If you feel like commenting on this blog.....here's how!

After many fruitless attempts to make this blog layout more user friendly, I have given up and instead will show you HOW to comment on these sorts of blogs. Blogger do not make it easy!

1) Find a blog you want to comment on......

2) Scroll down to this bit

3) Click where it says '0 Comments' :D

4) Eureka!

If you feel like commenting, that would be awesome! If not, then there's a whole world of other things to be doing, I wouldn't blame you!!! 

Love love

Over Education

Human beings have a natural academic limit, and I have definitely reached the end of mine. Three and a half years of university is more than enough and studying is no longer enjoyable or exciting. You know what sunlight looks like? Because I don't. I've transformed into one of those creatures from the Descent. All blind and pale and covered in mucus. The fact that I am no longer having fun is not the main issue I take with realising I've bitten off more than I can chew. There is a far more dangerous consequence to my decisions.  

It is my belief that all people have a natural capacity for knowledge retention after which no more information can fit into their brain. What happens when new information is presented to the affected person? Something else, something important, gets pushed out.

At first it starts  with the names of acquaintances, or Professors you don't see all that often. After that it moves onto general social skills and the ability to converse with people outside you particular area  of expertise. Finally most of the basic functionality leaves your system, and your motor neuron ability begins to fail. In three short years you go from this:

To this: 

Most people would agree that this is the OPPOSITE of what you want from an advanced education, however it's incredibly easy to overdo it. Your brain just overloads. The sad thing is, that when I'm in a grown up job with taxes and two weeks holiday a year, I'll really miss this.

 Until then though, Fuck You Uni Work. 

The Ballad of Jack and Ennis

This a faithful recounting of the most beautiful love I have ever witnessed. And it's devastating effects upon my neighbourhood.

In my second year of University, I lived in a two up two down student house that was built by the landlord, which all in all, didn't have a lot going for it:

The main redeeming feature was a large garden with table and chairs, and in the Summer Term of my tenancy, the garden was frequented by two cats. They were never seen without each other, and there was a pained aura to their relationship which  lead my house mates and I to believe they were living a secret. We decided they were gay and called them Jack and Ennis.

Many a day I'd see them cavorting round our garden, engaging in whatever activities gay cats who live in secret do. Hopping from fence to fence and wandering into our house whenever we left the back door open. It was cute.

However, one day the relationship took a dramatic turn. Jack went missing. And Ennis started to Meow.

At first it was sweet, though tinged with sadness. Ennis would walk around our gardens and the gardens that backed on calling for Jack. Always calling. We all felt sorry for Ennis. He'd finally found love, only to have it cruelly ripped away by the hands of fate (we never DID find out what happened to Jack).

After a couple of weeks though, our sympathy started to wane. It wasn't like the meowing was occasional, it was CONSTANT. On top of this, the Summer exams were coming up and we were all on edge. my bedroom backed onto the garden and the majority of  Ennis' pained outbursts occurred right outside my window. People turned up at our door assuming that the cats were ours. This just compounded my resentment towards Ennis. All sympathy for his plight had completely evaporated and his constant noise was beginning to wear away my sanity.

The lowest point was nightime. Ennis would come into our garden (we presumed that was the spot were Jack evaporated). And meow outside my window. The cat had a vendetta against me. He probably thought   I killed Jack and made him into stew. He woke me up, stopped me going to sleep, and acted as a handy alarm clock if you wanted to get up at 5:30 every morning. I had had a very stressful few months, and had been looking exceedingly forward to spending a couple of days relaxing before I went on a five week field trip to northern Scotland. Ennis wasn't having any of that though.

Around this point, I started to plot against the cat. I won't go into the details of what I was planning, but it would not have been pleasant for Ennis. Fortunately for him though, cats are fast and I am slow, not none of my ideas ever came to fruition. Around this time as well, I heard one of my neighbours down the street yelling demented profanities at  Ennis. He sounded like a broken man. It comforted me to know that I was not alone.


Eventually one day I cracked. It was 7:30 in the morning, and I had been out the night before. Ennis decided  that I needed to know more about his plight, and began to meow. I flipped. I opened my window and screamed like a banshee.

I don't think I've ever lost control like that before or since. I ran out into the garden, but Ennis has the presence of mind to bolt before I could grab him. I sat on one of the garden chairs and thought I was going to cry. I had been out manoeuvred by a cat.

Eventually Ennis stopped frequenting our garden and meowing outside my window, and the murderous rage inside me started to ebb.The sun came out and I got some sleep. We all began to heal.

Next year I moved house and never saw Ennis again. I sometimes wonder what happened to him, but like so many individuals who have a brief but profound impact on you, he has sailed out my life forever. This is the only time in my life I had seen what I knew to be genuine true love; and it almost killed us all. I hope I never feel the way I felt for Ennis about anything again, but that remains to be seen. I live at the back of the house this year too, and there is a very conversational dog nearby.........

HIT

Adulthood.

