-70cm wide, 10cm deep pot-hole at ~50mph....

 

Week 2

Well, week 2 started off in t'bank ('cos at this time I began talking Yawkshyre...(no offence!)) and going through why my balance was so low.  "£xx TV license, £xx computer screen, £350 ladbrokes.com, £50 ladbrokes.com" and as she read the last one I admit I went red in the face... "£20 Hawes".  Turns out Hawes also >happens< to be the name of the village which includes the Wensleydale Cheese factory and t'ATM I used...

Well, I was told the bank would send me a new card and that the matter would be investigated.  Roll-up Wednesday when I receive a letter, asking for my crime number.  I guess they weren't calling the police as I had been led to believe, and in fact I had to do it.  Trip t'police station later.  First time for me inside a police station, let-alone making a statement.  Well, did all that and was told I'd be called with the case number later that day.

So, for the rest of the week I ended up fixing things and helping to re-decorate my brother's room.

 

Week 3

Along came Tuesday, the day I went back to uni.  The morning was spent with a trip t'police, from whom I still hadn't received word of my crime number.  By now whoever has my £400 is probably living the high-life somewhere, bastard... evidently crime pays!  Well, one letter t'bank drafted and finalised later explaining I didn't have a crime number yet and would like the matter to be investigated and the police phone.  Apparently the Dell-pieces-o-shite have suddenly sprung back into life since my earlier visit and BT Internet was now working for them...  I finally got my crime number 10mins before my dad got back to drive me back to uni and go on a business trip.  One hasty re-draft later.

The rest of the week was spent at uni, "revising" with Vac, Jack, Yousuf and Ant.  Then along came the first week back at uni!

 

>INTERLUDE<

Well, revision week happened around abouts.... NOW.... and it was good to finally meet everyone down here again.  I had been very generously donated a sum of cash from my parents to cover the costs until my new card came through, which it still hadn't...  I also met up with Dad mid-week for a meal and to say high (he's working a lot in reading now on his new contract - handy eh?).  The rest of that week went by nicely, and was the first time I've seen Vac go to the Academy (on-site night-club thing...).  I also had to try to pay the accomodation fees, and explaining "I have the money but no way to get it to you" to the cash office is nigh on impossible.  Mafia springs to mind... One cheque later... On the accomodation front, we've still not got a house, and went to the housing office to discover our form had been "mis-laid".  That's what you get for being organised and getting it in early...

Earlier on the Friday also saw Chris (Phd) throwing a birthday meal to which I was invited - that was a good time out although Kittie now officially scares me... And on the Saturday we LANned at Bobjob's (me living up to the term "cannonfodder as usual..."

 

Exams

Week 1

Well, after bank holiday monday I had my first exam on the Tuesday.  Electronics, to be precise.  I think that went ok tho - I finished early aswell, so I left early - almost felt like answering all the questions in the "choose one from these 3" section too...

Still haven't had my bank card, and my dad phoned up to enquire about all that and found they'd "forgotten" about it...  I reckon I'd do well as a hired assasin - everyone who notices me would forget about me just as quickly... almost like Susan from Pratchett's "Soul Music"...  On the plus side - looks like I'm getting my £400 back! =D.  Prison Guards didn't mind... (accomodation office).  I received a letter on the 2nd of may (or so the stamp assured me) telling me to pay up!  The letter itself was dated the 27th of April (no time wasted eh?), the same day I did pay up.  Nice to know internal mail is infact the only known thing slower than Royal Mail...  So I enquired at the cash office about that...  I love the "administration fee" crap they add to ANYTHING fine-able.  It's a little loophole that rich gits are loathed to get rid of.  For example:

I if break the flat 'vacuum cleaner', or discharge a fire extinguisher, it costs everyone £5 to replace (theoretically less in the case of the 'vacuum' cleaner).  Fair enough.  But, the administration added on top of that is £20.  This I find a little absurd.  If I was administration, I look set to gain £200 for my flat of 10.  It takes less than 10 mins, maybe 15 if MS Office is involved to sort this out if you are efficient.  that equates to £800-1200 an hour!!!  Well, the administration charge on a late payment for my accomodation is apparently £50!!!  Fortunately I don't quite qualify as late enough to have to pay it.

And here I am today, dodging revision as much as possible and mopping around as usual, still without my bank card...

 

Anyway,

Cheers!:P

 

CotD: Chris'/Tau's/Emma's Birthday cakes! : P

RotD: Rabbit going down the stairs on a matress, although I'd pay to see it again!

Hi all!

I'm a mean drunk!!!

Reading last post I get the feeling I shouldn't drink much...  :P

meh!

Anyway... I start this entry... >NOW!<

Brunel

That infamous sports scientist and bachelor of the arts...  :P ok - only kidding, but I must admit I'm getting a little bored of uni now...  the people are great, but the course always feels as thought del-boy himself conned us into it...  I really hope it improves next year.  I know most of you avid readers will be thinking "it's only the first year, it's bound to be boring - you've done it all before!"; well, yes, that does play into it, but it's the general organisation of the place.  Take the balsa-wood bridge project as an example:  "oh - do all the force calculations and buckling moments (including second moments of area)" ; "We've not covered that yet" ; "oh..."... >skip 3/4 weeks later (conveniently after the project hand-in date)<... "And in todays lecture we shall be covering Euler's strut buckling formula","to do this we shall require I, the second moment of area"; >cue charlie brown frustration moment<.

A lot of the lecturers, whilst they are probably absolute geniouses (or is that genei?  dunno...), they lact in the 'lecturing' section...  Many times no-one can understand them (I really don't mean to sound offensive), and then just chatter in the bacground, ironically making it even harder to follow.  This brings me up to the next subject: making fun of the way people speak.
This is one I am very familiar with, and I hate the arrogance of people who start to take the piss out of how other talk.  These people don't natively speak english - we should be encouraging them, not mocking them!!!  But I guess that's hard for many brit's to understand perhaps... seeing as the whole world apparently speaks perfect english (you can see that in the way i spellt the plural of "genius"...).

oh well...

Theatre time again!  woohoo!!!  At least there's something to take my mind away from things.  Show is in 2 weeks I believe - "Camino Real".

Not found a house yet :(.  The one we viewed a while back now turned out to be a 4 bedroom (including living room and dining room), with a boxroom that a bed can't fit into... damn it!!!

Chris (Phd student) didn't print me a t-shirt on monday :(.  Oh how disappointed I was.  Then the competition yells "hi patrick" as we depart "Bar Zest"...  I believe my t-shirt was promptly printed not long after that... :P

I can't wait to get my bike down.  I need to escape.  I'm not good with people, I know it.  I'm very good at making it look as though I'm good with people though.  London is just too crowded - I want to escape to somewhere relatively uninhabited now and again, breath fresh air and the likes.  Give me a break from trying to please people, even londoners... many a time I have thought of just catching a plane to somewhere in 'yurp for a day or two - I do live just north of heathrow...  Anyway - I'm certain I'm not stressed - how can I be!?  I reckon I do less than I did during my a-levels!!!  I guess it's somewhat the opposite if anything.  Too much time...  I get to think and put things in perspective.

Anyway...

My dad's new job seems to have a plus side - his first contract, it seems, is in reading (or there-abouts).  Which means I get to see him (kinda makes a change - usually it's the other way round... he goes abroad and I don't see him...) :D.  I was hoping to meet up on tuesday/wednesday, but uni, with it's inability to give a decent depth of foresight (ie: less than 10mins notice) meant I ended up busy :(.  Oh well.  Hopefully I won't be so busy in the next few weeks.

ResNet (and the great firewall of brunel) have been annoying me moreso than usual lately - just generally not working (took me a few mins to load this "add blog" page...).  It's the most frustrating thing at the minute... besides this exam i've not revised for that's on tomorrow :'(...

Oooo!  Chris got a new PC!!! =D  finally!!!  and he built it himself!!! which probably impressed me more than anything else...  he also has a new band (or two...) "Starblind" and "the Borderline".  I look forward to being at his next gigs I must admit!  Just a few more weeks before easter hols!!!

And today I went with Tom and his mate from back home to see Trivium.  These guys were amasing - I've never seen some of the stuff they pulled off on guitar!!!  Ok, the music may not be entirely to my taste, but the skill was immense!!!

Oh - the V12 engine is out of the jag.  Kinda nearly got arc-eye when ben was welding the engine stand together - thought he'd finished, looked >ZAP< ow my eye... fortunately i'm fine.  Just a purple spot for a few minutes.  Let it be a lesson - make SURE he's not about to weld when you turn your head...

And in the big grand high prison guard special (with round the clock viewing on E4 and E4+1...) Hannah is leaving on friday :(.  Can't believe the year has gone so fast!!!

Anyway... best be off I guess...

revision...

Until the next time...

Cheers!:P

P

CotD: Chocolate cake with strawberry and cream on the top from the refectory.                     mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.....
RotD: 1) "I am not a whiteboard eraser"
          2) "I didn't print you a t-shirt"; "Hi Patrick!!!"
          3) "AAAACK!!!  Jesus!!! there's a decapitated corpse in the dimmer room!!!                     No wait it's only Jack..."