                                                        This is how I feel about it

The Six Stages of Binge Drinking

This is a post inspired by many of the Friday nights since I turned 16.

As any of you who have passed  this prestigious milestone will know, around this time awakens a strange and unfamiliar urge in many young people. The urge to go round to your friends houses, persuade their older siblings to go out and get you booze, and get as shitwrecked as is humanly possible.

  Eventually I turned 18 and the party moved into clubs, dark rooms with  loud music where you think you can dance. But really you can't. These evenings invariably end up with me disgracing myself in one way or another, and waking up in a pile of broken memories and shame.

You would have thought that I'd have learnt by now, but unfortunately not.  However this un-goldy repeating pattern has allowed me to cast my scientific eye on it, and breakdown the process that leads to me making a twat of myself.

There are several 'stages' and 'phases' involved. We will begin at the beginning.

The Predrinking Phase: 

Stage 1: Initial alcohol


This is a very insidious stage. You have gone round your friends to predrink. You pour out some liquid death and mixer, and throw it down the hatch. Nothing happens. Repeat. Before long you will be at stage 2. (See Below)

Stage 2: Bullshit 


In an IDEAL world, you would stay at this stage of drunk all night. You can no longer taste the alcohol, and instead are making very good lifelong friends with whoever is within earshot of you. The title of this stage comes from the subject matter of which you are discussing. Bullshit. Mountains of it. However you're so drunk that not only is what your saying making sense to YOU, it also seems to be having a positive impact your new friends. You're having some of the most profound conversations of your life. Your discussions have all the philosophical pannaz of a Morgan Freeman narration, and a wit that rivals that of Oscar Wilde. To YOU, your conversations feel like this:

Other people may view it differently:

After a couple of hours of this, it's off to the Club of choice to let the REAL bad decisions commence.


The Clubbing Phase 


Stage 3: The Lethal Phase 


***WARNING*** AT ALL COSTS AVOID THIS STAGE ***WARNING***

Even though you put down your last drink 15 minutes ago, you want more, you NEED more, you can totally handle more. Off you trot to the bar to buy some booze.

The full impact of this decision won't be felt for a couple of hours yet, so in the meantime, it's off to watch your primal instincts go into overdrive.


Stage 4: The extreme emotion Phase 


At this point in our journey, your brain hits a road. Three pathways wind in front of it, each with it's own strange and marvellous outcomes. These pathways direct you into becoming a rampaging pinnacle of a singular emotion. For more information, see stages 4a-c.


4a: Sexy You 


Dear GOD you're attractive. The fates were certainly smiling the day YOUR features were arranged you dapper son-of-a-bitch. And what's this? EVERYONE in the surrounding area is attractive too! Have you stumbled into heaven? Have you gone mad? How did you not notice that you were a God among Addonises until this moment?!? Quickly! Somebody needs to know! You spot someone. Sweet Jesus they're beautiful. You can lure him in with your Beyonce-esque dancing skills and sexy sexy eyes. Oh God they're coming over! Your not fussed. Your as cool as a cumber. In a fridge. With mad dancing skills like you've got, where else would they go? Your not going to beat around the bush. Who's got the time? Your Just going to tell it like it is.

4b: Angry You 


A number of things can induce this stage. Maybe the drinks offer you thought was on, wasn't on. Maybe your mate got kicked out because he was drunk and pissing against the D.J. Maybe the taxi cost £1.50 more than you were expecting and you had to go to the cash point. Granted, all of these things are annoying, however when you this drunk, they're not just annoying. You feel like the Incredible Hulk must feel while wading through a Nazi-Paedophile convention. An unholy injustice has been dealt and the only way to combat it is to yell loud personal insults repeatedly.

4c: Sad You 


This is an ethereal stage. It cannot be pinned down by any description or diagram, and it's causes are one of the seven wonders of the modern world. I can only humbly recreate the stages of events. Using Microsoft Paint.

Stage 5: The Reality Apocalypse


Remember all those drinks you ordered earlier? Me neither. Which is why this stage is so horribly confusing and upsetting. The shots that you consumed hours previously, the ones that have the power to take down a stallion have finally caught up with you. You go from this:

To feeling like you've been shoved in a washing machine and kicked down the stairs. Up becomes a strange concept and gravity is on the run.

It's like being on the least fun roller-coaster ever and YOU CAN'T GET OFF. Your only hope is to cling perilously to something and pray that the world rights itself sufficiently for you to get the fuck out of there.

Stage 6: Gorging 


Once 3:30 am rolls around and if you managed to avoid stage 3, and by extension, stage 5, the lights will come on and you'll belt out Robbie Williams 'Angels' while clinging to a bunch of people you may or may not know. After this it's time to stagger out the doors and find a taxi. But an important stop must be made along the way:

I've never been able to fathom WHY indeterminant meat and fat congealed in a Styrofoam case with enough salt to give a walrus a stroke is so appealing at 4:00am. All I know its that it is. You would step on a puppy with cancer for a kebab at 4:00am.

That'll Do Pig 


Stage 7: Pass Out 

                              The END